Hi!

Poor thing, she's dying from cringe 😔

finally

She loved having a task, she excelled at having a task. 

Her current task, while with a bit more moving parts than others, was her most interesting task since Shane was 4 and Get Him into the MHL slotted into her mind. This task was a curly haired Russian, that she spent the better part of the decade indignantly annoyed at, sitting in her living room looking through a baby photo album with her husband while her red-faced son pointedly watched an uninteresting rerun game on the television. 

She leaned against the doorframe, allowing herself a moment to enjoy something she was starting to worry she would never have - Shane with a partner. Over the years, her vision of her son’s future shifted from him and hockey-loving, kind wife to him with a husband. But never could she have thought Rozanov would be that husband. Not that they were husbands - apparently they were only boyfriends as of a few days ago. 

Still, she always joked to her friends that Shane was married to hockey. His hockey rival and second best player in the league was probably as close as he could legally get to marrying hockey. 

She must have let out a small laugh that Shane misinterpreted as being directed at David showing Ilya photos of his fifth halloween - the first one where he was old enough to choose his own outfit. And, exactly two months after he started playing hockey. 

“Mom!” He whined. ‘Fully grown adult’ her ass. 

“Yes, honey?”

“A hockey player, Hollander?” Ilya teased, delight shining through his features. 

“Not just any player,” he grumbled. 

“You’ll never guess what he was next year.”

“Not the same one!” Shane protested. Ilya must not have realized that he stumbled into a decades long argument that no, Shane, dressing up as different hockey players is not a different costume. 

Eventually the conversation transitioned into dinner. After it was decided there wasn’t much at the house, and they couldn’t go out with Ilya with them, something that sent a little pang of hurt through Yuna’s chest, they all got on their various food delivery apps to look for a suitable place. 

Then eventually settled on a sushi-fusion restaurant that Ilya found and his phone was passed around for everyone to place their orders. 

When Ilya got his phone back, Shane leaned over and asked, “how much is mine and my parents?”

Ilya scoffed, a little insulted. Though he shouldn’t be, Yuna considered, Shane had always had a very rigid sense of fairness and would get upset if he thought something was unfair. A lot of people found it annoying. Yuna found it incredibly sweet. 

“I am worth 12 million dollars, Hollander, I think I can afford DoorDash.” 

“12 million?” Yuna’s eyebrows shot up. Because, what. That couldn't be his total net worth, could it?

“Yes, I am very rich.” 

“No, that’s…” she trailed off. “What are you spending so much money on?”

“Jesus mom, you can’t just ask that.”

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question. Between his MHL salary and sponsorships, that’s low.”

“That is low?” Ilya looked at Shane. “How much money do you have in bank?”

Shane groaned. “You’re as bad as her. And most of my assets are tied up in investments and stocks.” 

Ilya had a blank look. “Okay.” 

“Ilya, do you have a financial advisor?” Yuna asked. “Or a wealth manager?”

“I think so?” 

Yuna clicks her tongue. Task. 

“Shane’s net worth is public information - he’s worth about 120 million. He has about an eighth of that in liquid assets - money in the bank.” 

“You really have that much money?” 

“He’s the highest paid player in the league,” Yuna said with no small amount of pride. She did negotiate a ground breaking 8 year 50 million dollar contract after his rookie season. “He also has nine premium sponsors, not to mention his investment portfolio. You should be nearly at that too - you two have had very similar careers.” 

“Hmm,” Ilya shrugged and turned to her son. “Is okay, you can be my - what is the word, sugar daddy?”

“Never say that again.” 

“Anyway,” Yuna continued. “I can send you some recommendations for an advisor. I mean, it's your money of course, but it can go fast. Especially with how early hockey players generally retire. Or if you get injured, god forbid.”

“No, it’s,” Ilya shifted in his seat, eyes cutting to Shane. “That is good. You can send advisor details. Thank you.” 

“Of course,” Yuna dismissed. Ilya thanked them much too often. But it didn’t feel performative. It felt genuine. 

~*~*~*~

Eventually, Yuna got an opportunity to sit down with Ilya and his new financial advisor. He had asked her, somewhat shyly, if she would attend their meeting. Now that he and Shane were out, he had decided to take her up on the new advisor. But, as he told her, he was still not so good at English business terms. 

She had felt so warm that he asked her. 

She felt a little less warm that he asked her not to tell Shane what they were doing. As far as Shane knew, they were getting lunch. 

She understood when she started looking over the documents the new advisor laid out for them. 

Anger, hot and uncomfortable rose up in her chest. But she pushed it down because that was not what Ilya needed. Ilya, who was sitting with his arms crossed, not looking at either of them. A faint blush on his cheeks. 

Because his very limited investment assets were barely four years old. For the first five years of his career, he had sent nearly everything back home. There were payments to his father, his brother, his step-mother. Trusts for his niece and his step-mother’s children. There was a house bought in an uncle’s name. There was a private school for his niece. There were random wire transactions to his brother for odd amounts - 20k, 15k, 56k. There were even salaries paid to private chefs and house cleaners. There was a weird split of money between Russian and American banks.

What wasn’t sent back was spent on severely depreciating assets like sports cars. Rounds of alcohol at bars and clubs. Thousands of dollars spent on random Amazon purchases, designer clothes, etc. His Boston house with a criminally high interest rate. He hadn’t even bought it outright, even though he had plenty of money to do so. He had maxed out credit cards with debt he would wipe out today and not even feel it. 

His liquid assets, which were basically his only assets, weren’t even in a high yield account. At least, not as high yielding as it could be. 

