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It was a busy room. Signing a contract was always a big deal, after all, and the Ottawa owners had assured Shane that they were going to get this right. He’d really only ever signed two contracts before, and the second one renewing his time with Montreal had been so lowkey it didn’t even count, mostly handled by his agent, with just salary updates in the years after. The first one had been his draft contract, and that was so long ago that he hardly remembered it. The feeling he would never forget, but the details, who had been in the room, what the paper had said, had long since slipped away. His mom had probably handled most of it.
But this contract meeting was good. He’d already seen the drafted document, gone over it with Farah and Ilya and his mom. Everything looked good, and the meeting was mostly a formality. Having the conversation was good, though. Reassuring.
With everything nearly settled, Shane finally felt like he could breathe, for the first time since the playoffs had started. He’d never imagined this future for himself–hockey had always been his life, so he’d always known he would be going wherever the draft took him. He’d wanted that place to be Canada, had been thrilled that place had been Montreal, but the moving was a fact of life. Wanting to stay in his hometown had never factored into that, and he’d never dreamed of moving back. Certainly not like this.
But it looked like it was going to be perfect for him.
“Of course, it will take a few days to figure everything out, get kit prepared and your records transferred, but Montreal has assured us that they’re ready to sign whatever we send over, so there won’t be any bumps in the road,” the general manager frowned as he talked about Shane’s old team, but his tone of voice was as reassuring as the words he was saying. No bumps. Shane Hollander was moving back to Ottawa.
He’d never expected to be happy about that.
“Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Any way we can ease your transition?” The coach, Wiebe, a man Shane knew better from Ilya’s stories than seeing anything out on the ice, asked again, wrapping the meeting up.
Shane shook his head, standing to shake the man’s hand. It was like the contact flipped a switch in him. “Actually…” The thought was out of his mouth the second it crossed his mind, something Shane usually only experienced with hockey plays on the ice. But he didn’t have time to second-guess himself because Wiebe was grinning at him, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder.
“I think you’re going to fit right in with the Centaurs, Hollander.”
Ilya Rozanov was intimately familiar with the coach’s office. As team captain, he was in it frequently, and as Ottawa’s resident menace, he would have been anyway. Really, they were saving everyone time by making him captain. It hadn’t taken Boston very long to realize that, either. He had thought that there was absolutely nothing that could be or happen within these walls that would shock him. The closest he’d ever come was when Wiebe had mentioned that Hollander would be welcome here, if he ever needed to be, right after the Centaurs lost their playoff series. And that hadn’t been shocking, really, just not what he’d expected the coach to end their meeting with.
Now? He didn’t think he’d ever been more shocked in his life. Not when he’d been the first draft pick. Not when Latvia knocked Russia out of the 2018 Olympics. Not when Shane had started dating Rose Landry, and definitely not when they’d broken up. Not when Scott Hunter kissed a man when he won the cup. Not when Troy fucking Barrett came out to him. Not when Shane had given him his hotel room their first time, or any of the times after. Not even when the damn video outed them.
A lot of shocking things had happened in his life. This was, miles away, the most shocking.
“He fucking what?”
Wiebe laughed at him. The bastard. “Hollander’s contract and everything is all set. It’s just this one condition, and we’re sure it won’t be a problem.” Ilya was speechless, and if Wiebe was waiting for him to talk before explaining himself, they were going to be there all day. “He said he would walk away without it.”
Ilya made an odd choked noise. Shane, putting conditions on coming to Ottawa? They’d been talking about this for months. And Hollander didn’t have any other options–he wasn’t going to be playing for Montreal again, because even if that poor excuse for a team let him re-sign Ilya would not.
Ilya always joked about being the best hockey player, but all of the evidence pointed to it being Shane. Other than the first draft pick thing, which honestly Ilya had always been sure was more of a personality thing. Shane would never have fit into Boston, and he wouldn’t have wanted to either. But the last season had proved beyond doubt that Shane was the best. Ilya, as good as he was, had moved to Ottawa and done fuck all for breaking their losing streak on his own. They’d gotten a few good moments since he’d traded himself here, but the Centaurs were still a shit team and Ilya couldn’t fix that on his own. Things had gotten better as they traded for more players, but it wasn’t just Ilya. Which was fine, hockey was a team sport. One star player wasn’t supposed to change everything. But Montreal’s playoff run proved that it could. Shane Hollander had single-handedly gotten the shittiest team in the league into the playoffs, something they would never admit but Ilya would never let them forget.
