Archive of Our Own

Ottawa

Yuna Hollander has always loved hockey, from the first time her father sat her in front of a television screen to watch a game after dinner. He wanted her life to be as easy as possible, and he did what he could to assimilate his family into Canadian culture. Even now, as a parent herself, Yuna can’t quite find it in herself to resent it. Coming into a new country with a new language and trying to find a place among peers who could see that she wasn't one of them was hard, and she knows her father was only doing what he thought was best for them. 

Hockey wasn’t the first or the last Canadian experience her father brought into their family, but it is the one that stuck. It’s a harsh sport, brutal at times, and it’s as white as the city she’d grown up in, but it was much easier to understand than her classmates or the new languages she had to learn. She tried her hand at playing the game and didn’t get very far with it. She enjoyed being behind the scenes more than she enjoyed being on the ice, although she still indulges in both. 

Her father had been right. Yuna learned English without an accent, and she learned French just as well, but nothing convinced people she was Canadian as effectively as a demonstration of her hockey knowledge. It was one thing she looked forward to passing on to her own children. 

-

The day Shane was born was long and miserable and the best day of Yuna Hollander’s life. She and David had tried a long time for a baby, and they'd wanted more than one, but the pregnancy was difficult enough that they knew they couldn't do it again. They discussed adoption as an option, but when Yuna held Shane in her arms, she knew he was all she'd ever need. She’s never regretted that decision. She held him in her arms and knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her son.

Shane was young the first time they got him on the ice, and the second his blades touched down, Yuna saw him light up in a way she’d never seen before. Watching him find his footing, Yuna couldn’t help but remember him learning to walk, how he would cry every time he fell and ball his hands into tiny, frustrated fists. Falling on the ice never seemed to frustrate him that much, but it wasn’t long before he stopped falling with any regularity. He took to the ice like a fish to water. 

Hockey didn’t save Shane from alienation. Ottawa may not be as white as it was when Yuna was growing up, but it’s still Canada. Shane sticks out because he’s Asian, because he’s quiet, because he’s a bit odd. He stands out more because he’s a phenomenal hockey player. Yuna does everything she can to be sure that people focus on that first. 

Yuna knows she’s sometimes more serious than other parents, but she only means to take Shane seriously, and to be sure others do the same. He was a good enough student that he could've gone to McGill like David, if that was what he wanted, but Shane never wanted anything but hockey. As his mother, Yuna did everything in her power to support him in that. David made sure they kept money set aside for college, and they both helped Shane with applications, but after the first invitation to the International Prospect Cup, they knew it wasn’t necessary.

-

After the IPC, speculation about Shane’s prospects gets louder. Most everyone is convinced he’ll find himself near the top of the draft; no one doubts that he’ll make his way in the MLH.

Yuna knows Shane is disappointed to go second, and she shares that disappointment with him. He's been dreaming of this for so long, and she knows how he feels about things going off script. He gets that from her. Underneath the empathy, though, she's glad Shane went second, if it meant going to Montreal. She's been trying to prepare herself for the possibility of her son in another country, unreachable to her in many ways, and she's almost made her peace with it, but Montreal will be better. It's not a guarantee for the rest of his career, but they're not going to trade away their first draft pick in his rookie season. Not when he plays like Shane does. If he gets moved later, they'll have eased the transition with a team close to home. Shane’s always hated change. He gets that from her, too.

-

Yuna has her eyes on Ilya Rozanov long before he’s drafted ahead of Shane. She watches him at the IPC and sits with Shane as he goes through hours of game tape before and after they meet on the ice. When Shane comes to her after meeting the kid and describes Ilya as “kind of a dick”, Yuna can’t read the tone of his voice. He doesn’t seem upset or offended. If anything, he seems intrigued. Regardless of what they think of each other, Yuna is sure Shane and Rozanov will be present in each other’s lives for a long time. 

After the draft, Shane seems much more annoyed at any mention of Rozanov than he has before, but he doesn’t have any more harsh words for him like one might expect. He spends more time watching tape of Rozanov’s games, rewinding and rewatching certain moves over and over. It gets to the point that David asks her if they should be concerned about the fixation, but Yuna isn’t worried. Shane’s used to being the best; it’s been a long time since he’s had someone who can challenge him like this. She’ll never admit it to Shane, but she thinks this might be good for him. 

-

As soon as Shane’s drafted, Yuna doesn’t hesitate to begin seriously courting brands for partnerships. She’s got a lawyer on retainer, and she’s done a good amount of studying contract law herself in preparation for this. She tries to talk to Shane about it, but he mostly just agrees with her. He won’t enjoy photoshoots and brand deals very much, but he recognizes them as part of the deal as a professional hockey player. He’s never had the privilege of not considering how others see him, and he trusts Yuna to help him manage his image with his priorities in mind. 

It’s disappointing when CCM elects to work with Rozanov, but it’s not terribly surprising. He’s the number one draft pick, and CCM is the number one hockey equipment supplier in North America. Yuna has other irons in the fire for Shane. It is surprising that, weeks after the partnership with Rozanov is announced, they receive an email from their marketing director inviting Shane to join Rozanov in their campaign. 

Yuna reads over the email a few times as she considers it. She’s not surprised the league is interested in the rivalry angle the email suggests, and she can admit it compels her. Shane appreciates a healthy challenge, and it’s not hard to see how different he and Rozanov are on paper. It’ll be easy to sell. It also gives Shane something to be known for that’s entirely about the game. Rivalry narratives are as old as the game itself, a fundamental element of hockey, and disconnected from the diversity initiatives Yuna knows Shane will spend a lot of his time on. Being Ilya Rozanov’s rival won’t save Shane from having to play model minority, but it gives the media and fans something else to talk about. 

She’s unsure how to approach Shane about the change, but she’s his manager now, and that’s her job, so she does it anyway, as professionally as she can manage. She shouldn’t have worried. Shane gets a little furrow between his eyebrows before his face flattens out again, but he seems receptive to her explanation of why it’s a good move for him to take part in the ad campaign, and he doesn’t seem bothered at all by the prospect of seeing Rozanov again. 

Yuna emails CCM’s marketing director back to confirm their attendance and prepares herself for Shane’s first serious ad campaign as a representative of the MLH. 

Toronto

Yuna doesn’t expect to go with Shane to all of his photoshoots—contrary to popular belief, she does have a life outside of her son—but the CCM shoot is significant, and Shane doesn’t have any protests about her presence. He’s still finding his footing, and while there is this much money on the table, she knows she should at least be on hand. 

She doesn’t watch the actual filming. She stays for the beginning of it, watches Shane and Rozanov work together on the ice to get the shots the creative team wants, but a long day in an oddly lit hockey rink watching Shane go through basic drills isn’t something Yuna wants to spend all of her time on. She’ll go through the proofs before and after everything is sent off for the final editing; she was very clear on that before Shane signed the contract. She’s taught Shane well to act appropriately in this setting. There’s nothing to worry about. If she says it enough, maybe it will feel true.

The truth is, Yuna wants terribly to stay in the rink for the filming, but she’s trying to prepare herself for the upcoming year, when Shane will have to face down the media and opposing players without her to back him up. Montreal is so much closer than she’d feared he’d find himself, but it’s not Ottawa. 

-

David came to Toronto with them, but he wanted to visit the Toronto Railway Museum, so Yuna gets some work done in their room while he does that. She’s never been one for trains. She’ll go with Shane to the Hockey Hall of Fame if she wants to see a museum. She doesn’t sit around in her room all day, but she gets a lot of work done. They have a lovely lunch in the park, finding some shade underneath the trees. David’s eyes on her tell her he knows exactly how nervous she is about the shoot and about Shane’s insistence that he can do it on his own, but he doesn’t say anything. They’ll talk about it later, but for now, he sits with her, content to listen to her musings about the upcoming season. 

It’s later than she expects when she gets a text from Shane letting her know that they’ve wrapped filming, and she’s quick to respond with an invitation for him to join her and David for dinner, to discuss the events of the day. It’s a few minutes before she hears back from Shane, telling her that he’s going to stay in tonight, maybe order room service. She doesn’t protest. Shane has had a long day, and it’s not that surprising that he wants time to himself. He’s an adult now, she reminds herself, and soon he’ll be eating room service in hotels across Canada and the US, only seeing her and David when he has a game against Ottawa or when they travel to see him. When he hangs up, she collapses backward onto her hotel bed. 

“Everything alright?” David asks her.

She turns her head to look at him where he’s sitting at the hotel desk. 

“He’s growing up, David.”

David smiles.

“He already has.”

-

Yuna doesn’t mope. She’s not going to be one of those moms who doesn’t know what to do with herself without their child, and Shane isn’t even really gone yet. She tells David they’re going out for dinner, even if Shane insists on staying in. She found a few interesting restaurants in her search before the trip, and if it’s just the two of them, they won’t be restricted to establishments that will accommodate Shane’s already intense performance diet. David goes down ahead of her to get the car, and on her way down, she sees Rozanov in an elevator. She hasn’t actually interacted with the kid in person yet, and in the moment, she recognizes it as an oversight. He looks younger in his street clothes, she thinks, somewhat nonsensically. He is young, the same age as Shane. The stilted conversation they manage before the elevator doors close isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but she shakes it off. Shane is safe in his room and is asking not to be disturbed. Ilya Rozanov is just one of many players Shane will compete and win against in his career. Yuna can turn off mom mode, turn off manager mode, and enjoy dinner with her husband. When the next elevator comes, Yuna steps onto it and resolves to not think anything of it. She’s sure she’ll have occasion to meet Rozanov another time. 

-

Yuna makes it an hour and a half into her morning before she calls Shane. He’s an early riser, like her and David, and she knows she won’t be waking him up. They really do need to discuss yesterday’s shoot. 

“Hi Mom,” Shane says when he picks up. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she greets him. “I wanted to make sure we’re on for breakfast. I’d like to debrief about how everything went yesterday and to go over the next steps as laid out in the contract. Your father’s got another museum on the agenda; you know how bored he gets with the legal stuff. I don’t know how that bores him when he deals with numbers all day at work, but it could be a good opportunity for us.”

David is really going to the museum to give Yuna some time with Shane with the least amount of possible variables, she knows, but her words aren’t really a lie. He is going to a museum, and he is bored to death whenever she starts getting into contract law. He’s just also trying to be considerate.

Shane says, “Yeah, Mom, that sounds good,” but his voice is weird, almost absent. It’s hard to tell; Yuna doesn’t often speak with him on the phone. She’s going to have to get used to it, with Shane in Montreal for most of the year. She takes a deep breath, banishing the thought.

“Meet in the lobby in half an hour?” she confirms. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you then. Love you, Mom.”

“I love you too.”

-

Yuna’s sure Shane is trying his best to follow along with the explanation she gives him of the terms of his contract, but the third time she notices his eyes glaze over, she tries a different subject. They can get into the legalese after they’ve eaten.

She considers how she might get his attention back. 

“I ran into Rozanov in the elevator,” she says. “How was he yesterday? Not too aggressive, I hope.”

Shane snaps back into focus but doesn’t respond to her words. 

“Mom, I'm gay.” 

That is… not what she expected. Shane looks as surprised by the words as she is, and Yuna knows she must look ridiculous for a moment until she closes her mouth. His eyes flick up to hers nervously, and she reaches out to rest her hand on his where it sits on the table. 

“Thank you for telling me,” she manages. “You know me and your dad, we love you no matter what.”

She tries to keep her voice warm and firm at the same time, and tries not to panic as Shane's eyes fill with tears. He doesn't cry, doesn't let the tears fall from where they're gathered, but he's clearly upset, and she knows they shouldn't be doing this here. The cafe is empty this early, other than the two of them, but it's a public building. Even if he’s telling her with the intention of coming out, this isn’t how it should happen. If the way his breath is coming out, shallow and fast, and the color his face is turning is any indication, he has no intention of coming out publicly any time soon. Yuna’s not sure he even meant to come out to her. 

“Listen, let’s take this to go and head back to the hotel,” she says. “I'm going to pay; I'll meet you outside, okay?” 

Shane nods sharply, and Yuna squeezes his hand before standing and doing as she said. He needs a more private location for this conversation. Yuna tries to take the spare second as she pays their bill to gather herself, taking a deep breath and blinking away some tears of her own. Her first reaction, as it has always been with Shane, is a rush of love and wonder. Shane has shared a part of himself with her, and she’s always grateful to learn more pieces of him. That emotion is followed closely by fear. Other people wouldn't be so happy to learn this part of him. They have spent the last decade of their lives working toward the MLH. It’s hard enough for a young Asian man to navigate the infamously bigoted organization; how hard would it be for him as a gay Asian man? The barista gives her the receipt, and Yuna smiles as she wishes him a good day. Shane is waiting for her in the car. 

