Chapter Text
He does not know how badly he wants this until it is happening.
That is the dangerous part, Shane thinks as he slows at the last bend, gravel popping under the tires, the cottage appearing through the trees in pieces.
Wanting, for Shane, has always been easier when it stays private. Wanting Ilya has been survivable because it has lived in hotel rooms and locked doors and all the crooks between those places and the ice. Wanting Peyton has proven itself difficult in its own way, because there is no version of him that can pretend he doesn't want to be with her all the time. There is no justification, no adult arrangement, no nothing that makes the ache smaller. He wants his daughter asleep in his car on a Tuesday afternoon. He wants Ilya inside the cottage waiting for them.
He wants, with a sudden nauseating force, a life where those two facts can exist in the same room without him feeling like he is stealing something.
The engine ticks softly beneath him when he pulls in, and for a moment he does not move, only sits there listening to the little breaths coming from the back seat and staring at the cottage door.
It opens before he has even convinced himself to get out.
Ilya steps onto the porch in a T-shirt and shorts, hair pushed back like he has been running his hands through it. He does not come down the steps right away, standing there with one shoulder against the frame, watching the car with an expression Shane cannot immediately read, and that inability makes Shane’s stomach clench. Then Ilya’s eyes shift past him toward the back seat, and the hard line of his mouth eases.
Shane gets out before he can sit there long enough to make it weird.
“Hey,” He says, too quietly for the distance between them.
“Hi,” Ilya says back.
Shane has the sudden stupid impulse to apologize again before Peyton is even awake, before the bags are out of the trunk, before anything has happened. He presses his lips together instead and reaches for the back door.
Peyton stirs when the door opens, her face scrunching in protest at the fresh air.
“Are we there?”
“Yeah, bug,” Shane says, and his voice does something embarrassing on the second word. He clears his throat as she fumbles around, still half asleep, to unbuckle herself. “We’re here.”
She blinks awake in pieces, slow and grumpy, clutching her rabbit tighter to her chest. Then she seems to remember where here is, because her eyes go suddenly bright, her whole body perking up like someone has plugged her back in.
“Ilya!” She shouts as she leans sideways and spots him on the porch, right into Shane’s ear.
Shane winces.
“Okay, great, hearing still works.”
Peyton ignores him, wriggling hard enough that he has to put a hand on her knee to keep her from launching herself face first out of the car.
“Hi!”
Ilya lifts one hand in a small wave.
“Hi to you, Peyton.”
She grins like he’s performed a magic trick.
“You remembered my name!”
Ilya’s eyebrows lift, and Shane sees the amusement in his expression.
“Your dad didn’t tell you I am very smart?”
Peyton giggles, delighted, and Shane feels something painful twist behind his ribs because it is too easy. It should not be easy. He has spent years making sure it never has the chance to be easy, and here is Ilya on the porch, deadpan and careful, making his daughter laugh.
“Come on,” Shane says, because if he stands there much longer he is going to make it unbearable. “Inside.”
Peyton hops down to the gravel and immediately takes two quick steps toward the porch before stopping short. Her gaze flicks back to Shane, checking, and that little checking motion hurts more than the running would have.
“It’s okay,” Shane says softly. “Go ahead, gotta get the stuff from the trunk.”
When he gets inside with the bags, Peyton is crouched down so close to the door he almost steps on her, lining up her shoes on the woven mat near the door. She nudges one sneaker a fraction of an inch, frowns, nudges it back, then stands and looks around the cottage with that intent, scanning focus that makes her seem older than seven and younger than seven all at once.
“The blanket is different.”
Shane looks toward the couch.
“What blanket?”
“That one,” Peyton says, pointing with two fingers. “Where’s the red one?”
Ilya glances at the couch, then at Shane.
“Probably in the hall closet, we can look later,” Shane says, trying not to watch Ilya watching her, failing almost immediately.
Peyton turns suddenly.
“Are the mugs still in the same cabinet?”
“Yes,” Shane says.
She pads into the kitchen like she owns it, opens the cabinet, and counts under her breath. Shane can barely hear the numbers, but he sees her finger move from mug to mug, tapping the air in front of each one without touching. When she reaches the loon mug, her shoulders loosen.
“Okay.”
Ilya leans slightly toward Shane.
“You hired an inspector?” He says lightly.
Peyton looks back at them.
