Chaddie-Sea

"I'm just thinking about when we met. There should have been some sort of sign."

"There was, you pointed out the no smoking sign, was first thing you said."

Shane smiles, "sure but it just seems crazy to me that I met you and no one told me that I'd just met the most important person I'll ever know."

Ilya felt like he'd just been sideswiped by his husband. It was so like Shane to just be thinking the most romantic thing Ilya's ever heard while Ilya's playing candy crush.

"I thought that I'd found the thing that would make me happiest in the world already, and I did, because hockey led me to meeting you. It's just crazy is all"

As Shane and Ilya are going through the box, Ilya pulls out a little Centaurs branded notebook, with "Shane's Fun Facts!" written on the front in sharpie. Ilya is understandably delighted.

"What is this?" he asks, smiling from ear to ear, quickly yanking it out of the reach of Shane who immediately tries to swipe it out of his hands.

"It's nothing," says Shane, but the way his cheeks have gone pink behind his freckles tells another story.

"Uh-uh. It cannot be nothing if you don't want me to see it this badly."

Turning his back to Shane so he can't easily grab at it, Ilya opens to a random page and reads in Shane's 8-year-old scrawl:

Lightning bolts are five times hotter than the sun. That is very hot!

Ilya is grinning even wider now.

"Wow, Solnyshko, that is a fun fact."

"Fuck off," Shane says. He doesn't even attempt to grab it again, just kind of collapses and bonks his head into Ilya's shoulder. "I used to have trouble making friends as a kid. Dad suggested I start collecting facts to use as icebreakers. Y'know, to get conversations going."

"Did they work?" asks Ilya, tilting his head so that it rests on top of Shane's as his husband gives an almighty sigh.

"I think they made it worse, actually."

Ilya turns to another page and reads it out loud.

"Oology is the study of eggs. It's so cool because it looks like there are three eggs in the word!"

"Oh god," says Shane, burying his face further into Ilya's neck.

"I think you knew all the worst kids in Canada," says Ilya, putting down the book and wrapping his arms around Shane. "Those facts would have worked on me."

"Really?" asks Shane, glancing up at Ilya's face to see if he's teasing him, but Ilya is being perfectly serious.

"Of course. You came up to me and started telling me fun facts straight away, remember? 'I don't think you can smoke here.' 'Wow, Rozanov, you are the best player ever to watch.'"

"Fuck off, I didn't say that," laughs Shane.

"Well, it was something like that," says Ilya, pressing a kiss to the top of Shane's head. "So at least the fun facts worked when it mattered, yes? Imagine where we'd be if you hadn't come over to break the ice."

And Shane tugs Ilya even closer.

The FDA has upgraded an egg recall issued last month to “Class I,” its highest risk level, as it warns the public that consuming the products could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death.”

The recall of 1,589,577 dozen white-shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs was initially issued by Midwest Poultry Services in late July, which warned they might be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

According to the company, the eggs were produced and distributed from farms in Texas between June 6 and July 3 and have sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and August 17. The recalled egg cartons have either the code P-1950 or 0840962 and Julian Dates between 157-184.

He is now regular part of the little card playing group, playing one or two rounds of poker or asshole at the beginning of their flight. They are laughing and trashtalking and Shane's pleasently suprised he's not getting thrown out the group for ripping the others off with his stone hard poker face.

Shane accidentally started a book club that now semi-regularly holds meetings in their airplane to discuss hockey books, a tradtion that started when Luca asked Shane what he was reading and then proceeded to buy the books as well, which caused a handful more team members to follow suit.

But his favourite thing to do is talking shop with Ilya. Both off them sticking their heads together over their ipad, going though game tape, discussing strategies, examine plays with a level of perspicacity reserved just for them. Often they sit together with Bood and Troy, so they all can exchange their experiences with different opponents, examine weaknesses and strengths & Shane finds so much calm and joy in being part of a group of like-minded people, talking like equals, like a real team, not having to carry the burden of being the head of the team alone.

Ilya is 38 when his first child is born. A boy who comes into the world almost silently, though he has a pair of lungs on him when prompted. Shane is so strong and brave. The pregnancy was healthy but the labor was difficult and came to a head in the middle of the night. Their their son's birthday was determined by a matter of minutes--born at 12:04 AM, just past midnight.

It's four in the morning now. And Shane sleeps, half with the assistance of drugs and half under his own determination because he is taking sleep when the baby sleeps as gospel on par with the puck goes in the net. Ilya has been awake for twenty-nine hours. Yuna is passed out on a pink medical recliner and the baby rests in his bassinet. He's newborn fussy even in sleep. His squashed little face only barely peeks out from between the blue hat and swaddle. Underneath the swaddle, he's already dressed in his dad's colors--Boston Bayonet blue and 24 on the tummy. They have it in newborn, 3, 6, and 12 month sizes. Just in case.

Ilya doesn't know what else to do, can't let himself close his eyes, mostly because he suddenly needs to see that little chest rising and falling to be able to breathe himself. So he's sitting there, watching the rise and fall of his son's chest, and he thinks about fatherhood, and he thinks about how he can't stand the idea of anyone hurting this tiny person, even himself, and he thinks about--

It's nearly noon in Moscow. Ilya doesn't know why he cares or why he's thinking it until he has his phone in his hand and unblocking and dialing a number he hasn't called in almost ten years.

"Hi," he says, when the number goes through to voicemail. He puts his head a little closer to his son's. Wants him to hear this language he hopes to share. "I don't know why--don't think that this is--" He sighs, takes in a breath, and starts over.

"Hi," he says again. "I wanted to let you know. Shane gave birth today. It is a boy. Healthy. He has Shane's eyes and hair. My nose. Mama's nose." He waits for the lump to go down in his throat. "We named him David. After Shane's father. Little Davidka. He is...very small. And perfect. And I am a father. I thought you should know." He considers half a dozen more things he can say--updates spanning the last decade, pleasantries, even a threat or two. None of them can be compelled to emerge. Instead he says, "Okay. Bye."

Most Black folks in the US have a deeply painful racial story having to do with interactions with white "friends," including me.

I had a unique experience of going to very diverse schools my entire life, but my family moved out to a mostly white suburb when I was around 11 or 12 years old. So I had friends of all kinds of different backgrounds at school, but my neighborhood friends were almost entirely white. Which was mostly fine as a kid. I even had two of these friends as groomsmen in my wedding.

Things changed shortly after the murder of Trayvon Martin. This is when I started getting more vocal online about racism, anti-Blackness, and the injustices I was observing and grieving throughout the country. It didn't take long at all for the friends from this group to go from uncomfortable, to combative, and then to all blocking me on social media. Once I started talking about race too much, they abandoned me by walking out of my life, which was incredibly painful. These were all very nice, generous, and kind people in every other context of their lives. But something about their racial identity development caused them to turn on me immediately once my voice around race became uncomfortable for them.

Those experiences, along with countless others I've had in my life from white peers, white educators, white store employees, and more, have taught me to be very careful about trusting white folks. Because I have been burned in so many ways in my life.