“I'm sorry, Mom,” he says when she slides in next to him. “I'm really sorry. I want you to know I tried. Jessica and Emma and—I promise, Mom, I tried.”

His breathing is still shallow, and Yuna curses herself for leaving him alone to sit in this anxiety. The first tear falls down his face, and Yuna has to reach across the console to cradle it in her hands. Despite the worst fears his words have triggered within her, he leans into her hand for comfort, and she nearly cries with relief. She might still cry. 

“I love you,” she tells him, firm and sure.

His face shudders and the tears keep falling.

“Look at me,” she says.

He looks up to her face, if not her eyes, and that’s close enough.

“I love you,” she repeats. “I never need you to be anyone other than exactly who you are. And I’m so proud of you.”

Her voice cracks a bit on the last words, and then they’re hugging awkwardly over the console, and Yuna is running a hand over his hair like she has a million times before as he cries into her shoulder. 

When they pull apart, Yuna makes Shane drink some water as she smooths out her makeup in the rearview mirror. They pull themselves together, and she pulls out of the car park. They can get into the business implications of all this later, but there are other answers she’d like to have sooner.

“Are you going to tell your father?” she asks. She hopes her tone is neutral enough that there’s no indication of her preference. She really doesn’t want to keep this from David, but she will, for Shane.

Shane shrugs, or maybe just shifts in his seat, then, realizing she can’t really catch the subtleties of his gestures while also watching the road, he clears his throat. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I think so.” 

“You know he’ll say the same thing I did,” Yuna reassures him. “We love you, Shane. That’s not conditional. And we’re so happy you’re willing to share this part of yourself with us.”

Shane’s head moves slightly, and she chances a glance at him. His eyes are closed, and his hands are open on his thighs, tense but not gripping. His breath seems calmer than it had been. Yuna reaches a hand over to grip his shoulder briefly in reassurance. 

“It’s going to be okay, Shane.”

-

David is surprised to see them back so soon, but he catches their expressions and stands from where he was working at the desk. Without any words, he comes over to place a hand on Shane’s shoulder, gauging if Shane is up for a hug. Shane looks a bit miserable, but when David puts his hand on his shoulder, Shane leans into it, and David wraps his arms around him. Yuna watches as Shane’s knuckles turn white from his grip on David’s back, and Yuna knows her husband well enough to know he’s returning it just as fiercely. She locks the door behind her and starts unpacking her bag, pulls out her laptop and notebook, and sits on the bed. When Shane and David finally pull apart, David pulls a chair over for Shane and sits on the bed next to her. 

“Did something happen at the shoot yesterday?” David asks.

It’s a fair question, but it seems to surprise Shane, his eyes widening and mouth dropping open before Yuna corrects David.

“It’s not about the shoot,” she says. 

She looks to Shane, trying to understand if he’s up for this discussion now or if they should offer vague reassurance to David now and clarify later. Shane looks back at her and then at David.

“I’m gay,” he says.

The words come out smoother this time around, and David’s expression doesn’t betray any surprise. 

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Shane asks. 

“Okay, thank you for telling me. I love you. Is that what has you so upset?”

Shane’s mouth opens wordlessly again and then snaps shut. 

“Uh, yeah,” Shane confirms. “I think maybe I’m overwhelmed?”

David nods. 

“That makes sense. Is this new to you?”

“Um, I don’t know? I think maybe, maybe I had an idea. The way the guys talk about women, I just, I don’t get that at all. I tried to just do what everyone else was doing and see if I could figure it out, but I never could. Jessica was nice, and she liked me, but it still didn’t make any sense to me. I thought maybe I just didn’t want any of it, but I think—” Shane cuts off that sentence and shakes his head slightly. 

“I’m gay,” he says, and the words are more sure than they have been yet. He looks up at David and Yuna, and Yuna curses herself for choosing a seat that places them above him, even if it’s so minor. 

“That does sound overwhelming,” David says. “Do you want to talk about it or do you want some time to calm down?”

Shane’s body relaxes a little at the question, his shoulders slumping and his body leaning into the back of his chair. 

“I think I’ve talked about it enough today.”

-

They spend the afternoon at the Railway Museum, David offering a tour inspired by everything he learned on his first visit, and Yuna and Shane enjoy a rare occasion of David filling the silence while they sit with their thoughts. She’s sure David knows they’re not really listening to him, and she’s also sure he doesn’t mind. They have dinner together in their hotel room, and when Shane leaves for his own, Yuna collapses on the bed, David not far behind. She doesn’t know about him, but she’s exhausted from the emotions of the day. Finally, nestled peacefully against David, she cries for real. David lets her cry for a while, wrapping his big arms around her and rubbing her back in that soothing way of his, but eventually he slows in his movements. 

“Yuna?” he prompts, and Yuna knows he needs to know why she's crying. He knows she’s not homophobic, knows it’s been a long day, but he needs to be sure they’re on the same page about this. Yuna understands that. 

“He apologized to me, David, “ she tells him. “He said he was sorry and he looked so scared. What if I'm the reason he's only telling us now?”

What if all the management and support she saw as encouragement, Shane saw as stifling. What if he thought she loved him for hockey, and not for the person he is? What if she made him think she needed him to be anything other than exactly who he is and everything he’ll grow to be. What was it she did that made him feel unsafe sharing this with her? She needs to know so she can never do it again. 

“I'm sure that's not true,” David says, warm and confident. “He said he just figured it out for sure, and it sounds like he told us right away.”

“What if I made him think he couldn't before? What if I made him doubt himself?”

David's arms tighten around her as he rocks her carefully back and forth. Yuna tries to burrow into his chest. 

“I think there are a lot of reasons Shane didn't figure this out right away,” David says after a moment.  “Maybe we were a part of that, and maybe we weren't. If he tells us we did something that made it harder for him, we’ll apologize, and we won’t do it again. But, Yuna, he came to us. Tomorrow, we can make a plan, decide what it looks like to support him moving forward. Right now, you need to get some rest.”

David is right. She rarely admits it, but he usually is. 

-

Yuna meets Shane for breakfast again the next morning before they hit the road, insisting on discussing how this new information will inform their media strategies and marketing plan. They need to support him, and this is a part of it, whether David or Shane likes it or not. She needs to know how they’re moving forward with this. She has some ideas. 

They have breakfast in her room, having learned their lesson yesterday. Yuna’s been awake for hours, but she packs away the evidence of her sleeplessness before he makes his way down to the room, leaving out only her laptop, a legal pad, and the hotel pen. She closes the laptop when he arrives. 

“How did you sleep?” she asks.

“Good,” he says automatically. “Um, yeah, good. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s grabbing breakfast with Paul, do you remember him? One of his old teammates from McGill. He wanted to pass along his congratulations, by the way.”

Shane nods.

“Right, I’ll have Dad thank him for me.” He stands with his thumbs in his pockets and his eyes dart around the room. “So…”

“So,” Yuna says, gesturing to the chair across from her, “let’s talk business. Do you want to start with the shoot or long-term strategies?”

“Long-term strategies? What would that even be?”

“Well, Shane, there’s never been an openly gay player in the MLH before. We need to have a plan for how we’re going to approach this. It might be smart to get someone else on board, an agent who might have more context than I do.”

Shane is shaking his head before she finishes talking. She sighs.

“We need to at least have some contingencies for what happens if it leaks,” she tells him.

“It’s not going to get out,” he insists.

“Shane, honey, anyone you’re with for the next twenty years could have loose lips. Anyone you tell at all has the potential to expose you.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell anyone, and I’m not going to be with anyone, so it won’t be a problem.”

Yuna rears back physically from Shane’s words.

“No, honey, that’s so sad,” she protests. “Your strategy can’t be to hide who you are for the next twenty years.”

The thought of it is horrible. She imagines watching Shane as he is now, shrinking in on himself at the thought of the road ahead of him. She thinks of him doing that for another decade, for two. She can’t let that happen. Everything she’s read says that coming out is a personal thing, that only the person themselves can make that decision, but she hates this. He had told them just last night that it wasn’t that he doesn’t want a partner, just that he doesn’t want a woman. She doesn’t want him to spend half his life wanting for something he can’t have.

“Could be twenty-five,” Shane says. He’s thought about this already. “But what’s the alternative? I’m not ready to be, like, a gay role model. And I don’t want to be the gay rookie. I don’t even really know if I’m gay gay, you know? Like maybe I could still…” he trails off as if unable to suggest that he still might fall in love with a woman. He never could lie to her. 

She reaches over to place a hand on his. 

“You don't have to know everything right now,” Yuna assures him. “And you don’t have to come out to anyone if you’re not ready, especially not the press. But there are some decisions we should make now. We need contingencies, and there are more nuanced considerations as well. For example, I want to be sure that the brands we’re courting aren’t ones who will drop you the second the news breaks.”

Shane is quiet for a moment before he nods in understanding, head still ducked to hide his face from her. She squeezes his hand before pulling away to make a note in her notebook. 

“Maybe we start with the CCM contract,” she offers. “It’s not a full sponsorship, but I reviewed the contract, and there’s definitely nothing that they could do legally to drop you from the campaign. I’ll be sure to review that more closely with upcoming partnerships. I don’t know if CCM would be my first choice for a major contract, given how quiet they’ve been on this front, but there’s nothing so egregious that it came up in my research, so it’s not off the table.” 

“I’m a hockey player first, Mom,” Shane says. 

Out of context, the statement may seem random, but it’s an old argument, one that usually pops up in discussions about diversity initiatives, and Yuna holds in a sigh. She knows that, and she knows how important it is to Shane. But there are realities they have to face. 

“Of course,” she reassures Shane. “No one will doubt that, especially after you hit the ice for your first game in the majors. You’re a generational talent, Shane, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also a person. It doesn’t mean you’re not also Asian-Canadian, and it doesn’t mean you’re not also gay. CCM is a good place to start establishing yourself as a serious player, and the stills I’ve seen so far look fantastic, but they are feeding into the MLH narrative here, capitalizing on the rivalry narrative. We need to be prepared for the possibility that they toe the line with the league, even in the case that the league doesn’t support you.”

She’s prepared for more protests, even an expression of fear about the future, but she isn’t prepared for Shane to say, almost offhandedly, “that was Rozanov’s idea.”

Yuna pauses, confused. 

“What was Rozanov’s idea?” 

Not the rivalry; that was an extremely transparent marketing ploy. 

“Bringing me in for the shoot. Rozanov suggested it.”

Shane isn’t meeting her eyes. 

“Why would…” 

Yuna can feel her eyebrows furrow as she thinks back on the last forty-eight hours. There’s something she’s missing here. Shane is gay. Shane has thought he might not be attracted to women for a while, but yesterday he knew for sure. Yesterday, after spending the day filming on the ice with Ilya Rozanov, the only hockey player his age on the ice right now who could possibly compete with him. Nothing has ever excited Shane like hockey does, and Yuna’s heard enough variations of “if you love hockey so much, why don’t you marry it” thrown at Shane through the years that this shouldn’t be as surprising as it is. 

“Shane, I’m going to ask you a question, and if you don’t want to answer it, we can move on, okay?”

Shane nods, a small, sharp movement that tells Yuna she’s on the right track.

“What you told us yesterday, does that have anything to do with Ilya Rozanov?”

“What, uh, I mean, why would you ask that?”

He’s not shutting the topic down entirely, so Yuna pushes on.

“Well, you told us you had some kind of realization the other day, after spending all day at the shoot with him, and—” 

Oh god. Yuna flashes back to that evening, the awkward smile Rozanov had offered her in the elevator, the oddly manic edge to his expression, and she thinks about Shane’s hotel door, right by the elevator, a couple floors above her own room. “Oh god, the elevator.”

“The elevator?”

“When your father and I went down for dinner, I ran into Ilya Rozanov in the elevator, and I didn’t think anything of it; I mean, it would make sense that they put the two of you on the same floor…”

Shane's face turns red, and he buries it in his hands.  

“Right,” Yuna says, trying not to embarrass either of them further, “we don’t have to talk about this right now—”

“Yes,” Shane says, voice muffled.

“Yes?”

He brings his hands back down and looks at her, face a brighter red than she’s ever seen on him. 

“Yes, this is about Rozanov,” he says. “He was coming to see me, that’s—when you ran into him in the elevator, he was coming to see me.”

Yuna takes in a breath, holds in her reaction. Ilya Rozanov was going up to her son’s hotel room last night. Her son, who is an adult and capable of making adult decisions all on his own, she reminds herself. This wasn’t an aspect of being his manager that she’d expected to be quite as relevant, managing his personal relationships. She wonders whether she needs to reconsider the decisions he’ll have to make about sharing intimate details with her as his manager that he might not want to share with her as his mom, if there are other systems they should put in place for situations like these. 

