Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, David Hollander, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Angst, Established Relationship, Shane is his mother's son, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-27 Completed: 2026-05-09 Words: 40,356 Chapters: 5/5

Plausible Deniability

Summary

Getting information out of Ilya about his family was like getting blood from stone. Maybe harder. It had been one of the first things Shane had noticed about him. Any questions about his parents – the kind of typical things Shane’s mom had taught him to ask to make polite conversations – would result in brusque, emotionless answers or, worse, actual anger.

But somewhere out there was Irina’s granddaughter. The only remaining blood relative that Ilya gave a shit about.

And Ilya could never go back, which was Shane’s fault.

So that bothered him.

Notes

A confusing mix of TV-canon and book canon, both Heated Rivalry and TLG, as well as some made up stuff.

I know absolutely nothing about hockey.

Chapter 1: 2018

Shane spotted the broad shoulders and unfortunately distinctive buzzcut of the Tampa rookie he had been trying to get alone for the last twelve hours and sprung into action. “Hey, Kuznetsov, wait up!”

Kuznetsov stopped and looked around. His eyes widened as he saw Shane jogging towards him across the hotel lobby. “Ah. Yes? Shane Hollander?”

“Hey,” Shane said, again, when they were close enough to speak at a regular volume. He smiled. He hoped it look normal. “Good night last night?”

“Ah… I did not win.”

“No. I meant. With your fellow rookies.” For obvious reasons – namely the man who was upstairs, snoozing in the giant bed of Shane’s suite – Shane had left the awards as soon as he could so he had no idea if Kuznetsov had taken advantage of the free drinks.

He moved on quickly, as Kuznetsov’s expression began to look faintly worried, no doubt wondering if this was some kind of wind-up. “Your agent is still Matveev, right?”

“Ah. Yes?”

“Cool. Can I get his number from you?”

“You want— my agent’s number?” he asked. He glanced behind Shane, maybe looking for a camera crew or something ready to punk him.

“Yup.”

And Shane waited. He waited patiently, eyebrows raised and with an air of expectation. He used this on the rookies in his team all the time. Because – and this was not a thought he would ever verbalize – he was Shane fucking Hollander.

“Um. Okie,” Kuznetsov said, pulling out his cell phone. He was flushing a little and he glanced up at Shane a couple of times as he thumbed through his contacts. “Why you want?”

“For reasons.” Shane made a ‘gimme’ gesture with his hand – he really didn’t have all the time in the world – and Kuznetsov handed over his phone obediently.

Matveev’s name was written in Cyrillic, but it was at least one of those words that looked vaguely recognizable so he didn’t have to worry that Kuznetsov was palming him off on someone random.

Shane typed the numbers quickly – both the US one and the one with the Russian area code. He handed the phone back. “Thanks, man. See you around.”

“Um. Okie,” Kuznetsov said again, none the wiser from the interaction but clearly glad it was over.

Shane lifted a hand and jogged back to the Starbucks in the lobby and ordered his espresso and the sugary monstrosity Ilya had requested, before heading back upstairs, carrying a secret in his pocket.

*

A story had broken, few weeks back, the kind of gossipy story that Shane usually ignored but now – his ears pricked for the slightest whisper of a rumor about him, and Ilya – he found himself accidentally following along.

The center from Philly had – according to unnamed sources – got a girl pregnant and the story was now circulating in the press. It had caused a real stir, starting off with whispers that grew into a crescendo. Hayden said the WAGs group was up in arms, as said center was married with kids and the ‘girl’ really was a girl. Only just eighteen to his thirty-three. And there were allegedly other young women in the picture. Apparently, the wife’s message to her own team group chat had been forwarded along to all the other WAGs chats – confirming the story and their impending divorce. 

He’d mentioned the news to Ilya, off-hand, when he’d been in Boston for the weekend. They’d been meal prepping because Shane liked the idea of leaving Ilya with a freezer of meals they’d cooked together, particularly just before playoffs. Otherwise he suspected Ilya would resort to take-out and wasn’t always particular about the health implications.

And it was cozy, in Ilya’s kitchen, with the lights on low and music faint in the background. Domestic.

Ilya had snorted as he diced onion finely. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet. “His agent should have done his job better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Story should not have got out.” He shrugged and then sniffed, wiped one streaming eye with the back of his hand. “Fuck. Hollander, can you take over?”

Shane’s mouth twitched and they switched. His eyes didn’t water as much but Ilya refused to give in, some stubborn belief that repeated exposure would overcome biology. “I’m not sure what his agent could have done.”

Ilya blew his nose with kitchen towel, washed his hands and then returned to chopping vegetables. “My old agent would have squashed it.”

“Er. What?”

“The girl will have asked for money. Before. Agent should have sorted it.” Ilya waved the knife around. “NDA and so on.”

Shane had an agent. Farah. She was responsible for most of his contract negotiation as well as some stuff to do with his lawyers. But his situation was a little unconventional as his mom managed many of the other responsibilities that might normally sit in an agent’s purview, like his sponsorships and public relations. She’d had her own PR agency, when he’d been a kid, and sold the business when it became clear that Shane was going professional. He trusted her to manage his brand.

A squirmy feeling manifested in his belly. He pushed the onions into the pan, alongside Ilya’s neatly diced carrots and celery. He added some salt. “Have you, ah, ever had any stories squashed before?”

Ilya smirked. “Da.”

“Oh.”

“Not babies, Hollander.” He sidled up behind him and put his arms about Shane’s waist, nuzzling his cheek as Shane stirred the vegetables in the pan. His shoulders relaxed, maybe a millimeter. No devastating secret Ilya babies. Great. “But stupid things. Drunk bar fight. Small car accident.”

The breath Shane sucked in was loud. “A car accident? When was this?”

“Mmm. Rookie year. I wasn’t hurt.” The nuzzle became a kiss to the edge of his jaw. “The car was write-off, though.”

“That doesn’t sound small.” He knew those cars were bad news.

“It was. Do not worry.” He tapped Shane’s hip and stepped away. “We forget garlic.”

Shane chewed his bottom lip, thinking. “So. What. Your agent just – fixed it?” 

“Da. Bribes, probably. Maybe sold a better story.” He peeled a couple of garlic gloves. “Oh, once, he got a private investigator to prove I hadn’t been somewhere I should not be.” Ilya smiled. “He was good man. Sometimes I miss him.”

This was a lot of information for Shane to take in. He missed his old agent? Bribes? A private investigator? He didn’t know what to attack first until paranoia got the better of him. “Where were you not supposed to be?”

“This was back in Russia. My coach cited me in his divorce.”

“What?”

Ilya snickered. “It was lie. I am not housebreaker.”

“Homewrecker,” Shane corrected absently. “But you— you would have been a teenager. Wait. Your coach? As in—” Shane’s eyes widened. Surely not the same coach whose son was Ilya’s first… he wasn’t sure what to call it, even in his head. Not boyfriend. Lover? Ugh.

Ilya shook his head quickly and scraped the diced garlic into the pan, the aroma blooming under Shane’s slow-moving spatula. “Different coach.”

“Right,” said Shane. Of course.

*

Shane sent a message to both the US and Russian cell phone numbers. It was simple. Hi, this is Shane Hollander. Kuznetsov gave me your number. Can you give me a call at your earliest convenience, please?

And then he put his cell phone under his pillow and had a little panic attack about it.

*

Getting information out of Ilya about his family was like getting blood from stone. Maybe harder. It had been one of the first things Shane had noticed about him. Any questions about his parents – the kind of typical things Shane’s mom had taught him to ask to make polite conversations – would result in brusque, emotionless answers or, worse, actual anger.

As of yet Shane had found no technique for making this better and so he had to accept the occasional nugget that was thrown his way and roll with it.

The subject of their finances had come up a few times, after they’d firmed up their plans to commit to each other. Shane hadn’t exactly expected Ilya to be bad with money – he owned a couple of properties in Boston and the sports cars were, in their own way, an investment – but he’d been surprised to discover that Ilya had a trust set aside for his niece.

“That’s nice of you.”

Ilya shrugged, a movement that bobbed Shane’s head up and down as they were lying on the couch looking at Zillow. They – or, rather, Ilya, was going to hire an estate agent when he moved to Ottawa – but it was a fun activity to search online to get an idea of what they liked for when he did buy. After all, Shane was going to visit regularly. Maybe live there, too. Some day. “I can never go back. Was the only way I could ensure she is taken care of. My agent helped. My old one.”

“Her parents don’t make a lot of money?” Shane wasn’t exactly sure what a cop might earn in Russia. Presumably not a lot, like in Canada. “Her mom doesn’t work?”

Something vibrated through Ilya’s body. “Ah, no. I don’t know. I don’t think so? I do not know her well.” He sounded unsettled by this. “And my brother— Alexei is… bad at his job.” Shane tilted his head up to see Ilya’s lip curled with disgust. “I would not be surprised that he does not have it anymore. Only thing keeping him there was my father’s legacy.”

What legacy was that? Shane wondered. “That doesn’t sound great.”

“No. Do we want stables?”

Storytime was over, then. “We do not.”

*

Ilya’s niece… bothered Shane.

Not all the time. After all, a lot of things bothered Shane these days, more than whether he was winning hockey games or not. His life was now a complicated matrix of worries, of planning for so many worst-case scenarios that adding Ilya’s niece to the mix was just one of many small parts to that matrix.

But sometimes Shane would lie awake and be bothered about her. And his mind worked it over and over. Ilya was his now. And whilst Shane had absolutely no emotional connection to Alexei, who was hateful and, he suspected, abusive, he had somehow developed some semblance of connection to Ilya’s niece.

He had no idea how old she was. Or her name.

But somewhere out there was Irina’s granddaughter. The only remaining blood relative that Ilya gave a shit about.

And Ilya could never go back, which was Shane’s fault.

So that bothered him.

*

Matveev called him in the morning, as Shane was walking to his car after morning skate. “Mr. Hollander, what can I do for you?” said an expressive, only lightly-accented voice.

“Ah. Yeah. Thanks for giving me a call. Appreciate it.” Shane wiped his suddenly sweaty palm on his track pants. He’d prepared to have this call, of course, but now the reality was here he was struggling to remember his notes. “You used to be Ilya Rozanov’s agent, right?”

He laughed, “For my sins.”

“He has said lots of positive things about you.”

“He has? To you?”

Shane winced. “One sec. I’m just getting into my car.” And he desperately wanted to be. He wanted to close the doors and seal this conversation in a soundproof environment.

With the door closed behind him, Shane rested his cell on the dash and took a deep breath. “Where was I?”

“You were telling me that you and your long-term rival have discussed me.”

As always, the suggestion that someone knew he and Ilya talked led to a shiver of fear running up Shane’s spine. He had to control the need to deny it. “Yes, yes, we have. And I’m sure you’re well aware that our rivalry is mostly the media and Rozanov’s shit-stirring. We’re actually kind of friendly these days.”

“Friendly?” Matveev barked out a surprised, loud laugh. Then he laughed again, a second wave of amusement. “What can I do for you, Hollander?”

“I want some advice. Non-hockey related advice.”

“Okay?”

“You helped Rozanov set up a trust for his niece, right?”

“You know this?” The laugh in the voice disappeared.

“We were drunk at a party.”

“Ah.” A syllable that said much.

“He said he doesn’t speak to his brother. So he doesn’t know anything about his niece. And I got the feeling that he would like to?” Shane didn’t mean to make it sound like a question but the more he stretched his lie, the less confident he got. He was bad at lying.

“I see.”

It was obvious from the tone that he didn’t see.

Shane sighed. “What I want to ask was is there a way that Rozanov could, like, check up on her? Without anyone knowing that he was? To make sure she’s being looked after. His dad was an asshole—”

“He told you this too.”

He pulled out the big guns. “There was a lot of vodka. I think he was feeling sentimental.”

“I see.”

“It was weird for me too, believe me.” Shane laughed nervously.

“Hmm.”

Slowly, he leaned forward until his head touched the wheel. This had been a mistake. “I just feel bad,” he said quietly, which was not a lie.

“Ilya can be surprisingly disarming, it’s true,” Matveev said thoughtfully. 

Disarming. That was a good description for Ilya.

“Well. I can’t say this conversation has gone in any direction that I imagined.” The laughing voice came back. “But the media haven’t exaggerated you, at least. You really are a prince, Hollander.”

Huh?

“I’ll look into it. It’ll cost you, though.”

“I guessed.”

“And I take it this is something you want to remain confidential?”

“Yes. Please.” Maybe he should have started with that. That whatever it was that they were doing here would remain confidential.

“I’ll send you some paperwork. I will have a fee.”

“I’m sure it’ll be reasonable.”

Matveev laughed again, that same sudden bark. “Pleasure doing business with you, Shane Hollander!”

*

Matveev sent him an initial e-invoice with a single line item – an exorbitant consultation fee – and then an attached NDA which he had pre-signed. Shane read everything, comparing it to the one he had with Farah and finding it similar with some key differences, including a longer confidentiality clause survival period and secure communication protocols. With a degree of reckless hysteria that he associated with his entire relationship with Ilya, Shane signed where he was supposed to and sent it back along with the money.

The next document Matveev sent over was a scope of work which required a password to unlock and made Shane’s ears burn.

Fuck. Was he really doing this?

He read, re-read and re-read the scope of work, then looked at the estimate for said scope of work, and then went to have a little lie down.

Ilya’s niece was called Anna. She was not quite eight.

Later that evening, after a rare beer, Shane signed off the scope of work and sent it off to Matveev.

*

Shane actually didn’t think about it after that. Well, he thought about it, and then he shut down thinking about it which was easy to do because he was both very good at that and also very busy.

They spent the off-season at the cottage, mostly off-grid, as the social media reaction from Boston fans after Ilya signing to Ottawa was not good. Though he denied it, he knew this fucked Ilya over a little bit. As much as Ilya got fired up from crowds booing his name on the ice, in Boston he was used to being their most loved celebrity menace and the vitriol forced him to turn off his comments.

Plus, there was all the work for the launch of the foundation which meant many long meetings with his mom, one hand on Ilya’s jiggling knee, and in the back of his mind, Shane knew he had to come out to his team – had to, like it was an itch that he needed to scratch – and he was constantly re-thinking how he might do that. And talking himself out of chickening out.

So, busy.

He returned to Montreal in September for pre-season training, and for the first time it felt like he wasn’t mentally ready. Nor, exactly, thrilled to be back. Ilya was now only two hours away instead of a plane ride but even then, after they had mapped their time together, that still meant there would sometimes be weeks between seeing one another. Almost as if the NHL had purposefully designed their schedules to continuously clash.

When Shane had imagined this plan coming to fruition, seeing each other at least once a month had seemed lifechanging. To even spend the night together had sounded like a dream. But it was astonishing how quickly that paled in comparison to the summer. Now, it might be one or – if they were lucky - two nights every three weeks. And that didn’t take into account that both of them had sponsorships and brand deals to consider as well as all the extra-curricular activities their teams scheduled – visits to children’s wards, community programs. Hell, even obligatory team activities. It seemed as if half the team were getting married this year and they were all fucking destination weddings.

Jesus.

It wasn’t enough. But it had to be.

*

The email arrived a couple of weeks later, just before 10pm, when he was in bed. Shane’s solution to the nagging sense of wrongness about this season had been to throw himself into training, aggressively, and he had just said goodnight to Ilya on Facetime, both of them giggling as each time one yawned, the other would catch it, and the cycle would begin again.

He was feeling pretty relaxed, so he clicked on the unfamiliar name in his inbox without thinking too much about it.

 

Dear Mr Hollander,

Hope this email finds you well.

Attached is the requested report.

Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.

Regards

Ivan

 

On first read, he thought it might be some sophisticated spam but he double checked the email address and saw it had come from Matveev’s agency. He’d forgotten. “Oh fuck.”

There was a PDF attachment. He tapped on it and was immediately asked for a password. He then had to rifle through his notes app to find where he’d written it down. Tapping out the letters and numbers, the document finally opened.

The first page was entitled ‘Anna Rozanova’ followed by ‘Executive Summary’. There were a few paragraphs and Shane skimmed over this, noting that whomever had written it wasn’t a native English speaker. But the gist was that this initial report captured the detailed findings surrounding Anna Rozanova , including her daily activities (weekday and weekends), her family and relationships with her family, her friends, her education and her hobbies.

The document was twenty-five pages.

Twenty-five pages.

He hovered over the close button. Now, with time passing, Shane was beginning to think – to know – that this was a Very Bad Idea. Like. If Ilya knew what he had done he would be seriously pissed.

Not an unreasonable reaction, either.

But maybe he could just take a quick look? After all the damage was done. And maybe everything was just fine and great with his niece. Maybe his brother had got a promotion. Maybe they were happy and Ilya didn’t need to be worried. Not that he was worried. Mostly it was Shane that worried.

Shane clicked on.

On the next page he was greeted with a photo of Ilya’s niece, something like a posed school photo.

By this point, Shane had not seen a single photograph of Ilya as a child but he had imagined it – the blonde hair blonder, the sharp cheekbones more rounded – but Anna Rozanova did not look anything like Ilya. Her hair was long and dark, her face narrow. Her eyes were brown. She had a serious little nose dotted with a few freckles and a heart-shaped mouth.

She looked, Shane thought, a little sad. Something about the eyes. Sometimes Ilya looked a little sad.

The next page was a copy of her birth certificate. Which felt… weird. It was all in Russian so Shane couldn’t really understand anything and he moved on, not sure about the legality of having a copy of someone’s birth certificate. Particularly a kid’s.

The next page was a table of basic info, this time in English. Anna’s full name – her middle name was Alekseyevna which Shane knew was a Russian naming convention. Her age, date of birth, where she had been born. The names of her parents, her grandparents (deceased on both sides). Ilya was listed as an uncle with estranged in brackets but her mother - Sofya Volkova – had no siblings. Neither did Anna.

Clicking on, Shane found himself immersed in details about Anna’s parents which he hadn’t expected. Like Anna, there were photos. Alexei in some uniform. One looked official. The rest were candid shots, clearly taken out and about during the workday. He smoked. He liked a drink after work. He did not have Ilya’s looks. There was a small biography. According to this report, he had been born four months after his parents were married. Irina had been seventeen, Grigori thirty-six which was, frankly, a bit gross. Alexei was a little shit at school. Lots of fights. He’d got sent to some expensive military boarding school when he was thirteen and left at eighteen with – as the investigator put it – ‘little honors’.

Whilst this was fascinating – obviously Ilya had told him none of this – the sense that this was very wrong washed over him once more. He felt as if he was dipping into Ilya’s past without his permission. Which he was.

He flicked quickly forward in the document, past the pages about Alexei’s employment history, past the pages about Anna’s mother, and skimmed over a typical day for Anna. What school she went to, her lessons, her friends. There were a few more photos, all clearly taken from a distance – which was super creepy – and then there were pages of drawings and blocks of handwriting. Was this… was this copies of her schoolwork? Holy shit, he’d been sent Anna’s actual schoolwork. And then a report card. “How the hell…”

Grimacing, he clicked on, quickly, to the final pages. Which included what looked like bank statements. Credit card bills. Other financial documents that were in Russian but all had big minus numbers on them. There were some bills with a stamp that even without the language Shane could tell were unpaid and urgent.

Helpfully, there was a summary of the key points at the end, with a traffic light system.

Amber: the Rozanovs financial circumstances are tight. They live beyond their means. They plan to sell their apartment – the apartment Ilya Rosanov had gifted his brother – to pay off their debts. Should they do so, and downsize appropriately, they will be in a better financial position.

Shane had forgotten that Ilya had given up his apartment. He wondered if he would be pissed to find out his brother was selling it.

Green: Anna is healthy, attends school every day, and is doing well – 5s across the board. Her favorite subject is music and she plays the flute extremely well, taking additional lessons to master the art.

Shane sighed. Okay. He clicked on to the final page entitled ‘Next steps’. The investigator apparently wanted to know if Shane (‘the client’) would prefer quarterly, bi-monthly, or monthly updates on Anna Rozanova.

The client hadn’t thought about this. The client was kind of creeped out by the whole thing, actually, and regretting his life choices.

Slumped on his side, Shane typed a variety of responses to Ivan.

Quarterly is fine. Also – can you ask them not to take the photos. And I don’t want copies of her school work.

I just want to know if she’s safe.

This wasn’t working. Shane sat up properly.

Hi Ivan

Thanks. This is very comprehensive.

The objective of this exercise is a light-touch well-being check.

Going forward I think a short summary of the family finances and anything that impacts Anna’s home and school life will be sufficient. I liked the traffic light system. Photographs of Anna and copies of her homework are not necessary.

Quarterly updates are preferred – unless there is a significant change (e.g. health related) in which case I would like to be informed.

Thanks

Shane

The response whooshed off. And Shane archived the original email and deployed his well-honed ability to repress guilty thoughts with the intention of not thinking about this ever again. Or least for another three months.

Fuck.

