the practical (accidental) acquisition of a husband

Ilya only sees the photo because Cliff Marleau said, Don't look online.

Which, in Ilya's experience, was the same thing as saying, Yo, Rozy, don't look now, but there's this hot girl checking you out at the bar. Of course he's going to look.

He's just coming off the ice. His hair's still wet at the back of his neck, sweat cooling under his practice gear, his thighs heavy in that good way that meant he had worked hard enough to make the world narrow.

Puck, boards, breath, blades.
Repeat.

They're the simple things in life that bring him joy.

His phone had been buzzing in his stall for ten minutes.

That's not unusual on its own. People want things from Ilya constantly. Reporters, sponsors, women he had given his number to when he was bored and lonely and pretending those were different feelings. His agent. His brother, sometimes, when he wants money or the satisfaction of making Ilya feel thirteen years old again. Shane, rarely, carefully, in texts that were ordinary enough to survive discovery and still managed to make Ilya's chest hurt in ways he's trying not to examine too closely.

But Marly never texts like that.

Marly: Don't look online
Marly: Where are you?
Marly: Are you still at the rink?
Marly: Roz, answer me

Ilya stared at the messages, one towel slung over his shoulder.

"Fuck," he said quietly.

He thumbs the message open.

i am at rink, papa bear, he types. why are you texting like my mother?

He stares at the words for half a second.

Deletes my mother.

Types instead: why are you texting like my nanny?

Across the room, someone laughs at something. The normal sounds of a locker room roll around him, comforting in their own way: tape ripping, shower water turning on, the thud of equipment hitting bags. Men complaining about bruises, dinner plans, the coaches, their wives.

Marly's stall is empty.

His gear is still there, half-spilled across the bench. The shoulder pads are hanging crooked from the hook, tape scissors abandoned beside a roll of black tape, one sock peeled off and left inside out on the floor. He'd taken a puck off the inside of his knee near the end of practice and disappeared with the trainer, waving off concern with the irritated dignity of a man personally betrayed by his favorite rookie.

Ilya had laughed at him.

Marly had flipped him off and limped down the hall.

Before he can send off his message, his phone buzzes with an incoming call.

Marly

Ilya lets it ring once then twice. He's not sure why but something cold and unpleasant slithers under his ribs.

He answers. "If you are calling to tell me I have been traded to Florida, I will need five minutes to mourn all my very hot sweaters."

Marly doesn't laugh.

"Roz," he says. "Where are you exactly?"

Ilya sits down slowly on the bench in front of his stall. "Locker room."

"Who's there?"

The cold thing sharpens into a sting.

"Everyone," Ilya says. His voice sounds normal, he thinks. Good. He is very good at normal. Well practiced. "We are having team orgy, of course. Why?"

Marly swears under his breath.

Ilya's hand tightens on the phone.

"Cliff. What is happening?"

There is a pause long enough he thinks Marleau hung up, except he can hear ugly breathing on the other side.

"Don't look online," Marly says.

There is a particular kind of fear that opens slowly.

Ilya says, "Okay."

Then he hangs up and looks online.

It's not even hard to find. He opens the first app (Instagram) his thumb touches, and there it is, already everywhere: cropped and reposted and captioned, growing teeth in real time.

A hotel hallway. The carpets are offensive, walls beige, lighting that makes everyone look like they've done something regrettable and are now living with the slew of consequences that come with it, which is, Ilya distantly agrees, is what's happening to him now.

Shane. Shane Hollander has one hand curled in the front of Ilya's shirt.

Ilya's hand is on Shane's waist.

It's not low enough to be obscene, at least, but definitely not high enough to be innocent.

Their faces are close, too much. Shane's head is tipped down, his mouth almost smiling, his eyes fixed on Ilya like there is no hallway, no hotel, no world outside the two feet of space between them.

Terribly, Ilya remembers that moment vividly. The picture plays the rest of the scene in his mind like a tape that has gotten unstuck. It rolls and whirrs and he can hear the vending machine humming at the end of the hall. He can hear Shane saying, very seriously, "You can't just show up at my hotel room," and Ilya saying, "I think you will find that I can," and Shane trying not to laugh because he is Shane Hollander and laughter has to be audited before release.

He can feel himself hooking two fingers in Shane's belt loop.

He can see Shane stepping closer instead of away.

He remembers thinking, for one sharp, foolish second, fuck, if he looks at me like this again, I am going to say something stupid.

And then Shane kissed him.

Not in the photo! Thank God, not in the photo. But, to be very honest, the photo does not need it.

The photo is worse.

A kiss could be explained as drunkenness. A bad angle. A dare. Men do stupid things when celebrating, when drunk, when half the internet is willing to believe any lie if it protects them from changing their minds.

But this—

The locker room noise changes, or maybe it's just Ilya that changes inside it.

The showers are still running. Someone is still laughing. A trainer walks past with a roll of tape. But sound reaches Ilya from very far away now, thin and warped, like he is underwater.

Ilya looks at the photo again. At Shane's hand. At his own face.

His first clear thought is:

My father is going to see this.

His father at the kitchen table, face heavy with disgust. His father's thick fingers around a glass. His father saying nothing at all, maybe, because he doesn't even remember Ilya is his son most days. He's not sure what would be worse.

His father is going to see this.

Alexei is going to see this.

Russia is going to see this.

Only then does Shane arrive in his mind.

Shane, who is there in every pixel of the thing, beautiful and doomed and stupid enough to look at Ilya like that in a world where cameras exist.

Shane, whose life Ilya has just ruined.

Ilya lowers the phone. His body feels very far away from him.

"Roz," someone calls. "Drinks at Sullivan's. You in?"

"Mm," Ilya says.

He has no idea who asked.

He stands.

His legs are steady. Right now, that feels like an achievement greater than winning the fucking Stanley Cup.

His phone buzzes again.

Marly

He does not answer.

Another buzz.

Marly again.

Then name appears on the screen like pain.

Jane

For one insane second, Ilya nearly answers.

His thumb moves but then-

Stops.

He imagines Shane's voice: careful, maybe, or controlled, or horrified and panicked.

He settles on not answering either of them. He also doesn't shower, or even change, really.

He grabs his phone, his bag, his keys, his jacket. His skates are still on the floor. His practice clothes are still damp against his skin. His hair is wet. He has no plan beyond out.

"Roz?" someone calls as he shoulders his bag. "Where the hell are you going?"

"Home," Ilya says.

"Dude, we're going out."

"Start without me."

"You sick?"

"Very," Ilya says, and keeps walking.

Someone laughs because they think it's a joke, but he really is going to be sick.

He makes it to the corridor without looking back.

The hallway outside the locker room is too bright. The walls are too white. Everything smells like rubber flooring and industrial cleaner. His boots are not tied properly. His bag bangs against his hip. His phone keeps buzzing in his hand, an angry little heartbeat.

He walks fast, then faster, even though no one follows. No one knows to. It's as much as his luck allows.

He pushes through the players' entrance and into the cold.

The air hits his damp hair and practice-warm skin like punishment. His base layer sticks unpleasantly to his back. His jacket is half-on, one sleeve twisted, but he does not stop to fix it.

His car is near the far end of the lot, black and low and ridiculous, a machine built for men who pretend to like danger. Who the fuck was he kidding? He's a fucking coward.

He throws his bag into the passenger seat, gets in, and shuts the door.

The sudden quiet is enormous, more than he can stand. Ilya sits there, hands on the wheel.

He wants Shane so badly, suddenly, that it feels like being sick.

Wants his voice. Wants his hands. Wants the careful way Shane says Rozanov when they are alone and he has forgotten to be defensive for half a second and he's coming undone. Wants Shane to tell him what to do, maybe, which is humiliating. Wants Shane to say this is not the end of the world with enough conviction that Ilya can believe him for one minute.

But Shane cannot say that, so Ilya starts the car and drives home.

Shane is having a good day.

A really good day, actually, which is not something he usually lets himself think too directly. Thinking too directly about a good day feels like noticing a goalie's shutout halfway through the third period. It invites the world to clear its throat.

(But, still.)

He wakes up before his alarm. His resting heart rate is good. The weather is cool but clear in that kind of sharp blue morning that makes his lungs ache in a way he likes. He beats his personal record on his run by twelve seconds, which is enough to be satisfying. Practice goes well. Not perfect, obviously, because there's always room for improvement. But his passing is clean, his legs feel good, and Coach Theriault only pulls him aside once to discuss zone entries before he calls an excellent practice.

He even remembers to pick up the protein powder he likes on the way home.

The vanilla one. (Not the weird chalky vanilla that tastes like drywall and regret.) The good vanilla. The one the store has been out of for three weeks.

So, objectively, Shane is having a good day.

He is in his kitchen, still slightly damp from the shower, wearing sweatpants and an old Team Canada shirt that might have been his father's before it was his. The blender is loud enough to be annoying but not loud enough to cover the pleasant rhythm of his thoughts.

In go the banana, spinach, greek yogurt, coveted protein powder, ice, and the almond milk.

He measures everything, and hardly has to make any adjustments on the scale.

His phone is facedown on the counter.

This is intentional. He has been trying not to check it every five minutes, because checking his phone every five minutes is a symptom of something he does not want to think about. Even if Montreal plays Boston in just another few days.

He is definitely not thinking about Ilya.

(Shane is often thinking about Ilya.
Whatever.
This is a problem he has decided not to solve today.)

The blender snarls through a chunk of ice. Shane presses the lid down harder.

He has almost convinced himself not to text Ilya a picture of the protein powder.

It would be stupid.

It would be normal, maybe, if they were normal. If Ilya were someone Shane could send stupid things to that had nothing to do with their illicit hook ups. If Shane could write, they finally had the good one, and Ilya could respond with six eggplant emojis and something offensive about Shane's mouth, and Shane could roll his eyes in his own kitchen without feeling like current was running through his whole body.

But they are not normal.

They are not even dating.

They are—

Shane turns the blender off.

They are not anything, technically.

That is the stupidest (worst) part. That's the part Shane keeps returning to like touching a bruise.

They have slept together in hotel rooms and apartments and homes. Ilya has seen Shane naked, sweaty, desperate, furious, laughing so hard into his own hand that he could barely breathe. Ilya has kissed the inside of Shane's wrists and thighs and then made a joke about his face ten seconds later. Ilya has fallen asleep beside him exactly twice, after, and both times Shane lay awake for hours, afraid to move in case he ruined it.

And still, they are not anything.

Which is why Shane does not text him about protein powder.

Instead, he pours the smoothie into a glass.

The texture is perfect.

Ha! Another good thing.

His phone starts vibrating.

Shane glances at it.

Mom

He frowns.

His mother does call him, obviously. But usually it's not right after practice, because she knows his routine, and because Yuna Hollander believes in leaving messages with enough context to prevent unnecessary panic. She does not call twice unless something is wrong.

The call ends before Shane can decide to answer.

For all of two seconds, the kitchen is quiet.

Then his phone rings again.

Farah

Shane's body reacts before his mind does: an icy line of concern runs through him.

Farah does not call for no reason. Farah emails, usually, because she understands that phone calls are for urgent things only. She calls when there is a contract issue, an interview disaster, a sponsorship problem, or once, memorably, when a brand had tried to put Shane in a cologne ad involving a motorcycle and a woman in a bikini and Farah had said, "Before you say no, please know I have already said no, but I just thought to inform you."

His phone vibrates hard against the counter.

He picks up.

"Hi," he says.

"Where are you?"

Her voice is wrong.

Shane straightens. "Home."

"Alone?"

The question is so strange that his first response is not fear, it's confusion.

"Yes."

"Okay," Farah says. "Good. I need you to listen to me."

The smoothie sits untouched on the counter.

"What happened?"

"Have you been online in the last ten minutes?"

Shane's chest tightens.

"No."

"Okay, good. Don't."

The kitchen seems to sharpen around him: glass on the counter, condensation sliding down it, the faint green smear of smoothie under the blender blade, his own damp hair cooling against his neck.

"Farah," he says. "Tell me what happened."

I am going to."

"Now."

"Shane—"

"Now."

She exhales once, short and controlled. "There is a photo."

For a second, the words mean nothing.

A photo could be anything. A bad angle of him leaving the rink. Someone outside his house. Some stupid meme from practice. A photo is not automatically a disaster.

But his mother called. Then Farah.

His breathing picks up without consulting him.

"What photo?"

"Of you and Ilya Rozanov."

There is no sound after that.

Or there is, probably. The fridge is running. There's the street outside. His own breathing that's definitely coming in faster. But Shane cannot hear any of it.

He looks at the smoothie glass.

It is very green.

What an absurd thing to notice.

"What kind of photo?" he asks.

Farah is silent for half a second too long.

Shane closes his eyes.

He already knows. In a way, at least. Maybe not the angle or the source or the damage. But he knows the category of disaster by the shape of Farah's silence.

"It was taken in a hotel hallway," she says. "It looks intimate."

The room tilts slightly, then rights itself because Shane makes it.

"Is it explicit?"

"No."

He breathes once, but there's nothing close to relief in it.

"Is it deniable?"

Farah does not answer which is answer enough.

Shane sets one hand flat on the counter. His palm slips slightly in condensation from the smoothie glass. He wipes it automatically with his thumb.

"Where?" he asks.

"Everywhere."

"Farah."

"It appears to have started on Instagram. It has been reposted on Twitter, TikTok, hockey blogs, Reddit. I'm monitoring. It's spreading fast."

Shane's brain reaches for structure.

Source. Timeline. Ilya. Visibility. Team response. Ilya. Parent response. Agent response. Ilya.

Ilya.

"Has he said anything? Put out anything?" Shane asks.

"No."

"Has his agent reached out?"

"No. Radio silence on that end."

Shane turns away from the counter, then turns back because there is nowhere to go.

"Shane. Listen to me," Farah says. "You are not posting anything. You are not answering anyone. You are not calling your team before I speak to PR. You are not making any statement. I need you to stay offline and let me work, okay?"

"I need to call him."

"I know."

That surprises him enough that it stops the cyclone building in his brain.

Farah's voice softens by one careful degree, like she understands something about him, them, after one photo. "Call him once. If he doesn't answer, don't keep calling. We need to understand what's happening before either of you says anything that can be used by people who do not care about either of you."

A part of Shane wonders if he would even want to answer him. If he doesn't have Shane blocked already.

"Shane," Farah says. "I need you to breathe."

"I'm breathing."

His kitchen looks too bright. Too clean. The smoothie is still sitting on the counter, green and perfect and absurd. His running shoes are lined up by the door.

Everything is normal.

Nothing is normal.

He's breathing, he thinks.

"No, you're answering me. That's not the same thing."

He looks down and realizes his free hand is shaking.

He curls it into a fist.

"I'm fine."

"You are absolutely not fine, but we're going to work with that. I need you to sit down."

"Okay."

Shane sits down.

The chair feels unstable beneath him even though it's not.

"Call Yuna back, please. I'm going to start making calls. Do not post. Do not answer unknown numbers."

Shane nods, even though she cannot see him.

"Shane."

"I heard you."

"Say it back to me."

He closes his eyes.

It's humiliating, needing to be handled. It's more humiliating that Farah is right to handle him.

"I will not post," he says. "I will not answer unknown numbers. I will call my mom."

"And?"

"And I will stay offline."

"Good."

He waits for her to say something else. Anything useful. Something that will put the room back where it belongs.

She does not.

"Farah," he says.

"Yes?"

"How bad is it, really?"

He hates the question as soon as it is out.

He hates that he sounds like every athlete in every scandal he has ever privately judged for waiting too long to tell the truth. How bad is it. Not is Ilya okay? Not who took it? Not what do we do?

How bad is it.

But Farah does not judge him. Or, if she does, she is professional enough to do it silently.

"It's bad," she says. "But it is manageable if we are careful."

Careful.

Shane has been careful for his entire life.

Careful with food. Careful with sleep. Careful with training. Careful with interviews. Careful with his face when reporters ask lazy questions about leadership and legacy and what kind of woman he hopes to settle down with someday. Careful with Ilya in public. Careful with Ilya in private, too, though in different ways. Careful not to ask for too much. Careful not to hold on too long after. Careful not to feel wrecked when Ilya leaves.

He has been so careful.

And here they are.

"Okay," he says.

"I'll call you back," she says. "Ten minutes."

"Okay."

The call ends.

For a moment, Shane just sits there with the phone against his ear, listening to the absence where Farah's voice was.

Then it buzzes against his cheek.

Mom

He stares at it.

He should answer. He knows he should answer. His mother is probably worried, and if she has seen the photo then she is probably hurt too, not because of Ilya—not because of that, Shane does not think, not really—but because Shane has kept this from her. Because he has kept an entire part of himself hidden.

His thumb hovers.

The phone stops ringing.

A voicemail appears.

Then a text.

Mom: Sweetheart, please call me.

Sweetheart.

Shane presses the heel of his hand against his sternum.

His phone lights up again.

Dad

He loves his father. He knows his father loves him. He also knows David Hollander has a way of making reassurance sound like weather: calm, certain, practical in a way that sometimes helps and sometimes makes Shane feel like he is failing by not being soothed.

It'll be okay, buddy. We'll figure it out. One thing at a time.

Shane can already hear it.

And maybe it would be okay for Shane. Maybe, eventually, if the Metros said the right things and Farah built the right wall and his parents stood beside him and the news cycle found another body to eat.

But Ilya—

Shane cannot think past Ilya. Something keeps snagging at his thoughts, like a loose thread in a sweater that's demanding attention before it all unravels, but for the life of him, he can't pinch it between his fingers.

He has a thought of Ilya laughing. Not that anything about this is funny.

But, he'd come to realize that is what Ilya does when something hurts too badly to look at directly. He laughs and performs and turns himself into something bright and cutting and impossible to pity. Shane has watched him do it after bad losses, after brutal questions from reporters, after a phone call he refused to explain except to say, with a smile like broken glass, "Family."

Shane hadn't pushed then.

He had wanted to.

He had wanted a lot of things with Ilya and trained himself to ask for none of them.

His phone buzzes again.

Mom

Then, almost immediately after:

Farah

Then:

Dad

Then:

Hayden

It's too much. His phone is becoming a room full of people shouting his name. Everyone wants in. Everyone wants to know what he is going to say, what he is going to do, whether he is okay, whether he has seen it, whether he understands what this means.

He does not understand what this means.

None of it.

Well, that's not true.

He understands one thing.

Ilya is somewhere, and Shane does not know where, and there is a photo online that makes Shane's face look like a confession.

His thumb moves before he decides to move it.

Lily

Farah told him to call Yuna, and he has not done that yet. His mother is worried. His father is worried. Hayden is worried. The Metros are probably meeting. His agent is already making calls. There is a correct order to things, probably. A responsible order.

But Ilya is not an item on a list.

Shane presses call.

The line rings.

Once.

His heart moves too hard.

Twice.

He stands up, then sits back down immediately because his legs feel wrong.

Three times.

Ilya might not answer. That would be normal. Ilya is not obligated to answer Shane. Shane is not his boyfriend. Shane is nothing that deserves immediate proof of life.

Four times.

Still.

They had spoken on the phone thrice, and Ilya usually answers him. Not always, but enough.

Enough that Shane knows what Ilya sounds like when he picks up smiling. Enough that he knows the difference between "Hollander" as a chirp and "Hollander" as a warning.

The call rings again.

Then voicemail.

Ilya's recorded voice fills his kitchen, bright and obnoxious and alive.

"Hi. This is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail."

The beep never comes.

Shane hangs up before it can.

His thumb hovers over the call button again. He doesn't press it.

(That feels like tearing off his own hand.)

Instead, he opens a message.

The keyboard blurs for a second. He blinks hard until it sharpens.

He types:

Please let me know you're safe.

He reads it once.

It sounds too formal, too… Shane.

He sends it anyway.

The message appears beneath Lily's name.

Delivered.

Shane sets the phone facedown on the table, then immediately turns it over again because if Ilya calls and Shane misses it, he will never forgive himself.

The screen stays dark.

For a moment, the only sound in the kitchen is Shane's breathing.

Then his mother calls again.

Shane stares at Lily's name for one more second.

Then he answers his mom.

By the time Ilya reaches his apartment, Marly has called three times and Sveta has called thirteen.

There are two missed calls from numbers he does not recognize, one voicemail from, Sarah, Boston's media relations person, a handful of texts from people who can all go fuck themselves, and one message from Jane that he does not read in the parking garage because there are limits to Jane's kindness, probably. Some limit must exist somewhere. He would like to find it and stand behind it for a minute.

He sits with the engine running and both hands still on the wheel, staring at his phone until the screen dims, then lights again in his hand.

Marly

The parking garage is dim and gray around him, smelling faintly of oil and old snow. It is ugly here, in the way garages are built for nothing but convenience, anonymous and cold, and Ilya finds himself almost grateful for it. The garage does not want a statement from him. The garage does not care what anyone does with his hands in hotel hallways.

His phone keeps ringing.

He should answer Marly.

Marly is worried. Marly is good. Marly has never asked for more from Ilya than Ilya is willing to give, which is maybe why Ilya cannot give him anything right now. There are some people whose kindness asks too much simply by existing. Marly will say his name in that rough voice of his, brotherly in a way Ilya's own brother never was, and Ilya will have to make a joke convincing enough to keep him from coming over.

He does not have one ready.

So he lets call goes to voicemail.

Ilya exhales, slow and careful, like the air belongs to someone else and he is trying not to use too much of it.

Then the phone lights again.

Sveta

Ilya closes his eyes.

"Give up, sweetheart," he says, to the empty car.

Sveta is worse. Sveta is not a panicker. Sveta is a woman who once followed Ilya into a bathroom in a Moscow restaurant with one eye swelling shut and blood on his shirt cuff, and did not ask what his father had done until after she locked the door.

He had been nineteen, maybe twenty. Old enough to be famous, old enough to be dangerous on the ice, old enough for strangers to call him a man while his father still looked at him like something disappointing that had failed to grow correctly. Still apparently young enough for his father to drag him into a private hallway and hit him for embarrassing him in front of someone important.

Ilya does not remember what he said.

Probably something stupid. Probably something true.

Sveta had cleaned the blood from his mouth with wet paper towels from the dispenser, her hands steady and efficient while he sat on the closed toilet lid and pretended he was letting her help because it amused him. She had not been gentle, exactly. Sveta was rarely gentle with him, especially when efficiency would do. But she had been steady, and at nineteen, Ilya had been arrogant enough to think he did not need gentleness and lonely enough to remember steadiness like a wound.

"Who?" she had asked.

"No one."

"Ilya."

"You should see other guy."

"I have seen him," Sveta had said.

Then she had pressed the paper towel a little too hard to his split lip, like punishment, like love.

Sveta is worse because she will know. She always knows. She will hear one word from him and understand immediately that he is not funny right now, not really, that the joke is not armor so much as a hand pressed against a bleeding place. She will say his name in that voice that makes him feel nineteen and stupid and loved, and he will have to be a person.

He cannot be a person yet.

The call goes to voicemail too. But then, immediately, there's a text.

Sveta: Answer me.
Sveta: Ilya.
Sveta: I saw.
Sveta: Call me now.

The phone buzzes again before he can lock it.

Sarah (Bears PR)

That gets a laugh out of him, sudden and ugly in the sealed quiet of the car.

"Jesus Christ," he says, because apparently that is all he has.

The phone keeps ringing. He lets it. He watches the name sit there on the screen, polished and official, as if media relations is a person and not a room full of people trying to decide how best to explain that Ilya Rozanov has become a problem they would very much like to hand to someone else.

When it stops, he turns off the engine.

He thinks, very clearly, I should go upstairs, but sits there for another minute.

The garage is good because it's nowhere. It's a liminal space. It's not the rink, where the news is probably rolling through the locker room by now, turning all that normal laughter into something sharp and careful. It's not his apartment, where the windows are too large and the city can look back at him. It's not Boston management's offices, where men in suits are probably saying his name like it belongs in a sentence with "situation" and "organization" and "difficult position."

Here, at least, he is only a man in a car.

Then his phone buzzes with a text.

Marly: Call me. Right now.
Marly: Roz.
Marly: I don't care about any of it. I just need to know you got home.
Marly: Please.

The please is unfair.

Ilya locks the phone, then unlocks it immediately, because he is apparently interested in suffering as a hobby.

Shane's message sits there, one line in the list, small and devastating.

Jane: Please let me know you're safe.

Ilya reads it three times.

Please.

Not call me. Not what the hell. Not we need to talk. Not are you okay, which would be stupid, because of course he is not okay. Shane has chosen the one thing that does not require Ilya to make anyone feel better. The one thing that lets him answer with a single word if that is all he has.

For one ridiculous, humiliating second, Ilya thinks he might cry.

So he gets out of the car.

The elevator ride up is too long. The mirrored walls show him too much of himself: damp hair drying wrong, base layer still stuck to him under his jacket, cheeks flushed from cold and panic, mouth set in a line he recognizes from old photographs of his father.

He looks away.

His apartment is exactly as he left it that morning, which is an insult in an entirely different ways. As if his life hadn't imploded.

There are shoes by the door. A hoodie thrown over the back of the couch. A coffee mug in the sink. The big windows look out over the city, bright with afternoon light and glass and traffic. His place is expensive and impersonal, decorated mostly by a someone he paid to make it look like someone with taste lived here. They did a good job. It looks like a man who is rarely home owns it.

Ilya drops his bag just inside the door.

It hits the floor heavily, and the sound makes him flinch.

His phone buzzes again.

Unknown number.

He lets it ring while he toes off his boots.

Another unknown number.

He walks to the kitchen.

The clock on the oven says 1:42. He opens a cabinet, then closes it. Opens the fridge, then closes it too. There is food inside. Normal food. Eggs, yogurt, leftovers in their containers.

He has no idea what he is looking for.

His phone buzzes.

Sveta

Marly

Sveta

Sveta

Sarah (Bears PR)

Then, finally, the name is one he'd almost expected to have been the first call.

Sergei, his agent.

The man who has known him since he was seventeen, who still calls him Ilyusha when he wants something, who knows which officials need gifts and which journalists need threats and which questions should never be answered directly. The man who handles his contracts, his endorsements, his appearances, his entire professional life in North America and every fragile thread that still ties him back to the country currently sharpening its teeth around his name.

Ilya watches the screen until the ringing stops.

The silence afterward feels less like relief than a held breath.

A voicemail notification appears.

He should not listen to it, so obviously, he listens to it.

Sergei does not greet him.

"Ilya," he says in Russian. "I will be brief. I am terminating our professional relationship effective immediately."

Ilya stands very still in his kitchen.

"You understand the position this puts me in," Sergei continues, his voice calm in the way a person is calm when they have already decided where to place the body. "I represent other Russian players. I have sponsors, clubs, and families who trust me. I cannot be associated with this kind of scandal."

Ilya smiles. No one can see it, but he smiles anyway. It feels important, somehow. A final courtesy to the man on the message, or maybe to himself.

"I advise you to find new representation before speaking publicly. Do not contact me unless it is through legal channels. Your files will be transferred when appropriate."

The voicemail clicks off.

Ilya lowers the phone.

His career, his country, his family, his name. The money and the contracts and the carefully managed interviews, the sponsors who liked him dangerous but not complicated, the men who had always been happy to profit from his face as long as his mouth stayed shut. All of it suddenly radioactive in someone else's mouth.

He deletes the voicemail before he can listen to it again.

Then he stands in his expensive kitchen and realizes, with a calmness so complete it feels almost artificial, that he is alone.

Not technically. His phone is full of people. Marly, Sveta, Jane, Boston, numbers without names, names without anything useful attached to them. The whole world is trying to get into his apartment through a little glass rectangle.

But he is alone in the way that matters. Alone in the way that has nothing to do with how many people know his name.

His phone buzzes again.

A text, this time, and for one terrible second, he thinks it might be Shane.

Alexei

Ilya stares at his brother's name.

His thumb does not move.

Alexei doesn' text often. When he does, it is usually practical, transactional. Bank details. News about their father delivered like reports. Once, after Ilya scored in overtime in a playoff game when he was still young and riding the euphoria of youth away from home, a single message:

saw

Ilya had kept that one for six months.

Now there is a new one.

He opens it.

Alexei: Stay gone, faggot.

For a moment, Ilya does not understand the words, even though they're very simple words. Ugly words usually are. They don't need decoration.

He reads them once, then again. Ilya stands in his expensive kitchen with his brother's last message in his hand.

Something inside him goes very quiet, but not in a way that brings peace. It is the quiet of a rink after everyone has left and the lights have been shut off, the ice still there in the dark, hard and waiting for blades that may never come.

His father is going to see the photo.

Maybe he has already seen it.

Maybe Alexei showed him. Maybe Alexei did not have to. Maybe his father has already looked at Ilya's face beside Shane's hand and felt exactly nothing except disgust at having produced him.

Ilya's mouth tastes metallic.

He puts the phone on the counter and it buzzes immediately.

Sveta

He turns away from it.

The apartment is too bright. The windows are too large. There is nowhere to stand where he cannot be seen by the city, which is ridiculous because nobody is looking up here, nobody cares about one man in one expensive apartment, except apparently everyone cares, apparently the whole fucking world cares what Ilya Rozanov does with his hands in hotel hallways.

He walks into the bedroom.

Stops.

Walks out again.

The phone is still buzzing on the kitchen counter.

He should answer someone. He should text Shane back. He should call Sveta. He should call a lawyer. He should call someone who knows what happens when a Russian athlete becomes radioactive in two countries at once and whether there is any legal language neat enough to turn that terror into paperwork.

Instead, he picks up his phone and opens the photo again.

Shane is still looking at him, still almost smiling.

Ilya touches the screen with his thumb, right over Shane's face, then snatches his hand back like the glass is hot.

Shane's life is over too.

Maybe not as over as Ilya's. Shane is Canadian. Shane is beloved. Shane is clean and golden and disciplined and so fucking good that people will probably find a way to make even this noble. Brave, maybe. Quietly dignified. A private man forced into honesty by someone else's cruelty.

And Ilya?

Ilya is the mistake.

The bad influence. The reckless Russian. The slut. The joke that went too far. The thing that happened to Shane Hollander when no one was watching closely enough.

His phone buzzes.

Jeremy Kline (GM)

Ilya looks at it for a long moment before he answers.

"Jeremy," he says.

There is a pause, as if Kline expected to have to chase him.

"Ilya," Jeremy Kline says. His voice has that careful weight people use when they're about to do something ugly and want to sound sad about it. "Thank you for picking up."

"Of course."

He sounds calm. He is very good at sounding calm when there is no calm anywhere in him.

"I want you to know that we are taking the situation very seriously."

"I understand."

"We've spoken with ownership, with league representatives, and with our communications team. There are a number of factors we have to consider, and given how quickly this is moving, we believe the responsible thing is to create some space while we determine the best path forward."

Create some space.

Ilya looks out the window and Boston shines back at him, indifferent and bright.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"For the time being, we're asking you to step away from team activities."

"I see."

"Temporarily," Kline says.

"Yes."

"We don't want you coming to the facility until we've had time to assess the situation properly. Media relations will send approved language, and we strongly advise you not to make any public comment until we have a clearer sense of where things stand."

Ilya listens to him talk and feels, with a strange detached interest, how soft the language is. Step away. Create space. For the time being. Men like Kline never shove you out a door if they can describe the room as needing air.

"How long do you expect that to be?" Ilya asks.

"We're not prepared to give a timeline."

"I understand."

"This is not a punishment," Kline says. "You need to understand that."

"I understand what you're saying."

A small silence follows. It wasn't quite disagreement, not quite an accusation, but it was enough of both.

Kline clears his throat. "The organization has obligations to a lot of people. Players, staff, sponsors, families. We have to be careful not to let one situation destabilize everything everyone has worked to build."

Ilya keeps his eyes on the window.

"Of course," he says.

"I'm glad you understand."

"I didn't say that."

Kline goes quiet.

Ilya lets the silence sit there for one second too long, then smooths his voice back into something usable.

"I'll cooperate with media relations," he says. "Send me whatever language you want reviewed. I won't make public comment without representation."

"We attempted to contact your representation," Kline says.

Ilya looks at his phone, as if Sergei might crawl out of it and save him after all.

"I'm between agents as of now."

Another pause.

"I see."

He does not. But maybe he will, eventually. Maybe someone will explain to him that Ilya Rozanov is not only a brand problem or a locker room distraction or a headline that makes sponsors nervous.

Or maybe they already know. Maybe they simply do not care.

"Ilya," Kline says, quieter now, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you."

The words are coming out flawless.

"We're not releasing you at this time," Kline says.

Ilya hears the door before it closes.

"Alright."

"We'll continue evaluating as we get more information."

"Understood."

"Are you somewhere safe?"

It is such an unexpected question that Ilya almost cannot understand it.

Safe? His apartment has a security desk and cameras in the garage and windows that do not open all the way. His bank account is full. His body is healthy. His car is fast. His name is famous. On paper, he is one of the safest people alive.

For a moment, he considers lying. He's good at that too.

Instead, he says, "I'm at home."

It's not an answer.

Kline hears that, maybe, or maybe he only hears what is convenient.

"Good," he says. "Stay there for now. We'll be in touch."

"Yes."

The call ends.

Ilya lowers the phone slowly.

For half a second, he is proud of himself. He had not given them unstable or difficult or uncooperative, because those are words men like Kline keep ready in desk drawers for players who bleed in the wrong direction.

He had sounded calm, reasonable, grateful almost.

Then he turns, barely makes it to the sink, and throws up nothing but coffee and bile. For half a second, he feels better.

Then he doesn't.

The phone buzzes again immediately.

Sveta

This time, the sound cracks something.

"Stop," he says.

The phone buzzes.

"Stop."

It buzzes again.

He picks it up, turns it off, and the apartment falls into silence so abruptly that it feels like pressure dropping before a storm.

Ilya stands there, breathing hard. His reflection is faint in the dark window now, because at some point the afternoon has started to go.

He looks like a man waiting for bad news, which is stupid, because the bad news is already here. It's in his hand. It's in his kitchen. It's in the phone he has just shut off and the photo still glowing behind his eyes. It's in the shape of Shane's face, open and soft and ruined because Ilya had wanted to touch him and had not cared enough about the world to make sure the world was not watching.

He looks down at himself. He never showered. Never changed. He smells like the rink, like work, like the last place he belonged before belonging became conditional.

He should shower now, probably. He should do many things.

Instead, he walks to the entryway.

His keys are still on the little table by the door.

He picks them up.

He does not think, Maybe if I drive fast enough, something will happen and I will not have to decide what comes next.

He only thinks that he cannot stand being inside his own life for one more second.

So he leaves.

Shane answers his mom's calls half an hour later.

"Shane," she says, and her voice is already breaking around his name.

For one horrible second, he is seventeen again, hurt and scared and trying not to cry because crying will make his mother cry and then his father will look helpless and the whole room will become too full of everyone else's fear.

"Hi, Mom," he says.

"Oh, sweetheart."

He presses his thumb into his brow bone until it hurts.

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not."

Everybody keeps saying that, and it's starting to feel personal.

"I'm physically okay," he says, because that's at least specific enough to be true.

"Are you at home?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

Shane closes his eyes. "Why is everyone asking me that?"

"Because we love you and we care about you."

That's unfair.

"I talked to Farah," he says.

"Good."

"She said not to go online."

"Good."

"She said not to post anything or answer unknown numbers."

"Good."

"She said to call you."

There is a small pause.

Yuna says, "Farah is a very smart woman."

"She is very bossy."

"Also that."

It should be funny. It almost is, for half a second. Then Shane looks at his phone again, because he cannot stop looking at his phone.

No Lily.

His mother goes quiet.

It's like she can somehow hear it. The little place where his attention leaves the conversation and goes searching for something that's not there.

"Have you spoken to him?" she asks.

Shane's throat tightens.

"Uh, no."

"Did you try?"

"Once."

"And?"

"He didn't answer."

His mother inhales, very softly.

"Well, honey, he may not be able to," she says.

"I know."

"He may be overwhelmed."

"I know."

"He may be surrounded by people."

"I know."

The words come out too sharp. His mother lets them which is worse than if she snapped back.

"Sorry. Yes, I know," Shane says again, quieter.

The kitchen looks exactly the same as it did thirty minutes ago. Smoothie on the counter. Blender in the sink. Running shoes by the door. Sunlight shifting on the floor. His life, arranged neatly around the place where something has broken.

"Mom," he says.

"Yes?"

"Did you see it?"

She's quiet for a moment, like she's trying to figure out how to break it to him. But, in the end, Yuna Hollander is nothing if not efficient so she replies with a very simple word.

"Yes."

He closes his eyes. Fuck.

Of course she saw it. That's the whole point. Everyone has seen it. His mother has seen Ilya's hand on his waist. His father has seen Shane's face tilted towards another man like gravity has been rewritten. The Metros have seen it. The league has seen it. People who own his jerseys have seen it. Kids who use him as an example have seen it. Reporters who have asked him about leadership and discipline and being a role model have seen exactly how much discipline he has when Ilya Rozanov is close enough to touch.

"It's not—" Shane starts then stops.

Because what?

It's not what it looks like?

It is exactly what it looks like.

It's worse, actually. It's not just a bad decision in a hotel hallway. It's months of bad decisions. Years of wanting. A thousand moments Shane had filed away under rivalry, curiosity, weakness, stress, anything but love because love would have required something from him he didn't know how to give.

"It's not what?" Yuna asks gently.

Shane shakes his head even though she cannot see him.

"I don't know."

"Okay."

"It's complicated."

"I assumed."

That startles a small, broken laugh out of him.

His mother sounds relieved by it. "I may be your mother, but I do have some imagination."

"Please don't."

"I said some."

Shane presses his fingers against his eyes.

For half a second, he can almost breathe.

Then his phone vibrates against his cheek. He pulls it away to check because every part of him is now trained toward the possibility of Ilya.

It's not Lily.

The Metros leadership group chat.

His stomach turns over.

The preview is from Beaumont.

what the fuck is going on

Then another from Comeau.

captain????

Then three more come in so quickly the screen shifts under his eyes.

He doesn't open them. He cannot.

He can imagine it too easily: confusion, jokes, shock, someone trying to be supportive and making it worse, someone else saying nothing at all. He can imagine the little typing bubbles. Men he has changed beside for years trying to decide what version of him they are allowed to talk to now.

He mutes the chat.

"Shane?" his mother says.

"Sorry."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Just some texts."

"Oh."

"I muted it," he says.

"Good."

"I'm the captain."

"You are also allowed to not read messages while you are having a crisis."

"I'm not having a crisis."

"Shane."

His jaw tightens.

"Can you stop saying my name like that?"

His mother goes quiet. Immediately, guilt folds itself around his ribs.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You do not have to apologize for being scared."

"I'm not—"

He stops.

Because it's one thing to lie to Farah. It's another to lie to Hayden. It's another to lie to himself, which he does all the time and has gotten very good at.

But his mother has always been an inconvenient place to lie.

"I don't know what I am," he says.

"It's okay."

His phone buzzes again. His screen is a pileup of people who love him, people who need him, people who are paid to manage him, and people who want pieces.

No Ilya, though.

His chest pulls tight—a small, mean tightening under his sternum, like someone has taken a fistful of muscle and started twisting.

"I think I need to call Hayden," he says.

"Okay."

"And Farah."

"Your father and I are coming to you."

Shane sits up so fast the chair legs scrape against the floor.

"What?"

"We're coming to Montreal."

"No."

"Yes."

"Mom."

"We are already packing."

"No, don't—there's no reason to—"

"There is every reason."

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine."

"I have Farah."

"Farah is wonderful, but Farah is not your mother."

The pressure in his chest moves up into his throat.

"I don't need you to come."

"I know." Then Yuna says, "We're coming anyway."

He looks down at his hand. It's shaking again, worse this time. His fingers look pale where they grip the phone.

"I don't know if I can deal with that right now," he admits.

"With us?"

"With anyone."

His mother's voice softens. "Then you do not have to deal with us. We will sit quietly in another room and make sure you're not alone."

That sounds so good, suddenly, that Shane cannot speak.

His eyes burn. He presses the heel of his hand hard against them until it hurts.

"Okay," he whispers.

"We will text you when we are on the road."

"Okay."

"Call Hayden. Call Farah. Do not look online. Do not read the team chat."

"Mom."

"Yes?"

He does not know what he means to say.

Maybe: I'm sorry.

Maybe: I'm scared.

Maybe: I think I ruined him.

Instead, what comes out is, "If he calls while I'm talking to someone else—"

"Then you hang up on them and answer him," she says immediately.

It is the first clear instruction anyone has given him all day.

Shane breathes out, raggedly.

"Okay."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

He hangs up before his voice can do anything else.

For one second, the kitchen is silent.

Then Hayden calls again.

Shane answers because if he does not answer someone, he is going to call Ilya again. Farah told him not to call Ilya again. His mother told him to listen to Farah. Shane is good at instructions. Shane is excellent at instructions. Shane can follow instructions until they become impossible, and then he can follow them a little longer out of spite.

"Hey," Hayden says.

Shane closes his eyes.

Hayden's voice is usually easy. Familiar. Warm in that half-teasing way of his, like life is not nearly as sharp as Shane insists on making it.

Now it's careful too. Shane hates that.

"Hi," Shane says.

"Are you okay?"

"Everyone needs to stop opening with that."

"Right. Sorry. Are you currently on fire?"

"No."

"Good. Low bar, but we'll take it."

Shane makes a sound that is almost a laugh and almost nausea.

"Where are you?"

"Kitchen."

"Alone?"

"My parents are coming."

"Good. I'll be there after I help Jackie put the kids to bed."

"It's unnecessary."

"Sure."

"Don't sure me, Hayd."

"I'm sure-ing the part where you think having people who love you around during a massive public crisis is unnecessary."

Shane looks at the smoothie.

The smoothie looks back at him, green and smug and untouched.

"I made a smoothie," he says.

There is a pause.

"Okay," Hayden says slowly.

"It was a good smoothie."

"Was?"

"I haven't drunk it."

"Right."

"The texture was perfect."

"Shane."

"There was no reason for it to be a bad day."

The words come out too flat. Shane presses his free hand against the counter. His palm is damp. Everything is damp. The glass. His skin. The back of his neck.

"Someone told you?" Shane asks.

"I saw it first."

Shane's stomach drops.

"Oh."

"Not because I was looking for it," Hayden says quickly. "It was just—Shane, it's everywhere."

"Did you look at it?" Shane asks.

"I saw it."

"That's not what I asked."

Hayden exhales.

"Yes," he says. "I looked."

Shane closes his eyes.

He imagines Hayden seeing him like that. Not just with Ilya. With wanting on his face. With softness. With all the things Shane has spent years keeping packed away like evidence of a crime.

"Is it bad?" he asks, though Farah has already answered this, though everyone has answered this, though the question is becoming a bruise he keeps pressing.

Hayden does not answer right away.

"Hayden."

"It's… obvious," Hayden says.

The word moves through Shane's body like ice water.

Obvious. He's obvious.

All that carefulness, all that control, all those years of saying the right thing and standing the right way and locking doors and checking hallways and touching Ilya only in places where nobody could see them, and one photo has made him obvious.

He covers his mouth with his hand.

"Shane?"

"I'm here."

"We don't have to talk about it."

That almost makes it worse.

"No," Shane says.

"Okay."

"No, I mean—" He stops. Starts again. "What is obvious?"

Gently, Hayden says, "That you... care."

Shane stands. He does not remember deciding to stand. One second he is sitting, the next the chair is behind him and his body is upright and wrong.

"I need to go," he says.

"Wait. Shane—"

"I need to—"

He does not know what he needs.

Air. Maybe. Water. A different body. A different day. A hallway without cameras. Ilya answering his phone. Ilya laughing at him for panicking. Ilya saying, Relax, Hollander. This is nothing. And Shane will believe him. He'll believe any words that fall from Ilya's lips.

"Shane," Hayden says, sharper now.

"I'll call you back," Shane says.

"Don't hang up."

"I'll call you back."

"Shane, do not—"

He hangs up.

Immediately, the phone rings again and Shane declines it.

Farah is next.

He declines that too, and terror flashes through him so hard he almost calls her back before the screen has even gone dark.

Then Hayden texts.

Answer me, Shane

Another text.

Answer me or I'm coming over

Another.

Seriously

Shane stares at the messages.

His vision tunnels slightly at the edges.

He should answer.
He should call Farah back.
He should call his mother again and tell her not to come, or maybe to come faster. He should drink water. He should eat something. He should open the Metros chat because he is the captain and captains do not hide from their own rooms.

He should call Ilya.

A sound comes out of him.

He puts the phone on the table very carefully and calmly walks to the bathroom because he is going to be sick.

He is annoyed, briefly, by how predictable that is.

Of course. Of course his body always finds the least useful possible way to respond to a crisis.

He grips the edge of the toilet bowl and breathes through his nose.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for six.

Again.

His stomach flips.

He spits once.

"Don't," he says, to himself maybe. To his body. To the day.

His body does not listen.

He barely makes it to the bathroom.

The first time he throws up, there is enough in him for it to feel like a real thing. Protein bar from after practice. Water. Acid. His body folds hard over the toilet, one hand braced on the wall, the other gripping the seat so tightly his knuckles ache.

It hurts.

Good.

No, not good. Nothing is good.

He coughs, breathes, waits.

His phone buzzes somewhere in the kitchen.

The sound travels through the apartment like a threat.

He gags again.

There is less this time.

Then less.

Then nothing.

Still his body tries. Again and again, brutal and useless, wringing him out until tears stream down his face and his throat burns and his ribs ache from the force of it.

At some point he slides down to the tile.

The bathroom floor is cold.

He presses his forehead against the side of the tub.

He should get up.

He should rinse his mouth. Drink water. Check his phone. Answer Hayden. Answer Farah. His parents are coming. The Metros are talking. The world is talking. Ilya is not talking.

His phone buzzes again.

Shane closes his eyes.

The panic attack arrives so late he is almost offended by it.

For hours—no, not hours, probably not hours, time has become hazy—his body has been circling this. Tight chest. Shaking hands. Nausea. Thoughts moving too fast to catch. He had known it was coming in the same way a person knows rain is coming when the sky goes dark.

Still, when it hits, it is humiliating.

It starts in his chest.

A sudden hard clamp, like his ribs have decided they are a cage and his lungs are something dangerous trying to escape. His breath goes shallow. Then too fast. Then wrong. His hands tingle. His mouth tastes like bile and metal. The bathroom light is too bright. The grout lines on the floor are too clear. The sound of his own breathing is too loud and too far away.

He is dying.

No.

He is not dying.

He knows this. This has happened before. Not like this, maybe, but enough that he knows the shape of it. Panic attack, adrenaline, sympathetic nervous system, catastrophic thinking. Nothing is actually wrong with his heart.

Nothing actually wrong except everything.

He presses two fingers to the inside of his wrist.

Pulse too fast.

Obviously.

He tries to count.

One, two, three—

Ilya.

No.

Start again.

One, two—

Delivered, not read.

No.

Again.

He cannot get past three.

His body will not accept numbers as proof of safety.

He pushes himself up on one shaking arm and flushes the toilet because that's al least something. Then he rinses his mouth at the sink. His face in the mirror looks terrible. Pale. Damp. Eyes red. Mouth swollen from being sick. He looks like someone has told him bad news.

He leaves the bathroom because staying there feels like admitting something. The hallway outside seems too long. His apartment has never been large, but somehow the distance to the living room has become unreasonable.

He needs to get to the couch.

The couch is sensible. Horizontal. Soft. A place people lie down when their bodies stop behaving in accordance to their minds.

He takes three steps.

The floor shifts under him.

Shane knows it does not actually. His apartment is structurally sound. He is not fainting. Probably. Maybe. His legs are weak, that's all. His body is exhausted from throwing up and breathing wrong and trying to survive something that has not physically touched him.

The couch is eight feet away.

It may as well be in Boston.

Shane lowers himself to the carpet.

One knee first, then a hand, then the rest of him because the carpet is there and the couch is not and for once in his life he does not have enough discipline left to care about the difference.

He lies on his side.

The carpet smells faintly of detergent and dust.

He stares at the underside of his coffee table.

There is a receipt under it, which should bother him, but right now it doesn't.

His phone buzzes again from the kitchen.

He cannot get up.

This is not true. He could get up. If the building caught fire, he would get up. If someone knocked on the door and said Ilya was outside, he would get up. If Ilya called, he would crawl if he had to.

But right now, nobody is saying that.

Right now, the phone buzzes and buzzes and Shane lies on the carpet like something dropped.

His breathing scrapes in and out of him.

Too fast.

Still too fast.

He presses one hand to the floor.

Texture, he thinks.

That is a thing you are supposed to do.

Grounding.

Five things you can see.

Coffee table. Receipt. Couch leg. Dust on the baseboard. A sock under the chair.

Four things you can feel.

Carpet under his cheek. Sweat cooling on his back. His own fingers digging into his palm. His heartbeat everywhere.

Three things you can hear.

Phone.

Phone.

Phone.

No.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

The phone stops.

Silence rushes in behind it.

That is worse.

His brain fills it immediately.

The Metros are saying something. His teammates are saying something. Reporters are outside maybe. Someone has called his parents. His father is driving too fast. His mother is crying. Farah is furious. Hayden is on his way. Ilya has seen Shane's text and chosen not to answer. Ilya has not seen Shane's text because something happened. Ilya is alone. Ilya is laughing. Ilya is hurt. Ilya is furious. Ilya is somewhere Shane cannot reach, reading the whole world decide what he is.

Shane's chest clamps again.

He curls onto his side harder, knees drawing up before he can stop them. He has a distant, useless thought that he should be embarrassed. That if anyone saw him like this—Captain Shane Hollanderon the carpet, shaking and useless because of a photograph—they would never believe the rest of him again.

Then another thought follows, worse and clearer:

Maybe this is the rest of him.

Maybe the controlled thing was only ever scaffolding.

Maybe all it took was Ilya not answering his phone for Shane Hollander to become this.

His phone starts ringing again.

Not buzzing.

Ringing.

He opens his eyes.

For one impossible second, his whole body goes silent.

Lily.

It has to be.

He moves before he thinks. Pushes up. Gets one foot under him. His vision sparks black at the edges, but he keeps moving, one hand on the wall, then the counter, then the table.

The phone is faceup.

The screen says:

Hayden

Shane stops so abruptly his hip hits the chair.

Pain flashes bright and pointless.

It's not Lily.

The phone stays dark.

He has never hated a blank screen so much in his life.

He does not decide on Maine, because deciding would imply a level of intention he does not currently possess.

He simply gets in the car, turns it on, and drives.

For the first few blocks, he knows where he is. He knows the turn out of the garage, the light by the coffee shop he hates but has those doughnuts he loves, the road toward the highway. His phone is off in the passenger seat, black and silent and finally useless. The city moves around him in pieces: brake lights, crosswalks, a woman in a brown coat pulling a child by the hand, a delivery truck with one back door not latched correctly.

Normal things.

At the first red light, he looks down at himself and realizes he is still in his practice clothes under his jacket. His hands are wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles are pale.

He loosens them then grips harder again when the light turns green.

He drives north because north is there.

That's the whole reason. South has cameras, probably. West has nothing he wants. East has water eventually. North has distance.

The car is good for this. Too good. It purrs under him, low and eager, a sleek black thing built by engineers who have never once considered the moral consequences of giving depressed men too much horsepower. He had bought it because it was beautiful and fast and because at the time he had thought wanting beautiful, fast things was the same as wanting to live.

Look how that worked out.

Traffic thins after a while. Boston loosens its grip street by street, then exit by exit, until the city is behind him and the highway stretches out ahead, gray and wet-looking beneath a sky that cannot decide if it wants to storm.

He should have brought sunglasses.

He should have brought a change of clothes.

He should have answered Shane.

The thought hits hard enough that his foot presses down on the gas and the engine answers immediately.

The speedometer climbs.

He should answer Shane.

The speedometer climbs again.

Ilya notices this distantly, the way he might notice weather.

Then the car shifts under him on a curve, only just a little.

The back end goes light for one long, silky second.

There is time, absurdly, for a thought. Not a wish, exactly, but a clean absence of where fear should be.

Then his hands move because his hands are smarter than the rest of him. Correct, ease off, countersteer. The tires catch. The car straightens. The highway resumes beneath him like nothing has happened.

His heart is beating very hard.

"Oh," he says.

His voice sounds interested, almost amused.

He drives slower after that.

(Not slow, just slower.)

The sky lowers as he crosses into Maine. Rain starts somewhere at some point, thin and silver, smearing the windshield until the wipers drag it away. The road signs become names he does not care about. Towns appear and vanish. Gas stations, trees, low buildings, old snow dirty at the edges of parking lots.

