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The rookie looked like he was going to throw up.

Shane noticed it the second the kid, whose name if Shane remember correctly is Dylan Jensen, stepped into the locker room, all sharp elbows and too-wide eyes, his brand-new team-issued gear still sitting too stiff on his shoulders. He was trying very hard to look like he belonged there, which only made it more obvious that he thought he didn’t.

It was the first day of training camp, and everyone was pretending not to notice.

Shane tied and retied the tape around his stick and watched Jensen from across the room. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. Good hands, according to half the coverage around the draft, and a face that had somehow managed to get even paler since he’d walked in. Every time someone laughed too loudly, he flinched a little.

“Jesus,” Shane muttered.

Next to him, Ilya looked up from where he was unlacing one skate with the careless air of a man who had never once in his life been intimidated by another human being.

“What?”

Shane jerked his chin toward the rookie.

Ilya glanced over. “Ah,” he said.

That was it. Just ah, like he hadn’t clocked the kid’s impending nervous collapse in half a second.

The rookie made the mistake, then, of looking around the room and meeting Shane’s eyes. Shane gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. The kid looked away so fast it was almost violent.

Ilya snorted.

“Oh, shut up,” Shane said under his breath.

“You are terrifying,” Ilya said.

“I’m not terrifying.”

“You look like you are about to ask him about his SAT scores.”

“How do you even know about SAT, and no, I don’t look like that.”

Ilya chuckles, “yes you do, my love.” Ilya said, standing, “your face is making it worse.”

“My face is fine.”

“Mm.”

Shane watched Ilya cross the room and had to resist the urge to tell him not to. This was exactly the kind of thing that would send the poor kid into cardiac arrest: Ilya Rozanov, in all his disreputable glory, stalking over with his damp hair and battered duffel and general aura of trouble. The only good thing is that at least Ilya is not half naked. Because Shane was at the receiving end of that situation once, which, he swore he will never tell Ilya that it feels like there is a giant arrow pointing towards his dick, because that would just make his ego even bigger than it already is.

But, fully clothed Ilya, first day of training camp and a very nervous rookie is also not a good combinantion, because Jensen immediately straightened his posture when Ilya stopped in front of him.

For one awful second, Shane thought the kid might actually stop breathing.

Then Ilya said, in the flat, almost bored voice he used when he was trying not to be overheard being kind, “You have not eaten.”

Jensen blinked. “What?”

“You look sick,” Ilya said. “Did you eat breakfast?”

A flush climbed up the kid’s neck. “Yeah. I mean. Kind of.”

Ilya stared at him for a beat. “So no.”

The rookie gave a helpless little shrug.

Without another word, Ilya bent, unzipped his own bag, and pulled out a protein bar and a banana, both of which Shane recognized from the stash Ilya kept around because he was apparently eighty years old when it came to making sure people had snacks.

“Eat,” Ilya said, handing them over.

The rookie took them automatically, like he’d been handed instructions from God.

“You skate like this, you’ll fall over,” Ilya added. “Then coaches think you have bad conditioning. Then everyone says stupid things. Better to eat.”

“Okay,” Jensen said faintly.

“And drink water,” Ilya said. “Not just coffee. Coffee is not water.”

Jensen, who was in fact holding a coffee, looked down at it like he’d been personally betrayed.

From two stalls over, someone laughed. Shane looked over, it was LaPointe, grinning as he finished getting dressed. “Awww Cap, are you packing lunch for the children now?”

The rookie went red all the way to his ears.

Ilya didn’t even turn around. “Be quiet, LP.”

It should have sounded rude. Somehow, with Ilya, it didn’t. Or maybe it did, but not in a way that mattered. There was no heat in it. No edge. Just a general unwillingness to let anyone make the kid feel worse than he already did.

Jensen fumbled with the wrapper on the protein bar. His hands were shaking a little. Ilya took it back, tore it open, and handed it to him again.

“Thanks,” he said, looking like he might die of embarrassment this time instead.

“Mm.”

Shane, who had been in love with Ilya for long enough to know exactly how much gentleness could hide inside that disinterested grunt, felt something warm and painful move through his chest.

The kid took a bite. Some color came back into his face almost immediately.

“There,” Ilya said. “Less pathetic already.”

That actually got a laugh out of him, small and startled, but real. Of course it did. Shane had spent years watching people mistake Ilya’s bluntness for cruelty when half the time it was the only thing keeping them from falling apart.

A minute later, one of the assistant coaches called the rookie over. He straightened again, still nervous, but not quite so ghostly now, and hurried off with the banana and the rest of the protein bar still in hand.

Ilya came back like nothing had happened and sat down to finish with his skates. Shane looked at him.

“What?” Ilya asked.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Ilya shrugged. “He was going to pass out.”

“Yes,” Shane said. “I noticed.”

“Apparently only one of us did something about it.”

Shane smiled despite himself. “I was about to.”

“You were about to stare at him in a supportive way.”

“That works sometimes.”

“It did not seem to be working now.”

Before Shane could answer, LP spoke again to no one specifically other than the whole room. “Kid looked ready to cry until Hollander smiled at him.”

There was a round of laughter at that, the easy, mindless kind that came from camp nerves and boredom and the fact that Shane’s reputation had somehow calcified at age nineteen into something everyone still believed: responsible, composed, reliable Shane Hollander, patron saint of nervous rookies, good life choices, sunshine, rainbow and all of that.

Shane rolled his eyes and then sarcastically said, “Yep, that was me.”

LP grinned. “Well, one protein bar doesn’t make Cap the team dad. Even though he is the Cap.”

More laughter. Across the room, the rookie, who was clearly in earshot, laughed too, just a little, in the careful way people did when they wanted badly to be on the right side of a joke.

Shane felt his irritation rise, quick and sharp.

“He’s the one who helped him, actually,” Shane said.

LP waved a hand. “Sure, but you’re the one with the trustworthy face.”

“No,” Shane said, more flatly this time. “Ilya gave him food.”

A couple of guys laughed, somehow ignoring Shane’s clarification. Ilya, infuriatingly, only looked amused.

Shane furrowed his eyebrows, clearly the only one that annoyed at this situation then stared at all of them. “Are you all stupid?”

That got a few raised eyebrows.

“He does this all the time,” Shane said. “You just don’t notice because apparently none of you can see past”—he made a vague, annoyed gesture in Ilya’s direction—“whatever this is.”

“This?” Ilya repeated, looking even more delighted now, grinning so handsomely that Shane has to bite down the urge to kiss that kissable face.

“Yes, this. The face. The whole—” Shane gestured again, more irritably. “Thing.”

“My face?”

“Your entire personality, maybe.”

“I have an excellent personality.”

“Debatable.”

The room had gone quieter in that interested, entertained way it always did when Shane sounded like he might say something he usually kept to himself.

Bood this time asked. “Okay, Hollander. You saying Roz is secretly a sweet teddy bear?”

Shane opened his mouth.

He could say yes, but that felt too soft, too revealing, too much like handing over something private for them to laugh at. Because they would laugh. Not maliciously, maybe, but enough. They’d make it into a joke, and Shane was suddenly, fiercely unwilling to let them.

So instead he said, “I’m saying he’s nicer than I am.”

That did it. The whole room broke. Not loud, exactly, but enough laughter, disbelief, somebody actually choking on water, LP slapping a hand against his chest like Shane had told the best joke of the week.

Even the rookie looked startled. Beside him, Ilya also laughed.

Shane could feel heat climb up the back of his neck. “Oh, come on.”

“No,” Troy this time joined, also laughing. “No. Absolutely not.”

“It’s true.”

“Hollander,” Holmberg said this time, shaking his head, “you have the reputation you have for a reason.”

“Yes,” Shane snapped. “Because I know how to do media.”

“Because you’re nice,” Holmberg corrected.

“I am not nicer than him.”

That only made them laugh harder.

Ilya, the traitor, ducked his head, smiling into his locker.

Shane stared at him. “You could help.”

“I am enjoying this very much,” Ilya said.

“Of course you are.”

LP was still grinning. “Sure, Hollander. Rozanov’s the good one.”

“Yes,” Shane said.

He meant to leave it there, but something stubborn in him wouldn’t let it go. He looked around the room and said, with all the clipped irritation he could manage, “He is, actually.”

That quieted things a little. Not enough. Not enough to make any of them believe him.

Someone called them onto the ice before anyone could turn it into a bigger conversation, and the room moved all at once: lockers slamming, skates on rubber flooring, voices rising again. Shane stood and grabbed his stick.

As he passed the rookie, he paused just long enough to say, “You okay?”

The kid nodded quickly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Shane opened his mouth to correct him, then saw the way the rookie was looking at him — relieved, grateful, a little awed — and understood at once that the thanks wasn’t really for him at all. It was for the safe version of him the whole world had already decided on.

He glanced past him, toward where Ilya was waiting by the door, tapping his stick against the floor, impatient and sharp-edged and impossible.

The rookie followed his gaze and lowered his voice. “He’s not as scary as I thought.”

Shane huffed out a laugh.

“No,” he said. “He isn’t.”

Then, because apparently even now he couldn’t help himself, he added, “He’s the good one, between us.”

The rookie smiled politely, like Shane was joking. Of course he did.

By the time Shane reached the door, Ilya was already looking at him with that knowing, unbearable expression he got when he’d figured out exactly what Shane was thinking and intended to be smug about it.

“What?” Shane asked.

Ilya bumped their shoulders together on the way out. “Nothing.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Yes.”

“You could have backed me up in there.”

“I did not need to,” Ilya said smiling.

For one stupid second, Shane forgot how to breathe. Then Ilya pushed ahead toward the ice, all swagger again, and shouted something rude at Troy, that he flipped him off automatically. The rookie, trailing behind them, laughed nervously.

