Chapter Text
“Daddy, who is Lily?”
Shane looked up from his laptop briefly, glancing at his daughter where she was laying on her back on a blanket in the grass. She had her knees propped up and was playing idly with one of the braids Shane had put in her hair this morning. She was holding her phone, staring at the screen.
“I don’t know sweetie. Do you mean your friend from school?” Shane turned his attention back toward his laptop, where he was attempting to finish a project for work. He was supposed to hand it in last night, but he’d fallen asleep behind his desk.
“No Daddy, I thought it was her, but when I texted her, I got a really weird reply.”
“Okay, well, I think it’s time for you to put the phone away, anyway.” Shane said absentmindedly.
“Just a few minutes!” Judith begged and Shane smiled. He knew giving a phone to an eight year old might not have been his best parental move, but all the kids in her class had one, he’d felt guilty. Besides, it was only his old phone. It couldn’t do much more than text.
Wait… It was Shane’s old phone. And Judith was texting someone named Lily.
“Oh no.”
Shane got up right away and walked over to his daughter, trying not to come across as panicked, lest he upset her.
“Jude?” He asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as unsteady as he felt. “Where did you get this Lily’s number?”
Judith sat up, eyes narrowing. “It was in your phone, Dad. It was the only number in there at first, besides Gamma and Grandpa.”
Shane took a shaky breath. “Oh, I see. Can I maybe see what you’ve send Lily? I think… I think her number may have been in there from back when I was using that phone.”
“Ugh, sure.” Judith said, tossing her phone to her father. She ran off towards the swing set near the edge of the lake, and Shane watched her go before grabbing the phone and unlocking it.
His parents knew he’d given the phone to Judith, and Shane noticed a group chat with them, Judith, and Shane’s eldest, Eleanor. There were individual chats, too. Shane’s new number, Judith’s mother, separate chats with Yuna and David Hollander. A few friends.
But there, all the way at the bottom, was Lily. Shane took a deep breath and opened the chat. He hadn’t texted ‘Lily’ since 2014, back when a seemingly innocent injury had turned out to be career ending. It was a difficult period in his life, one where he was ashamed to say he didn’t quite act like himself. He had been easily irritated and quiet throughout the day, only to cry himself to sleep out of frustration at night.
‘Lily’ had texted him almost every day, even when Shane didn’t reply. After three weeks, Shane had sent a very rude text, telling Lily to back off and leave him alone.
But Ilya Rozanov never knew when to quit. He’d shown up at Shane’s parents house, having guilted Hayden into giving him the address. Shane’s parents had been so confused when their son’s rival had rung the bell, even more so when Shane agreed to see him only in the privacy of his old bedroom.
Ilya had been different than usual, not the cocky asshole Shane knew him as. It had confused Shane, made his already overworked and hazy brain explode. When Ilya had tried to kiss him, Shane had pushed him away from him. He didn’t want to be pitied.
Shane didn’t remember everything he’d said that day, but he knew it had been bad. Bad enough to make a tough guy like Rozanov cry.
After that, Ilya hadn’t texted him again. Shane had deleted all of their messages and had stared at the empty chat for hours every night.
But the chat wasn’t empty now. The first message was from a few days ago, sent by Judith. There were a bunch of emojis, a confusing combination that Shane knew would only make sense to his little girl. A unicorn, an octopus, several different types of pink hearts, and a book.
Ilya hadn’t replied to that, nor to the three different sets of emoji’s that had followed the same day.
Only this morning, when Judith had sent a picture of her favorite stuffed animal, a little otter holding its paws to its cheeks, had Ilya replied.
Lily: ???
Judith: Lily?
Lily: …Yes? Did your phone get stolen?
Judith: LOL!
Judith: Ellie is teaching me to text
Lily: I think you have wrong number
Judith had sent a few more emoji’s after that, but Ilya hadn’t replied. Thank god, that could have been a lot worse. Still, he really should’ve checked the phone more thoroughly before giving it to his kid.
“Jude?” Shane called out, getting up and joining his daughter at the swings.
“What’s up, Daddy?” Judith said, twisting on the swing so the rope got all caught up.
“I checked, Lily is an old friend of mine. You shouldn’t text that number anymore, okay?”
“Why?”
“Well…” Shane sighed. “It’s not someone I know well anymore. She probably thought it was weird that you – I – was reaching out after all this time.”
Judith tilted her head. “Is it a friend from hockey? Like uncle Hayden?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“Then why aren’t you friends with Lily anymore? You still see uncle Hayden all the time!” Judith asked, her brows furrowing slightly.
Shane wanted to be annoyed with her, but she was just too cute. He ruffled her dark hair.
