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Katie is knee deep in eucalyptus and a new delivery of spring flowers when she hears the bell above the door chime.
“Be with you in a sec!” she calls out from the back room and frees her leg from a spool of florist’s twine.
She bustles behind the corner, wiping down her hands on her sturdy apron, a greeting dying on her lips when she catches sight of who just walked into her store.
There’s not a single diehard hockey fan in Boston that doesn’t know who the man is. What he’s doing in her shop, though, on a Tuesday morning looking like a lost little boy, is a whole other question.
Katie is a consummate professional. Katie is a successful business owner. Katie has seen the best and worst of humanity during major holidays, special occasions and funerals. She single-handedly managed this year’s Valentine’s Day shift from hell when her supplier ran out of roses and all her staff called in sick. She has been forged in the fires of years of last minute, bouquet-related meltdowns.
Katie can handle Ilya Rozanov walking into her flower shop like he’s going to the gallows.
“Hi there, welcome to Boston Blooms,” she says brightly, even though she’s trying not to let the shock show on her face. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”
Ilya doesn’t meet her gaze but gives her a tight nod. She busies herself with rearranging ribbons and greeting cards behind the counter, watching him from the corner of her eye.
He moves like he’s picking his way across a minefield and something might detonate in his face at any moment. He roves around the shop, glancing at the pre-made bouquets in water, trailing one finger over an orchid, taking in the flowers in every riotous colour and shape. He looks totally overwhelmed and weirdly pale, eyes darting between the shop entrance and the flowers like he’s one second away from scuttling out or throwing up. Katie hopes he doesn’t yak all over the —
“Lilies.”
Ilya whirls around to look at her, eyes wide with panic. “What?” He croaks.
Katie nods at the flowers Ilya had been staring at.
“Stargazer lilies — that’s what you were looking at. We just got them in, can’t smell anything else in the store when you’re standing in front of them! Unusual size too, this season. You have good taste,” she says kindly. “They’re really special.”
“Oh.” He flounders.
“Are you looking for a bouquet?” She asks, proud of how calm and even her voice is.
“Yes.” Ilya fidgets. “For — a friend — in hospital.”
Katie hums sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear about your friend. That’s really sweet of you to get them flowers though.”
Ilya looks like he might vomit at the word “sweet”. Katie barrels on, filling the stilted silence with her cheery chatter. “Well, I can definitely help with a ‘get well soon’ arrangement and we can deliver it for you anywhere in the greater Boston area, same day. And anywhere in Massachusetts with a day’s notice.”
“Okay,” he says quietly.
Katie slips out from behind the counter and makes her way towards the display. Her mind whirls with colours, shapes, textures. April is her favourite month for spring bouquets, hands down: her shop is stuffed with fragrant hyacinths, ruffled tulips, to-die-for peach ranunculus. Maybe his friend would like delicate roses. That definitely says “I’m thinking of you”. Perhaps even a dramatic sprig or two of yellow forsythia to add whimsy to a bouquet.
She rambles, carrying a one sided conversation about what’s in season and which colours go well together. She finds that it soothes customers and projects a certain confidence and competence that reassures them you’re in good hands, leave it to me.
“Do you have anything in mind? Your friend’s favourite colour, maybe?”
“Um.”
Monosyllabic men looking utterly bewildered in her shop is nothing new for her. Katie smiles at him reassuringly and reaches for her secateurs.
“I got you. How about the stargazers then? I wasn’t kidding when I said you have good taste. Maybe a few as the centrepiece. It’s a beautiful palette to build on.”
Ilya watches her deft hands pull together deep pink lilies, few spray carnations, a big blousy double tulip that’s just beginning to unfurl. He watches her carefully as she structures foliage, adds artistic flair to the way leaves and buds layer together. He doesn’t stop her as she reaches for more blooms. He gives her a small nod that seems to say, go bigger.
Katie has made less ostentatious bouquets for men about to propose.
“How does that look?” she asks, turning the bouquet around for his inspection. “Was that what you had in mind?”
“Can I have —” He starts, then stops abruptly like he’s embarrassed to even say it. “More?”
“Of course. More lilies?”
“Actually. All of them.”
Katie pauses. What? “…All of them?”
Ilya nods again, more decisively, and finally meets her eyes. He starts to smile, like he’s bringing her in on some private joke. He makes a big sweeping motion with his hand towards the buckets of flowers crowding the floor and the wall. “I will buy all the lilies you have.”
