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Shane blinks awake, eyes still crusted over with sleep. His head is pounding, every square inch of his body is so sore he can barely move, and he's so pissed about their loss last night—at home to Scott Hunter of all people—that all he wants to do is roll over and go back to sleep. But, when he picks up his phone to check the time, he has so many texts and missed calls that his exhaustion is completely forgotten.

The first ones are from Hayden:

Below that, a single text from Jackie:

If he needs anything? What the fuck happened while he was sleeping? The next texts from his parents in their family group chat aren't much better:

He doesn't wait for replies from either of them before clicking out of the chat. He scrolls through his texts, noting unread messages from his agent, his coach, and nearly all of his teammates. The Metros team group chat is sure to be a mess, but Shane doesn't really go in there on regular days because it's so chaotic it sets off his anxiety more often than not, so ignoring it is second nature.

There's only one person he wants to talk to, anyway.

Barely a minute after he presses send, his phone lights up with a FaceTime call from Ilya. Shane nearly drops it in his haste to answer the call and, when Ilya's laughing face fills the screen, he almost wishes he had. "Rozanov, I swear to fucking God. Everyone is acting like someone died and—stop laughing, asshole!"

"Sorry, sorry," Ilya says, trying and failing to school his face into a more serious expression. But when he sees that Shane is unimpressed with the attempt, he immediately sobers. "Nobody died."

"Then what happened, Ilya? I have a million messages and missed calls and no one is explaining a fucking thing and—"

"Shane, breathe." Ilya takes a few deep breaths, going until Shane copies him. Shane feels his whole body relax as he matching his breathing to the steady pace Ilya has set. "Good. Good."

"Ilya, please," Shane practically begs. "Please just tell me what's going on."

"Is nothing important."

"Ilya."

Ilya rolls his eyes and Shane resists the urge to hang up and block his number. "There is…a picture."

Shane's blood runs cold. "W-What kind of picture?"

"Remember when you went out with Pike and Boiziau last week after your win in Tampa?"

"Yes. But, Ilya, I don't—" Hayden and JJ had both gotten reasonably tipsy, but Shane hadn't had a single drink. He can't think of anything that happened that night that would warrant this kind of reaction. Because a picture of him sitting in a club in Tampa isn't the sort of thing that would have the entire world blowing up his phone.

"Do you remember taking pictures with fans?"

"I—uh. Maybe?" As shitty as it sounds, Shane doesn't remember every fan he meets. Ilya smirks as if he can read Shane's mind, but he says nothing. "So a fan posted a picture I took with them from last week. I'm not seeing the big deal. Why the fuck is everyone acted like I set the world on fire?"

"It's…ugh, I am too hungover for English right now. I will send link."

Seconds later, a text comes in. It's a Twitter link and dread pools in Shane's stomach. He's never liked social media in general—for the most part, his mom controls his accounts and only posts official brand deal related things that he's contractually obligated to post—but Twitter has always been his least favorite. People on there tend to care less about facts and more about what gets them more clicks and/or furthers whatever agenda they're trying to push. He remembers particularly when he was dating Rose, he was a big topic on Twitter and every post was always worse than the last.

He's avoided it ever since.

And yet, here he is, voluntarily exposing himself to whatever bullshit Twitter is saying about him now.

Shane doesn't click the link. Not that he needs to anyway—PopCrave has so helpfully attached the so-called incriminating pictures directly to the tweet. He enlarges the first one and it's nothing remarkable, just him standing in-between two female fans in the club he'd visited in Tampa last week. The only thing he sees that could be considered off is the way Hayden is sulking in the background of the picture.

(Shane remembers it vividly. He'd been the only one of the three who was recognized and, while JJ had been a good sport about it and even offered to take the picture for them, Hayden had been sulking and pissy the rest of the night. Shane had teased him relentlessly for it that night and, if the circumstances were different, he might have saved the photo as additional chirping material.)

The second picture is so zoomed in that he can hardly tell what it is beyond a blurry mess of white and blue. He even tries putting his glasses on but it doesn't make the image any clearer.

"Ilya," he says, remembering that their call is still connected. "What the fuck am I looking at?"

