Chapter Text
Ever since I was young your word is the word that always won.
The game against Tampa comes and goes. His parents do bring Liz, and he makes it a point to stay firm in his original promise that he will not be getting dinner with them after. He makes sure to say hello to her after the game, smile and shake her hand when his parents bring her to the players' area. But it lasts no more than two minutes and then he’s gone.
Instead he goes out and celebrates the win with his team. They go to a bar, they order food and beers, and Shane falls into the moment. He sits near Hayden and JJ, and they talk about movies and Hayden’s kids and the new girl JJ is seeing. Shane connects with other guys on the team, and starts to feel like maybe he’s been making up some of the tension between them.
He feels light, he feels good, and he is looking forward to his first long stretch on the road.
Ilya’s already traveling himself, and they won’t see each other for nearly three more weeks. It’s painful to think about, but they’ve gotten used to a long distance relationship and have managed to fall back into the swing of things. Late night phone calls turn into long video sex calls, and Shane has become best friends with his dildo again. He’s always sure to tell Ilya it’s not the same, and he means it every time.
They have their first long phone call where they dissect the movies they have watched so far, and Shane finds that he hasn’t hated all of the movies Ilya suggested, though he still has one more to watch. Ilya tells Shane that he needs to stop recommending sad war stories.
Things feel like they are looking up, which is why it’s such a shock to the system when his parents tell him that they’d like to visit Shane during his stint playing Boston in Montreal.
“Well, I mean, Ilya will be here. We have plans.”
He doesn’t quite want to cop to the fact that their plans are that Ilya will come back to Shane’s, they will have incredible sex, make out for hours, have more sex, and spend the night sleeping and holding each other in bed. Ilya doesn’t have to leave until late the next day, so Shane is excited to actually have some quality time with his boyfriend face-to-face.
“And they can’t be postponed?” his father asks.
“No, they cannot be postponed,” Shane retorts incredulously. “What does that even mean? We play each other four times a season.”
“Your mother and I were hoping to get together after the game. We leave for our trip after that, and since we already missed Thanksgiving, we might not be able to get together in person until December.”
Shane sighs, because he thinks his father may have a point. They don’t often have Canadian Thanksgiving together because it always falls during the beginning of the hockey season. His parents are going on a three week trip to Spain to visit some friends and explore, and that doesn’t bring them back until the end of November.
“I mean,” Shane says, feeling himself already caving, “I guess we could all get together for dinner.”
This is not ideal, but he feels like his hands are tied.
“Hmm?” his father grunts.
Shane keeps talking, flipping through his mental rolodex of restaurants he thinks the four of them could be seen in without making too many waves. He really doesn’t want to bring them back to his place, especially after the last time. He again maintains that it will be easier for him and Ilya to beg off at a restaurant than it will be to try and kick his parents out of his house.
“I could have Farah make us reservations somewhere. Is there anywhere you and mom are thinking of?” Farah, who is also Ilya’s sports agent, knows about their relationship and hasn’t said a single thing to make either of them think she’s anything but unfazed.
His father ignores his question. “I was thinking it could just be the three of us.”
“The three of who?” Shane asks dumbly.
“You, me, and your mother.”
“But Ilya will be here,” Shane replies, matter of fact.
It suddenly hits him that his father does not want Ilya at the dinner. Shane notices the moment his father picks up on Shane’s realization, because the atmosphere between them suddenly becomes incredibly tense.
“Perhaps you could meet Ilya after. I’m sure he will have things to do with his team.”
“But Ilya doesn’t spend time with his team when he’s in Montreal. He comes straight to me.”
“I’m sure his team would like to spend time with him,” his dad pushes.
“No,” Shane doubles down, “they actually wouldn’t. For years Ilya has come to my house whenever he is in Montreal. All of his teammates know. They don’t invite him out when they’re in Montreal, just like my team doesn’t invite me out when we are in Boston.”
“So they know,” his dad asks, “about you and him?”
Shane can feel the hostility in his father’s voice, no matter how hard David tries to subdue it.