“I don’t—” Shane’s eyes dart around the room before settling on the table between them and boring a hole through it. “If we couldn’t even do it once without someone seeing, I don’t…”

And Yuna understands. He’s scared. Shane is gay, and he’s about to be a very high-profile player in the MLH, and he’s scared.  But he is also Yuna Hollander’s son. 

Yuna squares her shoulders, places her hand back on his, and waits for his eyes to dart momentarily up to hers again.

“We can make this work,” she promises. She doesn’t promise that she can keep him safe. She’s still scared that she can’t. But she won’t hold him back from being himself, and she won’t let who he is hold him back in the hockey world, not if there’s anything she can do about it. She pushes the part of her that is Shane’s mother further down and clicks her pen. 

“This thing with Rozanov, is it a one-time thing?”

“I mean, yeah, probably. Yes. Does it matter? I’m gay either way.”

“Well, it does change things if you’re trying to maintain a relationship with someone who lives in Boston. It’s close enough to New York that we could go for some more US brand partnerships, see if we can get you some shoots down there so you have a reason to see him more often.”

Shane is staring at her like she’s an alien. 

“I, uh, I don’t think it’s going to be that serious.”

“Well, it might be worth talking to him about. He did arrange for this whole thing, apparently; it doesn’t exactly scream disinterest.” 

Shane’s turning red again and Yuna waits him out. She considers what she knows about Rozanov, which at this point isn’t much. He’s Shane’s competitor, the only one who can come close to Shane on the ice. When he was chosen first at the draft, Yuna had resolved to dislike him forever, for Shane’s sake, but he hasn’t actually done anything to inspire her animosity. He’s just a kid, really, no older than Shane. It would be dangerous for the two of them to carry on with a romantic relationship, but maybe it would be good for Shane to have someone who can understand him like this. 

“Can we talk about literally anything else?” Shane pleads.

They can’t really avoid both Rozanov’s and Shane’s sexuality entirely, so Yuna does the best she can and turns to the email she’d received from CCM and shows it to Shane, all the proofs and early edits included. The message containing the footage is complimentary, thanking Shane for his participation and his professionalism. It also includes a note that, while Shane and Rozanov’s behavior behind the scenes did cause a longer shoot than they anticipated, they’re excited about the footage they were able to capture. Yuna would be curious about the phrasing if Shane hadn’t told her what he already has. Instead, she smiles as she sees the words she read earlier about how excited the marketing team is to have both Ilya and Shane on the project and how it’s so “great to work with such elite athletes at the beginning of their career.” They lucked out with a young ad team, Yuna thinks. She asks Shane about it anyway.

“I will admit I was surprised by the description of ‘giddy on-set behavior,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

Shane raises a hand to rub at his eyebrow before catching himself, but he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the pictures of him and Rozanov on screen. 

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says.

“Did something happen or was it just…” Yuna lets her words trail off, leaving the space open for Shane. 

“Well, the idea was for Ilya and me to be staring each other down in face-off position and to just kind of stay like that. I don’t know, it was kind of hard to be serious while staring at a deeply unserious scene partner who kept—” Shane cuts himself off with a small smile. “We just kept laughing.” 

Yuna tries to imagine it: Shane in a room full of strangers, unable to hold in his laughter. He’s usually so tense at official events, or any situation where he’s not at home or actively playing hockey. It sounds like Rozanov was a good influence. She thinks if she says that to Shane directly, he might actually shut down.

“That might be something worth exploring,” she muses. 

“It sounds like the producers liked your chemistry, even if it wasn’t what they originally imagined. Even if you and Rozanov aren’t going to…” she gestures vaguely with the hand holding her pen. “It would probably be best if we avoid pushing the rivalry storyline too far, all things considered. And maybe we can feel out how much independence the brand is interested in having from the league in terms of messaging. We’ll have to run it past Rozanov’s people, of course, but I think this could really work.”

Shane squints. 

“I don’t think Rozanov has people,” he says.

Yuna smiles. If that’s his only protest, she’s good to go.

“What about his father?” she asks. “He came with him to the draft.”

“Yeah, but not to Canada,” Shane says. “I’m pretty sure he was here alone.”

That’s not unreasonable. Moscow is much farther from Toronto than Ottawa is, but surely someone from Boston, or someone Ilya hired, would have come along. It’s his first ad shoot in a country he’s visited twice. 

“He didn’t even have a translator with him? I mean his English is very good, but it’s still not his first language and with everything he had to manage this weekend…” 

Shane shrugs. 

“I don’t know, Mom, we didn’t really talk about it.”

Yuna’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole. She does not need to know what they did or did not talk about. She turns the laptop back to herself to see who else is cc’ed on the original thread, only to find Shane, Rozanov, a PR rep from each team, herself, and Shane’s lawyer. That can’t be right. 

“I can reach out to Rozanov,” she says. “See if I can get more information from him. But if he does have a small or less involved team, what’s your read on him? You think he would agree to the shift? He did ask for you to come on; do you think his contract includes some kind of creative control?”

“I don’t know. Um, I think,” Shane buries his head in his hands again and mutters a curse she doubts he expects her to hear before saying, “I think he arranged it to see me.”

Yuna purses her lips so she won’t laugh. How on earth does Shane think whatever happened between him and Rozanov was a one-time thing? Electing to invite your rival to a lucrative ad campaign just so that you can flirt is not casual behavior.

“I think that’s a good sign,” she says as neutrally as she can. It might mean that Rozanov has no creative control, but that he offered to share the spotlight and CCM jumped at the opportunity. It might also mean that Rozanov took a pay cut for an excuse to see Shane again. Who is managing this kid? “Let me reach out, and we can see about shifting the narrative before it gets ahead of us.”

Shane is beyond ready to be done with the conversation, so Yuna drafts up an email right then, one to Rozanov asking who to contact on his behalf, and a premature one that can go off to the ad team, requesting a meeting to discuss reorienting the campaign. She’s sure to express her respect for their creative expertise and to highlight the opportunity presented in the footage they mentioned. With Shane’s permission, she offers to have him provide additional voiceover as needed. Rozanov emails back immediately from his iPhone with a “Boston PR is in email. Is just her and me,” and Yuna doesn’t even yell about it. She just sends her request off to the contacts on the original thread, and starts planning in earnest. This campaign is just the start. 

Boston

The campaign goes remarkably well. CCM is happy to work with Yuna’s ideas, and once she sees more of the footage, she’s not surprised. They’ll be able to generate much more content from a friendly angle than they would about the rivalry. The CCM team shared all of their raw footage with her, and Yuna can’t stop watching it. The order of events is so clear: Shane is serious and stoic as he goes through his solo shots, Rozanov the same. Shane maintains the serious tone through some of the shared shots, an air of discomfort around him, but Rozanov pulls him out of his shell rather quickly, getting Shane to smile and laugh and loosen up. Yuna has the strangest urge to thank Rozanov, to express her gratitude to him for giving Shane the camaraderie he’s so rarely offered with his peers. It’s lonely at the top, she thinks, hard to be friends with teammates who are often resentful of his talent. As strange as it may seem, Ilya Rozanov may be the only one who can really offer Shane the friendship she wants for him. 

The end result is beautiful, for a hockey gear ad. The main piece is a video which starts with Shane and Ilya skating toward each other on the ice, staring each other down, interspersed with scenes of them skating and shooting, looking serious, until they meet at center ice, staring intently at one another. Then, in voiceover, the producer yells cut, and they both burst into laughter, leaning even further into their bent-over positions with Ilya gripping onto Shane’s shoulder so as to not fall over. The rest of the video is a montage of them laughing and bumping into each other, clearly having a good time, which fades into a black screen with the CCM logo, then fades again into another dark screen with the campaign tagline: “leave it all on the ice.” There is a voiceover Shane and Rozanov had provided after the fact, a basic script about how rivalry is about respect. 

Yuna loves it. It reminds her a bit of All-Stars promotions, which isn’t an association she’ll protest. It presents Shane as she wants him to be seen: as an elite hockey player on the ice and as a good man off of it. 

Shane takes so long to respond to the proof when she sends it to him that she almost calls him, but he eventually sends back two short lines. “Looks good. Do I need to give the go-ahead?” Yuna stares at the text and thinks about the time it had taken him to send it. He’d seen it immediately. Had he spent all that time watching the video? She sends him a form email to send back to the ad team and closes her laptop. 

David, next to her on the sofa, nudges her with a shoulder. 

“Everything alright?”

“Yes,” she says. “We’re giving the video a green light today. It’ll go up soon, ahead of the season.”

“That’s good news,” David says. His voice is neutral, leaving space for her to argue. 

“It is,” she agrees. “It’s a good video.”

“Do I get advance access or is that reserved for privileged personnel?” David says, and Yuna laughs. He’s right. This is good. She needs to let it just be good. 

She pulls the video back up on her phone and shows it to David. He watches it carefully, then hits the replay button and watches it again. She watches the same things she’d noticed in the video register in his expression.

“So,” he says, looking back up at her after his third rewatch, “when are we going to meet this kid?”

-

When the video is released, it goes semi-viral. It’s not making the same numbers as the next celebrity gossip story, but it’s viral by sports standards, and the rollout was wide. In addition to the ad, which seems to be everywhere Yuna goes here in Canada, there are billboards with the faceoff shot—both versions—and the tagline, in major cities across the US and Canada. Shane sends her a picture of one in Montreal, and Valeria, the Raiders’ PR rep she’s been working with, sends her photos of a few of them in Boston, along with a video of a short ad that shows Shane and Ilya holding on the serious pose for a long second before they break, without the producer’s voiceover. That one might be her favorite. 

Valeria and her team are thrilled with the exposure. Boston isn’t a new team—they’ve got a well-established fan base—but, as Valeria explains to Yuna, Boston can sometimes have a reputation as a rough team. That has its advantages, especially on the ice, but it also lends value to campaigns like this, which elevate the perception of their players’ sportsmanship off the ice. Much of the brand is undergoing a rebuild along with the rest of the team, and Ilya Rozanov is at the center of that. Shane’s going through a similar thing in Montreal, management trying to build a new image around their new rookie, and Yuna can’t help but wonder how Ilya is managing all of this, if he’s just going along with the Raiders’ media people and how much input they’re giving him. She thinks about David’s question: “when are we gonna meet the kid?” She’s becoming increasingly convinced that she needs to make that happen.

The Metros PR team reaches out with their own response, and Yuna can read between the congratulatory lines to the censure beneath it. The language is strained, reminding them that Shane is an ambassador for their team and encouraging him to engage in shoots with his new Metros teammates. Yuna can’t hold in a scoff as she reads it. Montreal has been her team since she was a kid, but the more she sees behind the scenes, the less impressed she is with them. Shane hasn’t violated his contract in any way, and Montreal is depending on him to rebuild their team. They haven’t won a cup since Yuna was in college, and they’re not going to if they aren’t able to recognize and appreciate the talent they’ve acquired. She tries not to worry too much about it yet. It’s Shane’s first year with the team, she reminds herself. Growing pains.

-

Yuna lines up several sponsorships and ad campaigns for Shane, leveraging his growing success on the ice and the widespread success of his CCM campaign. He’s still new, so the money isn’t as good as it will be, but the numbers still surprise her every time. Shane’s worth it, of course he is, but it’s still a bit ridiculous. She doesn’t see Ilya in any campaigns, doesn’t hear about any local campaigns in Boston, not that she’s sure she would. He’s the number one draft pick, he’s having a breakout season to rival Shane’s, and Yuna hasn’t seen him in anything not related to the league since the CCM videos. She hasn’t even heard about him from Shane. 

They make it halfway through the season before she breaks. She still doesn’t have Ilya Rozanov’s phone number, so a week before MTL v BOS at Montreal, she sends an email to Rozanov, Shane, and David, inviting them to lunch before the game. David responds quickly, even though he’s at work, expressing his excitement. Yuna smiles at that. She can always count on him. 

She doesn’t hear from either of the boys until Shane calls her a couple hours later, right after practice ends, if she had to guess. She picks up the phone and answers it innocently. 

“Hi Shane, how is everything?”

“Hi, Mom. Everything’s good. You and Dad, you’re good?”

“Oh yes, we’re doing well. It’s a busy season for your dad at work, I’m sure you remember, but he likes it that way, I think. And we got tickets for a Yahtzee tournament, that should be fun.”

Shane hums along as she continues with mundane updates as long as she can, and as soon as she runs out of things to say, he says, “Hey Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Did you mean to include Rozanov on the lunch invitation for next week?”

Yuna has no idea how she could have accidentally added Ilya Rozanov to her lunch invitation, but she humors Shane anyway. 