What the fuck.
Katie gapes at him. Recovers quickly.
“Of course, sir,” she says briskly, like it’s totally normal for someone to drop a thousand bucks in flower arrangements on a random Tuesday morning.
Katie can’t wait to deliver these. The nursing station at Mass General is going to have a fucking field day. She stifles a laugh behind dark glossy leaves and tells her face to behave.
“It’ll take some time to pull those together but I can have the arrangements made and delivered today. It’s going to look incredible. Your friend will be blown away, I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Ilya is smiling shyly now, looking pleased with himself at her praise. Katie gets the sense he had used up all his courage on walking through the door and just needed to hear he did okay.
He shoves his hands into his coat pockets like he doesn’t know what to do with his body. The fearsome captain and hulking star forward of the Stanley Cup-winning Boston Bears, who is a ruthless machine on the ice and a relentless menace off of it, who has never walked into a room he couldn’t command with his charisma and brazen confidence and GQ good looks, is nervous. About flowers. Katie melts.
Whoever gets these is one lucky girl, she thinks.
“Who should I address it to?” Katie asks, her hands busy snipping, peeling away leaves, arranging flowers and stems just so. “So it gets to the right patient,” she explains stupidly. Like a hockey player doesn’t know how a hospital works.
Ilya’s shoulders suddenly come up around his ears. He looks simultaneously like a little boy that’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and a doomed man facing a firing squad. He hesitates.
“Just a last name is okay,” Katie says quietly and the silence elongates around them like a sucked-in breath. If it's a secret, she almost adds, but then thinks better of it.
His gaze turns flinty and sharp on her, like he’s seriously weighing up whether his people need to procure an emergency NDA for a random florist in Boston’s North End.
Katie’s stomach lurches with sudden anxiety and tries to remember if her business insurance has a clause for confidentiality breaches. Is that even a thing for florists? Shit. She’s made flower arrangements for mistresses and politicians' affair partners and more emotionally charged private moments than she can count but this interaction suddenly feels more high stakes than all of them put together.
The blonde man across from her looks like he’s about to hand her the secateurs, handle first, so she can slam the blades into his heart.
“Um. It’s for Hollander,” he says, and his voice cracks. “Room 271. You can deliver today?”
Katie blinks at him slowly. She reminds herself she is a professional that has built a successful business on exceptional floristry and total discretion. Discretion, Katie.
“Absolutely.”
Ilya hands over a black credit card. Katie breathes in the scent of fresh greenery and cut flowers and tries not to faint.
A few minutes later, Ilya Rozanov slips out of her shop like he left the remains of his dignity by the freesias.
“Clifford Bradley Patrick Marlow, call me back right fucking now,” Katie yells into the phone.
[Voicemail from Katie Marlow to Cliff Marlow]
It was a clean check, Cliffie. I know you’re probably feeling shitty about it and I didn’t get a chance to speak to you after the game last night. Listen, give me a call back. You won’t believe who just walked into my shop and – actually. Um. Nevermind. Love you, baby bro.
“You sent lilies,” Shane says, by way of greeting.
“Good to see Grade 2 concussion did not damage your vision.” Shane can practically hear the shit-eating smirk on Ilya’s face, even through the phone.
“Asshole.”
“You love it.”
“Subtle, Ilya,” Shane admonishes but his voice is warm and teasing. He wishes so badly that Ilya was in the hospital room with him, his soothing low rumble wrapping around him and not sounding tinny through the phone.
Ilya rolls his eyes so hard he almost detaches his optic stem. “Hollander, how many people know about ‘Lily’? You are having another panic attack now?”
“It’s not nice to make fun of the sick.” Shane coughs feebly for dramatic effect.
“I’m not nice. You already know this, Hollander. You like me anyway.”
“You sent me ALL THE LILIES IN BOSTON. This is actually insane. How many florists did you clean out? Are there any bouquets left in Massachusetts?”
“Yes, Hollander, all weddings are cancelled this weekend. Brides crying because I bought all the flowers. None left. Too bad. So sad. I have broken hearts all over Boston.” Ilya sighs theatrically. “Again.”
“You asshole,” Shane gasps again and he can’t help but laugh.
