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The studio lights were doing their best to cook Shane alive.
He’d played four rounds of playoff hockey under arena spotlights and come out the other side with a fourth Stanley Cup, but this was different. Lights in the arena were distant, diffused, lost in the roar of thousands of people. The studio lights were six feet above his head and pointed at his face, white and flat and merciless, turning the sweat at his temples into evidence.
He reached for the glass of water on the coffee table in front of him, took a measured sip, and set it back on its coaster. Beside him, Ilya had his ankle crossed over his knee, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa behind Shane’s shoulders, taking up roughly two-thirds of the available seating. His wedding ring caught the light every time he shifted, which was constantly, because Ilya Rozanov had never been still for a full interview in his life.
Across from them, in a low-slung armchair angled to face the sofa, the host of After the Whistle, Dani L’Ecuyer, was talking to the camera. Something about the historic nature of the Ottawa Centaurs’ championship run, about the two men beside her who had spent a decade as the most famous rivals in hockey before becoming teammates, husbands, and now, for the first time, co-champions. Shane had stopped listening somewhere around “historic” because he’d heard the word forty times in the last seventy-two hours and it had lost all shape.
Ilya’s fingers found the back of Shane’s neck, a light, idle touch where the collar of his shirt met skin. Shane glanced at him. Ilya wasn’t looking at him, just listening to Dani with an expression of pleasant interest while his thumb traced a slow circle against Shane’s nape.
“So,” Dani said, turning to face them both. “Let’s start with the obvious. Shane, you’re a four-time Stanley Cup champion. How does that feel?”
Shane considered this. “Unreal,” he said. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. The first one was a blur, the second and third felt like confirmation, but this one...” He shook his head. “This one was different. This one was Ottawa.”
“This one was us,” Ilya said beside him, and the simplicity of it caught Shane off guard. He looked at Ilya, who shrugged as if he’d said nothing remarkable.
Dani smiled. “And how has the team been celebrating, Ilya?”
“Too much champagne,” Ilya said immediately. “Three days. My head is still recovering.”
Dani laughed. “And what’s next for you both? After the parades, after the champagne wears off?”
“A long holiday,” Shane said. “A very long holiday. And then summer camps with the Irina Foundation. We run all-inclusive hockey camps for kids across Canada, so that starts up again in July.”
“And sleep,” Ilya added. “I would like to sleep for one hundred hours.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “You can’t sleep for one hundred hours.”
“Watch me.”
Dani grinned and glanced down at her notes. “Now. We asked you ahead of the show to put together a very specific list.”
“You did,” Shane said with a mild smile.
“And from what I hear, you took it pretty seriously.”
“I take everything seriously. It’s a character flaw.”
Ilya snorted beside him. Shane didn’t look at him.
“For anyone just tuning in,” Dani said, leaning forward in her armchair, “we asked Shane Hollander to rank his husband’s Top Ten chirps of all time. From press conferences, interviews, media scrums, the whole catalogue.” She turned to Ilya. “Did you know about this?”
Ilya’s eyebrows went up. “I knew the topic. I did not know there was a ranking.” He looked at Shane. “You ranked them?”
“Of course I ranked them.”
“How long did this take you?”
Shane hesitated a beat too long, and from somewhere behind the cameras, one of the crew laughed.
“Moving on,” Shane said.
“Wait,” Ilya said. He leaned forward, and the sofa cushion shifted under his weight, his hand sliding from Shane’s neck to his shoulder. “I want to know. How long?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“This is Shane Hollander for ‘it took a long time’,” Ilya told Dani, nodding solemnly. “He probably made a spreadsheet.”
Shane pressed his lips together because he had, in fact, made a spreadsheet. He was not going to confirm that on national television.
“Shall we get into it?” Dani asked, clearly delighted.
Shane pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. His notes app was already open to the list.
Dani gestured to the monitor mounted on the wall behind her armchair, and the screen flickered to life. The clip was old footage, the colour warmer than modern broadcasts, the quality grainy enough to date it. Ilya Rozanov at twenty, sitting behind a press table in a Boston Bears polo shirt, his curls longer than he wore them now and his jaw softer. He looked absurdly young.
A reporter’s voice came through the studio speakers, tinny with compression: “Ilya, you’ve been in North America for a few months now. How are you finding the adjustment?”