“They know I am dating someone who lives in Boston, and Ilya’s team knows he is dating someone in Montreal. They don’t know it’s me, they don’t know it’s a guy, but they know that when he’s in Montreal, he does not go out with the team.”
“I see,” his dad says. But Shane can’t get a read on the tone anymore. Is his father surprised? Upset? Concerned? Is he becoming more accepting or less accepting? Shane can’t tell if the goalposts have moved in the last fifteen months. Shane’s end goal is that they all come together as a happy family, the four of them. What are his parents' end goals though?
They settle, disharmoniously and awkwardly, on making reservations somewhere for the four of them, but Shane no longer sees this as a win. Instead he feels like he has lost something: his dignity, perhaps, or his sense of self. His independence.
Certainly his self respect.
He shares this with Ilya the next night on the phone.
“Well, I’m happy you were able to set a boundary,” Ilya says.
“What do you mean?”
“Meeting at a restaurant instead of at your house,” Ilya replies.
“That’s not a boundary. It’s a way to make it easier for us to leave and be alone.”
Ilya scratches his nose with his thumb. “Yeah. That’s a boundary, Shane.”
“How is that a boundary? A boundary would be telling them that, like…I don’t know, it would be telling them to get with the program and accept that I’m gay and dating you, or get lost.”
“Sure, that’s also a boundary. But that’s a much bigger boundary. You are creating your house to be a safe space, and you’re setting rules for yourself so that you are more comfortable when you meet up with them.”
Shane contemplates this, but he’s not entirely sure he agrees.
“It just feels like I’m trying to hold onto a sinking ship,” he decides.
“My therapist and I spend a lot of time talking about boundaries. Mainly how few I had in place with my family. I don’t want to – I really am not trying to make any comparisons here, between our situations, but I am proud that you are creating a boundary for yourself so that you can find some peace in a real shitty situation.”
“You talk about boundaries?” Shane asks, interest piqued. Ilya’s sessions with his therapist, Galina, are infrequently discussed between the two of them. Ilya only brings them up on occasion, and generally when he is trying to share with Shane something he feels is incredibly important.
“Yeah,” Ilya replies.
Shane sometimes feels like he’s pulling strings with Ilya, puppeteering him into opening up. He’s always struggled with it, but Shane thinks Ilya’s gotten a lot better since they became a couple officially. It’s just harder when they’re apart, though. Shane’s noticed that Ilya responds so much more positively to physical touch than he does to verbal communication, and not being able to touch him or hold him when they’re having more emotional conversations means Ilya can sometimes get scared off quicker from opening up.
“Boundaries in what way?”
“Honestly,” Ilya says, and his voice pitches lower. Shane’s heart drops into his stomach because he doesn’t like how Ilya’s eyes have gone downcast, refusing to look at him. “About us. This situation, I guess.”
“What do you mean?” Shane’s heart is definitely beating off rhythm.
“I…I think you’re doing a great job, I just… I had no boundaries with my family. None. I answered when they called, I gave them money when they wanted it. Demanded it. Whatever,” Ilya waves his hand, eschewing away the past. “I let them treat me like shit, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I had to wait for my dad to die until I finally grew a spine and stood up to my brother, and even then it ended with me losing an entire apartment and tens of thousands in cash. I suck at creating clear boundaries.”
Shane nods. He thinks he’s starting to understand; Ilya has always put himself in uncomfortable situations for the ones he loves. He believes taking the brunt of it and still surviving makes him strong, makes him a man, makes him someone who doesn’t need help. And someone who doesn’t need help is strong, according to what Ilya’s father always told him. Shane’s had the joy of watching Ilya learn to love himself and respect himself again, battling depression and learning to share with Shane what’s going on with him when Shane knows Ilya would much rather turn his phone off and hide from reality and power through his mental health like depression is something that can be ignored into submission.
“It’s nice to see you being able to create a boundary with your parents, is all. I’m proud of you. You’re very strong.”
Shane wants to shoot back no I’m not, and but this situation is so different than with your own family.
But is it?