“I did,” she tells him. “I thought it would be nice to catch a meal with him, all three of us. It could encourage the narrative CCM started, that the two of you recognize each other as equals and are able to be friendly off the ice, despite what happens in the rink and in the press room.”

Reporters can’t get enough of the rivalry between the two of them, asking Shane about Rozanov and vice versa in every media scrum Yuna’s managed to catch with either team. Shane and Rozanov are both confident, rightfully so, and offer up chirps that inevitably become soundbites, but fans seem undecided over whether the rivalry exists off the ice. They haven’t been seen together since the CCM shoot, and even if those ads are still out there, Shane and Rozanov will need to do something else if they want to stay ahead of the rivalry narrative. 

“You don’t think management will care?”

“Management has no grounds to say either way,” Yuna replies. It’s a nonanswer, and she can hear Shane weighing it against whatever else he’s considering.

“Alright,” he says eventually. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

An email from him pops up on her screen essentially saying the same thing.

“Let’s do it,” she echoes. “I’ll see you then.”

“See you then. I love you.”

Three minutes after Shane’s email, she gets a message from Ilya that reads simply, “I will be there,” and she smiles. 

-

Yuna’s been to Boston a few times before, but she still reaches out to Rozanov for a lunch recommendation, and he sends back three options: a Russian restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and a very American diner. She forwards the address to the Russian restaurant to the group and calls to make a reservation.

When the day arrives, she’s more anxious about it than she’d like to be. Yuna hasn’t met Ilya Rozanov in person, not properly. Valeria had been the one to run things past Ilya for the CCM campaign, so they haven’t talked much either. She’s in a fairly new city, going to an all-new restaurant to meet a mostly-new person. She had been half hoping that Shane would arrive first, so she would have been able to observe the dynamic between them and take her cues from that. Instead, she sees Ilya Rozanov sitting quietly alone at a table for four, looking out the window at passersby. He’s sitting stiffly, and Yuna wonders if he’s trying to watch for them.

She tells the woman at the front that she’s meeting someone, gesturing at Ilya, and walks over to sit across from him, taking the other window seat so David can sit next to her and Shane next to Rozanov. 

Rozanov stands as they approach to shake their hands, looking serious and a bit tentative. Yuna tries to signal friendliness with her expression and body language as she shakes his hand, hoping to ease the tension she sees in him.

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” she tells him warmly after they exchange introductions. “It’s nice to cut out the middleman.”

“Ah, yes, is very nice to meet you,” he says. “What is this? Middleman?”

“Oh, I just meant, we were always talking through Valeria during the CCM revisions. A middleman is like a person who has to carry messages between two other people.”

“Oh, no,” Rozanov says, shrugging. “Val did not send me things; I told her she can do what she wants. She is professional.”

Yuna is struck momentarily speechless by that. She tries to school her face so it doesn’t display her judgement. Did Rozanov’s parents not advise him against that? His agent? Who was helping this kid?

“You didn’t review the revisions we made?” she manages to ask. 

“I saw ads when they were done,” Ilya says. “They were very nice, like I thought they would be. Made some people think I was nice, which was, uh, rude awakening on the ice for them.”

David laughs, and Rozanov looks terribly pleased with himself. Yuna still doesn’t know what to say. Luckily, Shane arrives just then, stalling just inside the door at the sight of the three of them together before making his way to their table and sitting tentatively beside Rozanov.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, even though they’ve all arrived early.

David waves him off with a, “We haven’t even ordered yet.” 

“Actually, why don’t you order for us, Ilya?” David suggests, and Yuna thinks that’s a wonderful idea. “You’ve probably got a better idea of what’s good here.”

Shane’s head shoots up in surprise from where he was already reading the English translation on the menu. Rozanov lights up at the suggestion. 

“I will get some things for the table,” he says. “You have allergies?”

“No, but—” Shane says, and Ilya grins wider, snatching up all the menus and holding the stack in his hands.

“Ah, yes, Shane has very crazy diet; you two know about this?” Ilya asks, then jolts as though Shane has kicked him under the table. Yuna shoots her son a look. 

“It’s not crazy,” Shane says. “It’s a performance diet, and you should probably be on one, too. You’re a professional athlete.”

Rozanov scoffs.

“Yes, I am professional athlete, which means I can eat what I want. Will burn it off in energy while I am playing professional sport.”

Shane’s face pinches, but he doesn’t argue further. Yuna tries to meet his eyes to make sure he’s actually okay with this, but she doesn’t need to worry. Rozanov orders entirely in Russian, so she has no idea what's coming, but when it does, a plate is placed in front of Shane, and Yuna can see that there’s nothing there that violates his performance diet. Shane looks down at it, surprised, and smiles, turning to nudge Ilya with his arm and look back at the food in a silent thank you. Ilya rolls his eyes, then looks back at Shane, smiles, and winks. Shane turns red, and Yuna smiles down at her own plate.

“So, Ilya,” David says, tactfully interrupting their silent exchange, “how are you liking Boston?”

“Is very good,” Ilya says. “Team is good; we are winning many games. There is good food, and my friend Sveta here. Is good place to be.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” David replies. “I gotta say, I’ve been trying to get down here since I saw the two of you in that commercial. I don’t know the last time I’ve seen Shane have so much fun on the ice.”

“Dad,” Shane protests, “I’m a hockey player; I’m on the ice every day.”

“That’s work, though,” David argues. “How often do you get to be on the ice just for the fun of it?”

Shane’s face scrunches up a bit as his jaw tightens and his eyebrows furrow, and Yuna refrains from smiling at the expression. She has always thought his angry face is a bit adorable, but she’s not going to pull any embarrassing mom moves while at lunch with Ilya Rozanov. She’s acting at least in part as Shane’s manager for this meeting, and she should act accordingly. David has no such compunctions. 

Shane doesn’t say that the ad was also work, and Yuna sees Ilya watching the exchange carefully.

“Hollander works very hard,” he tells them, “and he is very good hockey player. Is more fun to be on the ice with someone who can actually compete with him, yes?”

Shane’s face falls into disbelief as he scoffs and protests, “We weren’t competing in the ad, asshole,” then looks guiltily at Yuna as if she doesn’t know her adult son who plays professional sports swears sometimes. She laughs lightly at him, exchanging a smile with David, and she sees Shane relax as well. 

The conversation turns to the season as they eat, and Yuna is impressed by how insightful Rozanov is about the season. He rarely struggles with his English, and when he does, Shane is there quickly with whatever word is escaping him. Yuna revels in the hockey talk, the kind of conversation that filled her every day when Shane had lived with her. David seems happy to fade into the background of the conversation, but Yuna knows he’s observing everything and will have things to say when they go home. At one point, Rozanov asks who she thinks will be the third nominee for Rookie of the Year, outside of Shane and himself, and when Yuna’s done laughing at Shane’s reaction, she finds that she’s not actually sure. There are strong rookies on other teams, but it’s clear that no one is coming close to the level Shane and Ilya are playing at. Ilya offers up Vincent Lemaire, and Shane scoffs. 

“From the Nomads?” 

“He’s having a strong season,” Yuna says, considering.

“Yeah, but he’s not like—” Shane cuts himself off as if realizing the arrogance of his almost uttered words, and Ilya’s face splits in a wide grin. He looks so young and so very pleased with himself that Yuna can’t help but smile in return.

“No one is like us, Hollander,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, and Shane’s face flushes. Instead of trying to argue, he eats more of the vegetables Ilya had ordered for him and looks to David for help, as he usually does when Yuna says something Shane feels guilty agreeing with. David only smiles at him, raising his eyebrows as if prompting him to try to argue. Then, to Yuna’s surprise, Shane laughs. It’s not loud or boisterous, but it’s a real laugh, and Yuna’s hand reaches over to David’s thigh under the table on instinct, making sure he’s seeing this. David brings his own hand down to lay atop hers, rubbing his thumb soothingly across the back of it. Shane’s expression is light and open, and Yuna can’t look away.

-

Lunch goes on until the boys are nearly late getting to the rink, by Shane’s standards at least, but they don’t run out the way Yuna expects. 

“We should do this again sometime, yes?” Ilya says as he loads their food into to-go containers and stacks the dishes in front of them, offering Yuna a wide smile. “You know very much about hockey, remind me of Sveta. I see where Shane’s hockey comes from.”

Yuna can’t help the way she preens a bit at the words. She’s used to people attributing Shane’s success to David, the stereotypical Canadian dad who played hockey at McGill. When people aren’t crediting David, they’re crediting Shane’s hockey knowledge to his single-minded dedication or innate hockey IQ, as if his mother, despite her obvious involvement with his career, couldn’t have anything to do with it. She doesn’t resent Shane or David for the misconceptions, but she does appreciate the rare occasions when her own hard work is recognized.

“We should,” she finds herself saying. Shane looks surprised by her response, and he shoots a warning look at Ilya only to get a wide smile of his own. 

“You do not trust me with your mama? We will only talk about good hockey; I’m sure you will not come up,” Ilya teases, and Shane’s face does its cute angry scrunch again. 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, seemingly forgetting that his parents are still across the table from him, and Yuna meets David’s eyes as Ilya clearly bites down on his immediate response to Shane’s words. 

David clears his throat. “Maybe we can grab a meal together the next time you play Montreal. Or even Ottawa; you could come to ours.”

That offer seems to quiet both Ilya and Shane, and Yuna can’t decipher the silent exchange playing out in front of her until Ilya turns back to David and nods, looking a bit unsure. 

Yuna hugs Shane before he leaves, and after a split second’s consideration, she hugs Ilya as well.

“We’re serious about dinner,” Yuna says quietly as she stands on her toes to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Our home is open to you.”

She doesn’t drag the hug out, still not sure it was the right move, and the stiff nod and tight smile Ilya offers her doesn’t do much to reassure her, but then David is there, his body settling reassuringly behind her as he claps a hand on Ilya’s shoulder and smiles. 

“Thank you for the lunch, Ilya,” he says. “Let us get dinner next time, alright?”

Ilya nods again, as stiff as the last one, and Shane seems to notice something’s off because he puts his own hand on Ilya’s shoulder where David’s had been, and Yuna watches as Ilya sinks into the touch. 

“Want to share a cab?” Shane asks.

Yuna doesn’t make any comments about the assumptions that may come from the two of them arriving at the arena together. She thinks they both might need this.

-

Yuna and David watch Montreal win against Boston at the Garden, and Yuna’s so proud. It was a close game, one that was highly anticipated after all the buzz that’s been generated around Shane and Ilya between the CCM campaign and the league’s own marketing. It’s got to be a hard loss for Ilya, she thinks, as much as it’s a triumphant win for Shane. Yuna texts Shane her congratulations, aware that he already deals with enough chirping for being a mama’s boy without her hanging around after away games, so she leaves the arena with the rest of the fans. Shane will be celebrating tonight, she imagines. She wonders what Ilya will be doing. Maybe drowning his sorrows in underage drinking, if she’s got any idea what hockey teams usually get up to.

“Lunch went well, right?” she asks David as they drive back to the hotel, unsure how else to approach the topic. 

“Lunch went well,” David agrees easily, seemingly unbothered by the hours-late question. “I think everyone had a good time, and the food was good; that’s what makes a good lunch, right?”

Yuna lets out a noncommittal sound, staring out the window of their rental car.

“It was nice to see Shane so happy,” he adds.

“It was,” Yuna says. “What did you think of Ilya?”

“Seems like a good kid. It was good of him to find food that fits into Shane’s diet, and he certainly seems to know his hockey. Smart and considerate, two of my favorite traits.”

Yuna smiles at the sideways compliment. David likes that she’s always thinking about the small things more than other people. 

“I’m worried about him,” she admits.

“Shane?”

“No. Or well, yes, I always worry about Shane. But I was talking about Ilya. Did you hear what he said about the campaign, that Valeria didn’t send him anything?”

“I thought we liked Valeria?” David asks.

“I do like her,” Yuna says, “but why wouldn’t she run everything past Ilya before it was released? Why does it seem like no one on his side had to approve things? Who’s looking over his contracts?”

“You don’t think he has people for that?”

Yuna fidgets with her hands in her lap. 

“It doesn’t sound like he does,” she says. “What do you think?”

“I think we ought to have the boy over for dinner.”

Ottawa 

Yuna has a lot of people and hobbies in her life outside of her son, but that doesn’t mean that his being out of the house hasn’t left her with a whole lot of time on her hands. She fills a lot of it with activities that have fallen to the wayside in recent years, reading more than ever, and even getting back into gardening. She still manages to fill a lot of her time researching brands for Shane to work with, those who reach out to him directly and those that she thinks will be a good match for the story they’re trying to tell. She has a spreadsheet to keep them all straight, every brand she’s ever looked into ranked on a variety of factors including popularity, respectability, funding, and politics.

