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Their kitchen was an absolute mess.
Years ago, the sight might have sent Shane into an apoplexy. Then the twins discovered the joys of freshly baked banana bread.
The image of Ilya in a checkered apron and sleeveless shirt had helped too, admittedly.
Though Shane had said (and often) that baking without sleeves was just asking for injury.
Ilya, his hair dusted with flour and cheek smeared with mushed banana, simply insisted they tasted better that way.
This time, it was different though.
This time, it was Shane standing in the middle of the chaos, his soft linen shirt stained with pink icing and batter.
Bowls, measuring tools, and neatly labeled air-sealed containers took up nearly every surface. Separate cooling racks were evenly spaced across their huge dining room table, carrying a veritable assortment of freshly baked goods.
The air was redolent with the scent of butter and caramelized sugar.
When Ilya had informed him that the PTA was planning to have a bake sale, Shane's first thought was contacting their favorite local bakery and ordering the full extent of their menu.
Ilya had drawn himself to his full height, one hand grasping the cross that laid against his chest, offering Shane a look of absolute affront.
"Buy? No, Shane. Any self-respecting parent would make the treats themselves."
This is how Shane ended up foregoing his usual morning routine to help Ilya bake.
Shane had been secretly impressed that Ilya kept his promise and woke up at 4AM that day.
Yes, he still had to cajole his husband from beneath the comforter with the promise of coffee and kisses, but it was Ilya who remained awake despite the ungodly hour.
Kirin, their eldest, had woken at her usual time and was able to help her dads with the finishing touches.
She even admitted they tasted fine after reluctant bite - Ilya holding the pastry up expectantly to her lips, Shane looking pointedly at her with his arms crossed from behind his husband.
Ilya's beaming face at the praise was the only shot of caffeine Shane needed for the day.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur, the two of them plus their nanny helping their three children get ready for school - Kira for 8th grade and the twins for kindergarten.
Ilya and Alice left earlier to drop the kids off, leaving Shane to deal with cleaning and packing everything up - a task he secretly enjoyed doing.
He'd been dusting flour off the counters when his phone chimed several times in rapid succession.
Shane's brow furrowed as he reached over to check.
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
Shane we have a problem
Shane Hollander
What now Ilya
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
No time to explain
You must come quick as bunny
Baba Yaga is here
Shane took a deep, steadying breath.
Shane Hollander
I've told you Ilya
You can't call Bridget Yates Baba Yaga
It's not nice
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
Nice? When have I ever been nice?
Especially to that evil hag
My greatest enemy
Shane Hollander
Ilya
Your greatest enemy CANNOT be the president of the PTA
Let's just focus on having a nice, calm bake sale
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
I am calm
So calm
Calmest in all the land
Because I am beautiful princess
And she is ugly witch queen
Shane Hollander
Do not use Katya's fairytales for your petty vendettas
Anyway, I'm almost done here
I'll be bringing everything over to help you set up
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
Okay I will wait for you forever
Like princess locked up in tower
I love you moya lyubov
Shane Hollander
I think you're mixing fairy tales now
I love you too
Ilya Rozanov (Husband)
Oh, don't forget Shane
I left your outfit for bake sale on the bed
So we match
<3
Shane Hollander
Yes I won't forget
Will be there soon baby
Ilya met Bridget Yates' smirk with a full-on, no-holds-barred glare.
They’d been shoved into the farthest corner of the gymnasium, half-hidden behind towering gym equipment.
A single plastic table sat between them - the last barrier between two hostile forces in a long, drawn-out war.
Bridget Yates and her posse of simpering, judgmental PTA moms on one side-
-and Ilya motherfucking Rozanov, seven-time Stanley Cup champion, Olympic gold medalist, and MHL Hall of Famer, husband of THE Shane Hollander, on the other.
Ilya attempted a polite smile as he pointed once more at a single, wrinkled piece of paper, spread across the table in front of them.
"No. This is not our spot. This is map you sent us. Shane and me were supposed to be in the middle."
Another jab of his finger and the paper might’ve split clean through.
"Plans change, Mr. Rozanov." Bridget Yates offered him a pitying smile, tutting as her cronies giggled all around her. Ilya's eyebrow visibly twitched.
"You and your husband-" She said the word distastefully and Ilya briefly entertained some violent fantasies said husband would not approve of. "-will do fine over here. The customers will eventually find you, I'm certain."
Her poisonous smile told Ilya otherwise.
"Ilya? Why are we here?"
Ilya hadn't been sulking in his seat, nor did he leap from it the moment his husband appeared.
"You did not wear it!" Ilya cried, momentarily distracted as he took in Shane's jeans and casual button-down, pouting even as he helped his husband with the plastic containers he carried. "I even ironed and laid it out for you!"
"You're not wearing it either!" Shane protested, gesturing at the hoodie and jeans Ilya wore. "What size did you get me, anyway? It was too...tight." Shane made a face.
"I'm wearing it underneath, to reveal when we were together!" Ilya lifted his jacket and Shane's eyes zeroed to the brief flash of his abs, a touch softer with age but no less distracting.
"It's like a team uniform, Shane." Ilya sulked.
