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Just the way that Shane had been over-prepared when they adopted her, Ilya had been under-prepared. It isn’t that he didn’t read the books or help add plastic safety locks to the cabinets and drawers, no. He had done all the things he thought he needed to. He had been very determined to be a good dad to their little girl. He was sure, above all the uncertainties, that he was not going to be anything like his father.
The way he wasn’t prepared is different than that. Ever since he first held her he has been on unsolid ground. The responsibility and resolve of fatherhood overwhelmed him.
He’d been allowed to take her small body into his arms. He’d looked at her little socked-feet and inhaled the sweet baby scent off her dark hair. She’d gripped for his thumb, her small hand wrapping around the callouses and his broken nail. So trusting. So innocent. And he had known then that he could never ever have prepared for how much he could love their baby.
Their baby was 14 now. It felt like a blink of an eye, to imagine her small again. That was yesterday, wasn’t it? Helping her toddle around on unsteady feet, changing her diapers, bath times. She could do all these things on her own now. And that could be the scary part.
Ilya knew who he was at 14, able to do all these things and much more. He could beat a teammate to death with his hockey stick (he didn’t, though he’d thought about it), he could get alcohol from a friend, he could get his dick hard, and he knew about condoms, and about having this part of himself that didn’t just like girls like his friends did; no, he wanted to fuck anyone.
Everyone.
It was even scarier because Ilya had felt so alone then. When he looked back, he thought a lot of it had to be the nature of a teenager. He’d thought he’d had it all figured out. And he had hated everything.
At the core of it, he had felt so, so alone. And so maybe he is scared that his daughter, Mila Hollander-Rozanova, their precious sweet girl, is feeling alone.
And they try so, so hard. If anything, Ilya is probably the more overbearing parent. Shane is strict about the things that he’s always strict about (eating well, taking care of her room, brushing her teeth, studying), but he is much more relaxed about some things.
This, Ilya had not expected, but he thinks it is good. Their friends always call him ‘cool dad’ because he is the one who plays princesses with the girls or knows their slang. But he is not cool dad at all, because he worries and worries and worries.
No daughter of mine is wearing that to the dance, he had scoffed, because Mila came down in a short dress with a low neckline. She had curled her dark hair and put on makeup, smoky around her eyes, and a plum lipstick. She is 14.
You look beautiful, honey, Shane had said to her, throwing a glare Ilya’s way as he’d gotten out his phone to take a photo. Ilya did not agree. He did not like this one bit. He wanted to be easy-breezy like Shane, but he didn’t like this outfit. Because their daughter was beautiful and gorgeous and did not need to wear a dress like this for everyone to know it. He knew how guys were. He was one, and he’d been one at her age.
When it came to things like this, he and Shane were of very different mindsets.
He knew how he had dressed and he knew how the girls he slept with had dressed. And he knew he had done it because he was sad and needy and so were the girls.
So. Their daughter was at least going to wear a jacket over this dress.
Shane would probably lecture him after she left about women’s liberation.
He had been very feminist since their daughter was born. Books on books. Talking his ear off in bed about pink taxes and how they needed to make sure she had some women to look up to, to talk to about things, because they were two dads and –
And what? Ilya had asked, crossly, tired, one night after they’d been already running on little sleep after waking up to her cries in shifts. He agreed with Shane. He loved Shane and the way he loved their girl. He’d softened his comment by sitting up and kissing him gently.
Shane had kissed him back, even more when Ilya went for his dick, then shoved him off, finishing his thought. “I know you think it’s annoying that I worry so much,” he started, then blew out a breath.
Ilya did not think this. He loved this about him so much. Because Shane cared so deeply. He didn’t do it in half-measures at all. He could never not love how deeply Shane invested himself in the things he cared about. “That is not true.”
Shane splayed a hand over Ilya's chest as he went in to kiss him, shoving back lightly. “Let me speak, Ilya.”
He sighed and rubbed his hand gently over Ilya’s chest, where he was still holding him back. It was gentle, so Ilya could push in if he really wanted to.
“It’s just,” Shane started again, “I want to know everything I can. I really want to be a good dad. You’re a – fuck – you’re so great with her. You have some kind of instinct. I’ve always seen it in you. I don’t think I have that, so I want to know everything. Because that’s what I can be good at.”
Shane deflated a bit, speech over. He exhaled and moved his hand to the back of Ilya’s neck, squeezed once. “Okay? So that’s the, the. Yeah.”
“Okay,” Ilya agreed, and Shane let him kiss him then.
