Chapter Text
“Yeah, sure. I—” Shane’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Glad that he didn’t have to finish his sentence, he pulled it out and glanced at the screen, where an unknown number indicated a call from New York City. “I have to take this. Can you take Nicky?”
“Sure,” Ilya said, still grinning, taking Nicky out of Shane’s lap. “Kolyusha, Idi syuda, papa.”
Shane rushed out of the room and tapped the green button. “Hello?”
“Hello, Shane,” a deep voice said, sending an unpleasant shiver through Shane’s whole body. “This is Roger Crowell.”
Commissioner Roger Crowell… Shane sighed and scolded himself for taking the call. Crowell was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.
“Hello, sir,” Shane said, scolding himself a second time, this time for adding the “sir.”
“How are you? How is the baby?” Crowell’s tone sounded neutral, like he just wanted to chat. But a man like Crowell never called to just chat.
“Fine…” Shane said, trying to keep his tone equally neutral. He walked a few more steps into the hallway and leaned his shoulder against the guest bathroom door. “What can I do for you?”
“That’s nice to hear. Glad the baby’s doing well.”
“He is.” Shane rested his head against the door. What the fuck did Crowell want from him?
“Well, well, about the baby—”
“His name is Nikolai,” Shane interrupted.
“Sure, yes. About Nikolai. There are a few things that have come to my attention.”
Shane sighed, but Crowell kept talking. “You’ve been seen using a baby wrap while in your game day tuxedo…” He paused, then emphasized his next words as if Shane had been caught doing a line of cocaine from a prostitute’s ass. “There are photos!”
“What? Um… Yes, but…it’s easier to carry a baby that way.” Shane dug his nails into his palms. Why was he defending himself for carrying his son?
“You cannot do this,” Crowell’s voice had risen to a yell, and Shane imagined him spitting all over his desk.
“Why not? I’m sure there isn’t any rule against it.”
“Of course there isn’t, because no one with any sense would do that. And now we have to add one because Mr. Hollander thinks he can make his own rules.”
“Ah. And why—”
“And I heard you’re regularly bringing your baby to practice. What kind of bullshit is this? A baby doesn’t belong in a rink or a gym. A baby belongs with its mother.” He hesitated, then continued, unbothered, “Or its nanny or whatever.”
“Or his dad?” Shane suggested. “And it’s not bullshit. It’s because he doesn’t accept being separated from me for too long.”
Fuck.
“He. Is. A. Baby!” Crowell now screamed even more forcefully. “Since when does a baby get to decide? Just put him with a nanny, like normal people do.”
“I don’t think normal—”
“There are plenty of other players in the league who are fathers, and they all manage it. They don’t bring their brats to practice, and they certainly don’t wear a baby wrap over their tuxedo.”
“First, my child is not a brat, and second—”
“Take your former teammate Hayden Pike,” Crowell talked over him. “He has four kids. Two of them are even twins. And did I ever see him with a baby strapped to him while he wore a tuxedo?” He didn’t stop to let Shane answer. “No. Of course I didn’t. Because he knows what is professional and appropriate, and what has to stay private. Bad enough that you are two—” Crowell abruptly stopped.
Shane stared at his hand, where his nails dug even harder into the flesh, half-expecting to see blood. “Bad enough we are two what? Two men having a baby?”
Crowell hesitated for a second before answering. “No. That is not what I said. We are open about that. Hockey is inclusive. Hockey is for everyone.” His voice lacked any emotion, making his statement sound as if it had been memorized and repeated far too often. “Of course two men can have a baby. But why do I pay you millions of dollars if you don’t spend them on a nanny?”
Shane considered replying that it wasn’t Crowell who paid them, but it was pointless anyway.
“Also, you’re not at your peak, hockey-wise. The baby clearly affects your athleticism and skill. And this is a problem. A major problem.”
Shane swallowed hard, hating that Crowell actually had a point.
“And it doesn’t give a good impression that your…husband,” he said as if he was talking about a particularly disgusting insect, “…That your husband speaks Russian with the baby. In public!”
A wave of nausea washed over Shane. He opened the bathroom door and lowered himself onto the closed toilet seat. “What…What is wrong with speaking Russian? And speaking Russian in public?”
“Nothing is wrong with speaking Russian. It’s just that…people are talking.”
Shane’s stomach knotted some more. “People are talking because Ilya speaks his native language with his son?”
“Shane, you know how things are.”
“No, I don’t know how things are. But if you care what…people…are saying, you’re obviously pretty racist.”
“Don’t you dare call me a racist. Lots of my friends are… black. Also, Rozanov is white, so that can’t be racist.”
“Oh my god,” Shane threw his head back in such frustration that he painfully banged it against the wall. “Mr. Crowell—”
“Roger,” Crowell interrupted.
“Mr. Crowell, I’m sorry, but we’d better end this call.”
“Shane!” Crowell’s sharp tone left no doubt that he meant exactly what he said. “I’m giving you one last warning. You have to decide if you want to be a professional athlete…or a mother.”
Shane barely managed to press the red button on his phone and lift the toilet lid before vomiting every single drop of his breakfast shake.