Archive of Our Own

I.

Ilya arrived at the facility forty minutes early, which, depending on who you asked, was either unprecedented or deeply suspicious.

Bood, who had been asked, chose both. He stood at his own stall with his arms folded and watched Ilya adjust the streamers for the third time. "You're going to scare the shit out of him."

"I am welcoming him."

"You're welcoming him with a fake nameplate and a colouring book."

"Is a good colouring book." Ilya smoothed the last streamer flat against the wooden frame of the stall and stepped back to admire his work. Red and black streamers, the team colours, fanned across the top and sides. A black gift bag sat on the bench, stuffed with red tissue paper. And above it all, where Shane Hollander's name should have been, a freshly printed nameplate read НОВИЧОК.

Dale had printed it without questions. Fifteen years as the Centaurs' equipment manager had given him an unshakeable tolerance for nonsense, and a captain with a laminator and a plan barely registered.

"What does it say?" Troy asked from across the room. He was leaning against the doorframe with a protein bar in one hand, here earlier than usual too.

"Novichok. Means new one. Beginner."

"The newbie?"

"Yes."

Troy bit into his bar and chewed. "Shane doesn't speak Russian."

"No. Well yes, a little."

"So he's going to see a bunch of Cyrillic letters and have no idea what it says."

Ilya hadn't considered this. A minor flaw. "Someone will tell him."

"You want me to tell him?"

"No. Wait for him to ask."

Troy shrugged. "This is going to be fun."

Ilya thought so too. He'd been awake since five, which was absurd. He did not wake up at five. He woke up when his body decided it was time, which was rarely before seven-thirty and never with this much energy. But today was the first day of training camp, and today Shane was going to walk into this locker room wearing a Centaurs jersey, and Ilya had not been able to lie still with that knowledge buzzing through him.

He had tried to be cool about it. Coffee, Anya, the back deck, the river in the pre-dawn grey. Normal morning. Calm captain.

Then he'd loaded the gift bag into his car and driven to the rink at a speed that was, in hindsight, irresponsible.

Players filtered in over the next twenty minutes. Wyatt arrived, saw the stall, and paused. He looked at Ilya. Looked at the stall. Then said, "Oh no," and went to put his gear on.

Luca arrived with his headphones in and didn't notice at first. When he did, he pulled one earbud out and said, "Is that for Hollander?"

"Yes."

Luca's face split into a grin so wide it looked painful. While he was still the youngest player on the team, as of today, he was no longer the newest. The relief was visible from across the room.

Dykstra noticed, laughed once, and said, "Rozzy, he's going to kill you."

"He will not kill me. He loves me."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Wyatt called from inside his stall.

By the time Shane was due, everyone in the locker room knew. The ones who hadn't been told in advance had worked it out on arrival. Ilya could feel it: sixteen grown men pretending to act natural, which meant no one was acting natural at all. Bood was tying his skates. He'd been tying the same skate for three minutes. Troy had his phone out but wasn't looking at it. Dykstra was humming.

"Everyone relax," Ilya said.

"You relax," Bood muttered.

The door opened.

Shane came in quietly. He scanned the room, catalogued the faces, then committed to the space. Grey t-shirt, athletic shorts, hair damp from the shower he'd taken before leaving the house. Gear bag over one shoulder. Travel mug of coffee in his free hand. He looked like he did on the first morning of every training camp he'd ever attended, except his bag had a Centaurs tag on it and the coffee mug was the one Ilya had bought him in Spain.

His eyes moved to his stall. Number 24.

He stopped.

Sixteen men. Not breathing.

Shane set his bag on the floor. Looked at the streamers. The nameplate. The gift bag. Then he turned and found Ilya, who was sitting in his own stall six feet away with his legs stretched out and his arms behind his head.

"Welcome," Ilya said.

Shane's mouth pressed into a line that was fighting itself. "What does it say?"

"Your name."

"I know what my name looks like in Cyrillic. That isn't it."

"Is nickname."

Shane looked at Bood. "What does it say?"

Bood didn't look up from his skates. "No idea, man. I don't speak Russian."

Shane looked at Troy.

Troy put both hands up. "Don't look at me."

Shane looked at Wyatt.

Wyatt, who was incapable of deception and knew it, developed an immediate and consuming need to adjust his goalie pads. "Sorry, what? Can't hear you. Busy."

Shane looked back at Ilya. His jaw was tight, muscles working against whatever his mouth wanted to do. "Ilya."

"Yes, rookie?"

A muffled sound from somewhere behind them. Luca, face buried in his jersey.

Shane turned to his stall and picked up the gift bag. Pulled out the tissue paper. Then the colouring book: hockey-themed, for ages four to eight, with a cartoon goalie on the cover. He held it up and studied it.

"There are crayons also," Ilya offered.

Shane reached in. Crayons. A pack of gum. And the card.

White card. Cartoon hockey player on the front. WELCOME TO THE NHL! in bubble letters. Inside, Ilya had written:

Congratulations on your big day!

We're all so proud of you!

—Your teammates.

He'd gotten the entire team and Coach Wiebe to sign it.