He knew he had to give a good answer back, to be the dad who could intuit where Shane could rationalize. Marriage for them was tough, sometimes. Ilya could be closed off and Shane could be difficult, too. They had spent so long not talking about things. The wound of not-talking had been slathered in ointment and covered with a band-aid. And it healed. With time, with maturity. They just picked at the scab sometimes. Or maybe looked at the scar. He didn’t know. He was tired.
He bought more time, then, by kissing Shane again, murmuring an I love you to his lips.
Years later, he still leans on the same excuse.
So Ilya’s kissing him now, after Mila’s out the door, and Shane is looking thoroughly irritated. Not angry. He knows the difference. Shane is waiting for him to explain his apparent dad-intuition. He knows what he has to say, but he is worried about pressing into the bruise. Bruise, that was a better metaphor than the scab one.
“I am bisexual, yes? You know, whole world knows. It’s –” Fuck. He rubs his eyes. It feels nice; if he forces his palm in enough maybe he can will his brain to connect with Shane’s. “Maybe you are just right, okay? That Mila wears whatever she wants. That is good, on paper.”
Words are tumbling out of him now. “But I was once 14. And I would dress slutty. You know, seeking out. And I would look for girls dressed in low-cut outfits,” he rubs his eyes again.
“Ones who were hurting like me. Or maybe they weren’t but –” he cringes at his piss-poor words. He’s been to enough therapy to know what he thought and why he did, but it’s hard to externalize. “I don’t know if I am explaining this well. Maybe it is my problem? That I came from this situation.”
Shane’s thumb slides gently over his cheek as he listens to Ilya, “But I do not think – ah, no –” he snaps his fingers, ”I do not like that our Mila wants to wear these clothes. It is not a gender thing. Not in this case. It is like I said – my problem. Because age 14 should be to dance with someone and giggle with your friends. And kiss. I don’t want our daughter to think about if people want to fuck her–” he swallows.
Shane knows, maybe not in the exact words. But he knows how Ilya had sought out sex for comfort. Not only for an escape or a high, but because he had wanted to feel wanted. He hadn’t had nice words to come home to or a mother to stroke his cheek before bed. And sex could be that bubble, if only for a moment. A short moment (that he got very good at prolonging) of two people connecting. He thinks it’s why his reputation was as a slut, but never a rapist. Sure, he’d fuck them and kick them out, but he’d always cared about what they wanted. Or something.
Therapy is a journey. He still isn’t sure what he thinks, now, looking back retroactively – about why he did what he did when he was younger. He’d been closed off even from his own thoughts. Best that he has is very personally-informed guesses, first-hand accounts.
Ilya has to flop back on the bed and sigh before he continues. “-- maybe I am wrong, right? It’s just my opinion. Perspective. And I am not saying I know more because I get hard at tits, or anything. It is just – I don’t know. Icky? In my experience.”
Shane grips for his hand, tangling their fingers together. He doesn’t reply right away. He just squeezes Ilya’s hand and hums.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Shane agrees, eventually.
“I get it, really. I think, for me, I’d rather just let her experience it? Like –” he pauses, “– I think we’re good parents. I guess – when I think about my parents? I liked that they took care of me, but also trusted me? Like, Mila wants to wear this outfit, so we let her.”
“And I hope,” Shane makes a noise, dropping his head somewhere around Ilya’s armpit. He’s a little muffled, “I fucking hope that she trusts us. Like, if something happens, good or bad, then she can tell us? So. So. Yeah. Shit.”
Shane huffs out a self-deprecating laugh. Ilya feels his warm exhale through his t-shirt. “How many years together and I’m still the worst at this?”
Ilya laughs softly back, angles so he can press a kiss into Shane’s hair. Dark like Mila’s. “You are good at it; I tell you this all the time. I think you are right, too. It is just my time to be the annoying worrier. Congratulations on your vacation.”
This gets a light snort from Shane. He lifts his head and presses a kiss to Ilya’s jawline, then gets to re-arranging them, shifting up so he’s in Ilya’s lap and wrapping his arms around him, tight.
Ilya loves to be held by him like this and they both know it. Shane is so solid, strong and muscular even after retirement. Still, it always is so gentle when he holds him like this. He doesn’t squeeze him. He just – cradles. He holds Ilya like he is something to be treasured.
