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The ceremony started at dusk.
By the time the music swelled softly through the garden, the entire place looked unreal. Strings of warm lights woven through trees, candles floating in glass bowls along the stone paths, white roses climbing the arch over the aisle. Fireflies blinked lazily in the distance like they’d been invited too. It looked less like a wedding and more like stepping directly into someone’s memory of one. A memory with soft edges, warm light, and the unmistakable feeling that after years of fighting for it, everyone present was witnessing a happy ending.
Jackie stood near the second row trying very hard not to cry before the ceremony had even started. A battle she knew she was going to lose. Ruby and Jade were already whispering to each other in their flower crowns, tiny fists full of petals, taking a small break from their childlike gossip to try to catch a passing firefly. They were under strict instructions not to throw the petals until the music changed. Amber stood between them attempting the impossible task of trying to keep up with what they were talking about all while getting distracted with people passing by telling her she looked beautiful. Arthur adjusted his suit jacket with his little hands with enormous seriousness.
“You look handsome,” Jackie whispered, smoothing his tie.
Arthur puffed up immediately. “Uncle Shane said I’m in charge of the rings.”
“That is a very important job.” Jackie cooed.
“I know.” His expression was so grave Jackie nearly laughed through the ache sitting in her chest.
Hayden should be here. Not in theory. Not abstractly. Physically here. He should be standing beside Shane after years of doing just that, but in typical Hayden fashion he let his mouth and his ego get in the way. Jackie had watched the realization hit Hayden in real time as he stood in the doorway of that cottage. She watched him understand that the line he'd crossed couldn't be uncrossed. Shane wasn't asking him to accept Ilya. Shane was telling him that Ilya was his family and if Hayden couldn't respect that, then Hayden didn't get to stay. That should have been the moment he apologized.
Instead, he'd left.
And now Shane was getting married beneath a sky full of lights while the seat that should have belonged to his best friend sat empty. Instead there was an empty absence where he should have been, and Jackie could feel it every time she looked toward the front rows.
Then the music shifted and the conversations softened instantly.
There he was. Shane.
Jackie had seen Shane dressed up a hundred times over the years at galas, draft nights, interviews, charity events — but nothing prepared her for this.
He looked incandescent.
Dark hair swept back neatly from his face, warm golden lights catching against tan skin and sharp dark eyes already glassy with emotion. There was something unmistakably Yuna in him tonight; elegant, beautiful, composed right up until the gravity of the event cracked through the surface. His suit fit him perfectly, black against the white flowers around him, but it wasn’t the clothes making people stare. It was the expression on his face. Shane looked utterly unafraid, like he had finally stopped bracing for the world to take something from him.
The entire atmosphere changed when he reached the aisle because Ilya looked up. Jackie physically felt it in her chest.
Ilya Rozanov, the broad-shouldered and imposing Russian. Even standing still he possessed an intimidating aura that radiated off of him like thick summer heat. He looked at Shane like the sun had risen specifically for him, like there had never once been another choice... and there wasn't.
Shane’s expression immediately broke into something helplessly fond. Even from where she sat Jackie could read it.
Arthur started down the aisle first, carrying the rings with both hands like sacred objects. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, one after another. Amber followed behind, not really sure what to do except to follow her brother, so she focused on that. Ruby and Jade immediately forgot all prior instructions and dumped entire fistfuls of petals onto each other while giggling hysterically.
The guests laughed softly, but Shane laughed the hardest.
Ilya’s head dropped for a second, smiling to himself.
And suddenly Jackie understood something terrible and beautiful all at once:
This wasn’t just a wedding. This was the life they fought for.
Every hidden hotel room.
Every fake excuse.
Every time they stood six feet apart in public pretending not to ache for each other.
Every interview where they swallowed truths whole.
Every injury where one couldn’t openly reach for the other.
Every year they spent surviving instead of living.
All of it had led here.
To little girls in flower crowns.
To Arthur carrying rings.
To Shane walking openly toward the man he loved.
When Shane finally reached him, Ilya reached out automatically, fingertips brushing briefly against Shane’s wrist like he physically couldn’t help himself.
Grounding.
Always grounding.
Shane smiled so softly Jackie nearly had to look away like this moment shouldn't be shared with a garden full of people.
Later, after vows that left half the guests openly crying and Ilya visibly emotional enough that Shane kept smiling at him in disbelief, the reception spilled out beneath the lights.
Music drifted through the garden, children ran wild across the lawn, someone had started dancing barefoot with a glass of wine.
Rose Landry took the microphone eventually with a champagne glass in one hand and the confidence of someone extremely used to attention.
“Okay,” she said. “I was told to keep this classy, which is difficult because Shane Hollander is unfortunately my favorite gay ex-boyfriend.”
The crowd burst into laughter.
Shane covered his face immediately.
“Oh my God,” he groaned.
Rose pointed at Ilya with her champagne glass. “You know, the funniest part is that Shane dated me while being catastrophically in love with you.”
Shane made an outraged noise. “Rose!”
“I’m serious,” she laughed. “This man would take me to dinner and somehow we’d still end up talking about Ilya Rozanov.”
Soft chuckles echoed from several tables.
“Shane once spent twenty straight minutes defending Ilya's penalty minutes like he was arguing before the Supreme Court.” ” Rose deadpanned.
Even Ilya looked startled by that.
“It was a bad call,” Shane muttered.