In addition to those carefully calculated figures, she has extensive notes and projections of the impacts on Shane’s public image. After the CCM shoot, she’d added LGBTQ+ campaigns to her history of diversity initiatives category. After the lunch in Boston, she added a category for Ilya. She keeps it hidden, even though nobody will ever look at the spreadsheet other than her. Even David complains that he sees enough spreadsheets at work. He’ll listen to her talk about it all day, but he’s hardly looking over her shoulder. It feels illicit, though, to be doing this kind of research when she has no reason to, when Shane has tried to build a comfortable distance between his relationship with Ilya and his relationship with Yuna as his manager. Ilya should have people doing this for him, though, and everything she knows about the boy, everything she’s learned since he first arrived in Canada, suggests to her that he doesn’t have anyone. 

She approaches Shane about it as impartially as she can, bringing it up on a rare business call while David is at work. She updates Shane on the Rolex deal they’re just about ready to sign, as well as some smaller Canadian brands she thinks they could build a mutually beneficial partnership with. Shane Hollander is still the hometown boy in Ottawa, a player they can be more proud of than anyone actually on the Centaurs. 

“There’s another possible brand I’d like you to work with,” she tells him after they’ve sorted out the logistics of the nearly done deals, “another larger campaign you’d need to go to the US in the offseason to work with, but I wanted to run it past you because it sounds like they’d be interested in having both you and Rozanov come on as ambassadors.”

The change in Shane is immediate, although Yuna’s not sure she’d catch it if she weren’t watching for it. He doesn’t really fidget, but his mouth twitches twice, and the hand he has holding his elbow on the table pulls at his sleeve as if to straighten it. 

“What, uh, what do you think?” he asks.

“About the ad campaign?” Yuna clarifies.

“Yeah, I mean, do you think it’s a good idea?”

Yuna was hoping to get Shane’s thoughts on the matter, but she lays out all the details for him, not really sharing an opinion but giving him all the details she has: a sports drink company, newer than most but with enough financial backing to pay Shane and Ilya a fair rate, and the drink isn’t all that bad. Yuna hasn’t had an electrolyte drink she’s enjoyed, and she’s spent enough years buying them for Shane that she’s tried plenty. 

Shane nods along to her explanation, brows furrowing slightly here and there but face staying largely inexpressive. 

“Do you think Ilya would go for it?” Yuna asks when Shane still doesn’t give his own thoughts on the matter.

“Ilya?” Shane asks.

“Yes, do you think he’d be interested in the opportunity? I haven’t seen him in anything since the CCM campaign, but I don’t know if he’s been doing more local work.”

“No, I mean, I don’t know,” Shane says dismissively. “I just meant, when did he become Ilya instead of Rozanov?”

Yuna opens her mouth then closes it, considering the question. She’s not really sure when she started thinking of Ilya by his first name, and she knows David had never even started with Rozanov. Unable to give Shane a real answer, she just shrugs.

“Your dad started calling him that after we had lunch; I must have picked up on it,” she says. It’s been longer than that, she thinks, since she started slipping into first names, although maybe not since she stopped thinking of him by his last name entirely. He’s just a boy, like Shane, a young man who’s been thrust into a new world full of intensity and expectation. 

“And I can hardly call him by his last name if I’m going to be working with him professionally in this way,” she tells him.

“Is that what’s happening?” Shane asks.

“That’s what I’m trying to ask you. Do you think he’d go for it? Do you want me to even offer it?”

Shane’s lips twitch again, nearly pursing into a scowl before he pulls himself back into a placid expression.

“You can offer,” Shane says. “I’ll do it if he will.”

-

Even after Ilya agrees to the shared ad campaign, Yuna isn’t sure he’ll actually come to their house after the inevitable win against Ottawa, but it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of nightlife in the city that she’d be pulling him away from, so she shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when he texts her asking for the address. She watches the game, not going so far as wearing Boston colors or cheering for them, but refraining from getting too decked out in Ottawa colours like she usually does when David drags her to one of the Centaurs games. Ilya is a giant on the ice, managing two goals and an assist, looking every inch like the world-class hockey player he is, proving he deserved to be chosen first in the draft by an original six team, even if Yuna will go to her grave swearing it should have been Shane. He’s a force of nature, and she’s always liked to watch good hockey. It would be more fun to watch if the Centaurs were actually any competition, but Ilya seems to be having enough fun for all of them, grinning widely and engaging in dramatic on-ice celebrations with his teammates. 

When he arrives on her doorstep a few hours later, she can hardly believe the boy on her doorstep is the same man she saw on the ice earlier in the evening. He looks every inch the nineteen-year-old boy he is, hands clasped politely behind his back, hiding the fact that he brought gifts. When Yuna opens the door, David close behind her, wiping his hands on a dishtowel, Ilya waves awkwardly, seemingly forgetting the large bouquet in his hands.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Hollander,” he says, holding the flowers out to Yuna. “Thank you for having me.”

“Oh, please, it’s David and Yuna,” David insists. “Mr. Hollander was my father.”

Yuna rolls her eyes at the overdone joke, especially given that David often goes by his last name at work, and so does Shane, but she ushers Ilya inside and agrees with her husband anyway.

“There’s no need for last names in our own home, Ilya,” she tells him. 

Ilya steps in after her, following her into the house, and holds out an expensive bottle of vodka for David.

“For you,” he says, as Yuna gets the flowers set up in a vase. She watches David light up at the Russian label on the bottle, excited at the opportunity to indulge in one of his few vices. 

“Most people bring wine,” David jokes, poorly hiding his enthusiasm.

“Shane mentioned you like vodka,” Ilya explains, looking nervous.

“That was nice of him, and of you,” David says. “I will certainly enjoy this more than another bottle of merlot.”

“You like my merlot just fine,” Yuna says, nudging David in the ribs with her elbow, and he smiles down at her. 

Some of the tension seems to ease from Ilya’s stance at the casual gesture, and he smiles hesitantly. 

“Maybe next time I bring merlot instead of flowers,” he offers.

“The flowers are lovely, Ilya,” Yuna says, “but I’ll never say no to wine.”

She pulls him into the dining room and places the flowers at the center of the table, then sits down and gestures for him to do the same, as David grabs the chicken parmesan from the kitchen.

“You had a good game tonight,” she tells him. 

“Eh,” Ilya says, disagreeing. “Was Ottawa, is never very good game, but we won.”

Yuna looks past Ilya at the wall behind him, at the picture of a tiny Shane sitting on David’s shoulders, both of them decked out in Centaurs gear, and she waits for Ilya’s gaze to follow hers. He turns quickly, and when his eyes first catch the photo, he blanches, as Yuna had intended, but then something sparks in his eyes, and he stands up from the table to get a better look at the photo and the ones surrounding it on the wall. 

“How old was he here?” Ilya asks.

“Just about four years old,” Yuna says, remembering the day fondly.

“And here?” Ilya says, pointing to a picture of an even smaller Shane on the ice with Yuna, bundled up in winter clothes and holding her gloved hand. 

“That was his third birthday,” she says. “He wasn’t big on parties or big crowds, even then, so we rented the rink out for his birthday and did a small celebration another day. He’s always been happiest on the ice.” 

Ilya’s eyes continue to scan the photos, and Yuna thinks he could probably do this all night, point at pictures and ask for stories, but David arrives with the food, and Ilya reluctantly brings himself back to the table. 

“Shane assures me you don’t maintain a performance diet, and I know you said no dietary restrictions, so I hope chicken parm is good. It was one of Shane’s favorites as a kid, so we’ve got a lot of practice cooking it,” David says, plating food for everyone before taking a seat himself. 

“It is perfect,” Ilya says, eyeing the food on his plate with something that looks a bit like wonder. 

They’re all a bit quiet as they eat, exchanging some small talk about David’s job and the successes and failures Ilya’s team has experienced since they last met in Boston. When it’s time to clear their plates, Ilya insists on helping David bring everything back to the kitchen and helping him bring their dessert and alcohol out, and Yuna settles back in her chair with a glass of hard cider and the honey cake David had made.

“It’s not exactly medovik,” David had said when she’d asked him about it earlier in the day, “but he’s a kid far from home, and I think it would be nice.” 

Yuna had kissed him long and hard for that one, then patted his chest and let him get back to his baking. She’d married a good man. 

It’s clear from Ilya’s reaction to his first bite of cake that it was well worth the effort David had made. He looks almost small, sitting at her kitchen table hunched over a slice of honey cake, eyes closed and face soft like Yuna’s not sure she’s ever seen it. It’s different, somehow, from the many times Yuna has remembered that Ilya is only a teenager, the same age as her son. There’s a vulnerability about him that she’s never seen before, and she can feel her maternal instincts rise. Whatever it takes, she’s going to make sure this boy is supported. 

“So, Ilya,” she says, “what have you been up to outside of the rink? I know Shane’s been busy between the team’s PR and his external brand deals.”

David cuts his eyes to her, and she realizes she’s made an error, either in her approach or her timing, but it’s too late to take it back now, so she waits for Ilya to finish chewing and respond.

“I am not so busy as Hollander is,” Ilya says eventually. “Bonding with team and doing some PR, but Val does not keep me too busy.”

“You haven’t hired someone to manage your independent brand deals or even a PR person? Do you have a manager to handle these things?”

“No manager,” Ilya says, his voice dulled and guarded as though he’s facing an accusation. “I have no brand deals outside of the team to manage.”

Yuna can tell by Ilya’s reaction that she’s somehow made a bigger misstep than she’d realized, but she doesn’t know what she said wrong, so she doesn’t know how to fix it. Ilya should have a team behind him, and he’s certainly being paid enough to afford one, so she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t. From what she’s seen and understood of their interactions, he’s not as immature as the media would like to paint him. David rests his hand on her thigh under the table in reassurance as Yuna purses her lips, swallowing the words she wants to say. 

“I’m sorry,” she says instead, “we don’t have to talk about this now. David and I just wanted to treat you to a home-cooked meal; I imagine being on the road all the time can become a bit grueling.”

There’s a beat of silence where none of them know quite what to say, and Yuna can’t help but fill it.

“It’s just, I don’t want to pry, but I worry sometimes. It’s been a lot for Shane to manage, all of the press and the marketing and brand partnerships, and when we had lunch, it sounded like you don’t have anyone helping you manage that. You’re a high-profile athlete, Ilya, and you’re good. You’re only going to get bigger. You’re going to need help managing everything that comes with that.”

Ilya looks to David, who throws up his hands, signalling that this is not his department before looking back at Yuna. An unreadable mask slips over Ilya’s face and he waves his hand vaguely. 

“There are team people for this, yes? I am rookie still, do not need my own people.”

Yuna is almost speechless with her frustration. She wants to keep arguing her point, considers bringing up the fact that he was the number one draft pick, as much as it pains her, but she doesn’t think it will sway him. She has another idea. 

“Will you mind me putting some feelers out? I’m already doing it for Shane, and if you’re looking to maintain the narrative that you’re very different people who are able to get along, you may be able to appeal to very different markets. Although, there is some overlap. Shane and I have been talking to a sports drink brand who would love to have both of you.”

That manages to break Ilya’s facade, a quick smile peeking out.

“What does Hollander think of this?” he asks.

Yuna tries to hide her own smile.

“He’s on board if you are.”

At that, Ilya’s real smile spreads across his face, the same sparkle in his eyes as before, when he’d seen Shane’s baby pictures on the wall.

“I can handle anything Hollander can,” he declares. 

“Then you won’t mind me stepping in to arrange a few things,” Yuna challenges.

They stare at each other for a moment, Ilya studying her and Yuna just holding his gaze, waiting for him to agree, and he does. 

“Yes,” he says. “Give me details for the drink shoot and whatever else you want. I will handle it.”

Yuna smiles then, too, a wide, satisfied grin that makes David, who watched their exchange with quiet attention, laugh loudly.

“Careful,” he warns Ilya, “she’s a force of nature.”

“I see where Hollander gets it from,” Ilya says, agreeing without saying the words. He doesn’t look unhappy with it.

-

Ilya has to leave before long to meet curfew, but he insists on helping David with the dishes as Yuna pulls open her spreadsheet. She won’t show it to Ilya tonight since he already seems so overwhelmed, but she does un-hide the columns with Ilya’s scores and creates two new tabs, organizing the brands into Shane, Ilya, and shared prospects. David usually tries to keep her off her laptop after dinner, but he doesn’t question it when she pulls her laptop out, not even raising an eyebrow on his way into the kitchen. 

The reorganization is simultaneously meditative and gripping; all of the possibilities that have just opened up turning over in the back of her mind while her active focus is on copying, pasting, and color-coding. She’s going to set both of them up for success, and she knows they’ll take the opportunities they’re handed and make the best of them. 