“I heard that.”
“Good ears,” Ilya says.
“I know.” She closes the cabinet very gently, then adds, “Can I see my room?”
Shane gives her an affirmative and picks up the duffel again as she hops down off the counter, scooting past him to lead them down the hallway.
“Tech-nic-ally it’s not my room,” She says to Ilya as she passes him, fingertips skimming the wall. “It’s just the room I sleep in when I’m here, ‘cause my room is at my mom’s house.”
She doesn’t notice what the correction does to Shane, but he thinks Ilya might have from the way he walks just a pace slower, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
In the guest bedroom off the left, she climbs onto the bed on her knees and begins unpacking her ladybug backpack with the solemn precision of someone setting up camp on another planet. Her little pouch of plastic animals comes out first, Peyton lining up the animals along the windowsill where they lived the last time she was here. Fox first, then whale, then moose, then the polar bear with a chipped ear. She stops after the polar bear and looks at the empty space beside it.
“There’s supposed to be a dog,”
“Did we forget him?” Shane says, looking up from where he’s putting her clothes away.
“No,” Peyton says, already digging back into the pouch, a little frantic now. “No, he’s in here. He has to be in here because Grandma put him in here because I told her.”
“I’ll look,” Shane says softly and starts to go over, but Peyton cuts him off halfway.
“I’m looking,” She says as her voice sharpens, then immediately trembles with the effort of not crying. “I’m looking, I’ll find him.”
So Shane holds still. That is the hard part sometimes, the part people who want to be helpful get wrong. He holds still while Peyton’s breathing goes thin and fast, while she dumps her backpack out onto the bed.
Ilya, to his part, does not say anything either.
Finally Peyton finds the dog tangled in a pair of socks, shoulders dropping with relief.
“There he is,” Shane says.
She sniffs, nods once, and Shane looks over at Ilya despite himself. When their eyes meet, Ilya holds Shane’s gaze for a second, then looks back at Peyton with a seriousness that makes Shane’s chest ache.
“Can we have hot chocolate like last time?” She pipes up, seemingly completely unaware of any sort of adult tension whatsoever,
“You sure?” Shane says. “Kinda warm out,”
Peyton stares at him expectantly.
“I know, I know,” he says. “Just messing with you, Pey.”
Ilya lifts one hand from where he has taken up standing against the wall by the door.
“I can make.”
Peyton considers him for a long second.
“Do you know how much marshmallows?”
“No,” Ilya says solemnly. “You must supervise.”
That pleases her. Shane can see it in the way she tries not to smile and fails, in the bounce that comes back into her heels as she slips past them, insistent again on leading them around the house whichever direction they’re meant to be going in.
“I do two big ones and five little ones,” she tells Ilya without turning around. “But if there are no big ones, then nine little ones. Not ten because ten gets too melty.”
Shane follows them toward the kitchen, considering for the first time since everything cracked open that maybe this will not destroy them.
By the time Peyton finally falls asleep, Shane feels a smidge of guilt for being relieved.
She went down hard, too much excitement, too much change, too much careful holding herself together because Ilya is new inside a place that she is not expecting to be at this exact moment in time. When Shane tried to tuck her in, she went quiet in a way that makes his chest hurt, fingers working hard at the seam of the blanket while her eyes stay fixed on the row of animals on the windowsill.
“You’re staying?” She asked, not looking at him.
“In the cottage?” Shane said, because sometimes the exact question mattered.
Her nod was small.
“Yeah, bug. I’m staying.”
“And Ilya?”
Shane paused, that being a question coming from her at all still not feeling quite real.
“He’s staying too,” Shane said gently, eventually.
Her mouth twisted to one side, a small gleam flickering in her eyes.
“Because you’re kissing friend-ssss.”
Behind him, from somewhere down the hall, Ilya made a sound like he was choking back a laugh. Shane closed his eyes for a second.
“Mhm.”
Peyton accepted that, at least.
Twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in the kitchen with both hands braced on the counter, staring down at nothing.
He can hear Ilya moving around in the living room, turning the television off, setting the remote down too softly -- can tell he is trying not to spook him, which only manages to make him feel worse.
“She asleep?” Ilya asks eventually.
Shane nods before remembering he can’t see him from where he is.
“Yeah.”
A beat passes, and when he looks up Ilya has appeared in the kitchen.