He tries not to think about Ilya breaking hearts in Boston, Ilya with women, Ilya with past lovers left aching and wanting more. The gesture is so Ilya: showy but secretive, a flashy display of wealth and elegance that still says “I care about you” in the most blatantly insane way. Like winking at him on the ice after a filthy goal because he knows it’ll rile Shane up, a wink right there in the open, too fast for the televised broadcast to catch it and somehow a private inside joke just for the two of them in front of 20,000 screaming fans.
Shane fiercely, desperately hopes this isn’t how Ilya is with everyone who gets hurt. That it was just how Ilya was with him. Hockey players get hurt a lot. He dies a little inside at the thought of Ilya sending anyone else flowers.
“So, you like them?” Ilya says, suddenly nervous.
His quiet murmur is unlike anything Shane has heard before. There’s no trace of his typical cocky arrogance or even the teasing tone that you can practically hear a toothy smirk in. This was whispered, like Ilya couldn’t bear it if Shane laughed or threw it back in his face.
I hate that I can’t be there. I want to, so badly; you have no idea. I want to stay in the hospital room and never leave. Does the pollen leave little red freckles on your nose? I was so scared, Shane. They’re only flowers. I’m sorry they’re only flowers. I’m always thinking about you. You weren’t moving on the ice and I thought I lost you. I’m scared out of my mind all the time. I love you. I’m so scared that I love you.
“Ilya, I love them,” Shane says earnestly.
“Okay,” Ilya hums, happily. They settle into a comfortable silence and listen to each other breathe on the line until a nurse pokes her head into the room to take Shane’s vitals.
“Woah. Dude, are your fans sending you flowers now?”
Shane wondered if it’d be frowned upon to suffocate himself with his own hospital bed pillow. The Metros’ media team would be annoyed, he concludes. Better not.
“No.”
“That’s the biggest bouquet I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Shane does not tell him about the other bouquets he had to give to the day nurse because there wasn’t any space left in his room and the table next to the visitors chair is tiny.
Hayden squints at the card. He shrugs off his jacket and picks up the small, cream slip of paper sitting next to the bouquet by the bed. There’s only two words on it. Some florist has written in elegant, looping cursive: Your Lily.
“Shane.”
“Hayd,” Shane replies, refusing to make eye contact. He hates how whiny and high his voice sounds.
“Lilies. Your Lily. Oh my god.”
Shane does not like the look on Hayden’s face. Equal parts floored, scandalised and gleeful.
“Did Boston Lily send you all these flowers? Shane??”
“Um,” Shane says helpfully.
“Bro.”
“What, Jackie never sent you flowers?” Shane replies hotly. It’s the worst comeback he’s ever heard. He can’t believe that came out of his mouth. His whole face is tomato red with embarrassment.
Hayden looks at him incredulously, like Shane sprouted a new head or started speaking in Greek. “No,” he says slowly. “I mean — girls don’t — you’re supposed to get girls flowers. Not the other way around —”
“Kinda sexist of you,” Shane sniffs primly. “It’s 2017, dude. Guys get flowers.”
Hey fellas, is it gay to get a “get well soon” bouquet from your bisexual lover slash long-term professional archrival slash long distance situationship when you have a broken collarbone and a grade II concussion? Shane thinks hysterically. He’s losing his mind. He blames the pain relief drugs. Isn’t it about time for a doctor to do their rounds? Why isn’t a doctor interrupting them yet?
“Well, I like them.” Shane says mulishly.
“No, no, of course, they’re beautiful. It’s a nice gesture.” Hayden backtracks rapidly and pushes a hand through his hair. “Sorry man, I didn’t mean to be such a dick about it. I’m just, you know, rattled by this whole situation. Um. It’s nice. It’s really nice.”
“It’s okay, Hayd. I know it’s kind of — a lot.”
Hayden starts again like he can’t help himself, frustration and worry bleeding in his voice. “I just don’t know anything about her and then, boom, an entire flower shop arrives overnight. Did she call you at least? Or you called her, right? Why can’t she be here?”
Shane desperately wants to eject himself from this room. He wonders if the medical team will be mad if he rips off his IVs and swan dives out the second storey window. It’s not that far and there’s a grassy bank to break his fall. He’d probably land okay. He’d rather break his ankle than discuss this with Hayden, of all people. He has a sudden image of Hayden at the window, watching in shock as Shane sprints away from this conversation, open back hospital gown fluttering around his exposed ass as he runs through the parking lot of Massachusetts General Hospital. Yeah, maybe not.
