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It starts with a text buzzing Shane’s phone, which is face up on the arm of the couch and looks very much like Yuna’s phone. When she checks the notification, it’s more instinct than intent to snoop. What she reads from a contact named Lily is, “If we beat you on Tuesday you will suck my cock in the entryway before I…”
And that’s where the message cuts off. Probably for the best. It’s plenty of information to digest in less than a full sentence.
Well, Yuna rationalizes. Hm. Actually, there are plenty of things this text could mean besides the obvious. Hockey players are crude as a rule, and casually homophobic. This might just be a particularly racy chirp. Maybe Shane has a hockey friend on the, let’s see, Tuesday, that’s… the Raiders. Okay. A friend on the Raiders. That he’s added to his phone as… Lily?
Yuna glances over to where David and Shane are obliviously washing the dishes. She picks up Shane’s phone and furtively taps out his passcode, which he’s given to her. Or, technically, has casually used in her presence so often that he must know that she’s seen, and would change if he truly wanted her locked out.
She just needs reassurance that it isn’t anything worse than an off-color joke. That it isn’t bullying, or blackmail or, well, anything horrible that could hurt her boy. It’s not textbook good parenting to be digging through her son’s private communication, but it’s not the worst thing a mother has ever done. Probably.
She scrolls up the text chain, and scrolls. And scrolls some more, back to texts from years ago. Despite the suspicious lacunae of deleted messages, she learns two things relatively quickly. One, this is not about bullying or blackmail, but rather a remarkably longstanding hookup arrangement. Two, “Lily” on the Raiders is almost certainly Ilya Rozanov.
Well. Hm.
Yuna locks the screen and sets Shane’s phone gently down in the exact location that she’d found it, with all the caution that you would use to handle an armed bomb. Except the explosion has already happened, as far as she’s concerned.
Yuna does not need to attend the New Balance pitch in person. The chances that they’ll offer enough money to beat Shane’s exclusive deal with Reebok are slim, and their “dad shoes” brand identity doesn’t align well with Shane’s image, either. It’s the kind of meeting that should be handled over Zoom, or even email.
New Balance is also based in Boston. Instead of sending a Zoom link, Yuna sets up a meeting at their HQ for 3:30pm on a Wednesday the Raiders are scheduled for a home game. Today is that Wednesday, and Yuna’s 9am flight has just landed. She has a small errand to handle before the pitch meeting.
Rozanov’s house is a boxy glass monstrosity set back into uninspired landscaping for privacy, yet missing the obvious security features like a video doorbell that she’d recommended for Shane. She pushes the call button and is buzzed in without so much as a “and who are you?” Yuna frowns. Useful for her purposes today, but not indicative of a person with any reasonable sense of self-preservation.
She knocks crisply on the giant metal door, and moments later the man himself throws it open. Rozanov is shirtless and smirking in low-slung Adidas sweats. Then he sees her, and the smirk drops into a shell-shocked gape. He goes, eloquently, “uhhh…”
Yuna gives him a narrow-eyed once-over. She doesn’t… not see what Shane might be attracted to. “Thank you for meeting with me,” she says, and uses the ostentatious size of his doorway to slide past him and into his open-plan kitchen. “I think we have some things to talk about.”
“You are not Uber Eats delivery,” Rozanov points out. He trails awkwardly behind her as she marches deeper into the house, but obviously he’s not going to lay hands on her. Even if he did, it would take more than that to get Yuna to leave.
“No, Lily, I’m not.” She settles down on his couch, crosses her legs, and levels him with a cool look.
“Uhhh…” Rozanov has gone bug-eyed in panic.
At this point, a feminine voice wafts hopefully down the hall. “Bay-beeee, is that the food?”
“No!” Rozanov calls back.
But the girl is not particularly intuitive. Despite the obvious warning in his tone, she bounces out into the living room wearing a large Raider’s t-shirt and, possibly, panties. “Oh,” she says, seeing Yuna.
Yuna gives the girl the same up-down review she gave Rozanov. A bit less curvy than the usual WAG, but more notably than that: Asian. Freckled. Yuna looks knowingly back at Rozanov. Rozanov looks at the ceiling.
