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Yuna Hollander sat next to her husband, David, in a booth at the back of a vaguely French-inspired restaurant in downtown Montreal, Alouette. David was reading some article on his phone as they waited, totally normal for him. She wished that she had a similar distraction, but her phone was currently filled with emails asking about how Shane was doing in the hospital, pushing for statements that she didn’t really feel like working on. One of the few times that Yuna could remember when she hadn’t been more than happy to be Shane’s manager. All she wanted to be right now was his mother. Somehow, dinner tonight happened to be right at the intersection of those two worlds, and she was still trying to figure out which side would be better for her to sit on.
The last 24 hours had been surreal, to say the least. From running into Rozanov in the hospital with Shane to learning that they were...something to one another to watching with a mixture of confusion and adoration as they bickered like a loving couple. Her head felt like it was spinning, trying to figure out how this possibly could’ve been going on for the better part of a decade. How she could’ve possibly missed the signs and why...why Shane hadn’t told them.
“You’re acting like you’re the one being interrogated by your lover’s parents, you know,” David said, without looking up from his phone.
“Don’t call it that,” Yuna replied. “I just...I just need to know…”
“I know, Yuna. You need to know the when, the how, the why, and everything in between.”
“Well, one of us should show some concern over this, shouldn’t we?”
David looked at her out of the side of his glasses. “I’m just calmer when dealing with these things than you are, you know that.”
He was right, of course. Yuna could deal with the press, legal teams, and brand representatives all day without breaking a sweat. That was easy, there were clear rules for her to follow and standards for her to uphold. Rules that she knew how to bend just enough to get the best for Shane without breaking them.
But when it came to this side of Shane, the emotional and social side, David had always been the one with more tact. Shane hadn’t been a particularly difficult child to raise, but the way he handled his emotions was too different from how Yuna did hers. She was straightforward and forthright with people, to the point that it had gotten her in trouble many a time when she was younger. But Shane wasn’t like that; he kept things bottled up, always wanting to figure things out on his own without having to bother anyone about them. Yuna always made it a point to pick apart peoples’ responses, their facial expressions and body language, analyze them so she could understand what they were thinking; it was part of what made her such a good negotiator. Shane didn’t have the drive nor aptitude to do the same. It had taken years of media training for him to be able to give acceptable responses during interviews and during press conferences.
And with all of those differences, David was the reasonable, level-headed bridge that crossed the gap between them. He was so patient, much more than either Yuna and Shane were. Sometimes she and Shane had been at such odds with one another that he’d practically had to serve as a translator, explaining Yuna’s brazenness to Shane and his reticence to her. He’d been the one to figure out that Shane had disliked daikon, hasu, and gobo when he was younger because of their textures, not their tastes. He’d been the one to initially suggest getting Shane additional help with public speaking when her (admittedly unfit for Shane) advice hadn’t helped. His flexibility was a perfect match for Yuna’s rigidity.
David put his phone down and reached a hand towards her, resting it on her clasped hands beneath the table. It was a practiced motion, so natural now that he didn’t even have to look to know that she had her hands together, or where they were.
“Tell me, what’s got you so worried?” he asked, gently.
Yuna sucked in a breath. “I don’t really even know, honestly. That this isn’t real and that somehow Rozanov is taking advantage of our Shane. Or that it really is real and somehow we just...didn’t know. For 8 years, David. I don’t know which is worse.”
“Does kind of feel like we missed something big, huh?”
“Either way, Shane is gay. Maybe I had my suspicions, but I wish we hadn’t had to find out like this.”
David nodded solemnly. “Well, let’s focus on the now, okay? We’re about to have dinner with Ilya Rozanov, who our son seems to love very much. And Rozanov, well he probably feels like he’s walking right into the lion’s den.”
“You’re talking like Rozanov hasn’t been at the center of the NHL’s media push for the better part of his career.”
“This is different, Yuna.”