Ilya snorts and doesn't apologize even when Shane glares at the tiny image of his boyfriend in the corner of his screen. "You left your phone unlocked on the table when you took that picture with the fans. And when they posted it, other people noticed that you were saying…not nice things to some poor girl named Lily."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he practically shouts over the sound of Ilya's uproarious laughter. "How can anyone even tell what that says?"

"Look in replies. Some very talented people have…what's the word? Made better?"

"Enhanced?"

"Da. Yes, that. When they enhanced the picture, they were not happy with the way you were telling poor Lily to fuck off. How could you, Shane? Lily is a nice girl."

"Lily is a menace and a pain in my fucking ass," he grumbles, which only makes Ilya laugh harder. "How is this even news? Aren't there more important things in the world?"

"More important than finding out perfect hockey prince Shane Hollander is mean to women? No."

"Ugh." Shane drops the phone on the bed next him and presses a pillow over his face. Maybe he'll suffocate and he won't have to deal with this shit anymore.

"Sweetheart, where'd you go?"

"Leave me alone to die."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Can you at least wait to die until then?"

Well, that sure as fuck gets Shane's attention. He tosses the pillow to the floor and snatches up the phone. "Are you driving?"

"Of course. I needed to see you."

"Ilya. What the hell?"

"Calm down. I am perfectly safe."

"You are such a fucking idiot. I'm hanging up. I'll kill you when you get here."

"Love you, too, moy pomidor."

"Stop calling me a tomato."

"But you're such cute tomato."

"I hate you. I hope you crash."

"So mean to your girlfriend, Hollander."

"Goodbye, Lily." Then, because he's physically incapable of ending a phone call with Ilya any other way, he adds, "I love you."

"I love you, too, sweetheart."

Even though he knows he shouldn't, Shane scrolled through the replies and quote tweets to the Pop Crave post while he waits for Ilya to show up.

The one tweet that really catches Shane's attention, though, is the top comment underneath the original tweet. The poster has an icon that Shane immediately recognizes as being from Rose's most recent movie trailer.

Just reading it makes Shane's blood run cold. Ilya can make all the jokes he wants and Hayden can send him all the laughing emojis, but it's so much more serious than either of them think it is. Shane has tried so hard for so long to be a good role model, to be someone young kids can look up to. And now everyone thinks he's some kind of monster who verbally abuses women.

God, he doesn't even know what the texts say.

He doesn't have to wonder for long because, almost against his will and definitely against his better judgment, he clicks on the hashtag. And right there at the top, with hundreds of replies and thousands of retweets, are the words that Shane typed to "Lily."

Shane clicks on the digitally enhanced version of the texts, his heart pounding a rough tattoo in his throat.

And, well, yeah. To anyone on the outside, it looks exactly like Shane is calling his girlfriend a fucking asshole. He doesn't see how he can talk his way out of this one. Because saying Lily doesn't mind when I talk to her like that. She likes it, actually, I swear sounds like an excuse for shitty behavior even to him, who knows the truth.

The thread below the tweet from "Mrs. Rozanov" quickly devolves into an argument about how the point isn't that Shane doesn't want his girlfriend to stop smoking, it's the language he uses and how he clearly has no respect for her. How if that's how he talks to her where anyone with eyes can see it if they look over, then how does he treat her behind closed doors? How many women has he done this to?

Panic crawls up Shane's spine and makes his head spin. He locks his phone and throws it across the room, where it crashes against the wall in a way that he hopes breaks it into a million pieces. It won't fix anything, he knows, but it will at least make him feel a little better.

When Ilya climbs into bed next to Shane, he worms his way into the arms Shane has wrapped tightly around his own torso in a desperate attempt to hold himself together. Ilya crushes Shane against his chest and Shane melts, letting himself be soothed by the gentle thump-thump-thump of Ilya's heart in his ear.

"Shane," Ilya says, voice a breathy whisper that tickles the shell of Shane's ear. "Where did you go?"

"'M right here," he mumbles into the hard plains of Ilya's chest.