Shane watched Ilya go and thought, not for the first time, that the whole world was terrible at this. They saw the careless grin, the arrogance, the sharp tongue, and thought they understood him. They saw Shane standing beside him in pressed shirts and good posture and assumed Shane was the safer bet.

Meanwhile, Ilya was the one stuffing emergency snacks into his bag for other people. Ilya was the one who noticed shaking hands and untouched breakfasts and the exact point where nerves tipped into misery. Ilya was the one who could make kindness sound like an insult and somehow make it easier to accept.

Shane adjusted his gloves and followed him onto the ice.

Behind them, Jensen called, “Hey, Hollander? Thanks again.”

Shane looked back once, then over at Ilya.

Ilya, apparently, was going to keep being impossible about this.

“Wrong guy,” Shane said, and skated off before anyone could ask what he meant.

Shane had developed a private ranking system for interview questions. At the top were the boring ones. How did it feel out there tonight, talk us through the power play, what’s working for the team right now. Those were easy. He could answer them half-asleep, politely, with just enough sincerity to sound human and just enough blandness to avoid saying anything he’d regret later.

At the bottom were the ones journalists asked when they were bored, or lazy, or both. Questions about Ilya lived there most of the time.

Not always. Sometimes they were normal. Sometimes they were even about hockey. But every so often Shane would get one from somebody with a bright expression and a microphone and the unmistakable air of a person who thought they’d found a fresh angle on a very old story.

Tonight’s game had gone to overtime. Ottawa versus Toronto. Ottawa had won. Shane had scored once, assisted once, and spent most of the third period wanting to murder at least four different people, which meant he was already working with limited patience.

Thus, when someone from somewhere over his left shoulder had asked, “Do you think it’s easier to play your game against a team like Toronto when Rozanov is still so easy to bait?” Shane looked up. Not because the question was shocking. It wasn’t. It was stupid in a familiar way. The kind of thing people said when they still thought they were discussing Ilya like he was twenty-two and reckless and one bad shift away from taking a stupid penalty just because somebody had looked at him wrong.

It was the phrasing, maybe. Still so easy to bait. As if Ilya was some snarling thing people had learned to poke for sport.

Shane kept his face neutral because he was good at that. “Not really,” he said. “I think he’s pretty disciplined.”

The woman smiled like he’d made a joke. “But he still plays on the edge, doesn’t he?”

There it was.

Shane folded his hands together in front of him and said, very evenly, “A lot of players do.”

“Sure,” she said, “but he has more of a reputation for it.”

Shane could feel his patience narrowing into something sharp and cold.

“Then maybe his reputation is outdated,” he said.

That got a flicker from a couple of reporters nearby. The subtle shift. The attention sharpening.

The woman pressed on. “You don’t think he can still be goaded into bad decisions?”

There were a dozen polite ways to answer that. He knew all of them. Instead, Shane said, “I think a lot of people decide what kind of player he is before they watch him.”

The woman blinked. “Is that what you think this is?”

Shane smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“I think,” he said, “that if he looked different and sounded different, people would describe the exact same game very differently.”

A few people went still. The woman’s expression tightened. “I’m only asking because it still seems to affect how teams play against him.”

“And I’m answering,” Shane said.

From somewhere to his right, someone said his name. Not loudly. Not sharply. But in exactly the tone that meant enough.

Shane turned.

Ilya was leaning against the wall at the edge of the hallway, hair damp from his shower, one hand curled around a sports drink. He looked like he’d wandered over by accident.

He had also, Shane knew instantly, been watching long enough to notice the exact second Shane had started getting angry and mean. That, more than anything, was what made Shane’s chest tighten. No one else ever caught it that fast.

Shane looked back at the reporter. The woman opened her mouth again. “Would you say—”

And then Ilya stepped neatly into the edge of the scrum and said, “You can ask me, you know.”

The whole group turned.

The woman blinked. “Sorry?”

Ilya leaned closer to Shane. “If you want to know whether I am easy to bait, you can ask me. Shane will only become boring and defensive.”

There was a brief ripple of laughter.

Shane turned to stare at him. “Boring?”

Ilya did not look at him. “Very boring. Extremely protective. Terrible combination for media.”

That got a slightly bigger laugh.  The woman, apparently deciding this was now salvageable, said, “Okay. Do you think teams still try to get under your skin?”

“Obviously,” Ilya said. “This is hockey. Everyone is annoying.”

A few more laughs.

“And does it work?”

“Sometimes,” Ilya said. “But usually only if I have not eaten.”

That got a bigger one, enough to break the tension.

Shane could feel the exact moment the room relaxed. Ilya had done it on purpose, as usual. Stepped in front of something ugly and made it lighter, easier, cleaner. Like he was shielding Shane from his own temper as much as he was redirecting the question.

The woman smiled despite herself. “So Shane’s wrong? You’re not disciplined?”

“I did not say that,” Ilya said. “I said everyone is annoying. This is different problem.” He kept going, easy and loose and somehow perfectly in control of a conversation everyone had expected him to mishandle. “I think people like stories,” he said. “This is normal. If you decide player is emotional, then every time he is emotional, you remember. If he is calm ten games in a row, maybe this is not so interesting to write about.”

That was good. Annoyingly so good.

The woman tilted her head. “So you think the narrative around you is unfair?”

Ilya shrugged. “I think people will believe what people want to believe. I play hockey how I always play hockey, some people believe how I play is annoying, and my husband believes I play disciplined.”

Shane hated, suddenly and helplessly, how fond that made him feel. Because that was Ilya, always — turning himself into the easiest version for other people to understand, even when they didn’t deserve it. Taking the hit. Making it look effortless.

Then Ilya glanced sideways at Shane, just for a second, and added, “Also, if I make bad decisions, Shane tells me. Constantly.”

The laughter this time was warmer.

Shane stared at him. “That is not helping.”

“It is helping me,” Ilya said.

It was, actually. More than Shane wanted to admit. The room was looking at Ilya differently now, amused, charmed, disarmed. Safer.

After that a few last questions, another harmless quote, then people began peeling away in clumps. Shane waited until the last of them had disappeared before turning to him.

“You did that on purpose.”

“Yes,” Ilya said.

“I was handling it.”

“You were getting angry, and then you will be even more mean.”

“I was not.”

Ilya tipped his head. “Shane.”

It was unbearable, the way he said his name when he was trying not to smile. Like he knew exactly how Shane would react and liked him anyway.

“She was being an idiot,” Shane said.

“Yes,” Ilya said. “And you were being mean to an idiot. There is no point.”

Shane pushed himself to his feet. “She wanted a quote about you being reckless.”

“And instead she got a quote about you being scary and protective.”

“I am not scary.”

Ilya looked him over slowly, from his damp hair to his slightly crumpled shirt. Then he reached out, smoothing invisible crease with two casual fingers, and said, “You are a little scary.”

Shane went very still. Ilya is not even touching Shane directly on his skin, yet, but Shane’s heart is already beating like it tries to get out of his chest. This part is always confusing for Shane; they are married, for god’s sake, but Ilya still managed to do this to him even after all this time.

Then Ilya’s knuckles brushed the underside of Shane’s jaw for half a second, deliberate and light, and Shane felt the touch all the way down.

A couple of Centaurs staff passed by then, one of them slowing with a grin. “Hollander.”

Shane looked over. The equipment manager jerked his chin toward Ilya. “Did Rozanov just save your press conference?”

Beside him, one of the assistant trainers laughed. “Honestly, one more charming quote and we’re putting him on community outreach.”

Ilya looked delighted. “I am excellent with community.”

“You are horrible with community,” Shane said automatically.

“See?” the trainer said. “Still mean.”

“I’m not mean.”

Both men looked at him. Then at Ilya. Then back at him.

The equipment manager spread his hands. “Buddy, I literally just watched him stop you from eviscerating a reporter.”

“She asked a stupid question,” Shane said.

“Yeah,” the trainer said. “And somehow, he was still the diplomatic one.”

Ilya made a thoughtful noise. “Maybe my brand is changing.”

“It isn’t,” Shane said.

The equipment manager laughed. “Sure, Hollander.”

“No, seriously,” Shane said. “It's not changing. He is always nicer than I am.”

That, predictably, was the wrong thing to say. The trainer barked out a laugh. The equipment manager actually paused.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “He really got to you.”

“I’m serious.”

“Right,” the trainer said. “And next you’re going to tell us Rozanov’s the cuddly one.”

Shane crossed his arms. “He is! Most of the time!”

Now both of them were openly grinning.

Ilya, the absolute traitor, just folded his arms and watched him with a soft, entertained expression that made it very difficult to sound normal.

“Please continue, Shane,” he said.

Shane glared at him. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” Ilya said.

The equipment manager shook his head and kept moving. “Get some rest, boys. Hollander’s clearly been through something tonight.”

When they were gone, the hallway felt quieter.

Shane looked at Ilya. “You were nicer than I was.”

“Yes,” Ilya said.

There was no smugness in it now. No joke. Just the truth.

Shane exhaled. “You shouldn’t have to keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Stepping in.”

Ilya’s expression softened a little. “I like stepping in. I like stepping in for you.”

That landed somewhere deep in Shane’s heart. Before Shane could answer, Ilya reached over and caught the back of Shane’s elbow, thumb brushing once over the inside of his arm.

“You get like this when people are stupid about me,” Ilya said quietly. “I know you’re only trying to protect me.”

Shane looked at him.

“That’s not really helping,” he muttered.

Ilya’s mouth twitched. “No?”

“No.” Shane exhaled and looked away. “It just makes it harder to stay annoyed at you.”

“You are not very convincing when you are annoyed with me anyway.”

Shane snorted. “That’s not true.”

“Baby.”