Shane’s mom is reliant on his money, just as Ilya’s father and brother were. His parents have not been respecting him, just like Ilya’s father and brother didn’t respect him. Shane sits there while his parents insult his partner, or ignore him, or leer at him like he’s half a step away from kidnapping Shane and forcing him on a destination wedding to Hell.
“Do you think I should be setting up more, like, boundaries?” Shane asks.
“I think you need to go at whatever pace is best for you. But I also think you should consider talking to someone about this.”
“I am. I’m talking to you. You think I should talk to like, Hayden?”
“No,” Ilya says. “God no. I mean, you can. But I meant more like a therapist.”
“A therapist? Like my sports psych?” Shane feels like his brain might be glitching.
“No, someone independent from hockey. Your own Galina.”
Shane bites his lip, a million thoughts running through his head. His first thought is to rebuff the idea. His second is to say he doesn’t need that. His third thought is that maybe he actually does.
“You think that will help?”
“I think it will, yeah,” Ilya replies.
“Can you like, walk me through why you think it will help?”
Ilya runs his hand through his curls.
“Galina doesn’t tell me what to do, she just helps me realize what I want to do, and helps me put things in place so I can follow through. If I want. She helps me understand my thoughts and how to interrupt them when they’re dark and scary. And I think you have spent the last year and a half, almost, in this state of panic about your parents. And I get it. Or, I get it as much as I can, I guess. Sorry, I’m rambling.”
Ilya takes a deep breath, and Shane’s leg bounces uncontrollably out of control off frame.
“What is happening with your parents really sucks, Shane. You deserve better, and I’m sorry that they aren’t able to love you and accept you for who you are. You are a good person, malysh. You are kind and thoughtful, you’re giving, you’re funny. You’re so supportive of me and those around you. You’re an amazing Captain, a great friend, and the best boyfriend. I wish they could see that. I think if you had a therapist to talk through everything happening with your parents, and also the feeling of loneliness that comes with being in the closet, it might lessen some of the burden weighing you down.”
Shane nods, taking in everything Ilya is saying. He thinks he’s only realizing now that the last sixteen months have been really emotionally terrible for him. Not just bad, but awful. His anxiety has been through the roof, he feels like he has pulled back a bit from his team, and every time he’s with his parents it feels more like a chore than an enjoyment. Like he’s folding clean laundry so it doesn’t end up back on the floor.
“How do I find a therapist?”
Ilya offers to help him, and Shane thanks him but asks if they can postpone this until their next mutual day off four days from now. He’s exhausted and just wants to sleep, and Ilya is in a different time zone and it’s already past midnight for him.
Before they go their separate ways, though, Shane has one more question he wants to bring up to Ilya. It’s something he’s been wondering for a bit now, but has been too scared to ask.
“Do you think…uhm, that you need, like…” It’s really hard for him to spit this out, and he internally acknowledges that he’s very scared of the answer. But he has to know, because Ilya has just shared something deeply personal with Shane, and Shane suddenly feels like maybe everything that’s been happening with him and his parents has affected Ilya more than Ilya has let on. “Do you think you need boundaries in place with my parents?”
Ilya looks at him wide eyed.
“It’s okay if you do,” Shane offers.
Ilya says nothing, looks off camera, scratches the mole on his face.
“Can we talk about this later? I’m very tired.”
Shane releases the breath he was holding and nods. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, trying to remove any and all emotion from his voice. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They say their goodbyes, and Shane promises himself that there are two things he needs to do: he needs to rely on his friends a bit more so he can give Ilya a break, and he needs to stand up for Ilya against his parents more vocally.
It’s a gut punch to know that Ilya has probably been ignoring his own needs, emotions, boundaries, and self worth just for the sake of Shane’s. Something has to change.
Shane finds a few Ottawa houses that he likes and that fit Ilya’s few requirements. His mom never did send him the information for the realtor her friend used, so Shane went on and found his own. He shared that this move wasn’t entirely finalized, but he wanted to see what the housing landscape was like.