He leans against the fridge, arms crossed loosely over his chest, hair still damp from the shower he took while Shane did the bedtime routine.
“She is very serious about marshmallows.”
“She’s serious about most things.”
“I noticed.”
Shane looks back down at the counter. His thumb finds a small scratch in the laminate and worries at it.
“She’s autistic.”
The words come out quieter than he means them to.
“Okay.”
Shane looks up.
“Okay?” He repeats back to him, because his brain is apparently determined to make him sound like an idiot.
“Yes,” Ilya says. “Okay.”
Shane rubs a hand over his face.
“You don’t have questions?”
“I have many questions,” Ilya says. “But I don’t think this is… surprising question? I mean, I saw her today.”
Despite himself, Shane huffs out something that is almost amused. Ilya’s mouth presses into a thin line, like he understands that without Shane needing to explain it.
“When did you know?” Ilya says after a pause.
Shane looks toward the hallway. The bedroom door is still cracked, a thin wedge of darkness beyond it.
“I guess I knew before I knew. If that makes sense.” He swallows, turning back toward the counter. “She took a while to talk. And when she was little she could be kinda a handful, and everybody kept saying she’s just sensitive, or stubborn, or shy, or whatever.”
Ilya’s face changes at that, just a little. Shane keeps going because if he stops, he will think too hard about how much of himself he is laying out beside her.
“She hates certain clothes. Like, hates them. Tags, seams, anything too tight around her wrists. If her socks feel wrong, the whole morning is over. And noises.” Shane shakes his head, remembering Peyton at three with both hands clamped over her ears in an airport bathroom, sobbing so hard she can’t breathe while he sat on the floor in front of her and tried not to lose his mind. “She’s been doing a lot better since we got her into this school that’s specialized for kids like her, but she has her moments.”
He pauses, jaw working.
“Sounds like she is lucky she has dad who understands her," Ilya says lightly.
The words hit closer than Shane expects.
He looks down quickly, embarrassed by nothing and everything.
“Yeah. Well.”
Ilya does not push.
Shane swallows.
“Everybody thinks they know what autism looks like, and if your kid isn’t that, then you’re exaggerating. Or if she is that, then they think you’re letting her get away with too much and turning her into a brat.”
His voice rises without permission until he forces it back down, exhaling through his nose.
“Sorry.”
Ilya only shakes his head as he walks closer, stopping at the side of the counter and reaching forward to move Shane’s fingers from where he has been gripping the edge of it.
“What does she need?”
The simplicity of it makes Shane’s throat close. He looks at him for a long moment. Then he looks away, blinking too hard.
“She needs to know what’s happening,” He says, voice rough. “That’s the big one. Surprises are hard. Changes, plans changing. That’s why she’s gonna have a hard time this week since Isabelle-”
Shane cuts himself off, sucking in one side of his cheek and reaching for something else.
“But she can handle a lot if she has a map for it.”
“A map,” Ilya repeats.
“Not literally.” Shane rubs at the back of his neck. “She needs warnings. If we’re leaving in ten minutes, tell her. Then five. Then two.”
Ilya nods slowly, absorbing it.
“She likes jokes, but not if she thinks you’re laughing at her. And don’t move her stuff without asking. Especially the animals. Or the blankets. Or the shoes. Or anything, actually, if you can help it.”
“I will not move anything. I am afraid of her already.”
That gets a little laugh out of him, the smile tugging hard at the corners of his mouth before he feels it drop off.
“She’d love that,” He says. “And she can be, uh... kinda direct. She’s probably gonna have a million questions for you about Russia and stuff.”
Ilya’s expression softens in that almost invisible way again.
“And what do you need?”
“I’m fine,” Shane says automatically.
Ilya gives him a look, head tipped down.
Sighing, he drags both hands over his own face.
“I’m fine,” He repeats, but there is no force behind it now. “Really. You’re allowed to still be pissed at me.”
Ilya reaches forward for his hand again, taking it completely into his this time, thumb running over his knuckles.
“Listen to me,” He says quietly. “I am still upset. I think maybe I will be upset for some time.”
Shane nods once, throat tight.
“Yeah. You should be.”
“But Peyton being here does not make me want to leave,” Ilya continues. “Her being autistic does not make me want to leave. You telling me things I should have known before makes me angry, but it does not make me want to go anywhere.”