Shane had refused to tell him a lot of things after the video had come out, but he knew Montreal’s locker room had gotten bad. Hayden Pike, of all people, had given him updates. And he had seen how they were playing. Ignoring Shane, passing to people who were impossibly far or covered instead of their best player. Defenders refusing to block their star. They had only managed to see each other once during the playoffs, but Ilya had seen the bruises purpling Shane’s body, and watched him wince at perfectly normal movements. Worst, Ilya had watched one of the fuckass Quebecois lackeys check their own teammate, waiting carefully until the Toronto player Shane was battling for the puck had moved just enough that he could slam Hollander into the boards while making it look like a clean attempt to hit the other team. If Ilya had been any closer than Carolina at the time, no one would have been able to stop him from taking care of that asshole himself.
And through all of that, Shane had played some of the best hockey of his life. He’d won most of his face-offs. He’d never missed a rare pass from Pike or Boizau. He’d scored at least once in almost every single game. His team had been more concerned with punishing him, and they’d given themselves the opportunity when Shane tripped in their seventh game against Ottawa. And no fucking wonder, the blade coming lose from his skate from all the hits he’d taken throughout a hard-fought game. Ilya knew he had made the right choice, taking the opportunity to make the play of the year on the ice, and before that telling his team not to go light on Montreal and certainly not Hollander. Shane wouldn’t have forgiven him for doing anything else, and Ilya probably wouldn’t have either, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent plenty of time beating himself up for making things worse after the puck had slid over the line. It was hard not to blame himself for the pain it had brought Shane, from the press and his team and himself.
But without Shane, Montreal wouldn’t even have made the playoffs, slipping in with a wildcard spot purely because Shane managed a hat-trick a game for the last two weeks of the regular season. And he’d dragged them through their first playoff series, into their match-up against Ottawa. They’d nearly made it to the conference championship game purely on Shane Hollander’s back, just for them to turn on him. Ilya hated that he’d done it, but it had cemented Shane as the best hockey player in the league, maybe ever. It wasn’t a one-man sport. No one player should have been able to do that.
And yet Ilya’s husband did.
The man lived and breathed hockey. He wanted to keep playing. And Ottawa was everything they had been talking about for months, since the video had changed all their carefully-laid plans. Shane wanted to be here. Ilya wanted him to be here. Hell, Ottawa wanted him to be here. It was a miracle that they would never even have dreamed of, the chance to get both the best centers in the league. Ottawa would do anything to get Shane here, but they didn’t have to. Shane wanted to be here. Why would he be fucking with that with last-minute contract conditions?
“Obviously, we’re prepared to give Hollander whatever he wants,” Wiebe had a look on his face that Ilya couldn’t place. He wasn’t used to not being prepared for things. He should have known exactly what his coach was about to say, but he didn’t. “And what he wants is to change jersey numbers.”
“He fucking what?!” Ilya felt like a broken record, but his mind had to be playing tricks on him. No way. Wiebe was fucking with him. Shane had tried to make a joke that they had misunderstood. Ilya was mistranslating things, too freaked out to get the English right. No way.
Ilya had been to the Hollander house. Hundreds of times, at this point. He’d seen Yuna Hollander’s gallery wall on the stairs. A full two thirds of the forty pictures there were hockey. Shane, in his first skates at two years old. Shane in his first pee wee jersey. Shane, dressed in his father’s college jersey for Halloween at seven years old. Shane’s first game as captain of his middle school team. Shane, scoring his first goal for the Canadian IIHF team. Shane in his Montreal jersey at the draft, and his first home game, and with his cups. Shane, breaking his accuracy record again at the All Star exhibition. Shane picking up his gear for the 2018 Olympics team.
Ilya had also been inside Shane Hollander’s childhood bedroom. He had seen his team pictures from every year the man had played hockey. He’d seen his first jersey, framed and hanging on the wall next to his first Olympics jersey. Hanging on the wall directly across from the door to Shane’s childhood bedroom was another framed jersey, David Hollander’s McGill jersey from the 1980s.