She did know that, logically. But the other part of her brain was still having a hard time separating the idea of Rozanov from the idea of...Ilya. The Ilya that Shane had professed his love for, who had called Shane for comfort when he needed it. Not the Rozanov who stole her precious son’s #1 draft spot and who seemed to play hockey just to ensure that Shane wouldn’t win every single game and award. The Rozanov who she’d been unabashedly hating even before Shane had been drafted.
Just then, the red privacy curtain to their booth pulled open, the restaurant’s hostess leading Rozanov to their booth. He curtly thanked the hostess before turning to sit down. His face was stoic as ever, but Yuna could see it in his eyes: he was nervous. Maybe this whole thing was real after all, or maybe he was nervous about being exposed, she couldn’t tell.
Rozanov stared at them for a brief second before somewhat abruptly extending a hand towards David, who shook it graciously. Yuna did the same. It looked like he was having a hard time maintaining eye contact. A world of difference from the Rozanov she knew, his eyes practically daring his detractors to do something through every camera lens fixed on him.
“Thank you for inviting me, Mr. and Mrs. Hollander,” he said, a little overly formally.
David gave him a small smile. “Please, ‘David and Yuna’ is fine.”
“Okay,” Ilya replied, seeming a little unsure.
“What would you be comfortable with us calling you?” Yuna asked.
It was a simple question, but somehow it felt more loaded than it probably was. On one hand, it would be easy, if impersonal for them to keep calling him ‘Rozanov’. On the other, she wasn’t sure if he would actually be okay with them calling him by his first name. It implied a certain closeness that seemed like it could’ve been inappropriate or at least presumptuous. All things considered, Yuna wasn’t sure if she was okay with it either, she just knew it would be polite to ask.
“I think Ilya is good, if is okay with you,” Ilya decided.
Yuna nodded. “Great, Ilya.”
The conversation stilled for a moment as their waiter came by to take their drink orders. David ordered the three of them glasses of Chablis without asking. Ilya simply gave him a confirmatory nod, seemingly unwilling to go against his wishes. The atmosphere was still a little awkward once the waiter left, both parties not entirely sure how to approach this. Yuna had a lot of questions for sure, but she didn’t want to just...spring them all on Ilya, no matter how badly she wanted to.
As Ilya sat there looking between the two of them, she thought he looked younger, somehow. He looked a little lost, more uncertain than she’d ever seen him before. She was suddenly reminded that his father had recently passed away. There had never been any mention of his mother, not that she could recall.
“So, you gave the name ‘Taniguchi’ for reservation?” Ilya asked, noncommittally.
“My maiden name,” Yuna said. “We use it a lot, since our last name is more recognizable than either of us on our own. Most of the time it works, but we do get the odd rabid hockey fan who recognizes David and I.”
“Doesn’t always work in Montreal, as you might expect,” David added, a bit of humor in his voice.
Ilya nodded. “Same in Boston, for me. Can be difficult, being so well known.”
That struck a chord with Yuna, hitting right on something that she had been wondering herself.
“So why Shane, then?” she blurted out. "Why not someone easier, simpler, less...controversial?"
“Yuna…” David chided.
“Is okay, is a fair question to ask,” Ilya said.
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, hands actively wringing together. Yuna watched as Ilya’s eyes darted back and forth slightly as he thought his answer over, still unable to maintain eye contact with either her or David. If she’d ever thought that Ilya had looked nervous during a press conference, she’d have to reevaluate that notion.
“I chose Shane because...it has never been anyone but Shane, not since I met him,” Ilya said.
“You haven’t exactly been known as a shining example of...monogamy, you know,” Yuna said dryly.
Yuna’s quip caused David to fully turn his head to her, shooting her a disapproving look. He was obviously taking this whole thing with more grace than she had, but Yuna couldn’t help but think of the sheer number of women that Ilya had been seen with while he and Shane had supposedly been involved with one another. Even if they hadn’t exactly been exclusive yet – something which she still didn’t know the timeline of, either – thinking about Ilya gallivanting off with some woman that he’d met at a club that night while Shane was...probably at home, maybe reading a book in bed, made her feel a little sick.