The young Ilya on screen considered this for a moment. Then, with absolute sincerity: “The pizza is good. The hockey is slower than I expected.”
The clip cut to the press room erupting.
Back in the studio, Dani was already laughing. “Number ten,” she said. “Ilya Rozanov, twenty years old, calling the entire NHL slow.”
“Two things,” Shane said. “First, this was his rookie season. Second, he wasn’t trying to be funny. That’s what makes it a great chirp. He meant it.”
Ilya spread his hands. “The pizza was very good.”
“What about the hockey comment?” Dani asked.
“Also true. At the time.” Ilya tilted his head. “The league got faster. Or I got slower. Probably the league.”
“He’s being modest,” Shane said. “Which he was absolutely not at twenty.”
“I was honest at twenty. Is different from modest.”
“Sure it is.”
Ilya leaned toward the camera. “The pizza in Boston was better than Ottawa. Is still true and I will not apologise.”
“Bold words from a man who’s eaten my mother’s cooking for six years,” Shane said.
Ilya paused. “Your mother’s cooking is not pizza.”
“I’ll tell her you said that.”
Ilya looked at the camera with an expression of genuine alarm. “Don’t tell Yuna.”
“This is a television show, Ilya. She’s going to watch it.”
Ilya’s expression shifted from alarm to resignation. He looked at Dani. “Can you cut that part?”
“No,” Dani said cheerfully. “Alright, take us to number nine.”
Shane stifled a laugh, turned the phone screen toward himself and scrolled.
Meanwhile, the monitor cut to a different press conference. Sharper footage, Ilya’s mid-career years in Boston. He was broader in the shoulders, his stubble heavier, a Bears cap pulled low. A reporter was speaking, and the chyron at the bottom of the screen read: Rozanov responds to Christensen’s pre-game comments.
“Ilya, Matthias Christensen said before tonight’s game that he was going to, quote, ‘teach you a lesson.’ Do you have a response?”
On screen, Ilya’s brow furrowed. He looked genuinely confused. “Who?”
The reporter repeated the name. Ilya’s expression cleared.
“I don’t remember him.”
In the studio, Shane watched his husband’s twenty-four-year-old self deliver the line as though he were sending back a wrong order at a restaurant, and bit the inside of his cheek.
“It’s number nine,” Shane said, “because the dismissiveness is the whole chirp. He didn’t insult Christensen. He just forgot him. On camera.”
“Shane,” Ilya said, frowning. “Be serious. Who was this?”
“Matthias Christensen. He played for Detroit.”
“The big one? Enforcer? With the...” Ilya mimed a visor with his hand.
“He didn’t wear a visor.”
“Then I definitely don’t remember him.”
Shane looked at Dani. “He’s doing it again.”
Dani was pressing her lips together. “Ilya, you genuinely don’t remember this moment?”
“I remember many moments. I do not waste time remembering people who wanted to fight me.” He gestured loosely. “There were too many. If I remembered all of them I would have no room for important things.”
“Like what?” Dani asked.
“Pizza rankings. My wife’s birthday. Power play formations.”
“You don’t have a wife,” Shane said flatly.
Ilya turned to him, grinning. “I have a husband. Same thing. You also have a birthday I remember.”
“That is the bare minimum of marriage.”
“See? I am excellent husband.”
Dani shook her head, still smiling. “Number eight, Shane?”
Shane nodded and waited for the monitor.
This clip was from an All-Star weekend media session. Long tables, branded backdrops, a dozen microphones on stands. Ilya was in the middle of a row of players, slouched in his chair, one hand wrapped around a coffee cup.
“Ilya, quick question. If you had to name the three best players in the league right now, who would they be?”
On screen, Ilya’s mouth curved. He didn’t pause, didn’t pretend to think about it.
“Rozanov.” He took a sip of coffee. “Rozanov.” Another sip. “And...” He squinted into the middle distance. “Probably Rozanov.”
The clip cut to the press table losing it. Two seats down from Ilya, a young defenceman had put his head on the table.
“What about Hollander?” a reporter called out through the laughter.
The camera held on Ilya’s face as he shrugged. “You said three.”
The clip ended. In the studio, Dani turned to Shane. “And this is only number eight?”