Shane looked back just in time to see Ilya step closer and crowd into his space in the easy, thoughtless way he always did, close enough that Shane automatically shifted to make room for him. Their shoulders knocked together. Ilya’s hip settled against Shane’s for a second like that was simply where it belonged.

“You are terrible at it,” Ilya said.

“I’m actually excellent at it.”

“No,” Ilya said. “You get all sharp, and then five seconds later you look at me like this.”

Shane frowned. “Like what?”

Ilya lifted a hand and straightened Shane’s collar, slow and unbothered, like he’d been fixing Shane’s clothes for years and intended to keep doing it forever. Which, unfortunately, was true.

“Like you are about to start a diplomatic war on my behalf,” Ilya said.

Shane felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. “That is not a look.”

“It is a very specific look.”

“You’re making things up.”

“Mm.” Ilya removed a lint from Shane’s shirt instinctively, then left his hand there for another second just because he could. “Maybe.”

Shane caught his wrist before he could pull back. Not to stop him, exactly. Just to keep him there. Shane rolled his eyes, but he was already losing this. He could feel it. The worst of his irritation had gone warm and unsteady, blunted by the simple fact of Ilya standing too close and looking too warm and handsome and lovable and everything else that make Shane’s brain stop functioning normally.

Ilya shifted even closer and slid his hand up to the side of his neck, thumb resting under his jaw. Casual. Possessive. Entirely husband-shaped.

“You do not have to fight everyone for me,” he said.

Shane let out a quiet breath. “I know.”

“You always look like you want to.”

“That’s because they’re annoying.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “But still.”

Shane’s hand moved from Ilya’s wrist to his waist, where it fit with embarrassing ease. “You could at least pretend not to enjoy it.”

Ilya smiled then, small and private and very unfair. “But I do enjoy it, sweetheart.”

“That’s a flaw in your character.”

“One of many.”

Shane looked at him. At the softness in his face, at the fondness he wore so openly these days, it still occasionally caught Shane off guard, and felt something in his chest loosen.

“You make it impossible to stay mad at you,” he said.

“Good,” Ilya said.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

Shane huffed out a laugh. “Unbelievable.”

“Yes.” Ilya’s thumb brushed once along the edge of Shane’s jaw. “But you love me.”

Shane’s expression softened before he could stop it. “Unfortunately.”

“Very unfortunate for you.”

“Tragic, really.”

“Mm.”

For a second neither of them moved. The hallway had gone quieter around them, but not in a secretive way, just in the ordinary postgame sense that people were starting to drift off toward showers and buses and dinner plans. Ilya was still standing close enough that Shane could feel the heat of him through both their clothes, one hand steady on Shane’s neck like he had no intention of going anywhere yet.

Shane let his hand slide around to the small of Ilya’s back and left it there. “You stepped in fast.”

Ilya’s expression changed a little at that. Softened. “Of course I did.”

“I was handling it.”

“You were about thirty seconds away from becoming headline.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “That’s dramatic.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “But accurate.”

Then he took Shane’s hand off his back, turned it over, and pressed a kiss into the center of his palm like this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Which, for them, it probably was.

Shane was smiling now despite himself, which was irritating. “You’re very smug for somebody who just called me boring and defensive in front of reporters.”

“You were being boring and defensive.”

“I was defending you.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “Boringly.”

Shane put a hand flat over Ilya’s stomach and shoved lightly. It did absolutely nothing. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” Shane admitted. “I really don’t.”

Ilya’s face went softer at that in the quiet, devastating way it always did when Shane accidentally said something true. He bent and kissed him properly this time — not long, not filthy, just a warm, familiar kiss like punctuation.

When he pulled back, Shane was still holding onto the front of his shirt.

“See?” Ilya said softly. “Not annoyed.”

Shane shook his head, but his thumb was already rubbing absent circles against Ilya’s side through the thin fabric of his quarter-zip. “You’re the worst.”

“And yet you love me.”

“And yet I love you, baby.” Shane sighed softly, looking at Ilya with nothing but love and softness. He does love this man so much. Then Shane caught him by the collar and kissed Ilya this time longer and deeper.

Ilya laughed against his mouth, one hand sliding around Shane’s waist, the other settling at the back of his neck.

When they finally pulled apart, Shane kept hold of him anyway. “You are so irritating.”

“Yes, sweetheart,” Iya said, grinning like he won a lottery.

By the time the Centaurs’ annual preseason barbecue rolled around, Shane had already been asked three separate times whether he was the one who did all the cooking in their marriage.

The first time, he had laughed. The second time, he had said, “Why would you assume that?”

The third time, from one of the new staff hires who looked genuinely relieved to have found the sensible husband, he had stared for a beat too long and answered, “I like not setting off the smoke alarm. That’s not the same thing.”

Apparently, this had done nothing to kill the narrative.

It was hot in that sticky, late-summer way Ottawa sometimes got before giving up and becoming ice again. Someone from management had rented out a pavilion by the river, and half the team was there already, spread out across picnic tables with paper plates and plastic cups and children darting underfoot in Centaurs jerseys much too large for them.

Shane was carrying two drinks back from the cooler when he spotted Ilya near the grill, sleeves pushed up, sunglasses on, somehow looking like he had been built specifically to lean against a railing and say something offensive in perfect sunlight.

Megan, the assistant GM’s wife, was laughing at something he’d said. Beside her, a little boy of maybe five was clinging shyly to her leg and staring at the table of condiments as if it had personally wronged him.

Shane reached Ilya just in time to hear one of the assistant coaches say, “Honestly, I still can’t picture you two at home.”

Ilya took the lemonade Shane handed him without looking, because of course he did, because they had been doing this for long enough now that half their life was muscle memory.

“What does that mean?” Ilya asked.

The assistant coach grinned. “I mean Hollander, sure. I can picture Hollander folding towels. Making grocery lists. Paying bills on time. You?” He looked Ilya up and down theatrically. “I feel like you’d just stare at a broken appliance until Shane fixed it.”

A couple of people nearby laughed.

Shane opened his mouth. Unfortunately, Ilya got there first.

“This is true,” he said solemnly. “One time, the toaster stopped working. I looked at it for twenty minutes.”

Some people barked out a laugh at that.

“What happened after that?” Shane asked.

Ilya turned to him, already smiling.

“You fixed it, baby.”

“I unplugged it and plugged it back in.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “A genius solution.”

“That’s not fixing an appliance. That’s basic problem solving.”

The assistant coach waved a hand. “Exactly my point. Competent husband.”

Shane felt his jaw tighten. Across from him, Ilya lifted his lemonade and looked unbearably entertained.

It was made worse by the fact that Ilya had, in fact, made the potato salad currently on Shane’s plate, marinated the chicken in the cooler, remembered to bring extra sunscreen, packed extra napkins, and recharged the biteaway device for mosquito bites.

Before Shane could say any of that, a small voice by the condiment table said, “Mommy.”

Everyone looked over. The little boy was still standing exactly where he had been, lower lip trembling now, staring at the rows of ketchup and mustard and chopped onions like he’d been abandoned in the wilderness.

His mother, still balancing a paper plate and a baby on one hip, sighed under her breath. “Sorry, buddy. Just pick what you want.”

The little boy did not look like someone capable of making that kind of decision.

Ilya looked at him once, then set his drink down.

“What is your hot dog situation?” he asked gravely.

The boy blinked.

“Plain?” Ilya went on. “Ketchup? Something disgusting?”

A tiny, startled smile appeared.

“Ketchup,” the boy whispered.

“Good,” Ilya said. “Correct answer.”

He moved over, crouched down, and built the hot dog with the concentration of a man assembling a bomb. Bun, hot dog, careful line of ketchup, no onions, no mustard, no touching any of the other food the kid clearly did not want anywhere near it.

Then he handed it over with a little napkin tucked around the bottom so it wouldn’t drip on the child’s shirt.

“There,” he said. “Professional.”

The boy took it like he’d just been granted a diplomatic favor. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

His mother smiled, visibly relieved. “Oh my god, thank you.”

Ilya shrugged, already standing again. “He was suffering.”

That got a laugh from the table.

Shane, against his own will, felt something soft and fond and a little embarrassing unfold in his chest.

Because there Ilya was, looking like exactly the sort of man people wrote warning labels about, and meanwhile he had just solved a five-year-old’s hot dog crisis with more patience than most adults deserved.

The assistant coach watched him come back and said, “Okay, that was weirdly competent.”

“Weirdly?” Shane repeated.

He looked at him. “You know what I mean.”

“No,” Shane said. “Actually, I don’t.”

Ilya touched the small of Shane’s back as he passed him, casual and warm, then stole a bite of potato salad directly off Shane’s plate.

“Heeey,” Shane said.

“It is my potato salad.”

“You gave it to the team.”

“And yet,” Ilya said.

Shane could feel the smile tugging at his mouth anyway.

Megan, still watching Ilya, said, “No, but seriously, I would’ve guessed Shane was the one who remembers all that stuff.”

That did it. Shane looked at her. “Why?”

She blinked. “I just— I don’t know. You seem—”

“Organized?” Shane supplied.

There was a startled beat, then laughter.

“A little, yeah,” she admitted.

Ilya made a thoughtful noise beside him. “This is true. He has, in fact, alphabetized things.”

Shane turned to look at him. “That is not the point.”

“The spice shelf,” Ilya said to the table.

“One time.”

“The bathroom cabinet.”

“That was practical.”

“The drawer with the charging cables.”

Shane narrowed his eyes. “You benefited from that system.”

“I did,” Ilya agreed. “Beautifully labeled husband.”

A few people laughed.

Shane crossed his arms. “Fine. Yes. I like things where they belong. That doesn’t mean I’m the one who remembers everyone’s birthday or carries wet wipes like a suburban war hero.”

That got another laugh, and Shane hated how warm his face felt all of a sudden.

