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Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov had known of each other long before they ever spoke.
Not friends.
Not rivals yet either.
Just names whispered in scouting reports, highlight reels looping across oceans, and coaches comparing them like twin storms forming on opposite sides of the world.
Shane trained in Canada, all clean edges and relentless pace, a future carved out of ice and discipline.
Ilya sharpened himself in Russia, quieter in public, heavier in presence, like a blade you only noticed when it was already too close.
They were always on the same lists, never in the same room. Until the international cup, that was where the first real collision happened. Not on the ice, outside in a parking lot by a wall
“Ilya Rozanov? Shane Hollander. I — I wanted to introduce myself. Oh, I'm--I'm not sure you're supposed to smoke here.” Shane had said, like testing the shape of the name.
Ilya had looked up once, A pause then “okay”
A measuring of distance that neither of them understood yet but both instinctively respected.
“You're an awesome player to watch,” Shane said still unsure of himself
“Yes,” Ilya said flicking a cigarette butt to the ground.
“Anyways, I--I should go. They're waiting for me.” Shane said turning to leave “But, um, good luck
in the tournament.” Shane continued as he walked away
“You will not be so nice when we beat you,” Ilya said with full confidence
“That's not happening,” Shane said with a small smile
“See you in the final,” Ilya said in a sing-song voice.
Then they’d gone their separate ways.
Or so it should’ve stayed.
But a phone number in each boy’s phone left the possibility open for them to stay in contact and in the end change each other’s lives
Everything changed before the draft, before the rivalry fully formed. Before either of them had a chance to turn the other into a statistic.
Ilya’s life cracked open first.
He was suddenly a father, a hookup that left a baby behind, a hookup who didn’t want to be a mom so now Ilya was a single father in Russia trying to prove he could still be a hockey player
A baby girl named Tilly who had Ilya’s eyes and dark hair like Shane’s. Ilya found his mind wandering away and pretending Tilly was theirs. Even though he had yet to kiss the other man and doubted he ever would. This little girl was something he never saw coming but something he would fight till the death for. Fatherhood didn’t care about timing or career projections.
At nineteen, Ilya became something the league had never scouted for.
A father.
He barely slept.
He barely ate.
And he definitely didn’t know how to ask for help.
But he did know one thing: he could not do this alone.
That was when Shane reappeared.
It started small, a phone call here and a phone call there after Ilya and Tilly had moved across the ocean on visas provided by MHL.
A shared training session via Skype, A text about exhaustion.A mutual understanding over a late-night call that the draft hype felt louder than it should and they weren’t going to let the media turn them into enemies.
Then Shane saw Tilly for the first time, it was a couple of months before the draft. They were both in New York so they had arranged to meet up to talk or at least that’s what they had both said but each man had other things in their minds. But whatever plans Ilya had to get the man who had become his best friend in bed were dashed when his baby came down with a cold and wouldn’t go for the babysitter. In the chaos of a sick baby he forgot to call Shane and cancel so at a quarter past 8 like they planned their stood Shane staring at a shirtless Ilya with a small 10-month-old in his arms
And something in Shane shifted immediately. Seeing the man he was falling in love with cuddling the sweetest baby ever Shane felt like he was seeing his future. Suddenly hockey wasn’t the most important thing in his life the two people in front of him were.
He didn’t ask permission, he didn’t hesitate. Just stepped inside the hotel room shut the door and stared at Ilya and the baby. Before Ilya could overthink it he leaned forward and kissed Shane who kissed back, then led him to the bed and they sat down on the edge. Shane’s hand is taking Ilya’s.
They sit in silence except for Tilly’s occasional whimper of discomfort. Shane then turned to Ilya and asked, “She’s yours?”
Ilya nodded, still just staring at Shane. Before he took a deep breath and spoke.
“Her, hockey and you are all that matter.”
Shane looked at Tilly for a long moment, then back to Ilya then quietly, “Okay.”