Shane opened the card. Read it. His ears went pink. The colour crept down his neck.

"There's also gum," Ilya said again, because he was enjoying this and saw no reason to stop.

Shane closed the card and set it on the bench next to the colouring book and crayons. He looked at Ilya with an expression that contained, by Ilya's count, at least four things Shane was not going to let reach the surface.

"Thank you," Shane said. His voice was level. "This is thoughtful."

"Of course. We want you to feel at home."

Shane nodded once. Sat down in his stall, under the streamers, beside the colouring book, and began unpacking his gear.

The room exhaled.

Ilya watched Shane's hands move through the routine: shin pads, socks, pants, skates. Same order. Same precision. The same sequence he'd performed thousands of times in other rooms, for other teams, made new only by the red and black jersey waiting on the hook above him.

It was a small thing, watching someone get dressed for practice. Ordinary. Ilya wanted Shane in a Centaurs jersey to become so routine that one day neither of them would remember a time before it.

But that was later. Today, in this room, Shane was the new guy. And Ilya was having the time of his life.

He leaned over, close enough that only Shane could hear. "You look good in red and black."

Shane didn't look at him. His fingers worked the laces of his left skate, same careful loops, same tension. But the corner of his mouth moved. Once.

"I'm going to get you back, Rozanov," Shane said quietly.

Ilya grinned. "Looking forward to it, Hollander."

He wasn't worried. Shane was talented, yes, and focused, and capable of frightening patience when he chose to deploy it. But he was not a prankster. He didn't have the constitution. He overthought, agonised, second-guessed himself into stillness. Retaliation required looseness. Recklessness. A willingness to be stupid.

Shane was none of those things.

Ilya sat back and watched his husband tie his skates in a building they finally shared.

He had nothing to worry about.

II.

The puck bags were Bood's idea.

It happened on Shane's third day. Practice had ended, the team filing off the ice, when Bood called out from the bench without looking up: "Hey, new guy. Grab the bags."

Shane, halfway to the tunnel, stopped. He looked at the three mesh bags of pucks sitting behind the far net. Then at Bood. Then at Ilya.

Ilya was leaning on the boards, peeling tape off his stick. "Is tradition," he said.

Shane looked at him for one beat longer than was comfortable. Then he skated back, picked up all three bags, slung them over his shoulders, and carried them off the ice without a word.

Bood waited until Shane was in the tunnel before turning to Ilya with a grin. "That was too easy."

"He is agreeable," Ilya said. "Is one of his best qualities."

"It's one of his scariest qualities," Bood said, but Ilya wasn't listening.

*

The coffee happened on day five.

Ilya had mentioned, at the end of morning skate, that the newest member of the team usually handled the coffee run. This was not true. There was no coffee run tradition. There had never been a coffee run tradition. But Ilya, in his capacity as team captain, said it with enough authority that no one contradicted him, and within thirty seconds, orders were being shouted across the locker room.

"Large dark roast, two sugars," Bood said.

"Oat milk latte," said Troy. "Make sure it's oat. Not almond. Last time someone got me almond I could taste it for a week."

"I'll have a medium coffee, just black," Wyatt said, then paused. "Actually, could you add one cream? No, wait. Black. Yeah, black is fine."

"Green tea," said Luca.

"You want green tea from a coffee shop?" Dykstra looked at him sideways.

"What? It's good."

Dykstra turned to Shane. "Large double-double. And a breakfast sandwich. Turkey sausage, not pork."

"That's not coffee," Shane said.

"Is tradition," Ilya said, from his stall.

Shane pulled out his phone. Ilya watched him type the orders into his notes app with the same focus he brought to reviewing game tape. No shorthand. Full sentences. When he'd gotten every order, he read the full list back once, corrected Wyatt's final answer to black, confirmed Dykstra's turkey sausage, and left.

He came back thirty-two minutes later with a cardboard tray in each hand and a paper bag hooked over his wrist. Every order was correct. Wyatt's was black. Troy's was oat. Dykstra's sandwich was turkey sausage. Luca's green tea had a little tag hanging over the side of the cup.

Shane distributed them one by one, matched to each player, without checking his phone.

"Thank you, rookie," Ilya said, accepting his Americano.

Shane looked at him. "You didn't tell me your order."

"You know my order."

"That's not the point."

Ilya took a sip. Perfect. "It is a bit the point."

Shane turned away to hand out the last two cups. Ilya caught a flicker in Shane's face before it smoothed over. Not annoyance. Not amusement. A stillness behind the eyes, like a calculator running figures he hadn't been shown.

Troy leaned over once Shane had moved on. "He memorised the whole thing in one pass."

"Of course he did," Ilya said. "He's Shane Hollander."

"Right." Troy watched Shane hand Luca his green tea with a polite nod. "That doesn't worry you?"

"Why would it worry me?"

Troy just shrugged and sipped his latte.

*

On the ice, it was water bottles.

Coach Wiebe blew the whistle for a break during a scrimmage in the second week of camp. Before the trainers could move, Bood cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Hey new guy! Water!"

Shane was at the far blue line. He looked at Bood. Looked at the bench, where the bottles sat in their rack. Looked at Ilya, who was stretching his hip flexors at centre ice.