"No." Ilya, despite Shane's protests, pulls their bodies so they are looking at each other. The love and concern etched into every line of his boyfriend's face makes Shane's heart crack open, oozing every disgustingly sappy emotion he's ever felt into his bloodstream. If only people knew the truth—that Lily was Ilya; that Shane didn't hate him; that Ilya looks at Shane like he's the most precious thing in the entire world; that he's only mean about the smoking thing because he can't bear the thought of living in a world without Ilya Rozanov. "You're here." He taps Shane's temple. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Shane shakes his head—not because he doesn't want to, but because he can't. He can't verbalize all the jumbled thoughts bashing around in his skull and giving him a headache. Would Ilya even be able to understand, anyway? He wasn't like Shane, he didn't have the same expectations on his shoulders. If if had been Ilya's texts with "Jane" that had been posted on Twitter, would it have even made the same impact? "I don't—I can't—" is all he manages to choke out before the tears he's been ignoring spill over, hot and wet. He buries his face into Ilya's chest again, whole body shuddering when Ilya wraps his arms around him and squeezes so hard it steals what little breath he has in his lungs.

When Shane's tears have run dry and all that's left is heaving, shaky breaths and a bone-deep ache in his chest, he lays there, allowing Ilya to stroke his hair and whisper Russian in his ear. If he tries hard enough, Shane could probably translate it, but he doesn't have the energy. Instead, he lets the gentle cadence of Ilya's voice lull him into a space where the Internet doesn't exist, where they are the only two things in the world that are real. "Shane," he says, switching to English. "Tell me what you need."

"I—"His voice cracks, so he clears his throat and tries again. "I think I need to call my mom." If anyone in this world could fix this absolute shit show, it's Yuna Hollander.

Ilya shifts so they're both sitting up against the headboard. Shane slumps against Ilya's shoulder, unable or unwilling (he can't tell the difference between the two at the moment) to support his own weight. Ilya tangles one hand in Shane's hair, scratching his scalp, and dials Yuna's number with the other.

"Ilya?" his mother's frantic voice comes through the tinny speakerphone. Shane's heart constricts at the thought that he's caused her to panic the way she currently is, even though he knows in his heart of hearts that it's not his fault, not really. "Have you heard from Shane?"

"Hi, Mom," Shane says weakly.

"Oh, Shane, honey. Are you okay? No, that's a stupid question—of course you aren't okay. How are you holding up?"

"Better now that Ilya's here." He presses a kiss to Ilya's shoulder and then says, "So, uh, what's the plan?"

"I think that depends on what you want to do."

What he wants to do? Well, what Shane wants to do is go back in time and lock his fucking phone so fucking losers on the Internet with nothing better to do with their lives can't pry into his personal conversations. But, he doesn't own a time machine, so he says, "I think I might want to come out."

"What?" his mom says at the same time Ilya whispers, "Moya lyubov."

"Not—I don't think I'm ready to tell them about, you know, me and Ilya. But I think…I think I want people to know that I'm gay."

"You think?" His mom's voice is concerned and Shane can picture the way her forehead is pinched together right between her eyebrows. It's the same look Shane himself gets when he's stressed, the one that Ilya smooths out with his thumb as he tells Shane that he worries too much. "Shane, you know I support you 100%, but this is something you need to be absolutely sure about before you do it. You can't take it back."

"I know that, Mom." Dread is pooling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of coming out, of sharing this secret he's carried so close to his chest for so long, of laying himself bare for the entire world to see. But there is another part of him, a smaller and louder part, that is saying it's time. That this in fact may be long overdue. "But, I'm ready. I need to do this."

"Okay," she says and Shane knows she doesn't fully believe him, but will be on his side either way. "We need a game plan, then."

And that's something Shane can do—he can make a plan. He settles in against Ilya's side, content to bounce ideas off his mom and listen to her ideas in return. It's a familiar back and forth and, for a while, he forgets that the Internet hates Shane Hollander.

"Shane, I'm sorry." Over their FaceTime call, Rose's face twists into something full of regret, even though Shane has already told her a million times that she has nothing to be sorry for. "I thought maybe if I told people that I love you, it would get them to back off. I didn't think—"

"Rose, stop. I've already told you I don't blame you."

"Besides," Hayden says, coming up behind Shane where he's sitting on the Pikes' couch, waiting for Jackie to finish making dinner. (Shane, of course, had offered to help, but Jackie had told him in no uncertain terms that she knows he doesn't hate women and that he needed to get the fuck out of her kitchen.) "I think Dallas Kent's tweet did more damage than yours did."