That was it, no debate, no distance.
No careful boundaries like there were supposed to be between future rivals. That night they were in that hotel room together talking quietly about their future, taking care of a sick Tilly, and trading kisses.
Just acceptance, like they had both been waiting for this exact complication and decided he didn’t mind it at all. When Shane left 3 days later from the event, he did so from Ilya’s hotel room, giving the Russian a deep kiss and cuddling a now healthy Tilly close and telling her he would be seeing her and her papa very soon.
Over the next two months, Shane stopped being “another prospect.” He quickly became a constant
Different countries meant nothing when he kept showing up anyway—flights booked between training blocks, calls that stretched too late, care packages that always somehow included baby supplies alongside hockey items.
“I didn’t ask you for this,” Ilya said once, exhausted, standing in a kitchen that never stayed clean anymore. Watching Shane unpack the extra suitcase he brought with him from Ottawa full of baby things for Tilly and some hockey items as well as condoms and other sexual items for the two adults.
Shane shrugged. “You didn’t have to.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“It is if you stop fighting it, Ilya. We sleep together on a regular basis when we can see each other. We talk multiple times a day every day. You and that little girl are my world for the first time ever something matters above hockey!” Shane said as Ilya stepped closer to him. That should’ve annoyed Ilya It didn’t.
Because he thought of Tilly, small and bright and stubbornly alive, he reacted to Shane like he was familiar had since the day they met.
And he thought of how it felt to talk to Shane, to lie in bed with him, to kiss and hold him to be inside Shane
It felt like Shane belonged in their orbit and always had
And Shane never treated it like a role he was trying to earn. He just… was there right by Ilya’s side. Handling bottles, fixing broken sleep schedules. Learning the exact way Tilly liked to be rocked before naps. Slowly, without either of them naming it, he became something dangerously close to a second parent. He wasn’t replacing anyone nor intruding.
Just fitting into the empty spaces Ilya didn’t even realize were there.
And for Ilya, he felt a rush of unconditional love that he hadn’t felt since his mother had passed at 12.
He stepped into Shane’s place and pulled him to him, kissing him passionately before putting their forehead’s together.
“ya tebya lyublyu” Ilya whispered
“I love you too,” Shane said with a smirk at Ilya’s confused look.
“I’ve been learning Russian, you speak to Tilly in Russian and you talk Russian in bed when we’re having sex I wanted to know what you were saying,” Shane said kissing him.
“We’re both insane, we’re supposed to be rivals.”
“We’ll just be insane together and only be rivals on the ice, okay? Beyond that, we are each other's futures.”
“Da,” Ilya said kissing him and pulling him to what was quickly becoming their bedroom.
Draft week was quickly approaching and with it, the media was harder to ignore. Along with more practices, there was less visiting each other but there were still nightly phone calls or video calls. The headlines swirled, Shane and Ilya had made a habit of sharing what headlines they saw and laughing about whether it was in bed together after making love, with Tilly, or on a long-distance call
Shane Hollander versus Ilya Rozanov.
Two countries.
Two systems.
Two futures designed to collide.
What the media or no one but Tilly knew was that the worlds had already collided so much so that both men were ring shopping.
Because between training ice and press obligations, Shane was the one who heard Tilly laugh first when she was visiting him on a solo trip
Shane and Ilya together figured out her sleep cues and got her sleeping through the night.
Shane was the one she reached for instinctively when she was overwhelmed whenever he was there
And Ilya started noticing with love in his heart.
Tilly didn’t just accept Shane, she trusted him completely. Like he’d always been part of her world. Like Ilya had simply… made room for him without realizing it for him to be part of their forever.
One night, after Tilly finally fell asleep, Ilya stood in the doorway watching Shane carefully adjust the blanket around her on what would be one of his last overnight trips before the draft.
“You’re doing too much,” Ilya said quietly.
Shane didn’t look up. “No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“I know.”
A pause.
Then Shane finally glanced at him.