“Only number eight. Everyone thinks the punchline is ‘Rozanov, Rozanov, Rozanov.’ It’s not. The punchline is ‘You said three.’ The logic is airtight. He was asked for three names. He gave three names.”
“Is a fair point,” Ilya said, sitting straighter, enjoying this. “Also I was correct.”
“You were not correct.”
“Top three at that time was me, me, and me. Check scoring records. You were fourth.”
“I won the Hart Trophy that year.”
“Yes. Because I was injured for six weeks. You are welcome.”
Shane looked directly into the nearest camera. “This is what it’s been like for sixteen years.”
A bark of laughter from behind the lighting rig that someone tried, poorly, to smother.
Dani wiped her eyes. “Okay. Number seven. What have you got for us, Shane?”
Shane could feel the warmth starting at the tips of his ears. He hadn’t told Ilya this one was on the list.
Ilya’s hand, which had resettled on the back of the sofa behind Shane, went still.
The monitor showed a post-game press conference. Ottawa. Ilya behind the podium, still in his suit, microphones bristling. The chyron read: Rozanov on Hollander’s status following hit in the third.
Shane heard Ilya inhale beside him.
On screen, a reporter spoke: “Ilya, can you comment on the hit in the third? How’s Hollander’s head?”
On screen, Ilya’s face went through a four-second journey that had been immortalised in gifs, memes, a parody Twitter account, a Reddit thread with tens of thousands of upvotes, and, briefly, a line on Shane’s Wikipedia page.
“Shane is fine,” Ilya said on screen, measured and calm. “Precautionary assessment. No concussion.”
A pause.
“His head,” Ilya continued, “is outstanding.”
The press room detonated. On the footage, Crenshaw from TSN made a noise like he was being strangled. Beaumont-Holt dropped her pen. In the background, a familiar figure who was unmistakably Harris had his phone out and was shaking with laughter.
“I mean,” Ilya added, “is no complaints.”
The clip cut to the media handler physically ushering Ilya away from the podium.
In the studio, Dani had both hands over her mouth. From behind the cameras, the crew had given up any pretence of professionalism.
Shane sat very still on the sofa, his face hot, his jaw tight with the effort of not smiling.
Ilya turned to him. His expression was a layered thing: delight that Shane had included it, outrage at the ranking, and underneath both, the flicker of the fear he’d felt that night. “Seven, solnyshko? Really?”
“Seven.”
“Shane. Is top three. Minimum.”
“It’s number seven and it stays number seven.”
“This clip has been viewed two hundred million times.”
“Viral reach was not one of my criteria.”
“Someone edited your Wikipedia page!”
“Which is not a point in its favour.”
“Harris framed the screenshot. Is on his desk at work.”
“Harris encouraging your worst impulses is not a ranking metric either.”
Ilya looked at Dani, palms up, appealing to the court. “He puts this on the list and gives it seventh place. Is disrespectful.”
“Ilya,” Shane said, and his voice was the careful, controlled flatness that anyone who’d followed his career would recognise as Peak Hollander, “you told a room full of journalists that my head was outstanding. On national television. While I was in the treatment room with an ice pack.” He paused. “My mother called me afterwards. She said, and I quote: ‘Tell Ilya I’m glad he appreciates you.’ She was laughing.”
Ilya’s mouth twitched. “Yuna is a very wonderful woman.”
“That is not the point.”
Dani made a small, strangled sound from her armchair.
“I was scared that night,” Ilya said, and the comedy dropped from his voice for half a beat. “When you went down. I was terrified.” He looked at Shane. “And then the universe handed me a perfect joke and I am only human.”
“You are barely human.”
“I am charming and you love me.”
Shane turned his wedding ring once with his thumb.
Dani took a breath, composing herself. “I think we need to move on before this escalates. Number six?”
“The clip that launched a thousand memes,” Shane said.
The monitor showed Ilya at his introductory press conference as a new Ottawa Centaur. The tailored suit jacket, the eyes scanning the sparse press corps.
“Ilya, are you excited to be in Ottawa?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what attracted you to the Centaurs?”
On screen, Ilya’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“I loved Boston,” he said carefully. “Great city. Great fans.” A pause long enough for a reporter to cough. “Ottawa has...” Another pause. His gaze drifted upward and to the left. “A very interesting logo.”