“Ah, I am afraid something has… come up,” Rozanov says, maneuvering the girl back towards the hall with the tips of his fingers gingerly set on her upper arms. “No breakfast, sorry, why don’t you get your clothes and call an Uber. Or, maybe I call one.”
“Aww,” the girl says, coming around slowly to her new circumstances. “Sure, okay. Can I give you my number? In case you have another boring Tuesday.” She tacks on this last suggestion with a flirtatious giggle, so maybe she actually hasn’t clocked the current atmosphere.
At this point, Rozanov looks, implausibly, to Yuna.
“It seems like the gentlemanly thing to do.” She smiles thinly. “Given the circumstances.”
A stone-faced Rozanov hands his phone to the girl, who enters her details and texts herself. Then he nudges her again to get dressed while he calls the Uber to the address she’d specified. As soon as she comes back (slightly more presentable in a red halter top and cropped jean shorts) he bundles her out of his house with a speed that’s just shy of rude. He dodges a goodbye kiss.
Then, he’s alone with Yuna.
He goes to adjust a shirt that he isn’t wearing and seems horrified to remember his whole naked chest is still out, but Yuna doesn’t give him a chance to retreat to the bedroom. “I take it that you and Shane aren’t exclusive, then. Is Shane aware of that, Ilya?”
“Yes, of course, ” Rozanov blurts quickly. “It is nothing serious.” Yuna can’t tell if he means Shane, the girl, or both.
“Would you say that you don’t take sex very seriously, then?” she says. “In general?”
“Uhhh…” Romanov says, yet again. He looks like a deer in the… or, no, Yuna corrects herself. He looks like a kid not yet out of his twenties getting interrogated by the most feared MLH manager in the league about his intentions towards her son. So, terrified.
Good.
“Oh, I get it. I understand that most of your peers probably don’t. You’re young, wealthy, famous. And I’m sure you all share certain opinions about the “puck bunnies” in your orbit. Right?”
Rozanov looks relieved to be offered such an easy out. “Well, I—“
“Do you think of my son as a puck bunny?” Rozanov appears to shrink into himself by at least four inches.
At this point the doorbell rings again, saving him from having to reply. He once again buzzes his front gate immediately, like a reflex.
“You know, you should really confirm who it is before you just let people come up to your home,” Yuna chides. She can’t help it.
Rozanov rolls his eyes and flattens his mouth in that universally familiar “sure, mom,” petulance. This time it really is his food, which he sets out on his coffee table in front of Yuna as if she might be derailed by a lukewarm McGriddle.
“I am not here to tell you to stop… seeing one another,” Yuna says brittlely. If only. “You’re consenting adults, obviously. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Oh? What did Shane say about me?” Rozanov asks. There’s a quality to his suddenly avoidant gaze that Yuna doesn’t like at all. God, he’s young.
“I’d like to hear your perspective.” She keeps her tone airy, neatly obscuring the fact that Shane doesn’t have the first clue that Yuna has found out about Lily, much less that she’s here in Rozanov’s house giving him the fourth degree.
“Same as Shane,” Rozanov says quickly.
“Right.” It’s a bad bluff; Yuna’s seen enough of their texts to know they are not communicating about anything beyond where, when and how. She doubts it’s different in person. “Look, you two have been… involved for some time now. I’d like to hear your take on, I don’t know, how serious it is.” If you’re breaking his heart, she doesn’t ask. She’s guessed already what this might mean to Shane.
“Shane says is serious?” Rozanov is surprised.
“Well, he… didn’t specifically…” Yuna flounders. She’s caught off guard by his sudden intensity.
Now Rozanov is the one looking at her with narrow-eyed calculation. “Mrs. Hollander, I am starting to think you don’t know. You saw Lily’s texts to Jane… and then you come here to ask? You didn’t talk with Shane about anything?”