“You’re not alone in this anymore, Rozanov. That’s what it meant when I said I loved you.”
The words should’ve felt intrusive. Instead, they landed like something steady being placed into shifting ground. It was in that moment that Ilya realized, with a quiet shock, that he didn’t want Shane to step back. Not even a little that he wanted the future they were building.
By the time draft week arrived, the narrative outside their bubble had already hardened.
Rivals.
Future enemies.
Top picks destined for opposite sides of the league.
But inside the rented place they had got under the fake names of Jane and Lilly. where Tilly slept, nothing fit that story anymore.
Shane wasn’t a guest,He wasn’t support staff. He wasn’t even just a friend, he was who Ilya fell asleep to wrapped around, and whose kisses he woke up to. Shane was already Ilya’s other half. Already there when things went wrong, already there when things went right.
Already there when Tilly reached out her tiny hands and said his name, Hane, as it belonged in her vocabulary.
And Ilya, standing in the middle of it all, realized something that didn’t fit into any scouting reports floating around.
The rivalry hadn’t erased their connection. It had simply stopped being the most important thing between them.
Something else had taken its place And neither of them had decided what to call it yet.
But it was growing anyway, Quiet, Certain, Unstoppable, like a season already underway. And something they never wanted to lose.
Draft night didn’t feel like a celebration. Both Shane and Ilya were nervous, afraid of being further apart from each other. Of Tilly who was at their rented place losing the closest thing she had to a 2nd father before they truly got everything together
It felt like a door closing and opening at the same time, and nobody got to choose which side they were standing on.
Shane Hollander heard his name first.
“First overall…For the Montreal Metros, Shane Hollander.”
The room erupted. But Shane sat there in silence, he knew Ilya was next and he knew the chances of him going to a team in Canada were slim to none.
Camera flashes stitched the moment into history, Shane stood, hugged his family, smiled for the world. But his eyes flicked once, instinctively, toward the table that Ilya sat at They didn’t speak, they didn’t lock eyes. They didn’t need to.
Something in that one glance already carried too much weight for a public arena.
Just a minute after Shane Ilya came.
“Second overall…For Boston is Ilya Rozanov”
Ilya Rozanov exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath since childhood.
Boston, A new city, A new system, A new version of everything he thought he was becoming. He stood, shook hands, and walked the stage.
And for a moment, the crowd only saw the future of hockey.
What they didn’t see was the part of him that kept thinking:
Shane went north. I went south. We still somehow ended up on opposite ends of the same story.
Tilly didn’t understand draft night or the changes that came. She understood voices, movements, and emotions, and after a week at the rented place, they went their separate ways Shane to his new home in Montreal, and Ilya and Tilly’s new home in Boston.
The first night in Boston Tilly sits in the new living room taking in her new space and taking in Shane’s absence.
Ilya had done his best to console her, Tilly was what mattered, Ilya was ignoring his own heartbreak.
She didn’t cry at first, She just kept looking toward the door like it might remember how to open itself the right way.
“Where Hane?” she asked using her name for Shane, small and confused.
Ilya froze.
“He… went to work,” he said carefully.
Tilly frowned. “Hane work?”
“Yes Myshka”
For the rest of the night, she seemed fine till Shane couldn’t call for bedtime due to team stuff. Then came the tears and a new name for both Shane and Ilya while tears streamed down her face, very seriously, like she’d made an official discovery she said to Ilya.
“Dada work.” She said that sobs wrecked her.
“…what?” Ilya asked as he blinked.
Tilly pointed at the empty space Shane usually occupied.
“Dada. Dada back papa!”
He quickly picked her up and held her close.
“Dada has to work but we’ll figure it out myshka. It's okay.”
The first time Shane heard it was over a video call the next morning, he stopped breathing.
Tilly was sitting on Ilya’s lap, waving at the screen with serious dedication.
“Dada!” she announced proudly.
Shane made a sound somewhere between laughter and shock.