Back in the studio, Shane shook his head. “He considered lying. You can see him try. And then he just couldn’t.”
“I was being diplomatic,” Ilya protested.
“You called the franchise logo ‘interesting.’ In that tone. That’s not diplomatic, that’s a eulogy.”
Ilya turned to Dani. “IS interesting. Centaur has four legs and two arms. This is six limbs. No animal has six limbs.”
“Insects do,” Shane said.
“The centaur is not an insect.”
“I’m just saying, six limbs exist in nature.”
“Okay, so our logo is an insect playing hockey. This is better?”
Dani, once again, had her hand over her mouth. A cameraman wheezed.
“What makes it great,” Shane said, “is that Ottawa fans loved him for it. He looked at a franchise that had been losing for a decade and didn’t pretend it was something it wasn’t.”
Ilya’s expression softened. “Ottawa fans are the best fans in hockey. Even when we were terrible, they showed up.”
Shane raised an eyebrow.
“Most of the time,” Ilya amended.
“We’re halfway through,” Dani said, glancing at her notes. “Number five?”
Shane leaned back into the sofa, and Ilya’s arm settled behind his shoulders again, warm and heavy. “Post-overtime winner, second playoff run.”
The clip showed Ilya post-game, flushed, in his under-armour. A reporter leaned into a microphone.
“Ilya, did you think you were going to score that goal?”
On screen, Ilya blinked, as if the question confused him. “Yes.”
“You predicted before the overtime that you would score. Coach Wiebe confirmed it. How did you know?”
Ilya frowned at the microphone. “I don’t understand why everyone is surprised. I told you.”
“Most athletes talk about confidence or wanting it more. Ilya treated an overtime playoff goal like a package tracking update,” Shane said.
“It was not confusing,” Ilya shrugged. “I said I would score. I scored. What is the story?”
“The story is that normal people don’t operate like that.”
“Normal people don’t score overtime playoff goals.”
Shane tipped his head. “Fair.”
“Also,” Ilya said, leaning forward to catch Dani’s eye, “Shane does the same thing. Before a game he says, ‘I am going to score three goals tonight.’ And then he scores three goals. He just never tells reporters.”
“Because I have a normal relationship with reality.”
“Because you are a coward.”
Dani made a noise that was trying to be a cough. Shane turned his phone face-down on his thigh.
“Did you just call me a coward on national television?”
Ilya patted his knee. “A very brave coward.”
Dani shook her head. “I want to point out that you didn’t even argue.”
“I pick my battles carefully,” Shane said. “I lose all of them, but I pick them.”
Dani laughed. “Number four?”
Shane could hear the shift in his own voice, the composure thinning. He’d planned to be measured about this. Analytical. He’d had criteria. He’d written them in the spreadsheet. And then Ilya had spent the last half an hour being Ilya, and now Shane’s criteria were useless and he was just a man trying not to laugh too hard on camera.
The clip loaded. Another All-Star weekend, a promotional backdrop with sponsor logos. A reporter was holding a microphone, already grinning.
“Ilya, we’re doing a quick lightning round. Ready?”
“Sure.”
“Say one nice thing about Shane Hollander.”
Seven seconds of silence. On screen, Ilya’s face cycled through confusion, concentration, and what appeared to be genuine distress. He looked left. Right. Back to the reporter. The reporter started to laugh.
“He has... good hair.”
The clip erupted. In the background, a player walking past the set stopped dead.
In the studio, Dani shook her head, laughing.
“I timed it,” Shane said.
“Of course you did,” Ilya said with a dramatic eyeroll.
“Seven seconds of live television, and the best he could come up with was ‘good hair.’ I’d won three Stanley Cups at that point.”
Ilya was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You are not going to believe me.”
“Try me.”
“The problem was not that I could not think of nice things.” He dropped his hand and looked at Shane. In the studio lights, his hazel eyes had gone green. “The problem was that I could think of too many nice things and none of them were appropriate to say on camera. Not then.”
The room went quiet for a half-second. Dani exhaled softly.
Shane turned his wedding ring. “Well. You went with my hair.”
“Your hair is very good.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
They looked at each other. Shane broke first, jaw tight with the effort of not smiling.