When David and Ilya come back into the dining room, she’s already moved on to making additional notes on the high-potential partnerships, focusing on shared opportunities since that seems to be where Ilya’s primary interest currently lies, and she wonders absently if she’s been working at an unusual speed or if David and Ilya took longer in the kitchen than they needed to wash dishes. David places a hand on her shoulder, and she pulls herself out of it, letting his hand brush down her arm to her hand, pulling her up from her seat to see their guest out. 

Ilya thanks them again for dinner, offers more praise for David’s cooking, and promises Yuna he will keep an eye out for the information on the ad campaign for him and Shane. This time, when she hugs him, he sinks into it, his large frame seeming somehow smaller under her embrace, and she promises him she’ll be in touch soon. David isn’t presumptuous enough to hug Ilya, but he places a firm hand on Ilya’s shoulder, and despite Ilya’s uncertainty when David had done the same in Boston, he smiles now. As David thanks Ilya for coming to dinner and for the vodka, and hands Ilya a Tupperware container with the rest of the honey cake, Yuna wonders what they might have discussed in the kitchen. She doesn’t ask, and when they finally close the door behind Ilya, David wraps his arms around her, and she allows herself to collapse into him.

“It’s good what you’re doing for him,” David tells her, “that boy needs someone looking out for him.”

Boston

Yuna doesn’t have any trouble getting interest from brands about signing Ilya; he’s the number one draft pick after all. People are clamoring to sign him, to sign Shane, to sign both of them. They’re both having breakout seasons, and Yuna is confident when she tells brand partners that they’re only going to get bigger. Things are moving fast, and she makes the executive decision that she’ll need to meet with Ilya again before he’s back in Ottawa. The Metros have their second game against Boston at the Garden coming up, and Yuna messages Ilya to ask if he has plans before the game. She thinks they’ll do lunch again, but Ilya tells her he’ll have to check something, and an hour later she’s getting a call from Shane.

She answers, thinking nothing of it until she hears Shane’s uneven breathing on the other end. He sounds anxious before he even speaks, and when he does, his tone is harsher than she knows he means it to be.

“You want to have lunch with Rozanov in Boston?” he asks.

Yuna is taken aback by how strongly the words feel like an accusation, and it takes her a moment to respond.

“I asked to meet with him to discuss some of the brand partnerships and ad campaigns I have in mind for him. There are a lot of opportunities available, and I want to get some input from him before I start seriously pursuing any of them.”

“You don’t think it will be suspicious for you to be seen with him again?” Shane asks, not seeming to process her words at all.

“Why would it be suspicious?” Yuna asks, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t think many people could pick me out of a crowd.”

“I guess, but just, after last time…”

Something clicks in Yuna’s mind, and she realizes what he must be worried about. Shane had mentioned some people in the Metros organization making noise about Shane’s relationship with Ilya, the presentation of the two of them as friends, and they, at least, will recognize Yuna Hollander out at lunch with Ilya Rozanov. He hasn’t mentioned it since they had lunch together, didn’t even bring it up when she mentioned them working together on ad campaigns, but maybe something else has happened. Yuna remembers the messages she’d gotten following the CCM release, and she wonders how much of that Shane’s been getting. She wants to push, to ask questions, but she knows she won’t get anywhere over the phone. She has to be honest with him, though.

“I’ve been taking a look at some potential opportunities for him,” she admits, “like I do for you.”

He’s quiet for too long, and she can hear his breath coming too fast and too shallow.

“Shane, honey,” she says, “I love you, and you know I don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“But?”

“And,” Yuna corrects, “Ilya doesn’t seem to have a lot of support. He’s young, like you, and he’s dealing with a lot of the same stressful situations, along with being in a new country and not having his family close by. I’d like to be able to ease some of that for him.”

She tries not to make Shane feel guilty by reminding him that Ilya obviously doesn’t have the same support Shane does, but she does want him to understand where she’s coming from. 

“Why?” Shane asks. It doesn’t sound petulant or angry, just genuinely confused by the way things seem to have unfolded.

“I’m a hockey mom, Shane,” she says, “and I’m damn good at it.”

That gets him to laugh, and Yuna feels something in her chest she hadn’t realized was so tense begin to ease. 

“You are a great mom,” he agrees, voice warmer and calmer than it’s been since she answered the phone. She turns the volume up on her phone to listen to his breathing and hears that it’s begun to even out. They’re quiet for a minute, Shane calming down and Yuna listening to him bring himself back to center, and Shane is the one to break the silence.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you.”

“Let’s do lunch all together,” Shane says. “If Rozanov’s okay with that.”

Yuna is sure he will be.

“I’ll ask him.”

-

Ilya is just as happy to invite Shane for lunch as Yuna thought he’d be, insisting that he be the one to ask Shane and suggesting that they meet at his apartment so he can repay the favor and cook for them. Yuna is happy to accept, and she tells David she gives it a year before the two of them finally admit they want to be in a relationship together. David tells her he’s not so sure they’ll figure it out on their own, but Yuna’s not above some meddling.

-

Ilya’s apartment is a lot like what she imagines most rookie apartments look like: expensive but largely impersonal. She knows he’s been traveling too much to settle in or decorate, but Yuna can’t help but be a bit put off by how much the place just doesn’t fit him. She doesn't comment on that when he invites her in with a sweeping gesture, just as she tries not to show her surprise at the fact that Shane is already here, sitting at Ilya's kitchen table, wearing a shirt she doesn't recognize. 

"Hi, Mom," he says stiffly, standing up from the table to give her a brief hug. 

Yuna returns the gesture and takes her own seat at the table as if there's nothing out of the ordinary about the situation they've found themselves in. 

"Are we thinking contract talk before or after lunch?" she asks. 

"Lunch is ready," Ilya says, bringing plates over for Yuna and Shane, notably different meals, or at least different enough to accommodate Shane's diet, but the food itself is welcome and familiar. 

“We should get it over with, yes?" 

"Well, we're ready to go with the joint campaign I was telling the two of you about," Yuna says, pulling out a folder with printed contracts and laying it next to her plate at the table. "How many of these external contract negotiations have you been a part of, Ilya? I know you worked with CCM to get Shane involved, but it can take a while to get used to the language and nuance of legal agreements."

Ilya already looks confused from his seat next to Shane.

"I did not see CCM contract," Ilya says. "I tell them I want to add Shane and they are just happy that I am not a diva. It was not hard to convince them, only a suggestion."

Yuna doesn't drop her fork, but it's a near thing. 

"You did sign a contract?" she confirms.

Ilya looks from Yuna to Shane, as if to get some confirmation that Yuna's reaction is exaggerated, or a joke, but she's serious, and she's raised Shane to be serious about these things, too. He turns back to Yuna with a shrug.

"Yes, I signed a contract."

"But you didn't read it."

Ilya shrugs. 

"Boston legal department read it, my agent probably read it. I sign on the dotted line. I am hockey player, not lawyer, yes?"

Yuna is too stunned to speak, but Shane says exactly what she's thinking.

"Rozanov, what the fuck?"

"What, you read every contract you sign? Every agreement for your seventy-two brand partnerships?"

"I don't have seventy-two brand partnerships," Shane scoffs, "but if I did, I would read all seventy-two contracts, and any auxiliary agreements that came up."

"Oh, so you are lawyer now? Mr. Law School."

Yuna's not sure what emotion is causing Shane to turn bright red at Ilya's words, but she takes the alarming color of his face as her cue to step back into the conversation.

"Ilya," she says, "your agent should be explaining the contracts to you, if reading them yourself isn't manageable. Did anyone walk you through the CCM contract?"

"What is there to explain?" he says, something that might be frustration in his tone. Yuna still doesn't know him well enough to read it. "I have to go to Canada, spend a day taking pictures; they will pay for the trip and pay me lots of money. I say, maybe if we are in Canada, we invite Hollander also, and they say this is great idea."

There is so much more to discuss, so much more to get approved by all the signatories, that Yuna is once again struck dumb in her attempts to organize her thoughts into a reasonable response. Ilya looks tense, shoulders back more than they usually are and expression wary, and Yuna watches as Shane's arm moves, as if he's placing a hand on Ilya's thigh under the table, and she doesn't even have the time to contemplate the casual intimacy of the gesture because she's still caught up on the fact that Ilya's spent the last several months signing contracts no one bothered to explain to him. 

"Mom usually runs through all of my contracts with me," Shane says, "explaining each clause and what it means for me in the short- and long-term, and then we usually spend some time talking about how each deal fits into our larger PR strategies."

Ilya's posture has slumped slightly as he leans toward Shane's touch, but he still looks tense, mouth firm as he says, "I do not do this."

"Let's just start with the CCM contract then," Yuna says, pulling her laptop out of her bag. "If you forward it to me, I can review it as we eat, so we can go over it as an example before we look at the new contract." 

Ilya shrugs and pulls his phone from his pocket, pulling up his email. Yuna exchanges a look of disbelief with Shane while Ilya's distracted, silently asking, “did you know about this?” Shane looks less horrified than Yuna feels, but she can see an edge of concern in his expression, and she takes a deep breath, signaling for him to do the same. After a few synchronized breaths, Ilya looks up and tells Yuna he's sent her the file. 

- 

Yuna's quiet as they eat, reading through Ilya's contract. The familiarity of the legalese helps soothe her, even as she feels her eyebrows raise occasionally at language she would have had changed. As she continues to look at it, she begins to get the feeling that it is language she had changed, months ago. Out of curiosity, she opens the initial agreement CCM had sent Shane before she had returned it with their requested revisions. It's nearly an exact copy of the form Ilya sent her. 

She inhales deeply, exhales, and takes another bite of the surprisingly delicious meal in front of her. It's not that she'd expected Ilya to be bad at cooking; she just hadn't imagined this kind of donburi to be in his repertoire. She wonders if Shane had sent him a recipe, or some suggestions. It was thoughtful of him, anyway, to make something that tastes like home to Yuna, the way David had for him. 

She waits until the boys have finished their food before she pulls a chair up next to Ilya and shows him the contracts, side by side. 

"There are a few things in this contract that stick out to me," she says, "and I'm going to talk you through them so you know what to look for in the future."

-

They make it through the contracts without any more outbursts, and Yuna feels confident moving forward with the campaign she'd actually come by to discuss, but once they're signed, she just can't leave well enough alone. 

"You really ought to hire someone to do this for you for any contract you sign," she tells him. "You shouldn't be signing things you don't understand, and you shouldn't be accepting opening offers without negotiating. You got paid the same for the CCM shoot as Shane did, and he was a late addition, so obviously they had the money to pay you more."

"Eh, no," Ilya says. "I took pay cut to get Shane there."

"What?" Yuna says, rearing back, unable to hold in her shocked reaction.

“Ilya,” Shane says, sounding scandalized. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

Ilya only laughs in the face of their astonishment. 

“Look at you, so red when you are mad,” he says to Shane, playfully grabbing his jaw to get a better look at him and murmuring something in Russian under his breath that makes Shane blush and lean into Ilya's hand.

Yuna clears her throat as quietly as she can, and they step away from each other, both as red as she's ever seen them.

“Valeria was mad, too," Ilya tells her, as if whatever just happened was her imagination, "but I played up the Russia angle.”

“The Russia angle?” Yuna asks.

“Da,” Ilya says, accent strong and thick, “I am just teenage boy new to this country, and I would feel better if there is someone I know there with me.” 

“And signing Shane Hollander, your intended bitter rival, made more sense than them sending along one of their staff members?” Yuna asks, hearing the judgement start to slip into her tone. 

“I am very convincing,” Ilya says, shrugging.

"Right," she says. "You really should have someone who can tell you that's a bad idea, though. Someone looking out for your best interests."

"That's what you are doing, yes?" 

Yuna doesn't know if it's the words themselves or Ilya's casual tone that affects her more. She pushes past it.

"What about your individual campaigns? Partnerships that don't involve Shane?" 

"I don't have any," Ilya says. "Except for some with the Raiders, which go through team lawyers."

"You should," she tells him. "You should have a lot. You were the number one draft pick, and you're having a record-breaking rookie season. People shouldn't be able to spend a day in Boston without seeing your face."

"You hear that?" Ilya asks Shane, "I think your mama knows I am best hockey player."

"I wouldn't go that far," Yuna says, at the same time Shane says, "Fuck you."

She's not sure if Shane uses that word this much all the time when she's not around or if Ilya brings something out of him, but she's starting to get more used to it coming out of his mouth. There's something about the words, when said to Ilya, that seem to hold an affection, a kind of softness she's rarely heard Shane allow himself in years.

"You can be my person," Ilya says to Yuna, ignoring Shane, although he looks pleased to have riled him up. "You have ideas already, and if I am going to compete with Shane, I will need equal representation."