He stops once.

He does not know where. Some gas station with fluorescent lights and burnt smelling coffee and a rack of sunglasses near the register even though the day has become gray enough to make that seem like optimism.

The woman behind the counter looks at him for a second too long.

Maybe because she recognizes him.

Maybe because he is a large, unshowered man in expensive clothes and damp practice gear.

Maybe because his face is doing something strange.

"Rough day?" she asks.

Ilya smiles.

"Little bit."

She laughs like he has made a joke.

Well, good thing at least one of them is having fun.

He buys the coffee. Sunglasses he does not need. A bottle of water he will not open. Then, at the last second, he looks at the cigarettes behind the counter.

He has not smoked regularly in years.

This is the kind of thing athletes say when they mean they smoke sometimes, secretly, badly, with the guilty expertise of men who know exactly what it costs and do it anyway. Ilya has quit enough times to have opinions about quitting. He quits in-season. He quits for playoffs. He quits whenever a trainer looks at him too closely. He quits whenever he knows he going to see Shane. He quits until he does not.

"Pack of Marlboros," he says.

The woman glances at him again.

"Which kind?"

"Red."

She gets them down and rings him up without comment. Professional woman. Hero, really.

Outside, the air is wet and cold. He puts the cigarettes in the inside pocket of his jacket. Back in the car, he uses the navigation for the first time.

Coastline.

That is what he types.

The screen offers places. Beaches. Parks. Lighthouses. He presses on one randomly and follows the little map.

The highway becomes smaller roads. The smaller roads become quieter. Houses appear with weathered shingles and porch lights on too early for the hour. Boats sit in yards like things waiting to be remembered. The rain stops, but the world stays wet, dark pavement shining beneath the tires.

By the time he parks, the afternoon has bruised around the edges.

He sits with the engine off.

For a while, he does not get out.

The phone is still off.

The silence is enormous, but at least it is his. He made it. He can keep it. No one can get through it unless he lets them.

That's something. Maybe the only thing.

Outside, the wind moves hard enough to rock the car slightly. The ocean is somewhere ahead of him. He can smell it even before he sees it: salt, cold, something metallic and ancient.

He gets out.

The cold hits him with such immediate violence that for a second all he can do is breathe through it. His jacket is not enough. His clothes are wrong. His whole body is wrong here, too expensive and too famous and too large for this strip of wet coast where the wind clearly has no respect for hockey players.

The ocean is dark. Not even in the blue, pretty, glittering way.

It's dark green and iron gray, throwing itself against the rocks over and over with stupid, endless force.

Ilya walks toward it, close enough to hear it.

The waves break white over black rock. Foam spreads, vanishes, returns. The lighthouse stands pale against the dimming sky, which feels a little on the nose, honestly.

He would say that to Shane.

If Shane were here, Ilya would say something about symbolism being tacky and Shane would pretend not to smile and Ilya would secretly feel delighted that Hollander probably thinks he's smart.

If Shane were here, the world would not be ending.

No. That's not true.

If Shane were here, the world would still be ending. It would simply be worse, because then Ilya would have to watch Shane try to fix something unfixable. Shane would stand with his shoulders too straight and his mouth too flat and start making lists in his head. Lawyers. Agents. Statements. Teams. Damage control. The right thing.

Always the right thing.

Ilya is so tired of being the wrong thing.

He finds a bench.It's wet, but he sits anyway.

The cold comes through his clothes almost immediately, but he doesn't move. He rests his elbows on his knees and watches the water until his eyes blur.

At first, he thinks in pieces.

Sergei's voice: terminating our professional relationship.

Alexei's text: Stay gone.

Kline: create some space.

Jane: Please let me know you're safe.

His father's face, imagined so clearly it may as well be memory.

Shane's hand in his shirt.

Shane's face in the photo.

Shane's life ruined because Ilya had been stupid enough to let himself touch something good where the world could see.

After a while, the thoughts lose their edges.

And that's so much better.

The waves come in. The waves go out.

Time passes, probably.

A gull screams somewhere above him, harsh and ugly.

"Me too," Ilya says.

His voice disappears into the wind.

He does not know how long he stays there. Long enough that the cold becomes part of him instead of something happening to him. Long enough that the light changes. Long enough that the lighthouse comes on and starts sweeping its pale arm over the water with mechanical patience.

A warning, maybe. A welcome. A joke.

He doesn't know.

His body is very quiet now. That should be good. Usually he has to work for quiet. Music too loud, engine too fast, someone's mouth on his, his own mouth running faster than his mind. There are ways to drown noise if a man is committed enough to ruining his hearing or his reputation.

But this is not that kind of quiet.

This quiet is empty. It has teeth.

He looks down at the rocks.

The thought comes gently—almost politely.

It would be quiet.

Ilya goes still.

He waits for fear to come, but it doesn't.

Only the water. Only the wind. Only the lighthouse marking time over a dark, cold ocean that does not know his name and would not care if it did.

He is not going to do anything.

He knows that, mostly, probably.

He is not a man who walks into the ocean because his brother is cruel and his team is cowardly and the person he loves may never look at him the same way again.

He's not. He's simply very tired.

There's a difference.

He thinks there is a difference.

His hands have gone numb in his pockets, but they close around the cigarettes. For a second, he only holds the pack there through the lining of his jacket, thumb pressed against its sharp little edges.

Then he pulls it out.

He peels the plastic off with numb fingers, tears it with his teeth when that doesn't work, and taps one cigarette loose. The lighter takes three tries. His hands are shaking too badly, or the wind is cruel, or both.

On the fourth, flame.

He cups it carefully, inhales.

The first drag burns.

He coughs hard enough to bend forward, one hand braced on his knee. His eyes water instantly. It's an acceptable, clean reason for tears.

Then he takes another drag that goes down easier.

The smoke fills his mouth, his lungs, his blood, dirty and hot and immediate. Something in him unclenches at once, humiliatingly fast.

He smokes the first cigarette down nearly to the filter then lights another with the end of it.

By the third cigarette, the cold has crept into his bones. By the fourth, his mouth tastes like ash and old coffee and metal. By the fifth, the lighthouse has become less symbol and more metronome, sweeping the water, sweeping his face, sweeping back again.

He sits and smokes until the pack beside him is visibly lighter.

At some point, it becomes night.

Not all at once. Nothing is kind enough to happen all at once today. The gray drains out of the sky slowly, the rocks losing their shape, the water turning black except where foam catches the lighthouse beam and flashes white for one second before vanishing.

Ilya stares at the glowing tip between his fingers.

He cannot remember lighting this cigarette.

That seems bad.

He should probably move.

A family passes behind him on the path, bundled in coats. A child complains about being cold. Someone laughs. Their voices drift away.

Ilya remains.

Eventually, his body makes a decision without him. His jaw starts to chatter so violently it hurts. His shoulders cramp. His knees ache from sitting still.

He stands and the world sways a little.

He walks back to the car because there is nowhere else to go, and he's starting to smell less like practice and more like someone Shane would be disappointed in.

Inside, the silence is different. He sits behind the wheel and closes the door, and for a few seconds he just shivers.

The phone is still off on the passenger seat.

He looks at it, but doesn't touch it.

Looks away.

Looks back.

"Coward," he says.

The phone, rudely, does not disagree.

He picks it up.

For a moment, he only holds it. It is stupid how much fear can fit inside such a little thing. It is only glass and metal. Wires. A battery. A machine made by people who probably did not intend it to become a portable execution chamber.

He presses the power button.

The screen lights.

Nothing happens for half a second.

Then everything happens.

Missed calls. Texts. Voicemails. Alerts. Names stacking over names so quickly he cannot read them all.

Marly.

Sveta.

Sarah.

Unknown.

Marly.

Sveta.

Unknown.

Jane.

Jane.

Jane.

Ilya stops breathing.

His hand tightens around the phone.

Before he can open them, it rings.

Sveta

For some reason, it's this one he answers.

Maybe because Sveta has known him longer than anyone alive who still chooses to know him.

Maybe because she will not let him get away with sounding fine.

He swipes.

For one second, neither of them speaks.

Then Sveta says, in Russian, "You are alive."

His whole body threatens to do something embarrassing at the sound of her voice.

"Sveta. That was a very well done drama hello."

"I have been practicing."

Her voice is flat and controlled. It's furious.

Thank God.

"I'm touched."

"Where are you?"

"America."

"Ilya."

"Maine, I think."

"You think."

"There was sign, at some point."

There is a sound on her end that's too sharp for a laugh.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"No."

"Are you bleeding?"

"No."

"Are you drunk?"

"No."

"High?"

"No."

"In police custody?"

"Not yet, but I'm starting to feel like I am."

"Illyusha."

He rests his head back against the seat and looks out at the dark. The lighthouse beam cuts across the windshield, pale, then gone.

"I am sitting in car," he says. "Very boring."

"Where in Maine?"

"Cape Elizabeth."

"Why?"

He looks at the black shape of the water beyond the glass.

"I wanted to see the ocean."

"No."

"No?"

"That is not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have."

Sveta is quiet for a second.

When she speaks again, her voice has changed. It is still firm, but the fury has tucked itself behind something steadier. He's nineteen again.

"You turned off your phone."

"Yes."

"Cliff Marleau called me."

Ilya opens his eyes.

Ah.

"Marly is resourceful."

"He's terrified."

Ilya looks down at his lap.

His fingers are white around the phone.

"He should not have called you."

"He didn't know what else to do."

This is unfair because it is exactly the sort of thing Marly would do. Find the one person Ilya might answer. Push the right emergency glass. It makes Ilya want to hate him and hug him and never speak to him again.

"Did you tell him?" Ilya asks.

"That you are alive? Not yet."

"Don't. He deserves it for being a snitch."

"Ilya."

"Not yet."

"I will wait five minutes," Sveta says after a pause. "Then I'll tell him."

Bossy. Beautiful, beloved, impossible woman.

"I miss when you were nicer."

"I was never nicer."

"Hmm, that's true."

"Are you going to hurt yourself?"

There's no careful language and polite circling with the way the question drops cleanly between them.

Ilya's throat closes.

For a moment, he hates her.

For knowing to ask.
For being able to ask.
For loving him in a way that makes lying feel like spitting on the floor of a church.

"No," he says.

It sounds almost true, but Svetlana doesn't speak.

Ilya laughs weakly. "You want a more convincing answer?"

"Yes."

"I am not going to hurt myself."

"Tonight?"

Tonight, not forever. That's manageable.

That's almost kind.

Ilya looks through the windshield at the lighthouse.

"No," he says. "Not tonight."

Sveta exhales.

He hadn't realized she was holding her breath until she lets it go.

"Good," she says. Then, briskly, "Okay. Come back to Boston. We'll get married."

Ilya blinks then laughs until it hurts his throat.

"What?"

"We get married," she says. "You need stay in America, yes? Somewhere that's not Russia. So I'll marry you."

"Sveta."

"I have white dress in mind already. You will hate it. Very big skirt. Just give me your credit card number."

"You're insane, Svetik."

"I know. It's a very good quality in a wife."

He covers his eyes with one hand.

The laugh breaks apart inside him, becoming something perilously close to not-laughing.

"This is a very romantic proposal."

"You want romance? Come home and I will shower you with rose petals. You want citizenship? I'll wear white."

"It doesn't work like this."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm not a complete idiot."

"Ehhhh, debatable."

"That's very hurtful, future wife."

"I'm serious, Illyusha."

Ilya lowers his hand.

The car is dark around him. His own reflection looks back faintly from the windshield, overlaid with the lighthouse and the black water beyond it.

"Sveta," he says quietly. "Everyone knows."

"Yes."

"They would know why."

"Yes."

"Immigration people are not stupid."

"Maybe."

"Sveta."

She lets out a heavy sigh.

Not annoyed, exactly, but deflated, like he has reached across the country and torn the bones out of the plan she built in the ten minutes since he answered.

"It was a good plan for thirty seconds," she says.

"It was an insane plan for thirty seconds."

"Sometimes insane is useful."

"Not with the federal government."

"Fine."

Her voice goes flat on the word. She sounds like she's rearranging herself, folding away the panic and the wedding dress and the ridiculous, impossible offer like weapons she has decided not to use yet.

"Then come home," she says.

Ilya blinks.

"What?"

"Come home."

"I am in Maine."

"I know. You said."

"No, I mean—"

"I know what you mean."

"There is no home," he says, and immediately wishes he had not.

The silence after is not empty, but rather, Sveta going very still.

Then, softly, "Yes, there is."

Ilya closes his eyes and doesn't reply.

"I am in your apartment."

His eyes open.

For a second, he does not understand. "You are in my apartment?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I went to my apartment first, and you were not there."

"Obviously."

"Then I went to your building. Your doorman looked very nervous, by the way. You should tip him more."

"Sveta."

"He had seen the news. Everyone has seen the news. I told him I was checking on you. He let me up because I am charming."

"Because you are terrifying."

"Also this."

"You just went to my apartment?"

"Where else would I go?"

He shuts his mouth.

On the other end, something clinks. A mug, maybe. A spoon. The small ordinary sounds of someone moving through his kitchen. His too-bright, too-empty apartment where his bag is probably still on the floor and his phone charger is plugged into the wall and the city is still looking in through the windows.

Sveta is there in his apartment, waiting.

Something shifts under his ribs and hurts so badly he has to breathe through it.

"You cannot just—"

"I can. I did. Now you come home."

Home.

She says it so simply. Like it is a fact she can make true by standing inside the place where he lives.

"Sveta," he says, and hears too much in his own voice.

Her tone gentles, but only by a fraction. She knows him too well to make it soft enough to break him.

"Come back," she says. "You do not have to talk. You do not have to decide anything tonight. You can smoke terrible cigarettes and smell like trash if you want. You can sit on the floor. You can shower. You can sleep. I will be here."

Ilya looks down at his fingers.

They smell like smoke. His throat burns. His whole body is cold and old and scraped out.

"What if I cannot drive?"

"Then you stay where you are and I find someone to get you."

"No."

"Yes."

"No Marly."

"I did not say Marly."

"You were thinking Marly."

"I was thinking private driver first. Marly second. Police third."

"No police."

"Then do not make police necessary."

He lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh.

"You are very mean."

"I am very worried."

That stops him.

Sveta does not say things like that unless she has no better weapon.

The wind rocks the car slightly. The ocean keeps throwing itself against the rocks in the dark. Ilya watches the lighthouse beam sweep over the water and realizes, distantly, that he is warmer now because the heater has been running for several minutes.

"I don't know what to do," he says.

"I know."

"No, I mean—"

"I know what you mean."

"I cannot go back to Russia."

"No."

"I don't know if I can stay here."

"We find out."

"I do not have an agent. Sergei dropped me."

"We'll find you a new one."

"My team does not want me, I think."

"Then fuck your team."

His mouth twitches.

"You sound a lot more like the Sveta I know now," he says.

"I've been here the whole time."

He closes his eyes again.

"I'm tired," he says.

"I know."

"I am very tired."

"Then come home and be tired here."

He swallows.

"And if home is gone tomorrow?"

"Then tonight you come anyway."

For a moment, he cannot answer. The lighthouse sweeps, disappears, returns.

"Okay," he says finally.

Sveta exhales.

"Good."

"I am not promising I can drive yet."

"Good. You sit until you can feel your hands."

"I can feel my hands."

"Without cigarettes?"

He looks at the pack on the passenger seat.

"Mostly."

"Drink water."

Ilya reaches for the bottle of water he bought at the gas station and had not opened. The plastic crackles loudly in the car. He takes one sip. It tastes like nothing and makes his stomach turn.

"Happy?" he asks.

"No."

"Hard to please."

"Send Marleau a text."

"No."

"Yes."

He sighs and opens Marly's text thread with his thumb. His last message is still there.

Please.

Ilya types:

alive

He stares at it.

Adds:

do not call police

He sends it before he can delete anything.

Almost immediately, three dots appear.

Ilya locks the screen.

"Done," he says.

"Good."

"You are very pleased with yourself."

"I am pleased with you."

His throat tightens.

"Gross."

"Yes. I won't say anything like that again. I gave myself the ick."

The car engine hums softly around him. Heat blows against his frozen fingers. Somewhere beyond the windshield, the ocean keeps moving in the dark, but it sounds farther away now.

"Stay on the phone until I come?" he asks, hating how small it sounds.

Sveta does not comment.

"Of course," she says. "I am waiting."

BOSTON BEARS SCRATCH ILYA ROZANOV FOLLOWING VIRAL PHOTO WITH SHANE HOLLANDER

Sources: Boston ownership "deeply concerned" by Rozanov-Hollander media storm

"Distraction" or discrimination? Bears face questions after Rozanov removed from team activities

Russian star Ilya Rozanov benched indefinitely after alleged relationship with longtime rival Shane Hollander surfaces

What does the Rozanov scandal mean for his contract, visa status, and future in the league?

Sources close to Bears say Rozanov's future in Boston is "uncertain"

Boston Bears remove Ilya Rozanov from active roster page amid PR crisis

UPDATE: Bears place Rozanov on non-roster status for "personal reasons"

BREAKING: Bears and Ilya Rozanov expected to part ways, per league sources

Shane sees the headlines because Farah forgets that he is still technically capable of reading.

Or maybe she doesn't forget. Maybe she assumes Shane is too wrung out to do anything more dangerous than breathe. Maybe she assumes, reasonably, that after being told fourteen separate times not to go online, Shane will not go online.

Shane is usually good at instructions.

He is very good at instructions.

His parents are in the guest room. Or, at least, they are quiet behind the closed door, which is not the same thing. Shane knows his mother is awake. He knows his father is awake too, if his mother is, because he never let's her go through anything alone.

Hayden left just after midnight, after Yuna looked at him and said, gently but with no room for argument, that Shane was not going to be alone. Farah had called three more times. The Metros had called twice. Shane had not answered either call from team management, which still feels wrong in his bones.

Shane lies in bed on his side, facing the window.

The room is dark except for the faint blue-gray spill of city light around the curtains and the glow of his phone screen in his hand.

He should be asleep.

He's not close to asleep.

His body is wrung out from throwing up and panic and the humiliation of being cared for. His throat still burns. His ribs ache. His head feels stuffed with cotton and broken glass. Mom had made him drink water and eat half a piece of toast while sitting beside him at the kitchen table like he was eight years old with the flu. Dad had put a hand on the back of his neck and said, "One thing at a time, buddy," and Shane had nearly started crying again, which was insane because he had not even cried properly the first time.

He has obeyed everyone for hours.

He has not posted.

He has not answered unknown numbers.

He has not called Ilya again.

He has not called Ilya again.

He has not called Ilya again.

The words have become less an accomplishment than a form of self-harm.

He opens the message thread.

Lily

His last text is still there.

Please let me know you're safe.

Delivered.

Not read.

Shane stares at it until the words stop meaning anything.

He should put the phone down.

He does not.

Somewhere down the hall, the floor creaks. His mother, maybe. Or his father. Or the building settling. Shane holds his breath until there is no follow-up sound.

The screen dims.

He taps it awake.

No Lily.

He tells himself Ilya's phone is probably off.

That is reasonable.

Ilya is overwhelmed. Ilya is angry. Ilya is with someone. Ilya is talking to his team, his people, whoever he trusts with the jagged private pieces Shane has never been allowed to touch.

Or Ilya is alone.

Shane rolls onto his back and presses the heel of his hand against his sternum.

His phone lights up with a notification.

Boston Bears remove Ilya Rozanov from active roster page amid PR crisis

For a second, Shane does not understand the words then he does.

He sits up, and the room tilts then settles.

No.

He opens the notification.

It's a mistake. He knows it before the page loads.

The article is short. Mostly filler. Enough to be devastating. The Bears have scratched Ilya from upcoming team activities. The organization is "evaluating the situation." A source close to the team says Rozanov's future with the club is "uncertain."

Shane scrolls.

There are more.

Visa status.

The phone slips slightly in Shane's hand.

Oh. The loose thread.

The thing that has been snagging at the edge of his thoughts all day, the thing he could not quite catch because every time he got close, his brain flooded with something easier. His parents. His team. The photo. His own face. His own shame.

Visa status. Ilya is Russian.

Ilya plays in the U.S. because he has a job there.

The Bears are taking the job away, or threatening to, or creating distance before they decide how politely to abandon him.

Ilya cannot go home.

Shane's lungs forget what they are for.

He throws the blankets off and stands too quickly. The room wobbles. He grabs the edge of the nightstand and waits for it to stop, phone clutched in his other hand.

His parents are asleep.

Everyone is asleep.

The whole apartment is quiet in that careful nighttime way, full of closed doors and people trying not to make it worse.

But it is worse.

It has gotten worse while Shane was lying here being obedient.

He looks at Lily's message thread again.

Delivered.

He calls and the line rings once.

Twice. Three times. Four.

Voicemail.

Hi. This is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.

Shane hangs up before the silence afterward can ask anything of him.

He calls again. Voicemail.

Again. Voicemail.

Again. Voicemail.

By the fifth call, his hands are shaking so badly he has to sit on the edge of the bed.

By the seventh, he is standing again.

By the tenth, he is in the hallway.

He does not remember opening his bedroom door, but now he is outside it, barefoot on the cool floor, phone pressed hard to his ear.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Voicemail.

He sends a text.

Please answer.

Call.

Ilya, please.

Call.

I need to know where you are.

Call.

He deletes I'm sorry because it looks like regret.

Types it again.

Deletes it again.

Call.

I'm not angry.

Call.

Please just tell me you're safe.

Call.

You're not alone.

He stares at his own words in the dim hallway.

It is a promise, or it's in the shape of something that wants to be.

It is also potentially a lie, because Ilya is somewhere Shane cannot reach. Shane has no idea whether Ilya is alone. Shane has no idea whether Ilya believes he is.

He sends it anyway.

The message appears beneath the others.

He moves quietly, automatically, careful not to wake his parents. Some part of him understands that if his mother opens the guest-room door right now and asks what he is doing, he might stop.

He cannot stop.

Because if he stops, he will have to go back to doing nothing. Because he has to fix this.

His laptop is on the kitchen table where he left it.

The smoothie is gone now; his mother poured it out while Shane was in the shower, murmuring something about making a fresh one tomorrow, as if tomorrow is a place they can still get to by ordinary means.

Shane sits at the kitchen table.

Opens the laptop.

The screen is too bright. He winces and turns the brightness down.

His hands hover over the keyboard.

He knows this is wrong.

The worst part is that he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind.

Ilya has not agreed to this. Ilya has not agreed to anything. They are not dating. They are not even brave enough to call what they do love in the rooms where they do it.

This is not a plan. This is, at most, panic wearing a plan's clothes.

But the headlines keep moving behind his eyes.

He opens Instagram.

His hands are shaking again. He mistypes his password twice.

On the third try, it lets him in.

For one second, he stares at the empty post box.

There is still time not to do this.

He could close the laptop. He could wake his mother. He could call Farah. He could wait until morning, when Ilya might have answered, when someone might have found him, when a lawyer might have explained every reason this is a terrible idea.

He could be careful.

Shane has been careful his entire life.

Careful has brought them here.

He starts typing, because fuck, some part of this is not a lie.

It's not a lie in the way Shane's body understands truth.

He loves Ilya.

He loves him stupidly, carefully, badly. He loves him in coded contacts and deleted texts and hotel hallways and messages he does not send. He loves him in the sick, helpless terror of an unanswered phone. He loves him enough that the entire world has narrowed to the question of where Ilya can safely sleep tomorrow.

So Shane gives the love the most protective word he can find.

@shanehollander

I'm sorry that a private part of our lives was exposed without our consent.

Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé. We have been together for a long time, and we intended to share this when we were ready.

I love him. I am proud of him. I am proud to be with him.

We'll be getting married soon. Please respect our privacy.

After this, there is before and after. There is Farah's fury, his parents' shock, the Metros' panic, the league's statement, Boston's reaction. There is Ilya seeing it. Ilya hating him. Ilya knowing Shane has made a decision about his life without asking him.

Shane's stomach turns. He throws up again.

For a while, all Ilya has is Svetlana's voice in his car, coming through the speakers with her very special brand of focused patience that she saves for when Ilya is being especially stupid.

She keeps him talking about nothing at all. That's Sveta's choice, Ilya thinks. It has to be. She is very good at making nothing sound like a strategy.

"Okay, read me the next sign you come across," she says.

Ilya exhales through his nose. "You know there are easier ways to ask to hear my voice, Svetik."

"You're so full of yourself, dumbass. I'm making sure you are looking at the road."

"See, this is exactly why you are single."

"Ilya."

He looks through the windshield. The road ahead is black and glossy from earlier rain, the lane markings shining briefly in his headlights before disappearing under the car. His wipers drag once across glass . Somewhere in the dark beside him there are trees, maybe houses, maybe the entire state of Maine all at once.

"Portland," he says. "South Portland. Scarborough."

"Good."

"I can read. Wow. Big night for Russian education."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're also driving."

"Car's doing most of the work. If anything, I'm a passenger princess."

She goes quiet for a moment, like she's considering something.

"Ilya?"

"Yes?"

"How fast?"

He glances at the speedometer and says nothing.

"Ilya."

"A normal, legal amount."

"Ilya. How fast?"

He tells her.

Sveta says nothing for two full seconds, which is worse than yelling. Then she says, "Slow down."

"I'm below jail."

"If you die before you get home," Sveta says, "I'm going to be very angry."

His hands tighten on the wheel.

The joke is sitting right there. He can see the shape of it, can almost hear it. Something ugly and easy about already being dead, about saving her the trouble.

He doesn't say it.

"I'm slowing down," he says instead.

Not because he wants to or because he believes the difference between eighty-eight and sixty-eight matters in any moral or cosmic sense. But Sveta is on the phone, and Sveta is asking, and there are only so many people left in the world whose asking still works on him.

He has the heat turned too high. It blows against his face and hands until his skin prickles. His practice clothes are damp under it, dried wrong against his body. There is a headache building behind his eyes, slow and mean, like it has been waiting for him to become human enough to feel it.

Ilya keeps one hand loose on the wheel and the other resting near the gearshift, fingers flexing every few minutes because they have not quite stopped being cold.

Here are the facts. He is in a fast car on a wet highway after sitting for hours beside black water. His agent has dropped him. His team has put him in a polite little box marked later. His brother has told him to stay gone. Russia has become a mouth full of teeth. Shane Hollander has sent him one careful, devastating sentence that Ilya cannot answer because answering would require choosing which lie to tell.

Yes, I'm safe.

No, I'm not safe.

I don't know what safe means if you hate me.

He clears his throat.

"What are you doing in my apartment?"

"Your freezer is disgusting," Sveta says.

"Why are you in my freezer?"

"I was looking for something to eat."

"You were looking in freezer for food?"

"Yes, this is traditionally one of the places the best food is kept. Frozen pizza? Ice cream?"

He huffs a laugh before he can stop himself. It surprises him enough that he nearly misses his exit.

Sveta hears that too. He knows she does because she keeps talking, very calmly, about his terrible mug choices and their handle to cup ratio, and how she is going to throw away whatever green thing is in the container at the back because it has clearly gained some kind of consciousness.

He lets her.

The road signs start to become more familiar. Maine loosens its grip. Massachusetts gathers him back in, not kindly, but inevitably. More cars. More lights. The press of civilization returning around him like a hand at the back of his neck.

His stomach turns.

"Don't get quiet," Sveta says.

Ilya blinks.

"I'm concentrating."

"No. You're doing the thing."

"What thing?"

"The quiet brooding thing that scares me."

He opens his mouth and closes it.

"I'm here," he says.

"Then tell me something."

He thinks for a moment then sighs.

"I want to sleep. And never look at the internet again."

"Excellent plan. I support this. I do too, please."

"And maybe become farmer."

"No."

"No?"

"You would be terrible farmer."

"I'm good with my hands."

"You like cities too much for a farm life. You got bored every time we were at the dacha."

"You have such high opinions of me."

"Mmm, the highest. Tell me something else. What do you see?"

"There's a sign for gas. And yes, I have gas, before you ask."

"How much?"

"Enough."

"Ilya."

"Half a tank."

"Good. Heat still on?"

"Yes."

"Hands?"

He flexes his fingers around the wheel. They ache. His knuckles are raw-looking where the cold got in and stayed.

"Attached."

"I didn't ask if they were attached."

"You should be more specific."

"Can you feel them?"

He considers lying. He doesn't know why. Habit, probably? A small, stupid reflex. There's no trophy for having feeling in his hands. No one will put him on a poster for bravely maintaining circulation.

"Mostly," he says.

"Good enough for now."

The phone shifts in the cupholder when he changes lanes. The dark screen catches a flash of passing headlights.

For one second, he sees Jane there even though the screen is blank.

Jane calling.

Jane texting.

Jane not calling.

Jane giving up.

No.

He presses his tongue to the back of his teeth until it hurts.

Boston appears eventually, as traffic, even in this time of night, as exit signs and brake lights and the familiar aggressive logic of roads. His body recognizes the city before his mind does. His shoulders lift. His jaw tightens. His foot eases off the gas.

Almost home, whatever that means now.

"I'm close by," he says.

"I know."

Oh right, of course she knows. She has him on location sharing somewhere, because one time three years ago he got drunk after a bad game and told her he was walking home from somewhere with a not a reasonable distance, and she had stolen his phone the next morning to make adjustments to his privacy settings in the name of friendship and tyranny.

"Stalker."

"Yes."

"No shame?"

"Not tonight."

His throat tightens.

He hates that she keeps doing that. Saying small true things without warning. Slipping them between jokes where they can get under his ribs before he can block them.

He pulls into his building's garage at 2:17 in the morning.

The gate rises slowly, too slowly, as if even machinery wants him to sit with himself a little longer. He parks badly. Crooked between the lines. He looks at it for two seconds, then decides the car can experience imperfection as personal growth.

"Parked," he says, but then sits in the car for five minutes longer.

Sveta says, "Ilya?"

"I'm coming."

"Now."

"You're very impatient for someone already inside my apartment."

"I want to see if you still have all your limbs."

"You asked about my hands only. You don't get to care about other limbs."

He gets out of the car before she can answer.

The air in the garage is warmer than the coast but still cold enough to make his body remember how long it has been shivering. His knees ache when he stands. His back hurts. His mouth tastes like smoke and old coffee and something metallic.

The elevator ride is worse than the drive. The mirrors are cruel.

He keeps his eyes on the numbers instead. Seven, eight, nine. His phone is still in his hand. Sveta is still in his ear. He can hear, faintly, the small sounds of his own apartment around her: a cabinet closing, maybe; the soft clink of glass.

"Still there?" Sveta asks.

Ilya looks away from his reflection.

"No. Ghost now."

"Very annoying ghost."

"Beautiful ghost."

The hallway to his apartment is too long. He has never noticed that before. The carpet muffles his steps, makes the whole floor feel expensive and dead. He punches in the wrong numbers first because his fingers do not work right. He curses under his breath.

Sveta goes quiet on the phone.

He knows why.

They are both listening to him come home.

His hand shakes slightly when he reaches for his keys. He fumbles them once. Twice. The metal slips against metal, a stupid little sound that makes his chest tighten.

"No rush," Sveta says.

"I know how to open a door."

"Then do that."

He does.

The apartment is dim when he steps inside. The lamp by the couch is on. His shoes from this morning are still by the door, one tipped over. Sveta's boots are beside them, neat and black and unmistakable.

For one second, he cannot move.

There are her boots.

Her coat is over the back of his couch. One of his throw blankets is folded on the armrest, not because he folded it there, obviously. The kitchen light is on.

His apartment is not empty.

"Illyusha?" Sveta says through the phone.

He looks up.

She is standing in the kitchen doorway with her phone to her ear, barefoot. Her hair is twisted up badly, as if she did it while angry. She's wearing black leggings and one of his old Bears hoodies, which she must have stolen from the laundry because he has not given it to her and she has no respect for borders, and an expression so carefully composed that he knows she has been terrified. Her face is pale with exhaustion and fury and something he cannot look at directly.

He can hear her breathing twice: once from the speaker at his ear, once from the woman in front of him.

He lowers his phone slowly.

Across the room, she does the same.

For half a second, they are absurdly still, both of them holding phones that are no longer necessary.

Then Sveta crosses the room. She takes his phone from his hand before he can decide whether to give it to her. Ends the call. Turns the phone off.

"Hey," Ilya says, because apparently that is the best he can do.

"You are here," she says.

It's not you are okay, or everything will be fine.

Ilya closes his eyes.

"Yes," he says, though it comes out almost soundless.

Sveta puts his phone on the little table by the door.

Then she hugs him—hard.

Hard enough that his breath leaves him in a rough, ugly sound. Hard enough that for one horrible second he thinks he might come apart all over his own hoodie.

He does not hug her back at first.

His arms hang uselessly at his sides. His body does not understand the instruction. It has spent too many hours braced for impact, for calls, for statements, for doors closing and people leaving. It doesn't know what to do with someone staying.

Sveta says nothing and just holds on.

Eventually, Ilya's hands lift.

One lands between her shoulders. The other curls carefully around the back of her head, because she is smaller than him and he is suddenly aware of every inch of himself, every cold, dirty, exhausted part. He smells like smoke and salt and sweat and panic. He should step away.

Instead, he bends around her.

There is no graceful way to describe it. He folds, that's all. His shoulders drop. His face presses into her hair. One hand catches at the back of her hoodie. He does not cry. He does not. He only breathes in and gets a mouthful of her shampoo and his own laundry detergent and the familiar, impossible fact of someone waiting for him.

Sveta says nothing and moves her hand once over his back.

That's why it works.

He doesn't know how long they stand there. Long enough that his muscles begin to remember they do not have to hold him upright by themselves. Long enough that the cold in him becomes obvious, because now there is warmth to compare it to.

Eventually, Sveta pulls back just enough to look at him.

Her eyes are bright.

She points a finger at his face.

"Don't do that again, fucker."

His mouth twitches.

"Drive to Maine?"

"Disappear."

Ah. He looks away first.

Sveta lets him have that, but only for a second. Then she reaches into his jacket pocket with no warning and fishes out the half empty cigarette pack.

"You're cut off for today."

Then, she lifts her own phone, turns the ringer fully silent, and places it facedown beside his.

Two little rectangles of disaster, neutralized for now.

Ilya stares at them.

"What if someone needs us?"

"They can suffer."

"Very compassionate."

"I'm full of compassion, actually. That's why I haven't killed you."

He almost laughs, but it only comes out as a breath.

Sveta looks at him for another second, taking inventory in the way she always does. His face. His hands. The set of his shoulders. The way he is still standing too close to the door, as if part of him has not fully decided to stay.

Then she wrinkles her nose.

"Well," she says. "I know I said you can smell like trash, but go shower, Ilyusha. I can't cuddle you like this."

He tries to make a face.

"You used to have lower standards."

"You used to smell better."

"Lies."

"Shower."

"Tiny tyrant."

"Alive to complain."

He looks at her.

She looks back.

The apartment is warm. Someone has been in his kitchen. Someone has put water in a glass on the counter. Someone has made the place less empty, made him less alone, and is pretending that is not what she has done.

Ilya swallows.

"Stay?" he asks, then immediately hates himself.

Sveta's face does not change, thank God.

"I'm not leaving," she says.

He nods once, then he goes to shower.

His first issue with the shower is that the bathroom is too damn bright. His second? The mirrors are worse than the elevator ones. They show him exactly what he looks like, down to every last detail, which feels unnecessarily hostile from an object he personally paid to install. He stands in front of it for a long moment, one hand braced on the sink, and stares at a man who looks like he has been pulled out of the ocean by the collar.

His hair is a dull matted disaster. His face is gray under the flush from cold. There is a faint red mark at the corner of his mouth where he must have bitten down too hard at some point. His eyes look strange to him, too dark and too far away.

He looks like bad news that learned how to stand upright.

Fucking hell.

He strips slowly. Jacket first, then the damp compression shirt that peels off him like a second, worse skin. Everything smells terrible. Rink sweat. Salt air. cigarettes. Panic. He kicks the pile of clothes into the corner with more force than necessary and immediately feels stupid about it.

How threatening, how scary. Big hockey man defeats laundry.

The shower takes too long to heat.

He stands there naked on cold tile, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched so hard it hurts. When the water finally turns hot, he steps under it and almost swears.

It hurts.

His skin prickles everywhere at once, sharp and mean, as the heat finds all the places the cold has dug in. His fingers ache. His ears burn. His shoulders tighten before they slowly, reluctantly start to drop.

He stands under the spray until the bathroom fills with steam.

At first, he does nothing.

Just stands there and lets water hit him.

Then his body remembers it's a body. Sweat loosens. Salt runs into his mouth. Smoke lifts from his hair and skin in invisible layers. The day starts coming off him in pieces, which is comforting until it is not, because there are parts of it no soap is going to touch.

Sergei—
Alexei—
Kline—

Shane. Shane's message is still unread.

Ilya closes his eyes and tips his head forward until the water hits the back of his neck.

He thinks of Shane's hands. Not from the photo. Different hands. Private hands. Shane's thumb pressing into the inside of his wrist. Shane's fingers on his jaw, careful even when he was not being gentle. Shane gripping the hotel sheets like he was trying to keep himself from asking for something.

Shane texting:

Please let me know you're safe.

Ilya grips the shower wall.

"Stop," he says.

The water does not stop.

His mind does not stop either, which is rude but unsurprising.

He washes his hair twice. His skin once, then again because the smoke does not leave fast enough. He scrubs under his fingernails until the beds sting. There is grayish-black ash caught at the side of one thumb. He stares at it for too long before rubbing harder.

By the time he turns the water off, the bathroom is full of steam and his body feels heavy in a different way. Not good. Not fixed. But less like something left outside overnight.

He dries off with one of the towels he bought in a color called stone, because it made him laugh, because apparently even the color gray can have aspirations. He finds sweatpants in a drawer and pulls on a soft black T-shirt that has seen better days. His hair drips down the back of his neck.

When he opens the bathroom door, the apartment smells like food.

Warm food.

Spiced, savory, complicated enough that his stomach twists in confusion before it remembers hunger is a thing that can happen even during the end of the world.

Sveta is at the front door, handing a delivery driver cash like she has personally won a small war.

The driver looks faintly overwhelmed by her.

A common experience.

"Thank you," she says, then shuts the door and turns around.

Ilya leans against the hallway wall. "You invited strangers to my apartment while I was naked and vulnerable."

"I invited dinner."

"What is it?"

"Ethiopian."

He blinks because apparently the world is still capable of producing one pleasant surprise, he says, "From the little place we went to?"

"Yes."

"But they close at midnight."

"They know me."

"Wow. You are much more well connected than I thought. What else are you hiding from me, Sveta?"

Sveta carries the bags toward the living room. "Come here and find out."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's fine. You can be not hungry while chewing."

He follows her because he's weak and because the food smells incredible and because, apparently, after a day of being professionally and personally destroyed, he can still be bribed with lentils.

Sveta has already transformed his coffee table into something close to a feast. Containers of misir wot, vegetables, sambusas, something green and spicy he loves but can never remember the name of, all surrounded by rolled injera wrapped in paper. She has put down towels under everything because she is actually his guardian angel.

Ilya stands over it.

His throat tightens unexpectedly.

This is stupid.

It's food.

It's literally just paper containers sweating onto his table.

But he remembers the first time they found this place, years ago, after a loss so ugly the locker room had felt like a crime scene. Sveta had dragged him across Boston while he complained about starving to death on American pavement, and then she had ordered for both of them because he had been in one of his moods where choosing felt impossible.

He had eaten until he felt human again.

Then she had taken his last sambusa with no remorse.

Some traditions are sacred because they are terrible.

Sveta looks at him. "Sit."

"Yes, general."

"Couch or floor?"

"Floor," he says, because the couch feels too soft suddenly, too much like admitting collapse.

"Smart, so if you faint there's less distance."

"Never let anyone tell you you're not comforting."

They sit on the floor with their backs against the couch, the coffee table pulled close. Sveta tears off a piece of injera, scoops up lentils, and holds it out to him.

He stares at it.

"I can feed myself."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"Okay, prove it after this one."

He gives her a look.

She gives him one back.

He opens his mouth.

The first bite makes his whole body do something embarrassing. Heat and spice and sour bread, salt, oil, the deep warmth of food that did not come from a bottle or a team nutrition plan (that he hardly ever follows). His stomach clenches, then settles.

Sveta watches him chew.

He takes the next bite himself, mostly out of spite.

For a while, they eat in silence. It's ot the bad silence from the car, nor the ocean silence. It's warmer. Full of small sounds: containers opening, injera tearing, Sveta humming under her breath when she gets to the spicy greens, Ilya's knee knocking against the coffee table because he is too large for elegant floor dining.

He eats more than he expects.

It's not nearly enough for an athelete of his size, but enough anyway. Several bites of lentils. Half a sambusa. Some tibs. He drinks water because Sveta puts the glass in his hand and looks at him until he stops pretending not to understand.

Eventually she steals a sambusa from his side of the table.

He gasps. "Thief."

"You weren't eating it."

"What if I was saving it for emotional support?"

She smiles faintly for the first time since he walked in.

It's small and tired and real, and the sight of it hurts.

Ilya looks away and grabs another piece of injera.

"So," he says, too lightly. "What terrible thing are we watching?"

"No news."

"When do I ever watch news willingly?"

"No hockey."

His mouth closes.

"Fine," he says. "What do normal people watch?"

"Trash."

"Ah. Your native language."

"Exactly."

She takes the remote and flips through apps, then eventually she lands on a reality show called Villa Ultimatum, which appears to involve impossibly shiny people in white linen accusing each other of betrayal beside a pool.

Ilya watches a man named Brad cry into a margarita.

"What's happening, exactly?" he asks.

"Brad kissed Tiffani after promising Kayla he would explore their connection with emotional honesty."

Ilya stares at her.

"You know these people?"

"Unfortunately."

"How long have you been in my apartment?"

"Long enough to learn Brad is trash."

"Brad definitely commits tax fraud, I think."

"Mm, probably. He's very rich."

On screen, Tiffani (?) throws a drink. Ilya settles a little lower against the couch.

"This is stupid," he says.

"Yes."

"Why are there so many candles? It's daytime."

"Ambience."

Ilya snorts. Sveta nudges his shoulder with hers. "Eat."

He eats.

They watch Brad get called a manipulative narcissist by three women in matching swimwear. Then there's a preview in which someone named Jax punches a decorative palm tree.

Ilya says, "I think I like Jax."

"You really don't."

"He understands drama."

"He cheated on his fiancée."

Ilya pauses with a piece of injera halfway to his mouth.

"Ah," he says. "Maybe I don't like Jax."

Sveta snorts.

He should not be able to smile, but h does anyway, for a second.

Then it goes away, but the fact that it existed at all feels strange and almost offensive. Like his body has committed a betrayal by proving it can still respond to stupid television and stolen food and Sveta's shoulder pressed against his.

His eyelids start to feel heavy and he tries desparately fight it.

Sveta notices immediately, because she is observant and knows him too well.

"Come here."

"I am here."

"No. Here."

She shifts onto the couch and pats the cushion beside her.

He looks at her then at the food then at the television, where Brad is now explaining that technically he did not lie because no one had defined exclusive.

"I need to see if Brad dies."

"He does not die."

"You don't know that."

"This is reality television, dumbass."

"Maybe he drowns in the pool."

"Couch, Ilya."

He considers arguing.

He is very good at arguing. People underestimate this because he prefers jokes and flirting and making everyone so irritated they forget what they wanted from him in the first place, but Ilya can argue beautifully when motivated.

Tonight, apparently, he is not motivated enough to defeat Sveta.

He gets up slowly. His knees complain. His back complains. His whole body has become a cacophany of bad opinions.

Sveta sits with one leg tucked under her, and when he lowers himself beside her, she immediately pulls him sideways with both hands.

"I am not child."

"Tonight, maybe little bit."

She pulls until his head is against her shoulder and his body is angled awkwardly along the couch, one leg stretched out, one foot still on the floor. It should not be comfortable. Somehow it is. Or maybe comfort is not about geometry tonight.

Sveta smells like his laundry and the spicy food and the perfume she wears that always makes him think of cold cities and expensive trouble.

Her fingers settle in his damp hair.

He closes his eyes, only for a second.

The television continues shouting quietly. Someone calls Brad emotionally unsafe. Good. Ilya had known there was something wrong with him.

Sveta's fingers move through his hair, slow and firm, untangling the places where it has dried badly.

"You are very ugly when you worry," he mumbles.

"Good thing you're not looking."

"You would be prettier if you stopped."

"I'll keep that in mind."

He wants to say thank you.

He does not know how to say it without making it too large, and if it becomes too large, it will become everything: the phone call, the apartment, the hug, the food, the way she turned off the world and sat between him and the night like she could personally fight off every headline with her bare hands.

So he says, "I hate Brad."

Sveta's hand pauses once in his hair.

Then continues.

"I know," she says.

At some point, the show becomes background noise.

At some point, his body stops pretending it's only resting its eyes.

Sleep does not arrive gently. It grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him under.

The last thing he feels is Sveta's hand in his hair.

The last thing he hears is a woman on television screaming, "You said you were ready for commitment!"

Sveta says, very softly, "Wrong episode, asshole."

Ilya almost laughs, then he's gone.

For thirty-seven seconds after Shane clicks post, nothing happens.

That is not true, obviously. Things are happening. The post exists. It's out there, bright and permanent and impossible to pull back into his body. Somewhere, servers are moving information. Screens are refreshing. People are seeing his words before Shane has even fully processed the shape of them.

But inside the apartment, nothing happens.

The kitchen is dark except for the laptop glow and the small under-cabinet light his mother turned on earlier so he wouldn't trip if he got up for water. The rest of the apartment is quiet. His parents are asleep, or trying to be maybe. The guest room door is closed. The city beyond the windows looks distant and bluish and indifferent.

Shane sits at the kitchen table and looks at the post.

Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé.

His hands are shaking. He puts them flat on the table. That doesn't help.

He has done something.

For one clean, terrible second, that's almost enough.Well, nothing is better. But something has moved. The frozen, helpless thing inside him has cracked into action. The headline about Ilya's visa status is no longer the last word. Boston is no longer the only organization with a public claim. The world does not get to call Ilya a scandal without also calling him loved.

Shane breathes in. Out.

His phone starts ringing.

Farah

The sound is so loud in the quiet kitchen that he flinches.

He stares at the screen.

The phone rings until it stops.

Then it starts again.

Farah

Then his mother's phone starts ringing down the hall.

The apartment wakes all at once.

Shane does not move.

The guest room door opens. He hears it before he sees them. A soft click, a rustle, his mother's quiet, urgent voice saying something to his father that Shane cannot make out.

His phone keeps ringing.

Farah again, and this time he answers.

He does not say hello, neither does she.

For one second, there is only Farah's breathing in his ear. The kind of breathing people do when they have decided not to scream because screaming would waste time. He knows exactly what it feels to be that person and never would have imagined himself on the other side.

Then she says, "Please tell me you were hacked."

Shane closes his eyes.

"No."

"Please tell me there is another Ilya Rozanov."

"No."

"Please tell me this is a concussion symptom."

"No."

"Okay then," Farah says.

It's the worst okay Shane has ever heard from her.

His mother appears in the kitchen doorway in the robe she packed in a hurry, hair loose around her shoulders, phone in her hand. His father stands behind her in sweatpants and an old sweater, sleep-creased and very awake.

Yuna looks at Shane.

Then at the laptop.

Then back at Shane.

"Oh, sweetheart," she says.

His stomach turns.

He cannot do sweetheart right now.

Farah says, "Do not delete it."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. Do not edit it."

"I wasn't going to."

"Do not respond to comments. Do not like comments. Do not turn comments on if they're off. Are they off?"

Shane looks at the screen.

"I don't know."

Farah makes a sound, and Shane distantly wonders if she's ever been this frustrated with him.

His hands curl against the table.

Yuna steps fully into the kitchen. "Shane?"

David comes in after her, slower, his eyes on Shane's face.

"Buddy," he says carefully. "What happened?"

Shane looks at him.

What happened.

A photo. A headline. A visa question. A dark kitchen. A screenshot of text in a post box. His own hands on a keyboard. Ilya somewhere, unreachable. Ilya possibly believing Shane was ashamed of him. Ilya with no agent, no team, no safe country behind him.

"I fixed it," Shane says.

No one speaks, which sends alarms off in his brain that this is the first sign he may not have.

Farah exhales into the phone. "Shane."

His mother sits down across from him.

"What did you do?" she asks, although he thinks she already knows. Maybe she needs him to say it. Maybe she needs him to hear himself say it.

Shane looks at the post again.

"I said we're engaged."

David blinks, then once more, slower.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. So. We're engaged now."

Yuna closes her eyes. "David."

"I'm not saying it's good. I'm just catching up."

"Ilya needs legal family," Shane says.

There.

There is the logic. The actual logic. Not all of it, maybe. Not the part where Shane's panic has teeth and hands and a driver's license. Not the part where he loves Ilya so much he can no longer locate his own self-preservation.

Farah is quiet for half a second.

When she speaks again, her voice is different.

"Explain."

Shane swallows. His throat still hurts from earlier. Vomiting. Panic. The whole long day of his body making objections nobody could address.

"He has a work visa," Shane says. "If Boston cuts him—"

"We don't know that Boston is cutting him."

"They benched him. They said they're "creating space" or whatever."

Farah says nothing.

Shane looks at the laptop screen. The white of the page feels too bright, even with the screen dimmed.

"He can't go home," Shane says. "He's Russian, and he can't go home, right? His agent is Russian so he probably dropped him, and Boston is treating him like he's contagious. I can't give him citizenship. I know that. I'm not—" He stops, because he is not sure what he is not. Stupid? Panicking? Completely insane? "I know it doesn't fix everything."

"It does not fix everything," Farah says.

"But marriage gives him something."

"It gives him scrutiny."

"It gives him a claim."

"It gives immigration a reason to look very closely at whether this is real."

"It is real."

The sentence comes out before he can repackage it right, make it safe.

His mother's face changes. Farah goes silent. Shane grips the edge of the table.

That is the problem. That is maybe the whole problem, sitting there in the kitchen with them, ugly and obvious and impossible to manage.

It is real. Not the engagement, maybe. Not the proposal, or lack thereof. Not the timing, not the consent, not the story as he has told it to several million people without consulting the other person involved.

But Ilya. Ilya is real.

The wanting is real. The love is real. The terror is real. The fact that Shane would marry him tomorrow if Ilya asked is real, which is a horrifying thing to know about himself and an even more horrifying thing to have made public by accident, except not by accident at all.

Farah says, quietly, "Did Ilya agree to this?"

Shane looks down. The kitchen seems to narrow around him.

"No."

He knew it before. Of course he knew it. It's not as if he thought Ilya had somehow agreed in secret through the power of Shane's desperation. He knew while he was typing. He knew when his finger hovered over post. He knew when he clicked it.

But saying it aloud makes it a different kind of true.

Ilya didn't agree. Ilya doesn't even know.

Yuna's hand moves toward him across the table, then stops before touching him.

Farah says, "Okay."

"I know."

"No," Farah says. "We do not know the consequences yet."

He flinches. His mother does touch him then, fingers wrapping around his wrist.

Shane does not pull away.

"I know I should have asked," he says.

"Good," Farah says. "Start there. Stay there. Do not move away from there because the rest of this is going to be very complicated, and that fact is the center. You made a public statement involving Ilya's life without his consent."

"I was trying to help him."

"I know."

"I'm not ashamed of him."

"I know."

"I needed people to know that."

"I know."

"He needed—"

"No," Farah says kindly.

Shane stops.

"He needed what?" she asks.

He cannot answer.

The question opens under him like a trapdoor.

He needed protection. He needed options. He needed a team, an agent, a country, a safe place to stand. He needed Shane to do something. He needed—

No. That is the problem.

Shane doesn't know what Ilya needed, because Shane never got to ask him, because Ilya never picked up.

His chest tightens.

"Fuck. Fuck. I trapped him," Shane says.

Yuna inhales.

David says, "Shane."

"No." Shane pulls his wrist free from his mother's hand, not hard, but enough to stand. He needs to stand. Standing does not help, but sitting feels impossible. "I did. I made myself his only option."

"You're not his only option," Farah says.

"I made it look like I am."

He looks at the post again.

We'll be getting married soon.

His stomach drops.

He had thought: make Ilya family.

He had thought: make him permanent.

He had thought: make the world understand he is not disposable.

He had not thought, not clearly enough, about Ilya opening his phone and seeing that Shane had turned love into a room with one door.