Ilya gave him a thumbs up.

Shane skated to the bench, collected four bottles, and skated them back. One to Bood. One to Dykstra. One to Troy. Then he skated to Ilya and held out the last one.

"Thank you," Ilya said.

"You're welcome." Pleasant. Polite. Ilya checked his water bottle before drinking.

*

The bus was the one that should have warned him.

First road trip of the season. A short swing through New York state. The team bus idled outside the facility at six in the morning, and Ilya was boarding with his headphones on when Bood touched his arm and pointed toward the cargo bay.

Shane was there. Loading bags. Not his own gear, which had been handled by the equipment staff, but the spare sticks. A canvas bag of medical supplies. A case of Gatorade.

No one had asked him to do it. He'd just started.

A reporter from the Ottawa Citizen was walking through the parking lot toward her car. She slowed as she passed, recognising Shane, and Ilya watched her face cycle through confusion, amusement, and what might have been concern. Shane gave her a friendly nod, hoisted a bag of pucks into the cargo bay, and went back for the next load.

"Is he okay?" Bood asked, low enough that only Ilya could hear.

"He is fine."

"He hasn't complained. Not once."

"He is a good sport."

Bood was quiet for a moment. "Roz, in my experience, a guy who never complains is a guy who's writing everything down."

Shane lifted the last case into the bay, dusted off his hands, and walked to the bus door. As he climbed the steps, he caught Ilya's eye and smiled. Warm and open and glad to be here. And, without question, keeping a list.

Ilya smiled back.

He wasn't worried. Not yet.

III.

"Is tradition," Ilya announced to the locker room on a Thursday in late September, "for the newest player to take the team out for dinner."

Shane, who was unlacing his skates, looked up. "Since when?"

"Since always."

"Name the last time it happened."

"Troy took us all out when he joined."

Troy, across the room, opened his mouth. Ilya shot him a look. Troy closed his mouth.

"I've been on this team for a month," Shane said. "No one's mentioned a dinner."

"Because I am mentioning it now. Friday night. I will choose the restaurant."

"Of course you will."

Ilya chose Beckta.

He could have picked somewhere reasonable. Somewhere the bill would sting but not wound. But Ilya was not interested in reasonable. He was interested in the look on Shane's face when the entire team and their partners ordered from a menu that started at forty dollars for burrata, and he was interested in what Shane would do about it.

He was also interested in the lobster.

Beckta occupied a narrow townhouse on Elgin Street. Candlelight, dark wood, servers who called you "Sir." The wine list was bound in leather and weighed about as much as a newborn.

The private dining rooms in the back had been opened into one long space: white linen, more glassware than Ilya had seen outside of a wedding. Thirty-four seats. He'd called ahead.

They arrived in clusters. Bood and Cassie, because no one was going to tell Cassie Boodram she wasn't welcome. Troy and Harris, Harris already photographing the table setting for a post he would never publish. Wyatt without Lisa, because Lisa had a shift at the hospital. Dykstra and Caitlin. Luca, alone, in a jacket he'd bought that afternoon; the tags were still inside the collar, and Troy cut them off in the vestibule. Chouinard and Selena. Dillon, Boyle and his wife, Holmberg, LaPointe, Young. The rest of the roster filtered in behind them, some with partners, filling seats and ordering drinks. Coach Wiebe, who had accepted the invitation with an amused nod and ordered sparkling water the moment he sat down. Dale. Gen. Theresa, Harris' boss. Terry, Rebecca, Theo.

Shane arrived last. He was wearing a dark blue button-down that Ilya had ironed for him that morning without being asked. Left unsupervised, Shane would spend twenty minutes on a single shirt and emerge with more wrinkles than he'd started with. He looked good. He smelled like the cologne Ilya had bought him in Spain, the one he wore for dinners they'd both remember.

He surveyed the table. Thirty-four people. The glassware. The leather-bound wine list. The candles.

"Nice choice," he said to Ilya, and sat down.

The ordering was a performance.

Troy went first, catching the server's attention before anyone had finished reading the menu. "We'll start with the charcuterie for the table. And the tuna tartare. And the burrata." He glanced around, confirming. "Two of each, actually. Big group."

Six appetisers for the table. Shane's jaw tightened. Controlled.

Ilya ordered the lobster. "And I will also have the tenderloin. For my second course."

The server, to her credit, did not blink. "Of course, sir."

Bood ordered the ribeye. Then, once the server had moved on two seats, raised his hand. "Sorry, could I also get the scallops? I just want to try them."

"The scallops are an entrée, sir."

"That's fine." Bood didn't look at Shane. He didn't need to.

Dykstra ordered the lamb rack. Chouinard ordered the duck. Selena ordered the sea bass, which was the most expensive fish on the menu. Ilya appreciated her commitment to a cause she knew nothing about.

Wyatt studied the menu for a long time. Then he said, in a small voice, "Could I just get the risotto?"

The risotto was the least expensive entrée. Ilya reached across the table and removed the menu from Wyatt's hands. "He will have the wagyu."