He’s decided that instead of forcing his mom and Ilya to look at houses together, even with Shane as a buffer, that it will be best for Ilya if his mom looks around the market now and sends Shane and Ilya her thoughts and suggestions via text.
It’s the middle of November and his parents are still on vacation, but they’re due back in a week and he and his mom have been texting occasionally. He’s sent over a few listings, several of which are under twenty minutes from his parents house, but he hasn’t heard back from his mom regarding them. No big deal, they’ve been busy.
He’s enjoyed seeing all the pictures she’s sent of their trip through Spain, and acknowledges that she and her father look happy and relaxed. He figures now’s as good a time as any to follow up.
Shane: Do you think you'd be able to stop by any of the listings when you're back? My realtor said she’s happy to meet up with you and show you the places. Just have to make an appt
His mom responds with updated pictures from a hike they did outside of Seville, but does not answer his question.
Shane: Looks like fun!
Shane: Were you able to look at any of the listings i sent?
Again, no response. Shane sent over five listings and his mom never acknowledged them.
A day later, he tries one more time.
Shane: Mom, I sorta need to know if you’re able to view any of the houses. My realtor keeps bugging me about it.
Three hours later, his mom replies.
Mom: Shane, I think it might be best for Ilya to look at those houses. After all, he’s the only one who knows what he wants.
Shane: Ilya will look at them. We’re just hoping to narrow down a few options and get your opinion on things. You know what I like.
Mom: What you like and what Ilya likes are two different things
Shane: Yeah, but Ilya’s really chill about this. I promise. When it comes to decorating he will have far more thoughts. Can you at least check out the one in Rockcliffe Park? Just for design. I don’t think we want to live in that neighborhood.
Mom: Shane, I think Ilya should be searching for his own house.
Shane: This isn’t just his house though. We’re buying it together. I’m going to move in at some point. And I want your help.
Mom: I’m not sure that’s such a good idea
Shane: What’s not?
Mom: I think we should talk about this when we’re back home. We can grab dinner and chat
Shane: No, I want to talk about this now
Shane: Why isn’t it a good idea to help us look for a house?
Mom: Shane, we will talk about this when I’m home.
And, because Shane just feels like he needs to poke the bear a little bit.
Shane: You know that we will be moving in together, right? The whole point of Ilya coming to the Centaurs is so we can find a place, maybe mid-way, and move in together
Mom: I have some reservations about this, but it’s best we talk when we’re home. I have to go, Shane. I love you.
Shane does not feel the love. He puts his phone down and goes back to PT where he and his trainer are working on rehabbing a sore shoulder.
Hayden only knows what Shane tells him, and Shane will admit that it isn’t too much. The nature of their lives means that Shane can’t frequently bring his boyfriend around to his friends houses, even if he wants to, or talk about him in public or go out golfing or pickleballing or what have you. When Boston and Montreal play each other, the last thing Shane wants to do is sacrifice one-on-one time with Ilya so he can bring him around Hayden and JJ and all hang out. And in the summer everyone goes off and does their own thing.
As a result, Hayden and Ilya have only hung out socially a handful of times in the last sixteen months they’ve been official. Their gatherings go okay, for the most part. Shane feels so protective of his relationship with Ilya that he keeps it so close to his chest, not sharing with Hayden or JJ all the things happening between him and Ilya. He doesn’t really talk about his relationship beyond a cursory “yeah, everything’s great. Ilya’s doing well.”
He’s beginning to realize he has maybe painted himself in a corner and he needs to find a way out of it.
He goes to Hayden’s house one afternoon during a rest day. His wife, Jackie, generally uses those days to go out and see her own friends and family, or go do self-care, or just hide in her room while Hayden takes over parenting duties to give her a rest.
After the kids are fed lunch and everyone is playing outside, Hayden hands a beer to Shane and plops down on the outdoor couch next to him.
“Cheers.” Hayden taps their bottles together.
Shane thinks now may be a good time to start leaving the corner he’s stuck in.
“Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.”
“Uhm, I…” Shane pauses, gulps, takes a sip of his beer.
“You okay?” Hayden asks.