He presses both hands over his mouth. For a second, he thinks he might be sick again.

Yuna stands. "Shane."

He shakes his head.

"I need to call him."

"No," Farah says immediately.

"I need to tell him I'm sorry."

"You need to not make this worse."

"I already made it worse."

""Shane," Farah says, and this time her voice cuts through something. "If he turns his phone back on and sees forty missed calls from the man who just announced their engagement without asking, that is not comfort. That is pressure."

His thumb freezes above the hang up button on Farah's call.

His hands are shaking again.

Yuna's face is pale.

David has gone very still beside the counter.

Farah breathes once. "Text him then you stop."

Everyone looks at him.

He stares at the message box beneath Lily's name.

He types:

I know I should have asked.

Stops.

Sends it before he can delete it.

Then:

I'm sorry.

That one sits there for longer.

He almost changes it. It sounds like regret. It sounds like he is sorry for the whole thing, sorry for Ilya, sorry they were ever close enough to be photographed.

He adds:

Not for you. Never for you.

His thumb hovers. His eyes burn. He sends it.

Then, because panic still has one hand on the wheel:

Please just tell me you're safe.

Delivered.

Delivered.

Delivered.

Shane sets the phone down like it might explode.

Farah finally says, "Okay. We move."

"How?" David asks.

"Carefully. Belatedly, but carefully." Farah's voice goes brisk. "Shane, do not touch the post please. Yuna, I'm sorry to ask, but can you make coffee? I'm going to need everyone awake for a little while."

"I'll make it," David says immediately.

Yuna does not look away from Shane. "Are you going to be sick?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

She nods once, as if that is the answer she expected.

Farah continues. "I need to call legal. Immigration, employment, PR liability, probably someone who specializes in the consequences of athletes making life-altering Instagram announcements."

"There's a specialist?" David asks from the coffee maker.

"There will be by morning."

Shane does not smile.

Farah is still talking. Shane understands most of the words individually and almost none of them as a whole. Counsel. Narrative. Consent. Boston. Montreal. Timing. Public statement. No further comment. Possible conflict. Independent representation. Immediate priority.

Immediate priority should be Ilya. Immediate priority is always Ilya.

But Farah's voice becomes a wall of competent sound, and Mom puts a glass of water in front of him, and Dad makes coffee because he is trying to help, and Shane sits back down because his legs have started to feel wrong again.

After a while, the apartment becomes a war room.

Laptops on the kitchen table. Farah on speaker, then video, then back to speaker because Shane cannot stand seeing his own little exhausted face reflected in the corner of the screen. His mother taking notes on a yellow legal pad she found in Shane's drawer. His father sitting close enough that her knee brushes Shane's under the table every so often, a quiet little proof of life.

Shane does what he is told, mostly.

He answers direct questions. He does not open Instagram again. He does not answer the Metros groupchat currently blowing up. He does not call Ilya.

He does not call Ilya.

He does not call Ilya.

This feels like punishment.

Sometime after three, Farah says, "You need to sleep."

Shane laughs once.

Everyone looks at him.

He stops.

"I'm not tired."

Yuna says, gently, "Go rest for an hour."

"I don't want to leave my phone."

"Take it with you."

He looks at her.

She holds his gaze.

He stands because everyone is watching him and because if he does not stand now, he might not be able to later.

At the hallway, he stops.

"Farah."

"Yes?"

"If he says no…"

The sentence does not finish.

If he says no, what? No to the engagement? No to the story? No to the help? No to Shane? No, I do not want you. No, I never wanted you. No, you had no right. No, you have made everything worse.

Farah's face, small on the laptop screen, softens by one degree.

"Then he says no," she says.

Shane's stomach twists.

"And we find another way," Farah adds.

That was the thing he forgot in the dark. The thing panic did not let him see. He looked at the headlines and saw a door closing, and then he built another door out of his own body and shoved Ilya through it without asking if he wanted to go.

"Okay," Shane says.

His mother stands like she might follow him.

"Don't," he says, too fast.

She stops.

He hears himself, hates himself, tries again.

"Sorry. I just… I need to be alone."

Yuna's face does something complicated, but she nods anyway.

"Okay."

He goes into his bedroom and shuts the door. Then he locks it.

He stands there for a second with his hand still on the lock, shame crawling hot up his neck.

It's childish. It's necessary.

Both things can be true, apparently. A theme of the evening.

The bedroom is dark. He does not turn on the light. He sits on the edge of the bed with his phone in both hands and opens Lily's messages.

He should put the phone down.

He doesn't.

He lies down on top of the covers, one arm bent under his head, phone inches from his face. The screen dims. He taps it awake.

The apartment murmurs beyond the door. Farah's voice, tinny and decisive. His mother's lower murmur. His father asking a question. The clink of a mug. People trying to repair the thing Shane has broken open.

Inside the room, Shane waits.

At some point, exhaustion drags him under.

Sleep is not rest.

It's a hallway. It's a hotel hallway, beige and ugly and endless. Ilya is there, standing just out of reach, one hand on Shane's chest.

Not touching him. Stopping him.

"Ilya," Shane says.

Ilya smiles, but there is no warmth in it.

"You made me your problem," he says.

Shane tries to speak, but his mouth fills with paper. Legal papers. Immigration forms. Instagram captions. Every word he has written wrong.

The hallway gets longer.

Ilya turns away.

Shane reaches for him and catches nothing but the front of his shirt, the same place as the photo, but this time Ilya looks down at Shane's hand like it disgusts him.

"I never asked you for this," Ilya says.

"I know," Shane tries to say.

No sound comes out. Then the hallway is gone and there is water.

Black water. Shane is standing on shore with his phone pressed to his ear.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Voicemail.

Ilya stands at the edge of the rocks, back turned.

Shane tries to run, but the ground stretches under him, every step taking him farther away. His phone keeps ringing even though he is the one calling. Jane. Lily. Jane. Lily. The names flicker on the screen until neither of them means anything.

Ilya says, without turning around, "You should have left me alone."

Shane wakes with his heart trying to break his ribs.

The room is gray.

Morning, or something like it.

His phone is still in his hand.

He checks it before he breathes.

No Lily.

For a few seconds, he lies perfectly still and tries to remember where he is. Bedroom. Montreal. Parents in the apartment. Farah probably still awake. Post online. Ilya not answering.

Ilya not answering.

His chest tightens, but not enough to become another panic attack. Not yet. It is the duller version now. The after-panic. Everything sore and bruised, fear settled low and permanent under his sternum.

Someone knocks softly on the door.

Shane closes his eyes.

"Shane?" his mother says.

He does not answer immediately.

Answering means beginning.

Another knock. Softer.

"Sweetheart?"

"I'm awake," he says.

His voice sounds wrecked.

There is a pause.

"Farah's here."

His eyes open.

"Here?"

"In the kitchen."

Of course she is.

Farah does not sleep either, apparently. Or she has weaponized exhaustion into airfare.

Shane sits up. His head pounds. His mouth tastes stale and sour. He is still wearing yesterday's clothes. His phone screen lights in his hand.

No Lily.

He gets out of bed and unlocks the door.

For a second, he only stands there with his hand on the knob.

Then he opens it.

Ilya wakes up because someone is trying to break down his door.

That's his first thought, anyway.

His second thought is that he is dead, probably, because every part of his body feels both too heavy and weirdly absent, and there is a woman on television saying, "You knew what this villa meant to me, Brad," with the grief of someone whose life has been shaped by several drinks and bad choices.

His third thought is: Sveta.

She's still under him, or half under him, or beside him in a way that suggests neither of them had made particularly elegant choices about sleeping arrangements. His head is on her thigh now instead of her shoulder. There is a blanket over his back that had not been there when he fell asleep. One of his feet is still on the floor.

The knocking comes again.

Hard. Three sharp hits.

Then a voice, muffled through the door.

"Roz. Open up."

Ilya closes his eyes.

"No," he says into Sveta's leg.

Sveta's hand lands in his hair.

"Who is it?" she asks, grumbling a little.

"Marly."

Another knock.

"Roz, I know you're in there."

Ilya lifts his head enough to glare at the door.

"I am not."

Sveta looks down at him.

"You're going to hide from the man who drove here at," she glances at the clock, "six in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Pathetic."

"I'm wounded."

"Still pathetic."

Marly knocks again.

"Ilya," he calls. "I'm not leaving."

Ilya groans and rolls onto his back. The room tilts unpleasantly. His head hurts. His neck hurts. His soul, probably, also hurts, though he is less interested in taking inventory there.

On the television, Brad is crying again.

"Turn that off," Ilya mutters.

Sveta reaches for the remote and pauses the show on Brad's open-mouthed despair.

"Better?"

"Worse."

"Mmm."

Marly knocks a fourth time. This one has anger in it.

Sveta shifts out from under him.

Ilya catches her wrist before he decides to.

"I'll get it," she says.

"No."

"You want him to wake the whole building?"

"Maybe building deserves to suffer."

"Illyusha."

He lets go.

Sveta stands, smoothing down the stolen Bears hoodie with one hand. Her hair is even messier than it was last night. There is a crease on her cheek from the couch cushion and a murderous set to her shoulders.

Ilya loves her so much in that moment he has to close his eyes.

The lock clicks.

The door opens.

"Svetlana?" Marly says.

"Yes."

"Thank fuck."

"Good morning to you too."

"Is he—"

"He's alive."

"I can hear you," Ilya calls weakly from the couch.

Marly steps into the apartment like a man entering a crime scene.

He looks awful in a hockey-player-awful way. Hoodie half-zipped, sweatpants, one knee braced stiffly like it is still angry about yesterday. There's a coffee in his hand and a phone in the other. His eyes are bloodshot. His face is tight with the kind of worry that has had several hours to ferment into rage.

He sees Ilya on the couch.

For one second, all of it drops. Relief hits his face so plainly that Ilya has to look away.

Then Marly says, "You absolute asshole Roz."

Ilya nods. "That is me."

Marly points at him with the coffee cup. "Do you have any idea—"

"No."

"You turned your phone off."

"Yes."

"You told me alive and then vanished again."

"I was busy."

"Doing what?"

"Watching Brad destroy three relationships and possibly commit fraud."

Marly stares at him.

Sveta supplies, "Reality show."

Ilya sits up slowly. His body objects to every inch. The blanket slides to his waist. He rubs both hands over his face and feels the roughness of dried skin, the ghost of smoke under his nails despite the shower.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"What am I doing here?"

"Echo is not answer."

"I came to make sure you were alive."

"I texted alive."

"And then neither you nor Svetlana answered anything for hours."

Sveta crosses her arms. "We were sleeping."

Marly looks at her, then at Ilya, then at the phones on the table by the door, both facedown and dark.

"You turned off both phones?"

"Yes," Sveta says.

"Why?"

"Because people are exhausting."

Marly's jaw works. He looks like he has many things to say and is heroically selecting only the ones least likely to start an international incident.

Ilya appreciates the effort.

"Cliff," Ilya says, softer despite himself. "I am alive."

Marly looks back at him.

"I can see that."

"Good. Very observant."

"You scared the shit out of me."

Ilya's joke dies before it gets to his mouth.

He looks down at his hands.

"Sorry."

Marly exhales hard through his nose.

"You don't get to just disappear like that and scare everyone. No one could get a hold of you last night. The rest of the team was gonna start a search party."

Ilya laughs once, because he cannot help it.

Marly's face darkens.

"Don't."

"I am not laughing at you."

"Then don't laugh."

"I don't know what else to do."

Sveta looks at him.

Marly looks at him.

On the television, paused Brad looks horrified on everyone's behalf.

Ilya regrets speaking immediately.

He reaches for the nearest defense.

"Too many emotions this morning," he says. "Should I make breakfast?"

"No," Sveta and Marly say together.

Marly drags a hand over his face.

"Roz," he says.

The name is softer now, and Ilya hates that worse.

He looks toward the window instead. Morning has not fully arrived yet, but the sky is lightening at the edges, Boston turning gray and ordinary beyond the glass.

"What happened?" Marly asks.

Ilya's stomach tightens.

He looks back. "What?"

Marly's expression changes, only a little, but Ilya sees it.

Sveta sees it too.

"What?" she says.

Marly looks between them.

"You don't know?"

Ilya's body goes cold.

Sveta's face sharpens. "Know what?"

Marly swears loudly.

Ilya stands.

Too fast. The room gives an unpleasant little sway. Sveta reaches toward him, but he steps out of range before she can touch him.

"Marly," he says.

Marly's grip tightens around his phone.

"I thought you knew."

"Know what?"

Marly looks like he would rather take a slapshot to the teeth than answer, which is how Ilya knows it is bad.

Worse than last night bad. God, there should be a limit.

"Cliff."

Marly says, carefully, "Hollander posted something."

The apartment becomes very quiet, and even the paused television seems to shut up harder.

Ilya hears the blood moving too fast in his ears.

"What did he post?" Sveta asks.

Marly does not look at her.

He looks at Ilya.

"Roz—"

"No," Ilya says. "Do not use the gentle voice. What did he post?"

Marly holds out the phone.

Ilya does not take it.

His hands feel suddenly too large and too far away.

He thinks of Jane on his dark phone. Shane calling. Shane texting. Shane not giving up, maybe.

"What did he post?" Ilya asks again.

His voice sounds almost normal.

Marly's face goes worse.

"He said you're engaged."

For a second, Ilya does not understand the sentence. It is made of words he knows, arranged in an order that does not belong to this reality.

He blinks, then he laughs.

"He what?"

Marly winces.

Sveta says, very softly, "Ilya."

He takes the phone from Marly.

The screen is already open.

Shane's post fills it. Familiar account. Familiar name. Familiar careful little profile picture where Shane looks handsome and deeply uncomfortable with existing as a brand.

Ilya reads the first line.

Then the second.

Then his eyes find the sentence.

Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé.

No.

He reads it again.

The words remain.

No.

He reads the whole thing this time.

I'm sorry that a private part of our lives was exposed without our consent.

Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé. We have been together for a long time, and we intended to share this when we were ready.

I love him. I am proud of him. I am proud to be with him.

We'll be getting married soon. Please respect our privacy.

The room moves away from him, or he moves away from the room. Hard to say.

He reads I love him and feels nothing at first.

That is the strangest part.

Nothing.

Not joy. Not relief. Not even pain.

Just a white blank place where emotion should be, as if his body has looked at the sentence and decided, wisely, to evacuate.

Then his brain catches up.

Shane did this.

Shane Hollander, who thinks before he speaks. Shane Hollander, whose idea of reckless is sometimes taking a sip of champagne at award shows while claiming he does not want any.

Shane posted this. Publicly. To everyone. About Ilya. About them.

About a marriage that did not exist yesterday.

A marriage that does not exist now, even.

Ilya laughs again.

Sveta makes a small sound.

Marly says, "Roz."

"No," Ilya says.

He looks at the post then at Marly.

"No, this is fake."

"It's his account."

"He's hacked."

Marly's expression does not change.

"This is very common problem," Ilya insists. "Celebrities, politicians, rich idiots, all the time. Maybe someone hates him. Many people hate him. He is very annoying."

Sveta's voice is careful. "It sounds like him."

Ilya turns to her.

"It sounds like Shane having head injury," he says.

"Roz."

"No. No, this is insane. He would not—" Ilya stops.

Would he?

He looks back down.

I love him. I am proud of him.

The words sit there, calm and terrible.

Shane would not say that unless he meant i—no. Shane would not say that unless he needed people to believe it.

Ilya's mouth goes dry.

"He did this because of the headlines," he says.

"What headlines?" Sveta asks.

Marly rubs the back of his neck.

"Boston news started running with the scratch. Away from team. Indefinite. Contract stuff. Visa stuff."

The good man versus the bad situation.

Shane seeing Ilya's life collapse in public and deciding, with terrible Shane Hollander sincerity, that there must be a correct thing to do. A brave thing. A noble thing. A thing that would cost him but save someone else.

Ilya opens his eyes.

The anger arrives like heat after frostbite.

Painful, but almost welcome.

"He is unbelievable."

Sveta says nothing.

Marly says, very carefully, "He was probably trying to help."

Wrong thing.

Ilya turns on him.

"Yes," he says. "Of course. Saint Shane Hollander. Very good. Very noble. Sees poor Russian disaster and throws himself on grenade."

Marly's jaw tightens. "That's not what I said."

"It is what happened."

"You don't know that."

"I know him."

Sveta's eyebrows lift slightly.

Ilya ignores her.

He starts pacing because if he stands still, something worse might happen. Marly's phone is still in his hand. He should give it back. He does not. He reads the post again while walking from couch to window to coffee table and back.

Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" Ilya demands.

Marly looks exhausted. "A lot, apparently."

"Do not make joke."

"You started it."

"This is my crisis."

"This is definitely his too."

That stops him for half a second, then he hates that it stops him.

"Yes," Ilya snaps. "Because he made it one. He could have said nothing. He could have said privacy. He could have let his agent write something boring and shiny. He could have—"

"Let them bury you?"

The words come out of Marly rough.

Ilya stills.

Marly looks like he regrets it and also does not.

Sveta looks between them, silent.

Ilya's grip tightens around the phone.

"I was not buried."

"No? Because from where I was standing, management had the shovel out."

Ilya's chest does something unpleasant.

He smiles, sharp.

"Beautiful speech. Did you rehearse in car?"

Marly's face closes.

"No," he says. "I sat in my car for two hours because you turned off your phone and I didn't know if I was going to find you alive. Fuck, Roz."

The anger drains out of Ilya so fast it leaves him dizzy. He looks away first.

"Sorry," he says.

Marly blinks.

Sveta blinks too, actually.

Ilya scowls. "Do not look so shocked."

"You apologized with a real word. Twice," Sveta says.

"I take it back."

"No," Marly says. "Accepted."

Something almost soft passes through the room.

It lasts maybe one second.

Then Ilya looks down at Shane's post again, and it dies.

"We can say hacked," he says.

Sveta sighs.

"No."

"Why no? Very believable. Instagram security is terrible."

"Ilya."

"Fine. We say mistake."

"What kind of mistake?"

"Maybe he meant other Ilya Rozanov."

Marly looks at him.

"Other Ilya Rozanov who also got photographed with him?"

"Yes. Very common name."

"In what universe?"

"Big world."

Sveta rubs her forehead. "No."

"Fine. He was drunk."

Marly makes an incredulous sound.

"Hollander?"

"Yes."

"Hollander posts engagement announcements drunk?"

"Maybe he had very bad night."

"Ilya," Sveta says.

"No, no, wait. Panic. We can say panic. Everyone loves mental health now."

Ilya hears himself a second too late.

Shane on the phone, maybe. Shane in his perfect kitchen. Shane's face in the photo. Shane, who had texted please let me know you're safe and then apparently detonated his entire life while Ilya slept with Sveta's hand in his hair.

"No," Ilya says, quieter. "We are not saying that."

Marly's voice is gentle, which means the world is ending again. "Why not?"

Ilya glares at him. "Because we are not making him look unstable to fix this."

Sveta watches him carefully. Too carefully.

Ilya hates her a little for it.

"What?" he demands.

"Nothing."

"You are saying loud nothing again."

"I'm not saying anything."

"You are thinking."

"Yes. It's a very inconvenient habit."

He throws Marly's phone onto the couch. Not hard enough to damage it. Probably. Marly still winces, which is satisfying.

"He felt sorry for me," Ilya says.

Marly's expression shifts immediately. "I don't think that's true."

"He saw what happened," Ilya says. His voice sounds very calm suddenly, which means he should probably stop talking. "Sergei and Boston and Russia. He saw I had nothing and gave me this."

He gestures toward the phone on the couch, toward the post, toward the entire hideous morning.

"Big romantic gesture," he says.

Sveta's voice is quiet. "Did he say he felt sorry for you?"

Ilya looks at her.

"He said I love him. He said proud to be with him. He said fiancé. He said getting married soon." His smile feels wrong on his face. "This is all very useful things to say about a ruined man, yes?"

"Ilya."

"No. It's good. Smart. Strong statement. Harder for Boston to throw me away if I am attached to golden hockey boy Shane. Harder for everyone to say shame if he says proud."

Marly says, "I don't think Hollander gives a shit about PR right now."

"You do not know him."

"Maybe not," Marly says. "But I know people don't set their own lives on fire because they feel a little bad."

Ilya sits down because his legs have started to feel questionable. Even the couch receives him too gently.

He hates that too.

The phone is beside him. Shane's post still bright on the screen.

He looks at it without meaning to.

I love him.

His throat tightens so fast it feels like injury.

He wants it.

That is the problem. That is the awful, stupid, humiliating center of him.

He wants it to be true.

He wants to be loved by Shane Hollander in a way that survives daylight. He wants Shane's careful hands and careful mouth and careful stupid heart, if Shane even has one for this, for him. He wants to be someone Shane chooses when no one is watching and someone Shane claims when everyone is.

He wants.

And because he wants it, he cannot believe it. Wanting has always been where the trap closes, especially when Ilya is involved.

"He should not have done this," Ilya says. This time, the words come out without anger.

Sveta sits beside him.

"No," she says.

Marly makes a frustrated sound.

Sveta looks at him. "He shouldn't have. Even if he meant well. Even if it helps. He should have asked."

The fairness of that hurts worse than loyalty would have.

Ilya closes his eyes.

"Now I will never know," he says, and then wishes immediately that the floor would split open and swallow him whole.

Sveta goes very quiet.

Marly's voice, when it comes, is careful. "Know what?"

Ilya opens his eyes.

He can joke. He can still let it be a joke. But both of them are looking at him, and he is so tired, so exhausted down to the root that the performance slips in his hands before he can catch it.

"If he would have wanted me without needing to save me," Ilya says.

Then Sveta puts her hand on the back of his neck.

Ilya looks down.

Marly says, softly, "Roz. Do you—"

"No," Ilya interrupts.

He stands again, too fast, but this time the room only wobbles a little.

"No. Okay. Fine."

Sveta's hand drops.

"I hate when you say it like that," she says.

"Then cover ears."

"Ilya."

"No. He made statement. We confirm the statement."

Marly frowns. "What?"

"We confirm. I say yes. Engagement. We are very happy. Please respect privacy. Then everyone calms down."

"Everyone will not calm down," Sveta says.

"Fine. Everyone continues to be insane, but in a legal direction."

"That's not better."

"It's more useful."

"You don't have to protect him from his own post," Marly says.

Ilya smiles.

"Of course I do."

Sveta says, "No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Svetik, please." He looks at her, and whatever she sees on his face makes her stop. "If he did this to help me, I'll help him back."

Marly's jaw tightens. "That is not how this works."

"It's not? Good. Then explain how it works."

No one answers.

Because there is no clean answer. There is only the post. The photo. Boston. Russia. Shane's name attached to his now in front of hockey Twitter and every coward in a suit with a statement template.

Ilya goes for his dead phone on the table.

Sveta gets there first.

"No."

"I need to call him."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Or do you need to decide who you're going to be before he gets a chance to speak?"

He freezes.

Marly looks at Sveta like he is very glad she is on their side and slightly afraid of what would happen if she were not.

Ilya hates her again.

A lot.

"I know who I am," he says.

"Bullshit."

"Svetlana."

"You're exhausted. You're hurt. You woke up ten minutes ago to an engagement announcement you didn't know existed. You're not calling him until you eat something and breathe like a person."

"I ate."

"At two in the morning."

"Still counts."

Marly lifts the coffee he brought. "I have this."

"That's just coffee."

"It has calories if you add enough cream."

Sveta looks at him with open disgust.

Marly lowers the cup.

"Not helping?"

"No."

Ilya almost smiles.

"Give me my phone," he says.

Sveta studies him for a long moment.

Then she picks it up.

"Do not perform at him," she says.

"I do not perform."

She just looks at him then hands him the phone. It feels heavier than it should. He powers it on. The screen lights.

For half a second, nothing happens.

Then the world pours in.

Missed calls. Texts. Voicemails. Alerts. Names stacking over names. Marly. Sveta. Sarah. Unknown. Jane. Jane. Jane. Jane. Jane.

So many Janes.

Ilya's breath catches despite himself.

Marly shifts like he wants to look and is forcing himself not to.

Sveta does not pretend. She looks.

Ilya opens the thread.

Shane's messages sit one after another, delivered hours ago.

Please let me know you're safe.

Then, later:

Please answer.

Ilya, please.

I need to know where you are.

I'm not angry.

Please just tell me you're safe.

You're not alone.

Then, after the post, or around the post, he doesn't know timelines:

I know I should have asked.

I'm sorry.

Not for you. Never for you.

Please just tell me you're safe.

Ilya stares.

The room goes very far away again.

Not for you. Never for you.

His thumb hovers over the words.

"He texted?" Marly asks quietly.

Ilya locks the screen.

"Yes."

Sveta's face says she saw enough.

He hates that. Loves it. Doesn't know what to do with any of it.

"What are you going to say?" she asks.

Ilya looks at the black screen.

Good question.

He could say nothing. That would be easiest, briefly, until it became impossible.

He could say thank you, which would be pathetic.

He could say fuck you, which would be honest but incomplete.

He could say why did you do this, but he knows why. Or thinks he does.

He unlocks the phone.

Jane

For one second, his thumb hovers over call but in the end he switches to text because if he hears Shane's voice before he decides what kind of face to wear, he'll make a mess of everything.

He types:

I hear we are engaged.

Stares at it.

He adds:

You should not have done that.

There. He sends it before he can rewrite himself into someone worse.

The message delivers.

For one second, nothing, then Shane calls immediately.

Ilya closes his eyes.

Sveta says, softly, "You do not have to answer."

The phone rings.

Jane

Ilya lets it ring twice.

Three times.

Then he answers.

For one second, neither of them says anything.

It is not silence exactly. Ilya can hear Shane breathing, which is infinitely worse.

Shane breathing is a private sound. It's a hotel room sound. A sound from the dark, from the space after, when Shane is still trying to remember how to become himself again and Ilya is pretending not to notice that he wants him to stay.

Now it comes through the phone, thin and careful and wrecked.

Ilya presses the heel of his hand to one eye.

Marly and Sveta are both staring at him. Great. What an excellent thing to have audience participation for.

"Ilya," Shane says.

Not hello. Not are you mad. Not let me explain.

His name, like Shane has been holding it in his mouth all night and it has cut him.

Ilya closes his eyes.

Dangerous. This is very dangerous.

"So," he says, because the other option is something much worse. "Do I order my own ring, or is that also being handled for me?"

Marly winces.

Sveta's mouth tightens.

On the phone, Shane goes very still. Ilya can hear it somehow. The way the breath stops. The way Shane receives the hit and immediately tries to decide whether he deserved it.

He did, probably, maybe.

"Ilya," Shane says again.

"What? It's practical question. I am new to engagements. I don't know rules."

"Are you safe?"

Ilya's throat closes.

He looks toward the window. Boston is gray beyond the glass, morning spreading over buildings and streets and people who have no idea that Ilya Rozanov has apparently agreed to get married while asleep.

"I'm in my apartment," he says.

"That's not what I asked."

Shane's voice does him in. It's not his media Captain Hollander voice, nor the low, dry voice he uses when Ilya is being impossible on purpose.

This one is rough and small, almost.

Ilya hates him for it, loves him for it. Hates that those are not different enough.

"Yes," Ilya says. "I am safe."

Shane breathes out and it breaks a little at the end.

Ilya looks down at the floor.

No.

No, no. He cannot do this. He cannot sit here in sweatpants with Marly in front of him and Sveta beside him and Shane's relief in his ear like a hand on the back of his neck.

He turns away.

"Ilya?" Sveta says.

He holds up one hand without looking at her.

For once, she lets him go.

He walks down the hall to his bedroom with the phone pressed to his ear and Shane silent on the other end, breathing like he is afraid to do it too loudly.

His room is exactly as he left it.

Worse, somehow, actually. The bed is unmade from yesterday morning. There's a watch on the dresser, a hoodie thrown over the chair, a glass of water on the nightstand that he keeps meaning to bring back to the kitchen. One sock on the floor. The curtains half-open to a pale morning.

A life paused mid-sentence.

Ilya shuts the door behind him, but not all the way.

He does not know why. Maybe because if he shuts it fully, it becomes too much. Maybe because a part of him needs Sveta and Marly on the other side, proof that he is not actually alone in this apartment with Shane's voice and the entire shape of his future changing in his hand.

He leans back against the door.

His knees feel untrustworthy.

He makes his voice lighter. "Congratulations, by the way."

Shane says nothing.

"Big night for us," Ilya continues. "Very romantic. I was asleep for the proposal, but maybe this is Canadian tradition."

"I'm sorry," Shane says.

Ilya's heart goes still. He knew it was coming. Of course it was coming. Shane is sorry. Shane is always sorry when he does something wrong. Shane is good like that. Shane's guilt probably arrives alphabetized.

Still, the words crash through Ilya like cold water.

Sorry for what?

Sorry he posted?

Sorry he said love?

Sorry he had to?

Sorry it's Ilya?

"For proposal or for ring situation?"

"For not asking," Shane says. Then continues quickly, like he has rehearsed this but also like every word is happening to him against his will. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you. I'm sorry you found out like this. I'm sorry I made something that was already terrible more complicated."

Ilya waits. His heart has started doing something stupid.

"But?" he asks.

There is a pause.

Then Shane says, very quietly, "But I'm not sorry I said I love you."

The room disappears. For one ridiculous second, Ilya thinks he might need to sit down again.

Good thing he is close enough to his bed to make collapse look intentional. He does not collapse.

He laughs. It sounds bad, worrying even to his own ears.

"Very convenient thing to not be sorry for."

Shane inhales. "Ilya."

"No, it is good. Strong statement. I understand."

"I don't think you do."

That gets under his skin. His head snaps up.

"You don't think I understand?"

"No, I—"

"I understand very well, Hollander."

Shane is quiet for half a beat.

"I saw the headlines," he says.

"Yes, I gathered."

"About Boston. About your visa."

"Yes."

"I panicked."

"Ah," Ilya says. "So we are saying panic now?"

"No."

The word comes too fast.

Shane's voice goes lower. "No. We are not saying that. I just—Ilya. I know I shouldn't have posted it without asking you."

"Good."

"I know that."

"Excellent."

"I'm trying to tell you—"

"You trapped yourself also, you know."

Silence.

That's not what he meant to say, or maybe it was. Maybe that's the worst part: he has so many feelings about what Shane has done that they keep coming out wearing each other's clothes.

Shane says, "I know."

"No," Ilya says, because he cannot bear the softness that almost happened. "You don't. You think you are helping. You think you can make a good statement and make me family and suddenly everyone has to be polite."

"I don't think it's that simple."

"But you did it anyway."

"Yes."

God, he is tired.

"Why?" he asks, and the word comes out smaller than he wants.

Shane doesn't answer immediately.

Ilya should not have asked. He knows that as soon as the silence starts. Because now Shane will say something kind and unbearable, or something practical and devastating, and either way Ilya will have to keep standing here in his apartment with his heart in his throat like an idiot.

Finally, Shane says, "Because I thought you were alone."

Ilya's mouth opens and absolutely nothing comes out.

"And because I thought you might think I was ashamed of you," Shane says. "And because people were talking about your visa like it was a headline and not your life, and I couldn't—" His voice catches. Barely. Enough. "I couldn't let them make you the thing that happened to me. I chose this too."

The phone is warm against his ear.

He wants to believe that.

He wants to step into it like a room with light on.

Instead, all he can see is the other room. The one Shane built without asking. Marriage. Family. Fiancé. Words big enough to protect and big enough to lock.

"So you made yourself the thing that happened to me instead," Ilya says.

Shane's breathing changes.

Good. No. Not good. Ilya doesn't know anymore. Nothing is coming out right.

"I know," Shane says.

Ilya grips the phone harder.

Stop saying that.

Say something else. Defend yourself. Make it easier.

"I'm sorry," Shane says. "I know I made it look like you don't have a choice."

Ilya almost laughs.

"Look like?"

"Ilya—"

"No, is okay. Really. We are past that."

The words leave his mouth before he understands them fully.

On the other end, Shane goes silent.

Ilya hears what Shane hears a second too late.

You trapped me so now I have to.

Fuck, that is not what he meant. Or it's not all he meant.

What he meant is: don't stand there offering me a door you already locked behind both of us. Don't pretend there is a clean exit now because you regret saving me too loudly. Don't make me say no to the only version of you I will ever get to keep.

Shane says, very carefully, "You don't have to go along with it."

Oh. Wait. Nevermind. This is a knife with Shane's fingerprints all over it. Hollander does not actually want this.

Ilya's voice goes smooth.

"Very generous, thank you."

"That's not what I mean."

"No?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you can say no."

"To what?"

"To all of it."

Ilya laughs under his breath. "All of it."

"The engagement. The post. The lawyers. Me."

The last word is so quiet Ilya almost misses it.

"Shane," he says.

Shane makes a small sound, a small proof that he's there.

"We are past this," Ilya says.

The silence after is awful. Ilya does not know which of them he has hurt. Maybe both of them, somehow.

Shane says, "Okay."

So small. So controlled.

Ilya wants to throw the phone across the room.

"Do not say okay like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm dying and you are being brave."

"I don't know what I'm allowed to say."

For half a second, Ilya can see him too clearly. Shane holding his phone like it is a bomb. Shane trying, even now, to get the rules right.

Ilya's anger falters. He hates that too.

"I'm angry," Ilya says, because it is the safest true thing.

"I know."

"I said do not say okay like that."

"And I said I know."

"Same thing."

"It isn't."

"Close enough."

Shane exhales. It almost sounds like a laugh, except sadder. "Okay."

Ilya closes his eyes again. "You are a terrible listener."

"I'm sorry."

"Also terrible at not apologizing."

"I know."

"Hollander."

"Sorry."

Despite himself, despite the morning and the post and the ruin of everything, Ilya's mouth twitches.

"What happens now?" he asks.

Shane shifts. Ilya can hear movement on the other end. Maybe Shane's sitting down. Maybe standing. Maybe pacing. He should not know the difference in Shane's sounds. He does.

"Farah, uh, my agent. She has immigration counsel ready," Shane says. "Employment counsel too. She's looking for independent representation for you. She can be your agent too if you'd like, and she says if you don't want her involved at all, that's completely your choice. She wanted me to say that first."

"Of course. Smart agent."

"I asked her to."

Ilya stops.

Shane's voice is careful. "I asked her to make sure you had options that weren't me."

Ah. Stupid, beautiful, anxious man.

"You are option now," Ilya says.

"I don't want to be your only one."

Ilya lets his voice go light. "You are a very progressive fiancé."

Shane does not take the bait.

"I mean it."

"I know."

"No," Shane says, and there is something almost sharp in it now. "You don't."

Ilya's pulse kicks.

Shane almost never pushes like that, not unless the thing matters so much his control stops protecting him.

"I don't want you to marry me because you feel like you have to," Shane says.

Ilya stares at the floor. He should be relieved. He should say, fine, good, then we walk this back, then we make you safe again, then I go be someone else's problem.

Instead the words open something hollow in him.

Because Ilya would marry him. That's the deeply humiliating truth.

If Shane had asked yesterday, quietly, impossibly, with no headlines and no lawyers and no visas, Ilya would have laughed in his face and then said yes in some horrible joking way that meant please, yes, now before you change your mind.

But Shane didn't ask yesterday. Shane announced it today because Ilya needed saving.

So Ilya says, "And if I want to marry you because it is useful?"

Shane's breath catches.

Got him. Good.

No. Bad. Terrible.

"Ilya."

"What? This is practical arrangement now, yes? Marriage of convenience. Very old-fashioned. They have TV dramas about this."

"That's not what I want."

Ilya's hand tightens around the phone.

"Then maybe you should not have proposed."

Shane is silent and Ilya regrets it immediately.

Shane says, "You're right."

Oh this is unbearable.

"I know I am right," Ilya says. "This is not new information."

"I know."

"Stop agreeing with me."

"I don't know how to do this."

There is a crack in the sentence and Ilya goes still.

Shane breathes once. "I've been trying to figure out the correct thing to say since yesterday, and everything is wrong. Everything I do makes it worse. I should have asked you. I didn't. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't fix it. I know you're angry. You should be. I know you may not want to see me after this."

Ilya closes his eyes. His chest hurts.

"But I need you to know," Shane says, voice very quiet now, "I didn't do it because I pity you."

Ilya stops breathing.

Shane continues, "I did it because I love you and I panicked. That doesn't make it okay. But it's true."

The words strike and strike and strike.

I love you.

I panicked.

It's true.

Ilya's mind rejects them immediately. It's too much. Too simple. Too convenient.

Too exactly what he wants to hear.

"Shane."

"I know you don't believe me."

That reply makes him angrier than it should.

"You do not get to decide what I believe."

"You're right."

"Stop."

"Okay."

"Jesus Christ."

A tiny pause then Shane says, "Ilya."

He hates the way Shane says it like he is holding out both hands.

"I believe that you love doing right thing," Ilya says.

Shane goes quiet.

"I believe that you are good man," Ilya continues. "Very good. Annoyingly good. I believe you saw problem and needed to fix."

"You're not a problem."

"I am exactly the definition of a problem right now."

"No."

"Yes. Expensive problem. International problem. Very handsome immigration problem."

Shane says, "You're Ilya."

That almost does it.

That almost cracks something open and lets all the horrible wanting spill out.

Ilya swallows hard.

"I will not deny it," he says.

Shane is silent.

"The engagement," Ilya clarifies, unnecessarily. "I will not deny. For now."

"Ilya—"

"No. You made very big mess. Now we'll make it a useful mess."

"You don't have to protect me from what I did."

"I am protecting me."

That is true. Also not true.

"I'll talk to your Farah," Ilya says. "And lawyers. And whoever else. But I do not want Boston contacted without me."

"Okay."

"And I do not want you making more statements."

"I won't."

"And if this becomes too bad for you, you say."

Shane goes silent again.

"I'm serious. Or we deny it now and be done."

"What?"

"I am not only one who needs an exit."

"I don't want an exit."

"We'll see. You might," he says.

"I won't."

"You don't know."

"I know."

"Shane—"

"I don't want an exit," Shane says, and there is steel under it now, quiet but unmistakable. Captain voice, maybe. Or just Shane at the edge of what he can bear. "But you can have one. That's the difference."

Ilya stops. For a second, he cannot think around it.

What a fucking thing to say.

What a Shane thing to say. Noble and impossible and so perfectly engineered to hurt Ilya in fourteen directions at once.

He wants to scream.

He wants to kiss him.

He wants to believe him.

He settles for cruelty because it is closest to his hand.

"Very generous," he says. "My fiancé is so modern."

Shane's breath shudders.

Ilya closes his eyes.

"Sorry," he says, before he can stop himself.

God.

What a disaster.

"I am angry," Ilya says again.

"I know."

"I am scared."

Shane says, very softly, "Me too."

For a few seconds, there is only breathing between them.

Then Ilya says, "I have people here."

"I know. Marleau?"

"And Sveta."

"Good."

It sounds like Shane means it. It sounds like Shane is relieved Ilya is not alone, even if Shane is not the person there.

That's another kind of pain.

"I'm with my parents," Shane says, after a moment. "And Farah."

"Good."

His voice almost breaks on the echo. He hopes Shane cannot hear it.

"Ilya," Shane says.

"No big speeches now."

"Okay."

"I need coffee and maybe a new life."

"I can help with one of those."

"Please do not mail coffee. Customs will be suspicious."

Shane makes a sound, not quite a laugh but close enough that Ilya's chest aches with it.

"Can Farah call you?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me on that call?"

No. Yes. Never. Always.

"I don't know," Ilya says, because he is too tired to lie quickly enough.

"Okay. You can decide later."

Shane trying to hand choice back piece by piece, like he can rebuild what he took if he's careful enough with the fragments.

Ilya hates that it works a little.

"Fine," he says.

"Fine?"

"Do not sound so hopeful. Is unattractive."

"I'll work on it."

"You have many things to work on."

"I know."

"I will throw phone."

"Sorry."

"Hollander."

"Right."

For one second, almost, they are them.

Damaged. Wrong. But them.

"I will talk to Farah," he says. "Then we decide next steps."

"Okay."

"We do not decide alone."

"No," Shane says. "We don't."

Ilya swallows.

"I will see you soon, fiancé," he says.

He means it to be cutting. It comes out tired.

Shane says, "Ilya—"

Ilya hangs up because if he stays on the line for one more second, he might ask Shane to say it again.

For almost ten seconds after Ilya hangs up, Shane keeps the phone pressed to his ear, even though there is no reason to, no radiowaves forming a thin, awful thread between Montreal and Boston.

The call is over and Ilya is gone. There's nothing on the line now but empty digital silence and the faint, ridiculous hope that if Shane waits long enough, the sound of silence might become something else. A phone ringing again, and Ilya's accented voice saying it was a mistake, a dropped connection, a pause instead of an ending.

That obviously never comes.

Shane lowers the phone slowly. His room door is closed, but he can hear sounds beyond it, because Farah is there and his parents are there. He needed that false sense of privacy (false, since privacy does not actually exist in any meaningful way after the last twenty-four hours). because, well, Ilya deserved at least one conversation that did not have witnesses. Because Shane has already made too much of them public without asking.

Because if Ilya was going to hate him, Shane would rather no one else see the damage as it comes. So now, Shane is alone—alone with the sound of Ilya's voice, and the fact that he's home and safe and angry, angry, angry.

He looks down at the screen. At the four letters making up the name Lily. What a ridiculous little false name for the most consequential person in his life.

He should change it, probably. Cat's out of the bag anyway. Under it lies the call duration, irrefutable proof that Ilya answered, and that Shane heard his voice, and that he'd been given a few minutes to explain, to apologize, and had come out of it feeling like every word had been another wrong turn.

He opens their text thread and lets his thumbs hover over the keyboard until his eyes go unfocused.

Farah. He needs to send Farah's contact. That's the next correct thing he can do. It's definitely not calling Ilya again, asking to explain himself better, or worse, asking for reassurance he has no right to want.

He sends Farah's number, and types: Farah is going to call you. She'll help you get independent counsel too.

He stops. Does that sound too much like an order? It does, doesn't it.

He deletes She'll help, and types again.

Farah is going to call you. She can help you get independent counsel too.

It still feels wrong.

He adds:

Tell me if you want me on the call. Otherwise I won't be.

He reads it once.

Then again.

It is still not enough. Nothing is enough. There is no sentence that can undo the fact that he typed Ilya Rozanov is my fiancé before Ilya ever had the chance to decide whether he wanted to be.

He sends it before he can make it worse.

For a few seconds, nothing happens.

Then the typing dots appear.

Shane watches the screen with the helpless focus of a defendant awaiting his verdict.

The dots vanish. Appear. Vanish.

He takes refuge on the edge of his bed, with both feet firmly planted on the floor as he waits for Ilya to decide his fate.

Lily: 👍

No words follow it. No thank you, or please be there, or okay, or don't be there. No, Ilya leaves him with a small, stupid, yellow hand. When he confirms that it's not going to transform into words just because Shane looks at it with enough pathetic concentration, he locks the phone again and stands before he can humiliate himself further by waiting for a second reaction to a message Ilya has already responded to in the most minimal way available.

Shane swallows.

He wants to throw up again.

He doesn't. (Not yet, anyway. Give him time, and he's sure he can dredge something up.)

He stands too fast, waits for the floor to steady, then crosses to the door.

The living room goes quiet when he steps out.

Yuna is sitting on the couch with both hands wrapped around a mug. David stands near the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, as if there might still be something useful he can do. Farah is at the kitchen island with her laptop open, phone beside it, posture straight despite the hour and the rush in which she came here with,and the fact that Shane has personally detonated his life and made her job impossible in a remarkable amount of time.

They all look at him.

"Hi," he says. "I spoke with Ilya. He won't deny it."

His mother's face changes.

Farah does not react beyond a small nod. "Good. That's good. This means at least that everything remains stable while wefigure out what's next."

He understands every out of her mouth with a clarity that feels like punishment. Ilya has not denied it. Ilya will not deny it. Ilya, who has every reason to throw Shane to the wolves for making a decision about his life without asking, has chosen not to make the story collapse.

"I sent him your number. I told him you'd call soon. I t—" His voice catches. The reaction probably meant he doesn't want Shane on the line too. "Yeah. That's all. So. You can call now. Um, there's the office. You can use that if you need to."

Farah studies him for half a second too long. It reminds him of being assessed before being cleared to play, then she nods.

"Thank you," she says. She leaves the kitchen with the same efficiency she brings to everything, even apparently walking down a hallway in the middle of a life crisis. Shane hears the office door close a moment later.

Then there are three of them. His mother sets her mug down without drinking from it.

"Shane, sweetheart," she says.

She's looking at him.

He looks at her because he's trained to. Shane realizes this when her eyes move over his shirt, his hairline, the collar of his hoodie. His skin feels damp and cold at the same time. His clothes are sticking to him under the arms and along his back. Anxiety sweat, old and sour, the physical evidence of a body that has been trying to outrun itself all night.

She doesn't ask what happened. She does not ask what Ilya said, or whether Shane is all right. Maybe she already knows the answers. Maybe she knows that if she touches any of those questions, he will either shut down completely or start talking and never stop.

"How about another shower?" she asks.

"I already showered," he says.

"I know." She stands. "Just try."

Shane wants to say no, but he also wants to leave his skin behind and start over.

"Okay," he says.

His mother's shoulders lower by a fraction. He turns around before anyone can say anything else, and feels the weight of their gentle eyes between his shoulderblades are he heads back down the hall.

In the bedroom, the air feels different. Smaller. Safer, maybe, or only less populated.

He puts the phone on the sink while the shower heats.

It's a simple sequence of steps. He can do a shower. Remove clothes. Turn water on. Get in. Soap. Shampoo. Rinse. Turn water off. Towel. Clean clothes.

No interpretation required. No consequences, usually.

The mirror catches him before he can avoid it, and while he's never been vain, he can admit that he looks terrible. Ordinarily terrible. Pale, damp, eyes too wide and too tired at once. His hair is somehow both dry and greasy. His mouth looks raw. There is a faint red mark near his throat where he must have scratched himself earlier without noticing.

Grateful that the shower steam begins to fog the mirror, he peels off his shirt, suppressing a shudder at the damp fabric.

Anxiety sweat is different from workout sweat. Workout sweat is earned. Evidence of effort and discipline and a body functioning according to plan. This is sour and clammy and humiliating, gathered under his arms, down his back, along his chest. His skin prickles with it. He wants out of his own body with a sudden, vicious intensity.

He strips the rest quickly, dropping the damp clothes in a pile he would normally never allow to exist, and hurries under the water.

Too hot.

He turns it colder.

Then hotter again.

Nothing feels right.

For the first few seconds, the water helps. It hits the back of his neck, his shoulders, the tense line of his spine. He braces both hands against the tile and lowers his head. Breathes in. Out. Counts four in, six out, because he read somewhere years ago that exhaling longer than inhaling tells the nervous system it is not dying.

His nervous system is unconvinced.

What the fuck did he do?

Shane closes his eyes.

Really, what the fuck did he do?

His fingers curl against the tile.

He announced an engagement. To Ilya. Ilya Rozanov. He hadn't even announced it to Ilya, or asked him, after years of wanting and not wanting and pretending sex could stay sealed off from the rest of his life if he was disciplined enough.

His stomach lurches.

Shane closes his eyes.

He keeps telling himself that he was protecting Ilya.

From what? With what? His Canadian citizenship? His stupid passport?

How fucking presumptuous could he be? How selfish?

Because that is what it was, wasn't it? Not really only protection. There was something else underneath, something uglier and needier, something that had seen the photo and the headlines and the words visa status uncertain and had thought, with humiliating clarity: mine. Like he has some kind of claim. Like maybe a plea dressed up as a shield.

He'd wanted to be allowed to say it. He'd wanted Ilya to know. He had wanted so badly, for so long, that when the moment came, he spun it into something that's rapidly growing so wildly out of control.

His breathing changes.

He notices too late.

The air is going in too fast and coming out too wrong, and the shower sounds enormous around him, water hammering tile, steam thickening, the bathroom shrinking and expanding at the same time.

Fuck. Just because he is pathetic and caught feelings does not mean Ilya did. At most they were, what, fuckbuddies?

He flinches at the word, even in his own head.

He hates it, and worse, hates that he cannot disprove it.

They met in hotel rooms. They texted in code. They pushed and pulled and fucked and fought and laughed too quietly in places where nobody could hear them. Ilya touched him like he wanted him, which he probably did, physically. Ilya kissed him like he wanted him, which Shane probably made up in his head. Ilya stayed sometimes, for longer than strictly necessary, but not often. Ilya left easily, or seemed to. Ilya made everything feel less dangerous by refusing to name any of it. Then Shane had gone and named it.

Of course Ilya sent a thumbs-up. What else was he supposed to send? A heart? A promise? A thank-you note?

Shane's hand slips on the tile.

He catches himself. His breath scrapes.

He should have denied it.

He should have denied the photo. Should have said nothing. Should have let Farah handle it. Should have let Ilya answer in his own time. Should have done anything except turn a secret into a marriage announcement that was not even real.

Is it too late to deny it?

Yes, maybe. Probably.

Could they say he was hacked? No. It's too late, too obvious, too damaging to Ilya now. Could they say he panicked? That would humiliate Ilya. Could they say the engagement is real but the wedding is not soon? Maybe, but he's not sure how that would fix anything. Could they say anything that does not make Ilya look like a liar or a victim or a man being used by Shane Hollander's fear?

Fuck.

Fuck.

Why did he say I love him?

Oh God.

He presses his fist against his mouth.

He told Ilya he loved him.

Oh God.

He told Ilya he loved him.

Why did he do that? Why could he not keep one thing inside his own body?

What a selfish fucking thing to say.

As if the confession mattered more than the context. As if telling someone you loved them after publicly cornering them was not another kind of pressure, another demand, another weight Ilya now had to hold while everyone else watched.

Shane squeezes his eyes shut.

His chest hurts.

And his parents—

His parents know. His parents know he is gay, or whatever word is supposed to fit the shape of him. He hasn't even decided, or maybe he decided years ago and never let the decision have language. They know. His mother saw the post. His father saw it. Farah saw it. The team saw it. The league saw it. Everyone saw it.

His parents know.

They are fine.

They are.

They love him. He knows they love him. He knows his mother would fight a bear for him, knows his father has never once made love feel conditional, knows the fear is not rational.

The fear does not care.

His chest tightens until breathing feels like trying to pull air through cloth.

His team knows. The room knows.

Worse, they know it's Ilya Rozanov.

So now it's not just that Shane wants men, and that he has kept this enormous part of himself in a locked drawer for years and then accidentally set the whole dresser on fire. They know it's Ilya Rozanov. His rival. Captain of Montreal's biggest rivals.

They will look at him differently.

He doomed them. In a fit of panic, Shane has actually just doomed them.

The thought flashes white.

Shane's knees buckle.

He goes down hard onto the shower floor, one hand catching the wall, the other landing against wet tile. Pain shoots through his wrist. He barely feels it. The water hits his shoulder, his face, runs into his mouth. He cannot get enough air. His heart is too fast. Too loud. His body has become nothing but alarms.

He tries to breathe, but he can't. He can't, can't, cannot.

The bathroom tilts but he's sitting. He is sitting in the shower like an idiot, a child, water pouring over him while he tries not to choke on air.

He presses his forehead to his knee.

Cold tile under his hand. Hot water. The smell of soap he has not used. His own breath, awful and ragged, bouncing back at him from the shower walls.

His heart is everywhere. Throat, wrists, temples, sternum. His hands start tingling. His knees feel loose. Heat pours over his back, but his skin goes cold underneath it.

He is going to pass out in the shower.

He is going to hit his head.

His mother will find him naked and useless on the tile.

He knows the steps.

In for four.

He cannot get to four. There are tears maybe, but there is water everywhere, so it does not count. Nothing counts in the shower. That's maybe why he cannot get up.

He drags in one breath that almost works, eventually, then another, and another, and another.

Time does something strange, and slow, and fast, and everything all at once.

When the water starts to cool, Shane reaches up and turns it off with a shaking hand.

He gets up too fast, catches himself on the wall, and steps out of the shower dripping water across the bath mat. The mirror is fogged completely, which is a relief.

He dries mechanically, badly, leaving his hair dripping and his shoulders damp. His body has gone cold too fast, the kind that starts inside and radiates outward. He opens the bathroom door and steps into the bedroom.

The room is small. Well, it's a normal bedroom. It has a large bed, a dresser, a chair in the corner where he has folded laundry he did not put away yet (and sometimes his folded clothes when Ilya is over, waiting for him on the bed, watching him with a smile that—).