“I—okay—hi, bug, hi—”
He kept looking up at Ilya begging for answers. Ilya looked back at Shane not sure what to say.
“She started that,” Ilya said immediately.
Shane smiled. “Sure she did.”
Tilly nodded emphatically, as if confirming court testimony.
“Dada here!” She said
Shane’s expression softened in a way that only happened when he looked at Ilya and Tilly
“…yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay. Hi, bug. I’m sorry, Dada can’t be there. But I know Papa is taking care of you.”
Their rookie season rolled on and all their free time was spent on phone and video calls, short family vacations, or trips to the city the other lived in all with Tilly in tow. Building them as a stronger family unit, an unbreakable unit.
It was after a late game in Boston that was against Montreal that the thought first fully formed.
Ilya sat in his apartment, in his sleep clothes on watching Tilly sleep on a video feed Shane had insisted on setting up at both houses. He watched as Shane kissed Tilly’s forehead then tiptoed out. Soon Shane’s voice cut through his thoughts as Shane came to sit by him
“She’s okay?” Ilya asked
“Sleeping,” Shane said.
A pause.
Then Shane, quieter: “She called me that again today.”
“Dada,” Ilya replied flatly.
“Yeah.”
“You are her dada just like I’m her papa and you're my forever just like I hope you're mine.” He said, pulling the ring out of his sweater pocket, and slid it onto Shane’s left ring finger.
“I know this is all very complicated but marry me please,” Ilya said
“Yes, baby yes,” Shane said kissing Ilya hard and tumoring them back on the couch. As Ilya kissed Shane and they undressed each other his last coherent thought was that he wanted to live in the same place with Shane and Tilly but he still wanted to play hockey.
For most of the rest of the season, everything was fine, then the real fracture point came
A rumor spread fast through league media: Boston was restructuring, Montreal was stacking young talent, Ottawa was quietly rebuilding into something dangerous.
And suddenly, every conversation around Ilya in Boston stopped being about performance. It became about fit, about future, about whether Boston was actually where he belonged.
Because every time he looked at Tilly reaching for Shane with absolute certainty, something inside him shifted. Or when she was with Shane in Montreal and he saw both of their smiling faces a thousand miles away. Every time he saw Shane in Montreal, wearing a jersey that didn’t match the space he occupied in their lives, the same thought returned:
What if we’re building the wrong shape around what we already are?
One night, when they were in the same house and after Tilly fell asleep, Ilya said it out loud while holding Shane in their bed.
“I don’t know if I chose right.”
Shane frowned slightly. “For Boston?” He asked, looking at him
“For everything.”
Silence, then Shane rested his head on his hands on Ilya’s chest so he was nose to nose with him
“You’re not just talking about hockey,” Shane said quietly
Ilya didn’t answer, because he wasn’t entirely.
Shane studied him for a long moment. Then, carefully said : “You don’t have to solve it tonight.”
Ilya laughed once, the humorless said “That’s not helpful.”
“No,” Shane agreed. “But it’s true.”
Another pause Then, softer:
“She calls us both dad.”
“I know,” Shane says
“And she still waits,” Ilya said carding his hands through Shane’s hair. Shane kissed him gently as Ilya’s jaw tightened with his thought.
The idea of switching teams shouldn’t have been possible.
But neither should have Shane or Tilly. Neither should have the way his life had quietly stopped belonging only to him.
And yet here he was, staring at a future that suddenly felt negotiable.
Boston, Montreal, Ottawa.
Three cities, three versions of what his life could become.
And in every version, one constant remained:
Shane Hollander And a little girl who had already decided what family meant and had already decided they were a family
As Ilya thought of the future in her Montreal home Tilly stirred in her sleep.
And in her half-dreamed voice, she whispered again:
“Dada… Papa.” Then fell back asleep.
And neither father had any idea what to do with that.
As time went on and the season was winding down Boston felt wrong with each passing day. Ilya wanted his family together. The city didn’t feel wrong, That was the worst part but it didn’t have the one thing he wanted, his family.”