The assistant coach pointed between them. “Okay, but I still feel like Hollander’s the one keeping your life together.”

Shane stared at him.

Then, because apparently nobody in this organization was ever going to make this easy, he said, “He keeps my life together.”

The table went quiet. Not awkwardly. Just enough for the words to land. Ilya, who had been reaching for his drink, went still for half a second.

Megan blinked. “Really?”

“Yes,” Shane said, sounding more annoyed than he meant to, mostly because they were all looking at him like this was somehow shocking. “Really.”

He started counting off on his fingers, "he books our flights when we’re traveling in the offseason because I forget to check layovers. He remembers everybody’s birthdays. He buys gifts for my mother before I remember I need one. He noticed our neighbor’s dog was limping before the neighbor did. He keeps protein bars in three different coat pockets in case somebody needs one.”

The assistant coach was grinning now. “Wow.”

“I’m not done,” Shane said.

Ilya was definitely smiling. Shane ignored that, too.

“He also,” Shane continued, “made all the potato salad and the chicken, reminded me to bring extra sunscreen and recharged the biteaway device that is currently being passed around so much, that Ilya also remembered to bring a second device, just in case.”

Now the assistant coach looked genuinely startled. “Wait, that was him?”

“Yes,” Shane said flatly. “It was him.”

From the next table over, one of the trainers called, “Rozanov also texted me about burger buns.”

“Because you bought the wrong ones,” Ilya called back.

The trainer threw up a hand. “They were buns!”

“They were falling apart,” Ilya said. “This is not acceptable for barbecue.”

A few people laughed.

Megan was smiling now in that softened, surprised way people did when they realized they might have gotten something wrong.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. That’s actually kind of sweet.”

Shane exhaled through his nose. “Yes.”

Beside him, Ilya leaned in just enough for his shoulder to knock against Shane’s.

“You are very worked up about this, solnyshko,” he murmured.

Shane shot him a look. “Because they’re all being ridiculous.”

“You are being a little ridiculous, too.”

“I’m being accurate.”

“You are giving presentation.”

“Would you like me to make slides?”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. “Maybe later.”

The assistant coach laughed. “I still can’t tell if you’re serious.”

Shane turned to stare at him. “I’m completely serious.”

The assistant coach lifted both hands. “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

He did not sound like he believed him.

Shane could tell.

Apparently so could Ilya, because he said softly, “It is fine, baby. They are slow learners.”

Megan, who still heard it, covered a smile with her cup.

The little boy from earlier wandered back over, clutching the remains of his hot dog. He stopped directly beside Ilya and held up his hands without a word.

Ilya looked down. “Sticky?”

The kid nodded.

Without hesitation, Ilya took a wet wipe out of his pocket — out of his pocket, as if this were a normal item for him to be carrying around — and cleaned the child’s hands with brisk efficiency.

The entire table watched in silence. Shane closed his eyes briefly.

Then he opened them and pointed at Ilya with one hand. “This. This is what I’m talking about.”

The assistant coach stared. “Did you just have a wet wipe in your pocket?”

Ilya looked at him like he was stupid. “There are children.”

Megan actually laughed. “Okay, no, that’s kind of incredible.”

“That’s what I said,” Shane muttered.

The little boy, now clean, leaned briefly against Ilya’s leg in a shy sort of thank-you before trotting back toward the other kids.

Ilya watched him go, then picked up his drink again as if nothing had happened.

Nothing had happened. That was the whole problem, really.

Ilya did things like this all the time, quietly, automatically, with no interest whatsoever in being seen for them, and everyone still walked around acting like Shane was the softer one just because he had a trustworthy face and knew how to speak in complete sentences to reporters.

The assistant coach shook his head, still looking amused. “All right. Fine. Maybe he’s more domestic than I thought.”

“Domestic?” Shane repeated. “He’s better than me at being a person.”

That made Ilya laugh outright.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “Now you are flirting in front of coworkers.”

“I’m making a point.”

“You can do both.”

Shane looked at him. Ilya looked back over the rim of his sunglasses, warm and wicked and so fond it was almost impossible to stand there and not touch him. It had been years, and Shane still sometimes felt ambushed by it. This stupid rush of affection, sharp enough to make him feel like he is eighteen again and furious about it.

So instead of anything dangerous, he just reached over and straightened the collar of Ilya’s shirt where it had folded under itself.

Ilya’s expression changed, only slightly. Softened.

“Your collar,” Shane said.

“Thanks, my love.”

A few minutes later, people started migrating toward the desserts. Someone needed help carrying another cooler. A couple of the kids had discovered a soccer ball and were kicking it dangerously close to the water.

Shane was reaching for the plate stack when he heard Megan say quietly, to her husband this time, “Okay, I get it now.”

Shane looked over. She nodded toward Ilya, who was currently in the process of stopping one of the toddlers from eating a citronella candle. “I thought Shane was the put-together one.”

Her husband snorted. “He is put together.”

“No,” she said, smiling a little. “I mean the nice one.”

There was a pause. Then the husband shrugged. “Honestly? I think Rozanov might be.”

Shane went still. It wasn’t much. Barely anything. Not even addressed to him. But it was the first time all afternoon anyone had said it like it was obvious.

Across the pavilion, Ilya looked up as if he’d felt it somehow. Their eyes met. He raised his brows. Shane, before he could stop himself, smiled. Small. Private. Unmistakable. Ilya’s mouth curved in answer.

Then one of the kids kicked the soccer ball directly into a trash can, everybody shouted at once, and the moment broke apart into sunlight and noise and paper plates.

Still. For the next hour, Shane was in a better mood. Not because the world had gotten it entirely right. It hadn’t.

But because, for once, someone had at least started paying attention.

By February, half the team was held together by tape, caffeine, and spite. Shane was, objectively, in better shape than most of them. Which was why it was especially offensive when he woke up in a hotel room in Boston feeling like he’d been dragged over asphalt.

For a few disoriented seconds, all he knew was wrong. The room was too warm. His throat felt like sandpaper. His skin hurt. Somebody was knocking, distantly and persistently, at the inside of his skull.

Then he opened his eyes and realized the curtains were only half-drawn, gray winter light was leaking around the edges, and Ilya was standing beside the bed already dressed in slacks and a team quarter-zip, tying his watch with one hand.

Ilya looked over. Paused.

And in a voice that went instantly flat with attention, said, “Oh no.”

Shane glared at him from under the blankets. “Don’t say it like that.”

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

Ilya sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed the back of his hand to Shane’s forehead. The touch was cool. Familiar. Efficient. Shane hated, even now, how much relief he felt at it.

“You’re warm,” Ilya said.

“I know how fevers work.”

“Yes, baby, I can tell.”

“I’m fine.”

Ilya just looked at him.

It was one of the worst things about being married to someone for this long; Ilya no longer even pretended to believe obvious lies. He just waited patiently for Shane to hear himself.

Shane pushed himself up on his elbows, immediately regretted it, and lay back down.

“I can still go,” he muttered.

“To morning skate?”

“Yes.”

Ilya’s eyebrows went up.

Shane closed his eyes. “Don’t do that with your face.”

“With what face?”

“That one.”

“The face that says you are being stupid?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” Ilya said. “Because I think maybe this is your fault for being stupid.”

Shane opened one eye. “How would this possibly be my fault?”

“You wore no jacket last night.”

“It was twenty feet from the bus to the hotel.”

“You are not immune to winter because you are from Canada.”

“I never said I was.”

“You behave like it.”

Shane would have argued, but that would have required energy he no longer seemed to have.

Ilya stood. “Do not move.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get you things.”

“What things?”

“Everything,” Ilya said, already crossing the room.

Shane listened to the rustle of fabric, the zip of a bag, the quiet clink of toiletries. He could have opened his eyes. He didn’t. There was something strangely nice, even through the misery, about listening to Ilya move around their room with such certainty, as if Shane being sick had simply activated a very specific protocol in his brain.

A minute later, the mattress dipped again.

“Sit up,” Ilya said.

Shane made a noise of protest.

“Shane.”

Something cool pressed against his palm: a glass of water. In Ilya’s other hand was a pair of painkillers already punched out of the foil.

Shane squinted at him. “Why do you have those?”

“Because I know you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is enough of an answer.”

Shane took the pills. Ilya waited until he’d swallowed before handing him a second glass, this one steaming faintly.

“Tea?” Shane asked suspiciously.

“With honey.”

“I’m not dying.”

“No,” Ilya said, in that maddeningly calm voice. “You are just behaving as if you might.”

Shane took the tea anyway. It was good. Too good, actually, the exact temperature where it didn’t hurt to swallow. Shane narrowed his eyes. “When did you make tea anyway?”

“You sounded bad when you were sleeping.”

Shane stared at him over the rim of the cup.

“You made tea because I sounded bad.”

Ilya looked almost embarrassed for him. “Yes?”

That should not have made Shane’s chest hurt the way it did.

Instead, he said, because he was safer when he was annoyed, “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “Drink.”

By the time the team bus left for the rink, Shane was no longer under any illusion that he was making morning skate.

He was, however, dressed and upright, wrapped in a Centaurs hoodie and one of Ilya’s heavier jackets, because apparently his own coat was insufficiently warm and Ilya had informed him of this with the kind of finality usually reserved for military orders.

“I have a coat,” Shane said as they stood by the elevator.

“This one is better.”

“It’s heavy.”

“You are weak today.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

They stepped into the elevator alone.

The mirrored walls were cruel. Shane looked pale, flushed, and profoundly unimpressive. Ilya, beside him, looked disgustingly healthy. Shane leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

A second later, he felt fingers touch the inside of his wrist. Not dramatic. Just Ilya’s hand wrapping loosely around it, thumb settling over his pulse.

Shane opened his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Checking.”

“You are not a doctor.”

