Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

M/M, Multi

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Scott Hunter, Kip Grady/Shane Hollander/Scott Hunter/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Scott Hunter/Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Shane Hollander

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady

Additional Tags:

Soft Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Overthinks, nightclubs, Smoking, Drinking

Language:

English

Series:

Part 5 of Scrabble Is Boring Anyway

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-26 Words: 6,704 Chapters: 1/1

Paintbrushes

Summary

Shane and Ilya meet Scott and Kip at a New York nightclub to figure out what they are to each other after a game-changing trip to Montreal.

Notes

Thank you so, so much everyone for the incredible comments that have been left on this series. I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to replying to everyone but please know everything was read (multiple times!) and it gave me such life. I tried to take into account a little bit of the feedback that was brought my way. It's always appreciated, so please feel free to hit me with more if you wish.

This one is dedicated to all of you lovely people. ❤️

If you're returning to this series after my extended break, quick note! The first part of this series was recently edited to take into account that Shane and Ilya are closeted professionally and publicly, but out to a small circle of trusted people. Scott and Kip are among them. How that trust was built predates this story. May explore that side of things later.

Ilya moves through the crowd like he was born to it.

Those sharp cheekbones and pale eyes catch the strobing lights. He has that kind of lean confidence that comes from growing up in a country that never let him be soft. His accent surfaces only on certain syllables now, worn smooth by years in North America, but it’s still there in the way he says beautiful to Shane, the u round and meaningful.

Ilya is dressed simply tonight. Black t-shirt, gold chain disappearing beneath the collar. He knows how the fabric sits across his shoulders. He knows people look, and he’s into it.

Shane couldn’t be more different from him. He takes a step back from Ilya, allowing him to order their drinks (while also giving himself time to appreciate the view of his tapered waist, the way Ilya’s jeans sit low on narrow hips, the deliberate architecture of him).

His hand keeps drifting toward Ilya’s, then pulling back, touching the hem of his own jacket instead.

Ilya turns and notices. He presses a glass into Shane’s hand. It’s filled with something amber. The ice is already sweating. Ilya leans close, mouth near his ear to be heard over the bass.

“No one here cares,” Ilya tells him, pulling back just enough to watch Shane’s face, to see if the words land or bounce off that careful shell he wears in public. “This is New York.”

He takes a slow sip of his own drink. Vodka. Some clichés exist for a reason. Ilya lets his free hand find the small of Shane’s back, palm flat and warm through the thin fabric of his shirt.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone to check your ID,” he says, mouth curving. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

Ilya’s eyebrow lifts, a small gesture that communicates volumes. His thumb traces a slow circle against Shane’s spine.

“You are many things,” he says. “Relaxed is not one of them.”

“You…” Shane sniffs the collar of his shirt. “You’ve been smoking.”

“One cigarette.” Ilya doesn’t apologize. He takes another sip of his vodka, watching Shane over the rim. “You were taking forever with your hair.”

“Do you have another?”

Ilya’s mouth twitches, something between surprise and amusement flickering across those sharp features. He reaches into his back pocket and produces a slightly crumpled pack. They’re nothing fancy, but they do have that recessed filter, a holdover habit from Moscow, and he shakes one loose, offering it to Shane.

“Since when do you smoke?”

“I… never. I’ve never tried. But I also never thought I’d be standing here with you at some nightclub in America waiting to see if Kip and Scott will show up.”

“So tonight is for new experiences.” Ilya plucks a second cigarette from the pack, tucks it between his lips. He nods toward the exit, the one that leads to the alley where smokers congregate in loose clusters. “Come. I’ll teach you how not to embarrass yourself.”

Shane rolls his eyes but trails after him. He takes a sip of his drink. A trace of orange bitters tingles his lips.

The alley air hits cool against sweat-damp skin, a relief after the press of bodies inside. Ilya finds a spot against the brick wall, away from the small knot of smokers near the door, and lights his cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter that looks incongruous against the gold chain, the careful aesthetic of him.

He holds the flame out for Shane, cupping it against the breeze. “Don’t inhale the first time. Just let the smoke sit in your mouth, then blow out.”

Shane slides a fresh cigarette from Ilya’s pack and wraps his lips around the filter. He holds it to the flame and inhales, pulling in the fire.

“I said don’t—” Ilya starts, but it’s already too late.