"Fucking Kent," Shane grumbles. He'd been tagged no less than ten thousand times in that tweet, talking about how alike he and Kent must be and wondering if they were friends and if Shane knew (and, even worse, condoned) about the terrible things Kent was accused of. He'd seriously considered moving into the woods and leaving society behind after that one. "Fucking Twitter. Fucking idiots with sad little lives."

"Swear jar. Three times." Shane flips him off and Hayden laughs, hands landing heavily on Shane's shoulders. "I know it sucks, dude, but unfortunately, that is the price of celebrity."

"It shouldn't be."

"No," Rose says seriously. "It shouldn't be."

"Can I opt out?"

Rose laughs. "It's about a decade too late for that, baby. But, luckily for you, you have a best friend who is very well-versed in navigating social media disasters."

"Um, what? The worst scandal I've had is those weirdos who think Shane and I are fucking."

"I heard that!" Jackie yells from the kitchen.

"I meant me, Hayden. Oh, no, did Shane not tell you that he replaced you?"

"Oh, fuck off, Landry."

"Hayden Pike! The kids can hear you!"

Hayden laughs and Rose laughs and Shane laughs and Jackie tells them that she hates all of them and no one respects her in this goddamn house. It feels good to laugh with his friends, the ones who know the real him and love him anyway, and it strengthens Shane's resolve in wanting to come out. He hasn't told anyone but Ilya and his parents his plan, but it's happening soon—tomorrow, in fact.

He's thought about backing out many times over the last week and just going back to the original plan of waiting until retirement. Sometimes, it feels like he's only doing it to spite the losers on the internet. He knows he doesn't owe them a goddamn thing about his life and that no one is entitled to know anything about his sexuality or his relationships.

He's freaked out to Ilya about it over FaceTime and text to the point that he's sure Ilya is sick of hearing the constant back and forth war brewing in Shane mind, but he never says anything. Just tells Shane that he loves him and he'll stand by him no matter what he decides.

And, that, at the end of the day, is why he's doing this. Not because of leaked texts or people who think he hates women. But because coming out as gay is one step closer to telling the world that he's in love with Ilya Rozanov and has been since he was eighteen.

That night after he leaves Hayden's house, he falls asleep on the phone with Ilya, listening to the soft breaths of his sleeping boyfriend. And he can't wait to tell the entire world how much he loves him.

Shane's luck keeps going from bad to worse. Because, not only has the Twitter storm surrounding him and his treatment of his "girlfriend" not abated, they lost in an embarrassing 3-0 shutout to Toronto at home. Whenever Dallas Kent had been on the ice with Shane, all he could think about was what Twitter was thinking after seeing the two of them in close proximity. It had absolutely wrecked Shane's concentration and now he has to get up in front of a bunch of reporters and explain his abysmal performance.

"Shane!" one reporter three rows back that Shane recognized as being from ESPN called out. "You seemed distracted on the ice tonight. Does that have anything to do with the recent controversy that's been circulating on Twitter surrounding you and your girlfriend?"

Well, guess they're just jumping in the deep end without warning.

"I um." He swallows hard past the lump forming in his throat. It's been years since he's been uncomfortable doing press after games, but right now, all he wants to do is run home and hide under his covers until the world forgets the name Shane Hollander. But this was his decision and he's sticking to it. So, he takes a deep breath and says, "Thank you for bringing that up. Whether or not it affected my game tonight, I can't say one way or another, but it's been affecting my personal life and there are a few things I need to address."

Every single eye and camera is on him. God only knows how many people are watching this live and how many will watch clips of it later. There's nothing left to do but dive in and hope he doesn't drown.

"First, I want to say that, yes, the texts circulating online are real. That was a real conversation I had with my—with my partner. I wish I could say that it was taken out of context, but that would be a lie." Murmurs ripple through the crowd of reporters and Shane feels sweat pooling under his collar. Has it always been this hot in here? And have the walls always been this close. "I wish my privacy wasn't violated and that picture was never inspected as closely as it was, but it's not something I can take back. But what I can do is say that, despite what those texts might make you think, I love my partner very much. I hate that he smokes and sometimes that comes out as anger."