He looks down at his lap and twists the hospital blanket between his fingers to avoid his best friend’s gaze. The blanket is seafoam green and kind of itchy. He thinks the colour is meant to be calming. Shane does not feel calmed.
“She just, um, can’t. She can’t be here,” he says miserably.
“Like not right now?” Hayden presses.
“Like not at all.”
Hayden’s mouth flattens into a thin, angry line. Shane wonders if this is what it feels like to have a protective older brother, someone who will cross their arms threateningly and bodily put themselves between you and whoever had the dumb temerity to hurt you and think they could get away with it. He’s both mortified and moved, overwhelmed by Hayden’s earnestness and his unequivocal defense of Shane.
“She’s Boston Lily. You’re in her city. You’re badly hurt and you’re telling me she can drop an ungodly amount of money on flowers but can’t drop by during visiting hours?” Hayden scoffs. “Dude, help me understand this because I do not get it.”
“You don’t have to get it, Hayd. Please man, just drop it.” Shane squeezes his eyes shut and thunks his head back onto the pillow. His collarbone throbs. His eyes feel hot. The perfume of the lilies makes his head swim and his chest hurt and Shane furiously tries to shove it all down before he starts doing something really embarrassing that he can’t explain, like crying. Or spilling his guts about who Boston Lily really is.
“Alright, alright. Chill. I'm letting it go,” Hayden says and holds his palms up in a placating gesture.
“Thanks,” Shane says pathetically.
He’s such a bad best friend to Hayden. Hayden who had to be bodily held back from clambering into the ambulance with him and is cutting it really close to catch the team flight back to Montreal and would defend his honour against a flaky mystery Bostonian girlfriend because he thinks Shane deserves better. He plays with a loose thread on the blanket and tries not to throw up from the guilt clawing at his throat.
Hayden’s phone trills from his pocket. Shane sees Jackie’s contact photo and name flash across the screen. “Hey, I should probably take this,” Hayden says, waving it in the air. “I can tell her the good news that you’re awake! She was freaking out and probably sent you like a million texts.”
“Go, go,” Shane says, not unkindly, and shooes him out of the room. “Go speak to Jackie. I’m not going anywhere. Say hi for me and sorry, uh, if I scared her.”
Hayden nods once at him and presses the phone to his ear as he ambles to the door.
“Hey babe,” Shane hears Hayden say as he walks out of the room, his voice getting fainter as he turned the corner. “Shane’s okay, broken collarbone but — yeah, no — I know! Fucking Marlow, eh. Out for a few weeks, definitely for the playoffs. Uh huh. Hey Jackie, weird question — how come you’ve never bought me flowers?”
[Voicemail from Katie Marlow to Cliff Marlow]
Hey baby bro. Mom wants to know if you’re coming for dinner this weekend. I know you’re about to go on the road but remember to call her sometime, yeah? Also, do you have my Pyrex dish? I think I left it at yours.
On Shane’s second day in hospital, Yuna and David Hollander arrive in a whirlwind of caffeine-fuelled nerves and hastily packed overnight bags.
His dad’s shirt is rumpled, like they non-stop drove through the night from Ottawa to Boston. (They did.) His mom smells like gas station coffee. She’s only wearing one earring.
The attending makes approving noises during her morning rounds but insists Shane has to stay for a few more days so they can keep an eye on him, just to be extra cautious. Yuna spends the day alternating between fussing over Shane and darting into the hallway to call sponsors, reschedule brand shoots and have lengthy conversations with the Metros media team and medical staff about “managing the IR narrative”.
Shane loves his parents, truly, but his mom’s anxious energy is bleeding across the room and making him itch. He shifts in the hospital bed, a nervous thrum humming through his body. He thinks about the summer stretching out ahead of him – a long, painful few weeks of physio and recovery and the bitter jealousy of watching other teams advance in the playoffs as he watches from the couch.
Shane is surrounded by the two people that love him the most, in a room filled with get well cards and a very nice fruit basket from Reebok and a frankly obscene number of luxury bouquets, and feels hideously lonely.
David sits next to Shane in an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, a quiet, reassuring presence. Shane has never been more grateful that his dad is a man of few words. David works on a crossword, fetches them all breakfast sandwiches from the deli across the road and silently tops up the water for each vase of flowers.
The Metros return to Montreal.
Shane stays in the hospital under observation.