*

Coming out to his team went about as well as he had expected it to.

His mom had tried to tell him he might be surprised - because her love for the Metros apparently could conquer even her deeply strategic and cynical brain - and, God, how Shane wanted to have that kind of hope. Wanted to believe that it was possible the team he had loved for all his adult life loved him enough to put aside any opinions they might have about his sexuality. That something that was so fundamentally irrelevant to their actual jobs could be compartmentalized if not ignored.

He did it after practice, a couple of days after a strong win. Everyone was in a good mood that, naturally, evaporated after Shane cleared his throat, asked for their attention, and announced that he liked men.

He could feel Hayden and JJ vibrating at his side, protectively. Both of them had been let into the secret early, a deliberate strategy on Shane’s part because they were popular with the younger members of the team, so could lead by example, and he knew they would have his back with the vets.

And yes, theoretically they were two of his closest friends. Two friends who had no idea Shane was fucking Ilya fucking Rozanov, was in love with Ilya fucking Rozanov. 

It was the vets who were going to be the problem. Shane knew his people well, which was why he met Comeau’s eyes face on.

“This isn’t a joke? You’re a fucking queer?” Comeau could not have looked more repulsed and at his side, his jersey now clutched to his bare chest, Drapeau’s mouth was open. The epitome of gobsmacked.

“Yup,” Shane said.

Hayden put his hand on Shane’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thanks for telling us, Shane.”

JJ nodded, frantically. “Yes, mon ami. It is good you told us. We are your team.”

“What the fuck,” said O’Conner, blurting it out like he couldn’t help it. Maybe it wasn’t aggressive but out of the corner of his eye Shane saw JJ flinch.

Shane took a deep breath and exhaled it. Calm. He was a well of fucking calm. A well of vomit, actually, he wanted to throw up and probably would, later. He hadn’t eaten since last night, just in case. He was a little woozy after training. “I know this might come as a surprise—”

O’Conner waved a hand to get him to stop. “But you dated Rose Landry.”

Because of course, no gay man in history had ever dated a woman. Shane could have laughed. He had a fleeting thought that he would enjoy telling that part of story to the woman herself, later. That maybe they might laugh about it together.

“Yeah, she was pretty much the nail in the, ah, straight coffin for me,” Shane admitted ruefully, letting them all in, a little more. Just sliced himself open for them to watch him bleed.

“Christ.” Drapeau seemed to notice he was still partially undressed. He pulled on a T-shirt, even though he was still damp from the shower and had to struggle to get the cloth over his body.

Shane hadn’t showered yet. He’d thought it best not to. Sweat was clinging to his skin, salt crystalizing. His skin was so sensitive he could almost feel the individual crystals. If he licked his lips, he’d taste it.

One by one, the rest of the team started to move again, fumbling to dress themselves. No one was really speaking but they were certainly all giving each other side-eye, trying to work out what side everyone was falling. Lines had been drawn without words.

“Okay,” Shane nodded, as it appeared that was all he was going to get after, oh, more than a decade of repression. “I’ll see you all for practice tomorrow.”

“Wait, wait.” Hayden said, putting his hand on Shane’s shoulder again. He hadn’t noticed it drop away. “I think, maybe, we should all consider this a private matter. Between brothers. Yeah?”

Shane could have kissed him. But not, obviously. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”

“You’re not— ah, coming out? Then? Publicly?” one of the Rookies – Baz – said nervously.

Shane shook his head. “Not at this time.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Comeau muttered, his back to Shane.

And that was it.

*

Ilya was at the apartment when he got home. He wasn’t supposed to be. This wasn’t one of their together days, highlighted in happy orange on their joint calendar. He couldn’t remember why. Probably he had a game tomorrow. 

The relief was immense. He’d been dreading going home to an empty apartment, his hands shaking on the wheel. Calling Ilya – which he’d thought was his only option – wasn’t going to be enough and he’d started to worry if he did, it would only be to ugly cry on Facetime.

But he was here. His beaten-up Nikes were on the shoe rack by the door, a lone wolf amongst all the Reeboks that Shane kept forgetting to wear. His keys were on the bowl on the counter, distinguished by the little loon keyring Shane had given him for Russian Christmas.

And the man himself was standing by the couch, in a rumpled old Raiders T-shirt that he had left here and a pair of Shane’s sweatpants. “Shane,” he said, tenderly.

Shane walked straight into him and practically climbed him like a tree. “Hold me tight,” he instructed as Ilya hoisted him up, hands sure on his thighs.

Ilya walked them to the couch and toppled them over, landing so solidly on top of Shane that his breath left his body in a whoosh.

But it was exactly what he wanted. To be crushed by love.

For a moment he let himself be held tightly, Ilya’s nose pressed into his neck. Shane inhaled deeply. The smell of him. Fuck. It was so fucking good.

Then Shane grabbed fistfuls of Ilya’s hair and tugged so that he could meet his eyes. His own eyes burned. “I love you. So much. But I hate that I’m gay,” he blurted out, though that wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t something he could articulate well. Being gay and being in love with Ilya were so intertwined he couldn’t separate them. He couldn’t conceive of not loving Ilya, ergo he couldn’t truly hate to be gay.

It was a conundrum.

Sympathetically, Ilya kissed him, lightly. “I understand.”

“And I hate that we have to do this.”

“Me too.”

“Today was shit.”

Ilya nodded and propped himself up on an elbow. With the dying light from the floor to ceiling windows behind, his irises looked the stormiest of blues. God. He was so beautiful. Sometimes, often, it really took Shane’s breath away.

“So, they were bad?” Ilya asked. His thumb tenderly traced the high points of Shane’s cheeks.

Shane thought about all the ways it could have gone. He had considered them all. From being screamed at to being punched in the face. From being totally shut out to being fired. Well, that could still come. “It was— bad in a subtextual way.”

Ilya’s eyebrows rose the way they did when Shane used a word that he didn’t totally understand.

He loosened his hold on Ilya’s curls but didn’t quite let go. He petted them instead, pressing his thumbs into Ilya’s scalp in a way that made him push into him like a cat. “Sorry. Subtext is like the words beneath. There were a lot of unpleasant things not said,” was Shane’s better explanation. Ilya nodded. “I think… they didn’t want to think about it.”

But they would think about it. Shane knew there would be repercussions. Right now, there was probably a series of smaller messaging groups, splinters from the eerily silent main group chat. Someone, somewhere, was saying shit about him. Disgusting shit about his proclivities. He had heard enough in the locker room, on the ice, that told him that.

“Who was worst?”

“I’m not telling you. I don’t want you picking fights.” Just what he needed. Ilya inexplicably pounding Cormeau into pulp at their next game.

Ilya’s grin was very toothy. Not entirely friendly. “So boring, Hollander.” His face shifted back to soft-eyed concern. “Did anyone say anything good?”

“No. Well. I mean, Hayden and JJ did.” The corner of his mouth lifted. The one bright spark in all of this, admittedly mired by the secret he was still keeping from them. “They had obviously practiced.” Honestly, he should do something to thank them. Should he send them something? A gift basket? Crate of beer? Thanks for supporting me in my gay crisis, guys!

“And Theriault?”

Shane grimaced. “I went to see him after, in the end. Privately.”

It had been the right, if awful, choice. He’d debated, a little, about going to see him first – out of respect – but he’d worried that if Theriault had asked him not to tell the team, he might have given in. Shane was almost compulsively hierarchical. Ilya said he just liked to do what he was told, and he hadn’t said it in a joking way. “He was shocked.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. The image of Theriault’s blustering, red face would probably live with him until he retired. “And angry. He wanted to know if I was going public. They don’t want an ‘out’ hockey player on the team, obviously.”

Shane’s plan, discussed at length with Ilya and his parents, was kind of a soft launch approach. He would tell the team and after a while word would spread. He wouldn’t do anything to encourage it but he knew wives and girlfriends would be told. Rumors would swirl, rumors he wouldn’t confirm or deny. Provided he didn’t do anything stupid like kiss a man in public, that would be all they would be, until he and Ilya came out together. He was prepared for no comment to be his most used phrase.

He planned on his team not to want it to be public knowledge that their captain was gay. In a way, he was relying on the intrinsic homophobia at the heart of hockey to keep his secret.

Which was fucked.

Ilya leaned down to kiss him. “You were very brave, solnyshko. I am so proud of you.”

As always, the endearment set off a blooming, warm feeling in Shane’s chest, though he admitted in a small voice, “I don’t feel very sunshine-y.”

“You are always the sun to me,” Ilya whispered, kissing him again.

*

For now, Shane was extra careful at work. Skating around the eggshells. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him all the time and kept walking into conversations that turned abruptly silent, conversations that were clearly about him and no one was really pretending they weren’t by strumming up a fake smile and a ‘hey, Captain’. No one had actually said anything to his face yet but the rumblings were there, a threatening thunderstorm in the distance.

He’d always been careful anyway – keeping his eyes up and averted in the locker room, in the showers – but now he made sure he came in last from the ice, showered after everyone else, or not at all. The back of his neck prickled, like he was being hunted.

He went for a drink with Hayden, after work, and stared down at his untouched beer, rotating the bottle with his fingers. “Have you heard anything?”

Hayden shook his head. “No. One of the rookies – Peterson – asked if I knew before but that was it.”

“What did you say?”

“That you’d told me a couple of weeks ago, and it was really difficult for you, but I didn’t give a fuck that you were gay because it had nothing to do with hockey.” Shane’s mouth twitched at how earnest Hayden was, even though he’d lowered his voice when he’d said the word ‘gay’. Like it was a bad word. “But his sister is gay. A lesbian,” Hayden said with sudden brightness. “So maybe he’s okay about it?”

“Dunno.” To be honest, Shane didn’t really give a shit about what the rookies thought of him, which wasn’t a captain-ly thing to think and wasn’t something he was going to share with Hayden. It was his job to look out for the rookies. Correct their form. Make sure they didn’t do stupid stuff (like, too much drink or drugs, not, like, oh, fucking someone on an opposing team like a fucking idiot). It wasn’t their job to think about Shane’s personal life. “Does he like his sister?”

“He didn’t mention.”

Shane took a sip of his beer and wished he’d ordered a ginger ale. He turned his mind to the game on Thursday. Practice had been… fine. In his more hopeful moments – he did have them – he wondered if the awkwardness was all in his head. Everyone was doing their jobs. They were a dynasty. That Shane loved taking it up the ass was neither here nor there.

He leaned back, thunking his head against the booth. “Fuck.”

“Do you want to come over this weekend? Jackie and the kids would love to see you.”

Shane shook his head. It was an Ilya weekend and he needed Ilya, desperately, right now. “I’m, ah, visiting my parents.”

His best friend’s brow furrowed. “You’re doing that a lot, recently,” he said gently.

“Uh. Yeah. They’re worried about me.”

“Sure, yeah. Of course.” He tilted his bottle towards Shane’s and they clinked, a depressing little noise. “It’ll get better.”

*

It didn’t get better but it didn’t exactly get worse, perhaps because Shane put his head down and put all of his frustration into being the best goddamn captain he could be. He reviewed tape even more excessively, he brainstormed different line combinations with the coaches, he bullied the rookies into extra practices and added extra training to his schedule.

Not surprisingly, or maybe a little surprisingly considering how fundamentally insane he felt, this dedication was paying off. They were having an outstanding start to the season.

“You played like a beast tonight,” Rose told him as he drowsily watched TV in his hotel room, his cell phone resting on his chest. Ilya was going to call him in – he checked – nine minutes so he had nine minutes for Rose to keep him awake.

“You watched?”

“My co-star has a crush on you.”

“You should give her my number,” he joked. “Oh, unless—"

“Yup.”

Shane flushed. Obviously, he knew, theoretically, that there may be men out there who liked the look of him. He had hooked up with a couple of guys, in an entirely anonymous capacity back when he was working out whether he was gay or just gay for Ilya. But that had been sort of mutually meaningless sex. They didn’t know he was Shane Hollander just as he didn’t really remember the color of their eyes.

He reached for the remote and turned the TV off. He had no idea what was on screen anyway. “Any good on-set gossip?”

“My stylist and the A.D. are hooking up but, like, they’re single so it’s hardly life altering.” Shane made an acknowledging noise. In Rose-world, colleagues fucking was fine. Good for them. “Oh. I got another incomprehensible note from my director. This morning he told me to feel the wind in my hair.”

“Um. What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. Particularly since the scene is set in a kitchen. I just sort of… flicked my hair a bit and tried to look whimsical. He seemed satisfied with that.”

Most of Rose’s job sounded crazy to Shane. She seemed to regularly spend sixteen hour days on set and – depending on the type of movie – half of that would be in a chair getting hair and make-up done. That was the worst part, as far as Shane was concerned. He quite liked being directed – told where to stand, how to walk, what expression to pull. But having some stranger touch his face and hair—

He shuddered. “At least the pay is good,” he said. Rose’s agent had negotiated hard.

“Hell yes. I’m thinking of moving, actually…”

Shane let Rose talk for a few more minutes, making a nebulous promise to come visit her in her new place, before signing off so he could wait for Ilya’s phone-call. Ottawa had also played away today but had lost. At least Ilya had scored, though from the highlights Shane had managed to watch, it hadn’t been his technical best. Not that he would say that.

Ilya called when he said he would and something in Shane’s spine melted when he saw his boyfriends face. For a moment, neither of them said anything, just stared at each other with probably equally soppy expressions.

Then Ilya leaned forward so most of his nose and mouth was visible. “Wanna get naked?” he whispered.

And fuck if Shane didn’t suddenly find a burst of energy from somewhere. “Hell, yes.”

*

The first game against Boston was weird as hell. Normally, Shane would have been in a state of almost feverish excitement. He’d have a pre-arranged hook-up scheduled with Ilya, which last year had expanded from being just a post-game thing to a pre-game thing, a post-game-with-dinner thing, then a stay-the-night-thing, and then as much fucking as they could squeeze in before Shane had to fly back.

It was remarkable how deflated he felt, studying the boarding gate as they waited for their flight, knowing that Ilya wouldn’t be at the other end.

Hayden cleared his throat. “I… have a question.”

“Okay.”

Hayden did a comedic look-around but – as was now almost always the case – the rest of the team wasn’t sitting near them. Still, he lowered his voice, “Um. Is… Boston Lily… a guy?”

His brain shut down.

Hayden’s blue eyes bulged urgently. “Because, it’s obviously no big deal if he is. No big deal at all. I was thinking, like if he was, maybe I could… meet him?”

Shane closed his eyes. “Oh my God.”

“It’s no big deal, Shane! Just you have been seeing them,” Hayden whispered carefully, “for, like, a really long time. And if they’re important to you…”

Shane could only repeat himself. Squeezed his eyes tighter. “Can we talk about this later, maybe?” he managed, in no way prepared to have this conversation with Hayden in the airport. Not that he wanted to have this conversation at all.

“Sure, sure, of course, bud.” Hayden patted his arm. He laughed awkwardly. “Though I feel like that was kind of a confirmation.”

Fuck, it probably was.

He messaged Ilya on the plane. They’d both invested in privacy screens but he still instinctively turned his phone away to the window. Hayden has worked out Boston Lily is a guy.

Lily: So he isn’t that stupid, then.

Jane: Not helpful.

Lily: Does he know Boston Lily isn’t in Boston anymore?

Jane: Not yet.

Lily: Are you going to tell him?

Jane: I guess.

Lily: Maybe you could tell him Boston Lily moved to Ottawa and see if he works it out 😆

Jane: Fuck off.

Lily: 😈

*

At least the effort of avoiding talking to Hayden gave Shane something else to think about other than the weirdness of playing Boston without Ilya. The game itself was wasn’t easy. In Shane’s head, Boston was nothing without Ilya, Ilya who met Shane on a level that no one else in the league did, but Boston put up a good fight.  

Montreal still won 5-3. When he shook hands with Marlow he thought the man’s forced smile was rather rueful. He and Ilya had not parted ways well, which had also fucked Ilya up a little. No one understood why Ilya had decided to move to a team like Ottawa.

There were drinks in the hotel bar after, because there always were. Pre-drinks for most of the team. Boston was a fun city to go out in, though they had to be pretty choosy about which bars they went to. Montreal was, after all, hated.

To be a good sport about it, Shane usually attended the drinks in the hotel and these days mostly spent it talking to the rookies, who were at least so in awe of his celebrity that it overshadowed the gay thing.

Hayden plonked himself down next to him just as everyone was getting ready to go. “Got a minute, Cap?” he asked, pointedly sliding another ginger beer over to him.

Shane tensed. “Ah. Yeah. Sure.”

JJ came over and slapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Not joining us tonight, mes amis?”

“No,” said Shane, not finding it in himself to make up some excuse.

“Promised I’d call Jackie and kids,” was Hayden’s, delivered with his patented aw-shucks-I’m-just-a-devoted-husband-and-dad smile. Shane was envious of that smile on a level he had never felt before. Maybe one day.

JJ laughed, easy. He slapped their shoulders again. “Have a good one.”

The team left and it was just Shane and Hayden, two best friends, sitting at a too-big table. The TV over the bar was playing highlights of the game and Shane wanted to go to his room to review tape in private. Not… do this. 

“So,” Hayden began, painfully.

“Yeah. So.” Shane nudged his glass around. “You’re… right.”

“Wow.”

“But, um. We’re not. Um. Doing that anymore.”

“You broke up?”

“Uh. Kinda.”

Hayden winced sympathetically. “Sorry, bud. You were seeing each other for a long time. When did that happen?”

God. This was excruciating. Hayden was trying so hard and here Shane was, lying to his face some more. He was a shit friend. A shit person.

“Hey, sorry, I can see you’re cut up about it. I did wonder. You didn’t seem that excited about coming to Boston and normally you’re like—” Hayden did some gesture that seemed to suggest Shane might be electrocuted. “And you would definitely have cleared off by now, normally. To go see him.”

Shane nodded. There was nothing else he could really say.

“You want to know something funny?” Hayden said, grinning ruefully. He took a fortifying sip of his drink. “Jackie had this crazy moment over the summer—” He laughed and shook his head. “No, it’s too weird.”

Dread sank in Shane’s stomach. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“Like. You guys have such insane chemistry. She and I had a real laugh over it. Of course, he’s a fucking womanizer and anyway he’s not here now so—”

Hayden stopped abruptly, the smile sliding off his face when he looked over at Shane.

Shane was frozen. He didn’t know what his face was doing, but it was nothing good. His mouth had gone dry as a desert. Say something! his brain screamed. Laugh. Tell him it’s weird!

But it wasn’t weird. It might be crazy but it wasn’t weird.

Hayden’s eyes widened. “Shane…” he whispered, so quietly it was nearly non-verbal.

Oh shit.

*

He called Ilya as soon as he got to his hotel room. Ilya didn’t answer – outrageous – so he called again. Then he sent him a message. And another.

Then – because his clothes were strangling him – Shane took them all off and had a scalding hot shower. He may have spent some quality time crouched on the floor, hot water hammering his head.

His cell phone rang, loud in the tiled bathroom and Shane shut the water off and answered, naked and wet, finger slipping over the screen.

“What is emergency?”

“Where have you been?”

“Woah. I had drinks with team.”

Oh, now Ilya got a social life. Shane knew he rarely socialized with the team. “Hayden knows! About you!”

“You told him Boston Lily moved to Ottawa?”

“No. Jackie— shit, I need a towel.” He was making a puddle on the floor. He put the phone down to grab a towel and to run another over the floor with his foot.

“I’m switching to video,” said Ilya. Shane accepted and got to watch the look of pleasure pass over Ilya’s face at the sight of Shane in a towel. His eyes dipped, up and down, over what he could see of Shane’s face and shoulders. “Maybe you should put your phone slightly further away. So I can see more of you.”

“Stop it.” Shane rubbed his hair with yet another towel and carried Ilya into the bedroom. “Hayden knows it’s you. He knows Boston Lily is you. He’s— well. He had to go lie down.”

“I cannot believe Hayden Pike is this smart.”

“I think it was Jackie, to be honest. Apparently, she thinks we have ‘insane chemistry’.” His mom had said something similar once. Was this just a sixth sense women had? Was this something he had to worry about?

Apparently unbothered by this, Ilya smiled widely, very pleased. “Is true.”

“Take this seriously.”

“Shane,” Ilya said patiently, though he let out one of his heavy sighs. “Okay, so he knows. So what?”

“So what?” Shane blustered and then he ran out of bluster because he hadn’t actually got this far beyond the initial panic. His only instinct had been to call Ilya.

So what? So what?

Ilya narrowed his eyes. “You are ashamed of me.”

“What? I am not ashamed of you.”

“You know he can keep secret. Is only reason you could be this panicky.” Ilya shrugged, as if he didn’t care, but Shane could absolutely tell he did.

“We have an extremely well-publicized decade long rivalry. I have—” Shane swallowed. “Actively participated in that. With the team. It’s just— it’s just a big lie. Bigger than being gay, even. I don’t know. This is very confusing. I am not ashamed of you. I mean, in any other normal circumstances, you would be a massive catch.”