Shane’s lungs seize. The cough that rips out of him is ugly, graceless, his eyes watering as smoke burns through passages that have never known anything past the smoke of a campfire. He doubles over, one hand braced against the brick wall, the cigarette held out at arm’s length like it’s personally betrayed him.

“That’s—” Another cough. “That’s disgusting.”

Ilya laughs. He plucks the cigarette from Shane’s outstretched fingers before it can fall and takes a drag himself, easy and practiced.

“And this helps you relax?”

“It helps me not strangle people.” Ilya exhales a thin stream of smoke, watching it curl and dissipate against the amber glow of the streetlight. “Different problem than yours.”

“I don’t have a problem.”

Ilya looks at him with that patient expression that says he’s willing to wait as long as it takes for Shane to hear how ridiculous he sounds.

Shane sighs and finally closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to feel those perceptive eyes boring into him. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. Every day since we were last in Montreal together.”

“I know.” Ilya taps ash onto the concrete, his gaze still resting on Shane’s face. “You get quiet. You think I don’t notice, but I notice.”

“Were we too much? I figured it would be cool to have them with us at the cabin. They’re one of the few who have known about us and have been cool with it and then… we. Fuck.”

“We fucked,” Ilya agrees, blunt as ever. He takes another drag, lets the smoke sit before exhaling. “All of us. And now you are spiraling because you don’t know what it meant.”

Shane keeps his own thoughts firmly to himself. It’s too ethereal to articulate what any of this means to him. Shane pinches the bridge of his nose and the heady scent of tobacco fills his nostrils. “This shit lingers.”

“Everything does.” Ilya stubs the cigarette out against the brick, a shower of tiny sparks dying in the dark. “You want to know what I think, or you want to keep pretending this is about the smell?”

“Tell me what you’re thinking. Before they show tonight.”

Ilya turns to face him fully, shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. “I think we liked it. I think they liked it. I think you are afraid that if we name it, it becomes something you can lose.” He pauses. “I think you already care about them more than you want to.”

Shane says nothing.

Ilya nods slowly, as if the silence confirms everything he just said.

“And what do you really think of them? I mean… You’ve always been sweet on Kip but…” Shane lowers his voice to something barely above a whisper. “Scott Hunter?”

A breath of laughter escapes Ilya, low and genuine, the kind Shane rarely gets to hear in public. “Scott is... unexpected.” He runs his thumb along his jaw, choosing his words with unusual care. “He is like a wall you think is solid until you lean against it and find a door.”

“We need ground rules.”

“We need them to actually show up first.” Ilya checks his phone, the screen casting blue-white light across his features. “Then we talk like adults.”

“No, between us I mean. You and me.”

Ilya pockets the phone and gives Shane his full attention, those pale eyes steady and serious now. “Okay. Talk.”

“No teasing Scott about his age.”

“I tease him because he gets all cute when he’s flustered.” Ilya’s mouth curves, unapologetic. “But fine. What else?”

“Let’s follow their lead this time. When we were in Montreal, they followed yours. I want to make sure everyone is okay with this.”

Ilya is quiet for a moment. “You think I pushed too hard.”

“No. I think you pushed exactly right for that built-in break in all our schedules.” Shane meets his eyes. “But this isn’t them coming to us this time.”

“But they did come to us.”

Shane shakes his head. “We invited them. There’s a difference.”

Ilya considers this, the distinction settling over him. He uncrosses his arms. “Fine. Their pace. I can do that.”

“I mean it. And don’t get too handsy with Kip. He’s not built like the rest of us.”

“I am always careful with him.” Ilya’s voice borders on tender, a register Shane knows is reserved for very few people. “You think I don’t know this?”

“You know what I mean. He doesn’t play hockey.”

“He is small and beautiful and I have hands like dinner plates, yes, I understand.” Ilya holds them up, spreading his fingers in the dim light as if to demonstrate the point. “I am not an animal.”

Shane says nothing.

Ilya catches the look on Shane’s face and his eyes narrow, reading something there that Shane hasn’t said. “What.”

“Nothing.”

The name comes out weighted, the way only Ilya says it. “Shane.”

Shane exhales through his nose and looks down at his drink, swirling the last of the amber liquid against melting ice. “I just... I like how you are with him. That’s all.”

Something softens in Ilya’s face, barely perceptible unless you know where to look. He reaches out and hooks a finger through Shane’s belt loop, tugging him a half-step closer.

“Good,” he says quietly. “Because I like how you are with Scott.”