Shane’s eyes sting so suddenly he has to close them.
“Ilya.”
“Not finished.”
“Okay.”
“I do not know how to do this,” Ilya says. “Kids. Autism. Cottage family vacation with secret daughter.” His mouth turns into a half-smile, which makes Shane’s chest feel warm when he catches it. “This is new for me.”
A wet laugh breaks out of Shane before he can stop it.
“But I can learn,” Ilya goes on undeterred. “If you tell me. And if she tells me. And if I do it wrong, you tell me without looking like you are waiting for execution.”
Shane breathes in, and it shakes.
“She likes you,” He says, words coming out of him lighter than he feels like it has all day.
The high compliment seems to land with Ilya, corner of his mouth twitching as his eyes soften.
“That’s good.”
Shane laughs again, more under his breath, but a laugh all the same.
“She really does,” He says. “She doesn’t fake that. Not well, anyway.”
“I like her,” Ilya says simply.
Shane turns his head toward the hallway again, toward the cracked door and the small sleeping body beyond it, the row of animals standing guard from the windowsill. He thinks of Peyton’s shoes lined by the mat, the loon mug in the cabinet, the red blanket in the hall closet he needs to get out before she wakes up.
When he looks back, Ilya is watching him.
“She’s the best thing about me,” Shane says before he can decide not to.
Ilya’s face shifts, something almost pained moving through it.
“No,” He says.
Shane blinks.
“No?”
“No,” Ilya repeats, giving his hand a squeeze. “She is not thing about you. She is herself.”
Shane’s breath catches.
“And you,” Ilya continues, quieter, “Are not only mistakes you made.”
It goes straight through him. Shane’s face crumples before he can stop it, and he turns away again on instinct, but Ilya pulls him just hard enough to reel him back. Enough that Shane can fold forward and press his forehead against Ilya’s shoulder, one hand fisting in the back of his shirt.
He’s too tired to really cry, but his breathing goes uneven, and his eyes burn all the time. After a while, Ilya’s hand moves slowly over the back of his neck.
Outside, a loon calls across the water, and the sound feels like it takes longer than usual to travel all the way through.
By late morning, the lake has gone bright enough that Shane cannot look straight out the window without squinting. Peyton has been asking about swimming since breakfast and Shaane watches her move through the morning with that wired, brittle excitement he knows too well, her body trying to outrun the strangeness of Ilya being there and the goodness of Ilya being there and the fact that both can exist inside her at once.
She explains, while standing barefoot on the kitchen chair even though Shane tells her twice to sit properly, that the lake is probably “medium cold but not mean cold,” which apparently means colder than the bathtub but not so cold it makes her bones angry. Ilya accepts the conclusion with a seriousness that makes Shane’s throat hurt, nodding along as she tacks further elaboration between sips of orange juice.
When they get outside, Shane is right behind her with a hand hovering near the back of her life jacket all the way down the dock..Peyton gasps when the water reaches her stomach, indignant and thrilled all at once, scrunching up her face.
“Still just medium cold?” Shane says as he adjusts to it himself, Peyton nodding wordlessly.
Ilya comes in after them, dropping into the water with a hissed curse when the cold hits his waist. Shane sees Peyton whip around, eyes wide and scandalized, and immediately has to bite back a laugh.
“You said a bad word,”
That gets Ilya. Shane sees it happen, the small, surprised break in his expression before he laughs, real and low, and Peyton’s face lights up in return. Shane watches them watch each other and feels a strange, painful gratitude rise in him. It is too soon for ease, too soon to pretend that one good morning can unknot years of fear and secrecy and wrong decisions, but it is there all the same, flickering at the edges.
She swims around them for a while in quick, purposeful loops, inventing a game that seems mostly to consist of touching the dock, climbing on Shane’s back, jumping back down and repeating the loop. Shane lets the cold water hold him around the ribs and tries, for once, not to brace for the bad thing.
Even now, with her close enough that droplets from her hair when she shakes it out hit his arm, some part of him is already counting backward from Friday. He hates himself for it. He wants to be present with her so badly that the wanting itself pulls him out of the moment, makes him watch it from a distance like evidence he will need later.
“Ilya,” Peyton is saying suddenly, loud enough to pull Shane out of his thoughts as he watches her paddle over to him. “Ilya, you have to throw me.”