“Sometimes friends lose touch, Jude. It’s no big deal, but promise me you won’t text Lily anymore, okay?”
Judith pulled up her feet, letting the ropes of the swing untwist. She spun so fast Shane almost got dizzy watching her. “Oooookaayyyyy!”
Shane smiled and walked back toward his laptop. When Judith stopped spinning, she turned back to him.
“You should tell Lily sorry from me!”
That wasn’t such a bad idea. Shane had no idea what Ilya was doing with his life, but it probably would have been very confusing for him to think Shane was texting him so much nonsense after more than a decade of silence.
Judith: I’m so sorry about that, that was my daughter. She has my old phone and I guess your number was still in there. She thought it was her friend.
Shane put the phone down on the table. Too quickly, it buzzed. He picked it up right away.
Lily: I was wondering why you suddenly liked otter plushies
Lily: Is cute though
Lily: What is her name?
Judith: Her name is Judith. She’s eight. I have a twelve year old, too. Eleanor.
Lily: So you are married?
Shane bit his lip, how honest did he have to be with his former lover? Surely he didn’t have to go into detail? Besides, why was Ilya even asking him this?
Judith: Divorced. I’m sorry my daughter bothered you, I’ve told her to stop texting you.
Shane saw the little dots appear a few times, meaning Ilya was rewriting his answer. Finally, a message popped up.
Lily: Oh
Shane continued working on his laptop, eying the phone to see if Ilya would text him again. No more messages came in. Part of him was relieved.
Shane thought that would be the end of it, but a few days later, Shane was serving pasta to his daughters, lecturing them about using their phones at the dinner table, when he glanced at Judith’s screen.
“You’re still texting Lily?” Shane exclaimed. He probably said it a little too loudly, because Judith dropped her phone.
“I just send her cute animals sometimes!” Judith defended herself. “She sends me stickers, Daddy!”
“I told you to stop texting that number. Why didn’t you listen to me?” Shane kept his voice meticulously steady, making sure not to talk too loudly. His eldest daughter raised an eyebrow at him, a trick she’d recently learned and was using all the time now.
“I just thought you might like to be friends with Lily again!” Judith said petulantly. “If I lost a friend, I would be sad.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be disobeying me.” Shane sighed.
He watched as Judith’s eyes filled with tears. “I just didn’t want you to be so sad anymore!” She yelled.
She shoved her chair backwards and ran to her room. Shane took a deep breath to steady himself. Judith was so much like her mother, so quick to anger, quick to cry, quick to feel. Anything could set her off, but she usually came around very fast, too. Eleanor was more like Shane. Carefully controlled emotions, sometimes too much like a mask.
“Great job, Dad.” Eleanor said sarcastically.
“You’re not officially a teenager until you’re thirteen, stop acting like one.” Shane said, but he gave his daughter a kiss on the top of her head as he passed her on the way to Judith’s room.
He persuaded Judith to come back to the table with the promise of ice cream as dessert, not quite happy with himself for giving in to his eight year old. Whatever, he was tired.
They finished their dinner in relative peace, but when they brought their dishes to the kitchen, Eleanor lingered. She helped him load the dishwasher and even wiped down the counter without being asked. As Shane turned the dishwasher on, Eleanor leaned against the counter, studying him. Her eyes were far too serious for a twelve year old.
“Who really is Lily, Dad?” She asked softly.
Shane was taken aback by her question, Eleanor really wasn’t one to pry. He didn’t want to lie to her, not completely anyway.
“Lily is an old friend of mine, back when I was in the NHL. We had a falling out when I got injured and we haven’t spoken since.” Shane said, hoping that would be it.
“Did you love her?” Eleanor asked shyly.
Shane felt his face turn red at the question. He turned his back to his daughter, thinking of what to answer. He cleared his throat.
“Well…” He started, turning to look at his daughter. She was looking at him, too, her dark, almond shaped eyes so much like his own. Her intensity was his too. He couldn’t help but smile at her.
“I might have, once.” Shane said, surprising himself. He hadn’t thought about Ilya in a very long time. Back when Ilya was still on his mind every day, he would have never dared to admit he’d been in love. But it was so long ago now, Shane felt calmer about it. He’d grown up a lot since then.
“What happened?”
“Like I said, we had a fight. I met your Mom a few weeks later and I didn’t speak to Lily again. Until your sister texted her.” Shane tried to joke, but Eleanor didn’t smile.
“But you don’t love Mom.” Eleanor said quietly.
