Chapter Text
When he first got the Reebok deal, Shane had thrown a fit. Well, ‘fit’ is perhaps an ungenerous word, and Yuna feels bad for even thinking it. Shane had been upset. “I like my shoes,” he’d kept saying, over and over, and Yuna felt helplessness bubble up inside her. It hadn’t been this bad in years.
“Shane, honey, you said you wanted this,” she said, trying not to let the sentence curl up into a question. Uncertainty wasn’t what Shane needed.
But Shane was stuck. “I like my shoes,” he said, and then he didn’t say anything, disappearing into their home gym. Yuna could hear the hum of the exercise bike for what felt like hours. She felt horrible: she resented Shane for acting like a child and she hated herself for her resentment. Mostly, she hated that she hadn’t seen this coming. She should have; Shane likes to stick to routine. Yuna knows this. It’s just, she hadn’t expected… Well, they are just shoes, after all, and Shane had been so excited about his first endorsement deal, and if he’d had an issue with it, he could’ve just said.
Eventually, Shane stumbled into the living room, where Yuna and David were sitting on the couch, watching TV. “Okay,” Shane said, very quietly. “I’ll wear the Reeboks.”
“Come here, honey,” Yuna said, and pulled Shane onto the couch between her and David. She piled a big heavy blanket onto Shane: the heavy fleece one printed with the Metros logo, the one he likes.
Years later, they are sitting on the same couch. Shane is snuggled under the same blanket, pulling it up to his chin with his good arm. They are watching Scott Hunter win it all.
“What did I say?” Yuna asks the room. Beside her, David laughs.
“You’re definitely a witch.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Shane isn’t watching Scott Hunter lift the Cup. He’s texting someone. Yuna frowns at him. He’s not supposed to be on screens. But Shane smiles at his phone, and Yuna decides to let it go.
And then.
The three of them watch, transfixed, as Scott Hunter kisses a man live on national television. Yuna is stunned. She doesn’t know what to say. The announcers don’t, either. Pretty big night for hockey, one of them settles on, and that’s a fucking understatement if Yuna’s ever heard one. Good for Scott Hunter, the other says, and Yuna fucking prays that’s true.
Yuna turns to Shane to ask him something—what, if he knew, if he suspected?—but she doesn’t. It would be in poor taste, she thinks, and then she looks at Shane. The look on his face is one she’s never seen before.
She reaches for him. “Shane—”
And then his phone rings, and Shane is scrambling to his feet, kicking away the blanket he’s tangled up in, rushing down the hallway to take the call. “What the—” is all Yuna hears before he’s through the front door and out of earshot.
Yuna swallows hard. She feels sick in all the worst ways.
“Hey,” David says. “You okay?”
Yuna turns to look at him. She thinks she might start crying. “Do you remember Wimbledon?” she asks.
David frowns. “Wimbledon?”
“We sat next to a Swedish princess or something, do you remember that?”
“I’m not following,” David says, equal parts gentle and confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
That lunch with Shane, when he tried to back out, when he said that Rolex only wanted him to make their box less white—it was still pretty white, even with Shane in attendance—and Yuna had felt… God, just this overwhelming sense of wrongness radiating off Shane. He’d shown up late and flustered, and Yuna knew he was irritated about being served sparkling water instead of ginger ale because Shane was comfortable in the predictable. But then again, isn’t everyone?
And then Shane had left to go to the bathroom, and David had looked at Yuna and said, “Swedish princess?” in that lighthearted, bemused voice of his, and Yuna sighed and said, “I don’t know,” because she really didn’t.
Shane had come back a few minutes later much more in control of himself, and they’d had a nice lunch. A few months later, they had a lovely trip to Wimbledon. Shane hadn’t talked to the Swedish princess. Yuna was surprised to find herself disappointed by that.
And now, Scott Hunter is kissing a man, and Shane is fleeing the room, and Yuna is sitting on the couch feeling like something colossal has shifted.
“David,” she says, like a question.
“Yes?”
“Do you think…?”
Yuna doesn’t know what she’s asking, except she does, and she thinks David does, too.
“I think Scott Hunter is being incredibly brave,” David says, very carefully. “I don’t know if I’d be.”