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The smell of smoke sifted through the air as Shane tossed another log into the fire pit. It was the first of the annual family vacation to the cottage, and as was tradition, Shane was going to make s’mores with his family. It seemed, however, nobody would be interested in helping Shane get things ready until he ripped open one of the chocolate bars sitting on the wooden side table beside him.
Even his own husband was nowhere to be found, taking an unreasonably long time to grab the marshmallow roasting sticks Shane had stored away in the kitchen. He turned around to look through the window to see what was taking so long, only to see Ilya crouched beside the kitchen island, feeding pieces of leftover hamburger to Anya, their beloved border collie mix.
Shane closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. The veterinarian had put Anya on a special diet for senior dogs at her last visit, telling Shane and Ilya it would help maintain her mobility as she was getting older. Shane had followed it diligently as soon as they got home. Ilya had said he would follow it, but time and time again Shane had caught his husband slipping her leftover scraps of dinner or an extra treat.
Or two. Or three.
Shane could never truly be mad about it, though. Anya was essentially Ilya’s firstborn child — despite the extensive paperwork saying it was Natalia. Like he did with every person he loved, Ilya would give that dog the world if he could. If that meant finding some wiggle room in Anya’s diet, then it was worth it to Ilya.
Ilya glanced up from the dog and met Shane’s gaze. His eyes widened as he realized he’d been caught and quickly scooped up the remaining pieces of burger and tossed them in the trash can, saying something to Anya that Shane couldn’t decipher through the thick glass walls.
Shane tried (and failed) to hold back a laugh as he reached for another log. He heard the back door open, followed by Ilya’s footsteps and the light tapping of Anya’s paws against the stone patio. The fire finally caught with the last log as Shane’s husband appeared beside him, setting down the marshmallow roasting sticks next to the sofa.
“You saw nothing,” Ilya said as he sat down. Anya curled up at his feet as if she was seconding his statement. Shane laughed as he plopped down beside Ilya.
“Sure,” Shane said, a smirk slowly appearing on his face. “I definitely didn’t see you feed Anya the second burger Leo swore he would eat and then refused to touch.”
“I am worried about you, moya lyubov. You are hallucinating.”
“Asshole,” Shane said, playfully smacking Ilya’s side.
Ilya wrapped an arm around Shane’s shoulders and quickly kissed his cheek. “You love me.”
“I do,” Shane smiled as he rested his head on Ilya’s shoulder. “But the vet put Anya on that diet for a reason. We need to listen to her.”
“I know, I know. But how do I say no to her sad little puppy eyes?” Ilya asked. “She is a manipulator, Shane.”
“She’s a dog,” Shane retorted.
“Shh, don’t listen to him, Anya. You are a genius,” Ilya said, reaching down to scratch behind the brown dog’s ear. Shane laughed as he wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist.
“I think she’s had enough human food for the night,” Shane said. “I don’t think it’s exactly a miracle Mari ate all her green beans for once.”
Ilya chuckled. “Should we tell them to come make smores?”
Shane looked down the hill at the rocky shore where his children had been occupying themselves. After dinner, Natalia was insistent she would teach her younger siblings the rock-skipping technique she’d perfected years ago. Leo had gotten the hang of it, but Mari seemed to prefer chucking the rocks into the lake and seeing how big of a splash they made.
He couldn’t hear them, but Shane gathered from the look on his oldest’s face that she was not a fan of Mari’s strategy. Still, they were getting along, a somewhat rare occasion in the Hollander-Rozanov household. He was going to savor this moment as long as he could.
Shane looked up at Ilya. “They’re having fun, they’re good. Plus, a few extra minutes with you never hurts.”
Ilya smiled and pressed a kiss to Shane’s forehead. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”
“Et je t’aime,” Shane said. Ilya's face lit up as he kissed Shane’s head over and over again while he giggled. Shane knew Ilya loved it when he spoke French and had made it his mission to use it as much as he was able, just so he could see the grin on his husband’s gorgeous face. The extra kisses he got from Ilya every time were an added bonus.
Shane held onto Ilya’s waist tighter. Once their laughter had died down, they stayed in that same spot for a few minutes. They were just holding each other, watching as their children played in the same place they’d found the courage to confess their feelings all those years ago. Neither of them spoke, but there was a mutual understanding between the two.
This was the life they had dreamed of. The one they had fought for so long to have.
The moment was cut off when a familiar bird called out from the middle of the lake. Ilya’s grip on Shane slightly as he turned his head towards the noise. Once the loon had decided it’d said enough, Ilya’s muscles relaxed. He sunk back into Shane and let out a short sigh.
Shane snorted. “It’s still not a wolf.”
“Still sounds like one,” Ilya grumbled. Shane smiled and kissed Ilya on the cheek.
Ilya opened his mouth as if to argue back — to convince Shane that, who knows, maybe a wolf would show up on a lake in Ottawa — when an eardrum-bursting cry broke out from the rocks.
“Daddy! Papa!”
The two men quickly sat up as their five-year-old daughter ran up the hill sobbing her eyes out. Her older sister and brother darted after her, arguing as they trailed behind her.
“I told you she’d cry!”
“I didn’t think she’d actually believe me!”
Mari reached Ilya first and jumped into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into his shoulders.
Shane rubbed her back as Ilya shushed her. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want it to get me!” Mari wailed. Shane and Ilya looked at each other in confusion. Anya stood up, concerned by Mari’s tears.
Natalia and Leo reached the patio out of breath, both desperately trying to explain themselves as they spoke over each other.
“It’s his fault, Dad.” “I didn’t mean it!”
Shane sharply inhaled. Mari’s cries were already stressful enough — if Nat and Leo started going back and forth on top of it, Shane might lose it. Ilya sensed this, and quickly put a stop to the bickering.