Yuna frets. David sneaks Shane non-diet-plan-approved food.
The second floor at Mass Gen smells permanently of antiseptic and lilies.
Ilya stares at his ceiling at night and can’t sleep. He keeps seeing the hit every time he closes his eyes.
The bouquets keep coming.
“Lilies!”
Katie’s joyful shout rings out in the shop and Ilya grins. He darts through the door and pulls his hat further down his face, hiding his eyes in the brim. He walked past the shop a few times that morning, working up his rapidly dwindling courage and making sure it was empty before entering.
He doesn’t tell her his name and has no idea if she’s even a hockey fan or not. He really, desperately hopes not. In the absence of any other information, “Lilies” is her fond nickname for him. Ilya wishes it didn’t fill his whole chest with dangerous warmth – someone else in the world who knows he’s Lily, someone else who can see and love this tiny, secret part of him.
“Back again?”
He nods, stupidly.
It’s a little game they play. He pretends he won’t come in every day while Hollander is in hospital to drop hundreds of dollars on lilies; she pretends it’s not a batshit thing to do.
Her bright, easy smile and no nonsense approach makes him feel marginally less pathetic for doing this. Whatever. He’s crashing out and her flower shop is a short walk from his penthouse. There are worse ways to cope. This is only like the second time he’s come here. Fine, third.
Katie rounds the corner and starts plucking at certain stems.
“You won’t believe what my supplier dropped off this morning. Unreal shipment. Seriously, smell this.” She shoves a giant Asiatic lily under his nose and pats him on the shoulder as she bustles past, already envisioning the next bouquet in her head.
“I’m thinking orange and pink. Don’t give me that face. We did pastels yesterday. You know nothing about flowers and it’s going to look amazing. Be glad I’m giving you the first pick of these new lilies. I’m telling you, Gladys from church wanted them for her Sunday table but I said nope, gotta save them for my best customer.”
Ilya flushes. He’s happy to be caught up in her warm chatter and be directed by this 5’ 5” ball of energy who doesn’t know who he is and demands nothing of him. Stand there. Hold this. Smell that, dude. Nice, right? What do you think, orange ribbon? Nah, too garish, too Philadelphia. Ugh, I know. Help me with the bow. Perfect.
“Who should I say the card is from this time?” Katie’s pen is poised over the stack of small cards, ready to be tied with a curl of ribbon.
Ilya laughs — a genuine, bright bark of laughter — and leans in to whisper something.
Katie hoots in delight, scribbles in the card, and rings him up.
Over the long and torturous week that Shane’s in hospital, he amasses a collection of short, handwritten cards that accompanies each bouquet delivery. Ilya is funnier and more reckless with each one.
Get better soon.
From, Your Lily.
You are boring. But hockey is more boring without you.
Sucks you didn’t make playoffs. But thanks for giving me one last chance at the Stanley Cup before I die of old age I guess.
That last card is signed “Scott Hunter”.
Shane snorts at the last one and texts a photo of the card to Ilya.You’re such a menace, you know. Should I text it to Scott? He’d be so lost.
Ilya replies: Old men get confused easily. 👴😈
[Voicemail from Katie Marlow to Cliff Marlow]
Cliffie, um, you might want to check in on Rozanov. I don’t think the man is doing so hot. He, um, came into my shop? Again. It's like the third or fourth time this week. Shit. I probably shouldn’t say this because he definitely doesn’t know who I am and I’m pretty sure I’m breaking a million florist’s ethical codes and privacy laws in the state of Massachusetts. Just, can you make sure he’s okay? I’m doing a big wedding install tomorrow with Julia but, yeah, I want to speak with you. Okay. Call me. Love you, baby bro.
“Hey Rozy,” Marlow says, bumping his shoulder gently as they sit in the stalls peeling off their sweaty base layers after practice. The team is still rattled after the Montreal game and the locker room is subdued. No one’s heart is really in it, not when their Captain is moving on the ice like he’s a ghost.
Ilya pretends he doesn’t see the rest of the team, especially the rookies, flicking him concerned looks between drills. He’s meant to be the loudmouth, the Captain who bares his teeth and growls and riles them up before a game and shakes off losses and injuries like a dog shaking off water.
But Ilya’s exhausted. Shane is still in hospital. And pretending takes too much energy right now.
“Hey,” Ilya replies. He shrugs his pads off and looks at Marlow.