It didn’t reject him. It didn’t challenge him. It simply… existed around him, indifferent and precise, as it had already decided what kind of player he was supposed to become.
He should’ve been focused on systems.
On ice time, on proving he was worth the pick.
Instead, he kept checking his phone, Every notification felt like a possible fracture point in a life that was already splitting in too many directions.
Then one night a call that came late changed everything.
Not from management, not from agents or sponsors. It came from the other half of his soul his fiancée Shane Hollander.
“I need to tell you something,” Shane said immediately skipping his normal greeting
“What happened?” Ilya exhaled slowly after he asked.
“It’s not bad, it’s… complicated,” Shane replied, but his voice wasn’t steady and he could hear Tilly who was staying with Shane for the week whining.
“Start anyway.” Ilya sat down without realizing he’d moved.
A pause, then Shane said it.
“Tilly got sick.”
Everything in Ilya’s body went still.
“How sick? Why didn’t you call?”
“Fever. High. She’s okay right now, but—” Shane hesitated. “She kept asking for you.”
That was the part that hit harder than anything medical, not the fever, not the uncertainty. Asking that their little girl spend the majority of her days, Ilya closed his eyes.
“…I’m coming.”
“You have training—”
“I said I’m coming.”
Shane didn’t argue.
He never did when it mattered.
The flight from Boston to Montreal felt shorter than it should have.
Or maybe Ilya just didn’t register it.
When he arrived, the apartment was quieter than he remembered. Too quiet, then he saw them.
Shane is sitting on the couch, exhausted, one arm wrapped protectively around a sleeping Tilly.
Her cheeks were flushed but calmer now, her tiny hand gripping Shane’s sleeve like it was an anchor.
Shane looked up immediately when Ilya entered.
Relief flashed across his face so quickly it almost looked like instinct.
“You made it,” Shane said softly.
Ilya didn’t answer at first.
He just crossed the room and crouched beside them.
Tilly stirred slightly, then made a small sound.
“Dada…papa” she murmured without opening her eyes.
Shane’s grip tightened a fraction,Ilya felt something twist in his chest. Because it wasn’t confusing anymore. It wasn’t a phase or a nickname for both. It was a claim, not spoken in ownership, but in recognition of who her dads were.
Later, when Tilly was finally asleep in her crib, the apartment felt different again. Not quieter just Heavier.
Ilya stood near the window. Shane stayed near the kitchen counter like he wasn’t sure where he was allowed to exist in that moment.
Finally, Ilya spoke.
“I got an offer.”
Shane blinked. “From Boston?” Ilya shook his head once.
“Ottawa.”
Silence. The words landed differently than Ilya thought they would. But he felt lighter once he said them. Ottawa wasn’t just another team. It was closer, geographically and emotionally. A bridge instead of a wall, a way to be a true family.”
Shane walked toward him and wrapped him in a hug before leaning back slightly to look him in the eye. “You’re considering it.”
“I don’t know what I’m considering,” Ilya admitted.
That was the truth that scared him most.
Because nothing in his life had ever been uncertain like this. Shane studied him for a long moment.
Then, carefully: “Is this about hockey… or us?”
Ilya let out a short laugh that held no humor at all.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know where one ends anymore.”
The words sat between them like an unplayed shift.
Shane looked down at his hands.
“I know we didn’t plan any of this, but we’re here now and Tilly and Tilly are what matter to me the most. Ilya said quietly.
“I know,” Shane said running his fingers over his engagement ring.
“I came here for hockey. For the draft. To escape Russia.”
“I know that too.”
Another pause. Then Shane looked up again.
“But I didn’t plan her either and I sure as hell didn’t plan you and me,” Shane said
“That’s not fair,” Ilya said his expression tightened.
“I’m not saying it is,” Shane replied immediately. “I’m saying she exists now. And so do we. So we do what’s best for us for our future.”