"Roz, that's—"

"Is tradition." Ilya held Wyatt's gaze until Wyatt deflated and nodded.

Harris was next. He took the wine list from its stand and opened it to the last page. The back page. The reserve vintages. The bottles that cost more than Ilya's first car in Russia.

"I'd like this one," Harris said, pointing.

The sommelier leaned in. Paused. Leaned in again. "The 2010 Romanée-Conti?"

"That's the one."

The sommelier looked at Harris. Looked at the table. Looked at Shane, who was sitting with his hands folded. "Excellent choice, Sir. I'll decant that for you."

Harris did not drink wine. He drank beer, sometimes cider, and once, at Ilya's Halloween party, a Creamsicle Shot that Troy had mocked him about for weeks. He had ordered the most expensive bottle on the list because Ilya had asked him to, and because the chaos was the point.

Luca ordered the chicken. It was, after the wagyu and the lobster and the Romanée-Conti, anticlimactic. But Luca was twenty and Swiss and there were limits to his recklessness.

Shane ordered last. Halibut. A glass of Sancerre. Nothing else. He closed his menu and handed it to the server with a nod, and Ilya knew, without question, that Shane had calculated the evening's total before the first appetiser arrived.

The meal was good. The meal was spectacular, if Ilya was being fair. The lobster was sweet and bright, the tenderloin melted against his molars, and the wine, which Harris had sniffed and sipped once before abandoning his glass for the rest of the evening, was extraordinary.

But Ilya wasn't watching the food. He was watching Shane.

Shane was laughing. Not performing, not enduring. Laughing. Leaning back in his chair with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, telling Luca about his first training camp in Montreal, gesturing with his fork when the story got animated. Bood was beside him, adding commentary. Troy and Harris were across the table, Harris's arm on the back of Troy's chair, both of them grinning.

Shane fit. Ilya hadn't been prepared for how easily. He had imagined Shane on this team a thousand times, but in his imagination there had always been an adjustment period. Awkwardness. The friction of a new variable in a settled equation.

There was none. Shane had slotted into the lineup, this table, this noise, these people, as if a space had been waiting for him. The team treated him as if he'd been there for years. He treated them the same way. Ilya had expected to help Shane belong.

Shane hadn't needed his help.

Dessert came. Ilya ordered the crème brûlée. Troy ordered two. Bood ordered the cheese plate, which came with honeycomb and imported quince paste and cost what a reasonable person would pay for an entire dinner elsewhere.

Luca, who had eaten his chicken with evident pleasure, pointed at the picked-over remains of the charcuterie board. "Could I take this home? In a bag?"

"My man," Troy said.

The bill arrived face-down on a small silver tray. It sat in the centre of the table.

No one touched it.

Shane reached forward and picked it up. Flipped it over. His eyes moved down the page. Down. Further down. Past the wine. Past the second round of appetisers Troy had ordered mid-meal without consulting anyone. Past the included gratuity. To the number at the bottom.

His face didn't change.

Ilya watched for a crack. A twitch. A blink. Shane's expression was serene. He could have been reading a pamphlet in a dentist's waiting room.

Shane placed his credit card on the tray. The server took it. When the receipt returned, Shane added thirty percent on top of the included gratuity, signed his name, and closed the leather folder.

"Thank you all for coming," he said. "This was nice."

"Thank you, rookie," Ilya said.

Shane looked at him. The look lasted three seconds. In those three seconds, Ilya found a new expression on Shane's face. One he hadn't seen in twelve years. Not in the thousands of micro-expressions he had catalogued and memorised and loved.

Patience.

Not the anxious, teeth-gritted patience Shane used when enduring discomfort. This was different. Calm, unhurried, and fed. Shane was not waiting for the right moment. He was choosing it.

Shane smiled at him. "My pleasure."

The team gathered coats and bags. Luca had his charcuterie. Harris was trying to smuggle the Romanée-Conti bottle out as a souvenir and Troy was helping him hide it inside his jacket. Bood caught Ilya's eye across the table and raised his eyebrows, a silent question Ilya pretended not to understand.

They all walked out into the cool September air on Elgin Street, the team spilling across the sidewalk, laughing, loud. Shane was beside Ilya, close enough that their shoulders touched.

"How was the lobster?" Shane asked.

"Incredible."

"Good." Shane's hand found Ilya's in the dark between them. Squeezed once. "You're going to remember it."

Ilya laughed. It came out less steady than he'd planned.

IV.

The idea came to Ilya on a Tuesday.

He found Harris in the social media office, editing footage at his desk. Gen was at her own desk across from him, sorting photos on her monitor.

"I need a favour," Ilya said from the doorway.

Harris looked up. "Shoot."

"I want you to film a welcome video for Shane. 'Meet the New Guy.' Like a draft pick. Like he has never played a game."

Harris's hands stilled on his keyboard. Gen's mouse stopped moving. They looked at each other.

"You want me to interview Shane Hollander," Harris said, "as if he's nineteen."

"Yes."

"A three-time Stanley Cup champion?"

"Yes."

"The guy who has more points than anyone else playing right now?"

"Yes."