“I also like how you are with Scott.”

Ilya seems surprised, then pleased, before covering it with a slow grin. “He makes it easy. All that control he has, he just wants someone to take it from him for a little while.”

Shane gets a text. He checks his phone. “It’s Kip. They’re here.”

Ilya straightens off the wall, rolls his shoulders once. He finishes the last of his vodka in one clean swallow and sets the empty glass on a windowsill. “How do I smell?”

Shane leans in, nose brushing the curve of Ilya’s neck just below his jaw, and breathes him in. Smoke, cologne, something warm underneath that’s just Ilya.

“Like trouble,” Shane finally says, pocketing his phone.

Ilya grins, wide and wolfish, and holds the door open for him. “After you.”

Shane spots them before Ilya does.

Scott’s body is a contradiction Shane hasn’t stopped thinking about since Montreal. His hair is pushed back off his forehead in a way that looks careless but absolutely isn’t. He’s got a tapered waist, narrow enough that Ilya’s hands had nearly spanned it, and he’s wearing a white button-down with the sleeves cuffed twice at the forearm, untucked over dark trousers that taper at the ankle, and shoes that Shane clocks immediately as stupidly expensive. Scott moves through the crowd with the awareness of a guy who learned early that his looks drew attention and decided the safest response was impeccable posture and a neutral expression. 

He has the sort of face built for boardrooms. Jaw clean. Eyes scanning, landing on nothing until they land on Shane across the room, and then the mask slips for a second into something bright and young before he reassembles himself.

Kip is half a step behind him. He’s wearing a cream-colored linen shirt unbuttoned to the sternum, the fabric sheer enough to show the skin beneath. His eyes are lined just enough at the lash line to make his gaze land like a physical thing. It transforms him. Those eyes were already too intelligent. Now they’re devastating, and Kip knows it too, the way he knows which buttons to leave undone.

“They look good together,” Ilya murmurs, close enough that only Shane can hear. The proprietary note in his voice has nothing to do with jealousy.

Shane swallows. “Yeah. They do.”

Ilya places his hand on the small of Shane’s back again, grounding him this time, not guiding, and they cross the floor together.

“You started without us,” Kip says, his gaze dropping to the empty glass in Shane’s hand before lifting back up with a smile that makes the eyeliner worth every penny. “Rude.”

“Blame him,” Shane says, tipping his head toward Ilya.

“Someone needs to get this party started,” Ilya says, and his eyes move from Kip to Scott with a slow, appreciative sweep he doesn’t bother disguising. “You look good, Hunter.”

“Scott,” he corrects.

“Scott,” Ilya says, and the way his mouth shapes the name is careful, like he’s honoring a small request that costs nothing but means everything.

Kip steps forward and slides his hand along Shane’s arm, a greeting that’s somehow both casual and intimate, fingers trailing from elbow to wrist before squeezing once and letting go. “You smell like cigarettes,” he says, delighted. “Shane Hollander, smoking? What has this man done to you?”

“Corrupted me completely,” Shane says, and the honesty in it catches even him off guard.

Kip smiles and kisses him.

The press of warm lips against Shane’s is soft and sweet, tasting faintly of whatever cocktail Kip had on the way over. Shane’s hand comes up instinctively to Kip’s jaw, fingertips grazing the sharp line of it, and then it’s over.

Shane catches the look on Ilya’s face over Kip’s shoulder. There’s something quiet and hungry and deeply satisfied there.

As for Scott, he’s still watching Shane’s fingers on Kip’s jaw. He steps into Ilya’s space, close enough he must feel the heat radiating off him, and tips his chin up to meet those pale eyes. “Hi,” Scott says, and then he kisses Ilya, one hand finding the gold chain at his collar and tugging gently.

Ilya makes a low sound against Scott’s mouth, hand coming up to cup the back of his neck, thumb pressing into the tension he finds there. And God, there’s so much of it in Scott. Shane can see it from here. Ilya kisses him back, slow and thorough, then pulls back just enough to murmur against his lips, “Now go say hello to Shane.”

Shane watches him approach. He reaches out and straightens Scott’s collar, a gesture so domestic it seems to surprise them both, and he says quietly, “Hey, captain.”

Scott exhales a laugh, barely audible over the bass, and something in his shoulders loosens. “Hey yourself.” He leans in and kisses Shane. It’s different from the way he kissed Ilya, softer, almost questioning, like he’s still not sure this is something he’s allowed to have.