"Rozanov, you can't just recruit—"

"I will pay you lots of money," Ilya says, "more than Hollander, because he is family, but also because I am more famous than him. Is more work, yes?"

"You're such an asshole," Shane says, the same softness in those words despite his harsh tone. 

Yuna is going to need a full day to recover from this, she thinks, watching the two of them interact and considering how to lend some sensibility to the moment.

"I'm not really the most qualified person to do that," she explains to Ilya. "You should have someone who specializes in contract law, and—" 

"I can pay them, too," Ilya says. "Hollander and I will share a team because we are friends off the ice, like we told people."

Yuna looks at Shane for a reaction, but he only brings his shoulders forward in a shrug, hands in his pockets, and Yuna realizes she's got a lot of work ahead of her. It's what she wanted, really, but that doesn't make it any less overwhelming. It doesn't make it feel any less insane. 

"Right," she says. "I'll talk to some people, I guess. If we do this, though, we'll need to draw up a formal agreement."

"And you will explain it to me," Ilya says, the wide smile on his face that reminds her just how young he is. Despite herself, she smiles back. 

-

Too many trips down to Boston might be suspicious for Shane, but there are so few people who know Yuna that she feels confident traveling down with David one weekend when the Raiders have an off day. She spends her Saturday in Cambridge, exploring museums with David while the Raiders travel back from Buffalo. It's not dissimilar to how she and David spend their time when they decide to take a weekend to themselves, although Boston hasn't been a frequent destination for them historically. On Sunday, they make their way into Boston proper early in the morning in an attempt to beat the traffic. Yuna doesn't love driving in Massachusetts—she's not sure anybody does—but they make it to Ilya's apartment on schedule for their brunch plans, with enough time to stop at a nearby shop for coffee, so she considers it a successful trip.

Ilya is still sleep-rumpled when they arrive, and he accepts the coffee Yuna holds out for him with a dramatic expression of gratitude, folding his hands around the cup and breathing it in deeply.

"Thank you, Yuna," he says. "You are my new favorite Hollander."

"I got your coffee order from Shane," she admits as she walks past him into the apartment, clocking the responding smile he tries to hide behind the lid of his coffee cup. 

"Welcome, David," Ilya says, ignoring her comment entirely. "I ordered some pastries last night for you to eat until I make food."

"I get to enjoy your food this time, huh?" David says, "Yuna tells me you're quite the cook."

"Shane helped," Ilya says, brushing off the praise. 

"Getting Shane to cook may be an even more impressive feat in the kitchen," David laughs. "He does some baking with me, but he's never been much into cooking. I sometimes worry that he's living entirely off of those nutritionist-prepped meals. It's not always easy or worth it to get takeout that meets his diet."

"He is good cook," Ilya says, tone ever so slightly defensive. "Very precise."

"I think that's why he likes baking," David agrees, "it's a more precise science."

They continue to talk about Shane as Ilya makes them breakfast, only accepting David's help after some heavy campaigning on David's part. Yuna sits at the table with her folders and her laptop and watches them, wondering if Rozanov moves so comfortably in the kitchen with his own father. It's odd, the disconnect between how much she feels she's come to know Ilya this past year and how little she actually knows about him. She doesn't ask, just sits back and enjoys the view. She's always liked watching David cook, and she especially enjoys watching him cook with another person, demonstrating his competence and his kindness. There's something about David that has Ilya slightly more on edge than he is with Yuna, the same thing that keeps Yuna from asking if he ever cooked with his own father, but that tension fades into the background as David shows Ilya how to make French toast the way Yuna likes it, all the while telling him about Shane's first on-ice fight. It's become increasingly clear to Yuna that Ilya is in desperate need of a manager or an agent who's actually on his side and willing to dedicate time and care to him, but as she watches him with David, she considers that he might need this kind of care just as much. 

-

The conversation shifts to business nearly as soon as they sit down with their food, Ilya making a quip about her preparedness that easily leads them into a discussion of the contract she prepared, with the help of the lawyer she and Shane work with. David is used to her talking business over meals, so he sits back to enjoy the food and let Yuna do her thing. She lays one of the printed versions of the contract next to Ilya's breakfast plate and walks him through each clause, as they'd discussed with Shane. He nods along, asking the occasional clarifying question, but he doesn't offer any requests or ask about changing any of it. Part of her wishes there was a third party here able to advocate on his behalf, but if he had that, she wouldn't be here, so she lets him sign it as is, contenting herself as well as she can with the knowledge that she'd drawn up a reasonable contract that looked to be as fair as possible to both parties. 

As soon as the contract is signed, Ilya smiling broadly as Yuna adds her own signature beside his, she flips the folder shut and pulls out her notebook. She got a new one for Ilya, yellow where Shane's is blue, and she'd compiled some notes to direct the rest of their discussion today. Ilya's enthusiasm dims the moment Yuna starts talking about his personal image, and Yuna tries not to let her recognition of it show. Shane is the same way, wanting to focus everybody's attention on his hockey and that alone. Still, Yuna knows no hockey stats are going to beat out a human-interest story, and no playoff run is going to reach as many people as a billboard with their faces on it. 

“I am not like Shane, so serious," he protests. "I don't think people would want to see me with gross smoothies and early morning workout routines.”

“No,” Yuna says, prepared for this. “You’re not like Shane. We don’t want you to be Shane; that wouldn’t help us. But you should still have a cohesive image.”

That catches Ilya’s attention, gets him to look at her instead of carefully past her.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

"Look, whatever it is that's going on with you and Shane, you are friends. You like each other. You brought him onto the CCM shoot, you agreed to do the drink campaign because Shane was already attached, and I assume you want to continue working with him," Yuna says, watching as Ilya nods along cautiously. "You don't want to have the same image as him, because that lessens the value of having the two of you work together. But you do need to manage your public image into something more cohesive. Right now, the public doesn't know a lot about you outside of your hockey stats and the press you do around games. You still have time to decide who you're going to be, and there are things you need to consider along the way."

Ilya is quiet for a long moment, and Yuna looks to David to see that he's unconcerned. This is probably an okay silence, then. She picks a strawberry off David's plate and pops it into her mouth to have something to do.

"You talk with Hollander about these things? Plans for image in far future?" Ilya asks eventually. Yuna's not sure if he's deflecting or if he's trying to frame this as a challenge against Shane so he can justify his investment in it.

"It's a little different for Shane," Yuna admits freely. "We've been having discussions about how he's perceived his whole life. He's always known that his identity will be as much a point of conversation as his skills. He's worked hard to be a role model for others, which requires him to consider a lot of things regarding his public image at all times."

“A role model for others?" Ilya repeats, sounding a bit stunned. "You are already planning for him to come out?”

“No,” Yuna corrects quickly. She may have plans in place, but Shane isn’t ready for that, not yet. Ilya is confused, and Yuna considers how she should present this. She's not sure he'll appreciate tact, so she gives it to him straight.

“Hockey is a white sport,” she says bluntly. “93% of active players are white, and that remaining 7% makes up everybody else, not just Asian players. Because Shane is Asian Canadian, and because he’s one of the best players of his age, he's never going to escape the commentary on his race, and he’s never going to be able to be sure that his race doesn’t play into his sponsors’ choice to sign him. He doesn’t like to think about it, and he does his best to redirect the questions he gets about it, but that doesn’t make it disappear.”

She looks down at her notebook and smooths out the already-smooth page in front of her before she looks back up at Ilya, who seems to have been struck dumb by her words.

“I expect Shane’s going to be the same about his sexuality. He doesn’t want that to be his story; he wants his hockey to be the story. That means it’s my job to work with him and his sponsors to make sure they don’t lean too hard into any aspect of his identity that isn’t ‘hockey player.’ But that doesn’t mean I don’t screen the organizations we work with for their history and current stances on racial inclusion, or that I haven't started to do the same with their history and current stances on gay rights. I've started doing that with potential organizations you might work with, but that's not the whole story. Shane's not going to do an ad with Absolut just because they have a history of gay-friendly advertising, because it doesn't fit the image we've constructed for him.”

"And he does not like vodka," Ilya says.

Yuna smiles.

"And he doesn't like vodka," she concedes. "If you'd like, that can be our jumping-off point today. What do you like? What do you want to be associated with?"

-

Ilya seems happy to spend the day just talking with them, once they'd brought the discussion down to the more immediate, practical concerns, with questions he feels prepared to answer. He's quick to jump on any opportunity to distract them into telling another childhood story about Shane, to the point that Yuna sends David out to grab lunch after he's told the story of young Shane beginning to adopt playoff superstitions early. Ilya's happy to talk about things he enjoys, although he sometimes pauses as if remembering who he's talking to, as if Yuna and David don't have the same access to tabloid news as everyone else. Yuna's been monitoring his press nearly as much as she does Shane's lately, adding notes to her now-massive spreadsheet. 

It wouldn't be hard, between that press and the interests Ilya easily shares, to paint him as another flashy playboy athlete, and Yuna doesn't think that's bad, but she also doesn't think there's anything special about it, and she knows the same isn't true of Ilya. Determined to see past his media image and bravado, she gets Ilya talking about other things he enjoys and what he likes to do with his time, ultimately making a few notes about potential charity engagements. They get off on another tangent, with David's help, about childhood pets, and Yuna makes a note that Ilya would probably like to work with the Animal Rescue League or some smaller organizations around Boston if it means he gets to spend some time with the puppies up for adoption. By the time they leave, the sky is dark, and she knows David will be the one driving so she can continue making notes in her notebook. She watches as David goes in for the handshake, shoulder-clap combination again, and, as she pulls Ilya down into a hug, she wonders at the fact that he didn't make a single comment all day about wanting them to leave or having other things to do with his day, or even needing rest after how long he's been away from home.

"We'll have to do this again sometime," she tells him, and the smile she gets in return isn't the brightest she's seen, but she thinks it might be the brightest she's seen that wasn't for Shane. 

Montreal

Yuna hears from the Metros front office the same day the news of Shane and Ilya's new collaboration is announced, even before any of the actual ad content is shared. She'd known, before the call, that Montreal hasn’t been thrilled that Shane and Ilya seem to have a relationship outside of their rivalry. Still, she can’t help but resent them for the headache building behind her temples as she says, for the third time in the last twenty minutes, "There's nothing in his contract that prevents him from engaging in external branding opportunities, or that he needs to get these opportunities approved by your organization in advance." She's read his contract more than enough to know that this is the case, and her voice remains steady and calm by sheer force of will.

"There is an expectation," the heated voice on the other end of the phone patronizes her, "that he maintains an image that is harmonious with the Metros brand." 

"I wouldn't consider sportsmanship and collaboration to be so alien to your brand that it would create an issue, and I expect Shane didn't either," she argues. 

"The Montreal Metros value competition. It's why we drafted your son, and it's why we maintain high expectations for him. That value doesn't preclude sportsmanship."

It's such bullshit, Yuna barely holds in a scoff. Shane has exceeded any reasonable expectation they might have had for him, and the insinuation that he's done anything less is offensive. She doesn't miss the way his voice curls on the word 'son' either, as if Yuna is any less professionally competent because of her personal relationship with Shane, as if she's some overbearing mother and not the one person on this call who actually understands exactly what Shane's contract says. The fact that this phone call is even happening is absurd. Yuna doubts the Metros make a habit of calling other players' managers when they act out, even if that were what Shane is doing. If they have a problem with Shane's behavior, they should be talking to Shane, not his mother.

"I can assure you," she says, unable to keep the ice from her tone at the accusation, "that Shane is no less competitive with any team or player on the ice, regardless of any personal or professional ties he has with them off of it. Any look at his stats will demonstrate that."

"This isn't about his stats on the ice; it's about his behavior off of it," the response comes short and precise, and Yuna is momentarily speechless at the words. She knows this is Shane's worst fear, that people will care more about what he does in his personal life than about his hockey skills. As much as she resents being on this call, she's a bit grateful that Shane's not the one hearing this. This is what she's responsible for protecting him from, and she's going to do exactly that. 

"His behavior off the ice is in line with the expectations that were put forth in his contract," she says, voice firm as stone and equally as immovable. "If you intend to punish him for participating in a project independent from your organization which does not violate any agreements he has with you, we may need to have a very different conversation and involve additional parties."

She can hear him seething at her sideways admission that she's not afraid to get lawyers involved, but he doesn't speak for a long moment. When he finally does, the words are as infuriating as the rest of the call. 

"Well, this conversation has been enlightening. Good day, Mrs. Hollander."

At the sound of the call ending, Yuna throws her phone onto the couch, too angry to be grateful when it lodges itself between the cushions instead of bouncing into a wall and shattering. She wants to break something. She wants to scream. Unable to hold it in, she lets out a frustrated shout, clenching her fists and feeling her body vibrate with emotion. 