Dani let the moment settle, then leaned forward. “We’re into the top three. Number three?”
“Pure chaos,” Shane said.
The clip was from a regular season game when Ottawa had been on a tear. Four goals, three assists. Seven points. A stat line for a video game.
Ilya on screen: still in his compression shirt, a towel around his neck, a Gatorade in one hand. Loose. Almost bored.
“Ilya, four goals, three assists. How does this feel?”
Ilya took a drink of Gatorade and set it down with a hollow thud the table mic picked up. “Four goals. Three assists.” A pause. “Is normal Tuesday.”
“Today is Saturday,” the reporter said.
On screen, Ilya’s eyes widened. “Oh, well, imagine what I do on a Tuesday.”
The press room lost it. In the studio, a cameraman barked a laugh so sharp the camera jolted.
“The timing was perfect and the reporter walked right into it. But the first line wasn’t a setup.” Shane told Dani. “The ‘normal Tuesday’ was sincere. The reporter accidentally gave him a punchline and he caught it mid-air. That’s my husband for you.”
Ilya turned to him with an expression of exaggerated offence. “I was being funny.”
“You weren’t.”
“I was. I had planned that.”
“You had not planned that. You didn’t know the reporter was going to correct you.”
“I knew someone would.” Ilya crossed his arms. “You don’t think I’m funny.”
“I think you’re the funniest person I’ve ever met. I just don’t think you’re always doing it on purpose.”
Ilya pointed at him. “Is not a compliment.”
“It’s the highest compliment I’ve ever given anyone.”
“It is not!”
Shane looked at Dani. “He’ll process it later.”
“I doubt it,” Dani said. She turned to Ilya. “For the record, do you accept that you’re accidentally funny?”
“I am funny on purpose,” Ilya said. “Always.”
“Noted.” Dani glanced at her notes. “Number two?”
Shane nodded.
He let himself sink into the sofa beside Ilya, feeling the bone-deep fatigue of a four-round playoff run in his shoulders and wrists. Seventy-two hours since they’d won the Cup. The champagne headache was mostly gone but the physical ache hadn’t faded. His body was exhausted.
Beside him, Ilya looked tired too, if you knew where to look. The skin beneath his eyes was darker than usual, and his restless energy had a frayed quality. But his hand was warm on the back of Shane’s neck, and he gave no sign of wanting to be anywhere other than here.
“This one is from the first press conference Ilya and I did together after I joined the Centaurs,” Shane said.
The monitor showed a hotel conference room. A long table, two chairs, a room packed to the walls with reporters. Shane could see, in the footage, how carefully they’d been managing the distance between them then. Close enough to signal unity. Not so close that the cameras would make it the headline.
A reporter’s voice: “Ilya, does being married change anything about your rivalry on the ice?”
On screen, Ilya glanced at Shane, then back at the press. “Of course. Now when I score instead of him, I have to hear about it at dinner.”
The press room erupted. In the footage, Shane put his face in his hands while Ilya looked immensely pleased with himself.
In the studio, Shane let the crew’s laughter settle. “I chose this because it broke the tension in a room that was suffocating. And it was objectively funny.”
“It was also true,” Ilya said. “I scored instead of him in our next game. He was very annoying at dinner.”
“You scored on a power play. I was in the penalty box.”
“Still counts.”
“And you ordered a two-hundred-and-forty-dollar bottle of wine to celebrate.”
Ilya looked at Dani. “It was good wine.”
“It was a victory lap disguised as a Malbec.”
“See?” Ilya said, gesturing at Shane. “Annoying at dinner.”
“And finally,” Dani said, and her voice had shifted, quieter. “Number one.”
The studio quieted with her. Behind the cameras, someone stopped moving.
“This one is from before either of us had played a single NHL game,” Shane said. He turned the phone over in his hands. “It’s the first time I ever saw one of Ilya’s interviews.”
The monitor lit up, and the clip was older than all the others. The colour was dated, the framing tighter. Not a studio set. A rinkside interview, filmed in the tunnel outside the locker rooms. The concrete walls were bare behind the microphones, and the team crest was just visible at the edge of the frame, gold on black.
And there was Ilya.
