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Ilya always feels smug when they go back to Montreal, even though Shane seems to be fairly neutral about it. He likes that, in their rafters, there's nothing between the banner for the last cup Shane won for the Metros and the official retirement of his jersey number. It’s the ending Shane deserved in Montreal, and even though it's been decades at this point, Ilya still likes that Montreal came back to Shane, tail between their legs, and gave him back his legacy. It makes him feel like they won.
“Fuck off,” Shane says, sounding boyishly petulant, even at middle age. “We’re not even here for hockey.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Ilya objects.
“It’s in your face,” Shane says. “I know what you're thinking.”
“I can’t help my face,” Ilya shoots back.
“Stop fighting,” Celine interrupts, sounding more fond than anything else. “You guys aren't allowed to get divorced until I’m too grown up to be traumatized by it.”
Ilya shifts his focus to his daughter. “Oh? And what age is that?”
Celine considers this question, and for a second, she looks exactly like Shane. Score one for nurture over nature, Ilya supposes.
“I don't know,” she says finally. “But it's older than 19.”
“How convenient,” Ilya says drily.
“It is,” she says cheerfully. “You have to stay together until I say so, though. Sorry.”
Shane looks at Ilya and sighs, as if they didn’t celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary last year with a vow renewal. Vogue called it ‘unbelievably romantic.’ Celine called it ‘a little much.’
“I guess I’m stuck, then,” Shane says, slipping his arm through Ilya’s as they make their way into the rink.
……
Celine seems to have friends in every sport. Today, they're here for someone named Blake, who's on the mixed doubles curling team. Last night, Shane and Ilya had realized they had no idea if Blake was a man or a woman, and they fought about it for longer than Ilya would care to admit. Today, Celine has managed to avoid using any pronouns at all for Blake, which is rude. Ilya has $2000 riding on this.
“So, which one is Blake?” Shane asks.
“What? Why?” Celine asks.
Ilya raises his eyebrows, something he can only get away with because Celine is sitting on the other side of Shane.
“Because that’s who we’re here to see?” Shane says, unaware of what’s happening, the same way he is whenever this conversation happens.
Ilya recognizes it, though— the way she jumped when Shane mentioned Blake’s name, the odd defensiveness, the mortification that comes from nowhere. It’s the universal response of a teenager whose parents are asking about her crush.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t give Ilya any information that will help them settle the bet; fortunately, Ilya now gets to engage in his favorite pastime, which is being a little shit.
“You should tell us more about Blake,” Ilya says, watching as Celine’s cheeks turn red. “How did you two meet? Do you practice together?”
“Why would we practice together?”
“You are both Olympic athletes, and you know each other. Is not that much of a stretch.”
“Yeah, but completely different sports,” Celine says. “I don’t do ice, remember?”
“Yet here we are, cheering on your friend on ice,” Ilya says.
Celine slumps further into her seat, and Ilya decides to drop it for now. They’ll probably show Blake on the jumbotron, anyway.
……
“What?” Shane says when Ilya tells him his theory, after they've deposited Celine at the Olympic village and gone back to their hotel for the night.
“Huge crush,” Ilya says, nodding solemnly. “Is very cute.”
“Why wouldn't she just tell us?” Shane asks.
“Why would she? We’re her dads.”
“I guess,” Shane says, slumping onto the hotel bed.
Ilya takes a beat to take him in. Shane’s been steadily going gray for the last 10 years, and his face has new wrinkles every day, but to some part of Ilya, he's still the cute boy awkwardly shaking his hand outside a rink in Saskatchewan.
“It’s not like we were,” Ilya says. He sits down on the bed next to him. “She is not afraid.”
“I know, I just— I wish I could've told my parents this kind of thing when I was her age.”
Ilya raises his eyebrows.
“Not that part,” Shane says, and Ilya smirks.
“She knows she is safe with us,” Ilya says. “She also thinks that we are embarrassing. She is wrong about this, and she will grow out of it.”
“It’s so weird that we’re the ones she’s embarrassed of,” Shane says. “I mean, Blake plays for Team USA. That’s what’s embarrassing.”
“You have something against Americans now?”
“Obviously not,” Shane says. “I’m just saying, during the Olympics, it’s a little weird to show up and cheer for another country when they’re playing against your country.”
“Of course. Because no one has ever enjoyed spending time with their rival,” Ilya says. “Certainly not in this family.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “To be fair, I never said I enjoyed spending time with you.”
“Really? Because you did agree to spend a lot of time with me. Until death do us part, I think it was.”
“Because I didn’t trust anyone else to take care of you,” Shane says. He leans in and gives Ilya a kiss. “So, about that bet.”
“Ah,” Ilya says. “I believe we will have to call it a wash, yes? Neither of us was right.”
“I mean, I think I did say something about Blake just not being a girl—”
Ilya cuts him off with a kiss, because he knows that if he doesn’t, they’ll be up half the night bickering.
……
Celine’s Olympics are, probably, nothing like theirs were. Ilya had only gone the one time, and he mostly remembers pressure and pain and the kicked puppy look on Shane’s face when he sent him away. Shane had gone one more time, the year before Ilya retired. There had been a big media frenzy around the MLH’s return to the Olympics, and all eyes had been on Shane as the only one on the roster with an Olympic medal. Thankfully, he'd returned from Italy with gold, and he'd been proud, obviously, but also relieved to have risen to the occasion.
Celine, on the other hand, is a cross-country skier from Canada. The choice had surprised most everyone, but it suits her, Ilya thinks. She has the same competitive itch that Ilya and Shane do, but team sports never scratched it. She likes knowing that she’s faster today than she was the day before, likes that her success can be measured on its own.