Shane’s hand slides to the back of Scott’s neck into the same spot Ilya found and he deepens the kiss. He feels Scott make a small, startled sound against his mouth and melt into it.

When they break apart, Kip is leaning against Ilya’s chest, Ilya’s arms draped loosely around him from behind, chin resting on the top of his head. They look like they’ve been standing that way for years.

“Drinks,” Ilya announces, not moving. “What are we having?”

“Whatever Shane was drinking,” Kip says. “I want more of that.”

“Old Fashioned,” Shane supplies. His hand is still on the back of Scott’s neck, and he makes himself let go, fingers dragging reluctantly through the short hair at his nape. Scott’s eyes flutter at the contact, a reaction so involuntary it makes Shane’s chest ache.

“Four Old Fashioneds,” Ilya decides, releasing Kip and heading for the bar.

The three of them drift toward a booth in the back corner. Kip slides in first, then Shane beside him. Scott takes the opposite bench, his knee finding Shane’s beneath the table.

Kip leans forward on his elbows, that devastating gaze moving between them. “So. Are we going to talk about it, or are we going to pretend Montreal was a fever dream for another three months?”

Shane runs his thumb along the edge of the table, tracing a knot in the wood, and looks at Scott.

Kip pulls one leg up beneath him and angles his body toward Shane, his knee touching Shane’s thigh.

Scott’s jaw works for a moment. “It wasn’t a fever dream,” he says quietly.

Soon enough Ilya returns with two Old Fashioneds held easy in one hand, his own in the other, a server trailing behind him with the remaining drinks and a shot of something that definitely isn’t an Old Fashioned. 

Ilya sets the glasses down and tips the server. 

With a flick of his wrist, Ilya reveals a lime wedge which he places between his teeth. He slides into the booth beside Scott, tips his chin up with one finger, and presses the lime to the hollow of Scott’s throat. “Hold this,” he says, and before Scott can protest, Ilya licks a stripe of salt he must have palmed from the bar along the tendon of Scott’s neck, throws back the shot, and bites the lime from Scott’s skin with his teeth, grinning against the pulse he finds there.

Scott grabs Ilya by the chain and yanks him back down, close enough their noses nearly touch. “Next time you want to use me as a garnish,” he says, voice low and steady despite the flush climbing his neck, “you ask.”

Kip reaches across the table and catches Scott’s wrist, thumb pressing gently against the pulse point. “Come here,” he says, tugging once, and his voice is soft but his eyes aren’t.

Shane catches Ilya’s eye across the table and holds it. The look he gives him is quiet, pointed, and unmistakable—what did we just talk about?

Ilya has the grace to look slightly chastened, which on him means one corner of his mouth drops by a fraction. He raises his Old Fashioned in Shane’s direction and takes a measured sip instead of throwing it back.

“You said Kip,” Ilya says, setting his glass down. “You said nothing about Scott.”

“I said their lead,” Shane says evenly, holding Ilya’s gaze without blinking. “Both of them.”

Ilya holds Shane’s gaze for a beat longer, then turns to Kip, something genuinely contrite surfacing. “Was that too much?”

Kip tilts his head, considering Ilya with those lined eyes. “It was hot,” he says honestly. “But Scott gets to decide that, not me.”

All three of them look at Scott.

Scott exhales through his nose, color still high on his cheeks, and drags a hand down his face. “It was... yeah, okay, it was hot,” he admits, and the words come out like they cost him something. “But I spent twenty years learning how to keep my shit together in public and you—” He points at Ilya with his glass. “You make that very fucking difficult.”

Ilya’s expression shifts into something unexpectedly gentle. He sets his drink down and turns his body toward Scott, giving him his full attention. “Then I will ask,” he says simply. “Every time.”

Kip watches this exchange over the rim of his glass. “Shane,” he says, turning to him with those devastating eyes wide, “how did you do this?”

“Do what?” Shane asks, though he knows exactly what Kip means.

“Train him,” Kip says, and there’s laughter in his voice but genuine wonder underneath it.

“Nobody trained me,” Ilya says, reaching for his drink. “I am naturally perfect and Shane is lucky to have me.”

Shane leans back in the booth, arm stretching along the seat behind Kip. “He’s housebroken, mostly. Still chews the furniture sometimes.”

“I chew other things,” Ilya says, and his eyes slide to Scott’s neck where the lime had been.