“Wanna grab lunch? There’s a new falafel place I want to check out. Come on, just the two of us.”
They often do this — find new coffee spots or hole-in-the-wall lunch places after practice. It started in his rookie year as a way for Cliff to show Ilya parts of Boston, to help him settle in a new city. Now it’s just something they do, a familiar routine of grabbing food and people watching.
“Sure,” Ilya says hollowly and trudges to the shower so he can turn off his mind under the hot water.
Ilya knows his role, slips into it with muscle memory. Conversation flows easily when they sit down, sandwiches in hand – about the upcoming roadie (how can Buffalo still suck this bad), the falafel wrap (not bad, the shawarma spot two weeks ago was better), whether the woman running past them is an actress from that movie they watched on the plane (probably). The discussion trails off into an uneasy silence.
Cliff clears his throat. “I wanted to check in on you, man. After the hit.”
“I’m fine,” Ilya says sharply and wipes his hand with the back of his mouth. His throat suddenly feels like it’s filled with glass.
Guilt yawns in Cliff’s stomach. He crumples his sandwich wrapper into a ball, tucks it into his jacket pocket and leans his elbows on his knees.
He needs Ilya to know, he needs Ilya to realise how awful he feels about the aftermath, in light of everything. “I’m so sorry about that hit, Rozy. I know it was a clean check but seeing Hollander go down like that — Jesus, I felt terrible. But then I saw you. You looked like you saw a fucking ghost. I’ve never seen you like that. And I’m, I’m so sorry, I had no idea what was going to happen.”
Ilya pales and doesn’t meet his eyes. There's an adorable Golden Retriever in the distance, bounding across the grass and slobbering happily around a purple frisbee in her mouth. Ilya focuses on that instead.
“It’s hockey,” he says with a shaky breath. “You never apologize to me like this after. Detroit two weeks ago. You nearly took out #31’s teeth. That was brutal, blood everywhere, a barely legal hit. So why are you saying this about the Montreal game now.”
“I had no idea he was your—”
“—My what?” Ilya snaps.
“Your Hollander,” Marlow says softly.
Ilya rears back. His expression goes flat and panicked. All the blood drains from his face. He looks terrified, like a cornered animal that’s about to chew off its own leg to escape a trap.
Fuck, he was going about this all wrong. Cliff takes a deep breath and laughs humourlessly.
“I’m not doing this right. Um. Okay, have I ever told you about my sister?”
Ilya looks at him like he’s lost his mind. This is the strangest conversation he’s ever had with his A. “I cannot date your sister, Marlow. I am not stupid. Are you sure you did not take the hit to the head? What the fuck is going on?”
Fuck it, Cliff thinks.
“Katie is the best person I know.” He takes a steadying breath and takes the plunge, his words coming out in a rush. “She used to come to my games all the time when I was a rookie. But she’s really busy now, running her own business, so yeah I don’t get to see her as often. She holds our whole family together. Keeps me in line. She doesn’t take any of my bullshit, which you know I need. Real big sister stuff.” He smiles wryly. “You’d like her a lot, Rozy. I think, uh, maybe, you’ve already kinda met her?”
Ilya is squinting at him like he’s trying to figure out who on the Bears’ medical team he needs to call first in the event of a teammate having an unexpected psychotic break.
Cliff clears his throat. Ilya all of a sudden doesn’t like where this conversation is going. He especially does not like how Marlow’s big brown Disney eyes are way too knowing.
“She owns a florist shop. Right by your apartment, actually.”
Ilya stops breathing.
He hasn’t had a concussion in a while, thank god, but this feels remarkably similar: daylight too bright, head suddenly swimming, shortness of breath. You are having a panic attack, his brain supplies helpfully. Thanks a bunch, brain.
Freak summer storms in Boston aren’t unusual and Ilya wonders if this is what getting struck by lightning is like. He is seared down to the very core of him, like if you peeled his skin away there’d just be blackened organs and a tiny feeble heart trying to keep up after getting an electric shock and a hard reboot. He knows, he knows, he knows, his mind chants on a horrified loop. Yes, obviously Katie blabbed but the sheer, grating panic drowns out any feeling of betrayal.
When he lurches back into the conversation, Cliff is somehow still talking.
“—gotta say, it’s very John Hughes. Boombox outside Hollander’s window, you know? But a million bucks in flowers instead. Never took you for an old school romantic, Rozy.”