But no matter how hard Celine works, she’s not a full-time athlete, and Canada isn’t known for its cross-country skiing. She’s earned her place (a thousand times over, in Ilya’s admittedly biased opinion), but the weight of the nation is conspicuously absent.
“I’m gonna hurl,” Celine announces over the phone, 10 minutes before she's set to line up to start. Ilya and Shane are splitting a pair of airpods to take this call from the stands, and they both wish they could be down there with her, but it's coaches only.
“You're not going to hurl,” Shane echoes calmly.
“Even if you do, it does not matter,” Ilya says. “This is the Olympics. You are Olympian. Vomit with abandon.”
“I’ll be dehydrated if I do,” she complains. “I can't believe there are 9 minutes left. Can't we just start now? What the fuck am I supposed to do with the 9 minutes before the biggest race of my life? It's just designated panic attack time. They should just start the race 9 minutes earlier.”
“That’s not how time works, sweetheart,” Shane says gently. “You'll be great, okay? Just focus on your warmup. You can do this.”
“I know, just—” Celine abruptly cuts off, and there's some shuffling on the other end. “Okay, ugh, Coach Stalin says I need to hang up on my Olympic gold medalist dad,” she says, the last part presumably directed at the aforementioned coach.
“Hey,” Ilya says. “You're hanging up on your Olympic loser dad too.”
“Listen to your coach, honey. We love you!”
“Love you,” Ilya echoes.
“Love you too. Oh my god, I’m actually going to throw up, okay bye!” she says, and then she ends the call.
Ilya pockets his phone, then squints out towards the starting line. “She does not appear to be throwing up.”
“That's good,” Shane says. “She sounded okay, I think.”
“Yes,” Ilya says. “She is the normal level of nervous.”
“She’ll be good,” Shane says.
Ilya hums. Both of them follow Celine’s training, but Ilya’s always been slightly more involved, mostly because Shane doesn't really get endurance sports. Ilya has been running with Celine since she was small enough to push around in a stroller, in those early post-retirement days when he ran a marathon every six months. He doesn't race as much anymore, but he and Celine did their first half together in November, and she left him in the dust.
So, here is how Ilya thinks Celine will do in the Olympics: whatever the most generous estimate anyone has for her, Ilya thinks she’ll be at least 30 seconds faster. She’d confessed to hoping for top 10, but Ilya thinks she's selling herself short. When the moment calls for it, his daughter is an absolute beast. He'd predict a comfortable 5th place finish, and more likely than not, 4th.
“I think so, yes,” Ilya says. “She will be amazing.”
…….
“So, how does it feel?” Celine asks, as they escort her away from the course and back towards the village. She’s all showered and changed, back in the same sweats she was wearing this morning. The only difference is the bronze medal around her neck.
“How does what feel?” Ilya asks. He's smiling. He's been smiling ever since the race started. He could see it in her stride. He fucking knew it.
“Being the only one in the family without an Olympic medal,” she chirps.
Shane laughs so hard he starts to choke, and Ilya rubs his back while Celine laughs even harder at the both of them. Ilya is so happy his stomach is twisting up in it, a type of joy he didn't even know existed until he became a dad.
“Celine,” a voice says, and at first Ilya ignores it—probably just another person coming to tell his incredible, remarkable daughter how amazing she is—but Celine inhales sharply, and that catches Ilya’s attention.
“Blake,” she says, and when she looks over at them, her eyes go comically wide.
Ilya follows her gaze to see Blake—off the ice, this time, in a McGill sweatshirt that looks suspiciously like the one Celine stole from her grandfather in high school—and immediately realizes why Celine is freaking out.
As Celine gives Blake a hug, Scott Hunter gives Ilya a nod.
“Congratulations,” Hunter says to Celine. “You did amazing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hunter,” Celine says, as she and Blake break apart. She's blushing, and Ilya has to bite back a laugh. Celine is usually great with parents, but evidently, she's flustered. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”
“We actually met when you were a kid,” Hunter says. He looks amused. “Though you were probably too young to remember.”
“Oh, I— guess I was?” Celine looks between Ilya and Shane, clearly frazzled.
“You were,” Ilya confirms. “Hunter, it has been a long time. I’m surprised you made it all the way out here at your age.”
“Ilya,” Shane scolds, but Hunter just laughs.
“Glad to see some things haven't changed,” Scott says. “It's nice to see you guys. I forget, did you ever meet Blake?”
“Not face to face, but we did see your match yesterday,” Ilya says. He holds out his hand to Blake, who looks slightly less apprehensive than Celine does. They also, Ilya notes, have a hand on Celine’s lower back, which is a bold enough move that Ilya has to respect it. “Is nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Blake says. They turn to Shane. “And you too, Mr. Hollander.”
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Shane says. He nods at their outfit. “I like your sweater. Do you go to McGill?”
“Oh, no, I—” Blake says.
“So actually,” Celine interrupts, “Blake and I are going to go back to the village. But I’ll text you guys later, okay?”
“Of course, sweetheart, it's your day,” Shane says. He gives her a kiss. “Congratulations again. I knew you could do it.”
“Liar,” Celine says.
Ilya gives her a hug. “It’s true,” he says. “Never a doubt, darling.”
“Oh my god,” she says. “You're so embarrassing.”
Then, she links her arm in Blake’s, and the two of them wander off.
……
Later, over coffee, Hunter asks, “So, do you know how the hell our kids know each other?”
“No clue,” Ilya says. “We had not even heard of any Blake before yesterday.”
“They seem happy though,” Shane says. “Whatever it is they're doing, I mean.”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” Hunter says. “I just wanted to know if there was a story there, is all.”
“I’m sure there is,” Ilya says. “We will hear it eventually.”