"It's in my bag, big baby. But I still don't want to wear it." Shane's forehead wrinkled as he looked past his husband, taking in their surroundings with visible confusion.
"Wait a minute, I don't understand. This wasn't the area assigned to us."
And that was all it took.
Ilya immediately launched into a full diatribe, cursing Baba Yaga and her little gremlins, as he recounted their conversation earlier.
At the same time, he and Shane moved around each other wordlessly, working together to set up their bake sale table.
The wrinkle in the middle of Shane's brows grew deeper and deeper as Ilya spoke.
"That isn't right." Shane said finally, ignoring Ilya's offended look. Clearly, he wasn't reacting to the same degree as his husband, but he was still upset. "It's not like the gymnasium is full too - there's still plenty of space for us to set up our table in the original spot."
"She is sabotaging us." Ilya hissed and Shane refrained from pointing out it was just a grade school bake sale. He felt his husband wouldn't take kindly to facts right now. "She knows we will win, that is why she placed us here so no one can see our delicious pastries."
"I don't think you can win a bake sale, Ilya." Shane pointed out dryly, putting the finishing touches to their display - a display he was pretty proud of, mind you.
Yes, he did ask help from the Centaur WAGs, but overall it still looked good.
"What are you talking about Shane?" Ilya grabbed his husband by the shoulders and forced him to look him dead in the eye.
Shane rolled his in return.
"It is competition, Shane." Ilya's green-blue eyes blazed with intensity. "There is a prize. Gold medal for class who raises the most money."
In lots of ways, Shane and Ilya were very different. Ilya was far bolder, a magnetic force of a person, while Shane was more reserved by comparison - straightforward and pragmatic.
People with only a shallow understanding of them would say they were polar opposites.
But there was one thing that had united them throughout their relationship - from their tumultuous beginnings in a random back alley in Regina, Saskatchewan to their equally tumultuous but incandescently happy years of marriage.
And that was their endless thirst for competition.
Shane straightened slowly.
He tilted his head in quiet consideration, the same look he got when he was analyzing a complex play on the ice.
"So, the outfit-" Shane began, finally realizing Ilya's intentions under new context.
Based on his husband's smirk alone, his conclusions were correct.
"-that was for the competition."
"Yes." Ilya nodded emphatically. "What is the saying? We use weapons that we have. Baba Yaga has her imagined position of power and we-" Ilya's gaze raked down his husband's form. "-have the product of all your years of dedication and hard work, malysh."
Shane knew the mature thing to do was not feed Ilya’s personal vendetta against Bridget Yates.
He also knew, as he changed in one of the school bathroom stalls and forcibly tugged the t-shirt down over his chest, that he’d become far more indulgent of Ilya’s antics as of late.
What could he say? His husband had always known exactly how to wear him down.
Shane studied himself critically in the mirror. At least the shirt was well-made - not see-through, despite the way it stretched tightly across his chest and biceps, leaving very little to the imagination.
He shrugged. It would do.
Judging by the look on Ilya’s face when Shane returned - as though he suddenly wanted to forget the bake sale entirely and head home, or perhaps drag Shane into the nearest empty room - it would do very well.
Bridget Yates was a name well-known in their quaint, suburban community.
The beating heart of the PTA for years, she single-handedly planned and executed every school event and fundraiser, calmly handling every crisis and proving every naysayer wrong.
With her influence, she had managed to hold the school back from making more radical, thoughtless decisions - the strident voice of all parents in the neighborhood.
She'd been happily running things from her cushioned seat at the top of the PTA hierarchy for a near decade, used to things always going her way, when a pair of newcomers had arrived and upset the delicate balance.
One Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.
Fine, she could look past the fact they were both men and married. She didn't care much for hockey, but she supposed they were a big deal, given her husband’s and his friends’ overzealous - near rabid, really - reaction when they heard the news.
That man had never cared once about Bridget's PTA projects before, but the moment he heard Hollander and Rozanov were participating, he casually suggested that he could pass by to help out.
Bridget supposed Hollander and Rozanov's children were nice and respectable, in spite of everything. Their eldest daughter was a little too opinionated and headstrong for her taste, but the twins seemed like angels with their little blonde curls and beatific smiles.
At the start, she'd been pleasantly surprised when Ilya Rozanov came up to her one day, all charm and candor, saying he wanted to be an active member of the PTA.
The other mothers were ecstatic - the thought of having a strong, capable man around to help with the more physical aspect of some tasks was incredibly appealing.
And Bridget supposed, begrudgingly, he wasn't an absolute horror to look at.
Everything had gone splendidly, at first. Naturally, Rozanov had brought in a ton of money and attention, which was perfect for Bridget's grander schemes.
When people weren't awestruck by him, they found him likeable and funny, even if he was a bit crass sometimes in her humble opinion.
His use of flashy cars was annoying but not a deal breaker. Though Bridget had often felt her face twitch whenever she spotted that orange monstrosity in the parking lot.
And yes, he and his husband were suddenly the heroes of their school's hockey team, after they took some personal time off to coach them.