“No,” Ilya said. “But I am married to the most stubborn man in North America.”

Shane would have pointed out that this was statistically impossible, given that Ilya himself existed, but the elevator dinged and the doors opened before he could.

In the lobby, Troy and Bood were already waiting by the entrance to the bus.

Troy looked up, took one look at Shane, and winced. “Jesus, Hollander.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

“You look awful,” said Bood, not unkindly.

“Thank you,” Shane said flatly. “Really enjoying how often I’m hearing that.”

Bood’s gaze shifted to Ilya, then back again. “You letting him come to the rink like that?”

Before Shane could answer, Ilya said, “No.”

“I can answer for myself.”

“No,” Ilya repeated.

Bood grinned. “Okay. Wow.”

“Do not encourage him,” Shane said.

It was freezing outside. The bus was idling at the curb, exhaust curling white into the air. The wind hit Shane in the face and made his eyes water instantly.

“See?” Ilya said. “Weak.”

“Oh, my god.”

Bood climbed onto the bus behind them, still grinning. “This is incredible, honestly. Hollander is sick for twenty minutes and suddenly Roz is his Victorian nurse.”

Shane sank into the nearest seat with as much dignity as possible. “I’m going to kill both of you.”

“Not today, sweetheart,” Ilya said, and handed him a travel mug.

Shane blinked. “What is this?”

“More tea.”

“You made tea.”

“Yes.”

“On the bus?”

“I made it in the room. Then I brought it on the bus.”

Bood dropped into the seat across from them, openly delighted now. “No, wait, keep going. This is the best morning entertainment I’ve had all month.”

Ilya ignored him and reached up to adjust the hood of Shane’s sweatshirt where it had twisted awkwardly under the borrowed jacket. His fingers brushed the back of Shane’s neck, light and absent as breath.

“Drink,” he said.

Shane took the mug. It was exactly the way he liked it. Of course it was.

Bood looked between them. “Okay, no, that’s upsetting.”

Shane took a sip and glared at him over the lid.

“What?” Bood said. “I just mean—” He gestured vaguely at Ilya. “This is not the public image.”

“The public image is stupid,” Shane muttered.

“Yes,” Ilya said, settling into the seat beside him. “But this is not news.”

“No, apparently not to you,” Bood said. “You’ve got him in your coat, feeding him tea, and looking like you’re about to fight the common cold personally.”

“I could,” Ilya said.

That got a laugh from somewhere further back.

Shane leaned into the window and shut his eyes. He could feel Ilya’s shoulder against his the entire drive to the rink. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough that every bump in the road translated into warmth.

By the time they arrived, Shane was half-dozing.

“Shane,” Ilya said quietly.

Shane made a sound.

“We are here.”

“I know.”

“You were asleep.”

“I was resting my eyes.”

“Of course.”

Shane opened them just in time to see Bood watching them with the expression of someone storing information for future harassment.

“Don’t,” Shane said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re about to.”

Bood held up both hands. “I’m just enjoying the role reversal.”

“It’s not a role reversal,” Shane said, pushing himself up.

That came out sharper than he intended.

The bus had gone quieter. A few heads turned.

Shane exhaled through his nose and pressed two fingers briefly against the bridge of it. He was tired. He felt terrible. And for some reason, the thing that irritated him most, in that moment, was the idea that this was unusual.

Beside him, Ilya’s hand landed briefly between his shoulder blades. Steady. Easy.

“It’s okay, solnyshko,” he said softly.

That should not have helped. It did.

Bood tilted his head. “I just meant we all figured you’d be the one fussing.”

“I don’t fuss,” Shane said automatically.

Three people on the bus laughed.

“I don’t,” he repeated.

“Okay,” Bood said. “Fine. Bad word choice. But you know what I mean.”

Yes. Shane knew exactly what he meant.

He meant: everyone assumed Shane was the competent one in a crisis. Shane, with his schedules and press training and neat handwriting and face that suggested he had never once in his life forgotten to answer an email.

And maybe Shane was competent, generally.

But when it came to Ilya, when it came to anything that scared him, actually, his competence had a tendency to curdle fast into sharpness. He got clipped. Impatient. Meaner than he meant to be.

Ilya, on the other hand, got quieter. Softer. More attentive. As if some essential part of him settled into place the second Shane needed something.

“I’m not the one fussing,” Shane said, more evenly this time. Then, because apparently he still had not learned anything after all these years, he added, “He’s better at this than I am.”

Bood blinked. “At taking care of sick people?”

“At taking care of me,” Shane said.

The bus went still in that interested, delighted way it always did when one of them accidentally said something too honest in front of witnesses.

Shane regretted it instantly.

Across the aisle, Troy let out a low whistle. “Wow.”

“Shut up,” Shane said without heat.

Bood, however, was grinning again. “Okay, now I really have to know what the hell goes on in your house.”

“Nothing,” Shane said.

“Lies,” said Ilya.

Shane turned to glare at him. “You are not helping.”

“No,” Ilya agreed. “But I am right.”

Bood leaned forward against the seat in front of him. “So what, Roz’s out there making soup and fluffing pillows?”

“Yes,” Shane said.

That silenced him for a second.

Then Bood laughed, because of course he did. “No, he is not.”

“I have literally made soup for him,” Ilya said.

“Yes,” Shane snapped, pointing at him. “Exactly.”

“Once,” Ilya said.

“Three times.”

“Two and a half.”

“That’s not a number of times.”

“It is if one soup was very bad.”

Troy was laughing openly now. “There’s no way.”

“There is absolutely a way,” Shane said. “He keeps cold medicine alphabetized.”

This time even Ilya looked at him.

“You were not supposed to know that.”

Shane stared back. “We live in the same house.”

“Yes, but I hid it.”

“That is not hiding it. It’s in the bathroom cabinet.”

Bood had both elbows on his knees now, invested beyond reason. “I’m sorry. Are you telling me Ilya Rozanov has an organized medicine cabinet?”

“I’m telling you,” Shane said, feeling his irritation rise again, “that none of you know what you’re talking about.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched.

“He also,” Shane continued, because at this point why stop, “packs extra lozenges, remembers which tea I actually like when I’m sick versus which tea I say I’ll drink, and once changed our flight because I sounded congested on the phone.”

Troy’s eyebrows went up. “Seriously?”

Ilya looked mildly defensive now. “It was dry in Denver.”

“See?” Shane said.

Bood sat back slowly. “Okay. That’s—”

“Kind?” Shane suggested.

“Weirdly intimate,” Bood said instead.

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

That got another laugh, but less certain this time. Less disbelieving.

Shane could feel it, tiny as the shift was. He looked around the bus at a handful of teammates suddenly trying, however briefly, to square the version of Ilya they thought they knew with the one currently sitting beside Shane, calm and capable and carrying an extra packet of honey in his coat pocket for reasons that were becoming increasingly impossible to dismiss.

Then coach Wiebe climbed onto the bus and ruined everything by taking one look at Shane and saying, “Oh, Hollander, buddy.”

“Don’t,” Shane muttered.

Wiebe ignored him and looked at Ilya instead. “You keeping him from doing something stupid?”

“Yes,” Ilya said.

“Good,” Wiebe said. “Because he absolutely would.”

Shane glared at both of them. “I’m right here.”

“And yet,” Ilya said.

Wiebe jerked his thumb toward the rink doors. “Come on, then. Let’s get you checked out.”

Shane stood, a little too fast. The floor tipped unpleasantly under him.

Before anyone could react, Ilya’s hand was there, firm around Shane’s forearm, steadying him with no visible effort at all.

The whole bus saw it. Saw the way Shane went still for half a beat.

Saw the way Ilya didn’t let go until Shane had his balance again.

“Easy, baby,” Ilya said, so quietly it should have belonged only to Shane.

Unfortunately, in the silence, everybody heard it. Then Shane decided to say, to no one in particular, “See, he’s the good one, between us.”

-

The team doctor sent Shane back to the hotel before noon with orders to rest, hydrate, and stay away from the rink for at least twenty-four hours.

Shane accepted this with poor grace. Ilya accepted it with infuriating serenity.

By the time he got back from practice, the curtains were closed, the humidifier from their travel kit was running on the dresser, and there were three different bottles of something lined up neatly by Shane’s side of the bed.

Shane looked at them. Then at Ilya.

“You travel with a humidifier,” Shane said, not questioning, but more like questioning himself, how he completely didn’t know about this.

Ilya took off his watch. “A small one.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is helpful.”

“It’s insane.”

Ilya smiled and sat down to untie his shoes. “Yes, baby.”

Shane watched him for a moment.

Even exhausted, feverish, and generally unwilling to be emotionally vulnerable before dinner, he could not miss the shape of the day in the room around him. The tea refreshed. The charger plugged in on Shane’s side. The stupid bland crackers from the hotel gift shop because Ilya knew Shane liked those best when he felt sick. The extra pillow tucked behind his back at exactly the angle that would keep him from coughing as much.

None of it dramatic. That was the thing.

If it had been dramatic, people would have understood it better. Grand gestures were legible. Easy to point at. Easy to admire.

This, this quiet, steady, almost irritated tenderness, was harder to explain.

A few minutes later, Ilya climbed into bed beside him on top of the blankets, warm and solid and smelling faintly of soap and cold air. He touched the back of two fingers to Shane’s temple, then smoothed a damp strand of hair off his forehead.

“How do you feel?”

“Like hell.”

“Mm.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Doesn’t mean to be helpful.”

Shane huffed a weak laugh.

Ilya’s hand slid down to the side of his neck, thumb resting just under his ear. There was nothing hurried in the touch. Nothing performative. Just contact, because Shane was miserable and Ilya liked to keep a hand on him when he was miserable, as if this might somehow anchor him more firmly to the world.