Rose pressed a hand dramatically to her chest. “See? This is exactly what I mean.”
More laughter rolled warmly through the reception.
Then, slowly, Rose’s expression softened.
“I met Shane during a period of his life where he was very good at pretending he was okay,” she said. “He could make anything sound easy. Fame. Hockey. Pressure. Being wanted by everyone all the time.”
She glanced toward Shane.
“But some people get so used to surviving they forget they’re allowed to actually live.”
The laughter faded completely and Jackie felt her throat tighten.
Rose looked between the two of them standing beneath the lights — Shane’s dark head tipped toward Ilya instinctively, Ilya already watching him like the rest of the room barely existed.
“And then there was Ilya.”
Ilya immediately looked vaguely alarmed to be perceived publicly.
Rose laughed softly. “The public gets them wrong all the time, you know.”
She gestured lightly between them.
“People think Ilya is the difficult one because he’s outspoken. Because he’s intense and doesn’t care if he makes people uncomfortable.” Her mouth curved. “Which, to be fair, is true.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd while Ilya looked entirely unrepentant.
“But Shane…” Her expression softened. “Shane is very shy. Painfully shy, honestly. He just learned very young how to perform being fearless.”
Shane looked down immediately, embarrassed by the attention, but caught the soft loving glace of his parents standing not far from him.
Rose continued gently, “And I think one of the greatest things Ilya ever did was give him a place where he never had to perform at all.”
The entire table near Jackie went quiet.
“Because when the rest of the world wanted something from Shane, Ilya just wanted Shane. Only ever wanted Shane.”
Ilya’s expression changed at that. His face softened instantly, somehow instinctive whenever Shane's name is mentioned.
“And in return,” Rose said quietly, “Shane became the reason Ilya stayed soft in a world that kept trying to harden him.”
Rose paused for a moment then, looking slowly around the reception.
“At this point,” she said with a quiet hesitation, “I want everybody here to look around for a second.”
The crowd shifted slightly, confused but listening.
“Look carefully.”
Jackie found herself doing it too.
Strings of lights.
White flowers.
Children trying to pay attention.
Players crowded around tables laughing softly.
Rose’s voice gentled further.
“Do any of you see the Montreal Metros here tonight?”
Silence.
No one answered.
Because there was no one.
Not a single one.
“The entire roster of the Ottawa Centaurs is here,” Rose continued. “The Boston Raiders are here. People flew across countries to stand beside these two tonight.”
Jackie saw it suddenly then. There were entire tables full of people who loved Shane and Ilya openly.People who chose them openly.
“But the men Shane grew up with?” Rose asked softly. “The people who called themselves his brothers?”
Her jaw tightened slightly.
“They dropped him like garbage.”
The words landed heavily and Shane suddenly went very still while Ilya’s entire expression hardened immediately.
Rose looked toward Shane with something heartbreakingly protective in her face.
“Shane is a survivor,” she said quietly. “And I honestly don’t think most people understand the extent of that.” The room stilled and provided rapt attention to Rose as she continued.
“We may never fully know the extent of harm the Metros caused him,” Rose admitted. “Because Shane suffered in silence for years. He learned how to make pain look graceful. Learned how to disappear inside himself so other people stayed comfortable.”
Jackie’s eyes burned suddenly. Because that part was true.
God, was it true.
“But through all of it,” Rose said, voice wavering now, “there was always Ilya.”
She looked toward him.
“Always picking up the pieces.”
Ilya blinked hard once like the emotion physically hurt.
“And maybe that’s why tonight matters so much.”
Rose smiled, soft and emotional and bright all at once. “Because Shane Hollander spent most of his life hiding from the sun.”
Her gaze shifted toward Shane fully now.
“And I am just so unbelievably happy that he finally gets to stand in it.”
Shane’s eyes filled immediately.
Rose lifted her glass slightly toward Ilya.
“With his Lily.”
Ilya looked completely devastated by that nickname.
Shane made a small broken sound that was almost a laugh.
Silence settled over the reception again, but not empty silence. It was the kind so full of feeling it pressed against everyone’s ribs. Jackie had never seen this amount of hockey players be openly emotional. A testament, she thought, to the love that had touched each one of them by Shane and Ilya.
Jackie felt tears sting unexpectedly hard behind her eyes because.. Fuck! That should have been Hayden. Not the words exactly. Hayden never talked like this. But the knowing of it. The witnessing. The standing beside Shane and saying: I saw this love happen. I know what it cost them. I know what they survived to get here.
Instead Jackie sat alone at her table while Rose lifted her champagne glass higher.
“My point,” she continued quietly, “is that I figured out very quickly I was never actually competing with anyone. There has only ever been one person Shane Hollander looked at like that.”
Her gaze shifted toward Ilya.
“It’s always been you.”
Shane blinked hard enough Jackie thought he might actually cry again. Ilya looked openly wrecked now, staring at Shane like he didn’t know what to do with the amount of love directed at him all at once.
Rose smiled through her own emotion.
“To the stubbornest, most devoted idiots I’ve ever met,” she declared warmly. “May the rest of your lives finally be easy.”
The crowd erupted into applause.
And Shane turned toward Ilya immediately, overwhelmed enough that he looked almost young again. Ilya reached for him automatically and kissed his husband in the open, in front of their friends, their family, and in spite of those who refused to be there.
Always. Forever.
Only them.