He was almost living paycheck-to-paycheck in a very rich way. More like contract to contract. He would exhaust his 8 million dollar/2 year contract and then sign another one. His contracts, too. They were much lower and shorter than Yuna would ever allow her son to have with his stats and experience. 

His financial history read very much like an 18 year old boy who had been thrown into a foreign city, with a language he wasn’t totally familiar with, and no one with his best financial interests at heart. Only a family that wanted to exploit him and a new team he desperately wanted to impress. 

But Yuna pushed all that away, shook it off, and considered the plan. “This is a great starting place.”

Both Ilya and the advisor’s eyes shot to hers but she refused to back down, leveling the advisor with a hard look. 

“It is?” Ilya asked. 

“Of course,” Yuna gathered up a few documents. “You have 17 million dollars in liquid assets. You have a great contract with the Cens for three more years. That’s a much better starting point than the vast majority of people.”

“Not as good as Shane,” Ilya pointed out.

There was a big push to eliminate "degrading jobs" but the strategy was to eliminate the position, then create a new position outside of the bargaining unit to do the work. So like, we wouldn't have dishwashers, but we'd have people who washed dishes that weren't eligible to be in the union.

I was like A) what the actual fuck? Dish washing isn't "degrading", it's fucking vital. B) What the actual fuck? You want to create a union just to exploit different people?

The first time someone told me that busing tables was "degrading", I was like "Oh, uhh, yeah, like it's very necessary work but under compensated for how vital it is?" and they responded "No, touching plates that other people have eaten off of is disgusting."

In bargaining, someone on the Union side suggested that we eliminate all the cashiers and exclusively use self-checkouts (they were a cashier and didn't like it). The organizer told them that the union wasn't in the habit of eliminating bargaining unit positions. (This is the same person I've talked about how said that "as a prison abolitionist" we just needed to execute most criminals.)

It got me thinking, along with Ann Russell talking about how to treat cleaners (being a cleaner herself), about how we conceptualise domestic service as particularly degrading in all its forms, when, really, why is that? Why is paying someone to do something intrinsically bad?

Like, even in a moneyless, gift economy society, there would still be people whose primary contribution to their communities would be cleaning. Some people like to clean, and are really rather good at it.

I've talked ad nauseam in the past about how British attitudes towards cleaners and other service based positions today are the descendants of Victorian attitudes. That is, both the attitudes of conservatives and many progressives of that time. The trade union movement was particularly exclusionary towards service workers.

Domestic labor is less valued because it was (and is) traditionally seen as "women's work." Cleaning, cooking, minor maintenance in the household--all of that is traditionally unvalued and unpaid women's labor in the modern economy. Particularly non-white women in the USA:

So he works to get the pronunciation down, and finally springs it on him one day when Ilya’s just come in from the lake, hair air dried and floofy and he’s all open limbs and soft edges.

The moment the words fill the space, Ilya goes silent, and tears start to fall. Shane panics, and closes the gap between them to hold his husband close with a crushing grip.

‘What’s wrong? Did I not do it right? Did I say something bad?’

Ilya stays quiet for a moment, trying to control the inevitable break in his voice when he speaks. When it comes out, it’s wet, and wounded, like blood seeping out the mouth of an injured animal.

‘No, no. It’s ok- my mama, she-’ another small sob. ‘She used to call me that. I have not heard it in a very long time.’

Shane knows he doesn’t need to reply, or to fill the following lull.

He just needs to stand there. Solid and unyielding.

Shane Enabler Hollander: ok so Ilyusha this player has had zero assists in the entire season, he got drafted last, and finally - and this is crucial - he once scored a goal in his own team's net

So he gets a tutor. He meticulously researches her (she's from Moscow, so he'll learn from someone with Ilya's same accent). She's signed to more NDAs than he can count. She has 10 years of experience, she's certified to teach English and Russian, and she has 4.8 stars on MyTutor.

Shane pays her a frankly concerning amount of money to make house calls. Twice weekly, unless he's on the road, she arrives at his apartment to teach him foundational Russian. She gives him workbooks, Russia cartoon recommendation, podcasts for beginners, etc. He tells her he's learning because his boyfriend is Russian and she outlines a course that focuses on domestic language first (as opposed to travel or business). She even teaches him what she calls a 'culture course' with lessons on Russian music, food, and various traditions.

She's only a few years older than Shane and he actually finds himself looking forward to her visits. At this point, she's the only person other than his parents that knows he has a boyfriend.

About 4 months in, Shane finally feels comfortable enough to ask about what he'd been very excited about learning.

"You want me to teach you how to talk dirty to your boyfriend?" Ekaterina raised an eyebrow.

"Um," Shane blushed. Was this a little too far? Was this inappropriate to ask of a tutor? "Yes? If - If that's okay, I mean."

A slow smirk spread over her face. "This will be fun. Fun for me, now. Fun for you, later."

"I made a list," Shane admitted. He wasn't going to back out now, he put a lot of thought into his list. He turned to it in his Russian notebook and handed it to her.

She scanned over it indifferently. "You will use all this in one night?"

"Yeah, probably. Is it too much?"

"It is good you have a Russian man," Ekaterina said. "They have good stamina. Mostly, anyway."

And while it was a little embarrassing for Ekaterina to correct his pronunciation of please let me suck your cock, it helped that she seemed just as comfortable with that as there is tea on the stove.

"Those Freckles...", Ilya Rozanov & Shane Hollander [Connor Storrie & Hudson Williams], Heated Rivalry

Feb, 2026