David comes out of the kitchen with a wary expression, familiar with the way Yuna holds in her frustration until it takes over, suffusing her entire body and overwhelming anything that might pull her out of it. At the sight of her, David walks over, pulls her by the shoulders into his warm embrace, and gently guides her head into the crook of his shoulder where she can hide her face. She breathes in the familiar, calming scent of him and keeps her eyes tightly shut, taking a moment to hide from the world. David is here. He has her. He loves her. She can hear him saying as much in the distant reaches of her mind, and as she continues to breathe him in, the words become clearer, more real. When she finally pulls back, David cradles her head in his large hands and kisses her forehead, and when she tilts her head up in a silent request, he gives her a proper kiss, firm and grounding.

"We'll figure this out," he tells her, and she believes him.

-

The next time Yuna sees Shane, he's as tense as he's ever been. His face is a mask that many people would read as indifference, but she can see past it to the edginess underneath. She's not as calm as she'd like to be herself, and she wonders if their discontent is stemming from the same root. It takes some prying to get Shane to admit that he's been getting a lot of pressure from the team, the coaches, and the front office about his perceived friendship with Ilya. Yuna brushes aside her concern that he'd tried to hide this from her, caught up in anger that it's happening at all. She needs Shane to understand that this behavior is unacceptable. They can’t intimidate their star rookie out of having friends on other teams, even if the team in question is a division rival. After nearly an hour going around in verbal circles with him, Yuna closes her laptop and notebook, conceding that no real work is getting done today, and looks her son in the eye. 

“The way they’re acting is ridiculous, Shane," she tells him. "If the Metros front office keeps it up, it may get around that Montreal isn’t supporting you the way they need to be, and then they’ll really be in hot water. You’ve been having a breakout season, you're an All-Star, there’s a good chance you win the Calder, and we both know plenty of teams who would try to incentivize you into joining them if your contract allowed for you to make that decision. If Montreal doesn’t have our goodwill to count on, they may be cornered into a trade.” 

He looks at her as though he knows he's missing something but has no idea how to find it.

"How would it get around?" Shane asks.

"You know," she says, "there could be whispering.”

"How would there be whispering?"

Yuna sighs.

“Well, Shane, we could whisper.”

Shane looks at her like she’s crazy. And maybe it is a little crazy, but she’s not sure it’s impossible. She's already rubbed elbows with enough MLH bigwigs at enough events that she’s sure she could make something happen.

"They can't actually trade me for being friends with Rozanov," Shane says incredulously.

"You don't have a no-trade clause in your ELC, Shane," Yuna reminds him. "And do you really think that it would be the worst thing to be traded, given how they're treating you?"

Shane continues to look at her like she has three heads and seems unsure what to say, so Yuna takes a moment to pull herself together before she continues.

"Shane," she says, keeping her voice gentle, "I want you to know that whatever you want to do, I will support you, personally and professionally. I will spin it to the press however we need to. But I want you to seriously consider that if the Metros are acting this way because of a few shared campaigns, how might they act if they learn the truth behind them."

Shane blanches, and Yuna almost wants to take the words back, but she knows she was right to put it on the table. She knows he doesn't want to come out, but they can't act as if it will never happen, and they can't discount the possibility that it doesn't happen on his own terms.

"The Metros are your team," he says when he finally pulls himself together even to speak, and the words hit her in the chest. She reaches over to grab his hand and waits until he looks in her direction so he can see the resolution in her eyes. 

"And you are my son," she tells him. Nothing will ever matter more than that. 

-

It's not long after her talk with Shane that Yuna realizes a trade is happening with or without her interference. Any planning she may have done does nothing to ease the anger and indignation. She knows Shane won't be safe there, that a trade is the best-case scenario, but she hates that they're willing to give him up for such stupid reasons. She knows hockey is a team sport and that his relationship with the other guys on the team matters, but even if the team's been as disdainful of him and Ilya as Shane implied, it hasn't affected his stats. Except, she considers, maybe it has. Shane's having an exceptional season—he's an exceptional player—but maybe with another team, one that doesn't have him currently on edge, he could be even better. If that's the case, Montreal should be making itself the environment he can thrive in, instead of shipping him off to another team who can. 

Yuna feels as though she's being childish, raging against the unfairness of the world, but she's always had a harder time with that reality when it affects Shane. He deserves a world that will accept him for who he is, on his extremely impressive merits. His safety shouldn't have to be a concern in his workplace, outside of the obvious dangers that already exist on the ice. 

She allows herself twenty-four hours to rage, to yell, to rant to David about how stupid and unfair it all is, and to clear any Metros-branded items out of her house and put them in boxes in the garage to be donated to the nearest thrift store as soon as the trade is announced. Then, she gets to work.

-

Officially, Yuna is in no position to know anything about the trade before it happens. Unofficially, she knows people, and she's not above bending the rules if it allows her to bend the ears of people who are going to be making decisions about Shane's future. Theriault's an asshole, but his administrative assistant, Mabel, is a lovely woman who's worked for the organization longer than he has and who has a soft spot for Shane, so Yuna's able to at least follow the conversation with updates from her. 

They have a long-standing bridge night every other week, and Mabel is always happy to chatter on about her work. Yuna tries to prepare herself for the worst, but she’s surprised to hear about the directions Montreal is considering for the trade. Anything outside of the Eastern Conference is something of a nightmare for Yuna, but they don't seem to be in serious talks with any Canadian teams, so she pulls out her research on American citizenship. She's not thrilled about sending her gay son to a country that still hasn't even legalized gay marriage and has only recently rid themselves of sodomy laws, but she supposes the law hasn't done much to keep him safe here, either. He can still come home when he's ready to get married and build a family, but dual citizenship isn't a bad idea. 

When Mabel brings up Boston, Yuna is so surprised that she nearly inhales her wine instead of drinking it. She wonders momentarily is Mabel is a less reliable source than Yuna had assumed, but as Mabel goes on about how there are people in the room worried about the potential repercussions of a trade that's seen unfavorable for either side, and a general sentiment that if Shane wants to share his spotlight with Ilya so badly, he should see how he likes to split ice time with him.

"They're all talking big," Mabel says, "getting cold feet and trying to justify taking a deal that might be catastrophically stupid because no one's willing to give up quite as much as Boston is."

Yuna doesn't know what to say to that, so she takes another sip of her wine. She needs to talk to Shane about it.

-

Shane comes by for dinner after an absolute slaughter of a game against Ottawa, and Yuna welcomes him home with a big hug, leading him into the kitchen to say hi to David before they settle in the dining room. David takes one look at him and pulls him into a tight hug, not even testing the waters with the shoulder-tap this time, and Shane melts into it. When they finally pull away, Shane's expression remains the same, but his shoulders have lowered slightly, and Yuna gives David a quick kiss before she leaves the room. He always knows exactly what they need. 

When they sit down across from each other at the table, Shane is unsurprised by the sight of the folder and notebook out on the table. He's no doubt heard the trade rumors that are making their way through the league. Yuna wasn't going to let this be quick and quiet the way Montreal wanted it, and she's going to do everything in her power to make sure the result is in their favor.

"Do you have an idea of what teams they're looking at?" he asks, staring at her notebook. 

She pulls it toward her but doesn't open it as she answers in the affirmative.

"They're still in talks with a number of teams," she tells him, "you're not someone they can just send off to Buffalo and be done with. You're worth more than most teams have to give."

"What teams are we looking at then?" he asks.

Yuna lists off a few, watching Shane's reactions as he begins to process this, and pauses before she admits, "and Boston."

Shane's gaze snaps up to meet hers in that moment, and Yuna knows this is it for him.

"Is there anything we can do to make that happen?" Shane asks, knowing the answer is no. 

"I know there's a lot Boston has to recommend itself," Yuna says, trying to keep her tone tempered. 

"Like the fact that I'll be able to see Ilya every day? That we'll finally get to see how our chemistry plays out on the ice? That maybe we can figure out what exactly is going on with us in real time instead of trying to parse it out the four times a year that there's enough plausible deniability for us to be seen together? God, mom—”

Shane's casual tone increases in urgency as he speaks, the words seeming to tear all of the frustrations he's kept at bay out from where he's been hiding them, but he cuts himself off when he hears himself getting louder.

"I know that's a big consideration," she tells him. "I can understand if that's your first priority, after getting to play at all. But you're not just any player, Shane, and there are other things to consider when making this decision."

"It's not just about wanting to see him, Mom. Playing against him is like nothing else; can you imagine the two of us on the same team? On the same line?"

Shane's clearly imagining it, and as his mom, Yuna wants this for him so badly it hurts, but as his manager, she knows this can't be the whole story.

"There are other considerations," Yuna tries to warn, but Shane lets out a harsh breath that's only just short of a scoff, and she waits to hear what he has to say. 

"I know," he says. "I know there aren't a lot of Asian players in the league, and I know that someday Ilya and I are going to come out and people are going to look at our games and our stats and our salaries retrospectively and wonder if our identities have anything to do with it." 

Shane runs his hands roughly down his face, momentarily hiding the wetness that's building in his eyes, and Yuna wants desperately to reach out, but she's not sure the action will be well-received. 

"I know what the considerations are," he says, "but I'm tired."

He looks ashamed, not the same small undercurrent of shame she'd thought she caught sight of when he came out to her, but a deeper, more affecting shame. He looks exhausted by it.

"It's been a year, and I'm already so tired of it, Mom. How can I do this for twenty more years?"

He starts crying for real then, tears streaking down his face and breaths coming unevenly, and Yuna can't hold out any longer. She comes around the table and wraps Shane in her arms, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder. Safe in the warmth of her embrace, Shane cries harder, his torso shaking with it even as he remains silent. Yuna remembers the day nearly a year ago now, when she'd first considered the effect this might have on his career, and she'd pushed her maternal fears down in favor of the more practical concerns, convinced that fixing the problems he might face would help him more than anything else. If there's anything this past year has taught her, it's that there will always be something new and surprising to sweep them off their feet just when they think they've finally found their footing. With that in mind, she lets her maternal instincts take the lead in this moment. She will fix this. She will make it okay for Shane. She'll find a way for him to play the game he loves with the man he sounds like he’s well on his way to loving, and she'll make sure that he has every opportunity he's been afforded. But for now, she's going to hold him and tell him that it will be okay. 

-

The deal goes through far more easily than it should. It's the kind of trade no reasonable front office would make, no matter what Boston gave them in exchange, but Yuna knows that Montreal has branded Shane as a problem player, and that makes his value lower in their eyes than it should be. Boston was determined enough to offer just about everything they had, but Yuna still doesn't believe that Montreal pushed hard enough. 

She's been seething about it since she first caught wind of the discussion, but seeing it actually go through unlocks a new well of anger. She hadn't thought there was any part of her hanging on to the possibility that Montreal would see reason, but she still can't believe they've done this. She drives to the nearest thrift store, dumps all the boxes from the garage, goes online to purchase a ROZANOV jersey to wear until they stock the HOLLANDER ones, and goes to Shane's to pack up his apartment.

Boston

The first time Shane and Ilya take the ice together for a game in Boston, Yuna is sitting in the stands with David, decked out in full Raiders gear, black pants under her jersey and a striped scarf she'd bought from the gift shop on her way in. There are gold earrings hanging from her ears that Ilya had bought her for her birthday this summer, and a gold pendant hanging in front of her heart that Shane had bought her for mother’s day. David's got a jersey of his own and an arm wrapped around her shoulders as they watch the boys on the ice. Their boys, Yuna thinks. 

Shane is as fast and sharp as ever, seeing things on the ice that other people might miss, and Ilya is with him every step of the way. If Yuna hadn't carried Shane for nearly ten months and raised him his entire life, she'd be convinced there was something otherworldly about the way he plays today, some supernatural connection between the two of them

Having been there for him as much as she can, though, and having gotten to know Ilya so well over the past year, she knows the answer is something much simpler. They love each other, and they understand each other better than any two people she's ever met, and they're having the time of their lives. There's an unencumbered joy on Shane's face she'd worried was lost forever as he'd grown up, and Ilya's severe hockey expression keeps slipping into his full, youthful grin. Yuna's never been so grateful to know there are cameras around and that Valeria will send her any shots she asks for. She imagines where she’ll put the picture on the gallery wall in her dining room that Ilya admires every time he visits. She wonders if Ilya has any pictures of his younger self that she could get printed. It's probably too early to think about redecorating her home to include baby pictures of her son's boyfriend, but she's not sure any of them would protest. Ilya's a part of their family now, and he should be presented as such in the safety and comfort of their home. 

Yuna is broken from her musings by the roar of the crowd as Shane scores his second goal of the night, off an assist from Ilya, and she stands in her seat, adding her own voice to the wall of sound. She watches Ilya and Shane crash into each other in celebration, and she knows that they're both exactly where they're meant to be.