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Shane was excited to marry Ilya, but he wasn't excited for the extensive planning the wedding would require.
His parents' living room floor was completely covered in papers. Yuna had started feeling nostalgic for her wedding, so they'd pulled out her photo album and spent at least two hours looking at the pictures and explaining who everyone was to Ilya.
On another piece of paper was the guest list. Shane and Ilya had brainstormed a list of people they wanted to invite, and the list continuously grew as their planning session progressed. It had started out with some of the Centaurs plus Hayden's family and Svetlana and expanded to include all of the Centaurs, Scott Hunter and his husband, Rose Landry, JJ, and several other people. Ilya suggested sending an invite to Crowell as a joke, but Shane immediately shut the idea down.
Yuna's handwriting was neatly written on a piece of printer paper, slanting upwards slightly due to no guiding lines. She'd been making a list of designers for their suits, based on the theory that they could probably get incredibly fancy suits for free if they agreed to a photoshoot or promo.
David had helped them too, sketching a picture of Ilya's backyard to figure out the logistics of decorations. They hadn't gotten very far with that, though, due to disagreements about seating. Shane argued that they should have chairs, and Ilya said that they would need the space for the dance floor. David tried to point out that it wouldn't be that hard to set up and then take down folding chairs, but nobody listened to him.
Overall, the wedding planning was going great. They were making a good bit of progress on all of the major items, and the day was starting to actually seem plausible to Shane.
What wasn't going great was the legal side of the wedding. They hadn't actually talked about this yet, but Shane knew it would come up sooner or later. He'd never been married before, but he had heard stories from his teammates about difficulties they'd run across. One of their wives had forgotten to change the name on her passport, which wasn't great when she needed to fly to her husband when he got concussed at an away game. There was also the matter of merging their insurance policies, figuring out taxes, and adding their names to the deeds of each of their properties.
It was overwhelming.
Another thing that they had to decide was what their last name would be. They had already decided that, professionally, they would keep their current names; it'd be far too confusing for there to be two excellent players on the Centaurs with the same last name. However, they hadn't actually talked about what their last name would legally be.
Shane figured they would just hyphenate, but how would they decide whose name came first? Hollander-Rozanov made the most sense to Shane because it was in alphabetical order, but he thought Rozanov-Hollander sounded better without the two r's next to each other in the middle. Would Ilya care at all? Shane knew Ilya would likely be fine with whatever he decided on, but there never seemed to be a good time to ask for his opinion.
Another option that Shane had considered was combining their last names. He'd briefly thought about becoming the Hollanovs or Rozanders, but it only reminded him of the "ship names" he'd accidentally seen of Ilya and him online. He didn't understand why they were called "ship names" because he was pretty sure he wasn't a boat, but he knew that they were very common in the hockey fanbase right now. He didn't really like this idea for their last name because, if something was leaked, the fans would never shut up about it.
When their relatively productive wedding planning session—spent mostly looking at old photos of Yuna and David—was over for the day, Shane and Ilya drove home.
The radio was playing some song that was vaguely familiar to Shane's ears, and the sunroof of the Range Rover was open, letting in the warm evening air.
Ilya was in the passenger seat, belting out lyrics confidently. Shane didn't know any of the words to the song, but he could've sworn Ilya messed up a few words occasionally. It didn't matter, though; what mattered was that they were together.
The car pulled into the cottage's driveway about fifteen minutes later, gravel crunching familiarly under the tires. Shane had driven slower than usual, trying to enjoy the almost-summer sunset and Ilya singing beside him. Usually, Ilya would make a joke about how slow he drove, but he didn't mention anything, still humming the chorus to the song he'd sung earlier.
They had dinner, a combination of salads with grilled chicken. As they ate, they sat on their patio facing the lake. The sun had set thirty minutes earlier, so it was now dark out, but the amber lamps gave the backyard a magical glow. Fireflies had started to come out, and pulsing yellow dots appeared all around them. Across the lake, children could be heard playing in the water and splashing each other. It was reminiscent of their first time at the cottage, back in 2017.
Soon after, they'd gone to bed. They hadn't done much that day, but they both felt exhausted and omitted most of their usual activities, skipping straight to falling asleep in each other's arms.
_________
"Shane." Ilya rolled over to face his fiance in bed. "Shane." He whispered quietly again.
"Hm?" Shane groaned, not opening his eyes. "It's, like, the middle of the night, and you've got practice tomorrow. You need to rest." His voice was deep with sleep, and he clumsily tried to wrap an arm around Ilya to pull him even closer.
"Shane. I have question."
Shane slowly opened his eyes. The bedroom was dark, the only source of light from the streetlight outside of Ilya's house. It was just bright enough for him to make out vague features of Ilya's face. "What is it?" He asked.
"You know how we're getting married?"
Shane smiled and giggled. "Yeah, why?"
"Well, I've been thinking—"
Shane's heart dropped. Had Ilya changed his mind about saying yes?
"—about our last names."
"What about them?" Shane asked nervously. The middle of the night was a random time to bring up the topic of their wedding, and he wondered what could've caused Ilya to think about the subject.
"Well," Ilya began to lightly trace spirals onto Shane's arm. "I think we should each keep our current last names for hockey."
"That's been our plan, though." Shane closed his eyes again. "So people don't get confused about two players with the same last name on the same team, right?"
"Yes, but," Ilya continued. "We've never talked about what our last names will be legally."
"Oh, yeah, I guess you're right." Shane nuzzled into Ilya's shoulder. "We could just hyphenate."
"What is 'hyphenate?'"
"It'd be both of our last names with a dash in between them. Like Rozanov-Hollander or Hollander-Rozanov."
"Oh. That is not what I was thinking."
"What were you thinking, then?"
"I want to take your last name."
Shane sat up suddenly, opening his eyes again. "You want to be a Hollander?" He grinned, unable to hide his happiness. "Wait, why don't you want to keep your last name?"
Ilya shrugged. "I don't like it. Don't want our family to share name with my father and brother."
"Oh." Shane laid back down again, settling on top of Ilya. "But you want to be a Hollander?"
"Yes. Your family is very nice. Plus, is much more simple and easier than both of our names together."
"Really?" Shane smiled.
"Yes. It would be an honor to be a Hollander."
"What if we combined our last names? We could be the Hollanovs!" Shane suggested.
Ilya laughed. "No, we would be the Rozanders."
"What? Why does the order matter?"
"Because I am on top, Shane!" Ilya smiled. "My name comes first."
"Ilya!" Shane laughed. "It's okay. I really don't want to combine our last names like that. It sounds weird."
Ilya kissed his temple. "Whatever you want, moy pomidor."
Shane grinned into Ilya's chest. "Goodnight, Ilya Hollander."