Damnit, he’s perceptive. Yuna has gotten a little too used to her own blithely oblivious offspring. It stings to be ogled like she’s the crazy one, especially because it’s a fair take. Yuna grits her teeth, but doesn’t bother denying. “I’d like to know what I’m walking into, before I spring this on Shane.”
Rozanov shrugs, stuffs his mouth with McGriddle, licks his thumb to stall for time. Then, around the mouthful, he blusters, “We get together after games, we fuck.” He shrugs with performative nonchalance. “Is simple for us both. No big deal.”
We fuck, we fuck, we fuck, echoes in Yuna’s brain. She takes a nice deep breath through her nose. “So, it’s just more casual sex, then.” This is exactly what she was worried about, Rozanov using her son for sex and Shane complying for, what, lack of better options? A desperate, one-sided crush? “I understand this has been going on for years, though. Why do you bother? It’s… very risky.”
“Yes, no shit,” Rozanov snaps. “But I will not say anything, Shane will not say anything. We have the same secret.” He shrugs again. He hasn’t looked at her straight since he deduced that she wasn’t here on Shane’s say-so. He manages to wedge the rest of the McGriddle into his mouth, and Yuna makes a face without meaning to. Scratch seeing the appeal.
She sighs, takes off her glasses to rub her face, and tries a different tack. “I’m not shocked that you’re a man, you know. We considered - David and I, I mean - We thought that Shane might be gay.”
Rozanov snorts. “He cannot be this, in the MHL. Is just-“
“No, Shane can be anything,” Yuna interrupts. “Is it unusual, for a hockey player? Sure. I am well aware that there will be fans who don’t like it, probably even people in the MLH. Obviously I don’t want his life to be more difficult than it already is. But if he’s gay, that can’t be a secret forever. There are ways we can position it.”
Rozanov is startled into finally looking her in the eye. “Position it?”
Yuna nods, stubborn. “However we have to. What’s the alternative, he stays closeted for another decade? Hockey is important to Shane, but I want him to be able to live openly and be honest in his relationships, too. I mean, my God! This…” Yuna laughs, gesturing around Rozanov’s bachelor pad, “This sneaking around? Hooking up without any emotion behind it, or any commitment? Please! There’s no way he’s happy to be just another number in your little black book. That isn’t Shane.”
Rozanov does a great job of wiping his face blank, forgetting that the act of doing so is its own admission. Yuna hears herself from his perspective, and— okay, maybe not the kindest way to phrase her objections.
“Look, I don’t mean that you’re a bad person,” she says gently. “I’m sure all the secrecy and drama seems fun, for now, but it’s not real. You can’t honestly tell me your mother wants this for you, either.”
If anything, his expression hardens. “Who knows. She’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Ilya. That must be awfully hard.” Yuna says, wincing. “But, your father, then.”
Rozanov scoffs, illustratively. Oh dear. Then, who exactly is in this boy’s corner?
“But I understand, point taken,” he says cooly, too quickly for her to have a chance of salvaging her position. “Hollander will come out like you say he should, no need for sleazy hook ups. Lots of new rainbow sponsorships, classy interview with GQ. First gay captain of Stanley Cup winning team, nice angle. Then you find him handsome Canadian boyfriend to go steady with. Montreal gets all-inclusive HABs group to match WAGs. Congratulations, wow.”
He’s painfully obvious. The childish hyperbole, the sulky pout. I didn’t want those grapes anyways. She’d read his raunchy texts and assumed fuckboy hookup, spotted his Asian one night stand and assumed fetish, but Yuna has, potentially, miscalculated.
Tentatively, like offering a treat to a skittish animal, she says, “I mean, Shane could certainly date… whoever he chose for himself.”
As much as she dislikes it, she knows that choice might well be the very arch rival in front of her. How many times has she caught Shane reviewing Rozanov’s tape to “prep for the game, Mom,” as he slammed his laptop closed or his phone face down and went red at the tips of his ears. A few times it hadn’t even been game tape, it had been interviews. And their little hookup routine has been going on, against all reason, for years. During which Ilya and Shane have texted constantly and Shane has otherwise flatly refused to even entertain the idea of dating.
Ilya misses her subtle implication.