Ilya lit up. His whole face just suffused with joy. His eyes somehow became more blue, as if that was at all a possible thing. “Am I. Tell me more.”

He was so annoying. “Ilya.”

“Tell me how I am catch. Please,” he added and Shane, who was working hard on his PhD of Ilya micro-expressions realized this was not a request to stroke his ego but a genuine moment of vulnerability.

Sometimes Shane forgot that whilst Ilya had nearly all of his firsts, Shane had one of his. Ilya had never had a serious relationship before. He had never been someone’s boyfriend. Never been loved the way Shane loved him.

“Oh, Ilya— you are such a catch. Like. Totally boyfriend goals.” He bit his lip and knew he was blushing like a teenager but prepared to plow through this. Ilya thought he was ashamed of him. It could not be further from the truth. “I mean, you’re kind and funny and smart. So smart. You’re bi-lingual and have a hot accent. You have a great job, you’re an expert in your field. You are… so beautiful. I mean. Stop-and-stare-in-the-street beautiful. You have such a great body. You are so, so, so hot. God.” Shane looked to the ceiling of the hotel room. “Everyone should be jealous of me. Hayden should be jealous of me. Sometimes I’m jealous of me.”

And now Ilya was sniffing and his camera angle was suspiciously off-center so he couldn’t see his face. “You didn’t mention that I am sex god,” he said thickly.

Shane smiled. “I didn’t, that’s right. You are a sex god. A fantastic,” he braced himself, “lover.”

Ilya laughed and his hand shook, briefly bringing into focus the tear tracks on his reddened cheeks. “You said it!”

And he had wanted to die, just a little bit. “Just this once. Just for you.”

*

Hayden let Shane into his room and they sat at the end of the absolutely massive bed that he had. Shane had two twins which was just how the hotel lottery rolled.

Or maybe someone from Ops didn’t want Shane to have an overnight guest which, more fool them, Shane had always liked the two beds because one could be for dirty sex and the other could be for sleeping. Back when their sex life had entirely been hotel-based, it wasn’t as if Shane had been sleeping with Ilya, which now felt fucking insane.

“So. You and Rozanov.”

“Yup.”

“Boston Lily. Boston Ilya,” Hayden said, having to do the math out loud, apparently.

“The names were his idea.”

“You have one too?”

“Jane. Shane.” 

“Right.”

They sat there in silence for a full, excruciating minute. Shane stared down at his socks.

“But Rozanov?” Hayden said eventually, in a mystified way. “Like. Rozanov. Of all people.”

And straight off the back of the pep talk he’d given his boyfriend, Shane suddenly had plenty of material, “Have you seen him? He is phenomenally hot.”

Hayden closed his eyes, as if pained. “Shane.”

“And he’s funny and kind and smart and he’s moved to Ottawa for me.”

“Er, what?”

Oh, yeah, Shane probably needed to go back a couple of steps. “Well. It’s serious. We’re, like, in love and everything.” Hayden made a small noise. Shane decided to keep on going because none of the faces Hayden were making were comprehensible. “We want to be together. And it was hard, being so far away, so we made a plan and the first step was him moving to Canada. He needs to become a Canadian citizen because Russia is not great when it comes to gay people. I mean, he’s not all the way gay, like me. He’s bi-sexual—”

“Oh, so the sleeping around was true.”

“Yes,” Shane said, shortly. The less said about that the better. “It was, past tense. Before we were exclusive. I mean, we only saw each other a handful of times a year.”

Hayden’s mouth was a straight line. Very disapproving, as if Ilya’s womanizing remained a mark against him when he could have just stuck being devoted to Shane. “Hmph. How long has it been?”

“Since…?”

“Since you got together.”

Here was the tricky part. “Since we first, ah, hooked up? That was our rookie season.”

“Rookie season?”

“It was just that. Hooking up. For a few years. Not exclusive or anything.” He rubbed his searingly hot earlobe. “Then last year we, ah, realized maybe it was more than that. I mean, before, I was struggling with the whole gay thing and we obviously had to do everything in secret because of, you know. The rivalry. And the gay thing. And because of Russia. Not that we’re not struggling because of those things now. Like, I’m out. But… nothing else has changed.”

Wow. It was really depressing.

Hayden was fast-blinking, trying to process. He sometimes did this when they were reviewing tape. “You’ve been hooking up with Ilya Rozanov the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Ah. Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Who are you, man?” Hayden said and, you know, it almost sounded like he was impressed.

*

Though it had been pretty high up on the most excruciating moment of Shane’s life, there was something of a relief about someone knowing. Someone other than his parents. He thought about that a lot on the drive to Ottawa for his weekend with Ilya and over dinner that night, he posed the question, “Is there someone you would want to tell? About us?”

Ilya considered in a way that suggested he’d already thought about this. “I don’t know. Sveta maybe? I will think about it.”

Shane had mixed feelings about Svetlana, who occupied an incomprehensible best-friend-casual-fuck-buddy role in Ilya’s life for a nebulously long period of time. They still texted a lot, he knew that. Ilya had said she had struggled to understand his move, to the point where when it had been announced she’d flown back from Moscow to see him. Of course, he hadn’t been at his house – he’d been at the cottage – and she had let herself in and triggered the house alarm. They’d had an intense phone call that had lasted well over an hour and Ilya had been moodily silent for the rest of the evening.

Guilt scratched at him. He poked through the healthy poke bowls they had put together. It was one of the meals they could agree on, though Ilya had liberally doused his with Kewpie Mayo and Sriracha. “What about Marlow?”

“What about him?”

“You were friends, I thought.”

But Ilya shook his head quickly. “Marlow would not— is not a good idea.”

“Why? Maybe it would help. Explain why you left Boston.” If anything, it was the one thing that had gained Hayden’s sympathy points.

“Maybe.”

That ‘maybe’ was a ‘no’. Shane was beginning to wonder if there was another Russian word for ‘no’ that translated as ‘maybe’ in English.

He didn’t understand Ilya’s reticence. Ilya had been very closed-mouthed about what did appear to be the end of his relationship with a guy he had been papped with as much as girls. He wanted to understand. “You don’t trust him?”

“No. He wouldn’t tell anyone. But it would not.” Ilya sighed, suddenly looking very tired. “Shane, it would make him very uncomfortable.”

“Oh. He’s homophobic.” That was disappointing.

“I mean, probably, yes. But that is not it.” Ilya was practically squirming. “Look. I think it would give some things a different perspective. For him. Because of things we… used to do.” He gave Shane a hard, imploring look. Like he was trying to get him to understand without having to use words.

Shane put his fork down. There was no way he could eat another mouthful. “Are you telling me you and Marlow used to hook up?”

Ilya winced. “Not exactly.”

“How exactly?”

“Sometimes we would take a girl home.” He used his fork to gesture from side to side. “Together.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Like—” He couldn’t finish.

“Yes. Like that.”

Shane didn’t know what to say. Obviously, he knew Ilya was more sexually experienced than him. And he’d thrown the word ‘threesome’ around a few times – as a joke. Almost certainly a joke. And he guessed that meant Ilya had probably had a threesome in his life. More than one probably. But he’d sort of assumed… well, that it would be two girls and Ilya.

Not Ilya, Cliff Marlow, and a girl.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how that would work before he stopped himself. He didn’t need to know this. He didn’t need to know where they put their hands, and their dicks, and their mouths. Whether it had been the explicit worship of some uber hot girl or if occasionally they had—

His brain became noisy. Too noisy to compute all the sudden thoughts that were assuaging him. Ilya and Marlow. Ilya and Marlow. 

Why was this worse? Why did this make him feel worse than all the girls? And he’d already felt pretty bad about the girls! He’d been bombarded with photos of the women Ilya had fucked – not just here in the US, in Canada, but in Moscow, every summer. Social media had been full of them, his feed automatically attuned to Ilya Rozanov like he was Shane’s special interest, not just hockey. Images of Ilya with his tongue in some girl’s mouth, his hands roaming over beautiful bodies. It was part of the reason he avoided social media but even then his teammates would screengrab shit and send it on the group chat. Look at that fucker. Pussy magnet. Leave some for the rest of us, Rozanov.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Ilya said quietly, mouth turned down unhappily at the corners. “It was a long time ago and we were always very drunk.”

“When was the last time?”

“I don’t remember.”

Not good enough and probably a lie. He may never have had one but he was pretty damn certain a threesome wasn’t something a guy forgot about. “Are you attracted to him?”

Ilya placed his hand flat on the table, very gently. “Shane. Please. It was not like that.”

The buzzing noise in his head became a burning feeling behind his eyes. Shane was going to cry. This was what was happening. He was going to cry and he could tell it was going to be bad. So, like a coward, he slid off the stool and ran away.

*

Shane hid in one of the guest bathrooms and stuffed his sweater sleeve into his mouth just in case he made any noise. Tears ran down his face. He couldn’t get his imagination to stop. Ilya and Marlow, entwined together on a bed, an almost incidental girl with them. Ilya and Marlow kissing. Fucking.

Did they do it in Ilya’s bed back in Boston? Oh God. Shane had been with Ilya in that bed.

Why was this worse?

It took him a long time to calm down, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, through the increasingly damp cotton blend of his sweater. Sweat and salt clung to his face, uncomfortably. His hair felt gross. A shower would be good but none of Ilya’s other bathrooms had towels because he didn’t have any guests.

He splashed water on his face instead and dried it with the hem of his sweater. It was dirty anyway. He’d have to wash it.

Shane met his reddened eyes and flushed cheeks in the mirror. He didn’t have enough experience to know if his reaction – embarrassing though it was – was an overreaction or a perfectly normal response to finding out your significant other had sex with someone else you knew.

He thought it was probably normal to feel something about this. To feel not good. He felt very not good.

He firmed the wobble in his bottom lip and pushed his shoulders back. He might not have the experience in navigating everything, but he knew enough that he needed to face Ilya now without being unreasonable. They had not been exclusive. What Ilya had done before they decided to commit to each other was irrelevant. Shane had even done stuff with other people – girls and guys.

The Cliff Marlow thing was an unexpected curve-ball but he would get over it.

He managed a tight smile in his reflection and opened the door and nearly shrieked to find Ilya, clambering up from the floor immediately in front of the bathroom. “Jesus Christ!”

Ilya held out his hands, palms forward, like Shane was some kind of nervous horse. “Shane, I’m so sorry.”

He immediately shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. It’s fine. It just surprised me. It’s all good.”

Ilya’s face crumpled helplessly. “Is not good. Is very bad. Can I hold you? Please?”

Shane’s bottom lip tried to go again and he pressed his lips together. He started to nod – quite literally, right now, all he wanted was to be held – but before he had even completed one head-tilt, Ilya had all but swallowed him with his arms. “It wasn’t like that,” he said breathlessly into Shane’s shoulder, pulling him tight. “It was— drunk, stupid. It was only about the girl. I do not think of Marlow like that. I only— since you. You were the only boy I wanted. From the beginning, I think.”

“Cool,” said Shane, clutching the back of Ilya’s T-shirt, a couple more tears squeezing out. “Um. You too.”

Ilya kissed his neck, once, twice, three times. He pulled back a little and kissed his cheek, the corner of his mouth, the end of his nose. “I am sorry, Shane. Forgive me.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Shane muttered, moving his head so that the kisses Ilya was pressing to his face landed on his lips. He began to push Ilya towards the bed, determined to salvage this evening by staking his claim in a way he understood. “We’re really never having a fucking threesome, though.”

*

His team took the announcement of the foundation almost more poorly than Shane’s being gay.

Gay? Passable. A feature of their captain that they could ignore like they could ignore that he was half-Japanese and didn’t drink.

Forming a charitable foundation with Ilya Rozanov? Punishable offense.

“Guess none of you want to be summer coaches then,” he joked, once.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Of everyone, Drapeau was the most angry. He maybe had good reason. Ilya and he had probably more run-ins on the ice than Ilya and Shane ever had. “He is the fucking enemy.”

“He plays for Ottawa now, guys,” Hayden tried because he was ride or die for Shane and Shane didn’t deserve him. “It’s hardly like he’s relevant anymore.”

Shane wanted desperately to defend Ilya in that moment – to point out that re-building a team didn’t happen overnight and the responsibility for this certainly wasn’t resting all on Ilya’s admittedly brilliant shoulders – but it was absolutely not the time. “Look, guys, this has nothing to do with hockey. Rozanov and I will be just as competitive on the ice as we always have been, I can assure you. That is the end of it.”

He was captain and so the chatter did stop but there was something discernibly wrong during practice. Passes were a touch too slow. No one was making eye contact with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d see the occasional sneer.

Theriault took him aside afterwards and gave him shit. “Any more surprises you’d like to spring on us?” he demanded.

Shane smiled and it was a genuine smile because for an insane, amazing moment he imagined really telling him about Ilya. He thought he’d probably have an aneurism. “Think I’m good for now, coach.”

“Fuckssakes,” the man muttered, storming off.

As usual, Shane did a few more laps of the ice to give the team time to dissipate. It was peaceful. Gave him a chance for his head to clear. His blades glided across the ice, the quiet susurration a balm to his busy brain. He kept reminding himself, as hard as this was, he was doing it for a reason. A reason that was worth it.

*

A week before Christmas, an email arrived in his inbox and a hot and shivery feeling rushed through Shane’s body.

Dear Mr Hollander,

Hope this email finds you well.

Attached is the requested report.

Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.

Regards

Ivan

Ilya was in the shower. Any minute now he’d come out and he’d be doing that scrunching thing he did with his hair to make sure that it dried perfectly curly, standing naked in the doorway and telling Shane whatever random thought he’d had when he was washing, all relaxed and cute, his grammar atrocious, and the least close to the public perception of Ilya Rozanov that there could possibly be.

Meanwhile, Shane was receiving emails from the agency he had hired to spy (oh fuck) on Ilya’s niece.

He slammed his cell phone down on the bed. He needed to tell him. Right now. That was what he had to do.

He clambered off the bed. “Ilya—,” he began, barging into the steamy bathroom and then coming to a total, mind-melted halt.

“Oh. Is good timing, Hollander,” Ilya said, leering at him, his hand on his prominent erection. “I was just thinking about you.”

Okay. Well. Now was not the time, he decided, stripping with practiced efficiency.

*

It wasn’t the time later because they had lunch with his parents. And it wasn’t at home. It was in a restaurant, in public. Him and Ilya and his mom and dad, sitting at a table, with people around them and waiters and passersbys and though Shane’s stomach churned with nervousness, he also couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Under the table, he kept pressing his foot against Ilya’s and Ilya kept pressing back.

Real.

Ilya drove them back in his sensible Mercedes SUV, one hand on Shane’s knee the whole time, a burning hot brand. They were barely through the door when Shane practically threw himself at Ilya – the sheer joy that they were able to do something so normal – and they stumbled up the stairs, shedding clothes as they went, kissing and laughing and acting like the teenagers they had once been.

In bed, it was a battle, the way it sometimes was and today Shane won, not that Ilya really lost, his eyes watching Shane predatorily from beneath him as he stroked himself. Shane knew how to make it a performance, to take pleasure from Ilya’s anticipation as he took pleasure for himself. When he sank down on Ilya’s cock, his boyfriend’s fingers pressed bruises into his hips, his mouth agape with raw hunger.

Real, real, real.

*

It was just before 7am when Shane finally opened the email. He left Ottawa in the pitch black so that he could be back in Montreal in time for practice. He could still feel the creases from Ilya’s sheets on his skin. With very little effort at all, he could summon the sensation of Ilya’s breath on the back of his neck, the little noise of complaint he’d made as Shane’s alarm had gone off and he’d extricated himself from Ilya’s grip.

It would be two weeks before he would be back. A lifetime.

He opened the report. The document was a more manageable five pages now and all Shane had to do was read the first page.

Green: the sale of the apartment has gone through. The Rosanovs financial circumstances were in the black and they are planning to move to a more reasonable apartment, however this means that Anna will need to move schools.

Okay. So that’s not so bad. Nothing really major to worry about there. Finances in the black. And Shane had moved schools when he was a kid, too. A couple of times actually. His mom wanted him to be in the best environment to nurture his hockey skills.

Green: Anna’s final school report praised her attendance and aptitude. She continued to do well - a straight A student. She got a glowing report from her music teacher, who encouraged Anna to continue taking her flute lessons as she has real talent. The school wished Anna luck at her new school.

And that was nice, too. He was pleased to see that Anna was such a good student. Shane had been too. Though his special interest had been hockey rather than music.

A shadow fell over him then, making him jump. But it was just Hayden, waving like a loon. Shane hit the archive button and, smiling, got out of his car to follow his friend into practice.

Chapter 2: 2019

Shane knew they weren’t on the Stanley Cup track as early as February. There were a bunch of real, tangible problems in the team that had fuck-all to do with strategy. Almost the entire team got taken out with Noro in January, including Shane (who had then given it to Ilya which his mom had said was a real rite of passage for a relationship). Then they had a couple of guys with injuries that were taking longer than expected to heal, most specifically Drapeau who was out with an MCL sprain. And their back-up goalie wasn’t up to scratch, despite putting in the extra hours to work on that. That was something they should probably have addressed before.

Of the intangible, there was of course the whole… vibe. Maybe it was just in his head but it had traveled down to his gut and stayed there the whole season. Though no one said anything to him, he kept waiting for it. And for a bigger repercussion than the sense that he was being avoided on the ice when he shouldn’t be. That sometimes passes weren’t being made that should. That he wasn’t being defended as much as he used to be.

He told himself that if it was really an obvious issue, Coach would have said something about. God knew he wasn’t one to hold his punches.

They skated into the playoffs as the wild card and then Shane was proved right when Washington knocked them out in the first round.  

Fuck.

*

Shane spent a week wrapping up the season in Montreal. They were making a few changes for next season and Shane expected to be in the room for those discussions whether they wanted him or not. Hell, he’d even proposed some changes – they needed to sort out their back-up goalie situation and there was a defenseman in Tampa that they’d had their eye on and he had some thoughts about the power play that he’d been mulling over.

He was in his room packing for the cottage when his phone chimed with an email message. He couldn’t see what it was from the notifications screen because he had previews turned off – a necessary when you had a secret relationship – and he tapped in his code to see what it was, assuming it was another email from his mom about the foundation.

But it wasn’t, was it.

Dear Mr Hollander,

Hope this email finds you well.

Attached is the requested report.

Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.

Regards

Ivan

“Fuck,” Shane said, marveling internally at his ability to totally erase the things he didn’t want to think about from his mind.

In two hours he would be with Ilya at the cottage. The cottage he increasingly thought of as their cottage. Ilya was already there, had been for a week, sending Shane photos of how he was messing up the living room and leaving plates in the sink to wind him up. It had done literally the opposite; just made Shane want to be there sooner.

The only positive about being kicked out of the playoffs was that instead of wallowing in guilt, going over all the games from the season and lambasting himself for his mistakes, or not predicting others, he had something else to focus on.

Ilya.

Specifically, nearly three months of Ilya. It was an unfeasible amount of time. The Shane of the summer before couldn’t have conceived of it. That Shane had thought two weeks had been a miracle. And then Ilya had added on another week as they both pushed back commitments and that had felt like a lifetime together.

This summer, sure, there was plenty to do, apart from each other. They were finalizing stuff for the first camp in July, and then the camp itself. Ilya had moved out of his temporary apartment into the house he had bought and that needed furnishing and Shane was going to help with that.

But all that meant was that both he and Ilya had a reason to be in the same place. Together.

And then this fucking email arrived.

On time. Of course.

Shane transferred to his laptop because some things were only suitable for the big screen. He gave himself a small pep talk because before Christmas, everything had been pretty good and what could change in three months?  

Apparently, a lot.

Amber: Alexei Rozanov has been fired from his job for gross misconduct. The family finances are now reliant on Sofya’s job.

The agency helpfully referenced their original dossier, should Shane wish to read more details about this.

Amber: Sofya Rozanova has commenced an affair with a work colleague. They are meeting in secret in cheap hotels. The work colleague is married.

How was this ‘amber’? Shane wondered. Did Russians have a different traffic light system for affairs? Did he need to bring this up with Ilya?

Amber: Anna is finding it difficult to settle in at her new school. She has not made friends. Her schoolwork is suffering. The Rozanovs can no longer afford to pay for her private flute lessons.

Shane had to force himself to stop painfully pulling at his hair. This was a disaster.

He flicked forward through the PDF and found what he assumed was the official letter firing Alexei from his job. He couldn’t translate it. On the next page was an unpaid bill. Oh, great, then a credit card statement in the thousands.

He wondered whether Alexei was looking for a new job.

He wondered what Sofya’s job was and whether it was sustainable.

He wondered if Anna practiced her flute at home regardless.

He wondered all these things, then he closed the PDF and archived the email. He couldn’t tell Ilya about this now. Not now that there was something to actually be worried about.

But he would need to make a plan.