Bridget supposed it was fine. The school tended to focus more on their soccer and basketball teams anyway - which made sense to her, since they were more popular sports and they won far more games.
So what if Rozanov and Hollander did nothing but use their considerable skill and experience to coach them and make them actual contenders for the junior hockey league?
So what if that piece was heavily featured in the local news, earning the school considerable media attention?
Her son was the star of the basketball team and she would not be distracted by the success of others.
There was something to be said after all about a long, established history of wins over a sudden, meteoric rise.
And yet, the straw that broke the camel's back, at least for Bridget, was last year's school dance.
She'd planned everything perfectly. The theme was tasteful, they spared no expense on decorations, and there was already talk of it becoming the school event of the year.
She’d even been asked by the principal to give a small speech at the start, to acknowledge everyone's hard work and efforts.
Bridget had chosen her outfit with that in mind - flattering yet understated - a tailored knee-length sheath dress in a deep blue, a classic string of pearls, her hair blown out and makeup light but elevated.
She was poised to speak into the microphone, hundreds of eyes on her, when the door to the school gymnasium opened, the sound audible in the near silence.
From her vantage point on the stage, she saw it all happen - the way bodies shifted and heads turned. The growing murmur of voices, into a whispered crescendo.
Her eyes found the culprit immediately and a heavy pressure bloomed at the center of her chest.
Ilya Rozanov, who'd volunteered to be a chaperone for the evening, grinned sheepishly as soon as he noticed all eyes on him.
He waved a hand apologetically, a universal gesture to ignore him and go on, but Bridget Yates knew then, for certain, no one would be able to move on.
Ilya Rozanov was unfortunately, distractingly handsome. Bridget had been subjected to the titters and gushing of her fellow PTA moms on a regular basis that she had learned to tune them out.
So him in a gorgeously tailored suit, a crisp white linen shirt that molded to his torso, and sans tie, leaving the column of his throat bare?
The sight was utterly devastating.
Bridget could feel the palpable shift in attention, as the other chaperones and school officials abandoned their posts around the room, to greet Ilya personally. The hockey team also started gravitating towards their unofficial coach and sponsor with bright-eyed eagerness.
Bridget was left there, on stage, offering her carefully drafted statements of honor and gratitude to a smaller, distracted crowd.
And that marked the day she declared silent, brutal war on one Ilya Rozanov.
So yes, what if she purposefully changed the placement of the tables last minute?
It was ultimately harmless and the arrogant, retired hockey player could use less attention anyways.
So when Bridget and her friends rounded the corner, to take a peek at the ongoing situation, maybe share a laugh or two, to say she was incensed was an understatement.
Tracey Cline, one of her oldest and dearest friends, visibly bit her lip, her breathing going slightly uneven.
Harriet Walker, another longtime member of the PTA, pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes widening to take in the full sight in front of her.
A long line of parents, teachers and school officials alike stood in front of the Hollander-Rozanov table.
Bridget Yates watched as Mrs. Garrison, the older, stately literature teacher of her son's grade, blushed like a young school girl after Shane Hollander smiled and handed her a neatly wrapped package.
The way his shirt stretched over his chest as he bent down slightly to speak with her was obscene.
Ilya Rozanov, his husband, stood next to him, in the exact same offensively tight shirt, throwing a wink at a bunch of moms, to their vocal, obvious delight.
Bridget was too distracted by the full picture at first, then her gaze zeroed onto the text emblazoned across their brazenly large pectorals in a bold, bright-colored font.
Fresh Buns Daily.
Bridget would bet her life savings that Ilya Rozanov chuckled to himself the moment he came up with that.
Rozanov looked up from the next customer he was helping, his gaze meeting hers with unerring accuracy.
The smirk that took over his entire face was slow.
Shane seemed to notice as well, as he straightened and looked around for the target of his husband's attention.
To Bridget’s knowledge, Shane Hollander had a reputation of being a self-possessed, decent, reasonable man. Or at least, far more reasonable than his petty, dramatic excuse of a husband.
So Bridget Yates was properly shocked when Shane Hollander looked at her with an intensity that bordered on alarming-
-an ice-cold focus, as if she were an opponent standing in his way to victory.
“Bridget, oh Bridget!” Ilya Rozanov called out, waving his hand cheerily.
Bridget felt her face stiffen into a rictus of a smile as more people turned in her direction.
“You were right,” the blonde, Russian man pronounced brightly. “They eventually did find us.”
He gestured expansively towards his entire line of customers.
Smugness radiated off him in waves.
Bridget Yates briefly wondered if she could retain her sterling reputation while accidentally throwing something at him. Something large and heavy.
“Come, try our pastries! Promise - they are life changing,” Ilya spoke cajolingly, clearly enjoying every bit of the interaction.
Shane Hollander nodded his head slowly next to him. His dark brown eyes glittered with an undefinable emotion.
“You better hurry as well, Mrs. Yates,” he spoke calmly, respectfully. “After all, it’s quite clear that we will sell out soon.”
The corners of Shane’s lips curled up and she felt a chill run down her spine.
And in that moment, Bridget Yates realized, with startling clarity, that her problem was no longer just Ilya Rozanov-
-It was both of them.