“I’m sure he could. Perfect Mr. Reebok, Mr. New Rolex.” So, he follows Shane’s endorsement deals, too. Ilya stuffs the second McGriddle into his mouth in one go, and gives it a sullen chew that makes his cheeks puff out like the toddler he suddenly resembles to her. Is he… tearing up?
How the fuck, Yuna asks herself, has nobody clocked that this boy has caught feelings for her son? Does he talk like this in the locker room? To his family, or friends? If he has anyone to talk to about his life at all, which she wasn’t sure of at this point.
Well. Hm.
If she was an idiot missing Shane’s secret crush, fine. So is everyone else in the league, because neither of these boys is subtle! Enough self recrimination; it is a pretty crazy conclusion to jump to, after all. Who can blame her for missing the steps between Shane being a bit obsessed with his rival, to Shane sleeping with said rival, to him having feelings for Ilya Rozanov? But now she knows! So, it’s problem solving time.
“Coming out would be more difficult for you, considering the new laws in Russia,” she muses, half to herself.
Ilya almost chokes on the remainder of the McDonald's. “What? We are not talking about me. How do you know Russian law?”
“Ilya,” Yuna says slowly. “I am a grownup. I watch the news. Do you have many ties to Russia? Or just your family?”
“My family?” Ilya echoes. He looks like someone took a two-by-four to the back of his head. “Yes, my father and brother…”
“Do you think that they could visit you here, instead? If it came to that.”
“I—“
Yuna taps her fingers impatiently on her own knee. “Just thinking of options. You’re probably, what, a year or two from your green card? Are you working with a good immigration lawyer?”
At this point Ilya laughs, a little wildly. “I see where he gets it from. Oh my God, why are you asking so many questions?”
“I’m just trying to understand. Your texting isn’t particularly revealing about these issues, you know.”
“Yes, Okay. But you have a son. Maybe start with him?”
“Good point,” she admits checking her watch. “He’ll just be wrapping up morning skate, let me text him.”
“Uhhh…!” Ilya says, rising in pitch like a tea kettle as Yuna types and sends a nonthreatening request that Shane give her a call when he gets home. Yuna eats one of the leftover hashbrowns, Ilya gapes like a fish, and her son calls her back promptly, as usual.
“Shane, honey.” Yuna turns 45 degrees so Ilya’s flailing doesn’t distract her. “I’m sorry to bring this up over the phone, but I have to admit that I messed up. I saw a text from, um, Lily come through on your phone a couple weeks back. I ended up… snooping a little.”
Heavy, rapid breathing gusts across the line. “What?”
“Look, I shouldn’t have done that. And I am really, truly sorry for abusing your trust. And I’m even more sorry that you never felt safe enough to come out to me and your dad. But now, you know, I’m aware of the… situation with Ilya. And I think we should all have a conversation.”
“Conver… MOM. Wait, Ilya? No. What? All have a… NO. Are you insane??”
“It’s not insane to want to communicate like adults, honey. So, he and I have been chatting, and…”
“Chatting? Like, now!? With Ily- Rozanov?”
“…And I think it’s only fair to get your point of view, too. Shane, please calm down. I think after this many years you two should be capable of at least having a conversation.” Yuna frowns. She’d come here to assess if Ilya was leading Shane on, or breaking his heart. She certainly hoped it wasn’t the other way around, especially considering that Ilya’s support system seemed to be comprised of precisely no one.
“Mom,” Shane chokes out, “Oh my God. Where are you right now? Is Ily-Rozanov in the room? Is he listening right now?!”
“Of course he’s here, how else are we supposed to sort this out? I’m at his house in Boston. And you’ve had his dick in your mouth, honey. I think you can call him “Ilya” if you want.”
Shane wheezes.
“I’m putting you on speaker,” Yuna says, setting her phone on Ilya’s coffee table.
Shane squeaks, “Um, Il-Rozanov?”
“Hello!” Ilya says, and for the first time since Yuna showed up at his door he seems genuinely delighted. Yuna senses that most of his glee is due to Shane’s obvious mortification.