*

“I don’t think we fucked in boot room,” Ilya called to him on their third day in the cottage, presumably from said boot room.

Shane wrinkled his nose. He was on the couch. The TV was paused. It was a rainy day and any plans they might have loosely made had deteriorated as soon as they had woken up to the pitter patter on the windows. Shane loved rainy days. “Would it qualify as a room?” It was barely more than a cupboard. “Also – not sure that’s hygienic.”

Ilya returned. He was swaggering, deliberately hamming this idea up. “I would put towel down.”

“I don’t want to fuck in the boot room.” Not even to finish the ‘game’ Ilya had established last year and over Christmas.

“Bet I could convince you.”

Shane bet he could, too, but he wasn’t going to say that. He braced for impact as Ilya decided how he wanted to arrange himself on the couch and then wriggled to make room as he slotted himself between Shane and the back of the couch, stretching out.   

“This is going to be a great summer,” Ilya murmured happily.

Shane turned his head to kiss his boyfriend’s curls. It was.

*

Obviously the first Game Changers summer camp was one of the most chaotic and stressful experiences of Shane’s life. For a whole week, they – he and Ilya – were the faces of responsibility for the health and safety for dozens of children. Children whose parents had put their care in their hands which was fucking lunacy.

They were barely adults themselves.

He was also – and he would not admit this out loud – not actually a very good coach for kids. He’d kind of assumed that his abilities as captain, where he coached adults on a day-to-day basis as part of his job, would easily translate to children. That it would come naturally.

Apparently not. Something about their little faces staring up at him, eyes wide with awe, made everything he knew about hockey just vanish from his brain. Poof. He became incapable of explaining all the simple drills they had planned in their meticulous schedule.

Thankfully, Ilya was fantastic at it – which Shane had expected, as he was gregarious and fun, and so were the other coaches they’d roped into helping out, so he was never alone and someone would usually rescue him.

Which was mortifying but he hoped this was an area he could improve upon if he worked at it. God. He hoped he wasn’t going to get bad reviews. It was important that the camps were a success. Next year they were going to expand to two camps.

Weirdly, one of the little girls looked a lot like Anna, which was a distraction Shane couldn’t afford. He made sure she was never on his team.

She had made friends, though. He hoped Anna had made friends.

*

“What was your school like?” he asked after they came back from their run the following weekend.

Though they had known each other for a long time, their conversations up until last year had been a Venn diagram of sexting and hockey. Of course, Shane’s sudden desire to talk about the Russian education system was not even close to the top ten list of things that Shane really wanted to know about Ilya’s childhood.

Naturally, Ilya was perplexed. He wiped the sweat off his face with the bottom of his tank. “What do you mean?”

“Erm.” Shane dragged his eyes up from his abs. “Just interested. Was it— like public education?”

“Yes? Hollander—,” Uh oh, Shane thought, “—why you ask this?”

“I just want to know. Is that so bad?” And suddenly Shane was annoyed. Annoyed that a very simple question was somehow being treated like an enormous breach of privacy. Unless— “Was it awful?”

“It was school.” Ilya shrugged in that particularly expressive way he did, with his whole body. “I went to sports school. It was for training for Olympics. You know this is on my Wikipedia.”

Shane scowled and let them into the house. “I don’t need to read your Wikipedia.” It was a fucking point of pride that he had never, not once, given in to the urge. He had known it was a slippery slope.

Ilya smiled, faintly. “What is this about?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to know.” He kicked off his sneakers into the boot room. Yesterday, Ilya had blown him in that room. He would probably always think about that when he took his shoes off.

Now this was vaguely an argument – at least on Shane’s side – he couldn’t ask questions. He couldn’t ask if Ilya had moved schools a lot. If he’d made friends. If he had a favorite subject outside of hockey. He couldn’t ask any of those things and, really, it wasn’t about Ilya was it? Not really. It was about Anna and the vague concern that she was a lonely little girl and her parents’ marriage was fucked.

Ilya took a big sip of his water, trailing after him into their bedroom. “What school did you go to?”

“Isn’t it on my Wikipedia?” he asked snippily, undressing.

“Probably. Along with a very boring photo of you. Also, your list of girlfriends.”

He paused, T-shirt over his head. Again, he’d never really bothered to look. It was irrelevant to him. His mom sometimes updated his page, he knew that. “Plural?”

“Yes. Rose Landry. And Jessica,” he said, pronouncing the ‘s’s like a snake. His eyes travelled down Shane’s body. He put down his water bottle and pulled off his tank, tossing it into the laundry hamper without looking and then hooked his thumbs into his shorts. “You have not mentioned.”

“Huh. Well. No.” Shane was maybe a little distracted by the slow strip tease Ilya was doing. Or, you know, he was probably just undressing normally, it was just everything Ilya did made him horny. “We broke up ages ago. When I met you.”

And now Ilya smiled properly. His shorts went into the hamper. “The summer before rookie season?”

Shane was half-hard now. He adjusted himself in his underwear and Ilya watched with a crooked, knowing smile. “Um. Yes.”

“You broke up with your girlfriend after you met me.” Ilya followed Shane into the bathroom, close enough that he could feel the heat from his body. “Tell me more.”

*

“It was boarding school. I went straight after my mama died,” Ilya whispered, in the dark, so quietly. “I did not want to go.”

Shane had been half asleep, blissfully fucked out, but of course he wasn’t after that. His heart jumped, his fight or flight activated, or whatever the equivalent was when your boyfriend – who kept his secrets locked down – revealed his childhood trauma in the middle of the night. It mostly felt like fight. As in, he wanted to fight Ilya’s childhood for him.

He lifted his head. “You went to boarding school?”

This was not what Shane meant to say. What Shane meant to say was your dad sent you away after you mom died? What Shane meant to say was your dad keeps plumbing new depths of asshole every time you mention him.   

“Da. I was very sad.”

Shane rolled back over to face him. Though they often fell asleep all over each other, they tended to drift apart as the night progressed. Tentatively, he laid a hand on Ilya’s sculpted abdomen. He was sometimes a bit prickly about being touched when he felt it might have the barest hint of pity about it. He had to tread carefully. “Did you… make friends?”

“Not initially. It was very competitive. And I was small, to begin with. Can you believe.” There was the barest thread of humor there.

Shane gave in and curled himself around Ilya, tossing an arm, and then a leg over him. He squeezed, as if he could cuddle small Ilya too. As if he could pour all the love he had into Ilya’s past. This was not a happy picture Ilya was painting but— “Are there pictures? Proof?”

“Of small Ilya?” Shane heard the smile in his voice. “Yes. Probably. Sveta— she has many things.”

“Why does she have them?”

“I did not want to look at them.”

Okay. So squeezing him wasn’t going to be enough. Shane climbed on top of him instead and Ilya huffed out a laugh, his arms encircling him, as Shane made a good effort at burying himself in Ilya. He pressed his mouth to his throat and kissed him and kissed him. “Can I have them?” he asked, punctuating his words with more kisses. “The pictures? The things?”

There was a pause, long enough for Shane to regret his impulsive ask. Svetlana was his friend, his best friend. She had known him most of his life, not Shane, and it didn’t matter how that made Shane feel. It was Ilya’s things. His past. Their shared childhood. Maybe Svetlana was the best safekeeper for them.

He felt his skin flush with embarrassment at overstepping.

But Ilya made a noise of acquiescence. “Yes. Is probably right you should now.”

Relieved, Shane pressed their lips together. “I’m sorry I brought up something that isn’t a good memory.”

“Mmm, is okay. You can know these things.” Ilya ran his hand down Shane’s spine and under the elastic of his shorts. He curved his hand over one ass cheek and squeezed and then a curious finger grazed his hole, still damp from earlier. Shane shivered, gloriously sensitive. “Do you want?”

Shane’s capacity for want never ceased to amaze him. “Oh, yeah, I want.”

Ilya rolled them over and Shane could feel his smile as they kissed.

*

“I am going to tell Sveta. About us,” Ilya announced a few days later. They were lying on the new outdoor couches on the dock. This had been Ilya’s first, hesitant request for the cottage – somewhere comfortable for them to lie around by the water and Shane and he had exchanged various links over the winter of what they could buy until they’d found just the right sectional. Something waterproof and washable (Shane’s request). Something big enough for them to lie side by side if they wanted to (Ilya’s).

It had been a lazy morning. A short run and a workout. Shower blowjobs. Then breakfast and relaxing outside with their books and phones, their bare feet touching.

Shane looked up from his book. He was reading something that had been written for kids, explaining the basics of ice hockey. He was hoping it would give him some inspiration for how to talk to the kids next year but instead he was irritated by the oversimplification. “Oh, yeah?” He thought he sounded casual.

Ilya laughed. “Oh, yeah,” he repeated back in what Shane assumed was some kind of attempt to mimic his wavering voice.

“Asshole.”

“Is still okay?” Ilya’s toes tapped his, twice. “That I tell her?”

“Yes, of course. It’s only fair.”

“This way, maybe she will speak to me again. And come visit.”

“She’s not talking to you?”

“Yes, and no. She thinks I am hiding something from her and it annoys her and we—there is a nice English word for it. Like a fight but not serious. Like with siblings.” He clicked his fingers at Shane, impatiently.

“Like siblings,” he repeated blankly, as if he had any idea what it was like to have a sibling. “Oh! A squabble.”

“Yes. A squabble. A good word. Very onomatopoeic.” Missing Shane’s silent, astonished mouthing of the word onomatopoeic, Ilya lifted his iPad back up. Or more specifically, Shane’s new iPad that he had commandeered. “Wikipedia says you have a very high IQ.”

“Are you seriously reading my Wikipedia?”

“Yes. And you apparently have an IQ of 139. This is impressive, Shane.”

“Where the hell did they get that?” he muttered, embarrassed. He had taken a test at the urging of his school, who had thought it might be useful for his college application. Shane had no intention of going to college but his parents – mostly his dad, who had some vague hope that Shane would also go to McGill – had wanted him to maximize all possible options as a back-up. It was always good to have a back-up.

“You graduated with nearly perfect GPA.” Shane grunted. Nearly. Still burned. “How did you do this and also play hockey?”

“You’ve met my mother, right?”

“She was hard on you.”

“I was probably also hard on myself.” In a way, the rigid scheduling of his high school career had probably prepared him well for his life as a professional hockey player carrying out an illicit relationship. Shane had lived his life in blocks of time to manage schoolwork and hockey. Now he lived in blocks of time managing Ilya and hockey. In some ways, Ilya was as grueling as AP Calculus but significantly more rewarding.

“Not much time for Jessica.”

Shane snorted at the way Ilya vengefully pronounced her name. “No. Which she reminded me. Very frequently.”

“You were a bad straight boyfriend.”

“I was an excellent boyfriend.” He chewed his lip. “I read an article to make sure I did all the right boyfriend things.”

Ilya gasped and tossed Shane’s iPad to the side to give him his full attention. “Like what.”

“I texted her good morning and good night every day. I sent her flowers spontaneously. I held her hand. I drove her places. I took her out every Friday, if there wasn’t a game. I was nice to her friends and polite to her parents. Her parents loved me.”

The laugh Ilya let out was closer to a cackle, his head tipping back, the curls of his hair burnished from the sun. “Of course they did. You didn’t want to fuck their daughter.”

“I mean. I did fuck their daughter.” He cringed, the memories of losing his virginity were not his finest hour. God. He hoped Jessica didn’t look back on it with the same sense of unease. “Not well but I did.”

Ilya was faux sympathetic. The light in his eyes was close to unhinged. “Ah, my poor sexually repressed Shane.”

“Poor Jessica, more like. Anyway. She’s married now.”

“I know. I found her on Instagram.”

“Of course you did.”

“Her children are not beautiful.”

“Ilya.”

“You would have made much prettier babies.”

“Okay, stop it now.”

*

Shane made the drive to the nearest grocery store, leaving Ilya at home to talk to Svetlana. He had wanted to be alone to do it, which Shane had to respect, even if he didn’t like it. Besides, they were going to talk in Russian so it wasn’t like he was going to understand.

He was gone maybe an hour, hour-and-a-half, by the time he pulled back in front of the house. Ilya jogged down the steps eagerly to meet him. “How’d it—oof,” Shane said, as Ilya hugged him.

“It went fine. Well. Good. She shouted. And laughed. And cried.” Ilya pulled back and sniffed. His eyes were red-rimmed but his face was lighter. “It was very dramatic.”

Of this Shane had no doubt. He touched his fingers to Ilya’s jaw. “What did she say?”

“Many annoying, highly complimentary things about you.” Ilya turned his head and kissed Shane’s fingers. “And many rude things about me keeping secrets. And she wants your number.”

“Wow.”

“I said I would check with you first.” His eyebrows raised, questioningly.

Shane didn’t hesitate. He knew he had to make nice with Svetlana. He knew it would make Ilya happy. “She can have my number. I’d like that.” Kind of. “Is she going to message me?” He got the sense that she might be terrifying. He’d seen pictures of her. And she had some important corporate job with fancy cars. Shane knew nothing about cars.

“I guess so. Let me help.”

They carried the groceries in, Ilya cooing over the junk food Shane had – like a sucker – bought him. “Flaming Hot Cheetos. Yessss, Shane. And the good ice cream. You love me.”

“It’s off season. Don’t get used to it. But I do, that’s true.”

Unpacking groceries together was one of those really domestic tasks that Shane found unaccountably wonderful. Years ago, when he was at his weakest, he’d have daydreams about this sort of thing. About introducing Ilya to his parents and living together. The kind of nebulous, totally impossible daydreams that he’d feel sick about after.

And here they were.  

*

Dear Mr Hollander,

Hope this email finds you well.

Attached is the requested report.

Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.

Regards

Ivan

*

“Shane Hollander.”

“Hey, Mr Matveev, is now a good time?”

Matveev laughed. He’d forgotten the weird, booming laugh. “Now is always a good time for you, Hollander.”

It sounded like he was driving with the window open. Shane didn’t even know what Matveev looked like. It wasn’t like he could ask Ilya. “Um. Great. So, I have some questions following the latest report the agency have sent.”

“I am not close to the details. You are better off speaking to Ivan.”

“Sure, yes. Thing is—”

Shane ran out of words. Media trained since he was fifteen and he ran out of words. What was the thing, Shane? What was the thing?

Into the silence, Matveev boomed, “How is young Rozanov?”

“He’s… fine. I believe. He was fine when I saw him last.” Which was this morning, kissing each other goodbye frantically in Ilya’s front hallway. Kissing that had turned into hurried handjobs and mutual tears and fuck they were going to be apart for so long. Like. Three weeks. The start to the season was brutal.

Gently, Shane laid his head against his steering wheel. The problem with so much time together was that it inevitably ended. Those months had just slipped through their fingers, no matter how hard they had clung on, leaving Shane questioning exactly what he was doing here. In Montreal.

He reminded himself that he loved Montreal. He loved his team. They might not be totally sure about him, now, but time would fix that. Time and working his ass off. Which he knew how to do.

“You and he have started a charity, I hear.”

“Yeah. The Irina Foundation.”

Matveev made a noise. It almost sounded like an ‘aw’ but Russians, Ilya had assured him didn’t ‘aw’. “After his mother. How nice.”

Shane felt like he was supposed to read something into that. He was never good with tone. “We wanted to give back,” he said faintly, all the soundbites that he had learned dissipating like they had never existed, like he hadn’t been able to parrot them verbatim in his sleep only weeks ago. “Um. On that subject,” he said, trying to take back the reigns of the conversation by just being blunt. “Is there a way I can arrange for Anna to take private music lessons?”

Now it was Matveev’s turn to be silent. “You want to pay for Anna Rosanova to take private music lessons.”

“Yes. Like I was thinking some kind of scholarship? The flute, specifically. That’s what she likes.”

“Hollander….” Whatever Matveev wanted to say, he changed his mind. “Very well. I will talk to some people and get back to you. It’ll cost you.”

Shane sighed. “I’m sure it will.”

*

Shane walked into pre-season training with some pep in his step. He was feeling better about this season than he had last year. More like the old Shane. After all, the weight of carrying his biggest secret was easing a little, the plan appeared to be actually working and the summer he had spent with Ilya had been relaxing, which wasn’t something he could usually say about his previous summers.

Training camp went well. Very well, actually. The roster looked good. The new additions seemed friendly, even after it was obvious that someone had clued them in to Shane's sexuality. The changes they’d put in place were panning out. Their back-up goalie wasn’t deadweight and appeared to be a decent human. Theriault had slapped him on the back like he used to a couple of times, with a brusque, “Bon.”

“Saw the, ah, camp on socials, Hollander,” O’Conner said conversationally one day. “You got some good press.”

“Yeah, we did. But, God, I am not good with coaching kids. Made one cry when I corrected his backhand,” he reflected. It had been a low point. He’d had to bribe the kid with ice-cream.

The other low point had obviously been when Ryan Price walked in on him and Ilya kissing but he wasn’t going to mention that.

There was a ripple of amusement in the locker room. The conversation moved on to other anecdotes of people’s summers. JJ had met a girl through, of all things, a set-up through his mom’s church and it was going surprisingly well. He made it clear that though she did attend church regularly this in no way reflected her attitude in the bedroom. There were a few ribald comments about other ways to worship, which appeared to be a metaphor for sucking dick.

Shane laughed along with everyone else – it was, genuinely, something he could relate to – and checked his cell phone to see if there was anything from Ilya, see how his day was going. There wasn’t so he sent him a heart emoji just to show that he was thinking about him.

And then, because they were who they were, the eggplant emoji.

*

Matveev called him from his Russian number, reminding Shane that he really needed to come up with some name for him. If Ilya saw the country code he would recognize it was a call from Russia.

“Shane Hollander,” he boomed.

Shane ducked away from Hayden for a moment, one hand up in apology. He walked briskly across the hotel lobby and stood behind an indoor fountain. “You can just call me Shane, you know.”

“Absolutely. So, we have a plan for the music.”

“Oh great!”

“We will pay her old teacher. Well. She is not old. Not really. Younger than me. Feisty.” This seemed like unnecessary details to Shane. “She is willing to travel to Anna’s new school for after school lessons. If not eager to do so.”

“Oh really? That’s— well, that’s really nice of her.”

“No. It is nurturing of talents,” Matveev said seriously. “By all accounts, girl is prodigy. It would be waste otherwise. Teacher very passionate. A good, strong woman.”

Again. Not really details Shane needed to know. “A prodigy huh? That’s great.” It was great. For the first time, this shitty set-up that he was very much regretting was actually doing some good. “So, is it set up as a scholarship or something?”

“We are paying generously. No one will ask questions about where the money is coming from.”

Shane wondered how generous exactly ‘we’ were being. He’d had to create a specific slush fund for his Russian transactions. Thank God he managed his own money now – a couple of years ago it had still been his dad and his dad’s accountant. “Right. Sure.”

“Ivan will be in touch with the invoice.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“It is my pleasure, Shane Hollander!”

*

They tried to eat dinner with each other virtually when they were apart which usually meant one or both of them were in a hotel, picking through room service. Tonight, it was both of them. Shane was in Florida and they were playing the next day. Ilya was in New York and they’d just lost to the Admirals.

Shane had propped iPad-Ilya up on the always-slightly-too-small table by the window and arranged his meal neatly in front of him. Ilya was shirtless and eating on his bed like a heathen.

Ilya shoved a fry in his mouth. “I got the email about the ESPN documentary. Did you?”

“Yeah. We’re trying to schedule an interview in the next few weeks.” He wrinkled his nose. Shane wasn’t sure what to think about the documentary. It was supposed to be focusing on their rivalry – but they were obviously trying to tone it down now. “I’m not looking forward to being followed around.”

“Me either.” Ilya’s well-defined top lip curled. “They’ll send a list of questions in advance.”

“Yeah. Maybe we could prep together?”

It was Ilya’s turn to shrug. “I’m sure they will be boring. Nothing to prep for. Nothing we haven’t already said about each other.” He ate another fry. “I am going to Kingfisher later.”

Shane would have rather continued the conversation about the documentary but the change in subject felt purposeful. “That’s— that’s Scott Hunter’s bar?” 

“Yes. He and Kip got engaged. I’m going to wish them well.” He raised a fist. “Because I am ally.”

“Oh my God.” Shane nearly choked on a piece of asparagus. “That’s. Wow. A lot to take in with the— allyship and all.” And he was searingly jealous. Like. White hot. For multiple reasons. Scott and Kip being out and engaged. Ilya able to go to a gay bar and brush it off. He had to put his fork down and take a breath. “Wait – how do you know?”

“I follow Kip on Instagram.”

“You do?” Ilya blinked at him as if to say ‘duh?’. “And you’re just… going to a gay bar?”

“Da. Is New York. No one cares. And Hunter changed things for us.” He shrugged a shoulder at this understatement and then took an absolutely humongous bite of his burger, which meant he couldn’t speak for a good couple of minutes and allowed Shane’s blood pressure to return to a normal pace. When he did finish masticating, he cut straight to the chase. “You look unhappy.”