“Sort of not, actually. Fuck,” Shane exclaims. “Okay, ripping the bandaid off,” he mutters to himself. “My parents are actually like, pretty not okay with me being gay and dating Ilya, and it’s sort of really fucking me up.”
“What?” Hayden says. “What do you mean they’re not okay?”
“Like, they don’t want to meet up with Ilya. They don’t want to spend time together. If I mention that we should all get together, they beg off. If I bring him up, they don’t really engage.”
“You think they hate Ilya or they don’t like you being gay?”
“Both.”
“Your parents? Your mom literally lives and breathes you. She’s your biggest fan.”
“That’s what’s making this complicated.” Shane begins peeling the label off his beer, picking at it slowly. “And it’s weird, because she’ll go back and forth with saying I know you’re gay and then like, try to introduce me to women.”
“That’s…odd,” Hayden says.
“Yeah, really fucking odd. It’s just sort of messing with me.”
“You really think your mom is homophobic?” Hayden asks.
“I guess? I never thought she would be. Or like, I don’t know. I never noticed she was, I guess. Growing up. I don’t know if I thought they’d be completely okay with me being gay, but I didn’t think there’d be this hostility. And they like, really don’t like Ilya, even though they haven’t spent much time with him.”
Hayden fidgets a bit, and Shane realizes he has accidentally walked Hayden into a trap as well.
“Shit, sorry. That wasn’t like, a condemnation of you. I swear.”
Hayden’s quiet for a moment.
“It’s okay if it was. I know I haven’t been the best with him. And I’m sorry for that.”
They sit in silence for a moment and Shane watches as Ruby pushes Jade down a slide while Jade screams she wasn’t ready yet. Arthur is playing in the sandbox, and Amber is blowing bubbles off in her own world.
“I know he can be an asshole, but he isn’t to me. And I love him. I…if I tell you something I really need you to keep it secret.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Top secret. This cannot get out, Hayd.”
“Shoot.”
“Ilya is trying to move to Ottawa.”
Hayden literally chokes on his own saliva.
“What the fuck?! Are you fucking serious?”
“As a heart attack. We want to start this foundation, too. Go public with it. So that if we’re ever seen together it won’t be such a big deal. We can say we became friends.”
“Friends,” Hayden says humorlessly.
“It’s a small step in the right direction.” Shane defends.
“And he’s willing to move to Ottawa? They are one of the worst teams in the league, Shane.”
Shane nods, rips more of the label off his beer before all the small, wet pieces of paper start disintegrating and annoying him. He places the beer on the coffee table in front of them.
“For the record, I didn’t ask him to do this. He offered, the summer before last. It’s just really hard to be so far away from him. For both of us, I think we need this. It’s serious, Hayden. Really serious.”
“Marriage, kids, the whole lot? That serious?”
“That serious,” Shane nods and leans back against the cushions. He runs his hands over his eyes and hair, pulling a little. “And it’s fucked up because I legit don’t think my parents would be cool with it.”
“How uncool with it do you think it will be?”
“It’s already uncool. My mom has gone off the ledge a bit, with my endorsements, not wanting to spend any time with Ilya. I asked if she’d help us look for a house and she just keeps ignoring it and pushing back.”
“How’s your dad?”
“Worse, maybe. We talk less. He seems really interested in me ‘expanding my social circle’ and ‘meeting new people’. Which feels like code for befriend more women.”
“I thought gay guys had a lot of female friends.”
“He doesn’t mean it in a gay way. He means it in a ‘if Shane meets more women maybe he’ll end up liking them’ kind of way.”
“So your parents are like, legit homophobic,” Hayden concludes.
It’s sort of a gut punch for Hayden of all people to confirm this.
“What does Ilya think about all this?” Hayden asks, briefly taking a pause from giving Shane his entire attention to yell at Ruby to stop bullying Jade.
“He’s been really great, supportive of me, but not wanting to get involved in my relationship with my parents.”
“What, like, leaving you to fend for yourself?”