Ilya looks at him and tries not to throw up his barely digested chicken wrap all over his teammate’s white sneakers. This is literally top five worst days of his life. Maybe even number three, right after finding his mother and seeing Shane drop to the ice at TD Garden.
“Marlow, I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” he croaks. He tastes bile at the back of his throat.
Cliff squeezes his shoulder. “Sorry. What I’m saying, Ilya, is I got you. We’re best friends, nothing changes. I don’t care who you’re with or who they are. What gender, or sexual orientation, or whatever. You’re my guy, okay?”
Ilya’s vision goes blurry. He's frozen on the park bench, the world tilting slightly to the side. He’s never at loss for words but he can’t fucking speak.
“And it sounds like you’ve been holding it together by yourself. Maybe for a long time, huh bud? That’s fucking scary, Rozy. You don’t have to be alone in it. I know the league can be terrifying and locker room homophobia is rank bullshit but I’ll fucking drop gloves against anyone for you. You got me. And you have Katie. I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise. Neither will she. We're just really worried about you.”
Ilya’s face crumples. Marlow’s simple earnestness flays him from the inside out. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve his teammate’s unfailing loyalty but he’ll grab it with both hands and cling onto it against the storm that's raging inside him.
Marlow is kind enough not to say anything else while Ilya wheezes through his panic.
“You know what Katie said to me?” Cliff said quietly. He watches Ilya with a careful gaze, tracking the way the other man was picking at his cuticle and practically vibrating with stress on the park bench. Ilya still won’t meet his gaze.
“I feel like you’re going to tell me anyway, Marlow,” Ilya replies snippily. He furiously gnaws at a hangnail until blood bursts hot in his mouth and tries really very hard not to cry.
“She said, ‘It must be wonderful to get flowers like that. The person must be so loved.'”
Oh, hell. Ilya breaks clean in two.
He gulps air down like he’s not an elite professional athlete with perfect command of his body who can play 30 minutes of ice time and do an extra cool-down cardio circuit without feeling winded. Is his skin supposed to feel this tight? He can’t remember how to breathe.
Cliff puts one giant paw on Ilya’s neck, like he’s scruffing a nervous puppy, and pulls him in for a hug. It’s awkward and they’re two enormous hockey players sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a public bench so the angle is weird but Ilya goes limp, like all his strings have been cut. Cliff tightens his hold instinctively and the pressure helps.
Ilya’s chest eases just a fraction.
“It’s like that, huh?” Cliff says simply.
“Marlow,” Ilya says in a strangled voice, his face mashed into the other man’s shoulder and his breath sawing in and out of him. Hot tears track down his face. For once, it feels like relief and not just pure devastation. Someone else knows. His best friend on the team knows and doesn’t hate him for it and the world didn’t end and yes the league is still a shitshow and there are literally no out queer players but maybe it’s a little easier to breathe now. Cliff — and his sister, what the fuck, seriously — knows Shane is his Hollander. That Shane is loved. By Ilya. So, so much.
He tries again in a shaky voice. “Yeah, Cliff. It’s like that.”
[Voicemail from Katie Marlow to Cliff Marlow]
Holy shit Cliff, are you seeing this? Are you with Ilya right now? Are you guys watching this?
Summer sun has wilted the remaining hydrangeas outside Katie’s shop into a breathless mess of muted blues and pinks. The air smells of blue raspberry snow cones, barbeque smoke and hot pavement. Music blares from an open window. An ice cream truck jingle plays from down the street.
She piles her long, dark hair up on her head and fans uselessly at the back of her sweaty neck with one hand. It’s not even the end of June yet and Boston is already becoming a swamp. She peels the collar of her t-shirt away from her skin and grimaces.
The bell chimes loudly and she turns as she hears the door open. The sight of Ilya Rozanov in her little flower shop will never not be weird.
“Marlow,” he says quietly and nods at her. He flips his designer sunglasses — devastatingly chic, worth more than her weekly take home, YSL or something — up on his forehead and pushes his blonde curls back.
“Cap,” she replies with a grin. He smiles at her, a small, close-lipped private smile, like he doesn’t get to show it very often. She fights the urge to reach up and give him a tight hug, or ruffle his hair like he’s her little brother. Her other baby brother.
She knows. She knows that he knows that she knows. The Marlow siblings are holding Ilya’s biggest, most devastating secret with fierce care and unquestioning loyalty and staunch support. They’re loud mouth incorrigible gossips who reached out at his absolute lowest point and folded him into their lives and held fast until he caved.