“I’m jealous. Envious maybe. One or maybe both of them.”

Ilya licked some ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “We have a plan,” he reminded him.

“Yeah. We do.” Shane shook his head, trying to get rid of the feeling and failing.

He picked up his fork and hovered it over his Power Bowl of grains and vegetables, wishing he was eating fries. It was always difficult going away, trying to find something that fitted his diet but the Marriot was usually pretty decent. He wasn’t feeling it tonight, however.

“One day, Shane.”

“One day.”

*

Dear Mr Hollander,

Hope this email finds you well.

Attached is the requested report.

Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.

Regards

Ivan

*

Shane spent Christmas researching schools in Moscow for the musically gifted. Or conservatories, as they were called.

Anna’s teacher had recommended that she apply for one of them. They were state funded so it wasn’t a question of money. It was a question of talent – which the agency assured Shane she had, even going so far as to get her teacher to do a write up that talked about Anna’s musical aptitude in language that, when translated from Russian to English, read like poetry. Anna had a beautiful ear and naturally delicate lyricism and she becomes the music, effortlessly, sincerely.

Shane recognized that language. It was the kind of language people used to describe Shane on the ice. It was the language of the gifted.

So Anna had talent, but what she didn’t have were helicopter parents. These schools were highly competitive and Anna was a little girl. She needed the intense support of her parents to get ahead. Shane knew that, too.

Alexei had picked up some work as a nightclub bouncer which meant he was useless during the day – not least because apparently most of his nights ended with him drinking his wages. And her mom had taken a second job to help pay rent which, surprisingly, still left her some time to meet her work friend on the sly.

Meanwhile, Anna went to school on her own. She came home on her own. Though Shane now didn’t have any photos as evidence, in his head she was walking through snowy streets carrying a little flute case, probably in a less-than-substantial coat, and sitting at an empty kitchen table eating something sad, like soup.

His imagination was really running wild these days.

He snuck out Christmas Eve to call Matveev on his Russian number. Inside his parents house, Ilya and his dad were working on a puzzle and his mom was preparing to call her sister in Japan by drinking another glass of wine and writing herself some talking points. “Is Anna being neglected?” he demanded.

“I’m assured she is healthy. Her mama makes her a good lunch every day and leaves her supper each night. The neighbor looks in on her. The school has observed no issues. Katya is very nurturing. She would have told me if there was something wrong.”

“Katya?”

“Ah. Her music teacher. A good woman.”

Shane pursed his lips. “Yes, you’ve mentioned. But she’s not going to get into this fancy school if she’s not prepared.”

“Mmm. We could increase her lessons.”

“Is that what her teacher, ah, Katya recommends?”

“I think so. During holidays especially. She would be alone a great deal during holidays.”

“Okay.” There was little else Shane could do except throw money at the problem. “I like this Central Music School. It says it’s a feeder school to the Moscow Conservatory.”

“Da. Is very good school. I shall tell Katya. I mean, the agency.” A ripple of laughter. “You will be a good father one day, Shane Hollander.”

“Mmm,” said Shane vaguely, thinking about child prodigies. It was a good thing he was rich. Apparently, Ilya’s genetics leant towards genius.  

But maybe he was getting ahead of himself here.

*

They cuddled in Shane’s twin bed, giggling at how ridiculous it was. His mom had suggested they use the guest room – as she had done so last Christmas – but Ilya was once again adamant that sleeping in Shane’s childhood room was a dream come true. There was a blow-up bed on the floor that they never used, just in case.

“Did you play an instrument? As a kid?” he asked, playing with the little hairs around Ilya’s nipples.

“Me? No.” Ilya scoffed. “Music is only for girls.”

It sounded like he was parroting someone. “That is not true.”

“No, it is not. Actually…” Ilya paused minutely, his fingers stroking the shorter hair along the nape of Shane’s neck. He continued in a wistful way, “Actually, my brother, he liked piano when we were children.”

“Oh my God,” Shane said, probably a mite too passionately for the subject matter. So that was where the talent came from. Alexei. Who would have thought?

The streetlights outside his parents’ house filtered through the curtains, so he could see Ilya’s head turn towards him, the surprise outlined on his face in yellow.  

“I mean, from what you told me, he never struck me as… musical.”

“No. But my mama, she was.”

“Oh.” Shane turned his head to kiss Ilya’s collarbone. “She played the piano?”

“And sang. A little bit. Not much towards the end.”

Ah yes. The end. His mother’s suicide. The lifeless body he had found at the tender age of twelve before his father shipped him off to boarding school. At some point, Shane was going to learn a lesson here, namely that asking questions about Ilya’s past had the potential to open up unhealed wounds.

So Shane kissed Ilya again, then wriggled a bit so he could kiss his jaw, pressing his fingers to the other side to stroke across the bristles that would be shaved off tomorrow. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, we don’t,” Ilya said breezily. “Is a depressing subject for American Christmas. You didn’t play music?”

“No. No time for that.”

“Yuna didn’t want you to be well-rounded?”

They both huffed out a laugh. Their noses brushed. “How do you make everything sound filthy?”

“Is talent.” Ilya kissed him, open-mouthed, and it was definitely also filthy. Far, far filthier than his childhood bed allowed, all thrusting tongues and saliva and the sharp nip of Ilya’s teeth. The wooden base creaked as Ilya climbed over him, rocking their hips together, Shane digging his fingers into his fucking amazing ass. Ilya moaned. “If we move to airbed I could fuck you so quietly.”

“No,” gasped Shane, unconvincingly, whilst sucking hard on his tongue.

*

New Year’s was important to Ilya, which he’d of course never voluntarily said to Shane. No, he’d had to work it out himself when they hadn’t done anything the previous year. They’d both had games sandwiched on either side and Ilya had been very annoyed about this, complaining about not being able to kiss him at midnight. Which, yes, Shane had agreed with – but it was no different than the seven years before then.  

So also as agreed, Shane had called Ilya just before midnight to at least have something, and it had been to find his boyfriend’s eyes suspiciously wet and Ilya’s mood brittle.

They’d had an argument, of course, because Ilya dealt with his emotions poorly, which was to say he ignored or denied having them, and had hung up before they’d even got to midnight. Shane had called back. Ilya had hung up. They repeated this exercise a few times, Shane really digging his heels in, until Ilya had answered, his whole face tensed up to stop the tears from falling, and explained thickly that it was a Russian holiday and it had a name and there were presents and he didn’t have a family and he wanted to do all those things with Shane.

And then Shane had cried, fucking heartbroken and guilty, because he wanted all those things to. And that was how they had spent their first New Year’s as a couple.

Big thumbs up all around.

Which was why Shane found himself driving to Ottawa in the dark on the 31^st of December with aching, bruised ribs and a split lip. He was pissed about the split lip, not just because it meant that kissing Ilya at midnight (crucial) would be bloody but because Svetlana was visiting and she was beautiful, and Ilya had been inside her too and she would not have a split lip.

Shane was a little conflicted about this New Year’s, for entirely selfish reasons that he was trying to put aside for Ilya. He had suggested Svetlana come to visit, remembering Ilya’s tears about family and Russian traditions. He’d done his research – a lot of it, down to creating a burner account on Reddit and asking a few questions in r/AskARussian – but Svetlana was a native and she’d know better than Shane.

She’d arrived yesterday, not being burdened by work commitments, and Ilya had sent photos of the tree they had decorated together. They’d had a tree in the cottage, of course, but it was traditional for there to be a tree for New Year’s, leading up to Orthodox Christmas. Shane knew this now.

So Svetlana was there and she was sleeping in one of the guest rooms that Ilya had bought new bedding and towels for and Ilya was obviously having such a great time, such a great time, that Shane was maybe a little concerned he was going to walk through the front door and Ilya’s face would drop, like he’d forgotten about Shane and he was now an unnecessary addition. 

Which wasn’t going to happen.

To take the edge off this third-wheel scenario, with Ilya’s agreement Shane had also invited his parents for dinner. His parents were excited. His mom had bought a new outfit and got her hair blown out specially. His dad had thrilled Ilya by working on a Russian-inspired feast featuring a bunch of things Shane suspected he wouldn’t be able to eat, including a salad that seemed to be mostly mayonnaise.

“Wow, cheer up, Hollander,” he told himself as he indicated to leave the highway. He was twenty minutes out. He needed to give himself a pep talk. And take some more pain killers.

*

Looking back to their hook-up days, had anyone been insane enough to ask, or Shane equally insane enough to think about it for any length of time, Shane wouldn’t necessarily have said he thought Ilya Rozanov was tactile. Unless you were talking violent, in which case, definitely. On the ice. A flash of sharp teeth before he checked you into the boards. Bruise-making hands. Cutting chirps.

In bed— well that was different. That was sex and sex was physical touch. In fact, any touching had a purpose which was to get them both off, often as quickly as possible. And Ilya was better at that. More confident, better attuned to the responses of Shane’s body than even he was. Ilya’s touches in bed were calculated for maximum sensation. The curl of his fingers. The bite of his teeth. A calming hand on the arch of Shane’s back.

The Ilya Shane now knew, beyond intimacy, expressed himself through touch all the time. Maybe even more than words. If they were sharing a space, some part of them would be touching, frequently initiated by Ilya himself. If they were having a conversation, at some point he would touch Shane’s leg or thigh or arm or lean into him. And yes sometimes that touching would be a prelude to sex but more often than not it was just what it was – a connection. A grounding. A reinforcement of their partnership, that blurred line of bodily autonomy. It said I have permission and no one else can touch you like this.

Shane loved it. But he suspected Ilya needed it.

That evening, with Svetlana and his parents and the twinkling Christmas-New-Year tree, the baseline of physical touch passed from what Shane saw as the typical standard into something else.

Ilya clung to him. From the first kiss at the door, to the bedroom where he dropped off his bag, to the kitchen to try the vodka his parents had bought, to the dining table, he glued himself to Shane’s side and would not be parted. If he hadn’t looked so goddamn happy about it, Shane might have been worried. 

At one point during the pause between the main course and dessert, Shane whispered, “Are you going to come with me to piss?”

Ilya’s grin was a flash of white. His hand curved around Shane’s thigh under the table. “Oh, but I could hold—”

“Oh my God.” Shane stood, his own hand going to Ilya’s shoulder to keep him down but even then, Ilya’s snake-like arms wound around Shane’s legs, almost tripping him up as he left the table. He scurried away, shaking his head, and glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a teasing smile, but what he actually got was an intense stare and the distinct sense that if he didn’t get a move on, Ilya was going to come get him.

He took a piss – the downstairs cloakroom mirror reflecting his flushed cheeks from the wine and the ugly split lip – and hurried back, sliding on the bench-seat so he was pressed up against Ilya’s side. “Better?” he murmured, so as to not interrupt the conversation between Svetlana and his parents.

In response, Ilya – chipping in politely to Svetlana’s absolute decimation of Philadelphia – tugged Shane’s smart shirt out from the back of his pants so he could slide his warm hand against Shane’s skin.  

Maybe it was all an elaborate, prolonged come-on. Shane started tearing his mandarin into its neat segments. They hadn’t seen each other for a few days and normally the first stop would be the bedroom. Or the hallway floor. Or the couch. That hadn’t been possible tonight. Instead, he’d hugged and kissed his parents and greeted Svetlana with plausible pleasure and then they’d had taken photos with the Polaroid Shane had given Ilya for Christmas and toasted the evening.

Ilya’s hand on his back, Shane placed a few segments of mandarin onto Ilya’s plate, next to the cheesecake he was toying with. Ilya gave him one of his adorable thank-you smiles, which was perfectly innocent and slid a segment into his mouth. Which was, yes, quite distracting because he was Shane Hollander and things going into Ilya’s mouth were ridiculously arousing but it didn’t feel like a come-on. Ilya’s come-ons were significantly less subtle. There would be more hands-down-pants than anything else. And he wouldn’t do that in front of Shane’s parents.

Pondering this, Shane popped a piece of mandarin into his own mouth and accidentally met Svetlana’s eyes. From her seat at the head of the table, she had a better view than Shane’s parents of the location of Ilya’s hand and they dipped down to said location. She smirked. 

Part of Shane – a remnant of who he had once been, the instincts he’d once had – wanted to pull himself away from Ilya then. He’d been sighted! Unauthorized PDA! Panic stations!

Then new instincts took over and he held himself still. This was home. This was allowed. And, actually, if Ilya wanted to climb onto Shane’s lap, he would let him. If it made him happy.

There would be no tears this New Year’s.

And so Shane smirked right back.

*

His parents left just after 1AM after lots of hugs and kisses. His mom was definitely slightly buzzed which meant she was pretty handsy with his dad, which he could have done without witnessing.

“Your parents are very much still in love,” said Svetlana thoughtfully. She had curled up in the loveseat, her long bare legs tucked neatly underneath her. She had a fresh glass of vodka. Her nails were painted dark red.

Shane worried at his split lip. It had reopened when Ilya had kissed him at midnight, as he had expected it would. He’d had to wipe blood from his skin. He hoped there wasn’t some kind of superstition about that.

Ilya himself had conked out about thirty minutes before, head on Shane’s lap, breath steady. One hand had bunched up the hem of Shane’s shirt, like he was making sure Shane wouldn’t get away. Amber, Hayden’s youngest, did that with Shane’s finger whenever he held her. It was cute.

“Yeah, they are. Pretty gross,” Shane replied with a wry smile.

“It is lovely. My parents should have divorced a long time ago.” Svetlana’s eyes dipped down to Ilya. “His should never have married.”

There wasn’t much Shane could say about that. If they hadn’t married, Ilya wouldn’t be here today and Shane would be half a person. “I’m sorry. Do you get on with them? Your parents?”

Svetlana turned to stare at the tree, one hand tugging on a perfect curl. “My father more than my mother. She is very difficult. She prefers my younger brother. He is more easily manipulated.” A dark expression fluttered across her beautiful features. She took a big gulp of her drink.

“Do you and he—”

Svetlana shook her head, abruptly, and Shane was half-Japanese and had been fighting bullshit stereotyping all his life but, really, Russians and emotions were not a good mix. “It is no matter. Oh. I forget. I have something for you.” She unwound herself and slunk away, her sparkly dress glittering from the lit candles and the fairy lights on the Christmas tree.

Worry assuaged Shane. They’d exchanged little gifts earlier. Most were kitschy. If Svetlana was about to pull out something expensive, he was going to lose his mind. His aunt had sent him a hamper from Japan for Christmas. Maybe he could re-gift?

She returned silently and this time sat on the other side of Shane on the couch, careful not to jostle Ilya. She was holding a shoebox, the lid of which she flipped open with a flourish.

Shane was going to lose his mind. “The photos,” he breathed reverently.

Her smile became cat-like. “Yes. I think you will like.”

Both of Shane’s hands were currently occupied, one in Ilya’s hair and one resting on his waist and he knew from experience that if he moved Ilya would make a protesting sound in his sleep.

Shane pleaded with his eyes. “Show me.”

Svetlana was delighted to. She removed the first stack, wound together with an elastic band. “I have arranged them in date order.”

“Of course.”

“So we begin with Ilyusha as a very, very fat baby—”

Chapter 3: 2020

Shane sat Ilya down – over Facetime – to talk about All-Stars. He had made notes for this discussion, to keep them on track. Ilya had missed last year’s for a funeral, so this would be the first time they attended together since they had made things official but also the first time since they had outed themselves… as friends.

“We cannot be too obviously friendly. Like, I think there should still be some reserve there. A little obvious rivalry.”

“Good idea, Shane,” Ilya said, nodding his head very seriously. Shane had – in a panic – sent a meeting invite for this call entitled ‘All-Stars Behavior Agreement’ and Ilya had replied with a voice note that was just the sound of him cackling. Which was something because he didn’t think Ilya was going to be cackling by the end of it.

“I mean it. We need to socialize convincingly with other people.” Not hole up in a booth somewhere with their tongues down each other’s throats. Which Shane had definitely not fantasized about on the flight back from Columbus. Hence the panic meeting invite.

Resting his chin on his propped-up fist, Ilya batted his eyelashes. “Do you know how to do that? Socialize?”

“Do I—” Shane narrowed his own eyes and stopped himself. He would not rise to such obvious bait. He looked down at his cue cards with a deep breath. Instead, he would power through this. He was In Control. “We cannot stay the night in each other’s hotel rooms.”

Ilya bolted upright, all pretense at humoring Shane vanishing. “What? Why not?”

“Because we could get caught,” Shane said through his teeth. Duh.

“Shane. No. I am putting foot down.”

“And that’s adorable but we never stayed the night in each other’s hotel rooms before. Especially not when the whole place will be crawling with hockey players and their wives and children. Jesus. The Commissioner will be there.” Fear hooked a knife in Shane’s belly and twisted.

“Then I book another hotel. We will stay somewhere else. Shane.” Ilya’s mouth moved into a mulish pout and he sat back, folding his arms. “It is no. I want to hold you when we sleep. I want it to be not like before.”

Shane’s eyes wanted to flutter closed, mostly to block out the sight of his boyfriend putting foot down, as he put it, and saying touching, vulnerable things. He had known this was going to be contentious. “Ilya.”

“No. We will just be careful. Check hallway. Whatever we need to do.” Ilya shrugged carelessly but his eyes were glittering.

Shane looked down at his cue cards again. He only had one more point and the words swam in front of his eyes. “I think we should only use each other’s surnames,” he said quietly.

Ilya leaned forward and hung up the call.

*

The Cold War lasted three days before they agreed on a call the Monday before All-Stars weekend.

On screen, Ilya very pointedly shuffled his own cue cards – neon yellow, absolutely diabolical choice of stationary – and tapped them on the table in front of him. He’d put a suit jacket on because he was an asshole. “Okie. Friday, first night, we go for a drink together in the bar, alone,” he began. “You wear tight t-shirt. The baby blue one.”

He raised his eyebrows at Shane, expectantly.

Shane folded his arms. “I want to hear all the demands before I commit to anything.”

“Boring, Hollander,” Ilya said but there was certainly a note of admiration in his voice. He respected Shane’s strategy. “Very well. First night, drink together. Baby blue t-shirt. Then we go to our rooms, early night, very sensible. I come to you. We order room service. We fuck, sleep, and I leave at 5am. We meet for breakfast at 9am.”

There was another expectant pause, as if he was waiting for Shane to acknowledge this plan before he moved on. Shane gave him a tight nod, mentally forming his rebuttal. Baby blue t-shirt. Asshole.

“Second night, I will meet people. You come join. Oh, Rozanov, how nice to see you—"

“Is that supposed to be a Canadian accent?

Ilya ignored him. His cheeks were a little pink. “—I invite you to dinner to discuss an idea I had about Foundation. We go to nice restaurant. You wear shirt I got you for Christmas. We go back to my hotel room. We fuck. We sleep. You leave at 5am.”

Shane rolled his eyes. Ilya grinned, smug as hell.

“Third night, we do whatever you want. Most people go home Sunday so it won’t matter what we do. Maybe we watch movie. We stay in my room. We fuck. We sleep late because our flights aren’t until afternoon. We get room service. We eat in bed because crumbs do not matter in hotels, Shane,” he said with significant emphasis. “We share taxi to airport and go home.” He placed his cue cards down on the table, carefully, and then waved an elegant hand at Shane, like he was a fucking king. “You may speak now.”

“Thanks,” Shane said sarcastically. He sat forward. “Okay. First night, drink. Agreed. But not the baby blue T-shirt. It’s Anaheim. In January.”

His boyfriend’s eyelashes fluttered. “Is a balmy 18 degrees!”

“That is barely temperate. That t-shirt is basically tissue paper.”

Ilya’s grin was devilish. “I know. So pretty. I can see your nipples.”

“So that’s a no.”

Ilya pouted.

“I am open to negotiations about other clothing choices, however,” Shane said graciously, not for one moment going to admit that the idea of Ilya deciding what he would wear was a real turn-on. Or that Rose had bought him that t-shirt.  

“The grey cashmere V-neck,” Ilya said promptly.

Shane felt his cheeks heat. Yeah. Real turn-on. Who would have thought. “What I’m gathering here is you like my clothes tight.”

“Yes, please.”

“Noted.” And he really did file that away to think about later. Possibly as a brief to his stylist. Hello, yes, forget everything I’ve said before about trendy professionalism, can you make me look slutty? “Okay. We go to your room but I’m going to carry paperwork.”

“Paperwork.”

“Yup. Like a folder. Things you have to sign.”

Ilya gasped theatrically. “You are going to make me do admin.”

“No, I’m going to pretend— actually, I’ll see if my mom can find something genuine.” Now Shane grinned. “And we can leave it in each other’s room and alternate carrying it to each other.”

Ilya’s eyes rolled so hard they might as well have done the full orbit. “Shane, this is ridiculous.”

It was. But Shane was kind of into it now that Ilya was taking this seriously. “Agreed to you leaving at 5am. But why don’t we meet at the gym before breakfast and then go down together after?”