“No, no, nothing like that. More like he’s just supportive of whatever choices I make. If I want him to sit through a dinner from hell where my parents make petty comments and ignore him, he will. If I need to vent about them, he lets me and he doesn’t offer advice. Not unless I ask him for it. But I do feel bad, like, putting him in all these shitty situations with my parents.”
“He just…sits there and takes it? When your parents are dicks to him. He doesn’t push back?”
“Yeah,” Shane confirms. “I don’t know, it’s so fucked up. I just want them all to get along. Ilya’s trying so hard, but yeah…”
Hayden sits there quietly for a moment.
“I think anyone willing to move to the fucking Centaurs for a relationship is someone who is really committed to you, Shane. And that he is trying so hard with your parents still…. I’m sorry your parents can’t see how much he loves you.”
Shane does not let the tears fall from his eyes, blinking them away as quickly as he can, the validation he’s receiving from Hayden being more impactful than he expected.
Almost exactly one year ago, a few months after being outed, Rose Landry came to visit Shane in Montreal.
He had a home game and a much needed two days off, and it made for the perfect short visit.
In Montreal Shane appreciates a certain level of anonymity. He isn’t subjected to a ton of paparazzi, unless at events, but he is used to being recognized and having covert pictures taken of him, especially when he’s near any sort of sports bar.
But when he’s with Rose, things change spectacularly.
On this occasion, she came to his game decked out in his jersey and the rumors abounded that their relationship was back on. They went shopping, they had brunch, they enjoyed an evening out at a very nice restaurant, and everywhere they went – snap snap snap – pictures were taken and a small group of paparazzi followed.
“I’m happy I at least dressed up,” Shane commented to her jovially. He still, to this day, uses the stylist Rose recommended all those years ago, and feels good in his clothes and his skin when he’s out and about with her. Though a small part of him daydreamed about doing this with Ilya instead.
Their visit, though brief, was incredibly soul lifting for Shane, and it left him in such a good mood. Rose is one of the few people in his life who not only knows about his relationship with Ilya, but who supports it wholeheartedly. She even seems to like Ilya, despite also only having met him and spoken to him a handful of times. It’s a weight off his shoulders, his friendship with Rose, because he thinks it’s the one person in his life who affirms Shane in everything he’s doing.
She can talk hockey with her, they can talk about Ilya and brand deals and the pressure of wanting to succeed, and she can keep a secret like no one else. She only knows Ilya as Shane’s devoted and loving boyfriend, so Shane can gush all about Ilya to her and not be afraid of how she might react. After she left, when the internet started pushing the narrative that they were back together, she knew exactly how to walk the line of being open about their relationship status but not allowing anyone to force details out of her.
For nearly a week after her departure back to Los Angeles, his buddies on the team would send him paparazzi shots and trashy gossip rag links alluding to an on-again-off-again (and then back on-again) relationship between him and Rose. This was right before the rumors of his sexuality took off, and perhaps the last time he remembers his teammates being able to shoot the shit with him about dating.
He spoke the truth, which is they’re just friends and nothing is happening between them, but it didn’t do much to quell the jokes and compliments and “you dirty dog” commentary.
Hayden and JJ kept quiet, the only ones who knew the truth, and Shane let the discourse slide.
That is, until his father reached out to him.
It started with a simple text message.
Dad: Rose came out for the week? Looks like you had fun!
Shane: Just for a few days to catch up
Dad: That’s nice
End of conversation. At least it should have been.
His dad brought it up during what was once a weekly call, which by now has fallen to the wayside.
“So Rose came out,” he said on a random Thursday afternoon while Shane was in Vegas for a game.
“Yeah. She had some free time and it had been a while since we’d seen each other.”
“How was it?”
“Her visit? Yeah, it was nice. We caught up.”
“Lovely. What did you do?”
“She actually took me to this boutique I had never heard of. We went shopping. She actually picked it because she said she thought Ilya might like it. I picked him up a shirt, bought some cufflinks."
“Oh,” his father said, voice dripping with surprise. “You and Ilya, you’re still a thing?”