Kip catches the look and leans forward, chin in his hand. “Down, boy,” he says sweetly, and nudges Ilya’s shin under the table with his foot.

Ilya catches Kip’s foot between both of his under the table and holds it there. “You are very brave for someone so small.”

Kip doesn’t pull his foot back. Instead he lets it rest there, captured between Ilya’s ankles, and takes a slow sip of his Old Fashioned. “I just know you won’t break anything you want to keep,” he says, setting the glass down.

“No,” he says, his voice low enough that the bass almost swallows it. “I won’t.”

The air between the four of them settles with a bass-thumping pulsing around them. Ilya releases Kip’s foot gently, lets his knee press against Scott’s instead, and wraps both hands around his glass. “So,” he says, looking at each of them in turn, “we are here. We are not pretending Montreal didn’t happen. What do we want this to be?”

Shane traces the condensation on his glass with one finger, watching the trail of water it leaves. “You’re talking about something ongoing.”

“I am talking about what is already happening,” Ilya says. “We are just deciding whether to be honest about it.”

After enough silence passes between them, Kip suggests: “Let’s dance.”

Ilya blinks, thrown for perhaps the first time tonight, and then a slow smile breaks across his face. “Yes,” he says, and slides out of the booth, offering Kip his hand with a formality that’s half-joke, half-not.

Kip takes his hand and Ilya pulls him to his feet, easy as lifting air, and keeps their fingers laced as he glances back at the booth where Shane and Scott are still sitting. “You two can talk about your feelings,” he says. “We will be busy.”

Shane watches them disappear into the press of bodies. 

Scott, who has slid beside him, is warm and solid.

Ilya moves with an unselfconscious rhythm. One hand finds Kip’s hip, guiding without pulling, and Kip… Kip is something else entirely. He rolls into Ilya’s body like water finding a shape to fill, one hand sliding up the back of Ilya’s neck, fingers disappearing into the short hair there. 

The strobing lights catch the sheer fabric of his shirt, the line of his throat as he tips his head back, and Ilya’s mouth hovers close enough to taste but doesn’t land. Kip presses forward and Ilya gives ground just to draw him in further. At one point Kip laughs at something. Shane can see his mouth open, his eyes crinkling, and Ilya’s whole face transforms, those sharp features going soft and stunned, like he’s been handed something he didn’t know he was missing.

Shane’s chest does something complicated. He takes a drink from his Old Fashioned.

The way his fingers tighten around his glass must be what convinces Scott to shift closer until their shoulders press together, and he says, quiet enough that it’s just for them, “Walk with me.”

Shane looks at him, reads something in Scott’s face that mirrors his own restlessness, and sets his glass down. “Yeah. Okay.”

They head not toward the dance floor but toward the back of the club, past the bathrooms, through a heavy door that opens onto a rooftop patio he must have scoped out earlier, because that’s who Scott is, the kind of person who always knows where the exits are. 

The air is cool and sharp, the skyline glittering across the river, and the bass from below thrums through the concrete under their feet like a second heartbeat. Scott leans against the railing and loosens the top button of his shirt, finally breathing. “I needed you without an audience for a minute,” he says, not looking at Shane yet, looking at the city. “Is that okay?”

Shane nods.

Scott turns the glass in his hands, though it’s nearly empty now, just ice and the ghost of bourbon. “You’re the best player in the world right now,” he says, and it comes out factual, not flattering, the way one captain assesses another. “And I can’t stop thinking about the sound you made when you had my hands in your hair in Montreal.”

“How has all this been for you?” Shane asks, genuinely wanting to know, knowing full well Scott set the tone for the NHL going forward as the first player to ever come out. 

And he did so by kissing Kip on the ice after winning the Stanley Cup that one year.

Scott is quiet for a long moment, watching a barge move slow and dark on the river below. “You know,” he says. “Everyone thinks coming out was the hard part. It wasn’t. The hard part is being the symbol and the person at the same time.” He sets his empty glass on the railing. “Kip gets it. But there’s a part of this—” He gestures vaguely between them, at the door, at whatever Ilya and Kip are doing on the dance floor below. “—that he can’t understand, because he’s never laced up. He’s never had a locker room go quiet when he walks in.” Scott finally looks at Shane, and his eyes are steady but raw. “You and Ilya are the only other two people I know who know what it’s like to be this good at something and have people want to reduce you to who you fuck.”