His boyfriend nodded once, slightly mollified. “Okie. That’s good.”

“Agreed to meet you in the bar on the second night. But when am I going to put the shirt on? Before or after we meet in the bar? Be a bit much to dress up for a shitty hotel bar.”

Ilya tapped his fingers on the table, pondering the logistics. “Maybe I tell others we have dinner plans.”

“Maybe I don’t meet you at the bar, but I meet you at the restaurant.”

There was a heavy pause as Ilya considered this. His eyes dipped down. “Marly has messaged me. He wants to meet for a drink that night. I was thinking you would not be happy with that.”

Shane wanted to deny it. He really did, but his heart had dropped in a sickening lurch down to his bellybutton and stubbornly refused to return to its proper location. He’d known Marlow was going to be part of the team, of course. But he hadn’t thought as far ahead as socializing. “Um. Okay. Yeah. I am… well.” He stopped saying pointless words and settled for confused silence.

Fucking feelings, man. The worst.

“I don’t have to meet him.”

“You do. He’s your friend.” God, they should give out training manuals for relationships at school. They should have actual courses for this stuff. He sought for the right thing to say, the thing that rose above his feelings and took into account Ilya’s. “I know you have missed him.”

Ilya played with his cue cards, his eyes still lowered. “So better if you come?”

“No. No, you should meet him without me. Thank you for being thoughtful about it but it’s not necessary.” Shane swallowed. And the gold medal for adult relationship skills goes to Shane Hollander. “I want you to spend time with Cliff.”   

“Okie.” Ilya smiled faintly, looking up at Shane through his eyelashes. The switch from tentative to flirtatious was instantaneous. “Maybe I come and pick you up from your room after. Help you get ready.”

“Help me get ready into the shirt you bought me.”

“Yes.”

Never in their life together had Ilya actively dressed Shane. He might be slow, but he wasn’t that slow. “We will be late for our reservation.”

“Probably.” Ilya held up his index and thumb. “Just little bit late.”

*

That Friday, as Shane sat at Trudeau waiting for his flight, he received an email from the agency.

Nervously, he opened it, knowing instinctively that if it was bad news, he would have to tell Ilya this weekend – which would pretty much put a kybosh on all of their very carefully laid plans.

Braced for the worst, he opened the PDF and zoomed in on the first page and then let out a sigh as he skimmed the contents. Anna was now green. Sure, her father was still drinking their rent money and her mother was fucking her colleague – still amber, what the hell? – but Anna was happy.

And that was all that mattered.

A notification from Lily appeared on his screen, distracting Shane utterly. I have bought you a present.

Jane: Is it a very tight shirt?

Lily: You will have to wait and see.

Jane: Should I be afraid?

Lily: Maybe. 😈

*

“You bought a— sex toy to the All-Stars weekend,” Shane hiss-whispered as if the room could possibly hear their conversation. Who knows. Maybe Crowell bugged their rooms.

Ilya beamed. He had one arm around Shane’s waist and their hips pressed together, the better to pin him against the wall. Shane might have tried to make a run for it as soon as Ilya had brandished the toy. “Yes. I thought we could try it out.”

“Not during—”

“No, no, no. This evening. Or tomorrow. Or both?”

“You are out of your fucking mind. That is going nowhere near me.” And obviously it was for him. If anyone was putting anything in their ass this weekend, it was going to be Shane and, fuck Ilya very much, he was really intrigued.

Ilya dipped his head and kissed the end of Shane’s nose. He was so fucking pleased with himself. Practically effervescent. “I think you want to try.”

“I do not.” He did. “What does it do?”

Ilya flipped the black silicone toy so the tapered end pointed to the ceiling. He gestured upwards. “It goes in you, Hollander. Duh.”

“Yes. But you said there’s an app.”

“Oh yes. It vibrates.” He wiggled the toy. “When I want it to.”

Shane’s ass clenched. “Uh. And that’s good. Is it.”

“Is good.”

He swallowed the sudden pooling of saliva under his tongue. “Oh, so you’ve done it?”

“I have tried it out, yes.” Ilya tilted his head and nipped at Shane’s chin.

Heat zipped up Shane’s spine and then straight down his rapidly hardening dick. “You tried this out? By yourself?”

“Was quality control.”

“I don’t think that’s very fair,” Shane protested. He swallowed again. Ilya had put the toy in himself. Probably lubed it up. Worked it in. Set it to fucking vibrate.

He was rock hard. He pressed himself against Ilya, just to get a little relief, when it was actually the opposite.

“Well. Maybe another time we can explore that,” Ilya said breezily, as if he hadn’t blown Shane’s fucking mind. So far, Ilya had never indicated he would be remotely interested in any kind of ass play. Ever. Shane hadn’t thought the option was on the table. And now— holy shit. Was that something he wanted? Was it something Shane wanted?

“Breathe, Shane,” Ilya suggested.

Shane let out a breath in a big whoosh. “I want you to put it in me now,” he said, making a decision.

“I thought you might say that.” He kissed Shane, licking open his mouth and groaning. “You are so fucking hot.”

*

That evening, Shane beats Ilya’s ass at the obstacle course, his mind clean and clear the way it often was after he’d been well and truly fucked. Like he’d reached a new plane of existence. Whatever hormones were produced from sex should be bottled.

He barely gloated – okay, he gloated a little – and went downstairs in his grey sweater at the appointed time to meet Ilya for a drink.

Because that was what friends did. They made plans. They strolled across the open plan bar at a hotel towards a small table by the window, smiling in a friendly way, like they were glad to see their bros. He had bros. He’d done this exact thing before.

Sure, none of the bros had ever given Shane butterflies but no one else knew that looking at Ilya made him fizz like a teenage girl. Or like the teenage boy he had once been.

Ilya, hair in freshly washed curls but tidied a little with gel, was wearing his favorite pair of jeans and a very familiar dark green polo shirt. He looked gorgeous. Of course, Shane couldn’t say that because they were being bros but he thought it very hard.

“That’s mine,” Shane pointed out, sliding into the seat opposite him. It was a little tighter around the shoulders on Ilya than it was on him but it looked good. Most things looked good on Ilya.

“Who would know? Is generic. Boring.” Ilya smirked and pushed forward the beer and the ginger ale he’d got him. “You pick.”

“Thanks.” He chose the ginger ale. They still had a game tomorrow, after all.

Under the table, Ilya slotted his legs between Shane’s, stretching them out. His eyes dared Shane to say something, which he did. “Stop it.”

“What? I’m getting comfy.”

Pursing his lips, Shane rearranged their legs so it was less overtly suggestive. “You are preposterous.”

“Preposterous,” Ilya repeated admiringly. He mouthed it a couple more times and took a sip of his beer. “Nice word.”

Shane looked around the bar. It was busy but there wasn’t anyone he recognized – maybe people had gone out already. There was also another bar in this hotel, a sports bar, which he’d passed on his way down, wincing at the cacophony of voices and clashing TV sounds. But Ilya had been very specific about where they were going to meet. This bar had low, somnolent lighting, real candles on the table, and the view from the floor to ceiling windows was— well, mostly dark. But it was nice.

It was very much a date bar and Shane could be slow about things sometimes. “This is a date, isn’t it?”

Ilya nodded patiently. “Yes, Hollander. Well done.”

He smiled, a bit giddy. It was insane, a date with another player at the All-Stars, in full view of the public. They were really testing the limits of the plan. “We’ve not really done that.”

“No.” Ilya took a sip of his beer and Shane knew it was so that he could hide his expression.

Shane bit his lip and sat forward on the table. “I downloaded an app. For learning Russian.”

“You did?”

“Da,” said Shane, grinning, that giddy feeling reaching his fingers, his toes. He was happy. In this moment. So happy. “But I could use some help.”

*

His team were playing well. Really well. They’d had six confident back-to-back wins in the last two months and that didn’t happen by accident. The system was working, small shifts in strategy panning out. Communication between the guys was constant and, more importantly, better. But it wasn’t just about the tactics or the fact that no one had done something stupid like tearing their MCL. The room felt different and with each game their confidence grew.

Obviously, Shane was a big part of that. He was playing some of the best hockey he’d ever played.

Though it was early, and the only people who were saying this out loud were analysts, unless something drastic happened they were all aware that the next step was the playoffs. The buzz had begun.

Perhaps because of that, because Shane wasn’t doing anything to remind the guys that he was gay, no one was filtering themselves around him anymore. Most noticeably, the sexual jokes were back. Walking into the locker room was exactly as it had always been – which was to say highly inappropriate, actively crossing the line into misogyny and homophobia. But Shane could filter that out. This was NHL hockey. And Shane wasn’t here to change the world.

“Drinks tonight, Captain?” Drapeau asked, slapping him on the back.

“Sure,” said Shane, because it had been months since the invite to Friday night drinks with the team had been anything but performative. And Drapeau was finally looking him in the eyes again.

It felt like a win.

They went to their regular haunt, a bar where the room at the back was unofficially theirs and the locals knew to keep out of their way unless they were specifically invited. Not that the Metros weren’t friendly with fans. The social media team encouraged them to take selfies when asked – it was all part of being part of the community. But sometimes they did just want to socialize with their teammates and not be swarmed.

With one eye on the clock, Shane held a slowly warming beer for an hour. He’d decided recently that he needed to get really serious about his diet. He was putting in extra hours of training and had adjusted his program with his trainer but there were other things he could do to ensure his body was at peak condition. He needed to ensure it was fueled right. He’d been on the same diet for the last few years – a protein-enhanced macrobiotic diet that had been recommended by the old team nutritionist that he’d tweaked – but he wasn’t always rigorous about it. The odd beer now and again. A burger. Maybe a glass or two of wine with his parents. A Snickers bar after practice.

He needed to cut that shit out.

Conversation moved to next week where they would be on the road, and air, for most of it – two back-to-back games with the teams in Florida and then on to Columbus. The chatter skirted close to the edge of overconfident and Shane shut that down, “Nothing is guaranteed until the whistle blows, guys.”

There were groans around the table and a few murmurs of ‘Captain’ and Shane figured now was the time to make his exit. He knew the limits of his role. He wasn’t that type of captain and he knew the guys wanted to blow off steam without him frowning at their alcohol intake. It was Friday night. Their next game was Monday. He could let it pass.

As it happened, he wasn’t the only one leaving early. JJ came with him, heading out to see his girl. Shane waited outside with him for JJ’s Uber Black, asking polite questions about his weekend plans. Shane’s weekend – with the exception of long calls with Ilya, who had a Saturday game – was the same as it always was: training, tape, maybe a nap, some reading, more training.

“Criss, Hollander. Don’t you ever relax?” His eyes suddenly lit up. “You know, Sabine has a friend, he’s gay—”

“No! Absolutely not.” Shane looked around but the Friday night crowd was not interested in them. Well. There was a cluster of girls who were definitely interested but he looked away quickly. “You know I can’t.”

“You can get laid, though.” JJ’s grin waned. “Wait. You do get laid, right?”

“Yes,” said Shane through his teeth.

“Thank fuck for that, Capitaine.” He grabbed Shane’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “I was worried for a moment.”

Shane rolled his eyes, grateful for the crunching tires of the Mercedes that drew up to collect JJ. “See you bright and early Monday morning.”

*

Learning Russian was not for the weak and certainly not for people who didn’t have much time in the first place. He slotted his lessons into the spot previously filled with re-reads of his favorite hockey anthologies and it became a pre-bedtime ritual which had a strange influence over his dreams.

“I’m dreaming about you a lot.”

“Oh? Sexy?”

“Not really.” Shane chewed on his hoodie string thoughtfully. He didn’t really remember them in detail. And it was more like the feeling of Ilya. Distinct and warm. “You’re just… there.”

“How disappointing.”

He smiled. “Not really. It’s kinda nice.”

Ilya sighed off camera. He was packing and had propped Shane up on his dresser whilst he moved around. It had been faintly irritating, actually, as Ilya had been weirdly resistant to a video call, but Shane had insisted and even then it was almost like he was deliberately not staying on camera and for whatever reason his bedroom was very dark so what Shane could see he couldn’t see very well. “I am missing you a lot today.”

“Today in particular?” Shane teased.

“Always. But particularly today,” Ilya said pronouncing ‘particularly’ very carefully.  

Shane raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I will tell you.” Ilya leaned back so he was partially in the frame and his eyes were stern. “And you cannot get mad.”

“Oh?” he said again, only there was definitely a tone now. Of deep suspicion.

“Promise me.”

“Do I have a choice here?”

Ilya narrowed his eyes. “You’re already mad.”

“I’m not. I’m not.” Shane summoned the barest effort of a smile. “I promise I won’t get mad.”

Ilya paused and moved away. Shane could hear zipping. “Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death.”

It was lucky Ilya was off camera because Shane’s initial reaction was to drop his iPad and roll his face into his pillow, complete with an opened mouthed, silent scream from being gut-punched by words. Then, because it was not possible to not verbally react, he said, “Fuck, Ilya.”

“No mad!”

“Come back here,” Shane instructed, picking up his iPad and forcing his face into something that might conceivably be neutral and not, like, a raging indictment of his boyfriend’s ability to not communicate until it was too late. “Ilya. I want to see you.”

There was a sniff. “No.”

“Ilya. Please,” he coaxed, touching the empty screen with its view of one of the walls of Ilya’s bedroom. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had known.”

“You couldn’t have done anything.” Just enough of Ilya’s shoulder appeared in the frame for Shane to see him shrug. “You flew in this morning. I fly out this afternoon.”

“I could have driven to you.” Instead of falling into his bed, where he still was, and sleeping for six hours. “I could have been with you for part of the day. Ilya.” Shane had to cover his face again. “I wish you’d told me. I’m so sorry.”

“You are mad.”

Well, he was mad but he was also not a monster. “This was important, Ilya. I wish you had told me. I wish you had let me be there for you. I— what time is your game tomorrow? The afternoon? Maybe I could—” He began to look up flights to New York.  

Ilya returned to the screen. His eyes were soft and Shane realized for the first time that they were a little red. He had been crying. That was why he hadn’t wanted to do a video call. “Shane, you have meetings with Rolex tomorrow.”

Yeah, on his one rest day this month. “Whatever. I’ll cancel.” Had he ever cancelled on a brand? No. But that was because he’d never had a real emergency before. Sure, he’d gone to a meeting with flu once but that was different. That was him. This was for Ilya. Who had latched himself onto Shane at New Year’s because he was happy and now he was sad and Shane hadn’t fucking known.

“Shane.”

“Ilya.” He checked the time and went to grab his duffel whilst his Air Canada app opened. He wouldn’t need much. “I can get the 6pm. Where are you staying? Is it Essex House? Everyone always stays at the Marriot. Maybe I should stay at Ritz-Carlton.”

“Shane,” Ilya said, more firmly. “This is not necessary.”

“Ilya,” Shane said again, in exactly the same tone of voice, returning to the screen to glare at him, “you can’t seriously think that when you told me you miss me particularly because it’s the anniversary of your mother’s death, that I wouldn’t do anything about it?”

Ilya said nothing. But his face said that was precisely what he thought.

Shaking his head, Shane booked his flight with a few deft jabs at his tablet screen. That was something he was going to have to think about, later. “I’ve broken my promise. I’m definitely mad at you now. But I love you and I will see you in three hours.”

The last thing he saw before he hung up was his boyfriend’s faint marveling smile.

*

Love really did make you crazy.

Sweat creeping around his hairline, Shane checked in at the VIP desk at the JW Marriot, his hoodie up and a ball cap pulled low. He’d put his glasses on, too. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Shane Hollander in the world’s lamest disguise!

His eyes were tired, though, so the glasses were necessary.

The receptionist was too well trained to say anything, or maybe she didn’t recognize him. Hockey was by no means the most popular sport in America and this was New York, which was more of a basketball and baseball town. It would be different if he played for the Knicks.

Profile low, Shane hunkered in the corner of the elevator, face down and eyes on his cell phone. He messaged his room number to Ilya. It was a last-minute booking, so he had forked out for a preposterous two-bedroom suite. At least he could be assured he wouldn’t run into anyone from Ottawa on his floor.

He’d barely had time for a quick shower to wash off the second plane journey of the day and unpacked the few things he’d brought when there was a knock on the door and a simultaneous buzz from his cell.

Then he had an armful of Ilya and it was all worth it.

Shane kicked the door closed with his foot and coaxed Ilya out of the marble hallway. “What do you want? What do you need?” he asked, fingers tangled in Ilya’s hair. He kissed the side of his head.

Ilya made an incomprehensible, and unhelpful, sound into Shane’s increasingly wet neck.

Thankfully for Shane, he had a template for looking after sad boyfriends, because Ilya had done it for him so many times in the last couple of years. And Ilya always handled Shane perfectly.

There was a very large sectional in the living area so Shane sort of aimed them towards that. They tumbled down onto their sides and Ilya became octopus-like, his arms and legs scrabbling around until he had hooked himself around Shane, arranging them to the specifications he desired.

Shane petted his hair and stroked his hands down his back and up again. He was pretty sure Ilya was wearing one of his hoodies, which made him feel all squishy inside. He kissed his temple and tried to tilt his head in such a way that he could see down to where Ilya had buried himself between his chest and chin. No such luck.

“We could get something to eat maybe?” Shane whispered into Ilya’s curls.

Ilya shook his head.

“Do you want to talk?”

Again, more head shaking.

Silent cuddling it was, then. Shane could do that. He squeezed Ilya tightly and kissed his head some more. God, he hoped he didn’t fall asleep.

*

In the end, he thought they both fell asleep, or at least dozed. He jerked awake however long later, briefly uncertain of his location, and Ilya stirred on his chest.

“Come to bed now,” Shane said sternly, unwrapping them and pulling Ilya towards the bedroom. He diverted them briefly into the bathroom where he handed Ilya the spare toothbrush he had bought.

Ilya kept his eyes down whilst he brushed and rinsed and mechanically helped strip the bed down to its necessary parts. He looked, in a word, awful. Pale and flat, his mouth constantly trembling.

Shane got the lights and they climbed into the middle of the bed together. He kissed him, not with the intention of taking it further than that, but Ilya kissed back, tongue seeking.

Well, okay, Shane knew this template, too.

They kissed for a long while, the kind of kissing that Shane thought of as summer-morning-kissing. The didn’t-have-anyplace-to-be kissing. Soft but involved, tongues and gentle caresses. He could feel Ilya’s erection brushing against his thigh so he pushed Ilya onto his back and kissed down his neck, pushing up his T-shirt to pepper kisses along his abdomen. He looked up. Hotel rooms were never fully dark so Ilya was gilded with a faint light. “This okay?”

“Yes, okay, please,” Ilya murmured, his hand brushing Shane’s hair lightly.

Shane tugged Ilya’s sweatpants and underwear down and Ilya helped kick them off. His thumbs traced from Ilya’s knees, up his thighs, rasping over the dusky coarse hairs that covered his skin. He brushed across Ilya’s taut balls and then lowered his head to nuzzle them. He loved the smell down here, the layers of intimate musk and the sweat that was particular to Ilya. He could smell that Ilya had washed carefully with the hotel shower gel. He had hoped that Shane would suck his cock. Would care for him in this way. Take him out of his head.

He licked his way up Ilya’s cock and then – because he was a master cocksucker now – pooled saliva in his mouth and took him all the way in and all the way down to the root.

“OhfuckShane,” groaned Ilya, grabbing Shane’s hair reflexively.

Pleased with himself, Shane pulled back with a slurp, dragging his tongue along the vein beneath, before sinking back down again until his nose brushed Ilya’s pubis. His eyes watered a bit but he ignored it, focused on keeping his boyfriend’s cock wet and tight and… safe? That was a weird thought.

Whilst he was parsing this, he heard the nightstand drawer open and then then Ilya nudged his face with something. “Shane,” he said, panting.

He looked up at the travel sized bottle of lube Ilya was holding out. He stared at it blankly for a moment, cheeks hollowed with the grip, and then Ilya moved one of his thighs, spreading his legs further in invitation. Holy shit. Shane took his opportunity to reach beneath and squeeze one of Ilya’s ass cheeks.

He pulled off again to speak, “Just to check…. what you’re asking for?” Words were hard.

Ilya groaned and rubbed a foot impatiently against the mattress. “I want your fingers in me whilst you blow me, Hollander.”

Holy shit. Shane’s cock, hard and pressed against the mattress, gave a little leap.

This required some rearranging, then. Ilya wasn’t as flexible as Shane was and this was Shane’s first time. Maybe not Ilya’s though. He should ask. Not now. Now he needed to concentrate.

He put a pillow underneath Ilya’s hips. His heart was racing, a nervous tremble in his hands. This was fucking exciting. He squeezed Ilya’s strong thighs, because they were a work of art. “Can I use my tongue on you?”

Ilya squirmed above him, grabbing hold of a pillow and dragging it over his face. “Just do it. Do anything.”