“You know,” Shane said, voice rough, “everyone on the bus still thought this was some kind of surprise.”

Ilya made a quiet, questioning noise.

“That you’re good at this.”

“Ah.”

“It’s annoying.”

“Yes.”

Shane turned his head slightly on the pillow so he could look at him. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are serious.”

“I’m the one who gets mean and panicky when I’m worried.”

This time Ilya smiled a little. “Yes.”

“I don’t know why you always sound so pleased about that.”

“Because it means you love me.”

Shane stared at him.

It was unfair, the ease with which Ilya could sometimes say things Shane would need a week and a minor emotional crisis to admit.

“I hate when you do that,” Shane muttered.

“No, you don’t.”

Shane closed his eyes. “No.” Shane sighed,

Ilya’s thumb moved once against his skin.

“You also take care of me,” he said after a moment.

“That’s not the point.”

“It is a point.”

“It’s not this point.”

Ilya laughed softly. “Okay. What is this point, then, husband?”

Shane opened his eyes again.

The room was dim. The humidifier whirred softly on the dresser. Outside, somewhere far below, traffic moved through slushy evening streets. And here was Ilya, half-lounging over the blankets with one hand still warm against Shane’s neck, looking at him with that infuriating patience that always made honesty feel less dangerous than it should.

“This point,” Shane said slowly, “is that you’re the good one. You are so good, baby. So kind.”

Ilya’s expression changed. Not much. Just enough. Softened at the edges. Became quieter.

“Shane—”

“No,” Shane said, because he was sick and tired and apparently too feverish to maintain even the basic standards of his own emotional self-preservation. “You are.”

Ilya watched him.

Shane could feel himself getting embarrassed now, which was stupid because they were married and alone, and Ilya had probably heard worse from him in less defensible circumstances.

Still.

“You are,” Shane said again, more quietly. “People just don’t notice because you make it look like it costs you nothing.”

For a second, Ilya said nothing. Then he leaned down and kissed Shane’s forehead. Just once. Lingering enough that Shane felt the shape of his mouth there after he pulled away.

“Well,” Ilya murmured. “Now I think maybe fever is making you delirious.”

Shane made a face. “You’re impossible.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “But very good.”

That got an actual laugh out of Shane, thin and tired but real.

“Baby,” Shane whispered and then reached blindly out from under the blankets until he found the sleeve of Ilya’s hoodie and tugged.

Ilya went easily, folding down into the bed beside him this time instead of on top of it, one arm sliding carefully around Shane’s waist through the covers. Shane tucked his face against the front of Ilya’s shoulder, too tired to care how clingy that probably was.

Ilya only tightened his arm slightly and reached for the thermometer on the nightstand with his free hand.

Shane smiled against the fabric of his hoodie before he could stop himself.

There it was, he thought vaguely, as sleep started pulling at him again. The whole problem. Ilya looked like trouble. Sounded like trouble. Carried himself through the world like he had never once been afraid of becoming it. Meanwhile, he kept honey packets in his pockets. Traveled with a humidifier. Changed flights over congestion. Held Shane together, over and over, with a kind of gentleness no one ever seemed to count properly.

Shane, drowsy and aching and warmer now in every sense, let his eyes fall shut.

Above him, Ilya kissed his hair and said, very quietly, “Go to sleep, solnyshko.”

So Shane did.

By April, everyone was tired in a way that made small things dangerous.

The team had dropped three in a row. The media had started doing that thing they always did when Ottawa hit a rough patch, where every loss became evidence of some larger moral failing. The power play was inconsistent. The travel had been miserable. Someone had leaked a story about “tension in the room,” which was stupid, because there was always tension in the room in April. That was what hockey was.

Still, the story had stuck.

For three days, reporters had been circling the same tired questions with different wording. Was the room still confident. Did the team feel united. Was there frustration building between top players. Did Shane think leadership looked different this time of year. Did Ilya think emotions had gotten harder to manage.

That last one had made Shane want to put his head through drywall.

By the time they got home from the rink on Thursday night, it was almost ten. Their home was quiet. Anya is currently at Shane’s parents’ because Yuna probably realized the tension between them and decided to take care of Anya during the playoff. Ilya, much to his love for Anya, didn’t even try to argue when Yuna decided to take Anya last night. Their home was dark except for the low light over the stove that Ilya always left on.

Shane dropped his keys in the bowl by the door a little harder than necessary.

Behind him, Ilya was quieter than usual. Not sulking. Just tired. His mouth set in that flat line he got when he was holding himself together by force of habit and not much else.

Shane knew that look. Usually, he loved that he knew that look. Tonight, apparently, he was too tired to do anything useful with the knowledge.

“You left before media finished,” Shane said, setting his bag down by the bench.

Ilya bent to untie his shoes. “Mine was done.”

“You still left.”

Ilya looked up. “Yes?”

Shane hated himself a little for even starting this.

He knew, even as he said it, that this was not really about the interviews, or whether Ilya had waited an extra four minutes by their car. It was about three losses and too many microphones and the fact that his whole body felt wound one turn too tight. But that didn’t stop him.

“It looked bad,” Shane said.

Ilya went still for half a beat. “To whom?”

“To anyone paying attention.”

Ilya straightened slowly. “Shane.”

There was warning in that tone. Not anger. Just warning.

Shane should have taken it. Instead, because he was exhausted and sharp and already halfway into the ugly part of himself, he said, “You know what they’re waiting for right now. Anything that looks like frustration, anything that makes it easier to write the same stupid story about you.”

Silence. Not long. Just enough. Then Ilya said, very evenly, “About me.”

Shane shut his eyes for a second. There it was. The first sign he had stepped wrong. He could still fix it. All he had to do was say, I’m sorry. Forget what I said. Or even, I’m tired and being an asshole, give me five minutes. Instead, he doubled down, which was how he knew he was losing.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“No?” Ilya asked.

“No.”

Ilya held his gaze. Then, after a moment, “Interesting.”

That one word made something defensive flare hotter in Shane’s chest.

“Oh, come on.”

“No, really,” Ilya said, softer now, which was somehow worse. “Tell me what you mean.”

Shane laughed once. It came out wrong. Hard. “I mean, I am tired of spending half my life explaining you to people.”

The second the words were out, the room changed. He felt it happen. Ilya’s expression didn’t crack. That was the worst part. It simply emptied a little, as if something had gone very still behind it.

Shane wanted to grab the sentence back with both hands.

Instead, they both stood there in the kitchen under the warm stove light, looking at each other across the space he had just made.

When Ilya spoke, his voice was quiet. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you saying it like I did?”

“I’m not.” Shane dragged a hand over his face. “That’s not what I—”

Ilya let out a breath through his nose and looked away first. It was not dramatic. No shouting. No slammed doors. Somehow, that made it worse. Shane almost wished Ilya would yell at him. It would have been easier to push back against the heat.

Instead Ilya turned, walked to the fridge, took out the leftover chicken and rice he’d made the night before, and set it on the counter with careful, controlled movements.

“Do you want dinner?” he asked.

Shane stared at him. “What?”

“Dinner,” Ilya repeated. “Do you want it or not?”

“Ilya.”

“I am asking a simple question.”

No, he wasn’t. He was doing the thing he did when he was hurt enough to become painstakingly calm. Making himself smaller around the injury instead of bigger. Giving Shane room to stop. To choose better.

Shane, who loved him and knew him and still sometimes failed him in these remarkably specific ways, felt anger flash again, this time mostly at himself, which made it useless and mean.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Okay.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

“I heard you.”

The microwave door opened. Closed.

Shane could hear his own pulse now, stupidly loud in the quiet apartment.

“I wasn’t blaming you,” he said.

Ilya’s back stayed turned. “Okay.”

“Stop saying okay like that.”

That got him to turn around.

“Like what?”

“Like—” Shane stopped. Started again. “Like you’re doing me a favor by not fighting.”

Ilya stared at him for a second, genuinely unreadable. Then he said, “You want me to fight?”

“No.”

“Good,” Ilya said. “Because I am tired.”

That should have ended it. It almost did.

Then the microwave beeped, shrill in the silence, and Shane heard himself say, “You always do this.”

Ilya’s hand stilled on the plate. “Do what?”

“This.” Shane made a vague, furious gesture. “This whole calm, reasonable thing. Like I’m the only one in the room capable of being difficult.”

A beat passed. Then another. Ilya set the plate down very carefully on the counter. When he looked up, there was finally something sharper in his face. Not much. Just enough to hurt.

“Do you want honesty?” he asked.

Shane’s heart kicked once, hard. “Not if you’re going to weaponize it.” The words landed uglier than even he expected.

For a second, neither of them moved. Then Ilya laughed. It was a quiet sound. Not amused.

“Okay,” he said.

That was the moment Shane knew, with perfect clarity, that he had crossed from argument into cruelty. Because that was what he was good at, when he was at his worst. Not rage. Precision.

Ilya had gone almost expressionless now. He picked up the plate, turned off the microwave, and slid the food into the fridge without another word.

Something in Shane’s chest caved in on itself. “Ilya,” he said.

Ilya shut the fridge. “Don’t,” he said. Not loud. Not cold. Just tired.

And somehow that was the thing that finally broke through the static in Shane’s head.

He looked at his husband standing there barefoot in their kitchen, shoulders tight with exhaustion, still making himself careful even now, and felt sick with it.

Because, of course, this was backwards. Of course, the man everyone thought was volatile and reckless was the one standing there trying not to make things worse. And of course Shane, polished, controlled Shane, nice reliable Shane, was the one who had reached for the exact sentence most likely to wound.

“I’m sorry,” Shane said.

Ilya looked away. “Okay,” he said again.

“Don’t do that.”

A flash of frustration crossed Ilya’s face then, quick and bright enough to feel like grace.

“I don’t know what you want from me right now, Shane.”