Ilya finally feels like he can breathe, when he’s in Shane’s arms. It’s safe here. He can stop holding tension in his neck that he didn’t even realize was there and drop his head and know he’s going to be caught. Shane holds him like he is worth protecting. Ilya loves to be like this with Shane. He could spend the rest of his life just like this and his dying wish would still be: I want Shane to hold me one last time.
“Thank you. I love you. You are a great dad,” Ilya gets out. It’s harder than usual because his throat is tight and his eyes are wet, for some reason. He has to sniffle.
Shane rocks him in his arms a bit. He did this with Mila when she was young and couldn’t sleep. He is very good at it. Ilya has always thought this since he first felt it in Tampa. “You are, too.”
Ilya sighs, wrapping his arms around Shane’s back and breathing him in. “I hope she trusts us too. Thank you for reminding me about this.” It’s never a failsafe, to fall back on, well, they have good parents, but it is a comfort. Nature versus nurture – the debate seems to always end somewhere between both. So they must account for something.
They stay like that for a bit. Ilya loves how Shane lets them have silence. They both need it to think, sometimes.
“Sometimes I want to ask Sveta,” he starts.
Auntie Sveta, to Mila. But she is from the same worlds as Ilya is; she was the girl in the slutty dress that he’d fucked at 14. She is his oldest friend, his wisest friend, but she does not want or intend to ever have children of her own. Ilya has told her before that she would be great at it, if she put her mind to it. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but she has done many things for him over the years that feel parental. That’s sort of fucked-up and weird if he says it. He’d just needed to be cared for and she was the only person who knew him. But she doesn’t want to be a mom, and that’s just fine.
There had been a long time where Ilya hadn’t wanted to be a dad. He didn’t think he could be a good one. He’d feared too much about being a very, very bad one. Having a kid wasn’t for someone like him. That neither nature nor nurture was on his side.
But Shane had gotten it into his head, having a kid, and so had Ilya. Selfish, maybe, something to do after retirement; someone to leave behind when they’re gone.
Weird. He can’t reason it out, actually. He’d just realized one day after babysitting the Pike kids that he really wanted that, too. And if Hayden fucking Pike could have four beautiful sweet babies, then Ilya was sure they could, too. And even better ones.
“But I think, maybe since she is my best friend, maybe not the best to ask?” Because their friendship was not built on good childhoods or role models. It was built on drinking and fucking each other.
They’ve both grown now, sometimes together and sometimes apart.
“Mmm,” Shane kisses his temple. Ilya drinks in his scent, turning to him instinctively. “Maybe. But it doesn’t mean you can’t ask her, even if what she says is wrong, or whatever.”
Ilya sighs, reaching for his phone. “Yes,” he agrees.
Shane unwinds from him, kisses his cheek, and gives him space to call her, muttering about chores.
Ilya stands up from bed and paces for a second as he stares at Svetlana’s contact, before he shakes his head confidently and dials.
“The fuck is it this time?” she answers, irritated and sleepy. A very familiar sound between them.
“Nothing special. You know me. Where are you right now?”
“Paris,” she sighs. “Ilyukha. What question now?” He loves her.
“Shane and I are disagreeing on something,” he clicks his tongue, switching back to Russian, “Dochka wore a very revealing dress to the dance today. She came down the stairs and I thought, she is only in middle school, why does she want to dress like this? I asked her to change or add a jacket. Shane disagrees, and I think she might be mad at me. I think Shane is probably right. About him disagreeing; I guess also about her being mad.”
“This is not why you are calling me at 3 am, I hope? I am not your marriage counselor.”
“No,” Ilya agrees, “I was thinking I might be projecting. How would you feel, in this scenario?”
On the other end, Svetlana sighs. “Sorry. I’m still waking up. Not my best work, but I think I might feel the same. But I don’t have a daughter, and I don’t have Canadian Shane Hollander for a husband. Or for a dad. I think maybe you are both right. Why don’t you just talk to our Milochka? She loves you both. Just be honest.”
And it’s so fucking simple, hearing it like that. “I am so stupid and you are the smartest, most beautiful woman alive.”
“I am,” she agrees, making a kissing sound, “now let me go back to sleep.”
“Yes. Love you.”
It’s just that simple, then.
__
Shane picks Mila up from the dance. They’d originally promised to get her together, but now it makes sense to do it separately.
So Ilya is just sitting on the edge of Mila’s bed. He must sit there for hours, thinking. It isn’t that late. The dance ended at 10 pm.
Her room is nice.
Decorated by them, once upon a time. Painted walls with glowing stars and one big moon. Blue and yellow with stick-on stars. They’d both been really into the idea of a starry bedroom. Ilya had thought The Starry Night just as Shane had said there’s an infinite world of possibilities out there for her.