Eighteen years old, post-practice, the sweat still drying on his skin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. His curls were damp and longer than they’d ever be again, pushed back from his forehead, and the gold chain at his collarbone caught the tunnel lighting and threw a thin line of light across his jaw. His shoulders were bare, the lean muscle of his chest and arms sheened with exertion, and he stood in front of the microphones as though nervousness were a concept that applied to other people.
Shane’s face went hot.
He’d chosen this clip. He’d known what it showed. He’d watched it approximately once a year for sixteen years, and the fact that he could feel his pulse in his cheeks while sitting next to his own husband on national television was information he intended to take to his grave.
On screen, young Ilya fielded a couple of warm-up questions. His English was clipped, the grammar stripped bare. And then:
“The Bears will be happy with me this season,” Ilya said, without a trace of irony. “I will score fifty goals.”
The interviewer’s eyebrows shot up. “Fifty goals?”
“Yes.” Ilya nodded. “By end of February.”
The clip ended on the interviewer’s stunned face, and the studio was quiet for a breath before Dani spoke.
“Tell us why this is your number one choice, Shane.”
Shane looked at the frozen frame on the monitor, at his husband at eighteen, shirtless and sweating and certain of everything. “This is number one because of what happened next. He scored sixty-seven goals. So did I.” He paused. “We both blew past fifty before the end of the season. I remember watching this clip in my apartment in Montreal, and thinking, Who the hell does this guy think he is? He was a rookie, only just signed by the Bears, and yet he stood in front of a camera and told an entire continent he was going to do what less than a handful of rookies have ever done.” Shane set the phone down on his thigh. “And then he did it.”
He turned to look at Ilya, and for once, Ilya was quiet.
The performance had dropped away. The crooked grin, the theatrical protests, the breezy deflections. What was left was a man looking at his husband with an expression stripped of everything except attention.
Dani let the silence breathe. “Ilya. Any thoughts?”
Ilya cleared his throat. He glanced at the monitor, then back at Shane. His mouth twitched, softer than any of the grins he’d thrown around all evening. “I did not know you watched this.”
“Everyone watched it,” Shane said with a shrug.
“But you. In Montreal. You were watching.”
“Yeah.”
Ilya nodded slowly. Shane could see the gears turn, the exact moment Ilya decided to be Ilya about it. His gaze dropped to the frozen image on the monitor, the shirtless teenager with the microphones in his face, and returned to Shane’s with a brightness that meant trouble.
“You were watching this,” Ilya said, “at home, in your apartment.”
“Yes.”
“And I was...” He gestured at the screen, at his own bare chest. “Like that.”
Shane’s face ignited. “That’s not why it’s number one.”
“But you noticed.”
“I noticed you being arrogant on national television.”
Ilya leaned back into the sofa, arms spread, grinning with his whole face. “You noticed I was not wearing a shirt, Hollander.”
From behind the cameras, from Dani’s armchair, from what felt like every corner of the room, laughter broke loose. Real, full laughter that fed on itself and grew.
Shane put his palms over his eyes. “It was a television interview. I was watching television. I noticed everything on the television.”
“Sure,” Ilya said.
“I was eighteen.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I hated you.”
“You were watching me with no shirt.”
“Because that’s what was on the screen!”
Ilya patted Shane’s knee twice, satisfied. “Is okay, solnyshko. I understand.”
Shane dropped his hands and stared at the ceiling. The studio lights blazed white above him, and he could feel his pulse in his cheeks.
“For what it’s worth,” Dani said, wiping her eyes, “that clip is one of the most iconic sports moments of the last twenty years. And now it’s also an origin story. Can we talk about that?”
“We cannot,” Shane said.
“We can,” Ilya said at the same time.
Dani composed herself and turned to Ilya. “You’ve heard the list. You’ve seen the clips. Do you agree with your husband’s ranking?”
Ilya planted both feet on the floor, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked at Shane, then at Dani, then back at Shane. “No.”
Shane laughed. “No?”
“Number one is correct. But ‘Outstanding’ should be top three, I said before.”
“It’s number seven.”
“Shane, someone made a Google review. Five stars.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you put it at seven. Is disrespectful.” Ilya shook his head, then turned to Dani. “And number four is too low. ‘Good hair’ was a performance.”
“You panicked and said the first thing that came into your head.”