And...maybe there was a part of Yuna that hoped that Ilya would bite back. That he would disrespect her or David, chirp at them like he did every player on the ice he came across. Then maybe...maybe this could be a little easier for her to wrap her head around. If Ilya Rozanov was still an asshole, the world would feel a little more right again.
But Ilya didn’t send a barb right back at her. No, he looked somewhat remorseful, almost downtrodden, at her words. Yuna felt a pang of guilt. She remembered that Ilya was the same age as Shane, a little younger actually.
A server came by with their glasses of wine, then took their entree orders. Yuna took hers and took a sip. It didn’t escape her notice that Ilya waited until both her and David had taken a sip of their wine before taking one himself. It was strangely disarming, but the hesitancy of the action made her wonder somewhat where the tendency came from.
“You remember details of the CCM shoot?” Ilya asked. “The one with me and Shane, before our rookie season.”
“Yes, I do,” Yuna replied. “Shane said that was where you two first...connected, right?”
Ilya nodded. “He was supposed to do that shoot on his own originally, yes? Me and Shane photographed at different times, I mean.”
“That’s right...how do you know that?”
“I gave director the idea to have us both in same shot. It was easy suggestion, since concept was already based on our rivalry.” A bashful look swept across Ilya’s face, looking somewhat unnatural on him. “But I suggested it because I couldn’t wait until first game between Boston and Montreal to see Shane again.”
Yuna was surprised. She didn’t know that; did Shane? She glanced over to her left to see that David also had a look of surprise on his face. Ilya had wanted to see Shane. Yuna remembered Shane being strangely distracted during the shoot; at the time she’d chalked it up to being his first shoot as a professional hockey player and the pressure of being compared with Ilya, who was much more of a natural in front of a camera than he was.
“So you’ve been in love with him since…” Yuna ventured.
Ilya gave her a bittersweet look. “I wish that was true...or maybe it was, and I just didn’t want to face it. Maybe would have saved us a lot of time and…heartache, I think is right word.”
“But you are in love with him now, aren’t you?” David said. “It was written all over your face yesterday, even before you said as much.”
“Yes. Even though it will be complicated, I’m in love with him. I want to try...if that is okay. If Shane wants to.”
Was Ilya Rozanov asking them for permission to date Shane? Yuna hadn’t expected that, especially not when they’d been seeing each other for nearly a decade.
“With you asking that, is all of this, new?” David asked. “The relationship part, I mean.”
“No, well, probably. Maybe,” Ilya said. “I mean, I still am not sure, what we are, exactly. We have not talked about it yet. Was not long ago that Shane was dating Rose Landry, after all. And before that...was complicated.”
Yuna had been so concerned with the women that Ilya had been seeing in the time span that he’d been talking to Shane that she’d completely forgotten that Rose was in the middle of that, too. She felt a little guilty about that, judging Ilya for seeing women when Shane had done the same, even though the circumstances weren’t exactly the same. She realized that even though Ilya had been seen with many women throughout his years in the NHL, none of them had ever been what Rose was to Shane. A public relationship, something more than just a woman at his hip.
“Did something happen, before Rose?” Yuna asked. “It was so sudden. We were happy for him, of course, but just as surprised.”
Ilya’s face contorted into a slight grimace and Yuna sensed that maybe she’d made a mistake by asking. The kind of relationship that Ilya had with Shane wasn’t something formed overnight, and Rose had only been a scant few months ago.
“Was my fault, I think,” Ilya admitted, to Yuna’s surprise. “We had been...casual, for years, yes?” He looked a little embarrassed to be alluding to their sex life in front of them. “When I realized there were feelings there, I didn’t know how to talk to Shane about it. I asked him to stay the night, when we had never done that before, and…the tuna melt and ginger ale that he mentioned yesterday.” A slight blush crept into his cheeks. “Ah, maybe was too...much, too sudden, for Shane. Too many feelings, he is not very good with.”
Even with the knowledge that Shane and Ilya had been far more intimate than she ever could have imagined for so long, it still surprised Yuna that Ilya would acknowledge Shane’s difficulty with his emotions. A difficulty that she was still figuring out how to navigate to this day. She remembered that Shane had told them Ilya had called him for comfort when he was in Russia for his father’s funeral.