Shane blinks.
“Manners, Peyton.”
Her eyes stay on Ilya with perfect, unembarrassed expectation.
“You have to please hold under my arms and throw me that way.” She points toward the deeper water with one dripping hand. “Like Dad does, please?”
Ilya’s gaze slides to Shane, and there is something so plainly helpless in it that Shane’s first instinct is laughter. His second is a rush of tenderness so sharp it almost hurts. Ilya Rozanov, impossible on the ice defeated by a small girl in a purple life jacket .
“She does like being thrown,” Shane supplies.
“I am seeing this.”
Ilya looks back at her.
“You trust me?”
The question lands harder than Shane expects. Peyton seems to understand, or at least she understands enough to let her arms drop for a second while she considers him. Water laps at the front of her life jacket. Her wet hair sticks to her cheeks in dark strings, making her look younger. Shane holds his breath without meaning to.
“Yeah,” She says finally. “for throwing. Please.”
Ilya moves slowly, giving her time to change her mind even though she clearly has no intention of doing that. He places his hands under her arms with exaggerated care, and Peyton immediately goes stiff as a board, legs straight out in front of her, toes pointed with dramatic seriousness. Shane can see her holding her breath already.
“Don’t jump,” Shane says automatically. “Let him count.”
“I know.”
“You’re holding your breath too early.”
“I’m practicing.”
Ilya glances at Shane over her head, eyes bright with suppressed amusement, and begins to count in the slow cadence Peyton prefers.
“One,” He says, and Peyton sucks in more air even though she is already full of it. “Two,”
He throws he on three, enough that Peyton is shrieking in joy before she hits the water with a splash that reaches Shane. She bobs up almost immediately, life jacket popping her to the surface, hair plastered over her forehead, mouth open in a laugh so wild and bright it punches the breath out of him.
“Again!” She shouts, already paddling back.
Ilya laughs then too, shaking water from his face. “Again? You just went.”
“That was first one.”
“How many are there?”
Peyton looks genuinely confused by the question.
“A lot.”
There are so many that Shane loses count somewhere after nine. The fourth has to include a spin, which Ilya refuses until Shane admits, that he has spun her before and she has survived it. Each time, she swims back to him with absolute certainty, arms lifting before she has even reached his chest.
Shane is standing in water up to his ribs, turned half toward Peyton, half towards the view further out, when Ilya moves behind him and grabs him with both arms.
“Hey, what,” He says immediately.
Peyton’s face goes incandescent.
“Throw Dad!”
“Don’t you dare,” Shane says, louder, trying to twist away, but he is laughing already, which torpedoes any authority he might have had. Ilya’s grip tightens, secure around his middle.
“Peyton, should I count?”
“Yes!”
“Ilya, I swear to God,”
“One,” Ilya says.
Peyton claps both hands over her mouth, vibrating with glee.
“You are lucky you’re cute, you know that?” Shane says toward her, and then Ilya says “Three” right against his ear and lifts him like he weighs nothing.
For one suspended, ridiculous second, Shane is airborne over the lake, arms flailing, dignity gone so completely there is no point trying to retrieve it. He hits the water sideways with an enormous splash, cold rushing over his head, up his nose, into his ears. When he surfaces, sputtering and wiping his face, Peyton is laughing so hard she has folded forward in the water, life jacket keeping her bobbing while her whole body shakes with it.
Ilya is laughing too, not even trying to hide it, bright and open and stupidly beautiful in the sun.
By Thursday evening, Shane has developed the stupid, irrational feeling that if he keeps the cottage day going long enough, Friday will fail to arrive.
It is the kind of thought he would be embarrassed to say out loud, because it sounds like something Peyton might believe if she is overtired and determined enough, some kid-logic loophole where time can be tricked by refusing to put on shoes or leaving one stuffed animal unpacked. But Shane finds himself moving through the late afternoon with the same pointless resistance anyway, lingering over things that do not need lingering over. He folds Peyton’s pajamas too slowly. He checks under the bed twice for the missing sock she has already found and stuffed into the side pocket of her bag.
Peyton herself does not seem to understand Friday as a thing approaching so much as a fact that exists vaguely in the future, and he envies her for that right up until she asks, while crouched by the couch to say goodbye to a ladybug she has discovered on the baseboard, whether her mom will be there that night or in the morning.