Too late, Shane realizes his pronoun slip and sits there while questions get thrown at him, one layered over the other, none of them making any sense. Eventually, the security that is always present but never needed manages to calm the chaos and Shane continues. "Yes, my partner is a man. I'm gay."

"So why was the contact name in the photo Lily?" a female reporter with slicked back blonde hair and an intense gaze in the front row demands.

"For exactly the reason that got us into this situation. Neither of us are out—well, I guess only he isn't now"—there is scattered laughs—"and so we have each other saved under girl names in our phones as a way to protect ourselves."

A million more questions are lobbed at him, but Shane has said what he wanted to say. So, he simply thanks them and leaves the room. When he get back to the dressing room to retrieve his things, Hayden claps him on the back. "Proud of you, bud," he says.

"Thanks, Hayd," he replies. He busies himself with getting his stuff together so he doesn't have to make eye contact with anyone else who might have been lingering.

"Is it true, Shane?" JJ asks from somewhere to his left.

"Is what true?"

"You're really gay?"

A laugh bubbles up in Shane's throat and he pushes it back down, letting out only an amused snort. "Kind of a crazy thing to lie about, don't you think?"

"Shit, Hollander. You've got some balls on you." This comes from Comeau. He's never been one to shy away from slurs as a form of chirping so Shane braces himself for the worst. "I don't know what's worse: letting people think I hate my girlfriend or letting them think I'm gay."

Beside him, Shane feels Hayden bristle, preparing for a fight. "I think you've been hit in the head too many times, Comeau," Hayden says. "Or did you not hear him say ten seconds ago that he wasn't fucking lying?"

"Yeah, okay," Comeau snorts. "I'm just saying I'd rather people think I hate women, is all."

"Well, that's because you're a homophobic asshole."

Shane puts a hand on Hayden's chest. "Hayd, stop. I got this." He turns to face Comeau, who has a good four inches and thirty pounds on him. But Shane is used to dealing with guys bigger and stronger than him and winning, so he's not about to back down now. "I'm not letting people think anything. What I am doing is finally telling the truth. I'm gay and I have a boyfriend who I love very much. You and anyone else can have whatever fucking opinions you want about that, but I don't care. Because I'm tired of hiding." And with that, he grabs his bag, slings it over his shoulder, and walks out of the arena.

And if he has a panic attack in his car before driving home, well. No one needs to know about that.

Shane feels like he's losing his entire fucking mind. "I don't know what the fuck else to do, Ilya," he says for what is probably the 900th time since he got to Ilya's house in Ottawa earlier that evening. He's been wearing a hole in the floor ever since, Anya hot on his heels as he paces, annoyed that he has yet to pay attention to her.

His pacing is interrupted by Ilya stepping in front of him and gripping his upper arms hard enough to snap Shane out of his daze. "You need to stop moving, moye yabloko. You are making me dizzy."

"Did you just call me…an apple?"

"Yes. Is red like tomato, but I am not calling you tomato."

"Oh, fuck off."

Ilya laughs and Shane revels in the sound. He wishes not for the first or even thousandth time that the two of them could just…exist in the world without people scrutinizing their every move. He thought coming out as gay was a step in the right direction, but the mixed reaction to it online coupled with the still circulating #shanehollanderisoverparty hashtag has him second guessing himself. It's one thing to bear the burden of the scrutiny himself, but he would hate to force Ilya and everything they've built together under the same microscope.

"I have an idea."

"I don't like it."

"You haven't even heard it, Hollander!"

"Most of your ideas are terrible."

"I've had some good ones."

"Oh, yeah? Name one."

"Well, there was this one time I knocked on a hotel room door at nine o'clock…"

Shane groans, hating how Ilya knows exactly how to butter him up. "Fine. You win." Ilya grins and kisses Shane on the forehead. "What's your idea?" When Ilya explains it, Shane very nearly falls over, with only Ilya's firm grip on his biceps keeping him upright. "Are you insane? That will never work."

"It might."

"And it might blow up in our faces."

"If it does, we face it together, yes?"

"Together sounds good."

"Told you I have good ideas."

"Fuck off."