Shane, not ignorant to his parents' dislike of Ilya but, at the time, hopeful it was just a phase, responded sincerely.
“Of course. He’s actually been talking to his management team about trying to get to the Centaurs after free agency. The plan’s still on, for him to move to Canada and all.” Shane was walking around Vegas, trying to get some fresh air before he had to report to the buses at the hotel for the game later.
“Really.” Shane could pick up on some disdain.
“Yeah,” he said with more force.
“Huh, I just thought maybe you and Rose were back together. That’s all.”
“Why would I be back together with Rose?”
“I don’t know. You just looked so happy, in all the pictures I saw online.”
“I was happy,” Shane said, no nonsense. “I was hanging out with one of my closest friends.”
“I’m not trying to insinuate anything, Shane,” his father defended, as if Shane was making this entire situation up. His father most certainly was insinuating something. “I’m just saying I was wondering if you and Rose were back together, that’s all.”
“I’m gay, dad. You know this.”
“I know, I know. Sometimes love just comes around.”
Shane had no idea what his father was referring to, and at that time he was too green to know not to ask and just ignore it.
“What do you mean? Ilya and I are together, and in love. And, again, I’m gay.”
“It’s just, you know, relatively new, you and Ilya, you liking guys, so I wasn’t sure if it was still happening.”
“Relatively new? Dad, we told you we’ve been together since we were teenagers.”
“Ah, no,” his father said. “You told us you were fooling around since you were teenagers. I just thought you were ready to settle down, and saw you with Rose and wondered if that’s what was happening. That’s all, Shane.”
That’s all.
Shane saw white he was so mad. And confused.
“I am, though, settling down. With Ilya. You and mom really need to get over how you feel about him.”
Shane remembers being so naive, last year, thinking that his parents were just a little bit behind the times and that they would quickly still come around to him and Ilya. He remembers thinking they weren’t homophobic, just a little old school and traditional. All they needed was to get with the program and then everything would be smooth sailing.
“This isn’t about how I feel about him, Shane. It’s about how he treats you.”
“How does he treat me?”
“He’s a bit provocative, son. He pushes you on the ice–”
“That’s cause I’m playing against him, dad. I’m just as aggressive towards him. We told you that we don’t let each other win.”
“And, I don’t know, I’m just concerned about him. And your future together.”
“What do you mean?” Shane extended his walk, having realized that this conversation was far from over and not one he could take in his hotel room.
“I mean, you say he likes both – men and women – right?”
“Yeah, he’s bisexual.”
“And you’re not concerned he won’t find a woman?”
Shane felt like a bucket of ice had been poured on him. Because he himself had been concerned, not that long ago, that Ilya could choose what Shane thought was an easier life: find a woman, settle down, get married, and have kids the easier way. Ilya spent months assuring him that wasn’t the case for him, getting so angry about it at times that it actually caused fights.
I can’t choose who I love, Shane. Just like you can’t either.
It took some time but Shane had come to the conclusion that, as Ilya had stated a few times, it was pretty biphobic of him to keep flinging some heteronormative ideal onto Ilya when he was in Shane’s life constantly yelling about how much he loves Shane and how he wants to be with him forever. It’s always been you, Shane, Ilya said, and I think I’ve shown you as much. In the end that was all Shane needed to hear to realize that Ilya was in this relationship 100% and Shane himself needed to accept that, move on, and stop looking for outs for Ilya.
“No,” Shane said to his dad with finality. “I’m not concerned that Ilya will leave me for another woman, or another man, or anyone. And if we do break up, it won’t be because he’s promiscuous, or whatever it is you think.”
“Shane–”
“Listen, I have to go. I have a game tonight.”
He hung up before his father could say anything else, but he did see the text message his father sent after he got back to his hotel room.
Dad: I’m sorry you’re upset. I love you.
Shane gullibly mistook this at face value as an apology.
Shane: Thanks. I love you too
He didn’t even share this incident with Ilya, not until weeks later, when his father brought up Rose a second time during a dinner together, and Shane realized that his father hadn’t left this in the past like Shane thought he would.