“So bossy,” Shane whispered before leaning down to take his boyfriend apart.

*

They woke before Shane’s alarm, one of those natural symbiotic moments where they both got to see each other’s expression on waking, which meant that Shane saw Ilya’s embarrassment land.

Ilya rolled onto his back and covered his face with his arm, jaw tensed. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m wondering what you’re sorry for,” Shane wanted to know, hoping it was nothing to do with the new they’d introduced to their sex life. Last night had been really hot.

He tried to tug Ilya’s arm away from his face, but he resisted.

“I was… a lot.”

“You are never a lot. Stop hiding.”

With a murmur of complaint, Ilya rolled back over and threw himself over Shane, all long arms and legs and warm skin. But their combined morning breath was spectacularly awful and Shane winced. “Oh gross, I have to brush my teeth.”

This seemed to break whatever tension Ilya was holding because he wheezed out a laugh. They proceeded to wrestle on the enormous bed, Ilya trying to kiss Shane like a foul-mouthed succubus and Shane tried to avoid him. Eventually, he escaped to the realm of minty toothpaste and mouthwash. Ilya followed.

Ilya caught a look of himself in the mirror and blanched at the state of his hair, the defined curls no longer so defined. More in the poufy territory. He pressed at one particularly rebellious cluster. “Wow.” 

“Yeah. Think that was mostly me,” Shane said around a mouthful of foam. “My bad.”

“That is— something.” Ilya ran his hands under the faucet and splashed water on his hair, scrunching it in. Shane had seen him try this technique before and from observation it usually dried funny.

Ilya reached for the toothbrush he’d used last night and used Shane’s toothpaste. “You brought this for me.”

Shane spat and rinsed. “I’ve also got your curl cream.”

“Shane.” Ilya’s bottom lip stuck out, foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. He met Shane’s eyes in the mirror. “Shane.”

“I take it with me when I travel. It smells like you.”

Ilya, who really hadn’t spent the full two minutes brushing, rinsed his mouth hurriedly. “Let’s go back to bed now.”

*

“So, I’ve booked for two nights,” Shane said, drowsily watching Ilya dress in the clothes he’d worn to bed. He’d been right about the hair. Ilya kept catching sight of it in the mirror and scowling. “I’ll have to get the 6am tomorrow but if you want to come back here after the game and stay, I’ll be here.”

Ilya’s fluffy head popped through the neck of his T-shirt. “You’ll be here?”

“Yeah. Actually, I messaged Rose on the way here last night and coincidentally she’s in the city for a meeting so we’re going to grab lunch.”

A variety of complicated expressions crossed Ilya’s face before he settled on one, a soft one. “But you’ll be here, after the game.”

“Yup. I was planning to watch it on that big TV in the living room.” He pointed in that direction vaguely. Or maybe he pointed to the bathroom. He was very tired and planned to nap before his rescheduled virtual meeting with Rolex.

Ilya leaned over the bed to kiss him. “Maybe someone will take photos of you with Rose Landry. Be good excuse for you to be here.”

“I already have a good excuse to be here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess. Yeah.” He grabbed Ilya by the neck of his T-shirt to keep him close. “How are you feeling?”

This question produced the expected answer. Ilya’s eyes shuttered. “I’m fine. Better,” he added, in a begrudging way. Then, more sincerely, but just as begrudging, as if he knew he had to say something but didn’t want to, “Really. Thank you for coming. It was… needed.”

Shane could have laughed at how awkwardly Ilya was admitting this. But he didn’t because Ilya was never in a mood to be teased about his feelings. “Maybe next time you could give me a heads up.”

“Maybe.” Ilya untangled Shane’s fingers from his neckline. His eyes slanted to the side. “Shane, I have game.”

Shane sighed. “Good luck. I’ll be here when you’re back.”

*

Slowly, Shane answered the door. “Hi,” he said, not surprised to see it was Hayden.

“We’re all meeting for dinner. In an hour.”

“Fuck off,” Shane said. He was going to get room service. And ice every part of his body.

“No. We need to socialize. For team morale. And shit.” Hayden headed towards the second bed that Shane wasn’t using. He gently laid his cell on the nightstand and then fell forward, face-first, onto the mattress. “Fucking playoffs.”  

Shane wanted to agree, he really did, but it felt like it would be jinxing it. Instead, he very carefully lowered himself onto his bed. Every single inch of his body was tender. Bruises that ranged from simple contusions to deep tissue, in a variety of rainbow colors, littered his body. Probably more of them than he had freckles. He had a cut inside his mouth that was in just the right place that whenever he smiled, it reopened, and he was pretty sure one of his premolars was lose. He kept playing with it, with his tongue.

Once down, Shane realized that the sensation he’d mistaken as a bruise bothering him was actually the need to use the bathroom. “Fuck,” he muttered, pushing himself up. And there was his shoulder. Throbbing away. Great.

“Brutal,” said Hayden, apropos of nothing. His voice was slurred. “Can you call Jackie for me?”

“If you call Ilya for me.”

“Fuck off, man, it’s not the same.”

Shane paused at the door. “What do you mean?”

“She’s my wife.”

“And he’s my boyfriend. Who I’ve been with longer than you’ve been with your wife,” Shane said snippily. Like, he got it, really he did. Hayden and Ilya were probably never going to be best buds. But couldn’t they at least fake it? For him?

What did he need to do? Marry Ilya?

“You’re right. M’sorry, buddy, you’re right. I can call him for you.” Hayden reached out for his cell phone, missing the nightstand entirely, and then tried again.

Shane huffed. “Don’t. He’ll think there’s a medical emergency and freak out.” He’d sent about forty-five different messages during the game with a detailed estimate of where exactly Shane was hurting. It had been eerily accurate, possibly because he was sitting next to his mom and watching the game and she had magical powers.

Hayden grunted. His arm dropped, draping over the bed. “I’ve set an alarm for forty-five mins. Just need— forty-five minutes.”

Shane closed the bathroom door and took a piss, conscientiously checking that it was the right color and there was no sign of blood. Then he gingerly took off his T-shirt and fished his cell phone out of his sweats, remembering he was on a promise.

The shirtless photo he sent Ilya made him wince and Ilya’s response was written in Cyrillic which meant that it was harder for Shane to understand and also that Ilya had been messaging Svetlana immediately before and had the Russian keyboard on.

Shane’s brain was too tired so he had to look it up. Moy lyubimyy. My darling.

Huh. This was a new one. He occasionally got ‘sunshine’ and recently Ilya had begun calling him various objects to help him learn the language – typically words that Shane hadn’t even got close to learning with his app. But this one was sweet. He hearted the message.

Jane: Should I give you a nickname?

Lily: You could start with saying my actual name correctly.

Shane gasped. Rude!!!!

Lily: 😈

Slamming his phone down on the counter, Shane met his gaze in the mirror. “Eel-jah,” he muttered, embarrassed to be in this position.

Recently, he had been exposed to more Russian conversations between Ilya and Svetlana and it hadn’t taken him long to clock that she said his name differently. In his defense, everyone – from teammates to journalists to coaches - called him Il-y-a, with the three syllables, and he had never corrected Shane. But still. It was embarrassing and a hard habit to break. “Eel-jah.”

Maybe it would be easier if he could call Ilya some endearment. His mom called his dad ‘babe’ sometimes. So that was not going to happen. “Eel-jah,” he said again, forcefully.

“What are you doing, you weirdo?” Hayden called.

Shane’s phone buzzed. It was another message from Ilya and he was expecting it to be some other shit-stirring comment but instead it was a photo of Ilya’s muscled bicep, taken in the master bathroom of his house. He leaned forward and pinched the screen, zooming in on the new addition to said arm. “Is that a tattoo?”

Lily: Can you guess what it is?

Jane: You got a tattoo?????

Lily: Guess!

It looked like a fucking duck. Why would he get a duck tattooed on his body? Shane zoomed in closer before he finally got it. Jane: Oh my god it’s a loon!

He laughed.

“Shane? Are you having a mental break?”

*

Shane actually didn’t remember winning the cup or even the Conn Smythe. Whole thing was a crazy blur, likely from sheer exhaustion and the plummet of post-win adrenaline. From the photos and video footage he saw afterwards, he had comported himself well – shook Crowell’s hand without visibly recoiling and everything.

His ears rang for a solid two days afterwards. He slept all the way up to his parents house and then again when Ilya picked him up and drove him to the cottage, treating him like an invalid, which he practically was. It took another twelve hours for his libido to return, possibly because during those twelve hours Ilya had fed him about five-thousand calories and then his dick remembered what its purpose was.

They spent the most of the next two days in bed and then Shane could say he finally felt human again.

And fantastic. The whole summer ahead of them. Second year of camps, this time with one in Montreal and one in Ottawa. Double the fun. Or double the stress, actually. Shane remembered he had made a lot of notes on his iPad last year on ways he could improve. He should take a look at them.

He stumbled outside to find Ilya on the deck, manning the grill. “Don’t worry. Your chicken is plain,” llya said pre-emptively.

Smiling, Shane wrapped himself around Ilya from behind. “Thank you. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

Ilya grumbled. He was not a fan of Shane’s performance diet and didn’t understand why he needed to continue it in the off-season, despite Shane’s repeated explanations about consistency. He couldn’t let all that effort go to waste over the summer. Or remind his body about chocolate.

It was lovely, hugging Ilya, the heat from the grill chasing off the lowering temperature as the evening set in. He closed his eyes and leaned so that Ilya was taking his body weight.

“Did you see photos?” Ilya’s voice rumbled under his ear. “Of the old man on his honeymoon?”

“Hmm? No?” His brain connected. “Oh! Scott Hunter.”

“Yes, Shane.”

Shane kissed Ilya’s shoulder because he sounded grumpy. Presumably these photos were on Instagram, which Shane didn’t visit. “No, I didn’t. Where did they go again?”

“Spain and Greece. They’re there for a month.”

“Oh yeah? Sounds nice.” He wasn’t really that interested in Scott Hunter and Kip’s honeymoon. He was happy for them, obviously. He admired Scott a lot in both a professional and personal sense.

Maybe when he and Ilya got married they could go to Europe for their honeymoon. Would have to work it around the camps, though. And playoffs, of course. At some point, Ilya would turn Ottawa around, he knew it.

Ilya turned the chicken. “Is nearly ready. Salads in kitchen. Can you get?”

“Yes, sure, sorry.” He scampered off to be helpful and decided he would start going through his iPad notes about the camps with Ilya over dinner. He needed to get his head in the game. And he also thought his mom might have sent him about a million emails he needed to look at.

He laid the table outside, setting out the salads and Ilya’s coke, and a pitcher of water for himself, then dug his tablet out of his bag in the bedroom. His mail app was practically overflowing and as he scrolled through he found an email from Matveev entitled ‘Anna’.

He opened it. It was brief.

Hollander,

Anna successful in her application to CMS. Starts September 1^st.

My Katya is overjoyed.

She may need new clothes.

Regards

Matveev

Shane gasped with joy – he was overjoyed – and his first instinct was to run to Ilya – to tell him about his niece’s success – only of course he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything.

For a moment Shane was stupefied by the idea.

“Shane? Food is ready!”

“Coming, coming,” Shane called, throwing his iPad back on the bed. He would… deal with that later.

*

Shane did not deal with it later. He didn’t know who he was fooling. He was burying his head so far into the sand he was practically in the Southern Hemisphere.

First, he wanted to concentrate on the camps. Then the new season started and he needed to concentrate on that. And then there was Crowell and Ilya was acting all weird and they kept having nearly-arguments, and some actual arguments, and that was very pre-occupying. Fucking Christmas was a disaster.

And then the choice was taken away from him entirely.

Chapter 4: 2021

Matveev had taken to calling Shane personally to give him updates on Anna’s education. Shane still got the reports – with Anna’s parents remaining stubbornly on Amber, their marriage still a disaster, their finances on the brink – but Matveev appeared to now have an inside track on Anna’s education.

In the first week of January, he rang Shane as he was drawing up to the player’s lot just before practice. Ilya was in North Carolina as they had a game in Raleigh that afternoon. He’d sent Shane a photo of his breakfast which was 90% Nutella. Unbelievable.

“I have bought Katya an apartment in Arbat,” Matveev boomed, after his usual greetings. “It is better for Anna to stay there during the week, instead of using the Metro. Short walk to CMS.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s amazing.” Shane had no idea where ‘Arbat’ was and held back the urge to say ‘thanks’, just in case Matveev would use this as an opportunity to ask for money. But he did also wonder why Matveev had bought Anna’s old music teacher an apartment. “Um. Are her parents okay with that?”

“They see the logic of it. I believe her mother wants her to do well and the father,” Matveev said something uncomplimentary in Russian which Ilya had told Shane meant ‘blockhead’, but Shane suspected it was more colorful than that, “the father is glad of one less mouth to feed. Besides. Katya is an excellent woman. They should kiss her feet.” Then Matveev’s usually quite upbeat voice became somber, “Ah, Shane. She will not marry me.”

Shane’s mouth made a bizarre popping noise as he opened it to say—what? He looked around the parking lot of the Metro’s stadium, as if he could find someone to explain what was happening to him. But Shane had no one to talk to about this. And that was his fault. “Why’s… that?” he managed, skipping over the part where apparently marriage between Matveev, Ilya’s ex-agent, and Katya, Anna’s music teacher, was a possibility.

“She is not impressed with my, how you say, track record.”

His track record? Shane gave in and began to Google image search Matveev for the first time. “Have you been married before?”

Google pulled up the photo of a distinguished man who was probably in his 60s, wearing what was obviously a tailored navy suit. Shane’s suits were tailored now – an excruciatingly intimate experience – so he could recognize this. Matveev’s dark hair was peppered with grey and he had bright, piercing blue eyes and a sharp nose. Good looking, for an older guy. He was smiling broadly, which fit with the voice.

Curious, he added Ilya’s name to the search and found a photo of them together. He was tall then. Nearly as tall as Ilya who, in this photo, still had a bit of a baby face. Shane stuck his bottom lip out. His boyfriend had been so cute. So hot, but so cute. This was the guy who had told him to get on his knees. Regularly.

“Three times but one was American, a mistake, and doesn’t count. And she, twice.”

“Wow,” Shane said again, coming back to the present. “I guess you both know what you want, then?”

“Yes. She says I am very convenient. I am away a lot of the time and when I come back I am very pleased to see her and then I go away again.”

Shane guessed ‘very pleased to see her’ was a euphemism. Good for them. He hoped he and Ilya would be ‘very pleased’ to see each other in their 60s. “So, are you living together?”

Why was he asking this? What was wrong with him?

“Hmm. I still have my father’s apartment in Nikitsky. But it is not comfortable. Katya makes a home.”

Matveev sounded genuinely cut up about this and Shane, whose sentimental streak was apparently fused to his spine now, felt bad. “Maybe she’ll come around.”

He sighed. “Maybe, Shane Hollander, maybe. Tell me, how is young Ilya?”

This always happened. Every phone call seemed to end with Matveev asking about Ilya. Which was fine, in theory. Ilya was who they had in common after all. But Shane was beginning to get the feeling that Matveev knew more than he let on.

The guy was smart, after all. It was pretty weird that Shane was out here, paying for his rival’s niece’s smart new school clothes.

“I believe Ottawa are in Raleigh today,” Shane said formally.

“His team is not good.”

“They’re getting better!” Shane exclaimed because he couldn’t help himself. And they were getting better. He studied Ilya’s team almost more obsessively than he did his own but for entirely different reasons. The kinks that had been present in the team for the last two seasons were finally smoothing out. He could see the potential.

He did not know if Ilya could yet. Or if he cared, sometimes.

“Mmph.”

*

After Ilya nearly dies, after Shane’s brain reset, they reviewed the calendar together, looking for more ways to squeeze in time together, which is how Shane ended up meeting his newly adopted dog for the first time.

They’d not had pets, when he was growing up. He’d never been one of those only children who demanded a dog or a tortoise or something and he’d never really got the appeal of dogs. They were a lot of work. If he had been going to pick an animal to keep as a pet he would probably have gone for a cat. Cats were independent. And kind of bitchy.

“How did you come up with the name Anya anyway?” Shane asked, as they sat on the floor of Ilya’s living room and introduced Anya to the million toys that his fiancé had bought.

“Is little name for Anna. My niece’s name,” Ilya said bashfully.

Shane nodded. It was all he could do. “Oh.”

“Da. But I mostly called her Nyusha, when she was little. She must be, hmm, eight or nine now?”

Shane was frozen in place, a ridiculous squeaky strawberry-shaped toy in his hand. Ilya seemed lost in his own world, even as he watched Anya ravish a weird crinkly-sounding octopus. “Do you… miss her?”

“I did not know her well. I do not think of her often,” Ilya admitted, looking guilty. “Not often enough. I am a bad uncle. Though she probably doesn’t remember me. I only ever saw her in the summers and not for long. My brother did not want me around her.”

“Why not? You’re great with kids.”

Ilya’s smile was inexplicably fond as he looked away from Anya to Shane. He reached out and brushed his fingers over Shane’s freckles. “Oh. For many reasons. It’s all in the past, now. I will probably never see her again.”

*

In retrospect, that had been the moment. The moment Shane could have come clean.

But he didn’t.

*

The Russian country code stared up at Shane, accusingly. He had never got around to putting Matveev’s contact in his phone properly. Given his emotional state, answering to get an update on Anna felt currently beyond his capacity, but the possibility that it was an emergency was too great a responsibility.

He answered. “Hi.”

“Shane Hollander.”

Matveev’s voice lacked its usual joie de vivre. “Is it urgent? Now’s not a great time.”

“I know. I have, of course, seen the news. I am sorry this thing happened to you both.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, of course.” Shane wiped a hand over his face. Of course, he would have the internet in Russia. That was how the internet worked. “Um. Yeah. Thanks. It’s obviously pretty difficult for Ilya now.”

“Da. He should never come back to Russia again.”   

“He doesn’t plan to.”

Matveev moved straight onto business. “You should perhaps know that Sofya has filed for divorce. She came to see Katya last night to tell her.”

“Oh God.” Shane leaned over until his face was half pressed into one of the throw pillows on the couch. His body ached.

“It seems it is love. With her friend from the office.” Matveev sighed. “He has left his wife.”

“Does he have kids, too?”

“No.”

“I suppose that’s… something. What’s— not to get too far ahead here, but what’s the custody situation in Russia like? Is it 50/50 or…?”

“Mmm, mostly the courts err on the side of the mother. In this case, Sofya will have ample opportunity to show Alexei is not a fit father. Katya can help with that.”

“Oh. Well. Great, I guess.”

“I will call if there are any other updates. You take care of Ilya, Shane Hollander.”

“I will.”

*

In the no man’s land of being benched, Ilya called Sveta. This wasn’t particularly unusual – he knew they had been texting a lot since they’d been outed – except Shane gathered she was back in Russia, which wasn’t typical. Like Ilya had used to, she often went back during the holidays but it was March, now, just a couple of weeks after All-Stars

Whilst Ilya chatted to Sveta, Shane was in the large dining room that adjoined the living area, practicing his Russian. It was that or go mad thinking about possibly never playing hockey again, not that he thought that Crowell would actually leave them on the bench forever. Certainly not with the recording that Shane had already shared with his incandescent mom and Farah.

Nevertheless, he found himself needing a distraction. There was something soothing about forcing his brain to mold itself around the Russian language. He wasn’t really listening to their conversation. Every now and again he picked up a word or two but they spoke very fast, often interrupting each other.  

The cadence of their calls was typically quite boisterous – similar to the tone Ilya had when he spoke on the phone to members of his team – but tonight something had changed. Ilya’s tone grew sharper. Frustrated.

Shane wandered into the living room, concerned.

A worried Ilya looked up at him from his slump on the couch to explain, “Sveta cannot find my brother and his family.”

The alarm bell Shane had been dreading went off in his head. “Oh.”

“Apparently, he no longer works for the politsiya. The piece of shit got fired. And they sold my apartment.” Ilya sneered. “And now I have no fucking idea where my niece is.”

Sveta piped up, her voice tinny but still very calm. “Ilya, it is just a question of asking the right people. I can speak to Nadja—”

“Fucking Nadja? What will she know?”

“She and Sofya used to be close.”

“Used to be. Until Alexei punched her husband, out of his mind on coke.” Ilya tossed his head to the side, a muscle in his jaw flickering. “Blyat.”

Sveta switched back to Russian again, her voice coaxing and conciliatory. Ilya wasn’t having any of it, interjecting with curses and frustrated exclamations. He was blaming himself for not intervening. For blocking his brother’s number. For leaving Russia.

Shane knew what he had to do. There were no excuses left. “Um. I… know where Anna is,” he said quietly.

Maybe too quietly because Ilya turned to look at him, his phone still held out at that angle people used when they were on speakerphone and wanted the mic near their mouth. His frown didn’t let up but he was patient, for Shane. “What did you say, lyubimyy?”

“I know where she is.”