Shane leans against the railing beside him, close enough that their arms touch. “I’m not out,” he says, and the words sit between them like a confession. “Ilya and I aren’t out. You made it possible for us to even think about it, and we still haven’t done it.”

“That’s alright. You do it when you’re ready, or you don’t do it at all. There’s no scoreboard for this.”

Shane exhales, something loosening in his chest that he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “I keep thinking about what it would mean for the league if we did. Two captains. Rivals. Together.” He turns his head to look at Scott’s profile against the skyline. “You walked so we could run, and I’m still standing at the fucking starting line. And that doesn’t even begin to cover...” Shane waves hopelessly at the space between him and Scott.

Scott turns to face him. “You don’t owe the league your personal life. I didn’t come out for activism. I came out because Kip was left standing on the ice. Literally. And I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t the reason I was holding that cup.” He reaches out and takes Shane’s wrist, thumb settling over the pulse point the same way Kip had done to him earlier, and Shane wonders if they learned that from each other. “And this... whatever this is between the four of us... this isn’t about the league either. This is just about whether we make each other’s lives better.”

“I’ve been thinking about the logistics of all this.”

Scott laughs. “Of course you have. You’re Shane Hollander. You probably have a spreadsheet.”

“I’m serious!”

“I know you are.” Scott’s thumb stills on his pulse. “That’s what I like about you. Ilya leads with his gut, Kip leads with his heart, and you and me—” He taps Shane’s wrist twice. “We need a plan. So tell me. What does your logistics problem look like?”

“Fuck.” Shane pulls away and scrubs both hands down his face. “I don’t know. Hockey comes first, shouldn’t it?”

“It does,” Scott says simply, settling into a posture Shane recognizes from post-game pressers. This is the version of Scott that breaks problems into solvable pieces. “The question is what happens in the margins. Off-seasons. Bye weeks. The hours between morning skate and puck drop when you’re alone in a hotel room in some city that isn’t yours.” He pauses. “But those hours are already full of them for you, aren’t they?”

“With Ilya? Yeah... yeah, I guess they are.”

“I meant all of us.” Scott’s voice is careful. “I meant you’re already spending those hours thinking about this. About Kip. About me.” He lets that land. “So the question isn’t whether it fits into your life. It’s whether you’re going to keep pretending it doesn’t.”

“What if we all want to...” Shane doesn’t even know if he can finish that thought. But it is a thought he has considered.

Scott waits. He doesn’t fill the silence, doesn’t rush it, just stands there with the city behind him and gives Shane the space to find the words.

Shane grips the railing and stares out at the water. “What if we all want to be... permanent.” The word comes out rough, barely audible over the bass vibrating through the floor. “I’m not talking next season. I’m talking... what if this is it. What if this is the thing. Because I look at you and Kip and I see something that works, and I look at me and Ilya and I see something that works, and then the four of us are in a room together and it’s like—” He stops, jaw tight. “The law only lets two people sign a piece of paper, Scott.”

Scott is still for a long time.

“I kissed Kip on national television,” he says finally. “You think I give a fuck about what the law says is enough?”

Shane’s knuckles go white on the railing. “Ilya and I had a plan,” he says, and his voice sounds hollow even to himself. “We were going to play out our careers, win what we could win, and then come out after. Retirement press conference, maybe a book deal, the whole clean narrative. Two rivals who were secretly together the whole time.” He swallows hard. “It was supposed to be simple. Finish hockey, start living. And then you and Kip walked into that cabin in Montreal and blew the whole timeline apart.”

“No we didn’t,” Scott says quietly. “That cabin didn’t start anything and you know it.” He turns to face Shane fully, leaning one hip against the railing. “This started at the All-Star Game three years ago when Kip made Ilya laugh so hard he spilled beer in the hotel lobby. It started when you and I sat on my balcony until four in the morning talking about forechecking systems and neither of us wanted to go inside. Montreal was just when we stopped lying about it.”

Shane opens his mouth, closes it, and looks away toward the river because Scott is right and they both know it. “Ilya needs citizenship.”

Scott blinks. The non sequitur lands between them and he catches it, turns it over, understands. “And marriage is the cleanest path.”

“That’s right.”

“So marry him.” Scott says it like it’s obvious, like it costs nothing. “Kip and I have been together for years. We’re not married either. A piece of paper doesn’t make this real.” He gestures between them, at the door, at everything. “We do.”

Shane exhales a laugh that’s mostly air. “You make it sound simple.”