But compared to the kitchen, to the living room, to the whole world beyond the apartment windows, it feels contained to just the four walls and one door. A place where the disaster has to squeeze in through the cracks.

He understands, suddenly and with embarrassing clarity, why cats hide under couches.

He puts on the first clothes he sees: sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt from a training camp three years ago, socks that do not match, one beige and one white. He would normally notice. (He notices now and does nothing about it.)

His phone is still on the bathroom counter.

He should check it.

(He should not check it.)

He checks it.

Farah has texted some minutes ago: Calling him now.

Shane stares at the message.

Good. That's good. So good.

Farah is calling Ilya, which means Farah will give him options. Farah will tell him whatever Shane did cannot fix any problems. Farah will help him find a lawyer whose first loyalty is to Ilya. Farah will do what Shane should have done.

(No, really, what the fuck is wrong with him?)

He crawls into bed.

Not under the covers at first. On top of them, curled on his side, knees pulled up slightly, phone in one hand. He's shivering. Actually shivering, which is absurd because he just stood (then sat) under hot water until his skin went red.

He pulls the blanket over himself, but he's still cold, and then he thinks about calling Ilya, and the thought is so overpowering that he almost does it.

He needs to call him before Ilya locks himself behind that post forever. Before Ilya believes—what? What does Shane even need him to believe? That Shane didn't mean it? That he did mean I love him, just not like this? That if Ilya wants out, Shane will open every door, even if it kills him? That if Ilya wants in, Shane will never ask why?

Shane locks the phone and presses it to his chest.

His eyes burn.

He is not going to cry.

He doesn't cry much, not since he was you and came to the conclusion that crying never solves the thing that caused it, and he's always been better at solutions.

Except now there's no solution.

There is only a marriage announcement that cannot be unmade, a man he loves who may not love him, a team that will know by noon if they do not already, parents in his kitchen who have just learned something he has hidden so long that the secret became part of his bone marrow.

Someone knocks lightly.

"Shane?" his mother says.

He closes his eyes, and ponders for a moment pretending to be asleep, but he's too old for that, and she knows him too well.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come in?"

He looks at the door.

Can she? He doesn't know. He's not sure. The room feels safer with the door closed. The bed feels like a bunker. The idea of another person seeing him like this makes his skin tighten.

But it's also his mother. And he is so, so tired, and wants her to hold him and tell him that it will all be okay, even if she hates him now, too.

"Yes," he rasps.

The door opens slowly.

Yuna steps in and closes it behind her.

She doesn't come to the bed right away, which hurts and doesn't. It's good, he convinces himself, becuase if she does get any closer, he will burst into tears.

She stands near the door in soft clothes, hair pulled back, face carefully calm in a way that makes Shane realize he comes by some of his control honestly.

"You don't have to talk," she starts. Oh, never mind, that alone nearly does it.

He stares at the wall instead of her. "Okay."

"I only wanted to check on you."

"I'm fine."

"I think I know you a bit better than that, honey," she says. "But it's okay."

He shuts his eyes. The bed dips behind him.

His mother sits carefully on the edge, not touching him.

For a while, neither of them speak.

Then Shane says, because the words have been sitting in his throat since the very first time he picked up her call, "I'm sorry."

"What?"

He cannot look at her, but he can imagine the face she's making right now.

"I'm sorry for not telling you."

His mother breathes in slowly, like she is making room for something.

"About Ilya?" she asks.

Shane swallows. "About me."

The words are barely sound, but they're out, finally.

Yuna makes a sound that breaks his heart. "Oh, Shane."

He curls tighter under the blanket. "I tried."

"I know."

"No, I—" His voice cracks, and humiliation burns hot through him. He presses his mouth shut until he can speak evenly. "I tried really hard to not—to- to be normal."

His mother's hand lands on his shoulder then, gentle and immediate. Like she could not stop herself.

"Shane, honey, you are normal."

He shakes his head against the pillow.

"I didn't want you to have to—deal with it. With me."

Her hand tightens on his shoulder.

"Shane Hollander," she says. "You have never been something I have to deal with."

His eyes burn so badly now he can barely see the wall.

"I know you love me."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Good," she says, and her voice trembles on the word. "Then know this too. There is no version of you that makes me love you less. Nothing. Never."

He presses his fist to his mouth, but she keeps going anyway.

"I am sorry that I made you feel like you couldn't tell me."

"You didn't do anything—"

"Shh, it's okay. Let me speak. That may be true," she says. "It may also not be enough."

"I just didn't know how."

"That's okay, honey."

"I thought if I didn't say it, it didn't have to become something."

Yuna's thumb moves once over his shoulder through the blanket. For a moment, she does not answer.

"I wish I had known," she says.

His throat closes.

"I know."

"No, no, not because you owed it to me," she says quickly, like she can hear the guilt building before he can even put words to it. "Not because I had a right to know before you were ready. I just—" She stops and takes a breath. "I wish you hadn't been alone with it."

Shane presses his face harder into the pillow.

"I wasn't alone."

He's too tired to lie well, and Ilya is already everywhere.

"No," Yuna says softly. "I suppose you weren't."

Shane swallows.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"Yeah."

"I didn't want to make him into—" He stops, because there is no good end to that sentence. "I didn't want everyone looking at him because of me."

For a minute, the only sound is his breathing, unsteady and embarrassing, and the faint murmur of Farah's voice somewhere beyond the door.

Yuna is quiet for a moment.

Then she says, "Is that what you think you did?"

"Yes."

"No," she says.

Shane closes his eyes. "Mom—"

She brings her hand up to his hair and brushes her fingers through it before she nudges him until he looks at her.

"No." Her voice is still gentle, but there is steel under it now, the kind he remembers from childhood when a ref missed a dangerous hit and she was about to make someone's day terrible. "Someone took a private moment from you and Ilya and put it in front of the world. That was not your fault."

His throat tightens.

"I posted—"

"Yes, I know what you posted. I saw it."

"I made it worse."

"You made a choice afterward," she says. "We can talk about that. You can be sorry for that. But you do not get to take responsibility for the person who took that photo. You do not get to carry their cruelty for them."

He hadn't really thought of it that way. Hadn't thought of it at all.

The leak became background radiation in his mind, the disaster before the disaster, the thing he barely has time to blame because everything after it has his fingerprints all over it. But his mom says it like it is simple: someone did this to them.

Shane's eyes burn again.

"But Ilya is the one paying for it."

"Honey," Yuna says, and her voice breaks a little on that. "Yes, he is. In ways I'm not sure I can even understand. And so are you, Shane."

He shakes his head once, immediate and sharp. "Not like him."

"Not like him does not mean not at all. I know that you made a mistake too, and you can be sorry for that, but someone did this to both of you and then you did something because you were scared. Those aren't the same thing, sweetheart."

For a moment, he is a child again in the worst way: wanting to believe his mother without any other thought. But he's not sure if believing it would be another kind of selfishness.

Something inside him gives a little.

"I panicked," he says. "I thought if I said it loudly enough, nobody could make it sound like something dirty."

Yuna makes a soft, wounded sound.

"And then I made another decision for him."

"And you can be sorry without deciding you are unforgivable."

His breath catches on something barbed on its way out.

"I was scared."

"I know, honey."

"And selfish."

"Maybe," she says, and he flinches before she adds, "but not because you love him."

He goes very still. She knows what she said. He can feel it, but he can't confirm or deny it even with all the damning evidence stacked against him. She doesn't make him.

After a long moment, she says, "Loving someone is not selfish. Deciding for them can be. So now you stop deciding, yeah? You decide together, from now on."

A tear slips sideways over the bridge of his nose and into the pillow as he nods.

His mother leans down and presses a kiss to his hair, damp as it is from the shower.

He lets her.

For now, he's too tired to be ashamed.

"You need to rest," she says.

"I can't."

"Then hide for a little while."

That surprises him enough that he turns his head slightly.

Mom's face is soft and tired and full of love he cannot look at directly for too long.

"You don't have to come outside right now," she says. "Farah is working. Your father is making food you may or may not approve of. I will sit outside if you want, or here if you want, or nowhere if you want. But you can stay in here for a little while."

His throat tightens.

"Like a cat under a couch," he says before he can stop himself.

Her mouth trembles.

"Yes," she says. "Like a very handsome, very stressed cat."

A laugh gets out of him even if it breaks halfway through. She smiles anyway.

Shane turns onto his back and looks at the ceiling.

The room is still small. The world is still too large.

But his mother is sitting beside him, and Farah is calling lawyers, and Ilya has not denied it, and maybe that is enough information for the next five minutes.

He can survive five minutes, probably.

He looks at his phone one more time.

No Lily.

He puts it facedown on the bed.

Then he pulls the blanket higher and lets his mother stay.

Marly and Ilya put away the rest of last night's food because Sveta pretty much orders them to.

The Ethiopian containers have gone cold and collapsed in on themselves, lids bent, injera drying at the edges. Brad is still paused on the television with his mouth open in devastation.

Marly looks at the screen while stacking containers.

"Who's that guy?"

"Brad," Ilya says.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Many things."

Sveta takes a container from Ilya's hand and peers inside. "He kissed Tiffani after promising Kayla emotional honesty," she repeats, just like the night before.

Marly stares at her.

Ilya nods gravely. "Very dark night for everyone."

"I hate that I asked," Marly says.

They carry the food into the kitchen. Marly does most of the actual work, mostly because Ilya keeps finding himself holding a container and staring at it like the next step might reveal itself if he waits long enough.

Marly takes one from his hand.

"Fridge," he says.

"I am not stupid, Marly."

Marly snorts, but it is too tired to become much.

Sveta comes into the kitchen with Marleau's cup of coffee, and without comment dumps it down the sink.

"That smells like it tastes like char and sadness," Sveta says. "I'm ordering Dunkin. Speak now before I choose for everyone."

"You dumped my coffee and you're replacing it with Dunkin?" Marly asks.

"This is Boston. Of course I'll order us Dunkin."

Ilya leans against the counter. "Six donuts."

Sveta does not look up from her phone. "You're having a sandwich."

"And six donuts."

"One donut."

"Three."

Marly says, "Get him the donuts and hash browns too."

Sveta looks up.

Marly, brave or concussed, holds her gaze. "What? He can have both."

"Clifford." Ilya turns to him slowly. "Papa Bear."

"Don't."

"My hero."

"Really don't."

"Please never call me Clifford again."

Sveta sighs and taps at her phone. "Fine. Sandwiches, hash browns, donuts, and actual proper coffee."

By the time the food arrives, the apartment has shifted into something strange and almost ordinary.

It's important to note that it's not anything normal. Normal is gone, along with whatever dignity Ilya had yesterday morning. But at least nobody is crying and nobody is bleeding, so it's a win in his book.

The phones are on now, placed near the center of the dining table like they might behave if watched closely enough. There are paper bags, coffee cups, hash browns, napkins, and a box of donuts that smells aggressively sweet.

They sit at Ilya's dining table because they decided on a change of scenery.

Marly sits to Ilya's left with a coffee Sveta has approved under protest. Sveta sits across from him, still in Ilya's old Bears hoodie, tearing the corner off a napkin into increasingly small pieces. Ilya sits with half a breakfast sandwich in one hand and no real memory of picking it up.

The table is too large for three people. He bought it because the realtor suggested a dining area, as if Ilya hosted dinner parties. Mostly it holds mail, keys, sunglasses, and once Shane underneath him before he complained for a softer surface.

Ilya's eyes flick once to the spot in the offending memory and sighs. It doesn't go unnoticed, of course, but all Sveta does is slide the donut box toward him with one finger.

Ilya opens it and takes half the pink frosted one because sugar seems less complicated than anything else currently available, and never hurt him.

He's halfway through a giant bite when his phone rings.

All three of them stop.

It's not Shane, and the disappointment is quick and humiliating. The relief that follows is also equally humiliating.

The name on the screen is unfamiliar, but there is a text preview above it from a minute earlier.

Farah Jalali: This is Farah Jalali. Please answer when you are able.

Sveta reads it upside down, but her face gives nothing away. Marly sets his coffee down.

Ilya swallows the donut, even if it turns dry halfway down.

"I should take this," he says.

No one argues, which makes him want to throw the phone into the sink.

He answers and puts it to his ear.

"Farah Jalali," he says. "Good morning."

"Ilya Rozanov?" Her voice is calm, professional, lower than he expected.

"Yes."

"Before I say anything else, are you willing to speak with me?"

He looks at the donut in his hand, then at Sveta, then Marly.

"That depends what you're calling as," he says.

"That's fair. I am calling as Shane's agent. I'm also calling because you no longer have representation, and because Boston should not be speaking to you directly about your contract or your future without someone whose job is to protect your interests."

"Ah, yes. I am between agents, right now," he says.

"Yes," Farah says. "I understand."

He wonders how Shane told her. Wonders if Shane said it carefully, like a fact he could hold without breaking. Wonders if he looked down after. Shane looks down when he's feeling bad about something.

"I need to be clear about the conflict," Farah continues. "I represent Shane. I have represented him for years. If you want me to manage your communications or act as your agent, even temporarily, you need to understand that I have an existing professional relationship with him."

"And loyalty," Ilya says.

Farah does not rush the answer.

"Yes," she says. "I have loyalty to him."

At least she's honest. Ilya sets the donut down on a napkin.

"I appreciate you saying that."

"While I do have a conflict, that does not mean I cannot help you. It means we document it and bring in independent counsel where needed. If your interests and Shane's interests diverge in a way that makes my involvement inappropriate, I'll tell you and help you transition to someone else."

The words are clean and careful and not comforting at all, which he's grateful for. Comfort from strangers makes his skin crawl. Competence, unfortunately, has always been one of his weaknesses. (Or why else would he have fallen nose first for Shane Hollander of all people.)

"You're not calling to convince me?" he says.

"No," Farah says. "I'm not calling to convince you to marry Shane. Actually, he asked me to make sure you knew you could say no to this whole thing."

What a Shane Hollnader thing to do. Shane, who offers himself as shelter and then panics because shelter can become a cage if you build it around someone without asking. Shane, who is so committed to being good that he will hand Ilya the knife and point to the cleanest place to cut.

Ilya looks toward the window.

"Okay," he says.

Farah lets the silence hold for one breath, then barrels on, "I also need to discuss the practical limits of what his announcement can do."

"Alright."

"The engagement may help stabilize the public narrative. It might affect how teams and sponsors calculate risk and make it harder for Boston to frame you as a solitary problem. It may also create scrutiny."

"Immigration scrutiny," Ilya says.

Marly's head lifts.

"Yes," Farah says. "If this becomes a legal marriage, officials will examine whether the relationship is bona fide."

"Bona fide?"

"Real."

The word is almost funny. Yes, officer, the relationship is real in every way that does not count and unreal in every way that apparently does.

Farah continues, "Marriage to Shane does not give you the right to keep working in the United States."

Ilya looks down at his plate.

The half-eaten sandwich. The pink smear of frosting on the napkin. A hash brown gone cold at the edge of the paper bag.

He knows this. He's spent enough of his life with visas and contracts and border questions and people deciding where he can belong and for how long and under what conditions. Shane is Canadian. Shane cannot hand him an American work permit by loving him loudly online.

Still, knowing a thing privately and hearing it said in Farah's clean, professional voice are different experiences.

Yesterday, Shane's announcement had been insane.

This morning, for one humiliating stretch between Marly's arrival and this phone call, it had also been something like shelter.

Now Farah is explaining that the room has no roof, actually.

"So it does not solve Boston," he says.

"No," Farah says. "Not directly."

He nods once, even though Farah cannot see him. "So, what does it solve?"

"Potentially, a different problem. Long-term security outside Russia. A possible path, if you and Shane choose it, toward Canadian permanent residency and eventually citizenship."

Ilya lowers the phone for half a second and presses his thumb against his eyebrow.

Sveta starts to move.

He lifts one hand, just slightly. Don't.

He brings the phone back to his ear.

"I'm listening," he says.

Farah's voice remains steady. "Your current U.S. work status depends on Boston and your contract. An attorney needs to review the exact terms. If they keep you under contract and only keep you away from team activities, your status can remain intact for now. If they terminate, waive, or trade you, the situation changes."

"So Boston decides everything."

"For the moment, Boston has leverage."

"Good to know."

"That's also why I do not want you taking any call from them without representation. If they contact you directly, you tell them your representative will respond."

"My representative?"

"If you agree."

He looks at the table and the small domestic mess of people trying to keep him fed while the structure of his life rearranges itself.

"What do you need from me?" he asks.

"First, verbal confirmation that you want me to act as your temporary representative for management and communications until formal documents are signed."

Ilya is silent long enough that everyone's breathing becomes loud.

"Yes," Ilya says. "I want you to act as my temporary representative for management and communications."

"Good. I'll send the disclosures and temporary agreement. Don't sign until you've read them, please."

"I will read them."

"I also need you to preserve all communications related to this matter. Texts from your last agent, Boston management, anyone from the team, threats, media inquiries."

"I deleted Sergei's—my agent's voicemail."

"Okay. We work with what we have. Do you have any written message from him?"

"No. He called. He said he was terminating representation effective immediately." Ilya's voice stays even. He's proud of that in a distant, useless way. "He said he represents other Russian players and cannot be associated with this kind of scandal."

Sveta mutters something in Russian that would probably get her removed from several churches.

"Write down everything you remember. Exact wording if possible. Time of call. Number. Send it to me, please."

"Alright."

"I'll also need a preliminary relationship timeline."

"A relationship timeline," he repeats.

"Yes," Farah says. "Broad strokes of when the relationship began, how long you've known each other privately, travel overlap, visits, anything counsel may need if the public engagement remains the position and immigration lawyers need to assess options."

Ilya's hand stills on the edge of the table.

"Uh-huh," he says.

"And I know privacy has obviously been important," Farah adds. "Only share what you believe is necessary."

Privacy sure is one word for it. Another word is deletion. Another another word is caution. Survival. Habit. Shame, maybe, though neither of them would have called it that at the time.

They deleted everything.

Texts. Photos. Anything too specific, too useful to someone else if a phone was ever lost or searched or stolen or glanced at by the wrong person. Proof burned almost as quickly as it was made.

At the time, it had felt smart.

Farah keeps speaking, unaware of the small disaster opening in his chest. "Counsel will want to know what exists. Messages, call logs, travel records, witnesses if there are any, even if they only know you met privately."

Ilya almost has it in him to laugh. No one knows; that was the whole point.

No one knows except him and Shane, and even that depends on what word they are using. Farah says relationship because Shane said fiancé to the world. Shane said love to the world. Shane made it sound established, mutual, chosen.

Before yesterday, Ilya would have called it sex if anyone had held a gun to his head. He would have been lying of course, but he would have called it sex.

"Ilya?" Farah says.

He realizes he's been quiet too long.

"Yes," he says. "I'm here."

"If there is not much documentation, I need to know that too."

He looks across the table. Sveta is watching his face. Marly is watching his hands. Neither of them can hear Farah, but both of them know enough to worry.

"We were careful," Ilya says.

"How careful?"

"Very careful."

There's a long pause.

"Alright," she says, and to her credit, there is no judgment in it. "That doesn't make this impossible. It does mean we need to be honest with counsel."

"Of course," he says.

The call continues in small, practical pieces after that and the plans for a follow-up call later, once Farah has spoken to lawyers and pushed Boston back behind proper channels.

Ilya answers each point carefully, because careful is what he has left.

Finally, Farah says, "Ilya."

"Yes?"

"I know this is a lot."

"It is."

"I'll send everything. Call me if Boston contacts you first."

"I will."

"And please don't post anything without informing me first."

His mouth almost moves into a laugh.

"All right," he says.

The call ends.

For a few seconds, none of them speak.

Ilya sets the phone facedown beside his plate, where his breakfast sandwich has gone cold.

Sveta is the first to move. She closes the donut box, then opens it again, as if she has decided there is no point pretending she's finished with sugar.

"What did she say?" Marly asks.

Ilya looks at his hands.

He could tell the truth. Surprise, everyone, the proposal fixed nothing except maybe his long-term relationship with the concept of Canada as a country.

Instead, he says the important part.

"Marriage to Shane does not solve my United States visa."

Marly's jaw tightens. "Fuck."

"Yes."

Sveta's voice is careful. "But?"

"But it may solve Russia," he says.

That is when his voice almost breaks. He clears his throat.

"Eventually."

Sveta reaches across the table and puts her hand near his, near enough that he can choose.

After a second, Ilya moves his hand the rest of the way. He stares at the donut box, and because he cannot sit inside all that silence forever, he says, "I think I need the pink one."

Sveta's mouth trembles once.

"You already ate half the pink one."

"Then I need the other half. Obviously."

She passes it to him.

Marly says, "That one's my favorite."

Ilya looks at him.

Marly sighs. "Never mind."

Ilya takes the donut. His hand is only shaking a little.

Shane stays in his room for thirty-two minutes.

He does not mean to count the time but it starts because his mother tells him he can hide for a little while, and little is not a unit of time Shane knows how to use. A little while could be five minutes. It could be an hour. It could be long enough for Farah to get three lawyers on the phone and for his father to make food Shane will not be able to eat without first asking what is in it.

So he counts.

Obviously not out loud. He is not that far gone. (Yet.)

One minute. Two. Three.

His mother stays on the edge of the bed for the first twelve. She doesn't talk much. Every so often, her hand moves over the blanket covering his shin, small and absent, like she is reassuring him or herself he is still there.

He lets her.

At minute ten, her phone buzzes in her pocket. She checks it, frowns slightly, then looks at Shane.

"I'll be back in a minute," she says.

Shane nods.

"Okay."

She doesn't move right away.

He looks at the ceiling because if he looks at her face, he might do something embarrassing, like ask her not to go.

"I'll be right outside if you need me," she says.

"Thank you."

"Shane?"

He turns his head enough to see her.

Her eyes are tired and red at the edges, but still steady.

"I love you."

His throat tightens, immediate and violent.

"I know, mom," he says. "I love you too."

"I know you know." Her mouth trembles a little. "I wanted to make sure you hear it anyway."

"Okay," he says, because anything else will ruin him.

She squeezes his ankle through the blanket once, then leaves.

The door stays open a few inches behind her.

At minute eleven, Shane thinks about getting up.

At minute twelve, he does not.

At minute fifteen, his phone buzzes.

He picks it up before he can make a decision.

Farah: Montreal statement draft attached. Read and let know your thoughts.

He taps the attachment. The statement opens in a clean white document with the Metros logo at the top.

Shane's stomach tightens before he gets past the first line.

The Montreal Metros stand with captain Shane Hollander and respect his right to privacy during this personal matter.

Shane has always represented this organization with integrity, leadership, and courage. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment for all players, staff, and fans.

We ask that members of the media respect Shane's privacy at this time.

He reads the whole thing twice.

It's good. It's exactly the kind of statement a team should release: polished and supportive and so very careful. The sort of thing people will praise online for ten minutes before finding something else to argue about.

It just fails to mention that the locker room may not match the statement.

Shane closes the attachment.

He types to Farah: Looks fine.

Deletes it.

Types: No issues.

Deletes it.

Types: I read it.

He sends that.

Farah replies almost immediately.

Farah: Great. I'm pushing back on "courage." It invites framing. Privacy and support are enough.

He hadn't not even noticed that part as something to object to. He should have, because courage makes this sound like a revelation instead of a leak, like he chose the timing, chose the exposure, chose any of this cleanly.

He types: Thank you.

This time he sends it.

At minute nineteen, his father appears in the doorway with a bowl. Shane pushes himself up on one elbow.

David looks at him carefully. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, of course."

David steps inside like he is entering a room where something wild might be hiding under the furniture. He holds out the bowl.

"Oats," he says. "With banana and I even measure the almond butter. Your mother supervised."

It looks exactly as he would make it. Half a cup of oats. Not too much banana. Almond butter in a small spoonful, probably measured because his father knows him, because his father listens.

The feeling that rises in him is so large and so humiliating he has to look away.

"Thanks, Dad," he says.

David sits in the chair by the dresser, not the bed.

Shane takes the bowl because refusing it would make this a conversation, and he has no energy left for conversations that can be solved by oatmeal. The first bite is too warm. He eats it anyway. He has no idea how but his body accepts it.

A small, ugly part of him feels relieved.

David watches the window instead of him while he eats.

He gets through six bites before his phone buzzes again. His hand moves automatically.

JJ: hey. i'll take care of them, capitaine. don't worry. call me when you get a chance, shane.

Shane stops chewing. JJ only ever calls him capitaine that when he is trying to be affectionate and annoying at the same time, usually after Shane has done something too captainly for JJ's liking. It should make him smile.

It almost does, but he processes the rest of the message.

Shane's stomach goes cold around the oatmeal.

He sets the bowl down carefully on the nightstand.

David looks at him. "Is that Ilya?"

"No."

Shane picks up the phone.

JJ's message sits there, calm and terrible.

Don't worry, which usually means there's something to worry about.

Shane opens the thread.

Above JJ's text are two missed calls from him and one voicemail Shane did not see because the phone was muted. JJ must have called while Shane was in the shower, or while he was under the blankets with his mother's hand on his shoulder, trying to relearn how to breathe.

He should not open it.

He knows that.

Shane opens the Metros chat.

There are too many messages. Too many messages for a group that normally contains schedule changes, media reminders, the occasional chirp, and three separate arguments this season's best protien bar flavor.

He scrolls to where he last saw it.

The first few are from last night, posted while Shane's entire life existed inside the small space between sent and delivered. A link to what he assumes to be the photo.

Miitka: uh cap?

Gagnon: holy shit

Comeau: is this real?

Couillard: Rozanov?????

Then a deleted message.

Roy: sorry not my business

Gagnon: media is gonna be insane

Olsson: anyone know if practice is still same time

That one almost makes Shane laugh even if he doesn't get there.

The eternal stabilizer. Whether there's a scandal, injury, death, weather event, surprise engagement to the league's most infamous Russian winger, someone will always ask whether practice has moved.

The newer messages are worse because they have had time to become careful.

Drapeau: no issue with it
Drapeau: just wish we had a heads up as a room

Comeau: don't want it to become a distraction

He could answer. He should answer.

Another message appears.

Roy: also no offense but Rozanov man
Roy: like you and Rozanov??
Roy: not judging just wild

Shane feels heat rise along the back of his neck, then disappear just as quickly, leaving him cold.

He thinks of Ilya in the Bears locker room. He's not sure why. Maybe because he imagines Boston reacting too, and the thought makes his stomach twist. Ilya walking into a room where men look at him differently because Shane made the private thing public.

His phone buzzes again.

JJ: seriously.
JJ: don't.
JJ: i'm typing something that won't get me suspended.

Another message arrives in the group chat.

JJ: everybody take a fucking breath. think very carefully before you say anything you can't take back. ask yourself if it's worth getting your ass kicked over.
JJ: practice is still at 11, olsson.

Shane reads it.

The first feeling is relief. The second is shame.

He's captain. JJ should not have had to do that.

In the direct messages, JJ sends another message.

JJ: sorry if I overstepped.

Shane replies before he can think better of it.

Shane: You didn't.

JJ's typing dots appear immediately.

JJ: i'm sorry this happened like this. not about you, to be clear. sorry people are fucking vultures.

He wants to thank JJ. He wants to tell him to stop.

(He wants to throw his phone out the window.)

Farah appears in the doorway before he decides.

She knocks once on the frame, even though the door is open. Professional courtesy. Shane appreciates it in a way that feels absurd.

"I spoke to Ilya," she says.

Shane's whole body responds. He hates that everyone can probably see it.

"He agreed to temporary representation," Farah continues. "I'm sending documents and setting up independent counsel."

Shane nods even if the movement feels mechanical.

"Good," he says.

"I also spoke briefly with Montreal legal," she says. "The statement will be revised. They'll remove language framing this as courage or personal bravery. It will focus on privacy and support."

"Okay."

"Management wants you to take the day."

"Oh. Am I benched?"

"No," she says again, more carefully. "You are taking a personal day after being publicly outed and having your private life turned into league-wide news."

His mom appears behind Farah in the doorway. Why are they having a meeting in his room?

"I'm the captain," Shane hears himself say. "I should be at practice."

"Shane," Yuna says.

"I can't just not show up."

"You absolutely can."

"They'll think—"

"They will think whatever they are already thinking," Yuna says. "Your presence at practice today will not solve that. It will only give everyone a chance to stare at you in person."

His body feels very far away from him suddenly. Like he is operating it through several layers of glass. His shirt is damp under his arms, cold against his back. His hands smell faintly like his phone case and stale panic. His mouth tastes sour.

"Okay."

The Bears ask him to come in at two in the afternoon—sharp—the next day. Well, ask assumes he has a choice. While no one says mandatory, because men like Jeremy Kline prefer softer words until they need harder ones, they say they would like to sit down with him. They say there are a few things to discuss. They say it would be best to do it in person, if Ilya is comfortable.

Ilya reads the email twice before he decides he doesn't want to deal with it, and that's what Farah's job includes, so he forwards it to her.

Her response comes three minutes later.

Farah Jalali: Do not go in without representation. I will be available by phone. If they object, leave.

He stares at that last sentence for a long time. If Shane has both Yuna Hollander (known fearsome woman in her own right), and Farah Jalali, then no wonder Ilya sees his face plastered on every advertisement.

But, anyway, since he's been asked, he goes. Marly offers to drive him, which is so offensive for several reasons, not least because Ilya owns at least three fantastic sports cars.

"I am not a fucking child," Ilya says.

Marly gives him a flat look from Ilya's kitchen doorway. He has not left yet. Neither of them have left yet. Sveta is still in Ilya's apartment, furious in a quiet way, laptop open at the dining table while she pretends she is working and mostly sends Ilya looks that make him want to stand up straighter and tell her he's fine. Marly on the other hand, has completely conquered Ilya's guest room (without Ilya's consent), and stole his favorite sweats.

"You disappeared yesterday," Marly says.

"Yes, and now I am back."

"I will drive."

"I can drive myself."

"You can but I will do it anyway."

Sveta looks up from her laptop.

"Illyusha, please do not let them talk at you until you agree to something stupid."

Ilya looks at her. "When have I ever agreed to something stupid?"

Both she and Marly stare at him.

"You are engaged," Sveta says.

"Ah," Ilya says. "Recent history is unfair."

He makes himself smile because they both look like they need it. He is not sure he succeeds, but no one says otherwise.

The drive to the practice facility takes forever and no time at all.

His phone sitting faceup in the passenger seat, Farah's name visible in his recent calls, Jane buried below it like a bruise under skin.

He doesn't call Shane, but he keeps thinking about it. Marly turns a right, and Ilya is thinking about it. He stops at a yellow light he could have definitely gone through, and Ilya keeps thinking about it. By the next left turn, he's annoyed enough with himself that he turns the radio on.

Someone is talking about him. He turns it off before he can hear more than his own name and Shane's.

The practice facility looks the same when he arrives.

The glass doors. The Bears logo. The place where he has spent years entering as if he owned some part of it, as if the building recognized his stride, the set of his shoulders, the way people turned when he walked through a room. Yesterday morning, he belonged here so completely he didn't have to think about it.

Today the receptionist looks at him and forgets to arrange her face quick enough.

"Hi," she says, too brightly. "Ilya."

"Hello, Dana."

Her eyes flick behind him, maybe looking for cameras, maybe for security, maybe for the disaster he has apparently become. "Mr. Kline is expecting you."

"Okay."

He takes the elevator up.

He spends the ride looking at his reflection in the metal doors and realizes that his face looks calmer than he feels.

When the doors open, Sarah from communications is waiting.

"Ilya," she says.

"Sarah."

Her smile is careful, her tablet hugged to her chest. "Jeremy's in the conference room."

"Only Jeremy?"

A flicker of hesitation.

"No. Ownership wanted someone on the call, and legal is sitting in."

"Fun."

Her smile disappears and comes back wrong. "We just want to make sure everything is handled appropriately."

"Yes, everyone keeps saying this."

"Ilya—"

"It is okay," he says, because she looks frightened, and he does not want to be cruel to someone who probably did not choose to any of this. "Lead the way."

The conference room is too bright, and they put water at his seat. Also, nobody has coffee, which means this is supposed to be serious.

Kline stands when Ilya enters. So does a woman from legal whose name Ilya remembers as something Fowler. Ownership is represented by a man on the large screen at the end of the room, face frozen in the unflattering pause before video catches up. Sarah stays near the door.

"Ilya," Kline says. "Thank you for coming in."

"Of course."

He doesn't sit until Kline gestures toward the chair, then places his phone facedown beside the water glass.

"I want to start," Kline says, settling into his chair, "by saying we understand this has been an extraordinarily difficult forty-eight hours."

Ilya keeps his hands folded loosely in his lap.

"Yes," he says.

"We appreciate your willingness to meet."

"Yes."

"And I want to reiterate that the organization's priority is making sure we handle this thoughtfully."

Fowler opens a folder with actual paper.

Kline continues, "The situation is evolving quickly. There are league considerations, media considerations, sponsor concerns—"

"Contract considerations," Ilya says.

Kline pauses then nods. "Yes. Contract considerations as well."

"Good," Ilya says. "The important part should be included."

Sarah looks at the table.

The man on the screen finally unfreezes. "Ilya, this is not meant to be adversarial."

Ilya turns his head toward the screen. "So, why is legal here?"

No one answers quickly enough. His heart is beating too fast, but his voice is fine.

He has always had that, at least. A body built for speed, hands built for violence, and a voice that can sound amused while the world shatters around him.

Fowler says, "We're here to ensure clarity for all parties."

"Okay, good."

Kline folds his hands on the table. "We asked you here because we need to discuss next steps."

"Next steps," Ilya repeats.

"Yes. Given the level of attention, and given the complexity of your personal circumstances now intersecting with team operations, we believe it may be best for everyone to explore potential options."

Ilya looks at him. There is a small roaring in his ears.

"What options?"

"We are not making any unilateral decisions today," Kline says diplomatically.

"But?"

"But we have begun having internal discussions about whether a change of environment might serve all parties better."

Ilya reaches for the water glass. He does not drink. He just moves it half an inch to the left, because his hand needs something to do and breaking it would be unprofessional.

"You are looking to trade me," he says.

Kline's expression holds, and Fowler looks down. Sarah looks away. The owner on the screen says nothing.

"Yes," Kline says finally. "We are exploring that possibility."

For a second, Ilya feels nothing at all.

He'd known when Kline called yesterday. He'd known when the word organization appeared too many times in one conversation. He'd known somewhere between when Sergei disappeared. He had known, and still some pathetic part of him had waited for something as fickle as hope.

"I see," Ilya says.

Kline leans forward. "I want to emphasize that this is not punitive."

"Right," Ilya says.

Kline says, "That's not how I would characterize it, honestly."

"Okay."

Fowler clears her throat. "There are also matters related to your current availability, media exposure, and potential disruption—"

"Sorry, but stop," Ilya says, looking at Kline. "If we are discussing my contract, my immigration status, and the possibility of moving me to another organization, then my representative needs to be present."

Kline's face changes. "Ilya, this is an initial conversation."

"Yes. And my representative needs to be present."

Sarah says, gently, "We understood you were between agents."

"I was."

Kline's brows lift.

Ilya picks up his phone. For the first time since he entered the room, he allows himself a small smile. (It's not a nice smile.)

"I'm very popular."

He opens Farah's contact and calls. She answers on the second ring.

"Ilya?"

He puts the phone on speaker and sets it in the middle of the table.

"Farah Jalali," he says, "I am in a meeting with Boston management, legal, communications, and ownership. They are discussing trade options and next steps. I told them my representative needs to be present."

There is a pause long enough for the room to understand they have lost control of the reins.

Then Farah says, "Good afternoon. This is Farah Jalali. I represent Ilya Rozanov for management and communications. I'd like everyone in the room to identify themselves for the record."

Ilya sits back.

Kline's jaw tightens.

The owner on the screen says, "Jeremy, perhaps we should reschedule."

Farah says, "That may be appropriate. But before we determine that, I would like to understand what has already been communicated to my client."

Kline says, "Farah, we were having a preliminary conversation."

"About a trade?"

"Yes," Kline says.

"About his current status with team activities?"

"Yes."

"About his contract?"

"Yes."

"About his immigration position?"

Fowler says, "We did not provide immigration advice."

"I would hope not," Farah says, perfectly pleasant. "Was immigration status referenced as a factor?"

Kline says, "We noted there are complexities."

"I'm sure there are. Please be specific."

Ilya looks down so nobody sees his mouth twitch.

Fowler closes the folder. "Perhaps it would be better to schedule a formal meeting with counsel."

"I agree," Farah says. "Employment counsel and immigration counsel will need to be included. Until then, Ilya will not be agreeing to any change in status, public language, media availability, leave designation, or trade-related communication."

Kline's expression tightens. "We haven't asked him to agree to anything today."

"That is good to hear."

The room becomes very quiet.

Farah continues, "Please send any proposed language, requests, or contractual notices to me in writing. Do not contact Ilya directly about these matters until counsel is looped in. If there is a league deadline or operational issue that requires immediate attention, you may send it to me and I will respond."

The owner says, "We do have an organization to run."

"Of course," Farah says. "And Ilya has a career and immigration status to protect. I'm sure we can all respect the need for proper process."

Ilya thinks he might be in love with her. (Not really. Maybe as a hobby, he can be?)

Kline says, "Farah, no one here is trying to disadvantage Ilya."

"That's reassuring," Farah says. "Putting things in writing should not be a problem, then."

Shane would enjoy this, Ilya thinks.

Fowler says, "We'll coordinate with you."

"Thank you," Farah says. "Before Ilya leaves, I want to confirm: is he currently under contract with the Boston Bears?"

Kline's eyes flick to legal.

Fowler says, "Yes."

"Is he currently suspended?"

"No."

"Has he been released, waived, or terminated?"

"No."

"Is he required to stay away from team facilities?"

Kline says, "We have asked him to step away from team activities temporarily while the situation is assessed."

"Is that a formal disciplinary action?"

"No."

"Is it paid?"

Fowler's mouth tightens. "Yes."

"Please send that in writing as well."

"Of course," Fowler says.

Ilya stares at the table, but the roaring in his ears is gone now.

Farah says, "Ilya, unless there is anything else you need to say, I recommend we end this meeting."

Everyone looks at him.

There is a version of him that says something sharp. There is a version of him that thanks them politely and walks out with dignity. There is a version of him that asks Kline how long it took them to decide he was worth less than a sponsor headache. A day? An hour? The time between the photo and the first headline about Shane?

Instead, Ilya looks at Jeremy Kline and says, "The players should hear this from me before they hear it from media."

Kline's face shifts. "That may not be advisable."

"I was not asking if it was advisable."

Fowler says, "Ilya—"

"I am still under contract, yes? I am not suspended. I am not banned from facility. You are exploring trade options. This affects the locker room."

Kline's mouth flattens.

Farah says, "That's a reasonable request. If the organization has no formal disciplinary issue with Ilya's presence, and if he is not speaking publicly, I see no reason he cannot speak privately with teammates."

The owner says, "Jeremy."

Kline looks at Ilya. "Ten minutes," he says. "No phones or media."

Ilya stands. "Thank you," he says, even if he doesn't really mean it.

Farah says, "Ilya, call me when you're out of the building."

"Okay."

He picks up the phone and ends the call with Farah. Ilya walks out first.

The hallway seems longer than it did on the way in. Quieter too, or maybe the building is waiting to see if Ilya is going to lose his shit. News travels fast in these kinds of places. Not as fast as scandal, maybe, but close.

Marly is waiting near the end of the hall. He's leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking like he's been prepared to break into the conference room for the last twenty minutes. When he sees Ilya's face, he pushes off the wall.

"What happened?"

Ilya stops in front of him.

For a second, he cannot make the words work, but eventually, he says, "They are exploring a change of environment."

Marly's mouth goes thin. "Trade."

"Yes."

"Those motherfuckers."

"Come on, Papa Bear, I have ten minutes with the team," he says.

Marly looks tired and angry and very, very steady. There's no pity in his gaze, but his alternate captain, his best friend, if Iyla were a more honest man (though he'd never say it in front of Sveta. She's more of a sister to him, and there is something unique about his friendship with Marly, who knows him as the Ilya out from his father's grip. Not that his father wants anything t—), is standing there with his jaw set like he is ready to put his shoulder through a wall if Ilya points.

They walk to the locker room together, and Ilya's displeased (utterly pleased) to find they're already waiting.

He'd imagined, stupidly, that he might have to gather them, but half the team is there when he arrives even though this isn't even a scheduled meeting, scattered around the room in workout gear and street clothes and the tense. A few guys are standing instead of sitting, too restless for the benches.

Hammersmith's standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed, big shoulders hunched. Ryan Carmichael is sitting at his stall with his phone in his hand and his jaw set. Victor St-Simon leans against the wall near the whiteboard, still as a statue, which is how Ilya knows he is furious. Connors is pacing in a line too short to be useful.

The room goes quiet when Ilya walks in.

Ilya knows bad quiet. Bad quiet looks away and waits for someone else to decide the shape of the room. Bad quiet has judgment in it, or fear, or the oily little caution of men trying to figure out just how much they can get away with.

This quiet turns toward him, which is much worse. Marly steps in beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touch.

Ilya puts his hands in his coat pockets.

"Well," he says. "Beautiful turnout. I wish you would show up this fast when I call for team meeting."

Hammersmith's mouth pulls tight. "Is it true?"

Ilya looks at him. "I have been awake for many hours, Smithy. You must be more specific."

"Are they trading you?"

Slowly, Ilya says, "They are exploring the possibility."

The room erupts.

"Fuck that."

"Are you kidding?"

"Exploring my ass."

"Over this?"

"What the fuck is wrong with them?"

Marly raises his hand and asks them to speak one at a time, but no one listens, but Ilya appreciates the attempt.

Hammersmith steps forward. "You literally led us to a Cup, Cap."

It hurts in a way he didn't ever expect it to. It's true.

There are banners in the building because of this room, because of his hands, because of nights he remembers in bright, broken flashes: Marly screaming into his face after the final horn, Connors sobbing into a towel and denying it to anyone who asked, Ilya's whole body bruised and electric while the Cup passed hand to hand like something holy.

He had belonged then and nobody had needed to explain it.

Ryan stands. "What exactly did Kline say?"

Ilya exhales through his nose. "He said difficult situation. Media considerations. Something about sponsor concerns. A change of environment may serve all parties."

Connors throws both hands up. "That means they're shopping you."

"Yes," Ilya says. "Thank you, professor."

"They're cowards," Connors says. "We should go up there."

"Absolutely not," Marly says. "That would definitely prove their point."

"I didn't say I was gonna punch him."

"You were thinking it. I can tell."

Victor finally pushes away from the wall. "Association first."

Ryan nods immediately. "Already texted the rep."

Connors turns to him. "You did?"

Ryan lifts one shoulder. "I figured if management is going to start acting stupid, someone should start acting smart."

Ilya stares at him. "You texted the union because of me?"

Ryan gives him a flat look. "No, because I developed a sudden passion for labor relations. Of course, Cap."

Hammersmith says, "Just so you know, no one in the room's okay with this."

"Room does not sign contracts," Ilya says.

"No," Victor says. "But we can make things expensive."

Connors points toward the hall. "Then let's make it expensive now."

"Jesus Christ, no one is storming management," Marly says.

"Why not?"

"Because if you get suspended for trying to defend Roz, he will make fun of you until one of you dies."

"I would," Ilya says.

Connors glares at him. "You're very ungrateful."

"As your captain, I am protecting you from your own terrible instincts."

The room begins shifting from explosion into shape. Hammersmith sits on the bench and immediately stands again. Ryan starts typing something, stops when Marly gives him a look, then pockets the phone with visible effort. Connors keeps pacing, but now it has a smaller range.

Marly says, "No statements until his agent gives the okay."

"Who?" Connors asks.

"My new agent, Farah," Ilya says.

Hammersmith blinks. "Since when?"

"Yesterday morning."

"You got engaged and got a new agent?"

"Yes. I move fast."

Ryan says, "That Shane Hollander's agent?"

"Also mine now. Temporarily."

Connors squints. "Is that allowed?"

"Apparently with enough documents to sign, anything is allowed."

Victor's eyebrows move slightly. "Good. You need somebody good like that."

"I think she is already terrorizing them by email."

A moment later, Hammersmith says, "So. Hollander."

The entire room changes direction so fast it is almost impressive.

Connors points at Hammersmith. "Thank you. We were all thinking it."

Ilya lifts one shoulder, because apparently he has been called to testify before the Court of Teammate Nosiness.

"Yes," he says. "Hollander."

"Hollander," Hammersmith repeats, like he is trying to make the shape of the word fit inside his mouth. "Shane Hollander."

"No, different Hollander. Secret one."

"You and Shane fucking Hollander," Connors says.

Carmichael says, "Maybe don't phrase it like that."

"Why? Is it inaccurate?"

Ilya smiles because he has to.

(Because if he does not smile, he might tell them the truth. That Shane had announced something Ilya had not agreed to. That Shane had said you don't have to go along with it and Ilya had heard own heart break. That the relationship between them is currently held together by public panic and private longing.)

"Very inaccurate," he says. "Sometimes it is romantic."

Everyone groans.

Connors covers his ears. "Regret. Immediate regret. I do not want that image in my brain."

Hammersmith points at him. "I cannot believe Hollander locked down the league's biggest playboy."

"I am not locked down," Ilya says. "I am generously allowing him to experience me."

Ryan looks at the ceiling. "That poor man."

"Poor?" Ilya presses a hand to his chest. "He is blessed."

Connors grins. "You're gonna destroy him."

"Please," he says. "Hollander is very strong. Beautiful, powerful thighs. Terrible taste in drinks."

Victor says, dry as dust, "Put that in the vows."

"My vows will be tasteful."

"No, they won't," Marly says.

Ilya looks wounded. "You know nothing about my heart."

Hammersmith is shaking his head. "Still. Hollander. That guy hates losing to you so much I thought he was gonna bite through his mouthguard last playoffs."

"That was flirtation."

"It felt like we were approaching attempted murder."

"Sometimes same thing for us."

Connors laughs. Ryan makes a disgusted noise. Someone from the back says, "Jesus Christ, Roz."

Then Ryan says, less loudly, "He said it good, though."

Ilya's smile freezes before he can stop it.

Ryan looks uncomfortable immediately, which almost helps. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "The post, I mean. It sounded very sweet."

Shane's words flash behind his eyes, clean black text on a white screen.

"He is," Ilya says finally. His voice comes out lighter than he feels. "Yes. Hollander. Very handsome. Very private. I do not kiss and tell so save your breath."

Victor says, "Well, management can go fuck themselves if they think the anyone here has an issue."

Several guys agree at once.

Ryan adds, "Seriously. If they try to use us as an excuse, we'll shut that down."

"They will not say it like that," Ilya says. "And you do not have to make this your problem. I know it is messy. I know the attention is bad. I know management will say whatever they need to say. You have contracts too. Families. Careers. You do not have to—"

"Shut up," Hammersmith says.

Ilya blinks.

Marly says, "Smithy."

"No, he should shut up." Hammersmith points at Ilya, furious and red-faced. "You're one of us. You don't get to stand there and tell us when we're allowed to give a shit when you know we would do the same for anyone else in this team."

Ilya's mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He is going to kill all of them.

"I need to say something," Ilya says. He keeps his hands in his pockets because otherwise he does not know what to do with them.

"I do not know what happens next," he says. "I do not know if they trade me. I do not know if I stay. I do not know if I am allowed in this room tomorrow."

Marly's jaw flexes.

Connors looks down.

Ilya breathes in.

"But I know this was my locker room. And I know you did not make me feel like I needed to apologize for walking into it today."

He's thankful that for once, none of them open their mouths to speak.

"So," Ilya says, forcing the corner of his mouth up because there is only so much sincerity a hockey locker room can handle before someone develops a rash. "Thank you for not being terrible. Very low bar, yes, but hockey players need achievable goals."

That breaks them. Hammersmith gives a wet, angry laugh. Ryan looks down with a smile he tries to hide. Connors mutters, "Asshole," with so much affection it is basically indecent. Even Victor's mouth moves.

Then the door opens.

Sarah from communications stands there.

She takes in the room in one quick look: half the roster gathered and several men on their feet.

"Ilya," she says carefully. "Jeremy said the ten minutes are up."

Ilya turns back to his team. "No arrests."

Connors opens his mouth.

"No," Marly says.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

Ryan says, "We love you, Roz." He looks like he regrets speaking, but not enough to take it back.

Then Hammersmith says, gruffly, "Yeah. We got you."

Victor nods once. "Whatever happens."

Connors says, "Even if your fiancé is a fucking menace on the ice."

"Yes, but beautiful to watch," Ilya says automatically.

Everyone hoots.

Heat climbs the back of his neck, which is deeply unfair because he has said much worse things in much more public places without shame.

Marly turns his face away, but Ilya can see his shoulders shaking.

"Wow," Hammersmith says. "That was quick."

"Reflex," Ryan says.

"Love," Connors says solemnly.

"Shut your idiot faces," Ilya says. "I am leaving now."

He turns before they can see too much of his face.

Marly walks him out.

Sarah moves aside, and Ilya feels the room behind him stand as they pass.

"Call if you need anything."

"Tell your we're ready if she wants statements."

Ilya does not look back. If he looks back, he might have to keep it.

In the hall, the noise of the room follows him for a few seconds before the door swings shut. Voices rising immediately.

Ilya stands still. Marly waits.

After a moment, Ilya says, "They are going to do something stupid."

"Probably."

"You are supposed to say no."

"I'm gonna try to make sure it's useful stupid."

Ilya exhales something dangerously close to a laugh.

"This is your fault, you know."

Marly's eyebrows lift. "My fault?"

"If you let me drive here, you could stay for excitement. Storming management. Organizing uprising. Maybe throw Connors over shoulder when he starts crime."

"Connors is too heavy."

"Not for you, Papa Bear."

Marly closes his eyes. "I regret caring about you."

"No, you don't."

"I'm considering it."

"But now," Ilya continues, "you have to drop me home like babysitter. Very sad. Revolution will happen without you."

Marly shakes his head, but his mouth twitches. "Get in the car, Roz."

"Whatever you say, Papa."

Ilya looks back once at the locker room door.

His team. Maybe not tomorrow, or ever again, but today, for ten minutes, it had still been his.

Then he follows Marly out.

When Marly pulls up outside Ilya's building and puts the car in park, he doesn't unlock the doors immediately.

"Are you holding me hostage?"

"Call your agent back."

Ilya closes his eyes. "Marly."

"Call Farah."

"You sound like Sveta."

"She's smarter than me. I'm learning."

"Don't learn anything from her."

"Phone."

Ilya exhales through his nose, but he takes it out.

Farah answers on the first ring.

"Ilya."

"Hello, Farah Jalali. I have survived my visit."

"Are you out of the building?"

"Yes. Marly kidnapped me and is now refusing to release me until I report to you."

"Good," Farah says, utterly without sympathy. "What did they say after I got off the call?"

"Nothing. Sarah let me out. I spoke to the room for ten minutes."

Ilya glances at Marly.

Marly's face remains forward, giving him the illusion of privacy in a car that is approximately six square feet.

"Okay, I'll review Boston's written follow-up when it comes in. I expect they'll be more careful now."

Ilya rests his head back against the seat.

The adrenaline from the locker room has begun to drain, leaving something heavier behind.

"What now?" he asks.

He can hear papers shifting on her end. A keyboard, perhaps. Farah Jalali moving things into rows where they can be fought.

"I have started putting out feelers," she says.

Ilya sits a little straighter. Marly notices. His gaze flicks over, then back to the windshield.

"To other teams?" Ilya asks.

"Yes. Quietly. Nothing formal yet."

His fingers tighten around the phone.

"Who?"

"Los Angeles has indicated interest. Ottawa as well."

The thought rolls in before he can stop it.

A house, absurdly, something warm against snow. Shane in a living room, sleeves pushed up, saying Ilya's name without checking who might hear. Shane driving streets he knows by instinct, one hand loose on the wheel, glancing over when Ilya complains about his driving. Shane showing him some old rink with that careful, embarrassed sincerity of his, as if Ilya has not already seen every childhood feature the league has ever put together on him. A life made of proximity instead of stolen hours.

It comes at him so quickly, so whole, that he almost feels winded by it, so he shuts the door on it.

Ottawa is a team. Canada is a country. Shane is not a plan.

"Ilya?" Farah says.

"Yes," he says. "I'm here."

"Those are conversations, not offers. I need to make that distinction clearly."

"I understand."

"LA is interested from a hockey perspective. Ottawa appears interested from both a hockey and market perspective, though I would not want to speculate beyond that until I know more."