“Did you know that Shane was gay, before that happened?” David asked.
Yuna looked at him sideways. She wasn’t sure that she understood the reasoning behind his question; it seemed more like something that she’d ask, really. Even though she was curious too, if it was something that they’d needed to discuss, anyway.
“I suspected,” Ilya said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not used to talking about things, not really. I tried to ask Shane that day, when I asked him to stay over. I knew he wouldn’t like if I asked him directly, but I didn’t know how to approach subject indirectly.”
That was something that Yuna understood well. She knew from experience that being too direct with Shane could just cause him to shut down. But finding the right words and phrasing to get a better look into his mind without making him freak out was easier said than done.
“So he told you, then?” David continued.
“Yes. At All-Star Game, we talked,” Ilya said. “Was maybe first time we really talked. He told me he was gay, I told him about my family. Is probably why I was comfortable enough to call him when I was in Russia.”
“Your family…do you have anyone else back in Russia?”
David’s voice was careful, gentle. Yuna suspected that he already knew the answer, or at least had made the same assumptions that she had. They were well-informed enough to know that Russia wasn’t exactly open to queer relationships, so if Ilya was interested in actually having a relationship with Shane, especially as a public figure himself. She wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking this question either, other than maybe to figure out if anything could get in the way of their relationship?
“No, well. My brother, but we’re not on speaking terms. I set aside trust for my niece – his daughter – in Russia, but that is managed on its own.”
“So you don’t really have any intentions of going back there, then?” Yuna asked.
Ilya bit his lip. It was an unusually hesitant tic for him, Yuna thought.
“If I can stay with Shane, probably not,” he admitted.
“There’s something for you to go back to, isn’t there?” David pointed out, having sensed something behind Ilya’s hesitation.
Ilya took in a deep breath, but nodded. “My mother is buried there. She died when I was young. I would still visit her grave every time I was home.”
An image of Ilya was forming in Yuna’s mind that was making her heart hurt. His mother, who he must have loved very much, dead from when he was a child. His father, who had also passed, but whose grave he didn’t mention. A brother who he wasn’t on good terms with but to whom he still felt obligation to through his niece. Ilya had been under so much pressure without the familial support that she and David had been able to provide to Shane. She remembered that Shane had said that Ilya’s family was hard on him. That he had been alone in Russia, his home country.
“You really must love Shane very much,” David said.
“I do, so much sometimes that it scares me. I hope that he feels same, when he’s not high on painkillers.”
Something about the way Ilya talked about Shane was bothering her. It wasn’t that he was speaking badly about him, or that it didn’t seem clear whether or not he really did love Shane – she was beginning to understand that this was more likely real than not, unless Ilya was a tremendously talented liar. He just seemed to too hesitant to say anything definitive about their relationship, even more so than she’d expect to be spurred on by talking to her and David.
“You must, if you took the chance to visit him in the middle of the day yesterday,” Yuna said.
Ilya gave her a small smile in response, but there was that hesitation again. His smile looked too bittersweet, too conflicted. It didn’t match the language he used when talking about Shane or how obviously in love he seemed to be any time he talked about him.
Their food arrived just then. Yuna wasn’t sure how Ilya usually ate but she found herself surprised by his order, opting for chicken when Alouette was a self-described steakhouse. She didn’t think him the type to fuss about his diet the same way Shane did, either. Something in her brain managed to pick out that he’d ordered one of the cheapest entrees on the menu.
As they started on their entrees, Yuna’s thoughts inevitably drifted back to the hockey side of things. Before long, she found herself catastrophizing about something else: match fixing. If Shane and Ilya’s relationship were ever to become public while they still played, that would be the first thing on everyone’s mind. The average person didn’t know their stats the way Yuna did; if she remembered correctly, which she knew she did, Shane and Ilya actually both put up their best stats season-over-season during Montreal vs. Boston games. She’d noticed the trend by Shane’s third season and had assumed that it was just a product of his natural competitive streak and the rivalry. But maybe they also just...enjoyed getting to play one another, genuinely so.