It’s all covered up now. All the glow-in-the-dark stars have been torn down. There’s one she left up, a solitary crescent moon at the left of a band poster. It isn’t lit now.
Ilya wonders if she still looks at it at night.
The second he hears the door, he jumps, smooths where he had been sitting and goes – anywhere else.
There’s something in him – the wild animal, the one that kicks in his chest when he feels like he’s done something wrong. He feels young, briefly, scared and running like a kicked dog.
His feet carry him to the bathroom. He shuts the door and breathes.
He takes a piss so that he has an excuse to not be around when Shane and Mila come in the door. He buys himself thirty seconds to remember how to be a dad. To get out of his head.
There is no wrong here. There is only him stepping up and talking to Mila.
He hears them talking as he loudly opens the bathroom door to announce his faint presence, then plods down the stairs as casually as he can. He smiles as he sees Shane and Mila in the kitchen, because he is the great pretender.
Mila is still in her dress, sitting at their kitchen island. Her hair is slightly mussed, if he squints. The jacket he’d made her wear is strewn over her lap.
Shane is chatting with her. sliding a glass over her way as he stands at the other side of the island. It’s clear and bubbly which means it’s probably pamplemousse sparkling water, her favorite. Ilya’s trick is to add a dash of sugar water to it, but she and Shane both like it plain.
“How was the dance?”
Their heads whip his way. Shane makes the expression that means he can’t say, or isn’t sure.
“Okay,” Mila says. Ilya approaches cautiously, waiting for her permission before he gives her a kiss to her cheek and a side hug. They’re not enemies, then.
“Just okay?” he asks, sliding onto the stool next to her. “Thought you had a crush on that guy from Math –”
“Jaxon,” Shane and Mila supply at the same time. That one. He nods in agreement as bartender Shane slides him a glass.
“Yes,” he takes a sip of the drink and it’s sparkling grapefruit water; sugar in it, “what about Jaxon?”
Mila shrugs. He’s all too familiar with that shrug, and he resents how she has probably learned this from him. His faults passed along to her. He drinks more of his sweetened pamplemousse and looks at Shane.
“Mila, did you want to get ready for bed?” Shane asks her, leaning over the counter and kissing her cheek, “I think Papa wants to talk with you when you’re ready.”
He watches as Mila sighs, then tilts her head into Shane’s kiss. Nods.
Ilya sips casually at his drink as Mila gets up and heads to her room. He makes eye contact with Shane and wants to cry when it happens. Shane is nodding, a little tense, but they’ve always been the best at non-verbal and his eyes are shiny and telling Ilya to go to Mila.
“You are so good at this,” Ilya whispers. Shane squeezes his bicep and then looks pointedly in the direction of her room. Because not only is Shane a good partner and dad, but he’s helping Ilya be a good dad, too.
__
Ilya gathers his courage and knocks on Mila’s door, enters after a faint Papa? comes.
“Milusha?” he asks pushing in and surveying the scene.
The lump under the blankets shifts, the glow of a phone-screen angles, and she dares to poke out more than just the crown of her head.
“Don’t wanna, Papa,” she mumbles. Her sweet dark eyes peek out from the covers. Don’t want to know what?
He reaches out for her gently, strokes her hair once.
Ilya wants to hug her. His baby. His girl. He would do anything for her; he knew it since the first time he saw her. He might have even known it before then, when adoption was just filling out forms. And she is hurting and Ilya and Shane are working really hard to fix it, but parenting is not something that he has a rulebook for.
“I wanted to explain what I was thinking before.”
Mila blinks at him.
He thumbs the side of his nose and sniffs. “I was speaking selfishly. That’s the best I can explain it. You know that I did not have a mom growing up, and my papa was not kind?”
He isn’t expecting her to answer, but Mila nods and snakes a hand out from the covers to his wrist.
Fuck. “That was life for me, but me and Dad –” he shakes his head. He can’t do this to their sweet girl who is holding his arm and making his heart twist.
“-- for me, the reason I freaked out at your outfit was because I was worried.” That’s the best he can do.
Mila sniffles. “Papa, something happened tonight. I was scared.”
All points of his emotions sharpen towards her, arrow-focused, “Do you want to talk about it? Did you tell Dad?”
“Yeah. I did, a little. But he said I should talk to you.”
Ilya doesn’t like this. “Okay.” He reaches out to the blankets, finds the part that is her shoulder, squeezes. “I am listening, Milusha.”