Every single one had the same number. Hollander was synonymous with 24. It was the number Yuna and David had chosen when they’d put him in his first team, from nostalgia. They’d asked Shane once if he wanted to change it, and you can imagine how that went.
Shane Hollander was a creature of habit. He had precise routines for everything, most of all hockey. His socks and skates put on in exactly the same order, laced to perfection. He timed his game day shower to the second. He took exactly three sips of water every time he got back to the bench after a shift. The man folded his clothes before sex. No way in hell did he want to change the jersey number he’d had since before he could walk.
“Time for a change, he said. Leaving the bad blood in Quebec,” Wiebe carefully avoided saying Montreal around Ilya, he had for months. “And he thought it would be a good chance to put the rivalry narrative behind you, since you’re on the same team now.” Never mind that their marriage should be doing that well enough for them. “We’ve got a jersey mocked up for him for practice tomorrow, and hopefully it’s all good and we can get the official ones in production.”
Ilya felt like the world was spinning. “Wait, wait. What is he changing his number to?”
Wiebe full on grinned, every tooth on display. “Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. If Hollander plays as number 81, what do you want to switch to?”
Forget everything that had ever happened before in his life. This was the most shocking thing Ilya had ever experienced. “He wants my number?!”
Jersey numbers had been randomly assigned for Ilya’s whole childhood. There hadn’t been an option to care what he played under. But he was an important enough player when he was asked up to the Russian IIHF team that they’d asked what number he wanted to play under. He’d picked 81, for his mother. Her birthday was January 8th, and it was like carrying another piece of her with him. His father had never asked, but if he had Ilya had always planned to lie and say it was just the number he was given. Any time he had been asked, Ilya had always shrugged, playing the number off as meaningless. It was the number he’d entered the international stage on, so he’d kept it. It didn’t really matter, it was just the number everyone associated with Rozanov.
Had Shane ever asked about his number? Had Ilya ever told him? He couldn’t remember. Shane had probably overheard it, from one of the million gossipy skaters they played among. Shane probably just believed what he told everyone, that the number didn’t matter. He’d never asked, and Ilya had never told him. Fuck.
“Well, if it’s to bury the rivalry, shouldn’t I take 24?” Ilya choked out, trying to sound normal. At least if anyone was going to take his number, his mother’s number, it was his husband. He could find a way to be okay with this. It sounded like he was going to have to.
“Oh, no, Shane was quite clear about that. He wants to pass on the legacy, and show support for up-and-coming players. The rookie is going to be 24.” Ilya couldn’t imagine the face he was making, but Wiebe must have thought it was funny because the man was still smiling. This was the worst day of Ilya’s life. “Any other numbers you want? Otherwise we can just pick one for you.”
Without realizing it, Ilya was standing. He had to talk to Shane. “Can I get back to you tomorrow? I’ll play in a blank if I have to.” Wiebe said something else, but Ilya didn’t hear it over the rushing in his ears as his mind spiraled. He could have still been talking when Ilya turned to walk out the door for all he knew.
But probably he wasn’t, because Ilya could see him typing something on his phone already, as if dismissing their whole conversation. While Ilya’s world was collapsing.
Practice didn’t start until tomorrow, but Ilya had had to come in for his meeting with Coach Wiebe, and Shane had come with him. Ilya had offered to give him a tour of the facilities, remembering how eerie it had been to move to the arena that he recognized but didn’t know. They’d been running late for the meeting, so he had only had time to point out the locker room–the home team one, not the visitor one they were both familiar with–and the team gym, where he had left his husband. Who clearly hated him. And who was probably working out, if Ilya knew him at all. Which he wasn’t sure about right now.
Predictably, Ilya found Shane on a treadmill in the corner of the room. It felt like a sick joke. Shane didn’t even need to be running, he’d gone on his morning run before they left. The universe was mocking him. Or maybe just his husband.
“Oh, hey,” Shane slowed his treadmill down, stepping off safely. His smile was bright. “How was your meeting?”
Ilya scowled at him while he drank water, not knowing where to start. “What the hell, Hollander?” That was as good a place as anywhere.
Shane wiped the sweat off his face, and tipped his head towards the door. “Come on, ready to give that tour you promised me?”
