The second dinner goes better than the first. His mom texts before coming over and everything’s as clean as it always is and there’s no evidence of what him and Ilya are doing all over the cottage. He cooks and Mom manages about five minutes of sitting on the sidelines before she’s budging into the kitchen with him, tasting and setting out spices and washing dishes as he finishes with them even if he’s going to use it again in five minutes.
They’re all talking about hockey, a nice safe topic that all of them can go on about until possibly the end of time, but he feels Ilya’s eyes on him and wonders what he’s thinking about, if he’s categorizing the differences and what he thinks about them. He doesn’t like people getting in his way while he cooks and Ilya limits himself to being annoying or affectionate, or both, but doesn’t try and help after Shane made it clear he didn’t want him to. But it doesn’t bother him when Mom does it. She knows how to do it right.
They’ve finished eating and Ilya has poured them drinks and Shane thinks that everything is fine, but then Mom squeezes Dad’s shoulder and tells him she just has to check something and steps outside.
Shane gives it two minutes of trying to pay attention to what his father and Ilya are talking about, but his face is hot and his throat is tight and he knows his mother. He pushes his chair back and walks outside, waving vaguely when Ilya says his name.
Mom is standing next to the unlit fire pit, arms crossed and gaze distant. It’s not cold, but he pulls off his flannel and drapes it over her shoulders. She startles, then smiles and tugs it closer around her. He has so many memories of being a little kid coming off the ice and shivering into her waiting arms. She’d take off her jacket and bundle him into it, her warmth seeping into him even as goosebumps raised on her skin.
“Mom,” he starts then doesn’t know what else to say. If there is anything else to say.
“Do you like your brand deals?” she asks.
He lets out a breath that’s something between a sigh and a laugh. “What?”
“If you don’t, we can change them,” she continues. “Or get new ones, or just drop them. I know we keep a busy press schedule and that, I mean, I can reduce it. And – and you don’t have to deal with them, if you don’t want to, or you can, if you do. Whatever you want.”
Her voice is tight like she’s going to cry and he feels out of his depth, confused and fumbling, which he doesn’t like. He’s used to knowing exactly what she’s thinking. “Mom. What’s this about? The sponsors are fine, the press is fine.”
She nods, but she’s not looking at him. She breaths in deeply, then again, and once he counts the third breath, she opens her mouth to speak, just like he knew she would. “I know you want to be a good son. And you are,” she says quickly when he flinches, raising a hand to cup his cheek. He leans into it. He’s never done anything else. “You are a good son. You’re the best son. I love you so much and I’m so proud of you and I wouldn’t change you for the world. You are the most perfect son I could ask for, alright?” He nods, trying to keep his jaw from trembling, knowing that she can feel it. “But I want to be a good mom too.”
“You are,” he says, panic and guilt hot in his stomach. What did he do to make her think she wasn’t? “You are a good mom.”
He learned to cook peering around his mother’s waist, by grabbing the spices she asked for and licking the spoon she’d hold to his lips and listening to her explain pan searing and roux and simmering as he washed each dish she’d hand him. He wants the people he loves to come to him shivering and know he’ll keep them warm. He learned that from her too.
“I didn’t know this big thing about you, and I know you said you forgive me for making you feel like you couldn’t tell me, but I worry. I know I’m hard on you, but am I too hard? Do I manage you too much? You’d tell me if I was doing things in a way you wouldn’t like, wouldn’t you? Because you can. I’m great with constructive feedback.” She rubs her thumb against his cheek. “I’ll be better.”
He recognizes the look on her face from looking in the mirror, from every time he fucked up at practice or a game or made the crew work late during a photoshoot or messed up some social interaction he just couldn’t figure out how to navigate. Determination and guilt and pain that he’s never been able to explain to anyone else, but with his mom he’s never had to.
Maybe not everything he’s learned from her is a good thing. But there’s so much more good than bad.
“This, Ilya and all of it, it’s the only secret I’ve ever kept from you,” he say. “It’s okay. I forgive you.” He doesn’t feel like there’s that much to forgive. He’d told Ilya that his parents would be okay with him being gay, and he’d known that, he had, he’d just been scared. But he knows Mom won’t accept him taking the blame for this, so he doesn’t try. “You are a good mom, and a good manager, and I would tell you if I wanted something different, but I don’t. You are exactly the mom I want. Not different, not better.”
She nods, blinking, says, “Okay,” and pulls him into her.
He drops his head on her shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. She rubs a hand up and down his back and counts each of his shaky breaths out loud until they steady, until he can pull himself together, but he keeps his arms around her even after that. Because he loves her, and she’s his mom, and she loves him.
Ilya frowns as he looks out the window, seeing Shane curl into his mother in a way that makes him feel warmth and worry and longing all in one. He bites the inside of his cheek then asks David, “This happens often?”
He’s watching them too and his lips twitch into a smile before he shrugs. “Yes and no. They’re not often out of step. It upsets them both when they are.” He glances towards Ilya, visibly hesitating before saying, “Yuna was up most of the night.”
“Making plans and thinking too much,” he nods. “Like Shane.”
David’s smile widens. “Ah, you’re familiar with the process?”
“He woke me up at four in morning talking of Ottowa,” he says. “I was not thinking in English yet. Very confusing.”
“You’re really okay with this plan of his?” he asks. “This has Shane’s thinking all of over it. Ottowa isn’t exactly a great team.”
“Yes.” He does not understand their confusion with this. Hockey is good. Shane is better. “Is a good plan. Why argue?”
Well, arguing a little about the specifics because riling Shane up is one of his favorite past times, but in general it’s a solid plan. It means he gets to keep Shane.
David’s sudden burst of laughter surprises him, but he’s grinning when he clinks his glass against Ilya’s. “Son, you’ve unlocked the secret to a happy marriage.”
It’s a joke, clearly, but it’s a good thing Russians don’t blush. The heat in his face is something else, of course.
He makes sure his smile is perfectly innocent when Shane and Yuna come back inside. By Shane’s narrowed eyes, he doesn’t buy it, but Shane’s interrogation will have to wait until his parents are gone. And well out of hearing range.
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