“One at a time,” Ilya said. “Someone explain. I don’t care who.”
Their oldest two children glanced at each other, and Natalia started.
“We heard the loon, and Mari asked what it was. I was going to tell her it was just a bird, but then Leo—”
“I said it was a scary monster who lived at the bottom of the lake who knows when you feed your dog your dinner,” Leo said.
Mari sobbed again. “I won’t give Anya more green beans, I pinky promise!”
“Sorry Dad. Sorry Papa,” Leo said sheepishly.
Shane and Ilya looked at each other and quickly tried to hide their laughter. This was, arguably, the funniest way their theory on how Mari finished her dinner could be confirmed.
“Leo, tell her it was a joke,” Shane said, desperately hoping he was maintaining a serious expression. “And say sorry.”
“Sorry, Mari,” Leo said. “I was just kidding.”
Mari sniffled, finally calming down. “Promise?”
“He promises, malyshka,” Ilya said, nodding at his son. “There is no monster in the lake. It would’ve gotten your sister already.”
Mari giggled at Ilya’s comment, while Natalia stared at him offended. Shane couldn’t contain himself and finally let a laugh slip.
“I don’t feed Anya human food!” Nat exclaimed in self-defense. Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t anymore. Yell at him, not me!”
“No, we can talk about you,” Leo said. Before Nat could snap back at him, Shane cut everyone off.
“Okay, okay, enough,” Shane said. The entire family looked at him. “All done. There is no monster in the lake. Nobody is feeding Anya their dinner again. We are moving on, and we are making s’mores.”
“S’mores!” All three kids cheered in unison. Nat and Leo dashed over to the couch to sit beside Shane. Ilya reached for the roasting sticks as Shane ripped open the bag of marshmallows.
“S’mores might be the answer to world peace,” Ilya said.
“They’re giving me peace,” Shane answered as Mari snatched a marshmallow out of the bag. “That’s all I can really ask for.”
***
Some time later, the sun had finally set, leaving the sky a dark shade of purple. Nat and Leo had moved to their own chairs, focusing on roasting their marshmallows with a surprising amount of seriousness for elementary schoolers.
Mari had finally, after the third or fourth marshmallow, decided Ilya let it get to the right shade of brown. She sat happily on the couch, holding her s’more in one hand and petting Anya, who had since fallen asleep between Mari and Ilya, with the other. Ilya was eating s’mores he’d made with the marshmallows that failed to meet a kindergartner’s standards.
Shane sat on the opposite end of the couch, eating some graham crackers on their own after finishing his dessert. He noticed Nat and Leo were on their third s’more each, and realized if he wanted to avoid a chorus of my stomach hurts in twenty minutes, it was time to put an end to the s’mores.
Just as he was about to stand up and walk over to revoke their marshmallow-roasting privileges, Shane thought of a more distracting — and, in his opinion, far funnier — way to change the subject.
“You know, Mar’s not the only one scared of loons,” Shane said.
His husband and kids looked over to him, similar confused expressions on their faces.
“What do you mean, Dad?” Natalia asked.
Shane looked over to Ilya and smirked. The blonde man’s eyes widened as he realized the story Shane was about to tell.
“No,” Ilya objected. “Sweetheart.”
“What?” Leo nervously laughed.
Shane started recounting the memory before Ilya could interrupt. “The first time I ever brought Papa to the cottage—”
“Shane, stop,” Ilya interjected. “Do not listen to your father, he is a liar.”
“We were sitting by the fire, and he heard a loon for the first time, and he practically jumped out of his seat.”
Nat and Leo started laughing quietly. Mari let her jaw drop and turned to face Ilya, in shock anything could possibly scare her Papa.
“This did not happen,” Ilya said flustered, trying to hide the growing blush on his cheeks. “Dad is imagining things.”
“Papa thought it was a wolf.”
With that, all of the kids lost it, bursting into hysterical laughter at the thought of Ilya being scared of a little bird.
“A wolf!” Leo shrieked, practically rolling around in his chair.
“Papa, how?” Natalia asked between her wheezing laughs.
Ilya sat with his head in his hands. He was pretending to be embarrassed, but Shane could see his husband fighting a smile. “You have humiliated me, Shane. In front of our children.”
“Sorry, honey,” Shane laughed as he pulled Mari, who was giggling harder than she ever had before, into his lap.
Natalia stood up and went over to Ilya, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s okay, Papa, we’ll protect you from the big scary loons.”
“Protect me?” Ilya gasped, pretending to be offended.
Natalia wiggled herself into the space between Ilya and the armrest. Ilya wrapped in her a bear hug, squeezing her tight as he kissed the top of her head, making her laugh again.
“Yeah, I’ll save you,” Leo said. “Watch this, Papa!”
The boy jumped out of his seat and started running around the patio furniture, howling at the top of his lungs. His sisters joined from the couch, howling at the loons that were supposedly terrorizing Ilya. Anya, having been woken up by the noise, started licking Ilya’s face, thinking something was wrong. Shane’s laughter was uncontrollable by now, his chest was starting to hurt.
“At least they care,” Shane said.
“Oh, I had no doubt about that,” Ilya said back with a grin.
Leo finally finished his lap around the yard, crashing onto the couch next to Shane with one final, determined howl.
“Stay away from my Papa!” He yelled. “No more scaring him!”
Shane wrapped his arm around Leo’s shoulders as the family fell into a pile of giggles on the couch. Shane and Ilya met each other’s gaze across the top of their children’s heads. Ilya was looking at Shane as if he’d given him the world.
And with their children beside them, safe and happy as they laughed on the couch, it was true. They had given each other the world.