Ilya stares through the windshield at nothing.

Farah says, "Do not decide tonight."

"I was not planning to."

That is true, technically. He had not been planning anything because he had not known there was anything to plan around.

"Good. I'll speak with counsel, review Boston's written position, and update you tomorrow. If any team interest develops into something more concrete, you'll know."

"Okay."

"Call me if anything changes."

"It changes every five minutes."

"Then call if anything urgent changes."

He almost smiles. "Better."

"I'll speak to you tomorrow."

"Thank you, Farah."

Shane's awake when Ilya calls.

He has been awake for hours, in fairness. Awake is not unusual anymore. Sleep has become something his body approaches cautiously, circles twice, then decides against. He spends nights staring at the ceiling, reviewing things he cannot change and conversations he should not rehearse because he has no right to expect them.

He hasn't called Ilya.

He has texted only when necessary, brief logistical things Farah approved or included him on. He has kept his distance because Ilya's last real reply to him had been a thumbs-up, and Shane may be persistent in most things, but he can also take a hint.

So when his phone lights up on the nightstand, he assumes it is Farah.

Maybe Hayden. Hayden has become an enthusiastic believer in texts sent after midnight, usually containing some variation of you alive? disguised as an insult.

Then Shane sees the name: Lily

His hand is around the phone before the second ring.

"Ilya?"

The relief in his own voice makes him want to wince. He sounds like he has been waiting. The worst part is that he has been waiting.

For a second, there is only the low hush of the line. Then Ilya says, "Hello, fiancé."

Shane closes his eyes.

The word still strikes strangely. It has been on every sports panel in North America, in official statements and invasive headlines. It has appeared so often in the last forty-eight hours that it should have been dulled by repetition.

It's not, but not in Ilya's voice.

"Hi," Shane says.

"Wow, you sound overwhelmed by passion."

"I wasn't expecting you to call."

"Ah. So you are surprised by passion?"

Shane's mouth twitches before he can stop it, a tiny thing—barely even there—but his body notices the change. His shoulders loosen by a fraction against the pillows.

"Were you alone today?"

"No, Sveta and Marly were here. Well, Sveta is still here."

"Is she asleep?" he asks.

"Probably. She is in my guest room, which means she is either asleep or maybe listening through the wall with a glass pressed to it."

"That seems invasive."

"She is very nosy."

Shane can hear the fondness under it. "And Marly?"

"Gone home, finally. There may be a coup at the Bears facility overnight and he is missing it."

"A coup?"

"Long story."

Shane waits, wondering if Ilya will elaborate but he doesn't.

That's fine. Shane has learned, badly and late, not to reach for everything Ilya doesn't hand him.

Instead, he says, "Should I be concerned?"

"About a coup? Always. About me? No."

Shane looks at the dark ceiling.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely not," Ilya says. "But I am trying new thing where I say reassuring words first and decide if they are true later."

That gets a quiet breath of laughter out of Shane.

Ilya makes a soft sound on the other end. Pleased, maybe. Or relieved.

Shane's fingers tighten around the phone.

"What's going on?"

"I have a question."

"About?"

"Los Angeles."

Shane sits up a little.

He didn't know there was a Los Angeles. Farah has kept Ilya's business Ilya's, as she should. Shane hasn't asked. He's wondered every hour since Farah told him she would be putting out feelers, but he's not asked.

"LA's interested?" he says.

"Yes."

"That's…" He stops, recalibrates. "That's good."

"You do not sound very convincing."

"It is good."

"Mm."

"It is," Shane insists, because it is. Because any team that recognizes Ilya's value is good. Because Ilya deserves options. Because Shane cannot let the first thing he does be make Ilya responsible for the way LA opens up in his mind as distance and a life that might have no place for Shane in it except some ugly legal footnote.

"They're a good organization," Shane says. "They'd know what to do with you."

Ilya is quiet for a beat.

"What to do with me," he repeats.

"As a player."

"Shame. I thought this was more personal evaluation."

Heat moves through Shane's face before he can stop it.

"Ilya."

"Shane."

"What?"

"You're starting to sound like my lawyer."

"I'm not your lawyer."

"No. You are much more handsome."

Shane glances toward the door of his bedroom as if someone might be listening, which is ridiculous. He's alone. His parents are back in Ottawa. There's no one here to hear Ilya say words to him in a midnight voice that makes his chest ache.

He lowers his voice anyway.

"You called to ask about LA?"

"Maybe I called to hear your opinion of beaches."

"Well, I hate sand."

"Shane." He sounds scandalized.

"It gets everywhere," Shane defends. "And I keep finding it in places for weeks after!"

"I can't believe you are not a beach person."

"You underestimate how many opinions I can have on things."

Ilya laughs, softly, and the silence that follows feels different. Warmer. Ilya doesn't speak right away.

Shane presses his lips together.

He should not let that affect him this much. He does anyway.

"You asked about LA," he says, because if they stay too long in the softness he will say something he cannot unsay.

"Yes. LA is interested."

"Are you considering it?"

"Of course. Good team. Sun. Many beautiful actors desperate for hockey player romance."

Shane's smile slips, though he manages to keep his voice level. "Sounds appealing."

"Does it?"

"To you, maybe."

Ilya hums.

Shane knows that hum. It is the sound of Ilya noticing something and deciding whether to be merciful. (He's not often merciful.)

"Do you think I would enjoy beautiful actors?" Ilya asks.

"Your head's big enough."

"True. But this is not answer."

"It's the answer you're getting."

He goes quiet again for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice seems hesitant.

"Ottawa is interested too."

Shane goes still.

The first thought that crosses his mind is not their terrible team, or its roster or the goalie they have just acquired or any practical evaluation of the team as a hockey destination.

It's snow on his parents' street. The outdoor rink from when he was a kid that he learned how to skate on. The long stretch of road near the canal where Shane used to run in summers until his lungs burned.

And then, impossibly, Ilya inside all of it.

Ilya in Ottawa.

Ilya on those streets. Ilya in his parents' house, too large and bright and charismatic for every room, charming his mother shamelessly and pretending not to be charmed back. Ilya beside him at the old rink, laughing at childhood stories Shane doesn't want told and secretly loving every one of them.

It arrives whole and uninvited.

Shane has to swallow before he speaks.

"Ottawa," he says, and if his voice sounds small, Ilya doesn't notice, or if he does, he doesn't comment.

"Yes."

"They're interested?"

"Yes."

"That's…" He clears his throat. "That's also good."

"Also not very convincing."

"I'm trying to be fair."

"Terrible strategy."

Despite himself, Shane smiles again. "You want me to be unfair?"

"Ottawa is your hometown."

"Don't tell me you watched one of those terrible profile pieces?" Shane asks.

"One?"

Shane's face warms. "How many?"

"I was studying the enemy."

"How many, Ilya?"

"Several."

"Several."

"I know many many things about Ottawa because of them."

"Well, if you played there, I could show you around."

Silence. The words leave him and become larger once they are in the space between them.

Ilya is quiet for long enough that Shane's pulse starts to climb.

Then Ilya says, "Could you?"

"Yeah, I would."

"Would you want to?"

Shane looks down at his blanket, at the place where his fingers have twisted the fabric tight.

He should answer carefully. He hasn't been careful and look where that has put them. Careful is good. Careful is safe.

But Ilya called him. Ilya asked.

"Yeah," Shane says.

The word comes out too soft.

"Yes," he says again, because taking it back would be worse. "I'd want to."

Ilya exhales, almost silently.

Shane's chest hurts.

"You are a model citizen, Shane," Ilya says eventually.

"I'm committed to local tourism."

"Mm. What would tour include?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"How long you had, probably."

He thinks of Ottawa through Ilya's eyes and finds, strangely, that he wants the city to impress him. Wants the old places to withstand Ilya's attention. Wants to show him the little bakery near his parents' house and the street where he learned to bike and the rink where he first understood that wanting something enough could reshape your whole life.

He does not say any of that.

Shane can almost see him in his mind's eye, lying in bed somewhere in Boston, or maybe sitting at his kitchen table because sleep has become theoretical for both of them.

Then Ilya says, "Ottawa is interesting."

Shane swallows. "As a team?"

"Among other things."

Shane waits.

Ilya fills the silence, but slowly this time.

"LA is better hockey," he says. "At least right now."

"Yes."

"Ottawa has problems."

"Yes."

"Many problems."

"A lot of them, honestly."

"You are supposed to defend your hometown."

"I can defend the city without lying about how terrible the team is."

"You are not selling me here, Hollander."

"It's true."

"They have new goalie."

"They do."

"Not terrible."

"No, he has potential. Was wasted on the bench in Toronto."

"And Barrett."

"Troy Barrett?"

"Yes."

"What about him?"

"I thought he was an ass."

Shane's mouth twitches. "Well, he is an ass. He's friends with Kent. Well, was, anyway. Don't think they're friends now after he spoke out."

"Yes. It was brave of him. Even if it made them trade him."

"I don't know him well," Shane says carefully. "But I think that mattered."

Ilya hums softly then takes a breath like he's preparing for something.

"Maybe we do it, then."

"Do what?"

"Get married."

Everything in the room goes very quiet that Shane hears his own pulse, suddenly hard and unsteady.

"Ilya," he says.

"In Canada," Ilya adds, a little too quickly. "Farah said if I were in Canada, marriage could matter more for, ah…" He pauses. "Citizenship case. Eventually. Maybe. There are other things too. Asylum, perhaps. Lawyers will discuss. Many possibilities."

Shane says nothing. He cannot, yet.

Ilya laughs softly, but the sound is strained. "This is where you say it is excellent plan and ask if I prefer spring or winter wedding."

"Ilya."

"Yes?"

"What are you asking me?"

A silence.

"Well, Shane," Ilya says. "My fiancé. Are you ready to commit?"

Shane closes his eyes.

It should be funny. It is funny, a little. Ilya's voice curls around the line with just enough mischief to make it survivable.

But underneath it isbrings up something in Shane that he cannot look at directly. Fear, maybe. Resignation.

He thinks: Ilya needs this.

The path out of the closing fist around his life. Shane has made himself part of that by panicking in public, and now Ilya is doing what he has to do with the pieces available.

Of course Shane will say yes. He would have said yes if Ilya asked him to drive to Boston tonight and stand outside city hall until morning so they can be the first in line. He would say yes to a thousand worse bargains if they made Ilya happy.

"Yes," Shane says. "Of course, yeah."

Ilya does not speak.

"I mean—" He stops, because he does mean it. But he cannot let Ilya misunderstand the kind of yes he is offering. Or maybe he cannot let himself misunderstand. "If this is what you want to do, if counsel thinks it's a viable option, if it helps you, then yes."

There.

"If it helps me," he repeats.

Shane hears the phrase come back altered, though he cannot tell how. "Yes."

"Kind of you, Hollander."

"Ilya—"

"No, it is. You are very kind. This is not insult."

Shane doesn't know what to say to that. He hears something shift in Ilya's tone, something careful coming back into place, but he cannot tell whether he imagined the warmth before or ruined it now.

"I mean it," he says, too quietly.

"Yes, I know that, believe me."

There is no good answer to that.

For a moment, neither of them speaks. The line fills with distance.

Then Ilya exhales softly. "I should sleep."

Shane looks at the dark ceiling. "Yeah. You should."

"And you too. You sound tired."

"I'm okay."

"Of course."

Shane swallows. "You'll talk to Farah tomorrow?"

"Yes, and lawyers. Possible teams, possible husbands. It's a big day."

A small laugh gets out of Shane, but it dies quickly.

"Ilya."

"Mm?"

He doesn't know what he meant to say. Don't go. I didn't mean only if it helps you.

So he says, "Goodnight."

Silence, then Ilya says, "Goodnight, Shane."

The call ends before he can answer. He lies back against his pillows and looks at the ceiling until his eyes burn.

He had wanted to say something better. Something that sounded less like duty. But Ilya had called because marriage might help his citizenship case. Because Ottawa might make sense. Because Shane's original disaster had accidentally become useful.

Not because he wanted Shane.

He will marry Ilya if Ilya asks. Of course he will.

He will not ask for anything else.

He sits in the dark for a long time after that, unable to tell whether he feels better or worse. Both, probably. The call has put warmth back into places he was trying very hard not to need warmed. It has also made the ache more specific.

Ilya may move to Ottawa.

Ilya may marry him.

For the case, of course.

If it helps him.

Shane presses the phone to his chest and looks at the ceiling.

He doesn't let himself imagine the wedding.

(He does anyway.)

Three months before July, Shane's mother asks how long he and Ilya have been together.

She asks it carefully, over the phone, in the middle of a conversation about nothing much, whether he wants them to come to Montreal next weekend or if he'd rather be left alone.

"Do you know what you and Ilya want us to say if people ask?"

Shane goes still at his kitchen counter.

"What do you mean?"

"Only if people ask, honey. They might not. But some family will. Friends. People who care about you."

"Oh."

"And I know the engagement announcement was..." She pauses, choosing the word with care. "Unexpected."

Shane closes his eyes.

"Yeah."

"So I wondered whether there was a version of things you wanted us to use. How long you've been together. Whether the engagement had been on your minds already. That sort of thing."

Shane looks down at the mug between his hands, tea gone cold because he keeps forgetting to drink it.

"I don't know," he says.

Yuna is quiet for half a second. "That's all right."

"No, I mean-" He stops. Tries again. "I should talk to Ilya."

"Then talk to Ilya."

He says he will. She lets him change the subject.

After they hang up, Shane stands in his kitchen for a while with his phone still in his hand.

Then he opens Ilya's thread.

Shane: Can you talk?

The response comes two minutes later.

Lily: yes

Shane hesitates, then hits FaceTime before he can make a larger problem out of it.

Ilya answers from his couch in Boston. He's wearing a soft gray T-shirt, hair loose and a little mussed like he's been running his hand through it. The room behind him is dim except for a lamp somewhere out of frame and the flicker of a television on mute.

"Hello," Ilya says. "You look serious."

Shane glances down at himself, as if that might explain anything. "I'm serious."

"Yes. I noticed."

"Sorry."

Ilya's mouth shifts faintly. "You called me to apologize for… being serious? Is okay, Shane, I knew that about you."

"No."

"Good. This would be depressing start."

Shane breathes out through his nose, almost a laugh. It helps less than he wants it to.

"My mom asked what we're telling people."

Ilya's amusement doesn't vanish exactly, but it settles.

"About?"

"Us."

Shane feels the word settling too late, the small, stupid intimacy of it. Us. As if they have ever been easy.

He looks away from the screen. "The timeline of how long… um, we've been together. Whether people are supposed to think the engagement was planned."

"Ah."

"My parents know it wasn't," Shane adds quickly. "Obviously."

"Yes. I assumed you did not convince them you had been hiding ring in sock drawer."

Shane flushes. "No."

"And my friends, Sveta and Marly, know."

"Right."

"But everyone else?"

"I don't know." Shane rubs his thumb against the edge of the phone case. "I think they probably assume it was. Or that we were at least already talking about it."

Ilya leans back farther into the couch. "Would be strange thing for them not to assume. Most people do not propose marriage to internet by accident."

Shane's stomach knots.

Ilya seems to hear it in the silence. His face softens, then closes off again before Shane can decide if he imagined it.

"Sorry," Ilya says. "That was..."

"True."

"Still."

"It's fine."

It isn't, but neither of them does anything with that.

Shane clears his throat. "I thought we should decide. Before people start asking and we answer differently."

"That sounds sensible."

"Yeah."

Ilya says, "Do you have preferred version?"

Shane doesn't. That's the problem. He has spent weeks answering questions from media teams and lawyers and his parents and Farah, but this one keeps slipping away from him. Every possible version sounds either too false or too close to the truth.

"We don't have to tell my parents more than they already know," he says.

"No?"

"They know it happened quickly. They know you didn't know I was going to say that."

"Yes."

"And they know we're... going through with it now."

"Yes."

Shane stares at the screen.

Ilya watches him back patiently, for once. It makes Shane's chest hurt.

"I don't think they know what we were before," Shane says.

Ilya's gaze drops briefly.

"No," he says. "Probably not."

"They might think it was new."

"Maybe."

"Or serious. Just... private."

Ilya's mouth pulls a little, not quite a smile. "That sounds better than explaining actual situation."

Shane's face warms. "We don't have to explain anything."

"No. I would prefer not to tell your mother we have been having very hot sex for years."

"Ilya."

"What? You were also there."

Shane drags a hand over his mouth, horrified and, against his will, a little lighter for half a second.

Ilya looks faintly pleased with himself before the expression fades.

"Private and serious is fine," he says. "For your parents."

"They already know the proposal wasn't planned."

"Yes. But they do not need details of... before."

"No."

Shane turns the phone slightly, needing to move something. "What about Svetlana and Marleau?"

"They know more or less the same. That you panicked. That I agreed later."

Shane's hand tightens around the phone. "I didn't mean-"

"I know," Ilya says, too quickly. Then, quieter, "I know."

Shane stops.

Ilya glances away, toward the silent television. "Marly thinks this is romantic, somehow."

Shane doesn't know what to say to that.

"He is sentimental," Ilya adds. "Very unfortunate in a large man."

"And Sveta?"

"Sveta thinks I am an idiot."

"About this?"

"Generally. But also about this."

Shane's mouth almost moves. "She doesn't think you should do it?"

"No." Ilya shifts, pulling one knee up slightly on the couch. "She thinks I should stop acting like an idiot."

Shane looks down as the words pierce somewhere they weren't supposed to.

Ilya laughs softly, without much humor. "She is dramatic."

"Is she wrong?"

Ilya looks back at him.

For a second, Shane thinks he might answer honestly, and the answer is going to shatter him into a million pieces.

Then he says, "We are discussing cover story, Hollander. Stay on task."

Shane swallows. "Right. So, what should everyone else think? People outside that group."

"I assume they think we were already together."

"Yes."

"And that engagement was happening anyway."

"Probably."

"Do we correct them?"

Shane thinks about that. About the headlines after his post. About the breathless speculation, the photographs of them years apart stitched together into evidence of a love story no one had noticed.

"No," he says.

Ilya nods.

"No," he agrees.

Relief moves through Shane, followed immediately by shame for feeling it.

"It seems easier," he says.

"For you?"

"For both of us."

Ilya looks at him for a moment. "Yes. Probably."

Shane wishes he hadn't said it that way. He doesn't know why.

"So we say we were together already," he says. "Privately."

"Which is..." Ilya tilts his head. "Not completely untrue."

Shane huffs softly. "Okay."

"And how long?"

Shane had known they would need to talk about that, but the question still catches against something in him.

How long have they been together? Five years? Never? Since the first time Ilya showed up confident and beautiful and left Shane shaking afterward? Since the first time Shane realized silence with Ilya did not always feel like emptiness? Since the first time he wanted to tell him something and caught himself before he did?

He can't say any of that.

"Recently," Shane says, and hates it immediately.

Ilya's eyebrows lift.

"Recently?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I," Ilya admits.

They look at each other. There is something almost absurd about it. Two grown men preparing to get married, unable to agree on when their relationship began.

"Maybe we say it became serious recently," he says. "That we'd been involved for a while, but it got more serious this season."

Ilya's quiet.

"Does that work?" Shane asks.

"Sure."

Shane glances up. Ilya's tone is easy, but his eyes are not. There is a slight distance in them, something Shane cannot read without making assumptions.

"Only if you're okay with it," Shane says.

Ilya smiles faintly. "I am famous for being okay with things."

Shane's throat tightens.

"That's not what I meant."

"I know." Ilya rubs two fingers briefly over his jaw. "Yes. It works. We were involved for a while. More serious this season."

Shane nods, even though the words feel wrong in his body.

"Okay."

"And the engagement?" Ilya asks.

"For everyone else, I think they can believe we'd discussed it. Or were going to."

"Were we?"

Shane looks at him and presses his lips together. Ilya holds his gaze for only a second, then looks away first, mouth tipping into something dry and self-directed.

"Sorry. Bad joke. Alright," he says. "Then everyone can think we talked about it. In theory. Before you announced it to several million people."

"Yes."

"Your parents and my people know better."

"Yes."

"Anyone else?"

"Hayden knows it was complicated. JJ probably does too, but I haven't told him everything."

"Farah?"

Shane pauses. "Farah knows the timing. Not the rest."

Ilya nods. "Fine."

"Do you want to tell her more?"

"No."

"Okay."

Shane reaches for the notebook beside him and writes it down, not because he will forget, but because writing it makes the agreement feel less likely to dissolve in the air between them.

Privately involved for a while.
More serious this season.
Engagement planned, publicly.
Inner circle knows timing was not.

It looks obscene reduced to four lines.

"Are you making meeting minutes?" Ilya asks.

Shane looks up. "No."

"You are writing something."

"I like writing things down."

Ilya laughs and shifts again on the couch. "This is good, then. We have history."

"We do have history."

"Much cleaner than truth."

Shane's pen stops moving and Ilya seems to realize how that sounded. His mouth twists.

"Not that truth is dirty," he says. "Only embarrassing."

Shane almost smiles, but it doesn't make it all the way there.

"I don't think it was embarrassing."

Shane feels the heat rise up his neck. He stares at the notebook because he cannot face Ilya, even through the screen.

"I mean," he says, too late, "not all of it."

"Ah," Ilya says.

Shane doesn't know what that means. He doesn't ask.

On-screen, Ilya rubs his thumb along the hem of his shirt. Shane watches without meaning to. He misses him with a sudden force that is difficult to reconcile with how often they have spoken lately. There are calls. Texts. Emails with both their names in the subject line. None of it is the same as being in a room with him. None of it feels safe enough to count.

"Well," Ilya says at last. "Now when someone asks, I will sound normal."

"You never sound normal."

"Flattering."

"Anytime."

A moment later, Shane nods.

"Thanks for talking about it," he says.

"Of course."

Another pause. Neither of them moves to end the call.

Shane can hear the faint static of Ilya's room through the speaker. The television shifting colors against his cheek. He looks tired. Beautiful, still. He always is. Shane knows better than to think that.

"Are you okay?" he asks anyway.

Ilya smiles, small and crooked. "No one who is planning fake real wedding is okay."

Shane's chest constricts.

"It doesn't have to be-"

"Is okay, Shane," Ilya says.

There is too much in the way he says it; too much exhaustion and far too much kindness. Shane cannot tell whether the hurt belongs to Ilya or whether it's his own.

"Okay then. Goodnight, Ilya."

"Goodnight, Shane."

The call ends.

Shane leaves the phone on the counter and sits there for a long time, staring at the four lines in his notebook.

They're not exactly a lie, which might be what makes it so difficult to look at.

Later, by July, the breaking news, the story has become less urgent to everyone except the people living in it.

That first week was unbearable. Headlines were multiplying overnight. Statements from teams and agents and people who have never once spoken to either of them but develop, very quickly, strong opinions about their private lives. Shane's phone became a weapon he had to carry. Ilya's name appeared everywhere, attached to words like future uncertain and Russian star's next move and Hollander engagement raises questions.

Then the playoffs happened without either of them.
Then the Cup was awarded to someone else.

Then hockey media, like all media, faced with the terrible burden of needing to move on, mostly did.

Enough that Shane can open an article about off-season training without finding himself in the third paragraph. Enough that reporters have stopped camping outside his building and the training facility. Enough that strangers seem to have settled on a version of the story they can live with depending on who they are as people.

The quieter parts have not settled at all, but that's okay because Shane has always been good at quiet.

He knows how to keep his face composed through a brutal loss. How to answer an insulting question like it deserves more than the truth. How to finish a punishing skate with his lungs burning and his expression blank.

Everyone likes him better that way. Coaches, sponsors, commentators, children at autograph tables, executives who clap him on the shoulder and call him a credit to the sport. Shane Hollander, golden boy. Shane Hollander, the smartest player on the ice. Shane Hollander, gracious, controlled, reliable. The kind of athlete children are supposed to admire and adults are supposed to trust.

He has spent so long being that person that sometimes he isn't sure where the performance ends.

His parents love him. Shane knows that. He knows it now maybe better than he ever has. His mother cried because he had spent so many years afraid to tell her the truth; his father sat beside him without asking for anything in return. They have not asked him to be anything different. They never would.

They worked hard, for him. They gave him everything they could. Drives at dawn to practice, tourament weekends, quiet recalculation of money and time and family life around his talent. His mother’s fierce belief in him. His father’s pride, often wordless but never absent.

So of course he has to put in the effort to be worth it; to deserve all he's been given, especially when this, hockey, was the only thing he could do give back. It was all he's good at.

Lately, it feels like he has disappointed everyone anyway.

Ilya, obviously. Ilya most of all. But his parents too, dragged into a public disaster because their son panicked and put something insane. Farah, who has spent months making careful, brilliant order from the wreckage of his worst impulse. His team, or at least enough of it to make the room feel different under his feet. The people who had trusted Shane Hollander to be thoughtful and measured and better than this.

The photograph was not his fault.

His mom has said that. His dad has said that. JJ and Hayden. Shane can repeat it to himself and almost believe it.

But that doesn't change that came after was his, so he does what he can with it.

His meals are exact. His training schedule is devotional. He runs when he means to run, lifts when he means to lift, stretches when he means to stretch. He studies tape and reviews games until his eyes ache. He tracks sleep he is not really getting and hydration he does not need to think this hard about. He answers public questions with enough composure that reporters have begun calling him admirable, once he was allowed on media rotation again, which makes him feel faintly sick if he thinks about it for too long.

His life arranged into manageable columns.

It's fine.

He's fine.

He'll make it better; he has to.

There are things he cannot repair by wanting to. Shane knows this. He does.

He cannot give Ilya back Boston. He cannot untangle the trade from the reason it became necessary. He cannot make the last several months smaller, or kinder, or less public. He cannot go back to the moment before he opened his phone and made everything worse in the name of helping.

So he works with what is in front of him.

He answers emails quickly. He reads every document Farah sends twice. He keeps track of dates, signatures, house viewings, ceremony requirements. He makes sure Ilya has options wherever options can still be made. It is not the same as fixing anything.

It's something.

Ilya Rozanov is an Ottawa Centaur now.

The trade was announced three weeks ago. Shane read the official release four times, though Farah had sent him the relevant details before it went public and he already knew. He still read it as if the words might change on the fourth pass.

The Centaurs were thrilled to welcome him. Ilya was looking forward to this next chapter. Boston thanked him for his leadership, his scoring, his commitment to the organization, and carefully did not say that they had discarded their captain at the first sign on inconvenience.

Ilya's Boston place is packed now. Shane knows because Ilya told him, because Farah included the moving timeline in one of her emails, and because Shane made the mistake of asking what Ilya planned to do with his cars.

Jane: You don't really need to bring all of them. Ottawa winters are rough. You'll need something reliable in snow.

Lily: yes you are right

Shane had stared at the screen, briefly suspicious of how easy that was.

Lily: i will bring them and buy a fast snow car

Jane: That's not what I meant.

Lily: no?

Jane: No.

Lily: but now i will be safe in all seasons

Jane: Ilya

Lily: shane

He had put the phone facedown on the kitchen counter. A minute later, he had picked it back up.

Jane: Please consider buying something sensible.

The reply came several minutes later.

Lily: i will consider it

Shane had no way of knowing whether that was agreement, evasion, or Ilya being kind enough not to keep pushing. He hadn't asked.

Their conversations have become mostly like that. Necessary, courteous, faintly warm at the edges if one looks too closely. Paperwork. Immigration appointments. House listings. Flights. Schedules. Which documents Farah has sent and which one of them has forgotten to sign something in the correct place.

It's not silence, but if you ask him, Shane sometimes thinks silence might be easier.

He sits now at the small desk in his childhood bedroom, laptop open, a blue moleskine notebook open to his right, his phone set precisely beside it. Outside the window, Ottawa is bright with midmorning summer, the maple in his parents' front yard moving gently in the breeze. His mother left for a meeting half an hour ago after reminding Shane, twice, that the guest room has clean towels already and he doesn't need to check.

(He has checked. He will probably check again.)

On his laptop, seven browser tabs are open:

Three are Ottawa property listings.
One is an email thread with his realtor, confirming the final shortlist for Ilya to see in person before making a decision.
One is a PDF from Farah titled Civil Ceremony Logistics - Draft.
Two are ring websites.

Shane has been on the ring websites for forty-three minutes.

Which is stupid. Not the rings themselves! The rings are necessary. They're getting married, whether the word still makes his heart stutter or not, and people wear rings when they get married. There'll be photographs, public expectations, probably definitely immigration expectations. It makes sense to have them in advance, not scramble at the last minute for something poorly chosen and obviously careless.

It makes sense. So, the fact that Shane has rejected seventeen rings for Ilya already doesn't mean anything.

He clicks into another option and frowns at the enlarged photo. Platinum, slightly rounded edges, polished finish. It's elegant and expensive, without being loud about it.

Too plain.

He closes the tab.

The next ring makes him pause.

Brushed platinum, with a narrow line of gold set into the band. It's not flashy. The gold is warm against the cooler metal, subtle enough that someone might miss it at first glance and then keep noticing it afterward.

Shane thinks of the chain Ilya wears at his throat. The gold cross that sometimes rests against bare skin in dim hotel rooms, catches briefly between Ilya's fingers when he's distracted.

He looks away from the screen. Whatever. That's not relevent. The ring simply suits him.

Would suit him, Shane corrects. Probably.

He adds it to a comparison tab.

His own ring took eight minutes. Simple platinum band, matte finish. There was really no need to complicate it.

Shane makes a note on the paper: Ring - confirm sizing before ordering.

The words stare at him until they begin to look accusing.

He does not know Ilya's ring size. Why would he? There are intimate things Shane knows about Ilya that he could not explain without blushing himself to death, and yet the circumference of his ring finger has somehow never come up.

He could ask.

That would be normal. They are getting married. People ask these things.

Shane reaches for his phone, opens their text thread, and imagines typing: What's your ring size?

His stomach tightens.

No.

Shane sets the phone down again.

He'll figure it out when Ilya arrives, casually somehow. There has to be a way to determine the approximate size of a person's finger.

His phone lights up.

For one irrational second, his pulse kicks hard at the thought of it being Ilya, but it's just Hayden.

Hayden: Just so you know the kids are so excited to see Uncle Shane they might actually climb you

Shane: I miss them too

Hayden: Not sure youll be saying that when we get to Ottawa

There's a pause.

Hayden: You okay?

He looks at the carefully written list on the notebook pages, each item squared into place because lists are easier than feelings and because he has a lot of feelings lately.

Shane: Yes.

Hayden: Call me later.

Shane: I will.

He sets the phone down again.

Scott Hunter had texted too, a few days after the trade announcement. Shane hadn't expected that, even though the league calls him The Boy Scout, and Ilya has spent years calling him a dinosaur, and once, after a particularly ugly collision along the boards, "a brave man for someone whose bones are dust." Scott hates every second of it, which has never discouraged Ilya, who seems to have decided long ago that relentless harassment is a reasonable foundation for friendship.

Scott: Hey, Shane. I've been meaning to reach out. I'm sorry this happened to you. Both of you. No one should have had that choice taken away from them.

Shane had read the message twice before answering.

Shane: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Scott's reply had come a few minutes later.

Scott: I mean it. I know things are probably complicated right now, but I have your back. Rozanov's too, if he wants it. You don't need to answer. Just wanted you to know.

Shane had sat with that for a while, phone warm in his hand. Scott is kind to everyone. That's part of why people love him.

Shane: That means a lot. Thank you.

Scott had liked the message and left it there.

JJ texted yesterday, too. Nothing serious. A link to a workout video with the caption this seems like something you might enjoy.

It is still strange, the way his phone has narrowed. Hayden. JJ. His parents. Farah. Ilya, in careful intermittent flashes.

There are group chats he has muted and never unmuted. Formerly easy names he has not heard from in weeks. Replies he has answered with a politeness so precise it could pass for indifference.

Shane doesn't think about that now. He doesn't have the time to, anyway.

He clicks over to the house listings instead.

The shortlist is final. Four properties. Shane has sent Ilya every one of them, along with floor plans and notes that he tried, unsuccessfully, to keep reasonable in length. The realtor was prepared to move faster. Farah suggested that buying something sight unseen would streamline the move. Ilya himself said, lightly, that he doesn't really mind whatever.

Shane refused—not in a way that gave anyone room to call him unreasonable. He only said Ilya should see the houses before committing. Photos can hide bad light, bad flow, bad noise from the street. A place can meet every requirement on paper and still feel wrong the moment a person steps into it.

Ilya is uprooting his entire life. It matters that Ilya likes where he wakes up. It matters that the place feels private enough, bright enough, safe enough. It matters that Shane does not help uproot him from one life only to funnel him carelessly into another because everyone is tired and the paperwork would be easier.

He opens the first listing again. Large detached house on a private lot, secure garage, too formal inside. Technically excellent. Shane suspects Ilya would find it stiff.

The second is newer, with clean modern lines, excellent gym potential, windows everywhere. Too exposed, maybe. Shane likes the interior more than he expected, but he does not trust the street.

The third has become his favorite, though he's tried not to have one. It's contemporary without feeling sterile, set back from the road, with mature trees and enough glass to bring light in without displaying the person living there like a museum exhibit. Giant garage. Generous kitchen. Lower level that could become a training space without much work. Quiet enough, he thinks. Warm enough.

He wants Ilya to like that one—which is ridiculous.

For now, they've already settled where Ilya will stay, though settled is generous. Ilya pushed back hard when Shane suggested his parents' house, insisting a hotel was easier, less intrusive, perfectly comfortable, really, and Shane let him make the argument before refusing to accept it.

The house tours are easier from his parents' place. The guest room is already there. Ilya's Boston apartment is packed, his things waiting on a permanent Ottawa address, and there is no reason for him to spend weeks living out of a hotel when the Hollanders have space. More importantly, his parents want him there.

Shane said that last part plainly, because Ilya kept speaking as if he would be tolerated rather than welcomed, like this whole mess wasn't on Shane anyway. In the end, Ilya gave in with a quiet, reluctant fine, and Shane tried not to feel too relieved.

His phone lights again, and this time it is Ilya.

Shane picks it up immediately, then forces himself to wait a second before opening the message. As if that helps.

Lily: flight still on time for tomorrow

Shane reads it twice.

Shane: Good. I'll be at arrivals.

Lily: you do not have to come inside if traffic is bad

Shane frowns faintly.

Shane: I'll be inside.

The typing dots appear, then vanish.

Lily: okay

Shane looks at the words longer than they deserve.

Shane: My parents have the guest room ready.

The response takes longer this time.

Lily: they are still sure?

Shane: Yes.

He hesitates, then adds:

Shane: You won't be imposing.

The dots appear almost at once.

Lily: i know
Lily: thank you

Shane's throat tightens.

Shane: Of course.

That seems like the end of it, but nearly a minute later:

Lily: i will try not to terrorize them

Shane's mouth tugs faintly at one corner.

Shane: They can handle you.

He regrets the wording immediately.

Ilya replies before Shane can decide whether it needs correcting.

Lily: we will see

Shane rests the phone against his palm, screen still lit, and lets himself sit with the thread for a moment longer than necessary.

Tomorrow, Ilya will be here.

In Ottawa.

In his parents' house.

Down the hall from Shane's old room, in a guest room Shane has checked twice already and will likely check again after lunch. They will spend days together looking at houses, meeting with his realtor, deciding where Ilya's things will be shipped. They will talk about the courthouse ceremony because it's close now. They'll have to discuss rings soon, one way or another.

They have spent years hiding schedules and arriving at hotel doors in secret.

Now Ilya is coming to stay in Shane's childhood home, and Shane has no idea whether he'll ever touch him again.

He looks back at the ring tabs.

The brushed platinum band with the narrow line of gold is still open.

Shane clicks save.

Ilya's house looks wrong with most of him boxed away. It's not even empty, though he wishes it would be. Empty would be cleaner. Empty would suggest a place waiting for someone new, all its old life scrubbed out and the walls permitted to forget. This house isn't empty yet. It's only interrupted.

Boxes line one wall of the living room in careful stacks, labelled in black marker by a moving company that has no emotional investment in any of it. KITCHEN. BOOKS. OFFICE. MASTER CLOSET. Art is gone from the walls, leaving pale rectangles where color used to be. The shelves are bare. The coffee table has disappeared into packing paper. The kitchen has been reduced to one mug, one plate, one fork, because even when being professionally exiled from a city he still needs to eat.

His cars are being handled separately.

Shane had expressed opinions.

Ilya smiles despite himself as he checks the zipper on his suitcase for the second time.

It had been one of the few nonessential text exchanges in weeks. Shane, serious even through a phone screen, suggesting Ilya did not really need to bring all of his sports cars to Ottawa because the winters were bad and he would need something reliable in snow. Ilya had agreed immediately, just long enough to make Shane hopeful, then informed him he would bring them and buy a fast snow car too.

Shane had gone quiet after that.

Ilya had imagined him staring at his phone with that little line between his brows, annoyed and worried in equal measure, and the image had warmed him for the rest of the evening in a way that was both pathetic and not worth examining.

He takes one final look around the living room.

The house has been good to him, mostly. Too large for one person, perhaps, but Ilya liked that when he bought it. Liked that the rooms did not crowd him. Liked that the ceilings were high enough that his thoughts could rise away before settling back onto him. He chose expensive furniture and excellent speakers for his action movies and a bed large enough to make solitude seem intentional.

And now, his Boston life is packed in cardboard and waiting for an Ottawa address. He has one suitcase, a garment bag, a carry-on, and the nauseating knowledge that by tonight he will be sleeping in Shane Hollander's childhood home.

He sets his suitcase upright by the front door. The car service should arrive in six minutes. He could leave now and wait outside, but he doesn't want to stand on his own front step like someone in a movie who has just lost everything. He hasn't lost everything. That's melodramatic.

His phone has been active all morning anyway. Marly, mostly, asking for updates Ilya has not needed to provide and will apparently be punished for withholding.

Marly: You at the airport yet?
Marly: Roz
Marly: Do not make me call you

Ilya had sent a photo of the suitcase by the door in response.

Ilya: alive and packed papa bear

Marly had reacted with a thumbs-up, then ruined it by sending:

Marly: Lmk when you land

The Bears group chat has been doing the same thing in greater numbers. Wishing him luck. Telling him Ottawa is lucky to have him. Connorssaying the Centaurs had better appreciate what they were getting. The messages keep coming in the new chat they had made after the trade was announced, because the old team one had kept filling with Bears logistics and training updates and things Ilya no longer had any reason to see.

That had stung more than it should have.

It was practical, obviously. He knew that. He didn't need messages about Boston's development camp or whether someone had left a charger in the players' lounge. Still, seeing the new chat appear on his phone, full of the same men but carrying him somewhere separate, had made the trade feel briefly sharper than the press conference, sharper than the boxes.

He's being dramatic.

He has been traded. He has a contract. He has a temporary immigration strategy that may involve marrying the man he is in love with, who is almost certainly marrying him because he feels guilty.

Many people have had far worse summers.

Marly had wanted to drive him to the airport himself. He had announced this as if Ilya had asked, then been forced to remember he'd be back home for his baby sister's wedding. Svetlana was in Russia for a few weeks too, before coming back for Ilya's own wedding, which he has told her several times she doesn't need to do.

She and Marly had both shut that down in the group chat Sveta created for the three of them.

Sveta: i'm coming. stop saying this.
Marly: Same
Ilya: yours is less convincing you were already invited
Marly: And yet Im still coming
Sveta: it's not really a discussion because we will be there
Ilya: frightening. i have papa and mama bear now

Sveta had replied with a single heart. Marly had sent a middle finger.

The doorbell rings.

Ilya exhales, picks up his suitcase, and leaves Boston behind for now.

Airports are improved by money in the same way most unpleasant things are improved by money: they're made easier to endure.

The check-in and security are quick. The flight is mercifully uneventful, which gives him too much time to think and nowhere respectable to put the thinking. He tries reading through the latest email from Farah about the civil ceremony and stops after the third paragraph because the words marital documentation make him want to throw himself out the emergency exit. So, he watches clouds instead.

When the plane begins its descent into Ottawa, the ground appears below in broad summer green, the city cut through by water and roads and neighborhoods that mean nothing to him yet. Somewhere down there are the shortlisted houses Shane has sent him. Somewhere there is the house Shane grew up in, where Yuna and David Hollander have apparently agreed to host him as if this is a perfectly ordinary thing to do for the man their son is about to marry for reasons no one can describe without several clauses and a headache.

Ilya still thinks a hotel would have been better.

He made that argument. Repeatedly. Shane listened, as he always does, and then stayed immovable. In the end, Ilya agreed. He's not sure which part of that decision was practicality and which part was weakness, but he knows it was all parts reckless.

The plane lands.

He doesn't check his phone until he is inside the terminal, because he tells himself there is no point. Then he checks it immediately.

Jane: I'm by arrivals.

Ilya's heart does something humiliating.

Ilya: almost there

He types it while walking, then puts the phone away as if he has not spent the last week thinking about seeing Shane again with an intensity usually reserved for playoff elimination games and near-death experiences.

The terminal is busy enough that he looks for Shane twice without finding him. A family gathers around a luggage cart. A woman in a bright yellow dress hugs someone hard enough to make his heart ache.

Then, finally, Ilya sees him.

Shane stands near the edge of the arrivals area, not directly in the flow of people. He's in a a dark T-shirt and jeans, and his hair is a little longer than the last time Ilya saw him in person. His shoulders are broader than they have any right to be beneath something as offensively ordinary as cotton. He's looking toward the doors with complete, terrible focus, which means his gaze lands on Ilya almost immediately.

His whole face changes in several small ways that Ilya's certain only those who know Shane can tell. The tiny release around his mouth. The loosening of his shoulders. Something in his eyes that goes warm for half a second before discipline rushes in and tidies it away.

It's enough to make Ilya want to cross the space between them faster.

He forces himself to walk at a normal speed, rolling suitcase trailing behind him, carry-on stacked on top, garment bag over one shoulder, every step absurdly measured.

"Hi," Shane says when he reaches him.

"Hi."

For a second, neither of them says anything else. Shane looks like he might be trying to smile and forgot how halfway through. Ilya hates that it makes something in his chest pull tight.

"Flight okay?" Shane asks.

"Yes. Boring. Not even a little turbulence."

"Good."

"That would be my review too."

Shane's mouth flickers then he starts to lift his hand for a handshake.

Ilya looks at it, then at Shane, one eyebrow rising before he can stop it.

Shane seems to realize what he is doing at the exact same moment. His hand stops awkwardly between them, and color rises into his cheeks, catching in the freckles Ilya has always liked too much.

Ilya is already opening his mouth. He does not yet know what he is going to say, only that Shane Hollander trying to shake his hand at airport arrivals after all of this is something that deserves to be remembered forever.

Shane must see it coming because before Ilya can speak, he abandons the attempt and steps forward, arms opening.

The joke dies in Ilya's throat.

He meets him halfway.

Shane's arms come around him carefully, one across his upper back, the other at his side, considerate of the garment bag still hooked over Ilya's shoulder. Ilya holds him in return, one hand flattening against the back of Shane's T-shirt, and his body recognizes him with humiliating immediacy.

Warm and solid and familiar in ways Ilya has tried not to think about.

Shane smells like clean laundry and whatever clean, dry thing he uses after showering and something beneath it that is just Shane, something Ilya has never been able to name without sounding insane. He exhales once, quietly.

The hug lasts only a moment, or maybe slightly longer than a moment. Long enough for Ilya to forget that it's ordinary. Long enough for Shane's hand to press a little more firmly between his shoulder blades before he steps back.

"Welcome to Ottawa," Shane says.

His voice is low.

Ilya has to swallow before answering.

"Thank you."

He adds, because he cannot leave that much sincerity unattended, "Much better than handshake."

Shane scowls at him. "I panicked."

"I noticed."

"Don't make it a thing."

"Oh, I will treasure it forever, Hollander."

Shane's mouth twitches despite himself. "Dick."

Only then does Shane glance at Ilya's suitcase, and that seems to give him somewhere safer to put his attention.

"I can take that."

"I am able to move one suitcase, Shane."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Because I'm offering to be polite, but I am definitely taking that."

Ilya watches him for a beat, then lets go of the handle.

"Fine."

Their fingers brush around it. It's nothing; less than nothing even, compared to all they've done, barely skin.

Ilya feels it all the way up his arm, and judging by the way Shane's hand stills for half a fraction before he pulls the suitcase away, he feels it too.

Or Ilya is imagining things because he's slept like shit for months.

"Is that all you brought?" Shane asks.

"For now. The rest is waiting for me to pass your housing exam."

"It's not an exam."

"You sent me so many notes."

"I sent you listings."

"With notes for every single one."

"That doesn't make it an exam."

"It was color-coded."

"It was not color-coded. Fuck, wait—did I send you the color-coded one?"

A laugh gets out of Ilya before he can stop it.

Shane's shoulders ease a little at the sound.

It's dangerous, knowing he can still do that.

They begin walking toward the exit. After only a few steps, Shane glances at the garment bag.

"Do you want me to take that too?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yes. If you carry everything, I look useless."

"No one thinks that."

The answer is so quick and matter-of-fact that Ilya turns to look at him. Shane's attention stays ahead, on the doors, on the moving crowd, on anywhere but Ilya's face.

"I can carry it," Ilya says eventually.

The summer air outside is warm, bright, and much too clear. Ottawa smells different from Boston, though he cannot say how yet.

Shane leads him to the parking garage, pulling the suitcase behind him. Ilya walks at his shoulder. Close, but not close enough to touch. Shane's car is sensible, boring, safe-looking in a way that suggests it has never once considered exceeding the speed limit for pleasure.

Ilya looks at it. "What the fuck is that? You do know you are a millionare, yes?"

"It's reliable!"

"It has no soul."

"It has really good safety ratings."

"Sure, and it has no soul."

Shane lifts the suitcase into the trunk. "You're going to need something decent in winter."

"Ah. We are talking cars now."

"I am onlygoing to be saying it once in person."

"That seems unlikely."

"I'm just saying. Some of yours are not gonna be practical here."

"They are practical for happiness."

"You should be more worried about ice."

"I am, which is why I told you I will buy a winter car."

"Right, not something chosen because it can go from zero to one hundred in three seconds?"

"Now you are adding new restrictions."

"Ilya."

"Shane."

Shane gives him a look over the trunk lid. Ilya almost laughs. It feels good, the reflexive pleasure of bothering him in a familiar way. Safer than anything else in the last fifteen minutes.

"Something with proper winter tires," Shane says.

"Yes."

"And good handling."

"Yes."

"And—"

"I heard you."

Shane stops.

The words were not especially soft, but somehow they seem to land that way anyway. Maybe because Ilya's not smirking when he says them. Maybe because Shane hears the concession under them.

He closes the trunk.

"Fine," he says.

Ilya reaches for the passenger door before the quiet can sharpen and gets in. The drive begins with navigation instructions Shane does not need and traffic commentary Ilya does not care about. Then, gradually, the car settles.

Ottawa moves past the window in summer green between residential streets and brick houses. Cafés with tables outside. Cyclists. A dog sprawled in the shade beneath a tree as they pass a park, looking more at home than Ilya feels.

Shane drives with both hands loose but precise on the wheel. He's always been lovely in motion, not just on ice. Anywhere he's doing something competently, his body settles into purpose, and Ilya has always been stupid about competence.

He looks out the window before the thought becomes visible on his face.

"You can still change your mind about staying with my parents," Shane says after a while.

Ilya turns back to him. "Can I?"

"Yes."

"After you argued with me for several days?"

"It was not several days."

"It felt like several days."

"You don't have to stay there if it'll make you uncomfortable."

"I said I would."

"I'm just saying it's not too late to change your mind."

Ilya looks at him. Shane keeps his eyes on the road, jaw set in that quiet way of his.

"I am not uncomfortable," Ilya says.

Shane glances at him quickly. "You'd tell me?"

"Sure."

Shane nods once. It should be the end of it.

It is not, not inside Ilya.

There it is again. Shane opening the door after Ilya has already walked through it, just in case he needs to leave. Ilya should be grateful.

He really is grateful.

He also wants, suddenly and irrationally, to ask what Shane wants. Not what makes sense, not what his parents offered, not what will look normal to anyone watching. Whether Shane wants Ilya sleeping down the hall in his childhood home. Whether Shane wants him in Ottawa at all when there are no extenuating circumstances.

He says, "I appreciate it."

Shane's hands tighten slightly on the wheel.

"You don't have to thank me."

"Well, I am actually talking about your parents."

Shane laughs but the car goes quiet soon after.

When Shane finally turns onto a tree-lined residential street, Ilya recognizes they must be these.

"This is it?" he asks.

"Yeah."

The house appears halfway down the block. Warm brick and a front garden tended by someone patient. A home that looks lived in without apologizing for it.

Shane slows at the driveway.

Ilya's stomach tightens.

There is something unbearable about this, and he cannot decide if it's because he is about to step into Shane's past or because some part of him has imagined doing so far too many times without admitting it.

Shane parks, then looks at him.

"My parents are looking forward to seeing you," he says.

Ilya believes him, or wants to, terribly. He puts his hand on the door handle.

"Then I should try to be charming."

Shane's gaze stays on him for a second longer than necessary.

"You don't have to try that hard."

Ilya stills.

It's probably nothing. A compliment offered to make him less nervous. Shane being kind, again, because Shane is very kind and Ilya has to stop finding secret meanings in it before he hurts himself worse.

He smiles anyway. Shane looks away first, reaching for his seat belt.

"I'll get your bag," he says.

The front door opens before he can form a coherent thought. Yuna Hollander stands in the doorway, David just behind her.

They must have been watching for the car. Ilya isn't sure why that catches him off guard. Of course they were. They knew what time he was coming. They had agreed to this. They had made space in their house for him.

Still.

"Ilya," Yuna says.

Her smile is warm, but not overbright. It's careful, maybe. She looks pleased to see him and aware that there are reasons he might not know what to do with that.

Ilya steps forward. "Mrs. Hollander."

"Oh," she says, with a quick little shake of her head. "Yuna, please."

"Yuna," he corrects.

"Welcome."

"Thank you for having me."

"We're glad you're here."

David steps forward next, holding out a hand. "Good to meet you properly, Ilya."

Ilya takes it. David's grip is firm, brief, ordinary.

"You too, sir."

"David," he says.

"David," Ilya repeats, because apparently the Hollanders intend to strip him of every polite formality he's been taught.

Yuna's gaze flicks once to Shane, then to the suitcase in his hand. She steps back from the doorway. "Come in. You must be tired."

Ilya smiles politely and steps inside.

The entryway smells faintly of something warm from deeper in the house. A home smell. He becomes suddenly, acutely aware of his own shoes on their mat, his garment bag over his shoulder, the fact that he is crossing into a place that existed for decades before him and has no reason to accommodate his damage.

Then Shane edges past him with the suitcase like this is normal and Ilya belongs in this exact doorway enough to be navigated around.

"Guest room's ready," Shane says. "I can take this up."

"Shane," Yuna says.

"What?"

"Let him breathe."

Shane pauses at the foot of the stairs, suitcase still in hand. He looks back at Ilya, and for a second there is the familiar question in his face. What do you want? Is this all right? Should I put it down? Should I carry it? Have I already done too much?

Ilya hates that he can read him well enough to see it.

"You may continue your heroic luggage service," he says.

Shane gives him a narrow look. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He takes the suitcase upstairs.

The loss of him from the room is immediate and stupid.

Yuna looks at Ilya, then seems to decide not to mention whatever expression has crossed his face. Instead she asks, "Was your flight all right?"

"Yes. Short. Uneventful."

"Good."

There is a faint pause, like they are all standing at the edge of something and politely agreeing not to shove.

David nods toward the living room. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"Water would be nice. Thank you."

"I'll get it," Yuna says, already turning toward the kitchen.

David gestures loosely toward the sitting room. "You can leave your bag here for now, if you want."

Ilya slips the garment bag from his shoulder and hangs it carefully over the back of a chair near the entrance. He catches sight of framed photographs along one wall as he does. Shane at various ages. In a suit, holding some award. In a Team Canada jersey. Smaller, much smaller, missing front teeth and grinning through a helmet too large for him.

Ilya's eyes snag there.

David notices where he is looking. "He was six in that one."

"He looks like he was always a very serious athlete," Ilya says.

"He cried because the coach wanted him to come off the ice for a break."

Ilya turns back toward him. "That sounds like him."

David smiles, and it changes his face in a way that makes him look suddenly more like Shane around the eyes. "It does, doesn't it?"

Yuna returns with a glass of water, cold enough to bead in her hand. "David, are you telling childhood stories already?"

"Only one."