Harris leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. A grin was spreading across his face that he made no effort to control. "When?"

"Tomorrow."

"I'll write the questions tonight." He paused. "Does Shane know?"

"Shane knows I am doing things to him. He does not know what the next thing is."

"Perfect." Harris was already reaching for a notepad. "Gen?"

"I'll run the camera," Gen said, already standing.

They filmed it the next afternoon in the media room: a small windowless space with a Centaurs logo backdrop and a single chair under a ring light. Shane had agreed without protest when Harris told him they needed a short segment for the socials. He hadn't asked what kind.

Ilya watched from the hallway, leaning against the wall where Shane couldn't see him but where he had a clear line through the open door.

Shane sat in the chair with his hands on his knees. Composed. Camera-ready. Twelve years of NHL media training behind him. He could do interviews in his sleep and had, on at least two occasions that Ilya knew of, done so.

Harris stood behind Gen, who was steady on the tripod. He had his notepad. He cleared his throat.

"Shane, welcome to the Ottawa Centaurs. How does it feel to finally make it to the NHL?"

From the hallway, Ilya saw Shane register the question. A fractional pause. His eyes moved past the camera to Harris, then back to the lens. His expression went earnest and open.

"It's a dream come true," Shane said. "I've worked my whole life for this moment."

Ilya pressed his knuckle against his teeth.

"What's been the biggest adjustment going from junior hockey to the professional game?"

Shane nodded, as if this were a reasonable thing to ask a thirty-year-old. "The speed. Everything moves so fast at this level. You have to think quicker, react quicker." He paused, searching for words he did not need to search for. "It's been humbling."

In the hallway, Ilya's shoulders were shaking.

"Do you have a favourite veteran on the team who's been helping you settle in?"

"Ilya Rozanov has been incredible." Shane's voice was warm. Steady. Not a trace of irony. "He's taken me under his wing. I've learned a lot from him, on and off the ice." A beat. "He's been like a big brother to me."

Ilya's knuckle was not enough. He shoved his whole fist against his mouth.

Behind the camera, Gen's shoulders were trembling. The footage (despite the tripod), Ilya would notice later, had a visible vibration from this point forward.

Harris pressed on, his voice strained. "Moving to a new city is always tough. How are you finding life away from home?"

Shane, who had grown up twenty minutes from the rink they were sitting in, whose parents still lived in the house he'd been raised in, whose mother had dropped off Tupperware of leftover curry at their door two nights ago, paused thoughtfully.

"It's an adjustment," he said. "I miss being close to my family. But the guys here have been great. They've made me feel welcome."

"I'll bet," Harris managed.

"Any pre-game rituals you're developing as you settle into your first season?"

"I'm still figuring out my routine. It's all so new." Shane tilted his head, considering. "I've been watching what the older guys do, trying to pick up habits. You learn so much from veterans who've been through it."

There was a sound from behind the camera that might have been Gen dying.

Harris looked at his notepad. Ilya could see his jaw working. One more question. Harris took a breath.

"Last one. Any message for the fans who might not have heard of you before?"

Shane looked into the camera. The ring light caught his eyes. He was beautiful and sincere and lethally committed to the bit.

"Hi. I'm Shane Hollander. I play centre for the Ottawa Centaurs." He sat a little straighter. "I'm going to work hard every single day to earn my spot on this roster. I hope you'll give me a chance."

Harris said, "Cut."

Gen turned off the camera, put her face in her hands, and wheezed. Harris dropped his notepad and bent double with his palms on his knees. Neither of them could speak.

Shane sat in the chair, hands on his knees, expression unchanged. He looked through the open door to where Ilya was standing in the hallway, no longer hidden, tears on his face.

"Was that okay?" Shane asked. Flat. Helpful. Professional.

Ilya couldn't answer. He was laughing too hard to breathe.

*

The video went up that evening. Harris edited it with a straight cut: no music, no graphics. Just Shane in the chair, answering questions. He titled it MEET THE NEW GUY and posted it to the Centaurs' accounts with the caption: Please welcome the newest member of our team, @shanehollander 🎉

Within forty-eight hours it was the most-viewed post in Ottawa Centaurs social media history.

The comments were split between people who understood it was a prank and people who weren't sure. One reply, with fourteen thousand likes, read: this man has three Stanley Cups. Another, from the Montreal Voyageurs' official account, said: We wish Shane all the best in his new chapter. 🙏 Harris fought with them in the replies for an hour.

That night, in bed, Ilya watched the video again on his phone. Shane was beside him, reading. Every time Ilya replayed the "big brother" line, the bed shook.

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," Shane said, not looking up.

"'Like a big brother.'" Ilya wiped his eyes. "Shane."

"It felt right in the moment."

Ilya set his phone on his chest. He looked at Shane's profile in the lamplight: the line of his jaw, the furrow between his brows as he read. Shane turned a page.

"You are very good at this," Ilya said.

"At what?"

"At waiting."

Shane's eyes stayed on his book. "I'm not waiting."

That should have been reassuring. It was not.

Ilya reached over and turned off his lamp. In the dark, beside the man he loved, he stared at the ceiling and thought, for the first time, that he might have underestimated Shane Hollander.