The use of his name was its own kind of distance. Shane swallowed. What did he want? Not forgiveness, exactly. Not yet. He had not earned it. Not the easy version.

What he wanted was to be unmade from the last five minutes. To walk them both backward through the front door and start again. To be tired without becoming cruel. To have looked at Ilya’s face and chosen tenderness instead of the cleanest available weapon. He wanted impossible things.

“I want,” Shane said, and stopped, because the truth felt raw now. “I want you to say something mean back.”

Ilya blinked. Then his whole expression shifted, not softening, not yet, but changing into something startled and sad and painfully fond all at once.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said.

That almost made it worse.

Shane laughed, once, helplessly. “See? That. That’s exactly what I mean.”

Ilya leaned back against the counter, looking suddenly as tired as Shane felt. “You are being a little insane.”

“I know.”

“You want me to be cruel because you were cruel.”

“Yes.”

“That is bad strategy.”

“I know.”

They stood there in silence.

Then Ilya rubbed a hand over his face and said, “Come here.”

Shane did not move. “I don’t deserve—”

“Shane.” Still not loud. Still not sharp. Just enough.

Shane crossed the kitchen.

When he got close, Ilya reached out and took him by the wrist, not pulling, just holding. Anchoring. His thumb brushed once over the pulse there.

“You were awful,” Ilya said.

Shane let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Thank you.”

“But you are also tired. And angry. And you have been trying to fight three hundred people with your face for a week.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“No,” Ilya said. “It is not.”

Shane looked at him. Ilya looked back steadily.

Then, quieter, “But it is context.”

That was the thing with Ilya. Even hurt, he left room. Even with his own feelings bruised and his shoulders still tight and his mouth still set in that tired line, he was making space around Shane instead of narrowing it.

Shane hated that he loved him most fiercely in moments like this, when the whole world would have expected hardness and gotten mercy instead.

“I shouldn’t have said it like that,” Shane said.

“No.”

“I’m not tired of you.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m tired of them,” Shane said. “Of everybody making you into something easy. Of acting like I’m—” He stopped, frustrated. “Like I’m somehow the reasonable one just because I know how to smile when people are being stupid.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched very slightly. “You do smile well.”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry.”

Shane exhaled. “I’m not tired of explaining you because you’re difficult. I’m tired of explaining you because they don’t see what’s right in front of them.”

Ilya was quiet for a moment after that.

Then he said, “That is more romantic than your first version.”

Shane stared at him.

“I mean it,” Ilya said.

“Of course you do.”

“I always mean it.”

And there it was again, that impossible, unbearable softness, offered so simply Shane almost didn’t know what to do with it. He took one step closer. Their feet bumped.

“I was still an asshole.”

“Yes.”

“You could at least hesitate.”

“No,” Ilya said. “Honesty is important in marriage.”

That got a laugh out of Shane, small and tired and scraped thin at the edges.

Ilya’s hand slid from Shane’s wrist to the side of his waist, resting there lightly.

“Also,” he added, “for the record, you are not the reasonable one.”

“Thank you.”

“You are actually a little mean.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes very mean.”

“I know.”

“But usually only when scared.”

Shane went still.

Ilya said it without drama. Without triumph. Just simple observation, like he had noticed something about the weather.

“I’m sorry,” Shane said again, quieter this time.

This time Ilya nodded.

“I know, baby.”

Then he lifted a hand to Shane’s face and smoothed his thumb once across the line between Shane’s brows, where tension always settled first.

“You should eat,” he said.

It was such an absurdly ordinary thing to say in the middle of this that Shane nearly laughed again.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will be worse in ten minutes if you do not eat.”

Shane looked at him for a long second. Then he tipped forward and pressed his forehead against Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya made a soft sound and wrapped an arm around the back of his neck immediately, hand warm and broad and steady. They stayed like that for a moment in the warm kitchen, the stove light still on, the apartment quiet around them.

Finally, Shane said, voice muffled against Ilya’s shirt, “You know everybody thinks I’m the safer one.”

Ilya’s chest moved under his cheek with a quiet laugh.

“Yes.”

“They’re wrong.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

Shane lifted his head just enough to look at him.

“But you are the good one, the safer one, the kinder one. And sometimes I can’t believe all of that is for me,” he said.

For one second, Ilya just looked at him. Then he leaned in and kissed him. Not gently, exactly. Not careful. But not punishing either. Just deep and warm and a little desperate around the edges, like he’d been holding himself back on principle and had finally decided principle could go to hell.

When they pulled apart, Ilya rested his forehead against Shane’s and said, very softly, “You cannot say things like that after being mean to me. It is confusing.”

Shane laughed, breathless now. “I think you handled it well.”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “Because I am, apparently, the good one.”

Shane groaned and kissed him again just to stop that expression from getting any smugger.

A minute later, they were standing side by side at the counter while Ilya reheated the chicken and rice for real this time. Shane, chastened and quiet, leaned against him whenever he could get away with it. Ilya let him.

When the food was warm, Ilya set it in front of Shane, then reached past him for a fork.

“Thank you,” Shane said.

“You’re welcome.”

Shane looked down at the food. Then back to his husband. “You know, for somebody everyone thinks is the problem, you’re being extremely patient.”

Ilya leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“You married me, solnyshko,” he said. “You should know by now I am very kind.”

Shane huffed a laugh.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell people."

The thing about reputations, Shane had learned, was that once people built one for you, they preferred it to the truth. The truth was inconvenient. The truth required revision. The truth asked too much of people who had already decided Shane was the easier one to understand.

So in the end, Shane had mostly given up trying to argue with strangers about it. He still corrected teammates sometimes. Still rolled his eyes when somebody made the same joke. Still, apparently, could not stop himself from saying he’s the good one in increasingly specific circumstances. But mostly, after a while, he had accepted that some things only made sense if you had lived them.

If you had watched Ilya remember to pack extra sunscreen for the whole team. If you had been feverish in a hotel bed while he adjusted a humidifier he had somehow smuggled across countries. If you had stood in your own kitchen, having just said something unforgivable, and watched him choose gentleness anyway. If you had been loved by him long enough, the truth became obvious.

That did not mean anyone else would ever see it. Then, in the second period of a Thursday game in November, Shane took a hit half a second too late and everything went sideways.

It was not even especially dramatic at first. He got rid of the puck. A defenseman finished through his shoulder. Shane’s skate caught awkwardly against the boards, and then the world became ice and glass and pain, hot and immediate and blinding in its precision.

He heard the crowd react before he could breathe properly. By the time he managed it, he was on one knee, glove pressed to the ice, vision gone white at the edges.

Somewhere, a whistle blew. Someone was shouting. Shane tried to stand and couldn’t. That, more than the pain, was what made a hard little pulse of panic start under his ribs.

He was dimly aware of players converging, of a trainer vaulting over the boards, of the game around him breaking apart into noise and motion. A referee said something he didn’t catch.

And through all of it, one thought arrived clean and immediate: Ilya. Not because Ilya could fix it. Just because Shane wanted him there.

He lifted his head. Across the ice, Ilya had already stopped moving.

Not skating toward the scrum. Not yelling. Not grabbing anybody. Just standing there with a stillness so complete it cut straight through the chaos around him.

The ref nearest him had one hand out already, warning. Everyone knew what they were expecting. Rozanov sees his husband down. Rozanov loses it. Rozanov makes this about blood and rage and retaliation and gives the commentators exactly the story they’ve always wanted.

For one suspended second, even from the ice, Shane could feel that expectation settle over the rink. Then Ilya handed his stick to the nearest official without being asked and crossed the distance to Shane like the rest of the world had gone silent.

When he dropped to one knee beside him, his face was pale in a way Shane almost never saw. His voice, though, was steady.

“Hey,” he said, hand hovering first near Shane’s shoulder, not touching until Shane nodded once. “Hi, sweetheart. Look at me.”

Shane did.

There was pain everywhere. His ankle, probably. Maybe his knee. His shoulder, where he’d hit the boards. But Ilya’s hand was warm through the padding of his jersey, broad and certain against the back of his neck, and suddenly Shane could breathe a little more evenly.

“What hurts?”

“Leg,” Shane said, and hated how thin it sounded.

“Okay.” Ilya’s thumb moved once, brief and grounding, against the nape of his neck. “Do not move yet. Just stay with me.”

The medic arrived a second later, dropping down on Shane’s other side.

“Shane, can you tell me where—”

“Ankle,” Ilya said calmly, before Shane could answer. “Maybe knee too. Left side. He tried to stand.”

The medic glanced at him, surprised, then nodded and started his assessment.

Around them, the rink was still full of noise, officials, skates, the low murmur of a crowd trying to figure out whether this was serious, but it all seemed oddly far away now.

Because Ilya was still there. Still kneeling on the ice in the middle of a stopped NHL game, one gloved hand at the back of Shane’s neck like he could hold the world steady by sheer force of will.

“Look at me,” Ilya said again, softer this time, when Shane’s breathing hitched.

Shane dragged his eyes back to his face.

“That’s it,” Ilya murmured. “You’re okay.”

It was such a stupid thing to say, probably. Shane was very clearly not okay. But Ilya said it in that low, certain voice he used only when Shane was hurt or scared or both, and the panic under Shane’s ribs loosened just enough to let the trainer keep working.

“Can you move your foot?” The medic asked.

Shane tried. Swore.

“Okay, okay,” the medic said quickly. “Don’t force it.”

Ilya’s hand never left him.

The ref nearby was still watching, maybe waiting for a sign of temper, for Rozanov to turn around and start something with the defenseman who’d made the hit. It never came.

Ilya did not look at him. Did not look at the other team. Did not look anywhere but Shane. His entire world had narrowed to this one patch of ice.