“It’s not simple.” Scott’s jaw tightens. “Nothing about this is simple. I’m the openly gay captain in the league, and now I’m standing on a rooftop trying to figure out how to love three people at once without destroying everything any of us have built.”

“Did you talk to Kip about any of this before we came?”

“We’ve been talking about it since Montreal.” Scott’s mouth twists into something self-deprecating. “He’s better at this than I am. He knew before I did.”

Shane nods slowly, processing. “Ilya and I talked earlier.” He glances toward the door, thinking of Ilya’s hands on Kip’s hips somewhere below them. “I don’t think he’s following the script.”

Scott follows his gaze and huffs a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Your boyfriend has never followed a script in his life. That’s half the reason we’re here.”

Shane can’t help but laugh at that.

“Come on,” Scott says, pushing off the railing and offering Shane his hand. “Let’s go make sure he hasn’t started an incident on the dance floor.”

“Wait.”

Scott stops, hand still extended, and looks at Shane with patient attention.

“The reason why Ilya and I got a hotel room for tonight is because we wanted to see how tonight went. I didn’t want to impose, and...”

Scott’s hand drops slowly to his side. “And how do you think tonight is going?”

Shane meets his eyes. “I think I don’t want to say goodnight to you and Kip in a few hours and go back to a hotel room that’s missing half of what I want.”

Something shifts in Scott’s face. “Our place is twenty minutes from here,” he says, voice steady but quiet. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“We wouldn’t have our stuff.”

“Shane.” Scott steps closer, close enough that Shane can smell his cologne, something clean and expensive. “I have toothbrushes. Kip has enough skincare for a small army. Ilya can borrow my clothes.” His mouth curves. “Stop looking for reasons this won’t work.”

Shane takes a deep breath and gets a head rush from what little he had of his drink and cigarette.

(Maybe it isn’t any of that at all.)

They should head back inside soon.

Scott catches his elbow before he can move toward the door. “Hey.” His voice is softer now. “Thank you. For saying it out loud.”

They kiss and it’s different from before. Scott’s hand comes up to Shane’s jaw, thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, and Shane lets himself sink into it. When they break apart, Scott’s forehead rests against his for a moment, breath warm between them.

“Okay,” Scott murmurs. “Now we can go inside.”

The dance floor swallows them in heat and bodies and bass that Shane feels in his teeth. It takes a moment to find them.

Ilya has Kip pressed against him, one thigh slotted between Kip’s legs, both hands spanning the small of his back where the linen shirt has ridden up to show a sliver of skin. Kip’s head is tipped back against Ilya’s shoulder, eyes half-closed, one arm hooked around the back of Ilya’s neck. They’re barely moving now, just swaying together in a way that has nothing to do with the rhythm of the music and everything to do with each other. Ilya’s mouth is at Kip’s ear, saying something that makes Kip’s lips part on a soundless exhale, and his fingers curl tighter into the chain at Ilya’s throat.

Shane doesn’t hesitate. He cuts through the crowd with the same focus he brings to a breakaway, Scott a half-step behind him, and when he reaches them he slides his hand up Ilya’s spine and leans in close to his other ear. “Having fun without us?”

Ilya turns his head just enough to catch Shane’s mouth in a brief, filthy kiss. “You were taking too long,” he says against his lips, unrepentant, but his hand reaches back to find Scott’s hip and pull him into their orbit.

Scott fits against Ilya’s side like he was made for the space, and Kip’s eyes flutter open at the shift in weight, focusing on Shane with something dazed and delighted.

“There you are,” Kip says, voice barely carrying over the bass. He reaches out and catches Shane’s belt loop, tugging him closer until Shane is pressed against his front, Ilya warm and solid at his back. “We were starting to think you’d left.”

“Just needed some air,” Shane says, and his hands find Kip’s waist, thumbs settling into the hollows of his hips.

Kip’s smile is knowing, his eyes still devastating with that smudged liner. “It’s fine.”

Shane huffs a laugh against Kip’s temple.

Kip reaches up and smooths his thumb between Shane’s eyebrows. “When you’re thinking too much, you get a little crease here. Ilya gets loud when he’s processing. But you get quiet and furrowed.”

Behind him, Shane feels Ilya’s chest vibrate with a low laugh. “It’s because he is sea otter.”

Scott snorts.