It would not be the last time he thought that.

V.

The plan required the cooperation of the jumbotron operator, the PA announcer, Coach Wiebe, and some twenty plus professional hockey players who could not, under any circumstances, laugh before the moment arrived.

This last part was the most challenging. Luca had been practising his serious face in the bathroom mirror for twenty minutes.

Saturday night home game against Boston. The entire arena, sold out down to the last seat. Attendance had been climbing since last season's playoff run, and the addition of Shane Hollander to the roster had turned it into a sellout streak. Ottawa wanted to see them play together. Ottawa wanted to believe.

In the tunnel, the team was lined up for warm-ups. Shane was at the front, because Ilya had put him there.

"You should go first," Ilya had said in the locker room, adjusting his gloves. "Is tradition. New player leads the team out for the first home game."

Shane had looked at him. The look lasted a beat too long, long enough for Ilya to wonder if he'd pushed too far. But Shane had just nodded. "Okay."

Now Shane stood at the mouth of the tunnel, stick in hand, bouncing on his skate guards. Behind him, the rest of the team waited in a line. No one spoke. Bood caught Ilya's eye from three spots back and gave a small shake of his head that could have meant "this is a bad idea" or "I can't believe I'm part of this" or both.

The tunnel attendant gave the signal. Shane stepped onto the ice.

He took three strides before he noticed.

The team had not followed. The tunnel was dark behind him. Twenty-two men in red and black, pressed flat against the boards inside the mouth, watching, not moving.

Shane stopped at the near blue line. Turned. Looked back at the tunnel.

The jumbotron lit up.

WELCOME SHANE HOLLANDER #24

The graphic was the standard rookie template: player headshot beside name and number, Centaurs logo spinning in the corner, animated confetti across the screen. Shane's photo was his official team headshot, taken six weeks ago, in which he looked handsome and composed and as if he had never played a professional hockey game, which, for this team, he technically had not.

The crowd erupted.

The people had no context for the joke. They did not know it was a prank and would not have cared if they had, because they were just happy he was here. Shane Hollander, Ottawa's own, finally home. The noise was enormous. The arena shook with it. People were on their feet, phones out, screaming his name.

Shane, alone at the blue line, looked up at the jumbotron. Looked at the graphic. Looked at the crowd. Then he turned back toward the tunnel, found Ilya's face in the cluster of helmets and visors, and held his gaze for two full seconds.

Then he started skating.

He did the lap. The full lap. He skated along the boards on the near side first, gliding, stick in one hand. He tapped the glass where kids were pressed against it, fists pounding the plexiglass, faces wild. He pointed at a boy in a Hollander jersey who was crying. He waved at the sections behind the net. Patient. Unhurried. He had played in front of crowds twice this size in Stanley Cup finals.

He rounded the far end. The Boston Bears had paused their own warm-up to watch. A few of them were leaning on the boards, helmets tilted. One, a young defenceman Ilya didn't recognise, turned to a teammate and mouthed what looked like, Hasn't he been playing for like ten years?

Shane came down the far side, still waving. He saluted a section of fans who had a banner that read WELCOME HOME HOLLANDER. He tapped his stick on the ice as he passed a row of season ticket holders who'd been coming to games since before Ilya had arrived, and they tapped back on the glass, and the sound of it rippled down the boards like applause.

He completed the lap. Reached the bench. Stopped.

The team was watching from inside the tunnel in various states of awe, amusement, and, in Bood's case, resignation.

Shane looked at them. His face was flushed from the cold and the lap and the noise. His eyes were bright. He was smiling. Warm and open and genuine. Every muscle in his face exactly where he wanted it.

"That was fun," Shane said. "Thank you."

The team took the ice. Warm-up resumed. The crowd settled into its pre-game buzz, still electric from the ceremony. The jumbotron cycled to the starting lineup. Boston's players returned to their shooting drills.

Ilya skated to centre ice and sank into his stretching routine. Bood joined him.

"I think," Ilya said, pressing into a hip stretch, "maybe I should stop."

Bood glanced at Shane, who was at the far end firing pucks at Wyatt with the same easy precision he brought to everything on the ice. Calm. Focused. Not looking at them.

"Yeah," Bood said. "Probably."

Ilya stretched deeper. An entire arena full of people had just screamed Shane Hollander's name, and Shane's pulse hadn't changed. Ilya would have bet money on it.

He had waved at children. He had tapped glass. He had saluted a banner. And through all of it, his eyes had been cataloguing the room: who laughed, who clapped, who made it possible. Not with anger. Not with resentment.

He was building a blueprint.

Ilya pressed his forehead to his knee and breathed.

Too late.

VI.

The first text went to Harris.

Shane sent it three hours after the rookie lap, sitting in his car in the arena parking lot while Ilya was inside doing post-game media. The engine was running. Anya was asleep in the back seat, snoring, chin on her paws.

Harris replied in eleven seconds.

Shane had spent two months absorbing every prank Ilya had thrown at him. He'd carried puck bags. He'd fetched coffee. He'd paid a dinner bill that could have financed a small car. He'd sat in a chair under a ring light and told a camera he hoped people would give him a chance.