Yuna's expression warms a little. "I'm afraid Shane may have veto power."

"He rarely uses it wisely."

"I heard that," Shane says from the stairs.

Ilya turns before he can stop himself.

Shane is coming back down empty-handed, one hand sliding briefly along the banister. He looks at home here in a way he doesn't anywhere else. Still composed, still careful, but fitted to the space. His body remembers the corners. His feet know the steps. He does not have to perform the route between rooms.

Ilya looks away before he can want that too much.

"The room is at the end of the hall," Shane says. "Bathroom's across from it. I put towels on the dresser. If you need anything else, let me know."

Anything. It should be an ordinary offer. It is an ordinary offer.

Ilya takes a drink of water to give himself a second.

"I will," he says. "Thank you."

Shane nods, as if that answer matters more than it should.

Yuna watches them both, enough that Ilya becomes aware of himself again.

He wonders what she thinks she is seeing.

Two men who have been together, in some form, long enough for Shane to blow up his own life trying to protect one of them. Two men getting married in a few weeks. Two men who look at each other and then look away.

She cannot possibly know the truth is stranger and smaller and worse. That they have spent years touching in the dark and almost no time deciding what it means. That Shane's parents are opening their home to a man who knows exactly how their son sounds when he comes and has no idea what his favorite color is.

"I hope the drive wasn't too bad," Yuna says.

"It was pleasant," Ilya says.

She gestures toward the rest of the house. "Well, dinner won't be for a little while. You should settle in first. Take whatever time you need."

"Thank you."

Shane glances toward the stairs. "I can show you up."

Ilya looks at him, at the careful neutrality of his face, and wonders if Shane knows how impossible he makes it to refuse anything.

"Alright," he says.

Shane steps aside to let him go first. Ilya passes close enough to catch the clean familiar scent of him again.

His hand tightens around the cold glass.

Behind them, Yuna says something quiet to David that Ilya cannot hear.

He doesn't look back.

Ilya Rozanov sleeps very badly in Shane Hollander's childhood home, though it's through no fault of the house itself.

The guest room's comfortable, with a mattress better than many hotels he's stayed in, soft sheets, and air-conditioning set at a temperature that suggests the Hollanders run warm too. Yuna showed him where everything was before dinner without hovering. David asked about Boston in a way that made it easy to answer without saying anything that mattered.

Shane spent the entire evening looking like he was trying to determine whether Ilya needed rescuing from the water glass in front of him.

It went well. Ilya didn't say anything catastrophic, though there had been a moment when Yuna asked whether he liked Ottawa so far and he nearly said Shane is here, which would have been difficult to walk back.

So, yes. It went well.

Then he'd gone upstairs to sleep in the room at the end of the hall, and Shane had gone to his own room two doors down, and Ilya had spent an unreasonable amount of time staring at the dark ceiling.

He heard Shane move once, maybe around midnight. A door opening softly. Some footsteps in the hallway. The smallest pause outside the guest room, unless Ilya invented that part, which is possible. Then the stairs creaking faintly as Shane went down, probably for water.

Ilya had not moved. He didn't opened the door. He hadn't stood there in sleep pants and a T-shirt, hair messy, voice low, asking Shane if he also couldn't sleep.

By morning, he feels almost normal if he doesn't look too closely at what his life has become.

Breakfast is quiet in the comfortable way of people with long-standing household routines and one guest trying not to take up too much space. David reads something on his tablet. Yuna pours Ilya coffee before he has to ask. Shane is already showered and dressed, eating an egg-white omelet folded around spinach and mushrooms, with sliced berries arranged neatly beside it.

David glances up from his tablet. "There are more eggs, if you'd like. Toast too. Fruit."

"Coffee is good for now," Ilya says. "Thank you."

"You should eat before the houses," Shane says.

Ilya looks at his plate. "Is that what you are doing?"

Shane glances down. "Yes."

"Wow, even your breakfast is boring."

Shane's head lifts at once. "Fu—"

He stops himself.

His parents are right there.

He settles for scowling at Ilya instead. "It's a healthy breakfast. Just because it's the offseason doesn't mean we should slack off."

Ilya nods slowly, with the solemn attention of a man receiving wisdom. "Of course. Very important."

Shane narrows his eyes. "You are making fun of me."

"No."

"You are."

Ilya turns to Yuna and David, all earnest concern. "It's okay. I will teach him life can be fun."

The words are out before he has time to consider that perhaps telling Shane Hollander's parents their son requires remedial joy instruction is not the most gracious thing a houseguest can do, and certainly not their son's supposed great love.

He glances back at Shane, and Shane is staring at him.

Yuna's brows lift slightly over her mug, but David just laughs.

"Please do," he says.

Shane makes a strangled sound. "Dad."

"What?" David asks, still smiling.

"You're encouraging him."

"Something tells me he doesn't need encouragement from me."

Ilya lowers his gaze to his coffee to hide his smile.

Shane looks between the two of them, betrayed. "This is going to be a long week."

"Only if you make it one," David says.

Yuna says nothing, but the corner of her mouth has given up entirely.

Shane drives, which isn't really something Ilya bothers objecting to.

He made one weak suggestion about renting his own car yesterday eveningand Shane had looked at him with giant sad brown eyes and said it did not make sense when they were already going to the same places. Ilya had let it go, because he is not made of stone.

Also because he likes watching Shane drive, which is a discovery he makes ten minutes into the ride and remains a problem.

Shane wears sunglasses now, one hand resting lightly at the top of the wheel, the other lower down, fingers flexing once whenever traffic slows. He is not relaxed, exactly. Shane does not seem to relax so much as redistribute tension into less obvious places. Still, there is something different about him here, moving through streets he knows without checking signs, turning before the navigation prompts him, glancing at familiar intersections with the indifference of someone whose body learned them years ago.

Ilya looks out the windshield before he can stare.

"So," he says. "If hockey had not worked out, you would have become real estate agent?"

Shane glances at him, brow faintly furrowed. "What?"

Ilya turns his face toward the window, but not fast enough to hide the grin.

Shane sees it.

"You're an asshole."

"Mm."

"I like doing things thoroughly."

"Yes," Ilya says. "I know."

The words slip out lower than he means them to.

Shane's fingers shift on the wheel. He opens his mouth, and Ilya can almost see the apology formin so he cuts him off.

"The house thing," he says. "The file you sent. It was good."

Shane glances at him again, quicker this time. "Yeah?"

"Yes. Too many notes, obviously."

"Dick."

"But useful." Ilya shrugs, looking back toward the road. "I appreciated it."

For a moment, Shane does not say anything.

Then, "Thank you."

Ilya looks at him again.

Color has risen faintly into Shane's cheeks, soft across the freckles there. He keeps his eyes on the road like traffic requires his total devotion, as if Ilya hasn't seen him process an entire defensive zone collapse at full speed while simultaneously handling the puck.

Ilya wants to kiss him.

Not because Shane is blushing, though that doesn't help. Not only because he is beautiful, though he is. Because Shane had made room for him in a hundred small, careful ways, because it's so Shane of him, and Ilya's been long, long gone for him truth be told.

"Anyway," Ilya says, turning his attention back to the road. "If the first house is ugly, I will blame you personally."

Shane glances at him. "You put it on the shortlist."

"After your very persuasive document."

"That is not how responsibility works."

Ilya hums. "We will see."

That gets a breath of laughter out of him.

Ilya settles back in his seat and keeps his eyes on Ottawa. The feeling does not go anywhere. It only becomes something he has to carry quietly until they reach the first house.

The first house is not bad, which is an issue. If it were ugly, Ilya could dismiss it immediately and Shane could feel vindicated about making him come see these places in person. Instead, it is expensive and tasteful and entirely unlivable.

Pale stone outside, dark-framed windows, landscaping that looks professionally intimidated into place. Inside, everything is bright and clean and just a little too precise. The floors shine. The counters shine. Everything shines. The staircase curves upward with the snobbiness of a staircase that has been photographed for a magazine.

Caroline, the realtor, greets them at the door and begins walking them through it in a pleasant, practiced voice. Ilya listens, mostly, but she's talking about things like lot size, renovations, security, commute to the practice facility, which were all already highlighted in Shane's carefully compiled document. He asks a few questions because he is, despite popular opinion, capable of acting like an adult.

Shane stays half a step back while they move through the main floor, quiet unless Caroline turns to him directly.

In the living room, Ilya stops near the windows.

The yard is lovely and thoughtfully done. He cannot imagine sitting here.

"Hm," Shane says beside him.

Ilya glances over. "What?"

"Nothing."

"That was not nothing."

Shane looks around the room once, then back at him. "You don't like it."

"I didn't say that."

"You made a face."

"I made no face."

"You did."

Ilya studies him, then looks back out the window. "It feels a little..." He searches for the least insulting version. "Formal."

"Yeah."

"You thought so?"

"I wasn't sure if you would."

"Mm."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Shane's mouth twitches, barely.

Caroline appears in the doorway behind them. "Would you like to see the lower level?"

Ilya turns, smiling politely. "Of course."

They see the lower level. They see the bedrooms. They see a primary bathroom large enough to host a small party. The house remains lovely and wrong.

By the time they are back in the foyer, Caroline has probably figured that out too. She doesn't seem offended. Shane had said she was good.

Outside, she steps aside to take a call, leaving them by the front walk.

"No?" Shane asks.

Ilya exhales. "No."

Shane nods once, without any hint of disappointment or attempt to persuade him toward something convenient. He agrees with a quiet acceptance, as if the time spent arranging the showing doesn't matter at all compared to Ilya not having to live somewhere that makes him feel wrong.

It makes Ilya want to touch him, suddenly.

Not even kiss him, but just take his wrist for a second and press his thumb to the inside of it. Something small and stupid and impossible.

Instead he says, "You were right."

Shane looks at him. "About seeing them in person?"

"Don't make me say too many nice things before lunch."

That gets him a little, the corner of his mouth pulling up.

"I'll pace myself," Shane says.

The good news is that the second house is prettier, but the bad news is that that's not the same as better.

It sits farther back from the road than the first one, all modern lines and dark wood and glass. Too much glass, maybe, though Ilya is willing to be convinced otherwise as they pull into the drive. The place has some drama to it, at least.

"Better," he says.

Shane glances at him as he parks. "You haven't been inside."

"I can just tell."

Caroline meets them at the door again and leads them through a wide entryway into a living room flooded with afternoon light. The ceiling is high. The floors are warm wood instead of pale stone. Ilya can feel himself liking it despite the windows.

Then he walks closer to one of them.

The street isn't right there, exactly. The lot has depth. There are trees. Clever landscaping. Still, from where he's standing, he can see the road. He can imagine headlights sliding past at night. People slowing down once they know where he lives. Cameras, maybe, if things get bad again. Fans. Reporters. Anyone.

The pleasant little thread of interest loosens.

Caroline is saying something about automated blinds and privacy film options. Ilya nods at the correct intervals. Shane says nothing. He doesn't have to.

When Caroline steps toward the kitchen to point out something about storage, Shane moves closer.

"Too open?" he asks quietly.

Ilya looks at him.

He shouldn't be surprised Shane noticed. Shane has probably been watching his face since they got out of the car, like he's about to be graded on this or something.

"A little," he says.

Shane nods once. "Yeah. I thought the same thing when I came through the listing."

"But you left it on the list."

"You might not have cared."

Ilya gives him a look. "You know I would care."

Shane's jaw shifts slightly.

"Probably," he says.

The word bothers Ilya more than it should. Probably. As if Shane hasn't spent years knowing the exact line between Ilya performing for a room and Ilya wanting to disappear from one. As if all of that knowledge is something they are no longer allowed to use.

He looks back out through the glass.

"It is a beautiful house," he says.

"But."

"But I don't want to live in fishbowl."

"Okay."

Caroline returns to them. "Would you like to see upstairs?"

"Yes," Ilya says, because he can survive the rest of a tour. "We should."

The upper floor is as good as the rest of it. The bedroom is generous, the bathroom absurd, the closet large enough that Ilya has no complaints. There is a smaller room Caroline suggests could be an office or reading room. Shane pauses in the doorway and looks at it longer than necessary.

"What?" Ilya asks.

Shane blinks. "Nothing."

"You don't need office?"

"It's your house."

Shane looks mildly cornered, which is ridiculous, because Ilya has asked if he likes a room, not demanded a blood oath.

"It has good light," Shane says finally.

Ilya glances toward the window. It does. Soft, diffuse, pleasant. A room someone could sit in for hours without feeling watched, unlike the rest of the house.

"You can have it," he says, before he thinks better of it.

Shane looks at him.

The silence stretches just long enough for Ilya to hear what he said.

"If you visit," he adds.

For appearances. Because they will be married and sometimes married people are seen in each other's houses. That's all.

Shane nods, too quickly. "Right."

Caroline says something about custom shelving.

Ilya doesn't hear a word of it.

They finish the tour. Shane asks one question about security upgrades. Caroline answers. Ilya stands near the stairs and watches Shane listen with that intense, tilted focus of his.

Outside, Shane waits beside the car, sunglasses pushed back up into his hair now. "No?"

Ilya exhales. "No."

He opens the passenger door.

"Third one?" he asks.

"Third one," Shane says.

Ilya likes the third house immediately, which feels premature and therefore suspicious.

Shane has barely turned into the drive before Ilya is taking in the trees. Mature ones, tall enough to soften the property from the road, their leaves shifting in the July light. The house sits behind them instead of presenting itself all at once, glimpsed first in warm stone and dark wood between branches, away from the road instead of thrusting itself forward to be admired.

It looks like somewhere a person might actually live.

Shane turns off the car.

"Promising, right?" he says.

"Are you trying to influence my opinion, Hollander?"

"You liked it before I said anything."

"I looked at it."

"You made a noise."

"I breathed. You assign feelings to my breathing now?"

Shane gives him a look, but there is the start of a smile tucked at one corner of his mouth when they get out.

Caroline is already waiting by the front steps. She greets them, unlocks the door, and moves aside to let Ilya enter first.

The house opens around him gently.

The foyer leads into a broad living space, bright with filtered afternoon sun. The kitchen sits off to one side. Nothing gleams at him aggressively, and nothing feels like it's posing for a magazine shoot. The rooms have shape to them, warmth. Places where a person could sit badly after practice and leave a book face-down without committing a crime.

Ilya walks in farther before he remembers he is supposed to be listening.

Caroline is talking about renovations, the age of the roof, the lot, the privacy from the road. Shane asks something, but Ilya catches only pieces of it. His attention has already drifted toward the wall of windows overlooking the yard.

There's a terrace with grass beyond it. Trees thick at the edge of the property, holding the world back.

He can imagine winter here.

Snow piled along the stone wall, and all the dark branches laced white, and warm light from the kitchen behind him. Shane standing in it, maybe, one hand braced against the counter while he says something Ilya cannot hear from out here.

The thought arrives too easily.

He turns away from the windows before it can become anything worse.

"What do you think?" Shane asks.

Ilya looks over. Shane has come to stand a few feet away, not too close, hands tucked into his pockets.

"Better," Ilya says.

"Better than the last two?"

"That was not difficult."

Caroline leads them through the main floor. There's a dining room Ilya might actually use, though not often. An office near the front of the house. A mudroom Shane spends a suspicious amount of time considering.

"You like this?" Ilya says quietly, pausing beside him.

"The mudroom?"

"Yes."

"It's practical."

"For all my snow boots?"

"For normal winter things."

"I will buy many winter things just to fill it."

"Please don't."

Ilya smiles and follows Caroline toward the stairs.

Upstairs, the primary bedroom looks over the trees. The closets are large enough. The bathroom is indulgent without tipping into stupid. One of the guest rooms is tucked away at the end of the hall, far enough from the primary that Sveta would approve of it before finding a reason to complain anyway.

The lower level has space for a gym and another room off to the side, bright enough that Ilya's first, traitorous thought is that Shane could do yoga there.

He saw it once in some documentary piece, years ago. Shane on a mat on a dock, bare feet tucked under him.

Shane is looking toward the open space at the far end of the basement. "The gym would work."

"Mm."

"You could fit everything you need down here."

"Everything?"

Shane glances at him. "Training equipment."

"Ah."

"What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing."

Shane narrows his eyes, but lets it go. "You'd probably want mirrors on that wall. Flooring redone. Better ventilation, maybe."

Ilya watches him gesture as he talks, already rearranging the room into something useful.

"Maybe I will hire you, Mr. Real Estate."

"It's obvious."

"Sure, for you, maybe."

Shane looks back at him. "Do you not like it?"

"No," Ilya says. "I like it."

"The gym?"

"The house," Ilya says, before that answer can become too specific. "So far."

Shane's expression shifts, just slightly, pleased before he hides it.

They head back upstairs.

The garage is last. Caroline opens the door from the mudroom, and Ilya steps through before she has fully finished describing it.

He turns slowly, taking in the space then he looks at Shane with a wide grin.

Shane sighs. "I knew this would matter."

"It matters very much."

"It's a garage."

"It is a beautiful garage."

"It's large."

"Beautifully large, for my beautiful fast cars."

Caroline looks politely down at her folder. Ilya suspects she is hiding a smile.

By the time they return to the living room, he's made the decision. There is no real argument inside him, no need to line up pros and cons and pretend this is difficult. The house feels right in a way the others had not. Not perfect, perhaps, but he doesn't trust perfect things, anyway.

Caroline steps onto the terrace to take another call, leaving them alone in the softened light.

Shane waits.

"This one," Ilya says.

Shane's shoulders ease.

"You were hoping," he says.

Shane looks down at the paper. "I thought you might like it."

"Mm."

"What?"

"You picked well."

Shane glances up and color floods his cheeks. Ilya feels the want of him like a hand closing around his ribs.

He wants to cross the space between them. Wants to cup Shane's face and kiss the pleased, startled look right out of him. Wants to thank him for every detail, every note, every careful bit of thought tucked into this place long before Ilya walked through the door.

Instead, he folds his arms loosely and looks toward the yard.

"It will work," he says.

Shane is quiet for a moment. "Yeah."

Caroline steps back inside, phone tucked away again. Her gaze moves between them, then settles on Ilya.

"So," she says, smiling. "What do we think?"

Ilya looks at Shane once, then back at her.

"I think this is the one."

A few days later, Ilya's offer is accepted.

Shane finds out while he's brushing his teeth and immediately has to spit foam into the sink before he can answer Caroline's email with anything more dignified than a startled, stupid rush of relief.

It isn't final final. There are still inspections and signatures and the sort of administrative movement that makes everyone say congratulations while still attaching documents for review. But the sellers have accepted. The house with the trees and the garage and the softened light will be Ilya's, barring disaster.

Shane: They accepted!

Lily: yes caroline called me

Shane stares at that. Oh, right, Ilya is the buyer. Caroline is Ilya's realtor now too, not some extension of Shane. He knows that.

A second message appears.

Lily: you can still be pleased with yourself for the list

Shane's mouth pulls faintly.

Shane: I wasn't

Lily: liar

He puts his phone down before he can answer something embarrassing.

By the time they leave for the design appointment that afternoon, the initial paperwork is in motion, Ilya's movers have been told to hold for a delivery window, and Shane has checked the address on the acceptance email several times for no reason.

The appointment had been his suggestion.

Ilya has furniture, he knows. Good furniture, presumably. Shane has seen parts of it before in Boston, in brief passing glimpses in some calls. But the Ottawa house is different from the Boston place. Larger in some rooms, shaped differently in others. Some things will fit badly. Some things will leave rooms empty for months while Ilya waits for schedules and energy and the desire to deal with it.

There's no reason to make him do that.

Shane knows a designer in Ottawa through Caroline. He has also looked through her portfolio, read reviews, spoken to her once on the phone, and sent over the house plans, a rough inventory of what Ilya already owns based on the list his movers provided, and several notes he has tried not to think of as excessive.

Ilya had looked at the email confirmation over breakfast that morning and said, "You found me a furniture person."

"It's just an appointment."

"Is it the same stylist with the one thousand pillows?"

"Designer," Shane says. "And yes."

"Ah. Should I prepare for decor suffocation?"

Shane had rolled his eyes, but the thought of Ilya walking into an empty house he had not chosen by choice exactly, sleeping on a mattress while boxes sat unopened around him, had tightened something under his ribs.

So, the appointment just makes sense.

The studio is in a low brick building tucked off a quieter street, the kind of place that does not need a large sign because the people who use it know where to go. Inside, the front room is all warm wood and neutral fabric and carefully placed lamps casting soft pools of light over arranged seating areas.

Elise spots them almost as soon as they step in and comes over with a smile.

"Shane. Good to see you again."

"You too," Shane says. "Thanks for fitting us in."

"Of course." She turns to Ilya, offering her hand. "Mr. Rozanov. I'm Elise."

"Ilya is fine."

"Elise helped with my place in Montreal," Shane says.

"Ah," Ilya says, glancing at him. "The pillow criminal."

Elise laughs, clearly familiar enough with Shane not to be startled by any of this. "I stand by them."

"There were too many," Ilya says gravely. "You had to remove them before anyone could get into bed."

Shane feels his face warm. "That's not relevant."

Elise's smile widens, but she mercifully lets Shane live. "Well, I promise not to overburden your future home with decorative pillows unless specifically requested."

"I will put that in writing," Ilya says.

Shane gives him a look. "Are you finished?"

"For now."

Elise gestures toward the worktable. "I pulled a few directions based on the house and the inventory list. Nothing here is final. It's just easier to react to actual pieces than to PDFs."

They start with the living room.

Elise has floor plans printed on a broad worktable, along with photographs of the new house and three possible arrangements for the main seating area. Ilya leans over them with one hand braced on the table, head tipped slightly as he studies the options. Shane stands beside him, close enough to see the fine gold chain at his throat disappear beneath his shirt when he bends forward.

He forces himself to look at the floor plans.

"Your existing sectional from Boston could work in the downstairs den," Elise says. "But in the main living room, I think it would crowd the windows. I pulled two options with a lower profile."

She gestures toward a seating area a few steps away. One sofa is deep and pale, another darker, more structured. There are swatches set neatly on the coffee table nearby.

Ilya looks over both. "That one looks like no one has ever relaxed on it."

"The darker one?" Elise asks.

"Yes."

Elise laughs softly. "The lighter one is more comfortable, if that helps."

Ilya walks over to it and sits. He drops into it enough to test the depth, one arm stretching along the back cushion. The movement pulls his shirt close over his chest for half a second before the fabric settles again.

Shane looks at the swatches.

"Mm," Ilya says. "This one is dangerous."

"Comfortable?" Elise asks.

"Too comfortable. People will stay."

"That sounds like a mark in its favor," Shane says before he can stop himself.

Elise gestures to the other end of the couch. "Sit if you want. It's easier to judge the scale with more than one person on it."

Shane knows that is directed at both of them, but Ilya stays where he is, looking at him with an unreadable expression that might just be patience.

So Shane sits, but not too close. There's no reason to sit too close. The couch is large, and they are here to decide whether the piece fits the room, not to indulge in some awful imitation of domestic ease.

Still, he's aware of the space between them immediately. A cushion and a half, maybe. Ilya's hand rests loosely on the seat near his thigh, long fingers against pale fabric. Shane's own hand lands on his knee because there is nowhere else for it to go.

He remembers hotel rooms where there had been no distance at all. Ilya crowding into his space the second a door closed. Shane pretending to be annoyed, even while his whole body gave him away. Sometimes they barely made it past the entryway. Sometimes Ilya had stretched beside him afterward, warm and heavy and talking nonsense.

It's been days now. Days in the same city. In the same house. Down the same hallway at night. In cars and kitchens and empty rooms with doors they could close if either of them wanted to.

Ilya hasn't made a single move.

Shane looks at the couch arm and concentrates on breathing normally.

"It's good," Ilya says, shifting his weight once against the cushions. "I like this."

Elise nods. "We could do the larger configuration. It would still leave space to move around the room."

"The larger one," Ilya says.

"Agreed," Shane says, then feels stupid because no one asked him.

Ilya watches him for another second, then turns back to Elise. "The larger one, then."

The next hour passes in variations of this.

Dining chairs, because the Boston set will be too small for the Ottawa dining room. A table, possibly, though Ilya wants to see whether his current one can work first. Lighting for the main living space. A low console for the entry. A bed and side tables for one of the guest rooms, because he will need at least one room set up before Sveta arrives.

Elise asks smart questions. Ilya answers with more attention than Shane expects. Shane lets himself enjoy it all more than he should.

He tries to stay out of the actual decisions unless asked. This is Ilya's house, Ilya's money, Ilya's first place in Ottawa. Shane has already inserted himself enough. He brought the realtor, the shortlist, the appointment, the notes. There's a line between helping and claiming space that has not been offered, and Shane is not going to cross it again.

Still, Ilya keeps turning to him.

"What do you think?"

"About the chair?"

"No, about global economy. Yes, chair."

"It looks uncomfortable."

"I thought so too."

Or:

"The walnut?"

"I like it."

"Better than black?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Shane glances at him, then at Elise, as though she might rescue him from being asked to defend furniture preferences in public.

"It'll warm the room up," he says. "The floors are darker. I think black might make everything feel heavier."

Ilya studies the samples, then nods. "Walnut."

Each time, Shane feels something inside him shift with a stupid, embarrassing lift. He shouldn't. Ilya asking for his opinion is not the same as wanting him there. He knows Shane is interested in these things, that's all.

At the fabric table, Elise spreads out three options for dining chair upholstery. Ilya picks up one of the samples and rubs it between his fingers, considering. His hand is broad, nails clean and short. Shane finds himself looking at his ring finger again.

The brushed platinum band with the gold line is saved in his browser now, sitting there whenever he opens the tab. He still doesn't know Ilya's size. He considered asking the jeweler what the most common size was for a man of Ilya's build but that felt insane.

Ilya turns the swatch over in his hand, fingers flexing.

Shane tries to estimate.

"What?" Ilya asks.

Shane looks up too fast. "Nothing."

"You were staring."

"I was looking at the fabric."

Ilya glances down at the swatch. "You like this one?"

Shane has no idea which one it is. "It's fine."

Ilya narrows his eyes.

Elise, mercifully, steps in. "That one has the highest durability rating."

"Then Shane loves it," Ilya says.

Shane exhales. "I don't love everything practical."

"No?"

"No."

By the time they finish, there is a preliminary order list, several pieces to think about overnight, and a tentative delivery schedule that depends on closing dates and warehouse availability. Elise promises to send everything organized by room. Shane almost offers to review it when it arrives, then catches himself.

Ilya will receive the email. Ilya can decide whether he wants Shane involved.

Outside, the afternoon has turned warmer. The sun hits the pavement hard enough that Shane reaches for his sunglasses before unlocking the car.

"This helped," Ilya says.

Shane looks at him over the roof of the car. "Yeah?"

"Yes." Ilya slides his hands into his pockets, gaze briefly dropping to the sidewalk before returning. "I would have bought whatever first couch I saw and regretted it."

Shane's mouth moves faintly. "You have good taste."

"Iknow that, but I know I also have impatience."

"That too."

Ilya smiles a little. "You have made this easier."

Shane looks down at the keys in his hand, presses the unlock button once though the car already chirped.

"That was the idea," he says.

"Right," Ilya says.

He should say something else. Something less blunt. Something that doesn't make Ilya's thanks sound like a completed task on a checklist. But he doesn't know what, and the pause passes, and then they're both getting into the car.

On the drive back to his parents' house, Ilya answers a message and smiles faintly at his phone. Shane keeps his eyes on the road.

It's been seven days since Ilya arrived in Ottawa.

Seven days, and the airport hug remains the closest they have come to touching on purpose.

Shane tells himself that's good. It means Shane has managed, at least in this one thing, not to make things weird. He tells himself that if Ilya wanted anything different, he would know how to say it. Ilya has never had much trouble making desire clear.

Shane knows what it looks like when Ilya wants him. He knows the sharp, bright focus of it. The way Ilya used to crowd into his space as if the last few inches between them were personally offensive. The hand at his wrist, his hip, the back of his neck. The low, pleased sound he made when Shane gave in too quickly and the even more pleased one when Shane tried not to.

Shane has gone and fallen in love with him anyway. That was bad enough when he could still pretend Ilya wanted something from him. Now, apparently, he doesn't even want that.

Shane swallows the bile rising in his throat and keeps both hands steady on the wheel.

Two weeks after Ilya arrives in Ottawa, there's finally a bed in his house, though thats about the extent of it.

The new sofa Elise helped him choose won't come for another two weeks. Most of his things from Boston are still somewhere between there and here, in the custody of customs and a company Ilya is trying very hard to trust.

The kitchen has a coffee maker, two mugs, a pan Shane insisted he would need before the rest of his boxes arrived, and a shelf in the fridge now occupied by containers from the Hollander house.

Shane had brought them over that morning in an insulated bag and said, "My parents sent food."

Ilya had opened the bag, then looked back at him. "This is a lot of food."

"They know you're still settling in."

"And unable to operate restaurant delivery app?"

"Apparently."

Ilya had smiled despite himself. "Tell them thank you."

Shane had gone a little softer around the eyes. "I will."

The food had come after the towels, the bathroom soap, the toilet paper, the paper towels, the trash bags, the groceries Shane insisted were basic and Ilya insisted were aggressive. Shane had offered to drive him after the delivery window was confirmed, since Ilya still did not have a car in Ottawa, and Ilya had let him because refusing would have been pointless and because there was something embarrassingly pleasant about pushing a cart beside Shane through ordinary aisles while they argued over how many sets of towels they really needed.

The bed, though, is set up.

The bed, though, is set up.

It's enormous. Ilya chose it partly because the room could handle it and partly because, after several weeks of being moved around by other people's decisions, purchasing an obscenely large bed had felt like a statement of personal freedom.

The mattress is made. Clean sheets, dark gray duvet, pillows that Ilya had personally limited to a reasonable number.

"Okay," Shane says from the hallway. "The delivery guys took all the packaging?"

Ilya turns away from the bedroom doorway. "Yes."

"And they didn't scratch the floor?"

"No."

"You checked?"

"I watched them leave with blood on their shirts."

Shane appears at the top of the stairs, frowning. "What?"

"Joke."

"Not funny."

"Little funny."

Shane comes fully into view with a roll of blue painter's tape looped around one wrist and a folded printout in his other hand. He's been moving through the house all afternoon like a very attractive, mildly anxious project manager. Measuring where the dining table will go. Rechecking the dimensions of the living room rug. Standing in the basement gym space with his arms folded while he considered whether one wall really did need mirrors.

It doesn't escape Ilya that Shane could have gone home after the bed delivery.

He had been there to let the delivery people in because Ilya had an appointment with Farah and an immigration lawyer that ran long. That was helpful and entirely in keeping with the increasingly elaborate catalog of things Shane did for him while acting as if they were no trouble at all.

But when Ilya had arrived, he said, casually, "You can stay, if you don't have other plans."

Shane had looked at him for half a second before answering, "I don't."

"The bed looks good," Shane says now.

"Yes. I can stop invading your parents' house."

"You weren't invading."

"I have lived there for two weeks, Shane."

"They invited you."

"That doesn't mean they will not be relieved to have their hallway back."

"My mom asked if you're coming for dinner tomorrow."

Ilya looks at him. "Already?"

"She said settling in doesn't mean you have to eat alone every night."

A warmth moves through Ilya that is almost immediately followed by embarrassment at how badly he wants to accept.

"That is very kind," he says.

"You can say no."

"She was very kind to invite me. I will not say no."

Shane's mouth shifts. "Okay. I'll tell her."

Ilya turns away and steps back into the bedroom before Shane can study his face.

The bed really does look good. Too good, perhaps, for the rest of the room. There's no dresser yet, no art, no rugs, no bedside lamps. Just the bed and two temporary side tables Elise had found for him.

"You gonna sleep here tonight?" Shane asks from the doorway.

Ilya looks over at him. "That is usually what a bed is for."

"I meant instead of my parents' place."

"Ah." Ilya looks back at the made bed. "Yes. I think so."

Shane leans one shoulder against the frame, then seems to realize he's doing it and straightens. "I just mean—you know. If it feels too empty before your stuff arrives, you can still stay with us."

Ilya turns his head.

"With your parents?"

"There's still the guest room."

Ilya raises his eyebrows. "We have shared a bed before, you know."

For a moment, neither of them say anything and then Ilya glances back at the bed, making his voice lighter than it feels. "Also, your parents might find it strange if I keep sleeping down the hall from my fiancé while he drops me off at my 'our' house every night."

A flush creeps into Shane's cheeks. "I didn't want to assume."

The answer catches Ilya somewhere soft and inconvenient.

He smooths a hand over the duvet. "It would probably make more sense for you to stay here."

"Probably," Shane says.

"For appearances."

"Right."

The word comes a little too fast, but Ilya has no right to resent him for taking the rope he offered.

"Then you should stay," Ilya says.

Shane's breath catches so slightly Ilya might have missed it, if he were anyone else.

"Okay," he says after a second. "Yeah. That makes sense. I'll, uh, move to the guest room when the other bed arrives."

It's an absurd way to agree to sleep beside someone he has had in far more compromising positions than this, but Ilya only nods.

"Okay."

Shane nods too.

"And I will still come for dinner tomorrow," Ilya says, because he cannot let the room keep holding all of that. "And maybe tonight, if your father is cooking."

Shane's mouth twitches. "He is."

"Then tonight too."

"I'll warn him."

"Warn?"

"He'll have to cook for ten then."

"Oh, you are the asshole, actually."

They drift back downstairs after that. Shane returns to his printout on the kitchen island. He pulls a tape measure from god-knows-where and stands in the dining area now, glancing between the measurement on the page and the open floor in front of him.

"What now?" Ilya asks.

"Elise wanted one more measurement before she confirms the table size."

"She has floor plan."

"She wants to account for the walkway around it."

"Okay?"

Ilya watches as Shane hooks the end of the tape measure against the wall and extends it across the floor.

"Hold this?"

Ilya goes to him. Shane hands him the metal end without looking up, already stepping backward to line it along the edge of where the rug will sit. Ilya crouches and holds it against the baseboard.

"Here?"

"Yeah. Don't move."

"I am going to sprint away."

"Ilya."

"I am holding."

Shane reads the tape, frowns, and comes back toward him. "Wait. It slipped."

"It did not."

"It did."

"You accuse me of poor measuring?"

"I accuse the tape measure of moving."

"Liar."

Shane crouches beside him. "Give me your hand."

Ilya looks at him.

Shane looks back, then down at the tape measure. "The tape. Give me the tape."

"Oh, yes. Here," Ilya says. He shouldn't enjoy the delicious flush that touches Shane's cheeks, but he does wholeheartedly.

Their hands meet over the metal end. Shane's fingers close briefly around his, warm and careful, as he adjusts the tape against the wall. It's an accident. It's a practical touch. It lasts no time at all.

Ilya's entire body notices. Shane's hand stills for half a beat before he pulls away.

"There," he says, voice even. "That's better."

He looks down at the tape measure again, but not before Ilya catches the slightest furrow between his brows. Shane glances, once, at Ilya's hand where it hangs by his side.

Then away.

Shane notes the measurement on the printout and returns to the island.

Two weeks. They have been… hanging out for two weeks, and haven't even kissed. They have not even come close.

Ilya had thought, stupidly, that once they were near each other again, some old gravity would do the work for them. Shane would brush past him in a hallway and pause. Ilya would say something suggestive, softer than a joke, and Shane would roll his eyes while going pink. At some point one of them would stop pretending. That was how it had always been. Maybe not easy, exactly, but bodily honest in ways the rest of them refused to be.

Perhaps this is better. Perhaps Shane has decided that continuing to fuck him while arranging a legal marriage would be too cruel, too confusing, too much. Perhaps he is protecting them both from Ilya mistaking sex for something it is not.

That would be very Shane, both noble and terrible.

"You okay?" Shane asks.

Ilya looks up. Shane is watching him from across the island, pen still in hand.

"Yes."

"You went quiet."

"I was thinking."

"About?"

"The table."

Shane nods and picks up the printout again. "The table size Elise suggested should work."

"Good."

"And once the movers bring your things from Boston, we can figure out what still feels missing."

"We?"

"I mean," he says, a little too quickly, "if you want help."

"If you do not have other plans," he says.

"I don't," he says.

"Yes, okay. Good," he says, and goes to fuss with the containers in the fridge so he doesn't have to keep looking at him much longer.

By the time they get back from dinner, Shane has failed to give Ilya the ring four separate times.

The first had been that morning, when he arrived at the house with containers of food from his parents and the little box tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. Ilya had opened the insulated tote, stared at the amount of food inside, and smiled in that small, unguarded way that made Shane forget every sentence he'd rehearsed in the car.

The second had been outside the bedding store, while Ilya stood beside him in the parking lot holding two enormous bags of towels and complaining that Shane had personally bullied him into buying enough linens for the house to start counting as a hotel too.

The third had been in the grocery store, which would have been a terrible place to give someone a wedding ring anyway. Shane knew that. Still, there had been a moment in the produce section when Ilya had picked up a peach, looked at him, and asked, "How do I know if it is good?" with such obvious provocation that Shane had taken it from him, checked it with his thumb, and handed it back before remembering his own pulse.

The fourth had been at the house, just before they left for dinner, when Ilya had invited him to stay. Or when they had agreed it made sense for Shane to stay. For appearances. That distinction was important. Shane had barely managed to answer him like a normal person. Giving him a ring immediately afterward would have been too much.

So now they're back, the house dim and mostly empty around them, and the ring is in Shane's bag.

He sets the leftovers his parents insisted they take home into Ilya's fridge while Ilya turns on a few lamps. There aren't many yet. One in the living room, temporary and too small for the space. One on the kitchen counter. The rest of the main floor settles into soft shadows.

"Your father cooks too much," Ilya says, loosening the top button of his shirt as he comes into the kitchen.

"He cooks for leftovers on purpose."

"Smart strategy."

"He likes knowing people have food."

Ilya looks toward the fridge. "Your parents are very kind."

Shane closes the refrigerator door. "Yeah."

He sounds stiff to his own ears. He hopes Ilya doesn't notice.

Ilya notices everything, though, so he probably does.

For a moment neither of them moves. Shane can feel the weight of the overnight bag near the front entry without looking at it. Toothbrush. Change of clothes. Running gear for the morning. The ring. It had felt ridiculous packing for one night in a house where, according to the story everyone believes, he has every reason to be. It feels worse now that he's here.

Ilya glances toward the bag too.

"You brought things," he says.

"Just for tonight."

"Mm."

Shane's mouth goes dry.

He needs to give him the ring now. Before he spends another day carrying it around like a coward. Before the ceremony gets any closer. Before Ilya has to ask whether Shane remembered rings at all, as if Shane hasn't been thinking about them for weeks.

"I have something for you," he says.

Ilya's gaze lifts. "That sounds ominous."

"It's not."

"I think I will decide that."

Shane pushes away from the counter and goes to his bag. The ring box is tucked inside the small zippered pocket where he left it this evening, because unlike Shane's nervous system it's remained in place.

He brings it back to the kitchen.

Ilya looks at the box, then at Shane.

"Oh," he says.

The single syllable makes Shane's chest tighten.

"It's for the wedding," Shane says, too quickly. "I mean, obviously. The ceremony. And afterward, if you want to wear it. People will probably expect that, but if you don't like it, or if you'd rather choose something yourself, that's completely fine. I just thought it would be easier to have one in advance than to—"

"Shane."

He stops.

Ilya's voice isn't sharp. If anything, it's gentler than Shane can bear.

"You are talking very fast," Ilya says.

"Sorry."

"It's okay." His eyes drop back to the box. "Can I?"

"Yeah. Of course."

Shane holds it out. Ilya takes it from him carefully, thumb brushing once against Shane's knuckle in the exchange.

Shane pretends not to feel that.

Ilya opens the box.

For a second, he says nothing.

The ring rests against black velvet, brushed platinum with a narrow line of gold through the center. Shane had worried, after ordering it, that it was too much. Then worried it was not enough. Then worried the gold would make the reason for choosing it too obvious. Then worried Ilya would not notice the reason at all, which was somehow worse.

Ilya notices. Shane can tell by the way his gaze holds on the gold.

His free hand lifts, almost absently, to the cross beneath his shirt. He doesn't pull it out. His fingers only touch the chain through the fabric, brief and instinctive.

Shane's heart stumbles.

"I thought," he begins, then stops. He doesn't know what he thought. That sentence has no safe ending. "I hoped it would suit you."

Ilya still hasn't said anything.

"If it doesn't—"

"It does," Ilya says.

Shane's mouth closes.

Ilya looks up at him, then back down at the ring. His face has gone very still, and Shane can't read stillness on him anymore. Maybe he never could. Maybe he only thought he could when everything between them had been easier to mistake for simple.

"It is beautiful," Ilya says.

The words are quiet.

Shane's lungs remember what to do. "Yeah?"

"Yes."

"You don't have to say that."

"I know, but I do think so."

Shane looks at him.

Ilya's thumb moves once along the edge of the box. "It is. Really."

Warmth breaks through Shane so fast it almost hurts. He drops his gaze because he does not trust his face with it.

"Good," he says. "I'm glad."

Ilya lifts the ring out carefully. "You guessed size?"

Shane goes still.

"I estimated."

"Estimated."

"Yes."

Ilya looks at him over the ring, eyebrows lifting a little.

Shane can feel his ears going hot. "I had to order it."

"Of course."

"It might not fit."

"Mm."

"Ilya."

"I said nothing."

"You are thinking something."

"I am thinking you are very thorough."

Shane looks away. "Try it on."

For a moment, Ilya doesn't move, then he slides the ring onto his right hand.

It fits.

Of course Shane had known it probably would. He had spent days pretending not to study Ilya's hands, had compared knuckles in stolen glances and made one quiet, extremely normal mental note when their fingers met over the tape measure that afternoon. He had still been half-convinced it would be wrong, that the jeweler would somehow have misunderstood, that Ilya's body would reject Shane's presumption on principle.

Instead, the band settles neatly at the base of his finger.

Ilya turns his hand once beneath the kitchen light.

The gold catches.

Shane forgets to breathe.

"Perfect," Ilya says, almost to himself.

Shane's chest aches so fiercely he has to brace one hand against the edge of the counter.

"You can get it resized if it bothers you at all," he says, because apparently he is incapable of letting anything sit in peace.

Ilya's mouth curves faintly. "Shane."

"Right. Sorry."

"No. Do not apologize." He looks at the ring again. "Thank you."

Shane had not expected gratitude to hurt, but it does. He isn't sure why. Maybe because thank you is what someone says when you've helped them. Not when you've given them something that came from the most fragile, foolish part of you and hoped they might somehow know.

He manages, "You're welcome."

Ilya studies him for a moment, then asks, "Did you get one?"

Shane's fingers curl once against the countertop. "Yeah."

"Can I see?"

He should have expected that. He had expected that. Still, it takes him a second to move.

"My bag," he says, and goes back to the entryway.

His own ring box is easier to retrieve. He hasn't opened it nearly as often. There had been no uncertainty in choosing it. Something he can wear without feeling like a fraud, perhaps, though that part hadn't occurred to him consciously until now.

He brings it to Ilya and opens it himself.

Ilya leans closer.

"Very you," he says.

Shane glances down. "Is that bad?"

"No." Ilya's gaze stays on the ring. "No, it's good."

The softness in his voice makes Shane want impossible things.

Ilya doesn't touch it. He could. The box is open between them. He could take the ring out, try it against Shane's finger. Instead, he only looks.

"It's for the ceremony," he says, because silence is becoming dangerous. "I don't need to wear it before."

"Neither do I," Ilya says.

But he does not take his off. Instead, he takes out Shane's ring, and holds out his hand.

Shane looks at him.

"Come on," Ilya says, quieter now. "Let me see."

Shane gives him his right hand.

Ilya slides the ring onto his finger with a care that feels far too much like ceremony for an unfinished living room full of half-open boxes. It settles neatly at the base of Shane's finger.

For a second, neither of them moves.

Shane looks down at it. Then at Ilya's hand, still loosely holding his.

"It really is beautiful."

Shane swallows. "I'm glad you like it."

"I do."

The words settle into him deeper than they should.

"We should probably get some sleep."

"Yes," Ilya says, though neither of them moves right away.

The rings remain on their fingers, and still somehow not proof of anything Shane is brave enough to want.

The photo is taken from too far away to be good and close enough to be unmistakable. It's in Ottawa airport arrivals and Shane Hollander has one hand wrapped around the handle of Ilya Rozanov’s suitcase. Ilya beside him, garment bag over one shoulder, head turned toward Shane like he is in the middle of saying something. Shane is looking back at him. Neither of them is touching, but the photo makes a poor argument for distance.

@hollanovtruther
no because shane hollander personally picking ilya rozanov up from the airport in ottawa is actually crazy. thats his FIANCEEEEE YAAAAALL. i already know shane is an airport dad.

@rozzyupdates
ROZ IS IN OTTAWA 🚨🚨🚨 repeat roz is in ottawa!!! its happening!!!!!!

@ilyarozanovupdates
he’s here 😭😭😭 and shane has the suitcase i’m going to walk into traffic

@itstheblueline
Miss when hockey was about hockey and not whatever this is.

@sapphicspuck
hey so, its literally just a man carrying a suitcase. hope that helps.

By the time night well and truly settles, Shane has run out of things to do.

The boxes are broken down , the kitchen counters are wiped clean, Ilya’s keys are in the shallow bowl by the front door (though there is not much else in the house yet that looks as if it knows where it belongs, really.)

So, when he finally heads upstairs with his overnight bag, he's almost struck again with the primary bedroom is mostly bed. A bed, with a new mattress and soft sheets Shane has in his own place because Ilya asked what sheets he uses. The two bedside lamps cast warm pools of light over the bare walls.

There's not much else in the room yet, which should maybe make this whole thing feel less awkward, less intimate, and yet, Shane has to gulp air for a second and pretends to fuss with his bag as he sets it on the floor.

Ilya sits on the right side, back against the headboard, phone in one hand. He's still wearing his jeans and T-shirt from earlier, socked feet crossed at the ankles. He looks tired in a way Shane wants to do something about, except there is nothing he can do.

(Well, nothing other than climbing into his lap and gathering him in his arms, pressing Ilya's face into his neck until the lines of him loosen, until he stops looking like someone braced for a blow that hasn't landed yet. Nothing other than taking the phone out of his hand, setting it aside, and saying, hey, I'm here. Let me keep you safe. Let me help.

Except that would be insane, so Shane stands by the door like an utter idiot.)

The ring on Ilya's hand catches the lamp when he scrolls.

Shane looks at it, then away, then at it again. His own ring feels impossible on his hand. There in a way Shane can't stop noticing. He keeps becoming aware of it all over again: the weight of it when he shifts his fingers, the cool edge of it against his skin, the fact that Ilya put it there and then hadn't taken his own off either.

It doesn't feel like a costume in this insane play they're in.

"You can use the bathroom first," Ilya says, without looking up.

"Okay." Shane picks up his overnight bag with humiliating speed, grateful for an instruction. "Thanks."

The light is too bright when he turns it on. He closes the door and stands there for a second, bag on the counter, hands braced on either side of it.

Ilya has seen him wrecked and shaking, stripped of every careful thing Shane keeps between himself and the world, had caused it. He's had Shane desperate beneath him, flushed and breathless, fingers twisted in hotel sheets, body going loose and open in ways Shane still cannot think about in full daylight without heat climbing up the back of his neck.

And Shane's had him too, smirking and teasing against Shane’s mouth until the laugh turned rough. Had him shuddering under Shane’s hands, hips jerking, one hand fisted in Shane’s hair while Russian spilled out of him in broken, furious pieces while Shane worked his mouth around him. Had him with his head tipped back and his throat exposed, all that swagger burned down to need, saying Shane’s name like it was the only word he knows in any language.

They have done things that should make changing clothes meaningless.

But that was sex; sex had rules, in a way. They met in hotel rooms and borrowed apartments. They wanted, they took each other apart then one of them left.

This is different. This is Ilya on the other side of the door in his own house, wearing Shane’s ring, waiting for Shane to come back to bed.

So Shane changes in the bathroom like a coward.

He brushes his teeth, washes his face, folds his shirt too neatly over the counter. His reflection looks faintly stunned, hair mussed, mouth soft in a way he does not appreciate and really hopes Ilya doesn't pick up on.

When he reaches for the towel, the ring flashes in the mirror. He doesn't take it off. He does think about it—for half a second. Then he dries his hands and goes back out.

Shane stops with one hand still on the bathroom door.

Ilya's in sleep pants now and an old T-shirt, one shoulder stretched out like he owned it for too many years to throw it away, even though Shane knows he likes to sleep shirtless. His are puffed up from pulling the shirt over his head. His jeans are folded badly over the chair Shane had not noticed before, and his phone is on the bedside table.

He has turned down the covers on Shane’s side.

Shane wants him so badly, so suddenly, that for a second he cannot move, and not even in the way he usually does. Or not only that. He wants Ilya in the bed and out of it, in the morning and at night, with his old T-shirts and badly folded jeans and ridiculous sports cars in the garage. He wants the space Ilya has made for him to mean something. He wants to climb into it and never have to pretend he stumbled there by accident.

Ilya looks up. "What?"

Shane has no idea what his face is doing.

"Nothing."

Ilya glances at the bed, then back at him. A small crease appears between his brows.

"Is okay?"

"Yeah."

"You made a face."

"I didn't."

"You did."

Shane swallows. "I'm just tired."

Ilya doesn't look like he believes him, but he lets it pass. "Then come to bed."

Ilya Rozanov might actaully be his cause of death.

He crosses the room before he can do anything embarrassing, and Ilya shifts just enough to give him space. The sheets are cool when Shane slides in. New. Too smooth. He lies on his back because turning toward Ilya would feel like a confession and turning away would feel worse. The space between them stays careful, ridiculously careful.

Shane's crossed greater distances in a breath. He knows the shape of Ilya’s mouth in the dark. He knows the sound Ilya makes when Shane bites the inside of his thigh. He knows the exact pressure of Ilya’s hand at the back of his neck when he is trying not to come down his throat.

Now there are maybe two feet between them, and Shane has no idea how to survive it. For a moment, neither of them says anything.

Then Ilya says, quieter, "You brush your teeth very seriously. What, you do the recommended time too?"

Shane huffs before he can stop himself. "It's important."

"Yes, I could tell very intense dental hygiene was happening in there."

"Shut up."

Ilya's mouth curves in the dim light. The want in Shane does not ease, exactly, but it becomes something he can breathe around.

Ilya looks down at his own hand. The ring gleams, quiet and strange.

"It feels strange," he says.

Shane follows his gaze. "Yeah."

Ilya’s thumb turns the ring once, slowly. "Bad strange?"

Shane hears what is underneath the question. He has gotten better at that, with Ilya, at hearing the second thing. The part wrapped in laziness, or teasing, or indifference so thin it is almost transparent to him.

"No," he says. "Not bad."

Ilya nods once. "Yes. I agree."

He reaches for his lamp. Shane reaches for his.

The room drops into darkness sliced by a thin wash of city light slips around the curtains because the blackouts weren't there yet. Enough to turn the ceiling gray, the bare wall silver, Ilya’s profile into a shadow Shane could recognize anywhere.

"Goodnight," Shane says.

"Goodnight, Shane."

For a while, neither of them sleeps.

Shane knows Ilya is awake from the shape of his breathing. He knows because he is doing the same thing, lying flat on his back with his hands resting over his stomach, ring pressing cool into his opposite knuckle.

Ilya shifts once. The mattress carries it to Shane. Every small movement feels louder because neither of them is making the obvious one.

Eventually, Shane does sleep.

When he wakes, for a few seconds, Shane doesn't remember where he is. Then he sees the unfamiliar ceiling, feels the weight on his finger, hears Ilya breathing close by, and the night returns all at once.

Ilya is facing him.

Shane doesn't remember turning toward him, but he must have. Ilya must have too. They are closer than they were when the lights went out, though still not touching. Ilya sleeps on his side with one hand tucked near his face, hair fallen forward across his forehead, mouth soft. His other hand rests on the blanket between them.

The ring is still on, and something opens in his chest so fast it hurts.

He could do this forever. He wants to do this forever; so much it scares him.

He wants to wake up beside Ilya and learn the particular sounds of this house at dawn. Which floorboard gives under Ilya’s weight and which cabinet sticks. Whether Ilya wakes slowly or all at once. How his hair looks in winter. How his voice sounds after years of mornings, rough with sleep and familiarity.

He could become ordinary here. His shirts mixed with Ilya’s in the laundry because eventually sorting them would stop feeling necessary. Ilya’s hand finding his under the sheets without either of them having to decide whether it means too much.