A future that didn’t belong solely to hockey.
From the next room, a small sound interrupted them.
Tilly, Waking up.
Ilya moved first, but Shane beat him there, lifting her gently before she could fully cry.
“Hey, bug,” Shane murmured. “I’m here.”
Tilly blinked, then immediately reached for him.
“Dada.”
Simple.Certain.Like gravity.
Ilya watched from the doorway. She then turned her attention to him.”
“Papa.” She said with a happy sigh.
And for the first time, he didn’t feel like a father sharing a space. He felt like a father who had a partner.
Not replaced, not diminished.But no longer alone in it.
Later that night, after Tilly fell back asleep, Ilya made a decision as he lay next to Shane in bed.
something inside him shifted into place,as he held Shane and Tilly, who slept down the hall. like a puck finally settling after too many rebounds.
“I think I’m going to Ottawa,” he whispered to Shane.
Shane didn’t look surprised, He just nodded once.
“Okay.”
That should have been the end of it, Decision made and sleep to follow but it wasn’t.
Because Shane added, equally as quietly: “If you do… I think I’d follow.”
“You can’t just say that,” Ilya said
“I know.”
“There are contracts. And plans.”
“I know,” Shane repeated. He paused then softly said
“It’s just the truth. I have a husband and daughter that I don’t even want to be two hours from. So you go to Ottawa I’m following you.”
“Not your husband,” Ilya said kissing his forehead.
“Close enough, you put a ring on it.”
After Shane fell asleep Ilya said something finally, to him clearly:
This wasn’t a rivalry anymore,It never really had been. It was something far more unstable but that had formed into the most stable thing in his life. Something that made him not care about leagues or cities or expectations.
Something that had already started building a family around a child who called them both by the same name.
And now, something inside Ilya had begun to lean toward a future where none of them were standing alone in it.
Not Boston, Not Montreal, Not Ottawa. Something else entirely, Something still unnamed. but something that Ilya, Shane, and Tilly stood in together
Something undeniably real.
Nothing in professional hockey moved quietly. Not trades. Not rumors. Not lives that were already halfway rewritten.
By the time the season ended, the rumors swirled that the entire league had opinions about Ilya Rozanov. Boston was still his official home, for now.
But “for now” in the NHL was just another way of saying this is already ending, we’re just waiting for the paperwork to catch up.
Ottawa had made its interest louder, Montreal had made its curiosity sharper.
And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, Ilya was still trying to figure out how to be a person instead of a headline.
His reason wasn’t complicated anymore, it was clear as ever. It had never been before but now it was just harder to ignore. Shane Hollander and Tilly, especially Tilly, were his reason for everything.
By some miracle, the two men had the same 4 days off before a home game in Boston against Montreal. Shane looked up from the book as Ilya entered their bedroom after putting Tilly down for the third time
“You told them yet?” he asked putting his bookmark in his book as Ilya climbed into bed with him and wrapped him in his arms
“No.”Ilya didn’t need clarification before he quickly spoke
Shane nodded once.
“Boston’s going to push,” Ilya said
“I know.”
“Montreal too.” Ilya continued
“I know.”
A pause, then Shane tilted his head slightly waiting for Ilya to speak
“And Ottawa?” He asked, Shane had made no secret that even though the centaurs sucked he would like to raise their daughter in his hometown.
That one landed differently.
“Ottawa feels… quieter,” he admitted.
“That’s because they’re pretending not to care until they’re sure you’re serious,” Shane said, smiling faintly.
“Am I?”
The question slipped out before Ilya could stop it, and Shane didn’t rush to answer. He rarely did when the question mattered. Instead, he glanced down at the baby monitor at Tilly fast asleep on the screen Then back at Ilya.
“I think you already left Boston,” he said quietly.
Ilya stiffened slightly. “I haven’t signed anything.”
“No,” Shane agreed. “But you’ve stopped belonging here long ago.”