Ilya did not want to give a tour, but Shane was already in the hallway, walking towards the locker room Ilya had gestured towards. All he could do was follow, trying to figure out what to say about what his coach had just told him.
The locker room wasn’t particularly exciting. They all looked the same, really, but there was something about home locker rooms that was always more lived in. Logically. Every cubby had things in it already, even though no one else had been to the arena in weeks, because the equipment team had already placed practice uniforms and the preferred tapes out for everyone, but the returning players had little personal touches in theirs too. Hayes had a comic book hero taped to the wall behind his, next to the photo of his wife. Bood had the team Player of the Match token, the stupidest plastic horse head Ilya had ever seen, hanging next to the burger flipper he insisted he needed at the arena. Ilya had never decorated in Boston, but his Ottawa cubby had a small vase of plastic lilies and a picture of Anya, playing in the Hollander’s backyard. The cubby next to his was a blank slate, the most personal item the name tag newly stuck to it: Shane Hollander.
Shane was thrilled, laughing as he approached his new gear. “Yes! Look at this!” He held a new Centaurs jersey up, and Ilya felt the world go flat and silent around him. “Do you like?”
HOLLANDER. 81.
Honestly, if this had been something they’d talked about, if it hadn’t been sprung on him as the worst surprise by his coach, Shane taking his number would be kind of hot. Something about it felt more official than their actual marriage, a hockey symbol of their entwined lives. Except they weren’t exchanging numbers, because Shane didn’t want that. And they’d never even talked about it.
“I didn’t expect it to be here, Wiebe made it sound like it might take a few days, but this is sick,” Shane chattered on, admiring the jersey. “I think it’s my favorite jersey I’ve ever had, what do you think?”
Ilya snapped. “What the fuck, Hollander?”
Shane frowned at him. “What? I thought you’d like it. Wiebe told you, right?”
“Why would you think that?! Do I-” Do I mean nothing to you? “Do I not get a say? Are we husbands that keep secrets now? I thought we’d had enough of that.” It was a low blow, but Shane didn’t even flinch.
“Of course you get a say. You get to pick whatever number you want.” Except mine. Except yours.
“What if I don’t want to pick a number?! What if I want to be 81?”
Shane shrugged. “At least it’s not going to someone random. I figured if anyone else was going to be 81, you’d want it to be me.”
Damn it, he was right about that. But there was no reason anyone but Ilya had to be 81. He’d made this whole situation up on his own.
“What if it’s important to me?” Ilya was hoping his eyes still had the defiant glint his anger had brought into them since he left his coach’s office, because he could feel everything else breaking. Did Shane even care about him, about his thoughts and reasons? Things weren’t making sense right now.
“Oh, Hollander, you found it!” Coach fucking Wiebe walked into the locker room, beaming at his new center. “A beauty, isn’t it? Rozanov, you excited to see your husband play in your old number?”
Shane was grinning at their coach. Asshole. “Not really,” Ilya ground out, looking away from his betrayal of a husband.
He wasn’t looking at them, but he had heard Wiebe disappointed enough times to recognize the frown in his voice. “C’mon, Rozanov. It’s just a number, right? You’re always telling people you picked it randomly.”
He wasn’t so sure he was glad everybody had bought that anymore.
Shane scoffed. “Don’t believe his lies, Wiebe. Ilya’s never done anything randomly in his whole life.” Ilya narrowed his eyes.
“And what about your random decisions, Hollander? Trying something new for your new team?” He practically spat at his husband. Shane looked at their coach, making eye contact that Ilya couldn’t read through his anger.
Wiebe chuckled, clapping Shane’s shoulder. “Good luck, Hollander. And welcome again to the Centaurs.” And then he looked at Ilya, as if sensing for the first time the tension between the couple. “You’ve got a good one here, Rozanov. We’re lucky to be sharing him with you.”
Ilya couldn’t read him. Maybe his English really was failing him, because this wasn’t making any sense. And he wasn’t so sure he was lucky anymore. But suddenly he was alone again with his husband, as angry as ever.
He turned back to Shane. “My lies? What about your lies, Hollander?”
Shane smiled at him, softer than he had been. “I’ve never lied to anyone about why I picked my number.”
Ilya wanted to throw something. “Fine. You want to do this? My number is important to me. It is not random, 81 is-”
“Your mother’s birthday, I know,” Shane cut him off. Ilya gaped at him.