But Yuna needed to be sure. She knew Shane would never throw or fix a match, he was so competitive that game nights had all been banned from the Hollander household. Between him and Yuna, a simple card game could turn into an all out argument. But Ilya, he’d been so...deferential to Shane. The Rozanov that she thought she knew didn’t behave around Shane the same way Ilya did at all.
“Ilya, can I ask...you’ve never, well, thrown a game for him, have you?” Yuna asked, over a bite of her steak.
“No, I haven’t,” Ilya replied, sounding a little confused.
David gave her a disapproving look. “Yuna, are you really asking that?”
“Well, I don’t know! We know Shane would never do that, but we just met Ilya. And he’s so...different with Shane than he is with anyone else.”
“You think Shane would be happy if I threw game for him?”
Yuna opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, realizing what she’d asked. Ilya was right in asking; Shane would be indignant if he ever found out somebody let him win something. He wanted to be the best, and the only way he would get there was by beating the best, at their best.
“No, he wouldn’t be happy,” Yuna said, feeling a little dumb for even asking. “I’m sorry I even asked, Ilya, really.”
“Is okay,” Ilya said, cutting into his chicken. “You just want best for Shane.” He paused, a flicker of something flashing across his face, before resuming and saying, “And so do I.”
Conversation stilled there for a little, making Yuna feel even more guilty as she’d thrown a bit of a wrench into its flow. She occasionally glanced across the table at Ilya, who was eating politely, if a bit restrained. She felt her heart clench for him again as she wondered how often he shared a meal with people like this. About how long it had been since he’d been able to have a meal with his own parents. Based on what he’d told them, probably years.
“You are okay with this, really?” Ilya asked, abruptly.
Yuna looked up from her plate, exchanging a glance with David, who also seemed unsure of what exactly Ilya was referring to.
“What do you mean, Ilya?” David asked.
“Me and Shane. Us being together.”
David set his utensils down. He looked genuinely concerned for the first time tonight, his brow furrowed. Yuna wasn’t quite sure that she understood, either.
“Well, I don’t think you’ve given us a good reason not to be okay with it,” David said.
“Maybe I had my doubts, but I think it’s obvious that you love him, you really do,” Yuna added.
“I love him, that is enough?” Ilya asked.
Is love enough? How was Yuna supposed to answer that? Where this was even coming from, Yuna wasn’t even sure.
“When I visited Shane yesterday, I was thinking of ending things,” he continued.
Yuna’s mouth dropped open slightly, her face doing something weird in surprise. She definitely hadn’t expected him to say that, not after how in love they had looked, painkillers or not.
“Maybe I’m not sure that I’m good for Shane. Our public images don’t work together. We have rivalry that makes it impossible for us to be public, or even come out. My family is not good, not like you are for Shane.”
“Ilya, what are you…” David started.
“I was not lying when I said I want what is best for Shane,” Ilya said, interrupting David. “Even if that means we are not together. Hockey, all of this, is...so important to him. I cannot ask him, or you, to give it up just for me.”
Ilya was looking at them both now, his eyes meeting theirs more confidently than they had this entire time. There was a tightness in a jaw, a downturn of his lips. Yuna saw how he swallowed his emotions as he finished his answer. He was dead serious. And it was eating him up from the inside.
Almost unconsciously, Yuna’s brain did what it did best, replaying their conversations yesterday and tonight, analyzing everything that had transpired. And then, it clicked. Ilya’s refusal to respond to her quips earlier. His hesitance with the wine, with their food. Taking the blame for whatever happened with Shane before he started dating Rose. The way that he wouldn’t outwardly talk about Shane with the same conviction he seemed to hold in his heart. Shane had described Ilya as being a giving person, and now she was seeing that for what he’d really meant.
Yuna wasn’t sure what her answer to this was, or even what it should be. Logically, she knew that Ilya was probably right. Their being together would probably only make things harder, more complicated, for who knew how long. Until they retired? They were only 26. Barring injury or something else terrible, they both probably had at least a decade more of playing ahead of them.