The silence after that felt heavier than any arena crowd.
From the monitor, Tilly shifted slightly in her sleep and mumbled something that sounded like “dada” and “papa’ smooshed together again, softer this time, like a habit rather than a declaration.
Shane smiled leaning into Ilya more.
That motion—so practiced, so natural—hit Ilya in a way he couldn’t immediately name.
Not jealousy.Not loss.Something more complicated, Something like recognition of a shared responsibility that had never been formally assigned but was already being lived.
“I can’t keep doing this halfway,” Ilya said the next day, suddenly
Shane looked up again.
“Halfway?”
Ilya gestured vaguely between them, between cities, between everything that refused to settle into a single shape.
“This,” he said. “Flying back and forth. Watching her grow through a screen half the time. Watching you become… that to her. But not getting to be there.”
Shane’s expression softened slightly.
“That?”
Ilya hesitated.
“…Dada.”
A beat, then Shane let out a quiet breath.
“I didn’t choose that,” he said.
“I know.”
“But I didn’t stop it either.”
“I don’t want you to.”
That was the part neither of them could ignore anymore.
Not the rivalry, not even the career trajectories that were supposed to define them.
It was the fact that something in Tilly’s world had already decided what they were.
And the rest of the league and the world were still catching up.
Later that night, after Tilly was fully asleep and the apartment had settled into its soft, dim quiet, Ilya stood by the window again.
Shane came up beside him without asking. They didn’t touch,They didn’t need to.
Outside, the city moved like nothing important was happening. Inside, everything already was.
“I’m telling Boston tomorrow,” Ilya said.
Shane didn’t react immediately.
Then: “And Ottawa?”
Ilya nodded once before speaking
“I think I’m going to Ottawa.”
“And us?” A pause, Shane looked at him carefully before speaking
Ilya didn’t answer right away, because the truth was still forming. he knew it but was trying to gather the courage to say it cause saying it made it even more real than putting that ring on Shane’s finger. It wasn’t absent thoughts anymore.
It was just waiting to be said in a way that didn’t feel like breaking something, Finally, Ilya spoke.
“If I go,” he said slowly, “it won’t be alone.”
Shane didn’t smile, not yet. But something in his expression eased, like a pressure valve opening.
“Good,” he said quietly. “Because neither of us is very good at being alone anymore.”
By the time Ilya made the call the next morning, the room already felt like it had shifted its gravity. Shane had made his calls early that morning thanks to growing up in Ottawa he quickly reached a deal.
Ilya Rozanov stood in the kitchen of a city he no longer fully belonged to, listening to Boston ring on the other end of the line like a door he was politely closing instead of slamming.
“I’m requesting a move,” he said once the front office picked up.
There was a pause long enough to feel like a bruise forming.
Then, flatly: “Where?” The team official asked
“Ottawa.”
Another pause, Longer this time, no surprise.Calculation.
Finally: “We’ll process it. Good luck you’ll need it, Rookie.”
Click, No drama, No farewell.
Just the sound of a system adjusting itself around a missing piece.
In the living room, Shane was building a shaky tower out of toy blocks while Tilly supervised like a tiny, unimpressed architect.
She had insisted on sitting with one of them all evening.
As if proximity alone could keep the world from changing again.
“Too high,” Tilly declared solemnly.
Shane lowered one block. “Better?”
She considered it, then nodded once, approving the structural integrity of his life choices. Ilya watched from the doorway. And for a second, he felt something unfamiliar settle in his chest. Not uncertainty, not fear.Something closer to the final puzzle pieces of his life snapping together
Shane noticed him immediately.
“You did it,” he said.
Ilya nodded.
“Ottawa.”
Tilly looked up at the word as she recognized it as a sound that meant movement.
“Dada… papa go?” she asked.
Shane softened instantly. “Yeah, bug. We go. Together!”
We.
That word again.
Ilya didn’t correct it this time as Tilly did a little dance repeating Ottawa over and over