He hadn't been angry. Not once. Ilya's pranks had no cruelty in them. They were joy, channelled sideways, the same uncontainable energy that had once made Ilya announce on live television that he'd score fifty goals before February. Ilya loved loudly. This was just another frequency.

But Shane was not going to let it stand unanswered.

Three dots. Then:

*

The next texts went out over the following weeks, one at a time, while Ilya was at practice or walking Anya or sleeping beside Shane with one arm flung across his face and his mouth open.

To Bood

Troy's reply was four words:

Shane told him. Troy sent a thumbs up and never mentioned it again.

To Wyatt

He attached a summary. Wyatt's reply came eight minutes later.

Gen asked for ten days and access to the archive footage library. Harris got her in. She sent Shane a rough cut a week later: three minutes of Ilya's genuine highlights, gorgeous and real, and then the footage aged. The 2000s. The 1990s. Grainier, older, the players changing, the rinks shrinking, until a man in a leather helmet scored a goal in washed-out 1970s footage and the name ROZANOV floated across the screen in block letters.

Shane watched it on his phone in the bathroom with the door locked. He had to sit on the edge of the bath because he was laughing too hard to stand.

To Dale

Shane stared at the text.

To Coach Wiebe

*

Three weeks later.

Twenty-three people knew. Players, staff, arena crew. Three weeks of group texts and quiet logistics and Bood silencing anyone who came close to slipping. Three weeks of Shane lying next to Ilya every night, talking about practice and dinner and Anya and whether they should repaint the guest room, and saying nothing about the fact that the entire organisation was conspiring behind their captain's back.

Shane had never kept a secret this large. He was not built for deception. He overthought conversations, rehearsed sentences before he said them, replayed exchanges in his head for hours afterward. Lying required an ease with ambiguity that he did not possess and had never wanted.

But this wasn't lying. This was planning. And planning, Shane was good at.

*

January 15th. Home game against Detroit.

Shane sat in his stall, lacing his skates, watching Ilya across the room. Ilya was talking to Luca about a film, gesturing with his roll of tape, grinning at whatever Luca had said. Relaxed. Happy. Entirely unsuspecting.

Shane's pulse was steady. His hands were steady. He had gone over the timeline with Harris twice that morning and once more in the car. Gen's video was loaded into the jumbotron system. Dale had the props in a bag behind the bench. The PA announcer had his script. The rocking chair was in the equipment tunnel, hidden under a tarp.

Bood caught Shane's eye from across the room and gave an imperceptible nod.

Shane nodded back. Returned to his laces.

The locker room door opened. Harris leaned in, caught Shane's eye, and tapped his watch. Two fingers. Two minutes.

Shane stood. "Hey, Ilya."

Ilya looked up. "Yes?"

"Harris says they need you on the ice. Some kind of presentation before warm-ups. Sponsor thing."

Ilya made a face. "Now?"

"Now."

Ilya sighed and stood, pulling his jersey over his pads. "Do I have to hold one of those big cheques?"

"Probably."

"I hate those. They are too big. Why are they so big? No one can cash a cheque that size."

"Go," Shane said.

Ilya went.

Shane waited until the door closed behind him. Then he looked at the room. Twenty-one faces looked back.

"It's time," he said.

The room moved. Guys grabbed helmets and gloves and filed into the tunnel behind Shane, whispering, grinning, shoving each other. Bood was at the back, herding them. Troy had his phone out, already filming. Luca looked like he was about to vibrate through the floor.

They crowded into the tunnel mouth, pressing behind the boards, invisible from the ice. Shane leaned against the wall and watched through the gap.

Ilya was at centre ice, looking around for whatever sponsor was supposed to be handing him an oversized cheque. He was alone. The ice was empty, the Detroit players hadn't come out yet. The arena was full, the low hum of pre-game settling over the seats.

The lights dropped.

Shane watched Ilya freeze.

A single spotlight found him, white and clean, pinning him to centre ice. He squinted up at it, shielding his eyes with his glove.

The PA system crackled to life.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Ottawa Centaurs would like to take a moment to honour a player whose career has spanned..." A beat. "Well. We're not entirely sure how long."

Ilya's head snapped toward the tunnel. Shane pressed flat against the wall, out of sight.

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Then the jumbotron lit up, and Gen's video, mixed to Rihanna's "Diamonds" began.

It opened with Ilya's real highlights. Crisp, gorgeous footage: his goal against New York that started the team's winning streak, the overtime winner against Montreal, the breakaway in Boston where he'd deked the goalie so cleanly the crowd had gasped. The music swelled. The arena cheered at each clip. Ilya, alone in his spotlight, watched his own career play above him, and Shane could see, even from the tunnel, the confusion and pleasure moving across his face.

Then the footage shifted.

The first sign was the resolution. Clips from the early 2010s were softer, the colour grading different. Still Ilya. Still real. His Boston years. The crowd murmured, recognising the old jersey.

Then the 2000s. Grainier. A different arena. A player in a jersey Shane didn't recognise, with ROZANOV on the back. The crowd started to laugh.