“Oh my God, this is actually happening. Rozanov, I am so sorry about my mom. Jesus, this is… look, you can ask her to leave. This is beyond inappropriate, I’m really sorry.”
“No, no,” Ilya says, leaning towards the phone. “Your mother is very delightful. I am learning all sorts of things about baby Shane.”
“You are not,” Shane snaps. “Mom… you aren’t. Right?”
“Don’t be silly, of course not. We’re just discussing what it might look like if you came out. The both of you, I mean.”
“Are you serious? No.” Shane scoffs instantly. “Come on, that’s crazy, I can’t do that. My career…”
“Is at an all time high, and it’s not going to collapse if you share this about yourself. We don’t have to start with a huge public announcement, we can think about floating the idea with a few close friends and take it from there. Feel things out.”
“But…” Shane sounds so fucking defeated, and even Ilya’s momentary buoyancy has been muted by the reminder of the inevitable shockwaves of a homophobic reaction. He slouches miserably across from her, gnawing at his lower lip.
“But nothing. Who the fuck is going to try and stop you from living your truth?” Yuna asks in her most ferocious mom voice. “They’ll be up against me, if they do. Fuck them.”
“Scary threat,” Ily murmurs, half a smile lifting his face.
“What’s even the point?” Shane argues, as dejected as ever. “It’s not like I’m in a relationship. Am I going to come out just to be a lightning rod for folks’ homophobia? Rozanov’s never gonna do that.”
Ah, right. There’s that small obstacle before they even begin to discuss any ensuing actions. “Honey, you’ve been sleeping with the same guy since, gosh, is it rookie season? That’s a relationship. You just haven’t defined it, yet. Honestly, Ilya here almost threw a tantrum when I suggested you might prefer a serious commitment to someone else. I’d say you’re overdue for the “are we boyfriends” discussion.”
“Uhhh…” Shane and Ilya chorus in matching tones of panic.
“You know what, maybe you two should go ahead and do that now,” Yuna says, checking her watch. “I have a meeting, anyways. Shane, I’m going to hang up. Give Ilya a call back in a minute! I think an honest chat before your next game would do you good. Okay? You can tell me how it goes.”
Yuna hangs up while Shane is still blustering, but she thinks he’ll do it. Ilya walks her to the door, maybe out of politeness, or maybe to confirm that she’s actually leaving. Yuna chooses to believe it’s the first one.
On the whole, she’s rather pleased with how this errand has gone, if she does say so herself. It’s a bit unfortunate to leave before confirming if they’ve actually sorted themselves out, but she can grill Shane later about how the call goes. Actually, she has Ilya’s number. She can grill both of them!
“Oh, before I forget,” Yuna spins back to face Ilya after he opens the door for her, hovering on his doorstep. “When I first arrived, I meant to let you know…”
“Yes, if I break up with him you, ah, bury me with a shovel is the expression I think?” Ilya just looks fond.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” Yuna balks. “People break up all the time. If it doesn’t work out between you two that will be sad, but I would never blame either of you, or expect you to just keep dating even if you fall out of love.”
Ilya looks touched, and Yuna rests her palm on the curve of his shoulder and squeezes. He’s really not such an asshole, in the end.
“It’s really just if you hurt him unnecessarily,” she clarifies, keeping her iron grip on his shoulder. “If you cheated or anything like that. Then I would use every single contact at my disposal, like the one who gave me your home address, and I would ensure that your reputation is so completely torched that even the AHL wouldn’t take your next contract. You’ll be playing for peanuts in the European leagues, okay?”
“Uhhh…” Ilya says, which Yuna has decided is actually an adorable habit.
“Okay,” she agrees with herself on his behalf. “Great chat, I am so glad we were able to connect. I hope your call with Shane goes well! And you know, if it does… maybe I’ll see you this summer!”
Satisfied, Yuna heads off to her next meeting. Ilya’s final, perplexed “uhh…” trails incredulously behind her until it’s cut off by his phone ringing. The last thing she hears before the gate closes behind her is Ilya’s hopeful, “Shane?”