The divorce had been the right decision and Shane liked to think they were all much happier now, even though Emily was living in Montreal, a two hour drive away. There were less fights, less tension, less pretense. But it was still hard for Eleanor to understand. Even more so for Judith, who was four years younger.
Sometimes Shane wondered if he had been too honest with his oldest daughter. He had answered every question she’d asked him, including many questions clearly meant to gauge whether her parents would ever get back together again. He had been sorry to disappoint her.
“Oh sweetheart…” Shane pulled Eleanor into a tight hug. “I know that’s hard. And it’s probably weird hearing I loved someone before I met your Mom. But it’s okay.”
Eleanor pressed her face into his chest. “But if you didn’t love Mom, and you did love Lily…” She pulled back a little. “Why don’t you try being with Lily now?”
Shane smiled at her sadly. “It was a really long time ago, I don’t feel that way about Lily anymore.”
He pushed her dark hair out of her face and squeezed her cheek softly. “Don’t worry about me, Elle. I’ll be fine, okay?”
Eleanor nodded slowly, but when she left the kitchen she didn’t look quite as convinced as he’d have hoped.
That night, Shane kept glaring at Judith’s phone where it was taunting him from the dining room table. He always made his girls leave their phones there at night, even though that was becoming increasingly difficult with Eleanor.
Now that he was alone, he finally had time to process everything that had happened today. He wondered if he should tell Emily about what happened. She was supposed to have a weekend with Eleanor soon, and if Eleanor told her Mom about Lily, Emily was sure to be pissed at Shane for putting Judith in that situation.
But Eleanor was a quiet and sometimes sullen teen, she didn’t often talk about her feelings. She probably wouldn’t mention it to her mother.
And then there was Ilya. Shane could forgive his daughter for continuing to text Lily. She was eight, she was bound to make mistakes and get into trouble from time to time. But Ilya was 36 now, the same age as Shane. There was no way he couldn’t have ignored Judith, even if she did continue to text him.
Shane sighed and got Judith’s phone from the table. He found Ilya’s contact information and transferred it to his own phone. He briefly considered blocking ‘Lily’ in Judith’s phone, but he was pretty sure his daughter was tech savvy enough to unblock him. He was just going to have to trust Judith to listen to her Dad.
Shane typed out a message to Ilya, deleted it, typed another three, each of which was either too angry or not angry enough.
Shane: Why did you continue texting my daughter when I told her not to?
He waited a few seconds, before muttering a few profanities under his breath and sending a second text.
Shane: This is Shane, by the way.
Shane put the phone down with the screen facing up. He unpaused the show he’d been watching, but caught himself staring at his phone instead. He turned it the other way around, so he wouldn’t look at the screen.
About five seconds later, he had unwittingly picked up the phone again and was unlocking it.
“Shit.” Shane muttered.
He shoved his phone into the couch cushion, throwing a pillow on top for good measure. He turned back toward the TV, trying to remember the details of the murder mystery show he was watching. Helena Bonham Carter was talking to a worried looking Mia McKenna-Bruce. Shane forgot what they were worried about.
A feint buzzing came from the couch cushion. Shane’s hand shot out faster than lightning and grabbed the phone.
Ilya: I am sorry. I thought you knew
Ilya: Are you not monitoring her phone?
Shane let out a quiet huff at that. He probably should be, but he felt weird invading his eight year old’s privacy.
Shane: Well, I’m sorry.
Ilya: Don’t be, she’s fun. Can’t be your genes, no?
Shane laughed out loud. He bit down on his lip guiltily. This felt a lot like their flirty messages back when Shane had been young. Before everything happened.
Shane: Wow.
Shane: I’m glad my daughter didn’t give you nightmares with her choice of emojis.
Ilya: Don’t worry, talking to her is nice
Talking to her? From what Shane had seen on Judith’s screen that day, it had just been emoji’s and stickers. Were they having actual conversations? Shane didn’t know how to feel about that.
He made a quick list in his head. He’d talked to Judith about the importance of privacy and safety on the internet, including texts. She was smart enough not to tell a stranger any important secrets. And besides, it wasn’t like Ilya was a real stranger.
Shane had known him a little once. Very… Intimately. They’d mostly met up for sex, back then. There hadn’t been many deep conversations, but Shane felt like he got a good read on Ilya anyway. The guy was always pretending to be an asshole, but he was surprisingly sweet to people he liked. Shane had always felt safe around him.
So, Shane decided, he wouldn’t intervene in this weird text friendship Ilya had developed with Judith. Judith probably would forget all about it soon, after she found something else to obsess over.
Hopefully, that would be soon.
Ilya: What are you doing rn?
Shane swallowed, glancing up at the TV, which he hadn’t paused. He decided not to reply.