“What the fuck, Hollander?” How could he have known? Ilya had never told him–and, more importantly, he’d always done his best to hide how hard the day was for him.
Shane shrugged, hanging the jersey back up on his hook before turning fully to Ilya. “You don’t love Christmas enough to get so sad on January 8th every year, lyubov.”
Ilya let his last secret, his biggest secret, crumble to dust between himself and his observant husband. He knew. Of course he knew, a little voice in the back of his head said. It sounded a little like his mother.
And then he snapped back to reality. “So you know, you know and you’re still going to take it from me?” Take her from me.
Ilya didn’t notice Shane reaching for him until his hands were firmly enclosed by his husband’s. He didn’t have the energy to flinch.
“No one can take her from you.” Shane guided his hand up to his crucifix, squeezing as his fingers automatically gripped it.
And then Ilya’s sanity must finally have snapped, because his husband burst out laughing and Ilya couldn’t understand what the hell was going on anymore.
“Besides, who the hell do you think I am?”
“My husband,” Ilya replied flatly. “Who told our team that his condition for signing his contract was to steal my number without talking to me even though he knew why it was important to me.”
Shane raised an eyebrow at him. Ilya knew it sounded ridiculous, like nothing Shane would ever do, but that’s what he’d been struggling with since Wiebe told him about it.
“Yes, your famously good with change husband decided that leaving the team he thought he’d retire with and coming out to the whole world wasn’t enough change, and he also wanted to change the jersey number he’s had since he started playing hockey.”
“Well you see why I don’t fucking understand!” Maybe they were both losing it, because this conversation had long stopped making sense.
Shane stood and walked back to his cubby. “Ilya.” He picked up another jersey hanging on the bar and held it out. It took Ilya a moment to figure out what he was looking at, because it looked so normal. “This is my jersey.”
Because it was normal. HOLLANDER. 24. “You are not changing your number.”
“No, of course not.” Shane smiled at him, turning to hang the jersey back up before picking up a pile of red and black fabric. Why were there so many jerseys in his new locker? “I had an idea, and then… I thought it might be fun to get our coach in on pulling your leg a little. Help management get to know who we are, together.”
Ilya felt detached from his body, but he made a noise in the back of his throat. It was a good idea, helping management see their relationship as normal and established in their whirlwind, absolutely unprecedented situation. “You had an idea?”
Shane looked through the pile in his arms and held a jersey out to his husband. “We won’t ever get to be real WAGs, but I want to wear your name on my back. Or your number. Sometimes. Maybe.” Ilya was holding two official Ottawa Centaurs jerseys, the number 81 stitched under a bold HOLLANDER on one. On the other, a 24 and ROZANOV. Oh. “So we don't always have to decide. They’re… integrated. Some of both of us.”
Ilya laughed, a little wetly. “Hollander-Rozanov would not fit I don't think.”
“No, and I didn’t want to split our numbers. 21? 84? They don’t mean anything to us.”
“I am still 81.” Ilya traced the number on the shoulder of his new favorite jersey. What were the chances he could get away with swapping his official one without the equipment team noticing? The number was more important on the ice than the name anyway.
“Officially. You’re still 81, and I’m still 24,” Shane affirmed. Ilya smiled at him, and then narrowed his eyes.
“What are the rest of these?”
Shane blushed. “I, uh, asked them to make four of each. So my parents don’t have to choose between us either. I think my Dad will probably usually pick 24 still, but Mom I’m not sure-” Ilya cut off his rambling by surging to his feet and kissing his husband, jerseys smashed between their bodies.
“I love you, Shane Hollander.” Shane smiled at him, leaning in to kiss his husband again. “I even forgive you for making me think you were stealing my number. I think it will look good on you.”
At Ottawa’s home opener, the biggest post was of Yuna and David Hollander walking into the stands, David in a ROZANOV/24 jersey and Yuna wearing HOLLANDER/81. The Internet went crazy, excited to see the Hollanders supporting both of their boys and asking if the jerseys would be for sale to the public. For now, they were special edition, a limited run of four each that had already found their homes. Harris had reposted the photo on all of the official Centaurs accounts before the game had even started. Ilya was going to print it off and get it framed, and maybe make them recreate it with him and Shane. His family.