“Yes. And the first thing in my head was your hair. Which should tell you how important your hair is to me.”
“That’s not how rankings work.”
“He thinks he is the expert,” Ilya told Dani.
“I made the list, so yes, I am the expert.”
Ilya looked at Shane for a long moment. Then he turned to Dani and said, “My husband is too modest. This is his biggest problem. He makes a list of my best chirps and includes himself only at number seven.” He paused. “Shane Hollander is outstanding.” Another pause, perfectly timed. “No complaints.”
The crew lost it. Dani put her face in her hands. Shane stared at the ceiling again, his cheeks burning, and felt Ilya’s hand settle warm and heavy on the back of his neck.
“So,” Ilya continued, quieter now, speaking to Dani but looking at Shane, “the list is perfect, and my husband is a brave, foolish man, and number one is correct. But not because I was a good chirper at eighteen.” He held Shane’s gaze. “Because he was watching.”
The studio was silent.
Shane turned his wedding ring once, and then he looked at Ilya, and the camera closest to them caught the look that would be clipped and shared and captioned and turned into a gif within the hour: Shane Hollander, four-time Stanley Cup champion, looking at his husband as though they were the only two people in the world. And Ilya Rozanov, looking right back, with no performance left in him at all.
“Thank you both,” Dani said softly. “And again, congratulations on the Cup, outstanding achievement.”
“Thank you,” Shane said, without looking away from Ilya, firmly ignoring Dani’s little chirp.
Ilya smiled. “You are welcome.”
The red lights on the cameras blinked off, and the studio exhaled. Shane thought, distantly, that the sound department was going to have a long night. He wasn’t sure there was a usable minute of footage in there that didn’t have a crew member laughing over it.
***
The hallway outside the studio was narrow and carpeted in industrial grey, and the air was ten degrees cooler than the set. Shane felt the chill settle against his neck where the sweat had dried. He rolled his shoulders once, twice, and the ache protested but didn’t sharpen.
Ilya was beside him, walking close enough that their arms brushed with every step. A production assistant had pointed them toward a green room at the end of the hall where their bags were waiting.
“You really had a spreadsheet?” Ilya asked.
“I had a spreadsheet.”
“With columns?”
“That’s what a spreadsheet is.”
Ilya bumped his shoulder against Shane’s. “What columns?”
“Delivery. Originality. Cultural Impact. Comedic Timing. Legacy.”
Ilya stopped walking. Shane went two more steps before turning back.
“What?”
“Five columns.”
“Yes.”
“Five categories. You scored each chirp.”
“Out of ten. Each category.”
“Out of ten?”
“I told you, I take everything seriously.”
Ilya crossed the distance between them in one stride, and Shane’s back met the wall before he could draw another breath. Ilya’s hands bracketed his jaw, thumbs pressing into his cheekbones, and then Ilya’s mouth was on his, hard and warm and thorough. Shane made a small, startled sound that Ilya swallowed, and then his hands were fisting the front of Ilya’s shirt, pulling him closer, and the wall was cold through the cotton of his shirt and Ilya was warm against his chest and none of this was appropriate for a public hallway with fluorescent lighting and production staff who could round the corner at any moment.
Shane didn’t care. He kissed Ilya back with sixteen-odd years of practice and the residual adrenaline of a championship run, one hand sliding up to curl into the hair at the base of Ilya’s skull. Ilya pressed closer, his body a solid line against Shane’s from chest to thigh, and Shane felt the low vibration of a sound Ilya made against his mouth that he chose not to think about too carefully while they were still technically in a building full of people.
When they finally broke apart, Shane was breathing hard. Ilya was breathing harder. His thumbs were still tracing Shane’s cheekbones, and his forehead rested against Shane’s, and the fluorescent strip light above them buzzed and flickered like it was embarrassed.
“I love your spreadsheet,” Ilya said, rough and low, just for him.
Shane huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “I love you.”
“Yes,” Ilya said, with the same inflection he’d used at eighteen, the same flat, unwavering certainty. “I know.”
He kissed Shane once more, softer this time, and then took his hand. They walked down the corridor toward the green room, more Cup celebrations still ahead of them in the morning for photos and parades and the rest of it, but for now this: a grey hallway, the hum of overhead lights, and the quiet that exists between two people who have nothing left to prove.