She steels her gaze. He looks at her, but she doesn’t say anything and looks watery-eyed, so he can’t resist a kiss to her hairline. “You don’t have to say. But if you want to, I am listening. And so is Dad.”
Mila sighs. She shifts and reaches a hand out from under the covers to hold his where its been resting on the outline of her shoulder.
“At the dance, Jake came up to me,” she whispers, avoiding his gaze and holding him harder. Her hand is bigger now, their thumbs can tangle together. Not a baby, still his girl. He rubs his larger one over hers. He doesn’t know who Jake is, but he’s thinking he really doesn’t like him. Not Jaxon, despite their similar names. Canadians.
“He wanted to dance with me, for the slow song? So I said yes because I was nervous that no one would want to dance with me for it,” she sighs again, gripping Ilya’s hand more.
“Everyone would want to dance with you,” he says, automatically. It’s probably hollow to her ears; he realizes this after he blurts it out. He means it. Very Shane of him. Or maybe very Ilya of him.
Mila wrinkles her nose, still peeking up from covers, save for the hand that’s trying to starve his left of bloodflow. “Shut up. You’re my dad, you have to say that.”
Ilya shakes his head, relenting. “Doesn’t mean it is not true. But – tell your story.”
“He was dancing with me for the first part, and I was kinda nervous, but then later in the song he just –” she closes her eyes, “-- he just moved his hand up over my –” Ass? Tits? Not the words she is searching for, certainly, because he and Shane have taught her they’re called bottoms and breasts.
“It made you uncomfortable and you didn’t like it?” Ilya asks, because the silence has gone on for too long and he doesn't want to guess aloud. He’s feeling sort of sick, stomach bubbly and scared. He thinks it really doesn’t matter if she wears a jacket or not; this is still the reality for women. For girls. For their 14-year-old daughter.
She nods, eyes opening to find his for only a moment. “Made me feel weird.”
Ilya doesn’t say anything right away. He can’t take in enough air. He fixes his gaze on their intertwined fingers. She’d painted her nails pink before the dance, but there’s a chip at the edge of her thumb, another on her index finger. He’ll ask her tomorrow if he can help repaint them.
“Then it was wrong. If he did not ask your permission. You know this.” They’ve only said this a thousand times. “Do you want me to call his parent? Or the school?”
“Or, if not,” he hurries on, “We can just talk about it. Or we can get a therapist for you. Like Dad and I have?” He’s probably catastrophizing. One style of their parenting they’ve both agreed on is openness, so she knows they both go to therapy.
They’d been through so many iterations of this conversation. Sometimes we go to the doctor, for check ups, Ilya had explained to her, for the first time, when she was five with hives and a concerning fever. Buckled her into her carseat as she cried. They aren’t scary; they want to make us feel better.
Shane had jumped in then, “Sometimes Papa and I go to doctors when we are feeling sad or scared. For when our feelings hurt.”
“I’m okay.” Mila sits up and releases her grip, using both hands to swipe over her eyes. Ilya tries (and fails) not to watch the thick beads of tears that escape from the edges.
“Okay. I understand. Dad understands, you know this already. But we are here. It is my mistake to ask about what you are wearing. That does not mean you invite men, when you don’t want them. So I am sorry for this, again. I did not mean this, but, it came out wrong.”
Mila nods again.
He sits for a bit longer while she doesn’t move. He tries to stay neutral, thumbing at the side of his nose. She doesn’t push him away and he doesn’t try to pretend like he knows what she’s experiencing.
__
“Okay,” he says finally, getting up, “Up. Dad will be making very late dinner for us, you cannot –”
“I’ll come,” Mila mumbles, moving quickly. She’s on her feet and her eyes are on her dresser.
Ilya freezes because he’s not about to mess this up. He doesn’t think he said half of anything right tonight. Still, somehow, it worked.
Mila pulls out a navy sweatshirt and grey pants, then turns, frowns. “Papa! I’m gonna change. And then come downstairs. Get out.”
Ilya holds up hands in surrender and backs out of the room. He grins to himself in the hallway.
He walks downstairs.
Shane is bent in front of the stove. He turns as Ilya enters, nervous smile at his lips.
Ilya surges in before he can think too hard about it. “Thank you.”
Shane turns, pressing lips to his temple. “Team effort,” he argues.
“Okay. Well. Thank you, team. And she is coming down for dinner now, sweatpants and all.”
And Shane gathers Ilya up in his arms.