It’s been weeks of post-practice lunch dates with Cliff, who’s happy to grab bland chicken wraps and listen to Ilya talk about Shane, homophobia in the NHL, the commissioner, Russia, the fear and sadness that’s always lurking at the edges of his mind. Weeks of dropping off iced coffees for Katie when they have an optional Bears skate day, staying to help her take stock or arrange bouquets while their frappes melt in the heat.
Weeks of attending boisterous family dinners when their punishing playoff schedule permits, Ilya squeezed next to the Marlow matriarch while he sneaks bits of chicken under the table to Lexie, the family lab, letting the noise and loving chaos of a tight-knit Boston family wash over him. Their house smells like garlic, slow-braised beef stew and old fashioned prayer candles. He instantly feels at home. The Marlows took one look at him in April, heartsick and terrified, and decided in their typical no-nonsense way that he belonged to them. And that was that.
He loves them with a fierceness that still catches him by surprise from time to time. It’s been a big summer of realising who he loves and who he can trust with that love.
“If you’re here to rain check on dinner, no you aren’t. I already told Cliff I’m marinating steaks and he promised you’d show. Plus, you know my mom would kill you if you bailed.”
Ilya laughs easily and leans against the counter. “I would not do that to Mrs. Marlow. I value my life.”
“See, I knew you were the smart one.” He likes how her accent goes broad and Boston when she’s teasing him. Smaht.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about another order. A big one.”
Ilya wants to put every bouquet in her shop on his no-limit credit card and single-handedly keep her in business for the rest of the year. For the rest of her life, maybe.
“Oh?”
She doesn’t say, But Hollander is back in Canada on IR. She doesn’t say, Cliffie mentioned you’re bailing on our Fourth of July party and flying to Ottawa next week, because she definitely shouldn’t know that. She’s already way too emotionally invested in one Ilya Rozanov’s love life.
“Yeah,” Ilya says. There’s that small, secretive smile again. “Do you deliver outside Boston?”
As if Katie wouldn’t hand-deliver a bouquet to Timbuktu for this guy and his over the top, lovesick antics. This fucking idiot.
Katie cocks her head. “For you, Rozy? Sure. Where were you thinking?”
Scott Hunter has received his fair share of strange gifts over the years.
All well-known NHL players do; it comes with the territory of being a single hot athlete, the lantern-jawed captain of an NHL franchise and a minor celebrity in New York City. Thankfully his management team is good about filtering out the weirdest stuff: hand-drawn NSFW fan art, a cake with his face printed on the icing, more marriage proposals than he can count. Too many pairs of used women’s underwear, which the less said about it, the better.
Winning the Stanley Cup — and the exhilaration of pulling Kip onto the ice and the all-out media insanity that followed — has ratcheted fan hysteria to the next level. His manager gleefully tells him they broke the internet. (Scott does not know what this means and gives him a watery smile in response.)
As someone who exists in a perpetual state of overwhelm and a New Yorker's natural disdain for the general public, he really just wants to enjoy the summer with Kip without seeming ungracious about all the fan and press attention.
This gift is different. It’s not a new watch from Cartier or a personal invitation to fly out to Milan Fashion Week from Donatella. It’s no less staggering, though.
The bouquet is, no other word for it, colossal. It’s a floral explosion of Admirals colours that takes up half of his dining room table: maroon peonies, lush red lilles and a few tall spikes of blue delphiniums that look like the Empire State Building design on their jerseys. Scott knows nothing about flowers but this is clearly an obscenely expensive arrangement. Hand-tied, hand-delivered. A statement gift if he ever saw one.
It must weigh a hundred pounds, vase and all. He wonders if the doorman had to lug it up to his apartment via the freight elevator. Scott reminds himself to tip him the next time he heads out.
“Babe?” Kip asks, adorably confused. He peers closely at the bouquet’s accompanying card and flips it over, like he might decipher a hidden message on the back. The card has a small logo printed in the corner. “Who do you know in Boston?”
Scott leans over his boyfriend’s — his boyfriend! God, that feels good to say — shoulder and plucks it from his fingers.
The note is hand-written in looping cursive on thick, elegant card stock.
Dear Scott and Kip,
Congratulations. Thank you. You changed everything.
- 81 & 24