The medic said something about getting help to bring Shane off. Another staff member came over the boards with the stretcher cart, and there was a shift in the crowd noise at that — that collective intake of breath from thousands of people who hated being reminded, all at once, that hockey players were still just bodies under all that equipment.

Shane shut his eyes for half a second. Immediately, Ilya’s hand tightened at his neck.

“Hey. No, stay with me, solnyshko.”

Shane opened them again.

“There you are,” Ilya said. His voice had gone even gentler.

It did something terrible and wonderful to Shane’s chest, hearing that tone here, under arena lights, with cameras probably close enough to catch every second of it.

The medic was speaking to him again. Explaining what they were going to do. Asking him not to try to help. Shane nodded vaguely.

When they started positioning the cart, Ilya finally moved his hand from Shane’s neck only to take his glove off with his teeth and reach for Shane’s bare wrist instead, skin to skin, where he could get it beneath the cuff of the elbow pad. The touch was immediate and intimate and so obviously not for show that it seemed to quiet something in the people around them.

“Can you stay with him?” the medic asked, probably because Ilya was already there and already somehow more useful than half the bench combined.

“Yes,” Ilya said.

Of course he could.

He stayed there while they got Shane stabilized. Stayed there while the cart was brought in closer. Stayed there while the referee explained to someone else that the hit was under review. Stayed there while the crowd kept murmuring and the Jumbotron, mercifully, did not replay the impact.

At one point, the opposing defenseman skated nearer, face tight with the awful, guilty sort of concern that meant the hit had probably not been entirely dirty after all, just wrong in all the worst ways.

“Is he—”

Ilya looked up then. For one split second, Shane saw exactly what everyone thought they knew about him: the sharpness, the danger, the violence waiting just under the skin.

Then Ilya took a breath. Looked back down at Shane. And said, in a voice so controlled it bordered on kind, “Not now.”

The defenseman stopped immediately. Nodded once. Skated away. That, more than anything, seemed to stun the cluster of people around them.

Not because Ilya had said something threatening. Because he hadn’t. Because he could have. Because everyone expected him to. Because half the building was probably waiting for him to.

And instead, he had chosen restraint so complete it looked like devotion. By the time they lifted Shane onto the cart, the whole team had drifted close enough to witness at least part of it.

Ilya stood only when he absolutely had to, one hand still wrapped around Shane’s wrist until the trainer gently told him they needed space to move the cart. He let go then. Immediately stepped in again on the other side so he could walk beside it toward the tunnel. No one tried to stop him.

As they passed the bench, Shane looked up. People were staring. Not at him. At Ilya.

At the set of his face. At the impossible steadiness of him. At the fact that the man everybody had always called volatile had just met fear with tenderness so instinctive it had seemed to reorder the air around him.

Shane, despite the pain, wanted very badly to laugh. Because of course. Of course, this was what it took. Not years of explanation. Not private evidence. Not every protein bar and humidifier and gentle hand at the back of Shane’s neck.

Just one bad hit and the chance to watch Ilya choose love in public without a second thought. In the tunnel, away from most of the noise, the medic bent to ask Shane another question.

Before he could answer, pain spiked bright enough to steal the breath from him. He made a sound.

Ilya was there immediately, close enough that his shoulder brushed the cart railing.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, I know. I know.”

Shane turned his head. Ilya’s hair was damp with sweat. His face still pale. His eyes fixed on Shane’s with that same terrible, unwavering focus.

“You’re okay,” Ilya said again, and Shane believed him this time not because it was true, necessarily, but because Ilya was saying it.

-

By the time they got him into the room and confirmed that nothing seemed catastrophically broken. Badly sprained ankle, maybe more imaging later, but no immediate surgery, no ambulance, no disaster. The adrenaline had started to ebb, leaving him shaky and cold and wrung out.

He was sitting on the exam table with a blanket over his lap when the door opened and half the team seemed to spill in at once.

Bood got there first.

“You good, Holly?”

Shane nodded. “Fine.”

“You are not fine,” Ilya said from the chair beside him.

Shane looked over.

Ilya had refused, so far, to sit anywhere except close enough that their knees were touching. He had one of Shane’s gloves in his lap for some reason. Probably because Shane had dropped it on the way in and Ilya had picked it up automatically, like he did everything else.

Bood, however, was not looking at Shane anymore. He was looking at Ilya. Then at Shane. Then back at Ilya.

Finally, he said, with the grave, awed tone of a man admitting defeat, “Okay. Jesus.”

Shane blinked. “What?”

Bood made a vague gesture with one hand. “Nothing. Just—” He stopped. Tried again.

“You were right.” The room, already quiet, went quieter.

Shane stared at him. Across from him, LP let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. The assistant coach from the barbecue folded his arms and said, “In our defense, this is not what he usually looks like.”

Ilya frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” LP said, “that apparently you turn into the calmest person in North America when your husband is bleeding on the ice.”

“I was not bleeding,” Shane said automatically.

LP pointed at him without looking. “Not relevant.”

Then, to Shane, “You’ve been saying this the whole time?”

Shane looked at everyone and saw it there, unmistakably for once: not teasing, not indulgence, not sure, Hollander. Understanding.

Beside him, Ilya shifted in his chair. “This is a very dramatic way to win argument.”

Shane let out a startled laugh, because of course, that was what he chose to say.

Troy who is also in the room, shook his head. “No, seriously. He didn’t even look at the guy who hit you.”

“I was busy,” Ilya said.

“Yes,” Troy said. “That’s exactly the point.”

The assistant coach gave a low whistle. “I’ve never seen anyone go that still.”

Ilya looked annoyed now, which only made the whole thing better. “Was I supposed to make this about me?”

“No,” Shane said, still half laughing. “But that does seem to be what everyone expected.”

LP rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, fine. Maybe we’ve all been a little unfair.”

“A little?” Shane asked.

He ignored him. “He was—” He broke off and gestured helplessly toward Ilya, as if language had failed him. “You were weirdly good.”

Ilya’s expression flattened. “Weirdly?”

The room laughed.

Shane looked at his husband, still in half his gear, hair a mess, one of Shane’s gloves sitting inexplicably in his lap like a relic, and felt something bright and fierce bloom in his chest despite the pain. Because there it was. At last.

Not a joke. Not a correction. Not Shane trying to pry open other people’s understanding with both hands. Just the truth, sitting in the middle of the room like it had always belonged there.

“He’s not weirdly good,” Shane said.

Everyone looked at him.

Shane shrugged as best he could from the exam table. “He’s just good.”

Silence. Then Ilya, because he was unbearable, ducked his head and smiled into Shane’s glove.

The assistant coach muttered, “I’m never hearing the end of this.”

“No,” Shane said. “You really aren’t.”

That got another laugh, warmer now.

Someone knocked on the open door and informed them that the game was about to restart. The room stirred reluctantly. Players started backing out in clumps, helmets tucked under arms.

LP paused in the doorway. Looked at Ilya. Then said, with all the solemnity of a man issuing a formal correction to the historical record, “All right, Cap. You’re the good one.”

Ilya narrowed his eyes. “I have always been the good one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bood said this time. “Don’t make it weird.”

“Too late,” Troy called from the hall.

They disappeared laughing.

Then it was just the medic, briefly, checking on Shane one last time before following the team out, and then finally only Shane and Ilya in the small bright room, the crowd a distant roar beyond the walls.

For a second, neither of them said anything. Then Ilya turned in his chair and reached for Shane’s hand. Not his wrist this time. Not the back of his neck. Just hand in hand, simple as breathing.

“You scared me,” he said, echoing the same thing from years ago.

Quietly.

There it was at last — the tremor under all that steadiness, hidden until no one else was around to see it. Shane’s chest tightened.

“I know.”

Ilya looked down at their joined hands. “I did not enjoy it.”

Shane smiled, tired and helpless. “That’s a very strong statement for you.”

“Yes,” Ilya said seriously. “Very emotional.”

Shane laughed, then winced.

Immediately, Ilya was leaning forward. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

Ilya’s eyes narrowed.

Then, because apparently they were back to this, he lifted Shane’s hand and kissed the knuckles once.

It was such a quiet little thing. So husbandish. So natural. Like he had not just spent twenty minutes terrifying an entire NHL bench by being visibly, helplessly in love.

Shane looked at him and said, “You know they all get it now.”

Ilya sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“No, really.”

“I know,” Ilya said. “This is annoying for me.”

Shane smiled. “Why?”

“Because now they will all act like they discovered something profound.” He tipped his head back against the chair. “Meanwhile, I have been excellent the whole time.”

Shane laughed again, softer this time.

“Yes,” he said. “You have.”

Ilya looked at him.

Something gentled in his expression.

Then he stood, stepped closer, and pressed a kiss to Shane’s forehead exactly the way he always did when Shane was hurt, or sick, or too tired to defend himself from tenderness properly.

“Good,” he murmured. “As long as one of us notices.”

Shane, absurdly, felt his eyes sting. So he did what he always did when he was in danger of becoming too honest too fast.

He tugged Ilya closer by the front of his jersey and said directly into Ilya’s lips, “I love you, baby.” And when he kissed Ilya, it was slow and warm and private despite the fluorescent lights and the medical tape and the sounds of the game resuming somewhere far away.

Afterward, Shane rested his forehead briefly against Ilya’s and closed his eyes.

“You know,” he said, “I’m going to be unbearable about this.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, hand sliding into his hair. “I know.”

“For months.”

“Yes.”

“I may actually make people apologize to you individually.”

“That seems extreme.”

“I’m injured,” Shane said. “I should be allowed some enrichment.”

Ilya laughed under his breath.

Then he bent and kissed the top of Shane’s head.

“Okay, solnyshko,” he said. “But only because everyone now knows I am the good one.”

And this time, for once, when Shane smiled, there was no one left to argue with him.