But the other side of her brain was screaming for her not to agree with Ilya. That yes, his love for Shane and Shane’s love for him back, that was enough. That it was wrong and crazy and even a little dumb for Ilya to be thinking about breaking up with him in the first place when they were so obviously in love. They’d figured something out for 8 years now, surely they could do it for longer, right?
Thankfully, David was the one who found his words first, because of course he was.
“You know Ilya, Shane said something yesterday that really made me think,” he said. “He said that he never had to pretend around you, that you know how to make him feel like Shane, not Hollander.”
Yuna remembered those words exactly, of course she did. She remembered the stab of guilt that pierced her heart at the implication that Ilya was the only person who made him feel that way. Did he really feel like he had to act like Shane Hollander, professional hockey player and captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, in front of his own parents?
Ilya nodded. “I remember.”
“I’ve been worried, for a while now, that Yuna and I...that we’re too hard on Shane. Putting too much pressure on him and too many expectations. I rarely hear him talk about anyone other than Hayden and JJ, and they’re his teammates. He’s always been pretty buttoned-up and high strung, but recently he’s been managing his diet and training so intensively that I’m worried it’s just putting more stress on him than he was already under.”
David may have been using the word ‘we’, but Yuna knew that ultimately, most of that pressure was coming from her. Maybe she’d had her concerns, but Shane had always told them that everything had been okay, that things were going well and he was happy. She hadn’t paid it much mind, not with all of the other duties she had to take care of in his life.
But hearing these concerns from David, Yuna felt once again that maybe she had to figure out how to be more of a mother to Shane, and less of a manager. She knew, of course, that it was like Shane to hide these things from them, to take all of his burdens and worries on his own two shoulders until they were either fixed or he silently collapsed under their collective weight. But stubbornly, she’d refused to connect the dots, needing David to spell it out for her, like she always did.
“Is why I don’t want to put him under any more pressure, yes?” Ilya said. “Maybe is not your fault, Shane puts so much on himself even when he doesn’t need to.”
“That’s why it made me think, Ilya. He was telling us that he felt like he could be himself around you, isn’t that right?”
“Maybe, that could be right.”
“That’s something I think he needs. Somewhere, someone that he can go to without feeling all of that pressure.”
Ilya nodded, seemingly still unconvinced by David’s words. Yuna made a mental note; even if he didn’t know it, this boy was just as stubborn as her own, just in a different way.
“Maybe you think this isn’t important Ilya,” David continued. “But I think we need to know, do you feel the same way with Shane? Does being with him help you feel like Ilya, instead of Rozanov?”
Ilya’s expression shifted, some sort of mixture of surprise, sadness, and thoughtfulness. That made Yuna realize why David’s line of questioning tonight hadn’t quite made sense to her at times. She’d only been concerned with whether Ilya was good for Shane. David had been too, of course, but he was also trying to make sure that Shane was good for Ilya. Of course, it wasn’t what Ilya could do for their son, but what their relationship was doing for each other.
“I think...yes, probably,” Ilya said, slowly.
“Probably?” David asked, pushing for more.
“It feels like...Shane sees me for me. My family, they see me as someone to pay their bills, like a bank that they can just take from. Most people I have been with, I think they wanted to be with me because I am celebrity, or hockey player, or something.”
“That sounds like something Shane probably understands, too,” Yuna said.
“Yes, I think so. But when we’re together, it feels like I am just Ilya, not Ilya Rozanov. Shane doesn’t say anything bad about my English, we are both hockey players so that part doesn’t matter, he only expects me to...take care of him. I called him when I was in Russia because it felt like I could say things to him that I could not to anyone else.”
“I think that’s wonderful, Ilya.”
“I think so too,” David added. “And I think, it would be even worse for us to not want something like this to continue.”