The four of them fall in sync on the dance floor, moving together in a way that shouldn’t work but does. Scott’s hand is on Shane’s hip, Ilya’s arm is around Scott’s waist, and Kip is threaded through all of them like the stitch holding the seam together. Shane can feel Kip’s chest against his, Ilya’s breath on his neck, Scott’s fingers tracing absent patterns through the fabric of his shirt.

“Scott says we can stay at your place tonight,” Shane says into Kip’s ear, and he feels rather than sees the way Kip’s breath catches.

Kip pulls back just enough to look at him, those lined eyes searching Shane’s face for something. Whatever he finds there makes his expression soften into something unguarded and young. “Yeah?”

“If that’s—I mean, we don’t have to—”

“Shane.” Kip takes his face in both hands, palms cool against his flushed cheeks. “We’ve been wondering why the hell you two booked a place for yourself after Montreal when we offered you to stay with us.”

Shane’s eyes dart over Kip’s shoulder, scanning the crowd with the same peripheral awareness that makes him lethal on the ice. Two women near the bar are watching them. A guy with a phone angled in their direction—just taking a selfie, maybe, or maybe not. Three NHL captains in one cluster, touching each other like this, in public, in New York.

“People are looking,” he murmurs, and he hates how small it sounds.

Ilya doesn’t even glance around. “Of course they are looking. Four beautiful people dancing together. This is not news.” He shifts his weight, pulling them all tighter. “Besides, we are in a nightclub. We could start a mosh pit and no one would remember our faces tomorrow.”

Kip must feel the tension thread through Shane’s body, because he presses his forehead to Shane’s collarbone so that anyone watching just sees two people dancing, nothing identifiable, nothing quotable. “I spent six years studying how people look at things,” he says against Shane’s chest. “Nobody here is seeing what you think they’re seeing.”

Shane closes his eyes and lets himself breathe against the top of Kip’s head, smelling something warm and herbal in his hair. “Okay,” he says, and it comes out steadier than he feels. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

Scott is already moving, one hand finding the small of Kip’s back, the other pulling out his phone to call a car. “Five minutes,” he says, pocketing the phone. “Back entrance.”

Ilya watches Scott navigate toward the back exit, and Shane can see the moment when something in Ilya bristles. Not unpleasantly, but noticeably, the way a dog’s hackles rise at the sound of another dog’s bark. He is not used to someone else calling the play.

Shane catches his arm. “Their lead,” he says quietly, just for Ilya. “Remember?”

Ilya exhales through his nose, jaw working once, and then nods. “I remember,” he says, and lets Shane steer him toward the door.

As they funnel through the narrow corridor toward the back exit, Ilya lets his hand slide from the small of Scott’s back down to his ass and squeezes once. “Following your lead,” he murmurs against the back of Scott’s ear. “Just making sure you know I’m here.”

Scott doesn’t break stride, but his hand shoots back and catches Ilya’s wrist, relocating it firmly to his hip. “I always know you’re here,” he says without turning around. “You’re impossible to ignore.”

Ilya grins in the dark of the corridor, and Shane catches that flash of teeth, the way his eyes go bright when someone matches him.

Kip slips his hand into Shane’s as they step into the cool night air, lacing their fingers together. The car is already pulling up, black and discreet, and he watches Ilya and Scott negotiate the door.

Scott holds it open. Ilya refuses to go first. There’s this silent standoff that lasts exactly two seconds before Kip says, “Oh for God’s sake,” and slides in past both of them.

Ilya laughs and folds himself into the car after Kip, pulling Shane in by the hand.

Scott gives the driver the address and settles into the seat, Kip already curled against the window while Shane’s knee is pressed warm against Ilya’s. The city streams past the windows in ribbons of light.

Ilya reaches across the seat and takes Scott’s hand, then Shane’s, holding one in each palm, and looks at Kip. 

“In Russia,” Ilya says quietly, the accent surfacing the way it does when something matters, “there is word. Rodnye. It means the people who are yours. Not by law. Not by blood. Just yours.” He squeezes both hands once. “I think that is what this is.”

“Rodnye,” Kip repeats, and his pronunciation is terrible, Shane knows, but Ilya’s eyes go soft anyway. “I like that.”

“You would,” Ilya says. “You collect words like other people collect... what is it you collect? Paintbrushes?”

“Moments,” Kip says. “I collect moments.”

Ilya is quiet for a beat, his thumb tracing across Shane’s knuckles. “Then I hope we give you good ones to keep.”