The 1990s. VHS quality. Oversized pads. A moustache.

The laughter was building. It rolled through the arena in waves, section by section. People were pointing at the screen, elbowing their neighbours.

The 1980s. Shorts too short. Hair too long. A man who bore no resemblance to Ilya Rozanov scoring a goal in a rink that looked like a barn.

Ilya, at centre ice, had stopped looking confused. He had turned toward the tunnel. Shane saw it on his face: he knew. Not the details, not the scale, but the who.

The 1970s. Washed out, yellowed. A player in a leather helmet firing a puck past a goalie who wasn't wearing a mask. The name ROZANOV drifted across the screen in block capitals.

The arena was roaring.

The video ended. The lights stayed low. The spotlight stayed on Ilya.

From the equipment tunnel on the far side, Dale wheeled out the rocking chair. He pushed it to centre ice with his chin raised and his back straight, set it beside Ilya, and handed him, one at a time: a pair of reading glasses, a walking cane with a brass handle, and a folded jersey.

Ilya held up the jersey. Turned it around.

ROZANOV. YEAR 1.

He stared at it. Then he looked at the tunnel, and this time Shane didn't hide. He stepped onto the ice, and twenty-one teammates poured out behind him, and the crowd's noise shifted from laughter to a roar of welcome that pressed against Shane's ribs and made his eyes sting.

Harris handed him a microphone.

Shane took it, skated to centre ice, and stood in front of his husband, who was holding a walking cane and wearing reading glasses and looking at Shane with an expression Shane had never seen on him before.

He lifted the mic.

"Good evening, Ottawa."

The arena roared back.

"I know you came here to watch hockey, and I promise we'll get to that. But first, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate a man who has given this franchise more years than any of us can count." Shane glanced at Ilya. "We checked the records. We couldn't find when he started."

Laughter. Ilya, behind the reading glasses, was pressing his lips together. His eyes were bright.

"When I joined this team a few months ago, your captain made sure I felt welcome." Shane let the silence sit. "He decorated my locker. He bought me a colouring book. He let me carry the puck bags and the water bottles and fetch the entire team's coffee order. Which, by the way, Troy..." Shane found Troy on the bench. "Oat milk. I remember."

The team was laughing. Troy raised his water bottle in salute.

"He introduced me to you with a video where I told you I'd never played in the NHL before. He sent me out for a lap and let all of you scream my name." Shane paused. "Which was a mistake, because now I know what that feels like, and I'm going to need it at every home game."

The crowd cheered.

"He also took me to dinner." Shane paused again. "Well. I took him to dinner. And his thirty-two friends. At Beckta. Where he ordered lobster. And then steak. And where Harris, our social media manager, ordered a bottle of wine that costs more than my first apartment and then drank none of it."

From behind the bench, Harris yelled, "It was delicious!"

"You didn't drink it!"

"I smelled it! That counts!"

Shane waited for the laughter to settle. He looked at Ilya. The reading glasses were perched on his nose. The cane was propped against his hip. His stick was resting against the rocking chair. He looked ridiculous and beautiful and Shane loved him so much it hurt to breathe.

"Ilya did all of this," Shane said, and his voice changed, "because he was happy. Because I was finally here. On his team, in his city, in his life every day, and he didn't know how to say that with words. My ridiculous husband didn't know how to say 'I'm glad you're here.'"

The arena quieted.

"So he said it with chaos. Which is how Ilya Rozanov says everything."

Shane felt his throat tighten. He hadn't expected this part to be hard. He'd rehearsed the speech in the shower, in the car, in his head while Ilya slept beside him. But standing here, under the lights, looking at Ilya's face, was different from rehearsing.

He breathed.

"I planned this for three weeks. Twenty-three people knew. Your captain, who notices everything, who runs the locker room, who runs this team..." Shane looked at the bench, at the faces of the men who had kept his secret. "...didn't catch a whisper." He turned back to Ilya. "That's how much this team loves him. That's how much I love him. And that's how long I'm willing to wait to make a point."

The reading glasses were fogging.

"Happy retirement, Captain." Shane looked up at the jumbotron, where the final frame of the 1970s footage was frozen. "It's been an incredible… What—? Fifty years?"

The arena exploded.

Shane lowered the mic. Ilya was standing in the spotlight with a rocking chair beside him and a cane in his hand and tears cutting through the fog on his reading glasses, and he was laughing. A real laugh, unguarded and full, and Shane's chest ached with it.

Ilya skated toward him. The crowd noise was massive. It felt a hundred miles away. Shane watched Ilya close the distance, still carrying the cane, still wearing the glasses, the YEAR 1 jersey draped over one arm.

Ilya stopped in front of him. Close enough that their visors could touch.

He said one thing. Low enough that the microphone didn't catch it, and the cameras couldn't read it, and it belonged to no one except the two of them, standing on the ice they shared.

Whatever it was, it made Shane laugh.

He was still laughing when Ilya kissed him, at centre ice, in the spotlight, in front of eighteen thousand people. The noise shook the glass. Shane felt it in his chest, and he didn't want it to stop.