Yuna didn’t want David to speak entirely on her behalf, even though he was right. She felt somewhat apologetic now, for her reaction and skepticism. Obviously there was still more to learn about Ilya and how his life fit in with Shane’s, but that could come with time. The world’s problems didn’t have to be solved in one day.
“I agree,” Yuna added. “You’re right that it won’t be easy, and as Shane’s manager as well as mother I’m still trying to figure out how we can even do this. But because of that, I feel a little guilty, really, for Shane even having to hide this from us.” She swallowed the bit of emotion that had gotten stuck in her throat; this wasn’t about her, not now. “Both of you are under so much pressure, all the time. I don’t think I could bear the thought of either of you losing the thing that makes you feel like you can just be yourselves.”
“All of this to say, that when it’s like this, when you make each other better, or when you see each other in ways that nobody else does, I think that love is enough,” David said, reverently. “At least that’s how I see Yuna, and I’d like to think that she sees me that way too.”
Yuna put her hand on the table, between David and herself. He reached over and placed his hand on top of hers, sending a warm smile her way.
“The two of us are very different people, if you haven’t noticed,” Yuna said. “But it works because, like David said, we make each other better because of, not in spite of, our differences. And if you can be that person for Shane, well, I don’t think I could really ask for anything more.”
It was a little cheesy, but apparently David had the same thought that Yuna did at the same time, both of them moving their joined hands towards Ilya across the table. He looked at them uncertainly before tentatively reaching his hands towards theirs, wrapping theirs in warm, calloused palms.
“Thank you,” Ilya said, his voice thick. “I will be there for Shane, make him better. I promise.”
“Those are words you should be saying to him,” David said lightly. “When he’s not so out of it, of course. And we hope that he’ll make you better, too.”
They sat in silence for some time, but it didn’t feel awkward like the silence at the beginning of dinner. It was nice, really, to just enjoy each others’ company, to sit in the sort of collective understanding that they’d reached. Yuna really would love to have Ilya over for dinner – with Shane – as soon as possible.
“You know what, let’s get dessert,” she declared.
“Dessert does sound good,” David added. “Call it a sort of...celebration, for getting to know Ilya.”
“Alouette does a good job with sweets, too. What’s your favorite dessert, Ilya?”
Ilya’s eyes softened as Yuna and David waited expectantly for his answer. Yuna wondered how long it had been since he’d had someone to take care of him like this. To offer him a meal and dessert and a conversation that had little to do with hockey. For him to be doted on like someone’s child, like the young man that he was.
“I have sweet tooth, actually,” Ilya said. “I like fruit jams, chocolate, most desserts. But my favorite ice cream is cookies n’ cream.”
“Well, it’s no cookies n’ cream, but they have a wonderful mille feuille aux fruits that you can add chocolate sauce to,” Yuna said. “I think you’d like that one.”
“Anything you want, Ilya,” David added. “Our treat.”
“Okay. I’ll try the, ah…‘mill-foy’? That sounds good.”
“Maybe we’ll order it for you so our waiter knows what you’re asking for,” David quipped.
Ilya let out a small laugh, sounding lighter than Yuna had ever seen the man. As they continued chatting while waiting for their desserts, she couldn’t help but notice how much more relaxed he looked. He usually gave off an air of casual indifference, but little by little Yuna was discovering just how calculated it actually was. His shoulders were lower, there was less tension in his jaw and face, and his expression was animated in a way that she’d never seen before.
The difference was...humanizing, Yuna thought. She spent so much time looking at numbers and contracts that maybe sometimes she did forget that the NHL was made up of people who had chased their dreams, much like Shane had, Ilya included. She adored the way his face lit up when his dessert arrived, and how he talked about its similarities to a Napoleon, a dessert he was more familiar with.
The ‘human’ side of Ilya, Yuna was learning, was perhaps the best thing that could’ve happened to Shane. Even while she, as his own mother, didn’t understand Shane completely, and David maybe didn’t totally understand either but was trying his best, Ilya seemed to have seen him in a way that nobody ever had before. He took Shane’s neuroses in stride the same way David had hers.
Even if Ilya called that “just” love, Yuna already knew that it would always be enough.