“Before breakfast, probably,” Shane says, because Isabelle says Friday morning and Shane has learned, over the years, that imprecision does not help Peyton just because it is easier on him.
Peyton nods, accepts the update, and tells the ladybug it cannot come in the car because it has its own family. Then she stands, brushes both hands down her shorts, and asks if Ilya is coming to Grandma and Grandpa’s too.
Ilya, who has been pretending not to listen while he wipes down the counter with an unnecessary amount of focus, looks up.
“Yeah,” Shane says carefully. “He’s coming.”
“And then Mom comes to get me.”
“Yeah.”
“And then Mom is gonna meet Ilya?”
The question lands in Shane’s stomach and sits there.
He looks at Ilya before he means to. It is quick, barely more than a reflexive glance, but Ilya catches it anyway because Ilya catches everything Shane does not want him to. The plan is simple in the way bad plans are often simple when you need them badly enough. They will all go to his parents’ house Thursday night because Peyton is being picked up there Friday morning, because it makes sense logistically, because Isabelle expects it, because Shane does not want Peyton’s last night with him to become strange by forcing some late-night handoff or a goodbye in the driveway.
Ilya is coming because Shane does not want to leave him alone at the cottage like an abandoned secret. And then, in the morning, when Isabelle arrives, Ilya will simply not be in the room.
Simple enough.
“Probably not,” Shane tells Peyton, hating himself a little for the vagueness even as he uses it. “Remember what we talked about? Dad needs a little bit of time before Mom knows about Ilya.”
Peyton frowns, but she lets it pass when Ilya distracts her by asking if she wants to pick the music in the car.
When she's asleep in the back by the time they pull out of the driveway, Shane decides to drive with the radio off.
The sky has gone dusky and blue, the summer evening air it ushers in making the roads look softer than they are, trees blurring dark at the edges. Peyton has her cheek against the side of her booster, rabbit tucked under her chin, one hand curled loosely around the strap of her backpack as if some sleeping part of her still knows tomorrow requires leaving. Shane keeps glancing at her in the mirror and then back at the road.
The last night always does this to him, making him miserable and hyperaware of every ordinary detail before they belong to someone else again.
Beside him, Ilya has one knee angled toward the door, phone dark in his hand, gaze out the window. He has not said much since they left, and Shane finds himself more okay with that than he expects. Through the noise in his head, he clocks his specific form of quiet tonight as recognition that Shane is climbing out of his skin.
“Think she had a good week,” Shane says eventually, because the pressure pulsing in his throat and forehead needs somewhere to go.
Ilya turns his face to look at him, head tipped back against the headrest.
“Great week.” He says lightly, smiling in his eyes. “My arms are going to be sore for next two weeks, but it’s okay.”
A laugh escapes him, small and rough.
“Yeah.”
The humor fades too quickly. Every turn carries him closer to the thing he has been trying not to think about since breakfast, and his body knows it before his mind will admit it. His shoulders have crept up. His jaw hurts from clenching. By the time he reaches the street, his heartbeat has gone hard and fast for no reason he can point to without feeling ridiculous.
Then he turns into the driveway and sees Isabelle’s car.
For a second his brain simply refuses to identify it. It is just a car where there should not be one, parked at an angle behind his dad’s SUV. Then recognition snaps into place so sharply it feels physical. Isabelle is there. Her car is already in his parents’ driveway, which means she is inside, which means the stupid, carefully rationalized plan has failed before Shane has even gotten out of the car.
His foot hits the brake too hard and Peyton stirs in the back with a soft, complaining sound.
Ilya’s hand shoots out, landing against the center console like he has braced for impact.
“Shane?”
“Fuck,” Shane whispers.
Peyton shifts again. Shane forces his voice down, but that does nothing for the way his chest has gone tight enough to hurt. He stares at the car, at the unmistakable dent near the rear bumper, at the little charm hanging from the mirror, and feels his thoughts scatter in a dozen directions at once.
Isabelle is inside with his parents. Isabelle might have seen his car from the window. Peyton is asleep. Ilya is here. Ilya is in the passenger seat of his car, visible under the driveway lights if someone is looking out the wrong window, and Shane has no plan for this because he has used up all his planning on avoiding exactly this.
“Why is Isabelle here?” He says, too quietly, too fast. “She said tomorrow. She said Friday morning. Why the fuck is she here now?”