He could spend years being made room for.

Shane’s throat tightens.

Wanting is so easy in the morning, before the day has had time to remind him what is sensible. It slides in quietly and pretends it belongs there. It says, look, this is not so impossible. It says, he's here. It says, he didn't pull away.

But being wanted back is the part Shane has never known how to trust.

Ilya could be kind. Ilya could be lonely. Ilya could want Shane’s body and Shane’s competence and Shane’s help without wanting the whole careful, anxious disaster of him. Ilya could keep the ring on because it solves a problem.

Shane knows better than to confuse a gesture with a promise, but the thought comes anyway: maybe.

Maybe this doesn't have to stay only useful. Maybe Shane can make it good enough that Ilya doesn't regret it. Make the move easier, make himself easier. Steady enough that loving him, or something close to loving him, would not feel like another crisis Ilya had to survive.

Maybe one day Ilya could wake up, see Shane beside him, and want him there. Maybe Shane could earn that, right?

Ilya’s lashes flutter.

Shane’s heart jumps.

He gets out of bed before Ilya opens his eyes.

Quietly, carefully, he gathers his overnight bag and takes it back into the bathroom. He stands at the sink in the gray morning, both hands braced on the counter, and looks down at the ring on his finger, then Shane turns on the tap and washes his face until the water is cold.

The second photo is from a supermarket.

Ilya is holding a basket with blueberries, ground coffee, laundry detergent, and chips. Shane is beside him, reading the back of a carton of oat milk with deep suspicion. Ilya is looking at Shane instead of the shelves, smiling like he knows exactly how ridiculous he is.

@bluepaintpanic
THE ilya rozanov standing in a grocery aisle holding a basket for THE shane hollander. sorry i need 3-5 business days WDYMMMMM

@hollanovtruther
the way he’s looking at him while shane investigates oat milk... that man is down horrendous

@merryberie
can we maybe not take secret photos of people buying groceries

@rozzyupdates
no because i know this is invasive but also. his little smile. look at that SMILE. i am only human

The thing about a house, Shane learns in the month leading up to the wedding, is that it starts learning you back.

At first, Ilya’s house is all bare walls and expensive furniture arriving in the wrong order. Rugs before tables. Lamps before chairs. Art leaning against walls because Ilya claims he is “letting it decide where it wants to live,” which Shane refuses to dignify with a response.

But then the small things begin to settle.

Shane begins to hang his jacket on the pegs by the front door. Ilya fills an extravagant vase from Yuna with supermarket flowers because he says empty vases make him sad. Shoes appear by the back door despite the mudroom’s perfectly good storage.

And in the mornings, Ilya drinks Shane’s coffee.

That happens by accident the first time.

Shane is up early because he is always up early, and because sleeping in Ilya’s house still feels like something he might be caught doing. He finds the moka pot he brought over two nights ago because Ilya’s machine is unnecessarily complicated and produces coffee Shane privately thinks tastes like burnt woodchips.

He fills the base with water, measures the grounds, levels them carefully without tamping, and screws the pieces together and sets it on the stove. It's one of the few morning rituals he doesn't have to think through anymore, his hands moving before his mind catches up.

By the time Ilya comes downstairs, barefoot and rumpled, the kitchen smells rich and dark and familiar.

He stops in the doorway. “What is this?”

"Coffee?"

"On the stove?"

"It's good." Shane shrugs.

Ilya drags a hand over his face, a pout he'd deny forever on his lips. "I paid stupid money for that machine."

"Trust me, I know."

"You hate it?"

Shane reaches for a mug. "I don't hate it."

Ilya raises his eyebrows, silent for long enough that Shane turns to look at him.

"It has a lot of functions," he says weakly.

Ilya huffs, too tired to make much of it. "That is yes."

Shane glances at him over his shoulder. “Do you want some or not?”

Ilya smiles slowly, like Shane has said something much more interesting than he meant to. “Yes.”

So, Shane makes him a cup.

He expects Ilya to take one sip, make some comment about Shane's aggressively controlled coffee habits, and go back to the expensive machine out of spite.

Instead, Ilya leans against the counter and watches while Shane pours. Then he reaches past him, sleepy and warm at Shane's shoulder, toward the espresso machine.

“Sorry,” Ilya says, not sounding sorry. “Milk.”

Shane glances at the machine. "You're using the machine for milk."

"It's good for milk."

"It's a very expensive milk frother."

Ilya pulls the small metal pitcher from beside it. "Then it should do excellent job."

Shane watches him pour milk into it, more than Shane would have guessed, then use the steam wand with lazy competence. The milk rises soft and glossy. Ilya taps the pitcher once against the counter, swirls it, then pours it into the coffee until the color turns pale and creamy.

"You do that every morning?"

"When I am awake enough."

He also watches Ilya pour in more sugar than Shane would ever put in anything, ever, even if he weren't a fucking athlete. Shane opens his mouth, then closes it again.

Ilya takes a sip.

His eyes close for half a second.

“Good?” he asks.

Ilya opens his eyes and looks at him over the rim of the mug. His voice is still sleep warm when he answers. "Very good. The best in Ottawa."

It shouldn't do anything to Shane. It's coffee. It's literally just milk and sugar and a moka pot on the stove.

But Ilya looks warm and pleased and a little less tired than he did when he came downstairs, and Shane thinks, helplessly, that he would make it every morning for the rest of his life if Ilya looked at him like that afterward.

After that, Ilya’s machine sits mostly untouched except for the milk frother.

It's just coffee. But it's also Ilya coming downstairs half-awake and waiting at the counter while Shane makes it. It's the way he starts saying "mine?" before Shane has even reached for the second mug. It's Shane knowing the right color, the right sweetness, the right amount of milk. It's Ilya taking the cup from his hand with fingers brushing Shane’s, saying thanks in that low morning voice, and drinking it like Shane has given him something worth keeping.

The guest room becomes Shane’s room because sleeping anywhere else feels like asking a question Ilya has not offered to answer.

The bedframe goes up on a Tuesday, while Ilya is at the Centaurs facility and Shane is there because someone has to be. Someone has to make sure the frame is assembled correctly, the mattress is placed against the right wall, the delivery people do not scuff the floors.

That is what Shane tells himself.

By Friday, his overnight bag is in the closet.

By Sunday, there is a charger plugged in beside the bed.

The first time he opens the dresser and finds three of his shirts folded in the top drawer, he just stands there.

"You are having problem with drawer?"

Shane turns.

Ilya is leaning in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, hair damp from a shower, looking far too amused for someone who has clearly been standing there for more than a second.

"No."

"You are staring at it."

"I’m looking for something."

"In drawer?"

"Yes."

"What?"

Shane looks back into the drawer, where his shirts are folded with embarrassing neatness. "A shirt."

"I have good news for you then."

"Shut up."

Ilya’s smile spreads. Shane closes the drawer with too much care.

"You need more space?" Ilya asks.

"No, I have a drawer."

"You have one drawer."

"That’s enough."

"There are four."

"I can count."

"Good. I worry sometimes."

Shane looks at him.

Ilya’s smile goes smaller, softer. "Take another one, Shane."

Shane could say no again. He nearly does. Instead, he looks down at the dresser handle. "I don’t need--"

"It's yours, anyway."

Shane takes the second drawer.

Then the bathroom drawer, because it's ridiculous to carry his toothbrush back and forth. Then the shelf in the closet where his running shoes end up. Then one side of the guest room nightstand, where two books appear, both his, because he had brought one and left it, then brought another before finishing the first.

He doesn't move in. He just stops moving all the way out.

Ilya notices every bit of it.

He notices Shane’s shirts in the dresser and the exact way Shane closes the drawer like it might accuse him. He notices Shane pausing sometimes in the guest room doorway like he is still asking permission from an empty room.

Ilya doesn't say, this is your home too.

He wants to.

The words sit behind his teeth sometimes, stupid and huge and embarrassing. This is your home too. You can use the fourth drawer. You can leave your jacket wherever you want. You can sleep down the hall or you can sleep with me and I will not survive it but you can.

Instead he says, "There are four drawers," like an idiot.

Shane still takes the second one.

Ilya counts that as a victory and starts learning learning Shane in pieces.

Shane likes the hall light on if he is coming back late, though he never asks for it. He prefers water cold but without ice. He pretends not to care about throw blankets but always reaches for the soft gray one. He says "I’m fine" differently when he is tired than when he is upset, and differently again when he is trying to make himself easier.

He will eat Yuna’s peach crumble if Ilya puts two forks on the plate and starts first, stealing little bites here an there.

He hates the new laundry detergent.

Ilya learns that one because Shane comes downstairs one morning in a clean T-shirt from the laundry Ilya did the night before and spends half of breakfast touching the collar, two fingers at the seam, tugging once, then stopping. Then doing it again three minutes later like Ilya won’t notice.

Ilya lets it happen twice. By the third time, he sets his mug down.

"What is wrong with your shirt?"

Shane looks up from his plate. "Nothing."

"You keep touching it."

"It’s fine."

"Ah."

Shane narrows his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're lying in a very boring way."

"I’m not lying."

Ilya gets up and comes around the island. Shane immediately goes still, which is interesting, but filed for later. He catches the hem of Shane’s sleeve between two fingers and rubs the fabric lightly.

"It feels bad?" he says.

"It’s just the detergent."

"You hate it."

"I don’t hate it."

"Your whole face is telling on you."

Shane looks away. "It’s a little scratchy."

"A little?"

"It’s not a big deal."

Ilya stares at him.

Shane, who can apparently endure being publicly outed, legally cornered, and dragged through the news cycle without complaining, is trying to die on the hill of an itchy shirt.

"No," Ilya says.

Shane looks back at him. "No what?"

"Take it off."

Shane blinks then color rises in his cheeks. "What?"

"Shirt. Off."

"Ilya."

"It's attacking you."

"I'm okay."

"Off, Hollander."

"I can change upstairs."

"Good idea."

"I meant later."

"I did not."

Shane looks at him like he cannot decide whether to argue or combust.

Ilya turns and heads for the stairs. "Come on."

"I’m still eating breakfast."

"You can eat in better shirt."

"That’s not--"

"Shane."

Shane closes his mouth.

It's a very satisfying thing, sometimes, using his name like that.

Upstairs, Ilya goes straight to his own dresser because most of Shane’s clean shirts have apparently been contaminated by this tragic laundry event. He pulls out one of his old T-shirts, black and soft from years of washing, the collar a little stretched, the fabric worn thin enough that it falls nicely instead of sitting stiff.

When he turns around, Shane is standing in the doorway of the bedroom looking deeply put-upon and also pink at the tips of his ears.

Ilya holds out the shirt.

"This one is safe."

Shane looks at it. "That’s yours."

"Yes. Washed before the evil detergent."

"Evil detergent," Shane repeats.

"Yes. Put this on."

For one second, Shane just stands there, and Ilya wonders if he has pushed too far. But then Shane reaches for the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head.

Ilya forgets what language he speaks.

It's not as if he has not seen Shane shirtless. This is such a ridiculous reaction. But Shane standing in the bedroom in the morning, hair slightly mussed, ring on his hand, skin flushed from sleep and embarrassment and whatever else he is refusing to admit to, is apparently very different from hotel rooms and bad decisions made with mouths.

Shane folds the offending shirt automatically and Ilya heart leaps. He takes it from him.

"Don't fold the enemy. It lost the privilege."

Despite himself, Shane laughs and the sound, warm, bright, beautiful, lodges itself somewhere right behind his ribs. Then Shane pulls the shirt on and Ilya dies a little more.

It hangs a little loose through the shoulders, softer around him than his own clothes usually are. The collar dips enough for Ilya to see the hollow of his throat. The sleeves fall wrong. Everything about it should look casual and ordinary.

Shane looks down at himself, then smooths the front with one hand. "Okay?"

Ilya’s mouth goes dry. "Yes," he says. "Good."

Shane glances up.

Something passes over his face too quickly for Ilya to name. Want, maybe. Or hope. Or the terrible careful thing they keep handing back and forth without ever admitting what it is. Shane’s expression softens in a way that makes Ilya immediately regret being alive in a room with him.

"Thank you," Shane says.

"Go finish breakfast. I will rinse clothes and order old detergent."

"You remember the detergent?"

Ilya shrugs like this is nothing. Like he has not stored every small preference of Shane’s that he could get his hands on because he has never known how else to keep someone close.

"You are annoying about laundry," he says.

Shane’s face does something devastating. "Oh," he says softly.

Ilya cannot take that. He turns toward the laundry room. "Breakfast. Go."

"Ilya, I—" He pauses. "Thank you, um, for noticing."

Ilya’s grip tightens around the laundry.

There are a dozen things he could say. Stupid things. Safe things. Of course I noticed, I have been watching you for years. Hard not to, Hollander, you are extremely dramatic about seams. I notice everything about you and it is ruining my life.

Instead, he says, "Always."

Ilya turns away before either of them can make it worse.

By the time he gets back downstairs, the old detergent has been ordered, Shane’s shirt is soaking in a small tub, and Shane is at the island in Ilya’s T-shirt, eating his breakfast with his cheeks still faintly pink.

Ilya sits beside him like this is normal. Shane passes him the coffee without being asked.

Neither of them says anything about the shirt again. But later, when the laundry is done, Ilya folds Shane’s T-shirt and leaves it on his bed.

The next morning, Shane wears it. The morning after that, he wears Ilya’s.

Things continue to get progressively better (or worse, depending on who you ask).

They eat dinner together most nights.

At first it is because they are both there when hunger happens. Then because one of them asks. Then because neither of them needs to ask anymore.

Sometimes Shane cooks. Sometimes Ilya orders. Sometimes Ilya cooks, which means Shane stands nearby pretending not to supervise until Ilya says, "I can feel you judging the amount of onion," and Shane says, "That's waaay too much oil," and Ilya says, "It's not too much oil, it's Russian amount," and Shane takes the pan from him anyway.

Some evenings feel almost like being roommates.

Schedules. Groceries. Laundry. One of them asking if the dishwasher is clean. Shane reading on the couch while Ilya watches a game with the volume low. Ilya asking whether Shane has seen his keys while Shane points silently toward the shallow bowl.

Some evenings are not like roommates at all.

Ilya’s foot pressed against Shane’s under the table and stays there.

Shane reaches around him for a mug and feels Ilya go quiet against his side instead of moving away.

They end up on the couch with a hockey game neither of them cares about on the television, bodies angled closer and closer until Shane can feel heat from Ilya’s thigh through his own sweatpants.

Neither of them kiss the other, which becomes its own kind of ache. Not touching would be easier if they did not keep almost doing it.

Then there are the immigration calls too. Those happen in the afternoon, or early evening, or once at nine in the morning when Ilya comes downstairs already guarded in a way that makes Shane set down the coffee mug he was about to hand him.

The lawyers are careful, and everyone says strategy and timeline and evidence and residency. Everyone avoids sounding too optimistic. The marriage matters, but it is not the only thing. Ilya’s asylum claim moves forward on its own track, built out of documents and statements and questions that make Ilya’s face go blank in a way Shane has learned not to interrupt.

After those calls, Shane does not ask if he is okay.

Ilya would say yes.

Instead, Shane makes coffee if it is morning, tea if it is not, and sits with him.

But there are other calls too.

One late night, Shane wakes up and knows almost immediately that Ilya is not inside.

He doesn't know how he knows. Maybe it's the particular way that the house is quiet. Nothing's visibly wrong, but there's an absence down the hall that tugs him out of sleep, and after a few minutes of lying there staring at the ceiling, Shane gets up.

The kitchen is empty. The living room too.

He finds Ilya on the back porch steps, barefoot in thin sleep pants and a T-shirt, one arm wrapped loosely around himself against the chill. The porch light is off, but the glow from his phone catches the side of his face, the dark fall of his hair, the cigarette held low between two fingers.

Shane stops just inside the doorway.

He wants to say something about the smoking. He wants to go down the steps, take the cigarette from Ilya’s hand, and crush it out in the little dish by his foot. Wants to put both hands on Ilya’s shoulders and shake him once, hard enough to make him understand. Wants to say, stop. I need you here. I need you for a long time. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in a world where you aren’t.

He does not say any of that.

Ilya is speaking Russian, low and rough, the words too quiet for Shane to make out even if he understood them. His voice has a different shape in Russian, less theatrical and all the more alive for it.

The night air is cool enough that Shane feels it immediately through his own shirt.

He turns back into the house, grabs the sweatshirt Ilya had left over the back of the couch earlier, and steps outside.

Ilya looks up at the sound of the door.

For a second, something like guilt crosses his face. He glances at the cigarette, then away.

Shane only holds out the sweatshirt.

Ilya stares at it. "You are not going to lecture me?"

"You get a pass tonight."

Ilya's mouth moves faintly but he doesn't say anything.

"It's cold."

"I am Russian."

"In wearing one layer."

Ilya huffs, but takes the sweatshirt. Their fingers brush around the fabric. He pulls it on one-handed, cigarette still held carefully away from both of them, phone balanced against his thigh.

A woman says something sharp through the speaker.

Shane stills.

Ilya looks down at the phone. "Yes, yes. I am dressing. Happy?"

The woman says something else, and Ilya rolls his eyes, but there is affection in it.

Then he looks at Shane. In the dim light, his face is softer than Shane expects. Nervous, maybe. Or only tired.

"Sveta," he says. "She wants to meet you."

"Oh."

Shane has known, obviously, that Svetlana exists as more than a name in a group chat and the occasional voice in Ilya's life. He knows she's important. He knows Ilya trusts her in ways he does not trust many people.

Ilya watches his face. "You do not have to."

"No," Shane says quickly. (Too quickly, maybe.) He clears his throat. "I mean, I can. I'd like to."

Ilya's expression shifts. "Yes?"

"Yeah."

For a second, neither of them moves, then Ilya stubs out the cigarette in the little ceramic dish by the step, looking faintly embarrassed by the whole thing, and taps the phone.

The call switches to video.

Svetlana appears on the screen with her hair pulled back, face lit by a warmer lamp wherever she is. Her expression is composed and sharp and definitely assessing. Shane has the strange, instant sense that she has already decided three things about him and is waiting to see whether he will prove any of them wrong.

"Hello, Shane Hollander," she says.

Her accent is softer than Ilya's, less noticeable until it catches at the edge of certain words.

"Hi," Shane says. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too." Her eyes flick over him. "You look tired."

Ilya makes an offended sound. "This is your greeting?"

"It's true."

"It's middle of night."

"Then why are you outside smoking?"

Ilya looks away. Shane presses his lips together.

Svetlana notices immediately. "Do not let him pretend he does not smoke when he is stressed."

Shane glances at Ilya, who is now very deliberately not looking at him.

"I'll keep that in mind," Shane says.

Ilya turns back. "Traitor."

"You asked me to meet her."

"Yes, not join forces."

Svetlana smiles for the first time. It's small and wicked enough that Shane suddenly understands, with perfect clarity, why she and Ilya are friends.

"I like him," she tells Ilya.

"You have spoken to him for twenty seconds."

"Yes. That's enough."

Shane feels his face warm a little. "That's generous."

"It isn't. I have low tolerance for idiots, even if I'm somehow friends with Ilyusha."

Ilya snorts.

Shane looks between them, and something eases in him. The rhythm between them is different from Ilya and Marly, different from Ilya with Shane's parents. Older, maybe. Built out of years of insults that mean affection and affection that refuses to call itself soft.

"He acts very annoying when he likes people."

"Trust me, I know."

Ilya looks up. "Excuse me."

"And if he is mean to you, sometimes this is flirting."

"Sometimes?" Shane asks before he can stop himself.

Svetlana's smile returns. "Often."

Ilya points at the phone. "I can end call."

"You won't."

"I might."

"You called me because you could not sleep."

Shane looks at him again. Ilya's expression closes slightly, but not before Shane sees it.

"Oh," Shane says softly.

Ilya huffs. "Everyone is so dramatic tonight."

Svetlana looks at Shane, not unkindly. "He worries."

Shane has the sudden impulse to reach for him. To put a hand over his wrist. To say, me too. Instead he keeps his hands tucked in the sleeves of his own sweatshirt and says, "Yeah, I know."

Svetlana says something in Russian, softer than before. Ilya answers in the same language, low and brief.

She looks back at Shane. "I will meet you properly when I come."

"We're looking forward to it," Shane says.

"Okay," she says. "Now both of you go inside. It is late."

The call ends a minute later, after one last exchange in Russian that makes Ilya roll his eyes and smile despite himself.

For a moment, he and Shane stay on the porch steps, the dark backyard in front of them, the house warm behind them.

"She likes you," Ilya says. He looks down at the phone in his hand. "She's important to me."

"I can tell."

"I wanted..." He stops.

Shane waits.

Ilya's thumb moves over the edge of the phone case. "I wanted her to know you."

Shane's heart does something painful and sweet. "Thank you," he says.

Ilya glances up. "For making you talk to intimidating Russian woman in the middle of the night?"

"Yeah?"

His mouth curves. "You are welcome."

The wind moves through the trees. Ilya shivers once, small enough that he probably thinks Shane will miss it, but he doesn't.

"Come inside," he says.

"Okay," Ilya says.

They go in together, and Shane doesn't bring up the smell of tar.

They go to the Hollanders’ house at least once a week.

Sometimes for dinner. Sometimes because Yuna says she made too much food for her and David. Sometimes because David texts, in the group chat that Yuna made with all four of them, a picture of a half-finished puzzle and no words, which apparently means Ilya is expected.

"I think I'm being summoned," Ilya says the first time it happens, looking at the message on Shane’s phone.

"He's probably just sharing his progress."

"Mm, no, he needs me."

Dad does get him first.

The puzzle is a huge lake scene, all blue-gray water and hateful sky. David has been working on it for days. Shane used to help when he was younger, though "help" had mostly meant sorting edges by color and asking whether they could stop yet.

Ilya approaches it like a tactical problem.

"You do border first?" he asks David.

"Usually."

He gives Shane a look, and mouths 'boring'.

Shane says, from the doorway, "Border first is objectively correct."

Ilya points at him without turning. "Of course you would think this."

After that, David keeps a chair open beside him when a puzzle is out. He never says it's for Ilya. He simply leaves it there, but Ilya sits in it.

Then, Mom gets him with euchre.

She teaches him on a Thursday after dinner, and by the second hand Shane knows they are all doomed.

"No table talk," Shane says.

Yuna looks at him sweetly. "No one said anything."

"You looked at him."

"I'm allowed to look, Shane."

"You raised your eyebrows."

"My eyebrows are part of my face."

Ilya lays down a card with calm, vicious satisfaction. "This is legal move, yes?"

"Yes," David says, looking at the table. "Unfortunately."

Ilya turns to Yuna. "We are very good."

"We are," Yuna says, serene.

Shane narrows his eyes at Ilya. "I don't know how, but you're cheating."

"With your mother?" Ilya puts a hand to his chest. "On wedding month?"

Yuna starts laughing before Shane can answer.

It is a terrible sound, actually. Warm and delighted and entirely at Shane’s expense. Ilya looks at her when she does it, pleased like he's been given something. Shane watches him from across the table and feels that low, helpless pull in his chest again.

Ilya fits there. What an awful, beautiful thing.

He fits in Shane’s parents’ kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hand. He fits at David’s puzzle table, scanning for the correct gradient piece to fit into the sky. He fits beside Yuna as her euchre partner, both of them wearing the same smug expression after making Shane and David lose badly enough that David says, mildly, "Maybe we should switch partners," and Yuna says, "No," at the exact same time Ilya says, "Absolutely not."

One Sunday morning, after they have stayed too late the night before and Yuna insisted they sleep over instead of driving back, Shane comes downstairs to find Ilya already in the kitchen, trying to put together the moka pot Dad uses.

He gently nudges him aside, and goes through the motions, Ilya warm and solid and real at his side, and Shane can breathe a little easier than he has all his life.

Yuna comes in halfway through, takes one look at the three of them, and says, "Oh," very softly.

After that, she starts packing leftovers for "both of you," but she always hands them to Ilya. David asks Ilya about the Centaurs. Ilya asks David about work. Yuna asks whether Ilya owns a real winter coat for the Ottawa cold and then, after hearing his answer, makes a face so severe Shane almost warns Ilya to run. Ilya only looks delighted.

They always leave together.

Mom standing near the door with one more container or one more reminder. Dad walking them out even when they say he does not have to. Ilya saying thank you like he means too much by it. Shane waiting on the porch while Ilya says one last thing to his mother, or Ilya waiting while David asks Shane a quick question.

By mid-August, the house looks lived in.

The art is finally on the walls. The coffee table is not too big. The ridiculous cars gleam in the garage, joined by the winter SUV Ilya insists is practical because it has "snow mode" whatever that means. Shane’s preferred coffee sits beside Ilya’s sugar. His running shoes are in the mudroom. His toothbrush is in the bathroom.

His life, in small pieces, tucked carefully inside theirs.

The wedding date sits three days away.

Then two.

Then one.

The night before, they eat dinner at the kitchen island in the soft yellow light, both quieter than usual. Ilya is barefoot, one ankle hooked around the leg of his stool. Shane’s ring is still on his finger. Ilya’s is still on his. They'll take them off before the ceremony tomorrow so they can exchange them properly, which is practical and normal and apparently enough to make Shane look at Ilya’s hand every five minutes like an idiot.

Ilya catches him once, but he doesn't say anything.

Shane’s phone rings while they are cleaning up.

His mother.

"Hi, Mom," he says, putting her on speaker because his hands are wet and Ilya is right there anyway.

"Hi, honey. Are you two at home?"

Ilya looks up from where he's drying a knife.

"Yeah," Shane says, and his voice only catches a little. "We’re here."

"I was thinking," Yuna says, in the voice she uses when she has done much more than think, "since everyone is coming back here after the courthouse tomorrow, it would be simpler if you both came over tonight and stayed here."

Shane stares at the sink.

"Oh."

"Only if that is all right," she says, which is kind of her and not especially believable. "There is no sense in driving back and forth in the morning. Your room is ready. I put fresh sheets on the bed. Cliff and Svetlana can come by from their hotel in the morning. JJ, Hayden and Jackie will meet us here. It'll be easier."

She pauses.

Then, softer, “I’d like to have you both here. If that’s all right.”

The sink keeps running over Shane’s hands.

Across from him, Ilya stopped drying the knife. His head is tipped down, but Shane can see his face enough to catch the flicker there. Surprise, maybe, or something gentler than that.

Shane turns off the tap.

“Yeah,” he says, and has to clear his throat. “Yeah, Mom. Of course.”

“Oh, good.” Yuna sounds relieved in a way that makes Shane’s chest hurt. “Good. No rush. Come when you’re ready.”

“We will.”

“And bring anything you need for tomorrow. Rings, suits, documents—”

“I have a list.”

"Good. Perfect. Send it to me too."

Behind the phone, Ilya makes the smallest sound thatt's not quite a laugh.

Shane looks at him.

Ilya’s eyes are on the towel in his hands, but his mouth is curved faintly.

“All right. I’ll see you soon. Drive carefully.”

“We will.”

“I love you.”

Shane swallows. “Love you too.”

The call ends. The kitchen sounds too quiet without her voice in it. The dishwasher hums. Ilya folds the towel once, then unfolds it, then sets it down.

“She wants us there,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Not really because it's easier.”

Shane looks at him.

“No,” he says. “Not really.”

Ilya nods, slow, like he is filing that away somewhere careful, then he looks at the dishes, the towel, the half-packed summer around them, and says, “We should go, then.”

“Yeah.”

Still, neither of them moves right away.

Shane looks at Ilya’s hand where it rests near the edge of the counter, ring catching in the yellow kitchen light. Tomorrow they will take the rings off and put them back on in front of everyone. They will make a thing official that already feels, in impossible private moments, like it has been quietly happening for weeks.

Ilya follows his gaze.

This time, when he catches Shane looking, he does say something.

“You keep staring.”

Shane’s face warms. “Sorry.”

“No, it's okay. I didn't I don't like it.”

Shane’s breath catches.

Ilya seems to realize what he has said after he says it. His fingers curl once against the counter. He looks away first, toward the stairs.

“I will pack,” he says.

“Okay.”

Ilya goes.

Shane stays in the kitchen for another few seconds, hand braced on the edge of the sink, trying to make himself move.

There is too much love in him.

It sounds impossible, even in the confines of his own head, but there it is: too much. More than his body seems built to carry. It presses up under his ribs, crowds his throat, makes the warm kitchen blur at the edges. Love for Ilya at the counter, sleepy and sweet, with Shane’s ring on his hand. Love for the way he tries to make a joke before something can hurt him. Love for the awful, careful hope he lets Shane see only by accident.

Shane doesn't know what to do with wanting something this badly except immediately start measuring all the ways he could ruin it.

He is too anxious. Too careful. Too cold when he is scared. Too much work. He has spent so much of his life trying to become impossible to regret. Good enough, steady enough, useful enough. The kind of person who earns his place and then keeps earning it, every day, so no one ever has to look too closely and realize he is more burden than blessing. Easy to be proud of. Easy to stand beside. Easy, somehow, despite the anxious machinery of him always running too loud under his skin.

But Ilya keeps making room for him anyway.

Like Shane is not too much to ask someone to live with. Like the careful, exhausting parts of him are not something Ilya has simply failed to notice yet.

And Shane wants to believe it. He wants to, so badly. He wants to stand in this kitchen the night before a wedding and believe, even for a second, that he might not have to become easier before someone could choose to stay.

He wants to deserve this.

God, he wants to.

He wants to become whatever shape would make it easier for Ilya to keep him, less breakable in all the wrong places.

Behind him, upstairs, a floorboard creaks under Ilya’s weight.

Shane closes his eyes, then he dries his hands, turns off the light, and follows.

Upstairs, Ilya packs like someone who has never had to leave a house before, apparently.

It's stupid, because he has left many houses. Apartments. Hotel rooms. Locker rooms. Countries, even. He has left places with less than this and more than this and once with nothing but a duffel bag and the buzzing certainty that if he stopped moving, something inside him would catch up.

This shouldn't be difficult. It's one night.

One night at Shane’s parents’ house before the wedding, and then tomorrow they will stand in front of everyone and put the rings back on like they have not already been wearing them for weeks. Like Ilya has not gotten used to the small weight on his hand. Like he has not turned it with his thumb in grocery store lines and immigration meetings and the dark of his own bedroom when he could not sleep.

Now he stands in his bedroom with a half-packed bag on the bed and hates the idea so much he almost laughs.

Down the hall, he can hear as Shane moves around in the guest room. A drawer opens, something is set down softly, then picked up again. Shane packing is exactly like Shane doing everything else: quiet, precise, somehow apologetic for taking up space even when the space has already bent itself around him.

Ilya presses his thumb once against the ring and takes it off, like ripping a band-aid.

The absence is immediate and ridiculous.

His hand feels wrong, exposed in a way he doesn't like, as if the skin underneath has been keeping a secret and now everyone can see it.

“Stupid,” he mutters.

He puts the ring in the small box on the dresser, the one Shane gave him, and closes the lid before he can change his mind and put it back on.

Shane appears in the doorway with his suit bag over one arm and the expression of a man trying very hard not to look like he has just survived something.

Ilya looks at his hand first and finds it bare.

“I put mine in the box,” Shane says.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Me too.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them moves.

Shane shifts the suit bag slightly. “Do you need help?”

Ilya looks at his own open bag, which contains socks, a shirt, two watches, and no obvious plan.

“No.”

Shane’s eyes flick to it.

Ilya points at him. “Do not.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. Loudly.”

Shane’s mouth twitches, but it doesn’t become a smile.

Ilya wants to make it one. He wants to pull Shane into the room by the front of his shirt and kiss him until all that careful tension melts out of his shoulders. He wants to say, sleep in my room tonight. Not at your parents’. Here. Stay here. Stay with me.

Instead he puts a pair of underwear into the bag.

“Ready in two minutes,” he says.

Shane looks at the bag again. “Five probably,” he says.

Ilya huffs, and this time Shane does smile, small and helpless, before he looks away.

Ilya has to turn back to the dresser and pretend to search for something, because otherwise he will do something unforgivable like ask for exactly what he wants.

From the hall, Shane says, “I’ll wait downstairs.”

“Okay.”

He packs the rest of the bag properly, and because Shane is always right, Ilya is ready in five minutes.

Technically four and a half, but Shane is not in the kitchen when Ilya comes downstairs, so there is no one to appreciate this victory. His bag sits by the front door, suit bag laid neatly over the back of one of the dining chairs, shoes placed beside it.

Ilya sets his own bag down next to Shane’s. It slumps immediately while Shane's stays upright.

“Even his fucking bag is perfect,” he tells it, in Russian.

The stairs creak, and Shane comes down. He's changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, hair still a little damp at the front from washing his face, maybe, holding a folder in his hands. He looks tired and careful and too handsome for Ilya’s peace of mind.

“You have all the documents?” he asks.

Shane lifts the folder slightly. “Yeah.”

“Rings?”

“In the bag.”

“Your list?”

“On my phone.”

“Backup list?”

Shane pauses.

Ilya points at him. “Ha.”

“It’s not a backup list.”

“What is it?”

“A note.”

“With list?”

“With information.”

“So backup list.”

Shane looks like he wants to argue, then decides not to waste energy. “Do you have everything?”

“Nope.”

Shane’s eyes widen.

Ilya smiles. “Joke.”

“That was not funny.”

“It was a little funny.”

Shane exhales through his nose, but some of the tension leaves his mouth. “Lock the back door?”

“Yes.”

“Garage?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Ilya watches him look around their home again. He should tease him again. It would be easy. It's always easy to poke at Shane’s control until he huffs and blushes and says Ilya’s name like a warning he does not mean then relaxes all the more for it.

But tonight Shane looks like one more small thing might knock something loose in him.

So Ilya picks up Shane’s bag before Shane can.

Outside, the night has gone cool. Not cold, not really, but enough that Shane’s breath catches a little when they step out. The porch light throws gold over the front walk. Ilya locks the door, then checks it once because Shane is watching.

Shane looks away, mouth twitching.

They put the bags in the back of the SUV because Shane had made a point earlier about not needing a sports car tonight. Ilya had made a point about Shane being boring. Shane had said, calmly, that if Ilya drove them to his parents’ house in a car with two seats and no reasonable trunk space the night before their wedding, Shane would murder him before they reached the highway.

Ilya had enjoyed that very much.

Now Shane slides into the passenger seat, the folder held against his chest, and Ilya gets behind the wheel.

Shane turns his head toward the window.

Ilya can see his reflection in the glass, the pale line of his cheek, the set of his mouth. Serious. Always serious. Even when happy, maybe especially then, as if happiness is something that requires attention or it will escape him.

“You okay?” Ilya asks.

Shane looks over. “Yeah.”

Ilya waits.

Shane looks down at the folder in his lap. “Are you?”

No, Ilya thinks. Yes.

He's getting married tomorrow to a man who sleeps down the hall from him because they're both too afraid to ask the obvious question. He's getting married to Shane Hollander, the league's best hockey player who makes his coffee and folds his laundry and looks at him sometimes like Ilya has set the world on fire and offered him a place beside it. He's getting married because it is practical, because it helps, because it protects him, because everything went wrong in public and Shane, perfect, panicked Shane, decided to step in front of the bullet.

He is getting married because he wants to. He has no idea if Shane knows that.

“I am wearing nice suit tomorrow,” Ilya says. “So yes. I will look very hot.”

Shane’s smile is small, but it happens. “That’s all it takes?”

“For me? Yes. I am simple man.”

“You are not simple.”

“No?”

“No.”

The word is a little too fond.

Ilya keeps his eyes on the road. The Hollanders’ house is bright when they get there. Every front window glows. There are flowers on the porch table and, when Ilya parks behind David’s car, the front door opens before either of them has unbuckled.

Yuna steps out in slippers.

“Your mother was watching through window,” Ilya says.

Shane groans softly.

“She is very excited.”

“This is her trying not to be.”

They get out and Yuna is already halfway down the walk.

“You made it,” she says, like they have come from another province and not fifteen minutes away. “Oh, good. Give me something.”

“Mom, I can carry my bag.”

“I didn’t ask if you could.”

Shane hands her nothing.

Ilya hands her Shane’s suit bag.

Yuna takes it immediately. “Thank you, Ilya.”

“Traitor,” Shane says.

“You should obey your mother,” Ilya says.

“I hate both of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Yuna says, and kisses Shane’s cheek.

Shane accepts it with the particular stiffness of someone who wants badly to be annoyed and cannot quite manage it. Then Yuna turns to Ilya.

For half a second, Ilya thinks she will hesitate, but she doesn't. She reaches up and hugs him: arms go around him, warm and firm, one hand pressing briefly between his shoulder blades and places a kiss to his cheek too.

Ilya stands very still before he hugs her back.

“Hi,” she says softly near his shoulder.

“Hi,” he says.

When she lets go, her eyes are a little bright, but she only pats his arm and says, “Come inside. David made tea. He says it’s decaf, but I don’t trust him.”

From the doorway, David calls, “It’s decaf.”

Ilya looks at Shane, whose expression has gone soft in a way Ilya rarely sees outside this house.

“Come on,” Shane says.

Inside smells like tea and something sweet cooling in the kitchen. There are flowers on the dining table, more than before, and two extra chairs pulled out near the living room. The house has the strange, busy quiet of people preparing for something important and pretending not to fuss too much.

David takes Ilya’s bag before he can stop him.

“I’ve got it,” Ilya says.

“I know,” David says, and carries it anyway.

Apparently this is a family illness.

Yuna hangs Shane’s suit bag with careful hands. “Your room is ready,” she says, then glances between them. “There are fresh towels too.”

Shane goes a very interesting shade of pink.

“Thank you,” he says.

They end up in the kitchen because all important things in this family seem to happen in kitchens, over mugs. Yuna gives Shane a cup of tea and a plate with two pieces of banana bread on it. Shane opens his mouth.

Yuna says, “Don’t argue with me.”

Shane closes his mouth.

Ilya takes one piece off the plate before Shane can overthink it.

David leans against the counter, arms crossed loosely. “So, big day tomorrow.”

“Dad,” Shane says.

“What? It is.”

“Well, yeah.”

David nods once, satisfied, then looks at Ilya. “Nervous?”

Ilya considers lying but he has a feeling David will look right through him.

“A little,” Ilya says.

David nods again, like this answer has pleased him. “Makes sense.”

“That’s it?” Shane asks.

“What?”

“You’re not going to give advice?”

David looks mildly surprised. “Do you want advice?”

“Not really.”

“Then no.”

Ilya laughs before he can stop himself. It should be too much.

It should make Ilya want to perform harder, louder, easier. He should be making jokes until the attention slides off him. He should be finding exits and weak points, ways to keep himself from feeling the full weight of being welcomed somewhere he has not earned.

Instead he sits at the kitchen island beside Shane and eats half a piece of banana bread off the same plate.

Shane does not comment but his knee knocks Ilya’s once under the counter.

They go upstairs after tea because Yuna says they should sleep and David says nothing, only gives Shane a look that makes Shane say, “Dad,” in a warning voice.

Ilya does not know what the look means. He knows it's loving, though. That much is obvious. The Hollanders are not subtle people, even when they think they are.

At the top of the stairs, Shane pauses.

His bedroom door is open. So is the guest room door across the hall.

Ilya looks into Shane’s room without meaning to.

He has seen it before, of course. Hockey things, old books, blue-gray walls, a desk too neat to have belonged to an actual child. The bed is made with fresh sheets. Two pillows.

The guest room is made too.

Yuna Hollander is a dangerous, dangerous woman. Ilya never wants to get on her bad side.

Shane shifts his bag higher on his shoulder. “We should just sleep together.”

Ilya looks at him, eyebrows raised.

Shane looks back until his eyes widen.

“I mean—” Shane’s face goes red so fast it's honestly impressive. “Sleep in the same room. In the same bed. Not—obviously not—”

“Obviously not?”

“No, I mean, not unless—” Shane stops. “That’s not what I meant.”

Ilya leans against the wall. “What did you mean?”

“You know what I meant.”

“I don’t. You said sleep together.”

“For my parents.”

Ilya’s eyebrows go up again. “For your parents.”

“No. Jesus. Because of my parents. Because they think we already do.”

“We did.”

“At the house, yes, but not—” Shane drags a hand over his face. “You are doing this on purpose.”

“Yes.”

Shane glares at him, flushed and miserable and very beautiful in the hallway light.

Ilya smiles. “So, for your parents, we should sleep together.”

“In the same bed,” Shane corrects tightly.

“Yes. In the same bed. Together.”

“It would be weird if we didn’t,” Shane says, quieter. “To them.”

“To them,” Ilya parrots.

Shane’s face changes.

Ilya regrets it immediately, because he hears the question in his own voice after it is already out. Its not only teasing; there's something needy and stupid underneath.

Shane looks toward the guest room. “You don’t have to. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Okay.”

“I will sleep with you.”

Shane closes his eyes. “You’re being a dick.”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “But I am agreeing.”

Shane opens his eyes again.

For a second, they just look at each other then Ilya shrugs, like this is nothing, like they do this all the time.

“For your parents,” he adds.

Shane swallows. “Right.”

“And because you asked very nicely.”

“I didn't ask.”

“You blushed very nicely.”

“Ilya.”

The tension does not disappear. It onlychanges shape, becomes something warm and dangerous and almost survivable.

Ilya picks up his bag.

“Come on, husband tomorrow,” he says, and follows Shane into his room. It's strange, being in here at night.

During the day, Shane’s childhood bedroom feels like a museum exhibit maintained by people who love him too much to throw anything away. Framed photos. A few old trophies. Books lined neatly on shelves. Evidence of Shane in layers: boy Shane, teenage Shane, impossible golden Shane, all of them tidy and contained and probably already worried about disappointing someone.

At night, with the bedside lamp on, it feels much less like a museum and a lot like a bedroom.

Shane sets his bag on the chair by the desk. “You can put yours wherever.”

“Wow, so kind.” Ilya drops his bag beside the dresser. It lands with a soft thump and leans sadly against the wood. “There.”

Shane looks at it.

“You want to unpack it,” Ilya states rather than asks.

“It’s one night.”

“Yes.”

“So no?”

“Good job.”

Shane gives him a flat look, but his ears are still pink, so the effect is not as powerful as he probably hopes.

Ilya walks slowly around the room, not touching much. A photo on the dresser catches his attention: Shane much younger, maybe sixteen, in a suit too big in the shoulders, standing between Yuna and David with a medal around his neck. His smile is careful even there. Happy, probably, but trying not to make too much of it.

“Baby Hollander,” Ilya coos.

Shane makes a pained sound behind him. “Don’t.”

“Were you born already annoyed with everyone?”

“Mostly you.”

“We had not met.”

“I sensed you coming.”

Ilya laughs softly, and it helps. The room loosens around them. Shane’s shoulders drop by half an inch.

Yuna has pulled the blanket down on the bed a little, like she thinks they will come in and simply climb in together, like this is easy, like there's no history between them but the one she's been allowed to see.

Shane notices him looking and clears his throat.

“I can change in the bathroom,” he says.

Ilya turns. “Shane.”

“What?”

“We have had sex.”

Shane closes his eyes. “I know.”

“Many times.”

“I know.”

“In much worse places than your childhood bedroom.”

“Please do not say childhood bedroom and sex in the same conversation.”

Ilya smiles. “You are very easy tonight.”

“I am under stress.”

“Yes. Wedding tomorrow. Big day. Must sleep together for your parents.”

Shane opens his eyes to glare at him. “I’m going to brush my teeth.”

“Very seriously?”

“Extremely seriously. Might even do four minutes.”

He takes his toiletry bag and leaves before Ilya can say anything else. The door clicks shut behind him.

Ilya stands alone in Shane’s room.

The teasing drains out of him almost immediately.

He looks at the bed again, then at the pictures on the wall, the old hockey books stacked on the shelf, the little framed photo of Shane with his parents at some rink somewhere. Shane’s life is everywhere here, loved into place. Kept.

Ilya presses his thumb against the bare place where his ring should be.

Tomorrow.

It's only tomorrow.

He changes quickly because if Shane comes back and Ilya is standing half-naked in his room staring at his childhood hockey trophies like a haunted fool, there will be no dignified explanation.

He has just pulled on a T-shirt when Shane comes back in.

Shane pauses with one hand on the doorknob.

Ilya looks down at himself. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Shane shuts the door behind him. He is in soft pants and a T-shirt, the kind he wears at Ilya’s house now without thinking about it. No ring. Bare hand. Bare throat.

Ilya wants so badly that for one second he cannot make his mouth do anything.

“Which side do you want?” Shane asks.

Ilya blinks. “You have side?”

“Not really.”

“You are lying again.”

Shane sighs. “Left.”

“Then I take right.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

Shane looks at him, suspicious now. “Are you being nice?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I am being practical. For your parents.”

Shane’s mouth twitches despite himself. “Right.”

They pull back the covers from opposite sides, careful not to get in each other’s way. It's absurd. They have bruised each other against hotel walls. Shane has had Ilya’s fingers in his mouth. Ilya has had Shane under him, over him, saying his name in a way that still sometimes comes back to him when he is trying to sleep.

Now they are trying not to brush elbows while getting into bed at Shane’s parents’ house.

Life is very stupid.

The mattress dips under Shane’s weight. Ilya gets in after him, lying on his back because that is safest. The sheets smell like detergent and Yuna’s linen closet. Clean, warm, faintly floral. Shane turns off the lamp.

Darkness settles, even if it's incomplete enough for Ilya to see the shape of Shane beside him. On his back, hands folded over his stomach. Tense as a man in a hostage video.

Ilya lasts maybe twenty seconds.

“You are going to sleep like corpse?”

Shane exhales. “I’m comfortable.”

“You look embalmed.”

“Ilya.”

“What? I am concerned.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mm.”

Silence.

Then Shane says, “Are you okay?”

Ilya turns his head.

Shane is looking at the ceiling, not at him.

“Yes,” Ilya says.

Shane nods once.

Another silence.

Ilya should leave it. He should let Shane have the answer. He should close his eyes and sleep, because tomorrow they have to get married in front of a room full of people who will be looking at them like this is only beautiful and not also terrifying enough to split him down the middle.

Instead, because he is apparently trying to ruin his own life, he says, “Maybe no.”

Shane turns his head immediately.

Ilya looks at the ceiling this time.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asks.

Nothing, Ilya thinks. Everything.

He rubs his thumb over the sheet where his ring is not. “Tomorrow,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Your family will be there.”

“Yeah.”

“And Sveta. And Marly.”

“Yeah.”

“And your hockey people.”

“JJ,” Shane says.

“Yes. JJ.” Ilya smiles faintly. “He is family too?”

“Pretty much.”

“Good.”

Shane waits.

This is one of the worst things about him. He waits. He does not rush in to fill the silence, not when it matters. He gives Ilya enough room to either speak or hang himself with it.

Ilya swallows.

“My family will not be there,” he says.

Shane goes still beside him.

“I know,” Shane says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“No, is okay.”

It's not. He hears it in his own voice and hates himself for it.

Shane turns a little onto his side, still not touching. “Is there anyone you want to call tomorrow? Or video? I don’t want you to feel like it’s only—” He stops, careful. “Only my people.”

Ilya closes his eyes. There is the bruise, pressed exactly.

He knows Shane does not mean to hurt him. That almost makes it worse. Shane is trying to be kind. Shane is thinking of him. Shane has been thinking of him all month, in coffee and detergent and lawyers and sweatshirts, and now he is thinking of the empty space where Ilya’s family should be.

“My father, no,” Ilya says.

Shane says nothing.

“My brother also no. They are police. It would be bad for them.”

Bad for them. Bad for their names. Bad for the family Ilya has already ruined by being alive in the wrong direction.

He tries to make his mouth curve. “They would not—not a wedding to man.”

Ilya looks away.

The ceiling is pale in the dark. Shane probably stared at it as a kid before games, before tournaments, before flights. Shane probably lay here with his whole life ahead of him and figured out how to become so good no one could question whether he belonged.

“My mother is dead,” Ilya says.

He feels Shane’s breath catch more than hears it.

“Ilya.”

“It was long time ago.”

It's true and also useless.

His throat tightens anyway. Stupid. Ridiculous. He is twenty-five years old. He's not a child. He is not allowed to miss someone so hard all at once that his eyes burn in Shane Hollander’s childhood bedroom the night before a wedding that is half real and half something neither of them can name without bleeding.

He turns his face away, toward the window.

“Sorry,” he says, and hates that too. “I don’t know why—”

Shane moves, slow enough not to startle him, but not slowly enough to make it a question.

He rolls onto his side and reaches for Ilya, one hand warm against his shoulder, then sliding carefully around him when Ilya does not pull away.

“Don’t apologize,” Shane says.

Ilya laughs once, but it breaks in the middle. “Very bad. Crying in your bed before wedding.”

“That’s okay.”

“Not sexy of me.”

“No,” Shane says, voice rough. “Not really the point right now.”

Ilya presses the heel of his hand to his eye. “I am fine.”

“I know.”

It is such an obvious lie, both of them pretending, that Ilya almost laughs again.

Shane’s arm tightens around him a little.

Ilya gives up. He turns into it, enough to press his forehead against Shane’s shoulder, enough to feel Shane go softer, like something in him has unlatched. Shane’s hand comes up to the back of Ilya’s head, fingers careful in his hair.

For a while, Ilya says nothing.

He breathes in Shane’s shirt. The familiar smell of him. Clean cotton, toothpaste, something warm underneath that Ilya knows too well and not nearly well enough. Shane holds him like he's not afraid Ilya will become too much in his arms.

“I wish she could be there,” Shane says eventually.

Ilya closes his eyes harder.

“Yes,” he says. "Me too."

“I’m sorry she can’t.”

Ilya nods against him because speaking seems unwise.

Shane’s thumb moves once through his hair.

“My parents are happy to be there for you,” he says. “I know it’s not the same. Obviously it’s not. But they are. They care about you.”

Ilya’s chest hurts, and he makes a low, doubtful sound.

Shane pulls back just enough that Ilya has to look at him.

Even in the dark, Shane’s face is serious. Wedding-eve serious. Love-sick and terrified, though Ilya does not let himself think the word love too directly because its a dangerous animal and he has no cage for it.

“They do,” Shane says. “I do.”

Ilya’s breath stops.

Shane seems to hear what he has almost said at the same time Ilya does. His eyes widen a little. His hand goes still in Ilya’s hair.

“I mean—” Shane swallows. “I care about you.”

He looks at Shane’s mouth, then back at his eyes, and says, “I know. I—me too.”

The words come out quieter than he means.

Shane’s hand relaxes, but he does not move away.

Ilya reaches for the chain at his neck. The cross is warm from his skin when he draws it out from under his shirt.

“This was hers,” he says.

Shane looks down.

Ilya holds it between his fingers, thumb tracing the small familiar shape. “My mother’s. She wore it always.”

“It’s beautiful.” Shane smiles faintly, but his eyes are still soft.

Ilya looks back down at the cross. “Sometimes I think maybe she is here. In some way.” He feels stupid saying it. Too earnest. Too much like a boy who still wants his mother to see him and be glad. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”

Shane’s hand covers his around the cross, fingers warm and steady over his.

“I think she would want to be here,” Shane says.

Ilya swallows.

“And I think she’d be proud of you.”

The words strike so cleanly that for a second Ilya cannot breathe. He shakes his head once.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” Shane says. “I don’t. But I think it anyway.”

Ilya closes his fingers around the cross, Shane’s hand still over his.

In the dark, in Shane’s too-neat childhood bedroom, with their wedding suits hanging in the closet and their rings waiting in little boxes, Ilya lets himself believe it for almost three seconds.

It hurts.

It helps.

Both.

“Your mother will cry tomorrow,” he says, because he cannot stay where Shane’s words have put him.

“Probably.”

“Your father too.”

“He’ll deny it.”

“Bad liar?”

“Terrible.”

“Marly?”

“Maybe.”

“Sveta will pretend no.”

“She’ll cry?”

“One tear. Very elegant, like an actress. Then she will threaten everyone who saw.”

Shane let out a quiet laugh. The sound moves through Ilya where they are pressed together. Something in him settles at the proof of it. Shane laughing in the dark. Shane holding him. Shane’s hand over his where the cross rests against Ilya’s chest.

Ilya keeps his eyes on their joined hands.

“I am glad it's your parents,” he says.

Shane is quiet for a moment.

Then, “Me too.”

Ilya nods.

He should move back to his side of the bed.

He does not and Shane does not make him.

Eventually Shane says, very softly, “You should sleep.”

“You always tell me what to do.”

“Someone has to.”

“Tomorrow you get legal right.”