Ilya looks from the car to Shane’s face, and something in his expression sharpens.
“Reverse.”
Shane blinks.
“What?”
“Reverse,” Ilya says, calm but firm. “Back out.”
His hands are suddenly clumsy as he puts the car in reverse because Ilya uses the voice that makes arguing feel like a waste of time, and because the athlete part of him knows how to obey a decisive instruction when panic has eaten the rest. He checks the mirror, heart punching against his ribs, and backs slowly down the driveway before anyone can come out onto the porch. Gravel cracks under the tires. Peyton makes another little noise in her sleep but does not wake.
Shane reaches the road, drives a few yards and stops with the car half-angled, one hand still locked around the wheel as if it is the only solid object left in the world.
Ilya unbuckles his seat belt.
Shane turns on him.
“What are you doing?”
“I get out here.”
“What?”
“I’m getting out,” Ilya repeats, already reaching for the door handle.
Shane stares at him, the panic momentarily interrupted by disbelief.
“Where are you going to go?”
Ilya glances down the road as if the answer might be standing there politely waiting. There is nothing but trees.
“I will figure it out.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Shane echoes, voice rising despite his effort to keep it down. “What does that mean? You’re going to wander into the woods?”
“Maybe there are friendly raccoons.”
“Ilya.”
He looks back at him then, and the stupid edge of the joke falls away enough that Shane can see the intention underneath -- can understand he is trying very seriously to be helpful.
“You go, see what is happening.” Ilya says quietly. “Text me.”
Peyton shifts in the back seat, and both of them freeze. Shane looks at her in the mirror. She stays asleep, mouth still parted, rabbit slipping lower against her chest. The sight of her nearly breaks him open. Of course this is happening now. Of course the week cannot end gently.
Shane closes his eyes for half a second. When he opens them, Ilya is still watching him.
“I can’t just leave you on the side of the road,” Shane says, and hates how wrecked he sounds.
“I will be okay.”
“Don’t make me dump you like, like,”
“Secret Russian prostitute?”
Despite everything, a strangled laugh bursts out of Shane. Ilya's mouth twitches, but his eyes stay steady.
“You are panicking.”
Shane rubs his thumb hard into the steering wheel, glancing into the backseat again. Peyton’s hair has escaped its ponytail in wisps that stick to the side of her face. She looks younger asleep, and it’s farther away from the topic than anything else, but it crosses his mind briefly that how old seven feels.
“She’s gonna be upset when she wakes up and you managed to evaporate from the car.” He says eventually.
Ilya follows his line of sight.
“I can tell her,” Ilya says.
Shane’s throat tightens.
“She’s asleep.”
“Maybe hears anyway.”
Ilya is already opening the passenger door carefully and Shane wants to tell him to stay in the car, to stop being noble in the stupidest possible way, but Ilya moves before he can get the words into order. He steps out, closes the door without slamming it, then walks around the front of the car toward Peyton’s side.
She stirs at the change in air, brow pinching.
“Hey,” Ilya says softly.
His voice does something Shane has only heard a few times, dropping low and careful, stripped of all teasing. Peyton’s eyes flutter but do not fully open.
“Ilya?” She mumbles, more breath than word.
“Yeah,” He says. “I have to go back to the cottage. Hockey thing.”
That makes her frown, eyebrows furrowing.
“Why?”
At least, Shane thinks, she is too tired to start questioning how Ilya is planning to get back to the cottage from the side of the road.
“Because hockey is bossy.”
She seems dissatisfied with that but doesn’t push. Her rabbit slides lower until Ilya reaches in with one careful finger and nudges it back against her chest.
“I will see you next time you see your dad, okay?” Ilya says, softer now. “It was good to see you.”
Shane has the absurd thought that if he could freeze this exact moment, maybe he could postpone everything waiting at the end of the driveway. Isabelle. Tomorrow morning. Explanations. The goodbye that is coming whether he wants it to or not. There is something unbearably gentle about the way Ilya waits for her answer instead of assuming she is too tired to give one.
“’Kay.”
When Ilya does shut the door, the quiet click echoes more than usual -- Shane squeezing his eyes shut just long enough to feel like he’s at least made an attempt at bringing himself back into reality.
A hard-fought battle against himself, when he opens them against and watches Ilya’s back get further and further away.