Shane’s laugh is smaller this time, almost shy. “That’s not how marriage works.”

“No?”

“No.”

“It should be.”

Shane’s hand slides from Ilya’s hair to his shoulder, warm through the T-shirt. “Sleep, Ilya.”

For once, Ilya listens.

In an entirely unexpected turn of events, if you ask Ilya Rozanov, he wakes before Shane. It's so unusual that, for a few seconds, he assumes something has gone wrong.

But there's no alarm, no emergency unless the emergency (which Ilya's pounding heart believes this is absolutely one, even if his mind does not see any rational cause for panic) is Shane Hollander asleep beside him in his childhood bed, one arm bent above his head, lips soft and parted, hair crushed slightly on one side.

Wedding day, he thinks, and then his brain goes stupid even though it's too early for that, it thinks, I will become his husband today.

He closes his eyes.

Nope. Absolutely not. Too early. Dangerous thought. Go back.

When he opens them again, Shane is still there. He's sleeping seriously, somehow, like he's doing it correctly, like it's something he could be doing correctly. And yet, his face is smoother like this, all the little lines of worry gone from between his brows, his mouth not held tight around some responsibility he has decided belongs to him, and only him. It makes him look younger, somehow, surrounded by the memoribilia of his childhood.

He looks softer, less like the version of himself the world gets to have. More like the version Ilya keeps accidentally seeing and then wanting, wanting, wanting until it hurts.

He glances at Shane's hand, bare, and feels his heart twist. Their rings are somewhere, downstairs maybe, or maybe in Shane's bag, or maybe in the big scary legal folder, because Shane has many systems and Ilya has made fun of all of them while also trusting them completely. In a few hours, they'll stand in a courthouse with their people around them, and Shane will put the ring back on Ilya's hand and Ilya put it back on Shane's.

Properly, this time. (As if any of this has ever been proper.)

Ilya looks at Shane's hand for another second, then at his face.

He should get up and let Shane sleep. Shane needs sleep then a proper breakfast. Shane needs a calm, normal wedding morning. Unfortunately, Shane has chosen to marry Ilya Rozanov, so there are limits.

Ilya slips out of bed, carefully, and then Shane shifts once, a small sound catching in his throat, and Ilya freezes half-standing beside the bed like a burglar in his own life.

But Shane only turns his face into the pillow and settles again.

Ilya exhales quietly. He finds a pen on Shane's desk (because of course there is a pen on Shane's desk, lined up beside a little square notepad) and tears off the top sheet then pauses, pen hovering.

There are many things he could write, wants to write.

Good morning.

Do not panic.

You look beautiful when you sleep, which is creepy, but true.

I am very happy I will marry you today.

He bends over the note and writes instead:

Getting ready in guest room. Bad luck to see groom before wedding ;)

He looks at it then adds because he knows Shane:

(Do not panic. I did not run away.)

He smiles to himself, folds the note once, and leaves it on the pillow where Shane will see it.

At the door, he looks back to Shane's sleeping face. The morning light has found the side of it now, just enough to touch his cheek and the line of his throat. He looks peaceful in a way Ilya hasn't seen often enough.

"Sleep well, my love. I love you," Ilya says under his breath, in Russian.

It's a safe thing to say only because Shane cannot hear him. Then he leaves before he can do something very stupid, like get back into bed.

Waking up is one of the few things Shane has never gotten better at through discipline or repetition. His alarm isn't going off, which should be good, except his body immediately interprets the silence as suspicious because whyhasn't it gone off. His mouth tastes bad. One of his shoulders is stiff from the terrible angle he slept in, and someone has stolen the warm weight that was supposed to be beside him.

His hand goes out before his eyes open to find—nothing. The irritation sharpens, fast and unreasonable.

He cracks his eyes open.

Ilya's side of the bed is empty, the duvet set carefully in place, but his pillow is dented, and there's still a little warmth there when Shane's fingers press into it, which helps, but not enough to stop his brain from waking the rest of the way with a hard unpleasant jolt.

Before he can spiral into several unhelpful thoughts, he sees the paper folded once on the pillow, and stares until he comprehends what he's looking at.

Did he run away in the middle of the night?

He picks it up and squints at Ilya's handwriting. Shane reads it twice because his brain is not fully online and Ilya's handwriting is a crime of long, looping letters written violently.

His heart, which has been doing several unnecessary things in quick succession, understands the note before his brain does, and settles into one larger, stranger thing. Something warm, like someone has poured something thick and sweet into him while he was sleeping and now it's moving slowly through all the places usually occupied by dread.

He reads it again and his mouth does a stupid thing and curls into a small smile.

He folds the note carefully along the crease Ilya made and holds it for another second before putting it on the nightstand. Then he picks it up again because the nightstand seems too far away, which is insane, so he sets it back down very deliberately.

Ilya's here. Ilya's here and last night he slept here.

Ilya Rozanov slept in Shane's childhood bed, in Shane's parents' house, under the ceiling Shane had stared at through fevers and losses and early flights and the awful stretch of being seventeen when every feeling was too large for his body but he had not yet learned how to make his face lie.

And now Ilya is across the hall, getting ready to marry him.

Shane stands too quickly. He takes a breath, then another, then grabs his clothes and heads for the shower before he can look at the note a third time and imagine something like love in it.

The shower helps, but not enough. Hot water hits the back of his neck, runs down his shoulders, gathers at his elbows before dropping. Shane stands beneath it with his hands braced against the tile and lets himself think of practical things first. Soap. Shampoo. Shaving. The rings. The time. Whether he can manage breakfast without making his stomach revolt.

Then, inevitably, Ilya.

Ilya who knows him too well. Ilya writing the note. Ilya deciding where to put the winking face. Ilya adding the second line because he knew, because Shane has become something legible to him despite Shane's best and most exhausting efforts.

Ilya knows he panics at breaks in routine.

Ilya knows he hates zucchini unless it's cut very small, which Shane had never said out loud but which Ilya had somehow learned and now weaponizes by announcing "tiny bites, for little kitten" every time he cooks.

He knows when Shane has gone quiet because something has bugged him him in a place he cannot easily reach. He knows the exact tone that will make Shane argue instead of disappear.

It makes his chest go tight, because then he starts thinking of all the ways he knows him too; sees him.

Ilya always tilts his chin up before he lies. He laughs with all his teeth when he wants cameras to look at him, and with his mouth closed when something has actually surprised him. He can make a whole room turn toward him and still somehow look, for one unguarded second, like nobody came.

Shane knows the way Ilya skates when he is angry. He knows the way he skates when he is free. He knows the difference even if he has never admitted that to anyone. He hums under his breath when he is cooking, but only if he thinks nobody is listening.

Shane knows all this, and it's still not enough. There's always more. Another version of Ilya he has not earned yet but wants, wants, wants until the wanting feels less like hunger and more like another fact of life. And maybe one day Ilya will let him have it.

Maybe one day Shane will know him all the way down to the ordinary things. Maybe one day, Ilya will know him that way too.

It's a scary thought, because what if he does. What if he sees the systems, the panic, the ugly, anxious parts and thinks why would he want any part of that.

The warmth in Shane's chest flickers.

He stands very still under the hot water, shoulders raised, and then forces the thought away with more violence than grace.

He has a day to get ready for.

David finds Yuna in the dining room with her phone in one hand and two little velvet boxes on the table in front of her.

The flowers are already done. They were done half an hour ago. They were done last night, actually, but Yuna had woken up and decided the blue ones were too crowded near the window, which had meant the white ones were wrong too, which had meant David had made her tea then stayed out of her way.

Now she is looking at the boxes like they might move.

"They're good, honey," David says.

"I just want it to be perfect for them, you know."

It's not really about the flowers. David knows that. He also knows that Shane gets a lot from Yuna, and that they need to come to him before he pushes.

She touches one pale blue flower with the tip of her finger, careful as anything. Her earrings catch the morning light when she turns her head. She is dressed, hair done, blouse pressed, calm from a distance and not calm at all if a person knows where to look, and David knows where to look.

Her mouth is too tight at one corner. Her hands have been busy since she woke up. She keeps checking rooms that are already ready, smoothing things that are already smooth, setting down her phone and picking it up again.

Shane gets that from her.

The keeping-moving. The idea that care is something you can arrange, item by item. Shane has Yuna's focus, her stubbornness, her terrible habit of believing that if something hurts, it must be because he's not worked hard enough to fix it yet.

He has David's shoulders, maybe. His expressions in some lights. A few gestures.

But the engine is Yuna's.

David has loved that engine for more than thirty years. He has also learned, over time, when to step in front of it before it drives itself through a wall.

"Leave the flowers," he says gently.

Yuna exhales through her nose. "I am leaving them."

She looks toward the ceiling.

There's the sound of a footstep, a drawer opening, maybe. The sounds of two young men in separate rooms pretending, with varying degrees of success, that this is an ordinary morning.

Yuna's face softens and breaks David's heart a little.

"He was in bed with him last night," she says quietly.

David looks at her.

"I know," she says. "Obviously, I know. I made up the rooms, and I did not ask questions because I am a very reasonable mother."

"That's one version of events."

She gives him a dirty look.

He smiles faintly.

Her own smile comes and goes. "But I mean... in his room. Shane let him sleep in his room."

David nods. That had struck him too. Not because of propriety; that ship had sailed so long ago David could not see the shore from here. But because Shane's room is Shane's room. Well, not a room so much as a locked drawer Shane occasionally allows his parents to dust, even if he lives so far away from home.

It's been painted twice and rearranged once and stripped of most of the obvious teenage evidence, but it's still where Shane goes when the world has worn through his skin. He once spent an entire afternoon in there after losing a playoff series and came down at dinner with red eyes and a spreadsheet of off-season training goals.

In a way, it was Shane's cottage before the cottage, and in a way, it still is.

Yuna picks up the darker box, then sets it down again. "Do you think this is too much?"

David knows which answer she wants, but he doesn't give it to her.

"Yes," he says.

She frowns at him.

"It's his wedding day," David says. "It's supposed to be too much."

Her face changes, not crying yet, but closer than before. "Don't be nice to me," she says.

She looks at the boxes again. David crosses the room and touches her elbow.

"They're okay," he says.

Yuna looks at him for a second too long.

It is not a promise he can make. They both know that. Their son is upstairs about to marry a man under circumstances nobody in this house would have chosen for him, and still, somehow, it is impossible to look at the two of them and believe there is nothing but love there. David has watched Shane manage pressure his entire life. Watched him go quiet around pain, precise around fear, polite around loneliness. Watched the world praise him for the same restraint that sometimes scared David half to death.

And he has watched Ilya Rozanov walk into the middle of all that restraint and make Shane blink and smile.

She makes a small face at him, then smooths her blouse again. "We should call them down before everyone arrives."

"In a minute."

"If we wait, Cliff and Svetlana will get here, and then the kids, and then it will be—"

"Chaos," David says.

"Yes."

"Then we should probably do it now."

Yuna nods, but she keeps looking at the boxes for another second.

David doesn't ask if she's sure. She is sure. She has been sure since she came home with them and put them in the bedroom drawer and then took them out again after dinner to show him, her face doing that determined thing that means she has already decided something is right and only needs him to agree quickly enough not to annoy her.

Yuna takes a breath then calls toward the stairs, "Shane? Ilya? Could you come down for a minute?"

There is a pause then David hears a door open and then another followed by a low murmur, too quiet to catch.

Footsteps come to the top of the stairs.

Shane appears first, one hand on the railing, dressed except for his jacket. His tie is done, technically, but not tightened all the way. David can tell from across the room that Yuna will fix it within ninety seconds. Shane's hair is still a little damp, and his face has that smooth, flat look people mistake for nothing because they do not know him well enough to know better.

Ilya is there, one step behind him. His shirt is tucked in, collar open, cross at his throat. His hair has mostly surrendered into something presentable. He looks at the dining room, then at David, then at Yuna, then at Shane.

Always back to Shane.

"Everything okay?" Shane asks.

"Yes," Yuna says. "Yes, of course. Come sit."

Ilya sits first. He gets on the couch, not quite stiffly, but carefully. Guest-carefully. He smooths one hand over his thigh and looks at the table again.

Shane sits beside him.

Yuna picks up the first box and sits on the coffee table in front of Shane.

"This is for you," she says.

Shane looks at the box like it might contain a live animal.

"Okay," he says. It comes out cautious, like this tiny box can contain awful, awful news.

He opens the box. Inside are cuff links. Dark blue, almost midnight, with tiny flecks of gold in the stone. David watches Shane recognize the weight of them before he knows the history.

"They were my father's," Yuna says.

Shane looks up at her.

Yuna keeps her voice steady, or mostly. "I thought you might like to wear them today."

His hand lifts, then stops. He looks down into the box again.

"Mom. Thank you. I love them. I'd love to," he says.

Yuna's smile wavers.

"Good," she says. "I'm glad."

Ilya is quiet beside him. He's looking at the links, but not in the way people look at jewelry. More like he's looking at Shane being loved and trying not to disturb it.

David picks up the second box before that quiet can turn into something heavier.

"And these are for you," he says to Ilya.

Ilya's head comes up.

"For me?"

"Yes."

David holds it out.

Ilya takes it with both hands. He doesn't open it right away.

For a second, David thinks he might make a joke. He can see the shape of it try to arrive and fail.

Then Ilya opens the box.

The pearls are pale against the gray velvet. Small, warm-white, set in silver. Yuna had chosen them because she said they looked like something not too loud; classy.

David had not argued with that either.

Ilya looks at them for long enough that Shane turns his head.

Yuna says, "We thought they would go nicely with your suit."

David loves her a little extra for managing to sound almost casual.

Ilya's thumb touches the inside edge of the box.

"They're..." He stops.

Shane watches him without moving.

Ilya clears his throat. "They're beautiful. Thank you."

"You're welcome," David says..

Yuna exhales softly, then claps her hands once on her knees. "All right. Let's put them on."

"Mom," Shane says.

"What?"

"I can put on cuff links."

"I know."

"Then why—"

"Because I want to."

Shane closes his mouth.

Yuna holds out her hand. "Wrist."

Shane gives it to her, long-suffering and pink around the ears.

David moves to sit beside Ilya, who had already taken one cuff link out of the box and was frowning at his sleeve.

"You need a hand?" David asks.

"I think this shirt is difficult."

"It's usually the shirt."

"Yes. Exactly." Ilya gives the cuff link a suspiciously misty eyed look. "Not me."

"Never."

Ilya glances at him, and there it is, a small flash of humor. Relieved, maybe, to have something ordinary to do.

David holds out his hand.

After a second, Ilya gives him his wrist.

His pulse is fast. David feels it under his fingers and pretends he doesn't, because that is part of being a father too, he thinks.

The cuff link is fiddly so it takes him a moment.

Across from them, Yuna has Shane's first one done already. Shane's looking down at it, face quiet, but his free hand has found the edge of his pocket and is worrying at the seam.

"There," Yuna says, smoothing Shane's cuff with her thumb.

Shane swallows. "Thanks."

She moves to the other wrist.

David gets Ilya's first cuff link through.

"There you go."

Ilya turns his wrist slightly. The pearl catches the light, soft and clean.

For a moment he doesn't say anything but then he gives David his other wrist with little fanfare. That does something to David that he's not going to think about right now.

Yuna finishes Shane's second cuff and sits back. The blue suits him. Yuna knew it would.

David finishes Ilya's second cuff, and the pearls suit him too.

Ilya looks at them, then at Shane's.

"Blue," he says.

"Pearl," Shane says back.

It's nothing. Two words. Completely useless as conversation. Still, the room changes.

Yuna picks up her phone.

Shane notices immediately. "Mom."

"What?"

"No pictures, please."

"Shane, I'm taking a picture."

"Mom."

"It's for me."

"They're all for you."

"And yet I keep wanting more."

Ilya puts his wrist out obediently.

Shane turns to him. "Really?"

Ilya's expression is innocent in a way that is not remotely believable. "It is her day also."

Yuna points at him. "Thank you."

Shane looks betrayed. "Don't encourage her."

"I want good relationship with mother-in-law."

Yuna's phone lowers a fraction.

David says, before it can turn into a disaster, "That's usually a good strategy."

Yuna recovers with a quiet laugh. "I'm inclined to agree."

Shane breathes in, slow.

Ilya's mouth pulls into something that is almost a smile and not quite.

Yuna takes the picture then another.

"Together," she says.

"Mom."

"Look, Ilya is cooperating."

"Ilya is trying to win."

"Yes," Ilya says.

Shane gives him a look, but he moves his hand closer on the couch cushion.

Ilya moves his too.

Her eyes are too bright when she lowers the phone.

"Okay," she says. "Jackets."

Shane blinks. "What?"

"Jackets. David, take them upstairs. I want to steam them once more."

David stands and gathers the jackets from the back of the chair.

"Got it," he says.

"Thank you," Yuna says. Then, to both of them, "Everyone will be here soon. Finish getting ready."

Ilya stands, still looking briefly at his cuffs like he expects them to vanish if ignored too long.

"Thank you," he says again.

It's quieter this time, with no performance in it, not even politeness, really.

Yuna's face softens. "Of course."

They go upstairs together, not touching, but close. Halfway up, Ilya says something David cannot hear.

Shane huffs a laugh.

Yuna stands beside David, phone held against her chest, but she doesn't lift it.

David takes the jackets toward the stairs, then stops when she says, very softly, "I love you."

He turns back.

Yuna is still looking up the stairs.

Her eyes are wet now, but she is smiling too, a little helplessly, like she is annoyed with herself for it and losing anyway.

David's chest tightens.

"I love you too," he says.

"I know," she says, and wipes under one eye with the side of her finger. "I just wanted to say it."

He looks up the stairs too.

The boys have disappeared, but David can still hear them. Ilya saying something, and Shane answering, then Ilya laughing like he is trying not to.

Yuna breathes out, shaky and fond.

David shifts the jackets over one arm and reaches for her hand.

She takes it hard, enough to hurt a little, but he lets her.

Upstairs, Shane laughs, barely audible.

Yuna's hand tightens around his.

David looks at her, then up toward the sound, and says nothing. There are some things it is better not to touch directly.

But yes, he thinks. Yes.

By the time they leave for the courthouse, the house has become exactly what Yuna predicted: chaos.

Chaos, but it's the kind she's spent all morning preparing for, which means she keeps looking both stressed and pleased about it. The good glasses are out even though no one's going to use them until later. There are flowers in three rooms. Someone has moved Shane's tea twice, and somehow his father keeps finding it and returning it to him warm.

Svetlana and Marleau arrive first.

Svetlana is dressed in a satin burgundy dress, sharp and elegant, gold earrings glinting when she steps into the front hall. She kisses Yuna on both cheeks, says something to David that makes him smile, then looks past all of them at Ilya.

Ilya is standing near the living room doorway with his hands in his pockets, jacket on, collar fixed, face arranged into something easy, which doesn't last when he sees her.

Svetlana says something in Russian, low and fast.

Ilya answers the same way.

They move toward each other while they talk, quick overlapping words, her hand on his sleeve, his head bent slightly toward her. It sounds like an argument until it doesn't. Until Shane sees the exact second Ilya's mouth stops performing and Svetlana's eyes go bright.

She says something else.

Ilya rolls his eyes.

She swats him on the chest, hard enough that he laughs, and then he bends and kisses the top of her head.

She shoves him away immediately. "Stop."

"You are a big emotional baby."

"Fuck you, Ilyushka."

"Oh, you love me sooooo much."

"You're very annoying. Shane Hollander, good luck with this one. You have your hands full."

"Yes," Ilya says, smiling at her with his whole face. "But I'm so beautiful and you are all very lucky for it."

Svetlana makes a disgusted sound and reaches up to fix his collar, even though there is nothing wrong with it.

Marleau comes in behind Svetlana with a bottle in a paper gift bag and the expression of a man hoping he has brought the correct thing to an event with no obvious playbook.

"For uh the happy couple," he says to David, holding it out. "Or the house. Congratulations, Mr. Hollander."

David takes the bag and glances inside.

His eyebrows lift. "Oh. This is a good one."

Marleau's shoulders loosen. "Yeah?"

"Excellent one."

This seems to put Marleau at ease enough to stand in the front hall like a normal person instead of a large man awaiting instructions.

Then J.J. arrives with Hayden and Jackie and the kids, and the house changes shape again.

The front door opens and the August air comes in with them, damp heat and bright voices and the smell of cut grass from the street. Jackie hugs Yuna, then David, then takes one look at Shane and says, "Oh, sweetheart," before hugging him too, gently enough that he doesn't have to brace.

Hayden shakes Shane's hand first then because Hayden is Hayden, he pulls Shane into a tight hug anyway.

"Congratulations," he says, low.

"Thanks."

Hayden's hand lands once between Shane's shoulder blades, brief and sincere.

The kids come in around them like mini well-behaved cyclones.

Arthur has a tiny bouquet clutched in one fist that has clearly suffered in the car. One stem is bent, and the ribbon is sliding loose, and Arthur's hand is clamped around the middle like he is afraid the flowers might escape.

He walks straight to Shane.

"Hi, Artie," Shane says, lowering his mug.

Arthur holds the bouquet up. "For you."

"For me?" Shane crouches.

Arthur nods. "Yes, for the wedding, Uncle Shane."

Shane takes it carefully. "Thank you."

Arthur watches his face.

"They're really nice," Shane says.

Arthur nods again, satisfied, then steps closer and leans against Shane's shoulder for half a second. Shane's hand comes up to his back immediately.

Then Arthur pulls away and looks toward Jackie. "Can I have cake?"

Jackie says, "After the wedding."

Shane stands with the bouquet in his hand, and Ilya is watching him.

"What?" Shane asks.

Ilya steps closer and plucks one of the smaller white flowers from the side of the bouquet.

Shane looks down at his hand. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing."

"It's not broken."

"No?" Ilya slips the flower into Shane's breast pocket, careful with the stem, his fingers brushing the edge of Shane's lapel. "Now it's better."

No one's looking at them. Jackie talking to Yuna, Hayden saying something to Arthur, Ruby and Jade whispering to each other.

But Ilya's hand is on Shane's jacket, and the little white flower is tucked over his heart, and Shane's body does not seem to know what to do with something that tender happening.

He looks down at the bouquet because looking at Ilya is suddenly a terrible idea. There is another small flower near the edge, pale blue this time, the stem shorter than the rest.

He pulls it free and Ilya's eyes drop to it.

Shane steps in before he can think better of it. He tucks the blue flower into Ilya's pocket, above the line of his breastbone. His fingers touch the fabric there. Underneath, Ilya's heart is probably beating. Shane cannot feel it through the suit, but his mind invents it anyway.

The flower sits there, small and ridiculous and perfect, and Shane has no idea what his face is doing. Something awful, probably. Something obvious. He can feel it all over himself, the softness he cannot pull back in time, the ache of wanting written somewhere around his mouth.

Fuck, he wants to put his lips on his so bad, everyone else be damned.

Yuna makes a very small sound.

Shane's head snaps toward her.

She is holding her phone with both hands, and Shane sighs, almost accepting his fate.

Ruby and Jade hang back, heads put together. They have met Shane before, enough times to run to him on better days, but today they look at him in his suit like he has become part of the list of things they'd been warned not to touch.

Then they see Ilya. Ilya sees them seeing him.

He does not go big with it, just lowers himself slightly, hands still visible, face very serious, like he's making friends with skittish cats.

"Hello," he says. "You must be Ruby and Jade."

Ruby's eyes widen. "How do you know?"

"I was warned."

Jade frowns. "Warned?"

"Yes. The dangerous twins."

Ruby looks delighted.

Jade looks suspicious, but interested despite herself. "We're not dangerous."

"No?" Ilya asks.

"No."

He looks at Shane. "This is disappointing."

Shane says, "Hm, very."

"Yes, it's the perfect age for danger."

Ruby giggles.

Hayden looks pained. Jackie touches his arm without even looking at him, the way you would soothe a dog at the vet.

Jade points at Ilya. "Are you Uncle Shane's friend?"

Ilya's eyes flick to Shane.

There is a whole second there. Too much in it. Too little.

Ilya looks back at Jade and says, "Yes."

Shane's chest tightens.

"And after today," Ilya adds, "something like family, maybe."

Ruby leans closer to Jade. "He talks different."

"Yes, because I speak Russian," Ilya says.

Ruby gasps, then laughs because he is smiling.

"Can you say something in Russian?" Jade asks.

"Yes."

He says something low and lovely and completely incomprehensible.

Ruby looks enchanted. "What does it mean?"

"It means your dresses are very nice."

He entertainsthe twins for a little longer, letting them ask him whether he knows any princesses, whether he plays hockey with their dad and Uncle Shane, whether his name is hard to spell. He answers everything with grave attention.

The twins are delighted by him, and Hayden is visibly annoyed by how delighted they are.

"Even my kids love Ilya fucking Rozanov," Hayden grumbles though there is no heat in it.

"Swear jar," both Jackie and Shane say unison.

Svetlana saves him, somehow, by turning to Yuna and saying, "Everyone should be in the pictures."

Yuna turns toward her so fast Shane almost hears the alliance form.

"Yes," she says. "Exactly."

The next few minutes become a coordinated operation.

Yuna directs from near the dining room. Svetlana moves people into place with quiet authority and no visible patience for hesitation. Jackie makes sure Arthur's shirt is tucked in. Hayden is told to stand near the fireplace and does so with the expression of a man who has accepted his fate but not forgiven it. Marleau ends up beside David, both of them looking faintly relieved to have clear instructions.

Ruby and Jade are placed on either side of Ilya. They go happily.

Arthur is supposed to stand in front of Shane. He does, briefly, then turns around and wraps both arms around Shane's leg because apparently facing a camera is less interesting than anchoring himself to a familiar adult.

"That's fine," Yuna says immediately. "That's sweet."

Arthur presses his cheek to Shane's thigh and looks at the camera.

At some point, Ilya leans toward Shane, close enough that only Shane hears him. "I think we invited paparazzi."

It hits Shane wrong—or right, because a laugh comes out of him before he can stop it, sudden and ugly and mostly through his nose.

The camera clicks.

Yuna gasps. "Oh, that one is good."

Svetlana steps beside Yuna and looks at the phone. "This is best one."

Yuna turns the screen toward her. "Right?"

"Very good."

More pictures happen after that because one good photo only makes Yuna and Svetlana more powerful. Shane stands where he is told. Ilya cooperates and suggests outrageous poses, which makes everyone laugh and Hayden mutter something under his breath that makes Jackie elbow him lightly. Arthur gets bored and asks to see the cake. Ruby wants to take a picture with Ilya then gets enamoured by Svetlana and says she wants one with the princess. Jade tells her that's not a princess, but then asks for one too.

A minute later, J.J. finds Shane near the dining room.

"You good?"

Shane looks over at Ilya, who is now standing with Svetlana while she shows him one of the pictures on Yuna's phone. Ilya's face is turned down toward the screen, but his eyes lift, just briefly, to find Shane.

They always do that lately, find each other's eyes.

"Mostly," Shane says.

J.J. nods. He puts a hand on Shane's shoulder, firm and brief. "We've got your back."

Shane swallows. "Yeah," he says. "Thanks."

Yuna claps her hands once from the front hall.

"Okay," she says. "We need to leave."

This turns out to be less an action than a campaign.

Arthur has to use the bathroom at the exact second everyone is ready. Ruby has a question about whether the courthouse has security, which makes Jade ask if there will be police, which makes Arthur yell from the bathroom that they scare him. Jackie closes her eyes and says, "Nobody is seeing police." Hayden checks his pockets three times for his car keys. Marleau offers to drive, then looks relieved when David says they have enough cars.

Svetlana fixes Ilya's collar again, and he only sighs dramatically. She ignores him completely, then says something in Russian that makes his face go soft and sharp all at once.

Shane catches only his answer.

"Da," Ilya says.

Then she touches his cheek once, and Ilya looks away first.

Shane knows that move. He's made that move. He makes it now, looking down at his own hands because he understands too well the humiliation of being loved where everyone can see.

The rings are in his inside jacket pocket. It's almost time.

Ilya comes to stand beside him near the door. It's open, and August presses into the hallway, hot and green and bright. Outside, the cars are lined up in the driveway. Sun flashes off windshields. Somewhere, a lawn mower starts and stops. The world is having a regular day.

Shane Hollander is about to get married to Ilya Rozanov.

What a fuckin' beautiful day.

The courthouse is trying very hard to act normal about them once they're there. Ilya appreciates this, mostly because it is funny.

For instance, the woman at the front desk looks up, smiles her normal polite government-building smile, and then her eyes land on Shane then Ilya, then Shane again.

The tiny freeze happens. That little spark of recognition she tries to smother immediately, as if she has accidentally dropped something breakable and hopes nobody heard it hit the floor and shatter.

"Good morning!" she says, too brightly. "How can I help you?"

Shane gives their names.

The woman's face does something truly heroic.

Ilya, personally, has seen this expression many times in hotel staff, restaurant hosts, flight attendants, you name it. This time it's a little different. It's less of a I know you and more of a I know you, and you, and also I have read several headlines this week.

"Of course," she says, looking down at the papers Shane fishes out of his folder. "Mr. Hollander. Mr. Rozanov. Congratulations."

Shane says, "Thank you."

Ilya says, "Thank you," too, because he's also polite sometimes even if many people don't know this about him.

The clerk glances at him again.

Ilya smiles a little.

She looks back at her computer very fast.

Beside him, Shane shifts in a movement Ilya knows well where he takes up the same amount of space but somehow removes himself from it.

Ilya wants to touch him, comfort him. It's a terrible, terrible idea. The thing is? No one would even mind. People would probably expect it. They're here to get married after all. He'd wanted to touch him since Arthur, serious little boy that he is, had handed Shane a crushed bouquet and Shane had looked so tender Ilya had nearly died in Yuna Hollander's very clean front hall.

Ilya could touch him. He could take Shane's hand right now in front of the clerk and the families and the security guard pretending not to look at them from across the lobby.

He doesn't do it.

The paperwork is checked. The clerk gives them a pen. Shane signs where he is told, careful and neat, and Ilya signs after him. His own signature looks aggressive beside Shane's.

The officiant comes out a few minutes later: a woman in a navy dress with short gray hair, kind eyes, and the same trained look of recognition.

"Mr. Hollander," she says. "Mr. Rozanov. It's lovely to meet you both."

Shane nods. "You too."

"Nice to meet you," Ilya says.

She gestures down the hall. "We're ready for you."

Ready? Ilya almost laughs.

He's not ready. Shane's not really ready. No one sane could look at this situation and decide ready belongs anywhere near it. But Shane walks beside him toward the room, and Ilya walks with him, and that's something.

It's a small. Not ugly, quite, but the walls are plain and chairs are lined in rows. The Canadian flag sits in one corner. Windows along one side with green trees moving behind the glass, the leaves too bright in the August sun.

It is nothing like a wedding should be.

It's better, maybe, because Ilya doesn't know what to do with a real wedding. A real wedding would have too much space for all the people who are not there.

His mother. His father, though Ilya hates that his mind supplies him at all. His brother, who would probably not have come even if asked and would have made sure Ilya understood why.

This little room is easier. This little room that has Shane is easier. And Sveta, and Marly. And even in their own way, Yuna and David Hollander.

Everyone settles in and Shane's eyes move over the room once and stop on Ilya as he steps closer.

The officiant asks if they are ready.

Shane's mouth does something small and inscrutable.

Ilya says, "Yes," because someone has to reply.

Shane looks at him. Ilya looks back.

There are many things he wants to say.

I am not ready either.

I am scared.

I did not run away.

Please do not run away.

Please want this enough that I can survive wanting it this much.

He says none of this, of course, because he's not an idiot. Or he is, but in other ways.

Shane says, "Yes."

They stand at the front of the room, facing each other.

This is a mistake, Ilya thinks immediately. Not the wedding. Maybe the wedding. No, not the wedding. The looking at Shane Hollander for this long with no stick in his hands and no crowd between them and no good excuse to look away.

Shane is wearing the little white flower Ilya put in his pocket, and it should look silly because it's a little wilted and definitely bruised, but it doesn't.

Ilya has the blue one over his own heart, and he can swear that he feels it there. Aware of it in a stupid way, as if Shane's fingers are still there, tucking it into place. Shane had looked so hopeless when he did it. So soft and scared and already gone on Ilya, maybe.

The officiant begins.

Standard, legal words. Marriage, commitment, witnesses, Ontario. Ilya listens because he should be paying attention, but English gets slippery when his heart is loud. The room narrows. Shane's face. Shane's hands.

The officiant turns to Shane.

"Shane, do you take Ilya to be your lawful husband?"

Ilya looks at him. There is no way to prepare for the answer, even though he knows what Shane's supposed to say. This is the whole point. It's why they're here. For papers, for protection, for the public story. For the stupid, complicated problem of Ilya's life and career and country and the border that has become suddenly less theoretical than it used to be.

Shane is doing this to help him. Ilya knows that.

He knows.

Still, Shane looks at him, and for one terrible second Ilya lets himself imagine the answer means something else.

"I do," Shane says, without hesitation. Without a careful pause or a little glance somewhere else.

Ilya forgets how to breathe even though he's done it since birth.

Shane's face goes pink almost at once, like he has embarrassed himself by answering too quickly, and Ilya wants so badly to touch him that it feels like pain in his teeth.

The officiant turns to Ilya.

"Ilya, do you take Shane to be your lawful husband?"

There are many answers inside him.

Yes, because I need this.

Yes, because you offered.

Yes, because you worry about me.

Yes, because you know how I take coffee now even though you pretend not to care.

Yes, because Shane Hollander is asking. Because Shane Hollander is standing in front of me, because Shane Hollander is my husband if I say one word, because I will do anything Shane Hollander asks of me.

Ilya smiles. He hopes it is not too obvious.

"I do," he says.

Shane's throat moves.

Behind them, Arthur whispers, "Did they do it?"

Hayden whispers, "Almost."

Arthur says, "Is it cake after almost?"

Jackie whispers, "Arthur."

The room laughs softly.

Ilya wants to laugh too, but his chest feels too full for it. He keeps looking at Shane's mouth instead.

The officiant smiles. "The rings?"

Shane takes the box out and his hands look steady but Ilya knows better.

He's seen Shane's hands in many situations. Wrapped around a stick. Around a steering wheel. Around Ilya's wrists. This is a specific kind of steady that Shane forces upon himself.

Shane opens the box.

The rings sit there, blinking innocently at them under the stale lights.

Ilya's breath goes thin.

Shane takes his ring first and reaches for Ilya's hand.

Ilya gives it to him.

There is no reason this should feel indecent. They have done much worse in private. Much better. Shane has had Ilya under him, over him, inside him. Shane has put his mouth on Ilya and cursed like a person with no public image at all.

But Shane holding his hand in front of their families feels somehow worse. Better. (Both.)

Ilya stares at their hands because he cannot look at Shane's face while this happens. Shane's fingers are warm. The ring is cool.

The officiant gives him the words, and Shane repeats them.

"I give you this ring as a symbol of my commitment."

It is a standard vow. It has no poetry in it or personal promises or history. Nothing that belongs only to them.

Which, thank God. Ilya wouldn't survive real vows today.

He barely survives these.

Shane slides the ring onto his finger.

Ilya has to swallow before he can move, then it's his turn.

He takes Shane's ring.

The officiant gives Ilya the words.

"I give you this ring," Ilya says carefully, because English must not betray him here, "as a symbol of my commitment."

That's a big word. A heavy word. Definitely not a sexy word. Not the kind of word Ilya usually likes.

He likes it now.

He pushes the ring onto Shane's finger.

Shane's breath catches.

Ilya hears it and feels insane with wanting. Not sex, even. Though always sex, because he is alive and Shane is Shane.

Ilya wants to hold his hand.

Such a small, embarrassing, thing.

He wants to take Shane's hand and not let go. He wants to stand in this plain little room in front of everyone and hold Shane Hollander's hand because he is allowed now. Because if anyone sees, they will think husband, and they will be right even if they are wrong about everything else.

The officiant says more legal words.

Ilya loses most of them.

Then she says, "By the authority vested in me by the Province of Ontario, I pronounce you married."

The word lands in Ilya's body like arrows.

"You may kiss," she says.

For one second, neither of them moves.

Ilya knows how to kiss Shane. He is excellent at kissing Shane. One of his strongest skills, probably. He knows how Shane opens under pressure. Knows the little sound he makes when he is trying not to make any. Knows how to make him angry with it, desperate with it, sweet with it.

He does not know how to kiss him here.

In front of Yuna and David and Svetlana and the children and a woman who definitely watched their playoff series last year.

This marriage is real on paper. It is real in Shane's quick I do and Ilya's ring back on his hand. It is also something they are doing because Ilya needs help. Because the world cornered them. Because Shane is good, and panicked, and stubborn enough to ruin his life for someone else while calling it a plan.

A kiss feels dangerous, like asking too much, like showing too much.

Shane's eyes flick to his in question. The same one, maybe.

Ilya steps in because he can do that much. He keeps it simple. His hand does not go to Shane's face. He does not pull him close. He just leans in, enough for Shane to meet him halfway.

Their mouths touch briefly.

Then it is over, and the room claps, and Ilya's whole body is screaming because that was his husband's mouth and his husband's ring and his husband standing close enough that their sleeves brush.

Husband.

Stupid English word. Beautiful English word.

Arthur cheers, "Cake now?" with excellent timing, and everyone laughs.

Pictures happen after that.

Yuna and Svetlana become very frightening together. Ilya respects this as a concept and fears it in practice. They arrange everyone with efficient hands and completely incompatible instructions, except somehow the result is always what they want.

Eventually even Yuna admits they have enough pictures, which Ilya assumes is a lie told only because the courthouse staff have started looking politely interested in getting their room back.

They spill out of the ceremony room slowly, like none of them quite remembers how doors work after something so small has changed everything.

The lobby is the same as it was before. Same pale walls. Same clerk behind the desk, very carefully not staring. Same flyers in plastic holders. Same flat government light turning everyone a little bloodless.

But Shane is married now. Ilya is married now.

There are rings on their hands, and the world has the nerve to look exactly the same?

Ilya keeps waiting for some visible alteration. For the walls to bow outward. For the floor to tilt. For someone to stop them and say, No, sorry, impossible, there has been a mistake. You cannot have this. You especially cannot have this.

Somehow, no one does.

Shane is at his side, flushed from pictures and attention and being married.

Absurdly, Ilya wants still wants to hold his hand. He wants to hold Shane's hand because Shane is his husband.

Because he can.

Because he maybe should, even. People might think it strange if he does not. They are newly married. Everyone expects a little touching.

It's such a beautiful loophole.

Shane look at him, and his lips are doing that little twitch upward that might as well be a billion megawatt smile.

Ilya's heart gives one hard, stupid kick against his ribcage.

He reaches slowly, giving Shane time to refuse. (Shane does not refuse.)

Their fingers meet first, awkwardly, both of them somehow worse at this than anything else. Then Shane's hand turns into his, palm to palm, and Ilya closes his fingers around it.

It is so small, and it's everything.

So. They walk out of the courthouse holding hands.

August heat hits them immediately again, bright and damp, the kind that makes Ilya's shirt want to attach itself to his back. Sun flashes off parked cars. The world continues, rude and miraculous, and Shane's hand stays in his.

His grip is not tight, exactly, but more… deliberate. Like once he has decided to do this, he is going to do it correctly.

Ilya loves him so much for that he feels briefly angry.

They are halfway down the steps when a woman near the entrance turns and freezes.

She is in a cream dress, holding a folder against her chest. A man beside her wears a pale blue suit with a boutonniere pinned a little crookedly. Another couple stands with them, and a woman with a camera is adjusting a lens. They have the stunned, polished look of people who have also just gotten married and aren't yet back inside their bodies.

The woman in cream says, "Oh my god."

Shane's hand stiffens which triggers Ilya'sfirst instinct which is to step in front of him. His second is to smile. His third is to say something charming enough to disarm the moment to where he wants it.

Instead, he squeezes Shane's hand once.

The woman's eyes drop to their joined hands then back up just as quickly.

"I'm sorry," she says rapidly. "I'm so sorry. I know this is private. We're just—huge fans. Both of you. Sorry."

The man in the blue suit looks mortified. "Babe."

"I know." She laughs at herself, red-faced. "I know. I'm being weird. Congratulations. Seriously. This is—wow. Sorry. We just got married too, so I'm already emotional, and then you're here, and—sorry."

Ilya looks at Shane.

Shane's face has gone polite. His fingers are still between Ilya's. He glances at the woman's dress, the crooked boutonniere on her husband, the camera, the folder in her hand then down a slow blink at Ilya.

Ilya gives him the smallest lift of his eyebrows.

Your call.

Shane's hand tightens.

"Congratulations," Shane says to the couple.

The woman blinks, like she expected a rejection and got a gift instead. "Thank you."

Ilya smiles at her. "It's a very good day to marry."

She laughs. "Apparently."

The man in the blue suit smiles now, shy but genuine. "Congratulations to you too. We don't want to bother you."

"You're not," Shane says.

The woman hesitates. "Would it be okay if we got a picture? Totally fine if not. Completely fine. I know you're with your family."

Shane's thumb moves against Ilya's hand, once.

He's nervous. He wants not to do it. He is doing it anyway.

"Sure," Shane says.

The woman's face lights up. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Ilya could kiss him but settles for saying, "Only if we get picture with other married people. Exclusive club."

The woman laughs again, delighted, and her husband looks much less like he wants to die.

They come together at the bottom of the steps. The photographer-friend directs them into the light.

For one panicked second, Ilya thinks maybe they should let go of each other's fingers. Maybe it's too much. Maybe Shane only meant to hold his hand while walking, not while posing with strangers outside a courthouse where someone could absolutely post this picture before they are even back in the car.

But Shane does not let go. His hand stays in Ilya's. So, selfishly, Ilya holds on.

The woman in cream stands on Shane's other side. Her husband stands beside Ilya. Everyone squeezes in. Ilya's shoulder presses against Shane's.

Shane's hand is warm. The ring is cool. The camera clicks.

"Another," the photographer says. "The light is great."

When the woman looks at the preview, she covers her mouth with both hands. "This is the greatest day of my life."

Her husband says, "We got married."

"I know what I said."

Ilya laughs, and Shane laughs too, quiet and real.

The woman looks at him like getting them to laugh is even better than the photo.

"Thank you," she says. "Really. And congratulations. I'm so happy for you."

"Thank you," Shane says.

The man in blue shakes Ilya's free hand. "Congratulations, man."

"You too," Ilya says. "Your flower is crooked."

The man looks down, alarmed. His wife bursts out laughing.

Ilya reaches and fixes the boutonniere quickly, because why not.

"There," he says. "Now your marriage will last forever."

"Thank god," the man says.

Shane gives Ilya a look. Ilya smiles innocently.

They part after that, the other couple drifting back toward their photographer, still looking over their shoulders, still smiling.

Ilya watches them for a second.

He wonders what it is like to come to a courthouse because you decided to get married and not because the world caught you in a flash and forced all the private things to become a play at once.

Then Shane's thumb moves against his hand and Ilya stops wondering.

Their families are near the cars now, trying with uneven success to look like they did not watch all of that.

Shane looks down at their joined hands. Ilya prepares, very quickly, to let go. He does not want to. But he will. Of course he will. Shane gave him this much. Ilya is not greedy.

This is a lie. Ilya is so greedy he should be studied. But he can pretend.

Instead, Shane adjusts their grip, fingers sliding more securely between Ilya's.

Ilya's lungs forget their job.

"You okay?" he asks, because this is the only phrase he knows when Shane does something that makes him want to walk into the ocean.

"Yeah," he says. Then, after a second, "Are you?"

I'm holding your hand in the sun and everyone thinks I'm allowed. Of course I am.

"Yeah," he says.

Shane nods once.

They walk to the cars hand in hand. Then, unfortunately, Ilya remembers he has to drive.

He looks at their hands.

Shane looks too.

Neither of them moves for one second too long.

Finally Shane lets go. Ilya immediately hates it.

He opens the driver's door and gets in. Shane gets in beside him. The car is hot from the sun, the air stale until Ilya starts it and the vents blast too warm before turning cool.

Ilya pulls out of the courthouse parking lot.

In the rearview mirror, their families follow.

On his hand, the ring catches the sun.

Beside him, Shane keeps touching his own ring with his thumb, over and over, like he is learning the shape of the rest of his life and trying not to look too hopeful about it.

Ilya faces the road and smiles where Shane cannot see.

Dinner is not really dinner. It's too early for dinner and too late for lunch, but no one seems especially worried about what to call it. There's food on the dining room table and the sideboard and the kitchen island, because let it be known that Yuna Hollander does not do things by halves.

The afternoon has gone thick and golden otuside, the windows full of summer light, the air conditioner droning on steadily beneath the sound of everyone talking.

Shane sits beside Ilya at the dining room table.

Their hands are linked under it.

It happened again in the driveway, then in the kitchen, then somehow here, below the edge of the tablecloth where no one can see. Shane keeps thinking he should let go so Ilya can eat properly, or because his palm is getting too warm, or because holding hands for this long is objectively strange, especially for the two of them.

But he doesn't let go, he can't. But neither does Ilya. In fact, Ilya's thumb moves once against the side of his hand, slow and absent, and Shane feels it in his throat.

The flowers Arthur gave him are in a little glass near the salt and pepper that Ilya had produced with a flourish when they got back and said, "They are a symbol of our love, no?"

Shane can still see the small white flower in his own pocket when he looks down. Ilya's blue one has wilted more obviously, soft around the edges, but he hasn't touched it or taken it out.

Arthur has climbed halfway into Jackie's lap and gone quiet, his cheek pressed against her arm, cake conquered and attention spent. Hayden is talking with J.J. near the end of the table, but his eyes keep flicking toward Shane and Ilya with that careful look he gets when he is trying not to worr.

David stands. He doesn't make it long, which Shane's heart swells with love for his father so much more in that moment.

"Thank you all for being here," David says, one hand resting on the back of Yuna's chair. "I know this was not exactly a traditional wedding, but it's a happy one."

Under the table, Ilya's fingers tighten around his. Yuna reaches for David's other hand without looking at him.

David clears his throat. "To Shane and Ilya. We love you both very much."

Around the table, around them, people lift their drinks.

"To Shane and Ilya," Yuna says, and her voice only breaks a little.

Ilya is looking at David, face arranged carefully, but Shane knows careful. Shane lives there. He can see the fault lines, the fractures under it, the places where the words have gone in too deep.

Shane lifts their joined hands under the table, just enough for Ilya to feel it. It's a private toast, a stupid move. Their knuckles knock softly against Shane's knee.

Ilya's mouth trembles once before it becomes a smile.

"I like this wedding dinner," he says quietly.

Shane huffs, because if he does not, something worse may happen.

"It's not dinner."

Ilya looks around the crowded table. The flowers, the plates, the late sunlight caught in the glasses, the family pressed in on every side.

Then he looks back at Shane.

"No?" he asks.

Shane follows his gaze.

His mother's hand wrapped around his father's. Arthur asleep now or pretending to be. Ruby whispering to Jade. Svetlana's sunglasses folded on the table beside her plate. J.J. smiling into his glass. Ilya's ring against Shane's fingers under the table.

For one impossible second, no part of him has to prove it deserves to stay.

Shane swallows.

"Maybe," he says.

Ilya's thumb strokes over his ring.

Marleau, who has been quiet most of the meal, polite and broad-shouldered and very careful with Yuna's good serving dishes, looks from Shane to Ilya and says, "So. What's the honeymoon plan?"

Attention snaps to the two of them so fast that beside Shane, Ilya's hand stills.

Shane doesn't look at him. He looks at his plate which has no answers. It has three strawberries, and the salad his mother keeps moving toward him with her eyes.

It is an ordinary, normal question. A kind question, even, coming from Marleau, who looks faintly embarrassed now, like he has realized the word might be too soft for the room.

Shane cannot believe he hadn't thought of it earlier, but well, he doesn't really have a guidebook on this. Still, married people leave after the wedding and go somewhere private. They disappear into a little pocket of time and come back sunburned or relaxed or at least with photos that suggest they were happy alone together.

The one place Shane can think of his cottage.

The road in and the trees and the lake. The big windows and the clean lines and the screened porch. The place he had built because he needed somewhere quiet enough to hear himself think, then kept making quieter, more exact, more his. A place where the world thins out around the edges.

Ilya would like it there.

His hand tightens before he means it to, so he just turns his head to look at him.

Ilya's already looking back.

Should we?

Do you want to?

Do you expect me to want to?

Everyone expects it.

It would make sense.

It would look right.

Shane cannot tell which thought belongs to which of them. Maybe none of them do. Maybe they're just sitting there together in the small space under the table, where their hands are warm and damp and locked together.

Yuna saves them, or pushes them, or both.

"You could go to the cottage," she says.

Shane looks at her too fast. Her voice is light, but not careless. She's watching him in the way she does when she knows he might bolt if a person speaks too loudly near the wrong thought.

"I have shoots," Shane says.

"I know," Yuna says.

"And calls."

"I know."

"And Ilya has—"

"I have nothing," Ilya says. Ilya's expression is easy enough for the table, but his hand tightens around Shane's under it.

"I mean," he adds, "I have many important husband responsibilities. So, whatever Shane wants."

Hayden mutters, "God help us."

Jackie elbows him lightly.

Yuna smiles, but her eyes stay on Shane. "Just a few days, then. You don't have to decide right now."

Except everyone is waiting. Except the question has been put into the center of the table, and now it sits there among the plates and flowers and sweating water glasses.

The honeymoon plan. Their first night married.

Shane looks at Ilya again.

Ilya lifts his brows slightly.

Your call.

No, Shane thinks, sudden and panicked and almost angry with it. Not just mine.

He cannot be the only one choosing. He cannot pull Ilya north because it's expected. He cannot ask Ilya to go to the cottage and then spend the entire drive wondering whether Ilya said yes out of strategy, or because he had already signed one set of papers today and another performance hardly matters.

But he also cannot imagine sleeping anywhere else tonight.

Not Ilya's guest room. Not his own bed in Montreal. Not under any roof where they have to pretend nothing has changed.

Ilya's thumb moves once against his hand. Shane breathes in.

"Yeah," he says.

Ilya's eyes flicker.

Shane realizes, a second too late, that he has answered only half the question.

"We were, uh," Shane says, then stops, because were they? Had they planned anything? Had he packed for this? Had Ilya? Does it matter? "We were thinking of heading there later. Uh… After this."

Ilya's voice comes in beside him, easy and warm.

"Yes," he says. "It will be a very romantic, secret honeymoon to location owned by my husband. I'm a trophy husband now."

The table laughs.

Shane turns his head and stares at him.

Ilya's mouth curves, and his eyes stay soft. He's giving Shane the cover of a joke because Shane needs somewhere to put his face.

"You're not a trophy."

"I could be."

"You're too annoying."

Ilya's smile widens. "Oh, so you admit I am beautiful."

"I said annoying."

"Beautifully annoying."

Shane looks away because he is going to smile, and Ilya already knows it, and that somehow makes it worse.

And thus, the cottage is decided without being formally decided. It becomes part of the afternoon, folded in between cake plates and coffee cups and Yuna packing containers of food Shane insists do not need and absolutely knows they will take. People say things like "drive safe" and "text when you get there" and "the lake should be beautiful this time of year," and Shane nods as if his body is not slowly filling with light and panic.

Ilya does not let go of his hand until David calls them into the kitchen to help choose what leftovers they will take, and even then Ilya's fingers slip from his slowly, one at a time.

The absence feels immediate.

For a split second, across his childhood kitchen, between the stacked plates and the containers waiting open on the counter, they're already somewhere else.

On the road north to Shane's cottage, with its wide windows and quiet rooms waiting to hear what they do when nobody is watching.

Ilya's hand flexes once at his side, empty.

Shane feels it in his own.

The cottage road is narrower than Shane remembers.

(It isn't, probably. It's the same road it always is: gravel and packed dirt, trees crowding close on both sides, branches leaning in as if trying to keep the lake secret. But with Ilya in the passenger seat, everything feels newly measured. The bend before the clearing. The dip where rain collects. The first bright flash of water between the pines.

Shane feels all of it before Ilya says anything.)

He keeps his eyes on the road, but he can feel Ilya looking. Not at him, for once, today. At the trees, the water, the cottage when it finally appears through the branches, all glass and cedar and long clean lines, settled like Shane had once convinced himself a building could become a place to breathe.

Shane parks in front of the cottage and turns off the engine.

The sudden quiet comes down around them in layers: ticks of cooling metal, cicadas in the trees, the soft, uneven lap of the lake against the rocks below if you listen too closely.