“What’s he saying?” Sveta asked.

“I don’t know,” Ilya replied to her, his brow furrowing further and his attention never leaving Shane. “Shane, I don’t understand.”

“I know where Anna lives. Your niece. I have her address.”

Ilya stared at him, penetratingly. Then he jerked his head back to the phone. “Sveta, I have to go.” Ilya said something very fast in Russian that Shane couldn’t translate and hung up. “Shane, why do you know this?”

Shane slowly edged himself down onto the nearest chair. His knees were knocking. “I kind of have people watching out for her?”

Ilya dropped his phone to the side and sat forward, his head tilted at an interrogatory angle, like a bird. A bird of prey. “You have people watching my niece,” he repeated, like Shane was speaking another language.

“Yes. Like an agency?” He didn’t know why he made it sound like a question. He rubbed a sweaty palm on his knee. He was wearing a pair of Ilya’s Adidas pants which were kind of slippery and it wasn’t a nice sensation. “Private investigators. Just to make sure she’s okay. And she is okay. They sold your apartment and moved somewhere cheaper. Alexei has a different job. It’s pretty shitty though and his wife is the one who is keeping them afloat….”

Ilya started shaking his head as Shane was speaking and didn’t stop until Shane’s voice faded. “No, no, I don’t understand you, Shane. You cannot have been doing this.”

“Uh, yeah, I can. I did?” Shane whistled out a breath and said quickly, “It was very wrong of me.”

Ilya stared at him for a moment and then abruptly stood. “Where is she then?” He still sounded disbelieving. “Give me address.” As if this was a test.

“Okay, let me just— get my phone.” Shane hurried back into the dining room and grabbed his cell. His fingers trembled as he searched through the archive in his mail app. There were so many emails from Ivan that it took him a while to find the right one. He opened the PDF, swore because he needed the damned passcode, which he had to find, and then he flicked through to the rental agreement he vaguely remembered seeing before.

He held his phone out to Ilya, who had followed him like a panther stalking its prey, and practically snatched it from his fingers.

Ilya stared at the screen. And then swiped back and forth. He gestured with a splayed hand between them. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a report. From… back then.”

“A report.”

“Yes. The agency I hired sends me reports every three months.”

Ilya lost his temper, making Shane flinch back as he raised his voice, “What the fuck, Shane?”

Spikey hot tingles spread out behind his eyes. He tucked his hands under his armpits. He knew he needed to take this, take Ilya’s anger, because he deserved it. He had been waiting for this moment. This was his fault. “Yes. It’s shitty. I’m really sorry.”

“Shitty? Shitty?” He said something in Russian again. It did not sound good. He picked up his own cell phone and dialed. Sveta answered. “I have an address,” he barked at her, still glaring at Shane. “Can you go?”

“How did you—”

“Never mind that, I cannot explain sensibly,” Ilya said and he laughed and it was not a nice sound.

*

Shane picked at his dinner in his kitchen alone, leaving food for Ilya covered in foil in the oven.

Ilya – who hadn’t spoken to him for two hours – was using his cell phone to go through his mail. He’d offered him his tablet because it would be easier to view all the PDFs on it but Ilya had stared at him like he’d just suggested he do something depraved. Like spy on his family. 

He heard Ilya answer his on phone at one point and he moved from the living room to take it upstairs. His heart sinking, Shane guessed Ilya wanted to tell Svetlana exactly what he had done. And maybe shit-talk him.

Which was fair.

He opened up the messaging app on his tablet and considered his options of having his own friend to talk to. There were lots of messages, of course. The Instagram post announcing their committed relationship – ironic, really – had been live for a few hours. Rose had sent a heart. Hayden yet another apology. His mom had apparently reviewed Crowell’s tape for the umpteenth time and found another angle to get mad about. His dad had recommended a movie on Netflix that he thought the boys might like. His buddy Joe had even sent him a message and they were really only occasional correspondents.

There was nothing from JJ. Another person he’d lied to. And the Metros group chat was, once again, eerily silent.

Feeling unbelievably sorry for himself, Shane scrolled to Instagram to look at his own post. Only a few hours ago, he had been wrapped in Ilya’s arms writing it. And Ilya had looked at him like that.

And now he hated him.

Shane’s eyes prickled with unshed tears. He decided to torture himself still further and looked at Ilya’s Instagram with all its cryptic posts, mapping the milestones of their relationship, wondering what kind of posts he might have made in Ilya’s place. Probably 100s of hotel room numbers.

He heard Ilya’s feet before the kitchen door swung open with a loud noise. Shane bolted upright, expecting the worst.

Ilya wore a black expression. Like when he was facing off someone who had really pissed him off on the ice. “Start at the beginning.”

*

Shane began with the center from Philadelphia. He was no longer the center, of course, because even Crowell couldn’t save a guy who had been knocking up teenagers.

He may have spent too long on Matterhorn because Ilya interrupted. “What the fuck has Matterhorn got to do with this?”

“Because you talked about your agent fixing things for you.”

“And you thought, what, this guy would help you spy on my brother?”

“That’s not what— I didn’t set out to do that.” Or had he? It was so long ago now. So many insane decisions. “Not, not consciously.”

Ilya’s eyes were flat. “So, what, you just called a Russian to brainstorm?”

“Um. I— guess?” 

*

“Kuznetsov? First-line winger for Tampa?”

“Well, he wasn’t then. He was just a rookie. But I knew he had your old agent.”

Ilya said nothing but his face said he was waiting for an explanation.

“Mom keeps track of all the agents. She gets all their newsletters. She always used to forward his new signings to me.”

“Why?”

Shane traced a burl in the wood of the table. “I guess in case he ever lucked out with someone like you again.”

*

“He knows about me.” Ilya sniffed. “Or knew.”

“Sorry. Knew what?”

Ilya spread his hands out. “That I occasionally fuck men, Shane!”

“Oh.” For his sanity Shane was going to ignore both the use of present tense and the plural. “How did—”

“Because once or twice there were problems. He sorted it.”

“What kind of—” Shane got the eyebrows again. Clearly, he was not in a position to ask questions. “So he maybe worked out…”

“Yes, I think he maybe worked out,” Ilya parroted back sarcastically.

Shane, who had been vacillating between hot and cold this entire conversation, felt his face flood with heat. “Oh.”

*

“It was twenty-five pages—”

“Yes. I just read them.”

“Oh. Yeah. Just to be clear I haven’t. Um. It kind of freaked me out.”

Ilya snorted, disbelieving. “Sure. A waste of your dollars, then.”

*

“What are you paying him? Show me.”

Shane had the details in a Google sheet on his cell phone.

Ilya took one look and rolled his eyes. “Fuck, Shane.”

*

“They had to move which meant that Anna changed schools and she could no longer take her flute lessons and she was pretty unhappy so I thought maybe there was something I could do about that at least. So we arranged for her old teacher to continue teaching her.”

“We?”

“I guess me and Matveev. But it was his idea. I was wondering if we could set up some kind of scholarship.”

“I take it you pay for that, too.”

“…yes.”

*

“Actually, he’s kind of dating Anna’s music teacher.”

“What?”

“He bought her an apartment. And Anna stays there during the week so she doesn’t have to get the Metro.”

“I see,” said Ilya, very much in a way that suggested he didn’t.

*

“It’s a really good school.”

“I’m familiar. Is very prestigious.”

“It is. The plan is—” Shane stalled, not sure if he should voice any more.

Ilya waited expectantly. “Yes? What is plan?”

“Um. Well, it’s attached to the Moscow State Conservatory, so obviously the hope is that she will go there, after. She’ll have some amazing opportunities if she does.”

“And this is plan you have discussed with my former agent about my niece.”

“Well, no. It’s mostly just in my head.” Shane tried a small joke. “You know how I like a plan.”

Ilya did not find this amusing.

“Sorry,” murmured Shane, again.

*

“Katya won’t marry him.”

“Who is Katya?”

“Anna’s music teacher.”

“Sensible woman. He’s had maybe ten wives.”

“Three. And one of them was American so didn’t count.”

Ilya’s brows practically met in the middle. “Exactly how much time have you spent with him to know this?”

*

By the end of it, Shane’s voice was hoarse. He’d been talking for over an hour. He’d never made a study of it, but he thought it was the most he’d ever said out loud, ever. He could have done with a glass of water but now didn’t seem to be the time for refreshments. He had made Ilya suffer and now it was his turn.

Ilya had tugged and tugged at his curls as Shane had talked, mostly staring at the table, sometimes lifting his eyes as he interjected with questions or comments. He wasn’t quite as glitteringly angry as he had been before. More deflated. Disappointed.

Brutal.

Eventually, Ilya sat back. “Do you know why Sveta is in Moscow?”

Shane shook his head. His communications with Sveta were mostly hockey related.

“I asked her to go. As soon as that video went viral.” Ilya’s eyebrows rose. “It will be bad for them. Now that I am out. Dangerous. I could not give a shit about Alexei but my niece… she did not deserve that.”

He shook his head. Fucking Brad. “No. She doesn’t.”

“Sveta thinks that Alexei might try to sell stories to the press. To make a little money.”

That seemed exactly like the sort of thing Alexei might do. Particularly since Shane had a very clear view of his finances. And his upcoming divorce.

It crossed Shane’s mind, briefly, a burning spike of resentment amongst his own self-recrimination, that it would have been nice if Ilya had shared this worry with him and not just Svetlana. And knew he could not say that. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“Shane. You— have scared me. A little.”

Shane nodded frantically. The tears threatened again and he held them back through sheer force of will. He deserved everything that Ilya was throwing at him and he wasn’t going to be a crybaby about it. If he had fucked up the best thing in his life, that was on him. No excuses. “I understand.”

Ilya jabbed the table with his index finger. “This was big lie.”

“It was. I’m so sorry, Ilya.” Shane bit down hard on his bottom lip and stared at his hands, squeezed tightly together on the table. He forced himself closer to the precipice, though it made his breath catch, painfully. “Do you… not want to be with me anymore?”

Ilya tilted his head to the side with a sigh. His eyes fluttered closed. “Shane.”

That wasn’t a no. Shane’s breath caught again. And again. A big fat tear rolled down his cheek. He brushed it away quickly before Ilya could open his eyes and see it.

Ilya’s hand moved, almost in touching distance of his. But he did not touch Shane. Probably he would never touch Shane again, oh God, he brushed another tear away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ilya asked, finally looking at him. From the way his eyes were tracing Shane’s face, he had not done a good job at removing the watermarks.

“I don’t know,” Shane gasped. Though he did. And he needed to be honest about that. “In the beginning it was because— because it was this crazy idea. And there were so many other, bigger things to worry about. And I— I didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and I couldn’t find the right moment to tell you. And I knew you would be angry and then I felt responsible for her and couldn’t stop. I didn’t, don’t, want her to have a shitty childhood.” Like you, Shane thought, but couldn’t say.

Ilya’s expression of quiet dismay did not change. “You thought I would be angry with you? That I would perhaps be frightening? Hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” Shane asked, baffled that this would even be a question. It had never crossed his mind. “No, no, of course not. And I’m not frightened of you. Pretty frightened of losing you.” He sort of made a noise that could have been a laugh if you turned sideways and squinted. But wasn’t.

“Good. That is… good.” Ilya rubbed his hands over his face. He was obviously tired. Shane had made him tired.

Ilya stood, almost unsteady, and Shane’s body listed in Ilya’s direction. “Where are you going?” he asked, helplessly.

Ilya did not answer. He went to the glass cabinet and took down a glass, filled it with water and brought it back to the table. He slid it towards Shane. “Drink, malýsh.”

Shane did so, because he was parched and also hopeful that this gesture was something more meaningful than Ilya’s inherent kindness. “Malýsh,” he repeated, sounding out the word. He licked water from his bottom lip and noticed that Ilya followed the gesture. “I don’t know that one.”

“No? Your app does not teach you this?”

Shane shook his head. He thought Ilya was teasing him but he couldn’t be entirely sure. There was no teasing smile. No warmth in Ilya’s eyes. Just sadness.

Ilya dragged his gaze away from Shane to stare out of the dark windows. “I need a little time, Shane. To think.”

There was nothing Shane could do but nod his agreement.

*

Shane managed to keep it together until he was on his way to his parents, when he started to cry so hard that he had to pull over. The sound of his own despair was almost too much for his already overwrought senses. He covered his ears but all it did was make the sound of his blood pounding louder and highlight how violently he was shaking.

After twenty minutes of deep breathing, he felt steady enough to continue to drive. Grateful that no one well-meaning had stopped to see if he needed help. Because that was what the night needed. Someone finding Shane Hollander having a meltdown on the highway in the middle of his nationally newsworthy public outing.

It was late, so Shane used the spare key and crept through the house to his old room, trying to be as silent as possible but equally – pathetically – hoping one or both of his parents might hear him.

No such luck.

Instead, he sat on his bed and checked his phone. There was nothing from Ilya. Opening their chat, he pondered what he could possibly say. He needed to say something.

His heart jumped when he saw the little typing bubble start. Ilya was typing!

Ilya: Did you get to your parents ok?

Shane’s heart gave a limp little lurch. Was that a good sign? That Ilya was checking up on him? He didn’t know. Maybe he was just being polite. Maybe he didn’t want Shane to wrap his car around a tree before he could break up with him.

It took every ounce of control for Shane not to send something unhinged and desperate back. I did, thank you for asking. Then followed it up with another, I’m so sorry, Ilya.

The typing bubble came back.

And went away again.

And came back.

Ilya: Go to sleep, Shane.

It was a stab in the chest and Shane didn’t know why.

Through blurry eyes, he replied, Sleep well, Ilya. I love you.

He stared at the screen but there were no more bubbles.

*

Shane woke early because he hadn’t closed the drapes of his east-facing bedroom. A shard of sun crept steadily up and bloomed behind his crusty closed eyes. For a moment his warped brain tricked him. It felt like summer in the cottage. He’d had his bedroom built to face east for the light in the morning, so he could wake naturally. If he reached out, the other side of the bed would be warm.

But this was not the cottage. This was about as far away, emotionally, from the cottage Shane had ever been.

He lay there numbly, accepting this, when he heard his mom’s feet on the landing. She pushed at his partially open door and he turned to look at her, dressed in her striped pajamas, her hair in its nighttime braid.

Her expression was curious. “Shane? What are you doing here?”

It turned out the body did eventually stop producing tears because though Shane felt that tingling behind his eyes, nothing came out. He’d dried up. He was glad of it. His mom didn’t like to see him cry. “I did something bad to Ilya. Really, really bad.”

Yuna hurried towards the bed. “I don’t believe that, baby.”

She made to hug him and Shane pushed himself up and away, squashed in the corner. He’d been wrong about the tears. He rubbed his face quickly. “Um. No. I did. Really bad. Ilya needed some time to think about it. I’m not sure— I’m not sure it’s forgivable though.”

“What could you possibly have done?” she asked. She reared back as her mind reached for an answer she didn’t like. “Surely— not someone else?”

“Oh God. No. No, Mom, I would never.” And Shane would maybe have liked to be insulted by this insinuation, but what he had done was probably not far off cheating in the emotional stakes.

“No, of course not. I’m sorry, honey.” Still, Yuna looked a little relieved. She sat on the edge of his bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“You are going to be so disappointed in me. For real this time.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Why don’t you just tell me.”

*

“I think one of us should go and see Ilya,” Yuna said to his dad in the silence that followed after Shane had repeated the whole story for the third time. His dad had managed not to make a noise – unlike his mom who had actively gasped with horror - but he had winced and said ‘Oh, Shane’ in that way he did.

“He wanted to be left alone.”

“I’ll go,” his dad said, taking a slurp of his coffee and standing.

“Hey, no. This is— this is between us.”

“I know, sweetheart, but we love him, too, and someone should check on him.”

Shane closed his eyes. Yes, because Ilya was alone in more than one sense. Shane had his parents to run to. His parents who, disappointment aside, would love him no matter what. Ilya, the wronged party, had no one. Even Svetlana was far away.

His mom was maybe right. And he was grateful that his parents had taken Ilya into their hearts. “I’m going to tell him you’re coming, though, and if he doesn’t answer the door you should take that as a sign.”

His dad leaned over and kissed Shane’s head. “I will.” He grabbed his keys and left.

Shane checked his cell – nothing from Ilya – and messaged him, Morning. My parents are worried about you. Dad is coming over. I’ve told him if you don’t answer the door he should leave.

He stared at the open chat for a long moment, tugging at his hair. No bubbles appeared but it was early, maybe Ilya was still asleep—

A message came through, so short it didn’t need the bubbles.

Ilya: Okay.

*

When Shane was fourteen, he’d got into a fight at school. His first and only fight. Emmanuel – the school bully – had been picking on Shane pretty much from the first day of junior high. Mostly slurs about his ethnicity, comments about his eye-shape and the relationship between his mom and dad. It had been the usual thing, accompanied with the kind of minor violence that never left significant injury, certainly not enough to tell his parents. He could handle pain.

He had told them about the slurs, though. Mostly because sometimes he didn’t get what they meant. Why did Emmanuel think dad had bought you, mom?

His mom had said to ignore him. He was just jealous of Shane’s intelligence and his hockey talent and that Emmanuel probably had horrible parents.

This was of little comfort to Shane, who just wanted to be left alone.

One day the usual thing it had got too much. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe he hadn’t eaten enough that day. Maybe he was just tired. He turned around in the playground and slugged Emmanuel hard. Really hard. He’d been training for a while by then and whilst he wasn’t tall, he was strong, certainly stronger than Emmanuel who was mostly lard.

He broke Emmanuel’s nose. And then he kept on going, not stopping until the teachers pulled him off him. He remembered wiping blood from his face, the taste of copper in his mouth, and the triumphant sensation that coursed through his veins.

Luckily for Shane, his mom had been diligent about reporting on Emmanuel’s bullying. She had kept consistent records – emails and letters and the dates and times of emergency parent-teacher meetings – and though Shane had not told her about the bruises and the Chinese burns because you’re a Chink aren’t you and his stolen lunch money, she had noted them too.

So when it came down to it, the school let Shane leave without mention of the incident on his record, provided his mom didn’t kick up a fuss about the school’s relentless disinterest in dealing with racism in the classroom.

Anyway. When his dad came home from seeing Ilya, the way he looked at Shane was just like the way he looked at Shane when he’d picked him up from school that day. Sad. Disappointed. Let down.

And Shane wanted to die.

*

Ilya messaged Shane that afternoon whilst Shane was sitting on the couch, some hockey on - he couldn't have told anyone the team, the score, any details whatsoever. He had never been less interested in hockey than he was right now.

Ilya: I am ready to talk now.

Shane, who had been opening and closing his messaging app all day, replied immediately, breathlessly: Can I come back?

Ilya: Yes.

He ran out of the house without shoes on. Then ran back to get shoes. And also his car keys.

*

Ilya met him at the door and they did this weird but familiar dance around each other, as if it had been months and they were no longer sure what they were.

Or at least Ilya was no longer sure of Shane. Shane, however, experienced such an intense feeling of longing at the sight of Ilya – tired and wan and beautiful as he was – that he had to dig his toes into the floor to keep himself still.

“I made tea,” said Ilya after they had awkwardly stood there for a while.

“What kind?” responded Shane, automatically, though God knew he didn’t really care.

“The one your aunt sent you for Christmas that you don’t like.”

Shane followed him into the kitchen. “It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that she doesn’t like us and we don’t really like her.”

“And yet she sends you gifts.”

“She sends gifts to make my mom feel bad.”

“This does not make sense.”

“No,” Shane sighed. The relationship between his mom and her sister was complicated and multi-generational. “But it does to my mom.”

They sat back at the table, in exactly the same position they had been the previous night. Which felt like one-hundred years ago.

Ilya took a sip of his tea. Mirroring this, Shane took a sip of his tea. Ilya was right. He didn’t like it. He’d never acquired a taste for it; it tasted like a really pungent grass to him. It was probably a really expensive brand of green tea, too. Passive aggressive, his mom said. It was partly why he insisted he did like it. To prove something. To someone.

Ilya sniffed and rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb. “Will you tell me what you are sorry for?”

“What I’m sorry for?” Shane repeated. Wasn’t it obvious? “I hired someone to spy on your family.”

“I want to know if you understand why that is bad, Shane,” Ilya explained patiently.

“Oh.” Shane understood now. And he’d had plenty of time to think about this. “Because it was a huge invasion of your privacy. And you are a private person. I… took away your autonomy, I guess.” He paused because he didn’t know if Ilya would understand that. “Your right to make your own choices, about your involvement with your family. Even if it wasn’t you that was involved, it was about you. For you. And I decided to get involved, like I was somehow right to. And I lied to you about it, I lied about something specifically related to you that you deserved to know about. I let it go on for so long despite knowing I was doing the wrong thing. And I hurt you. I was hurting you.”

Ilya looked up at Shane through his eyelashes. And nodded.

Shane’s shoulders relaxed maybe a millimeter. He felt like he had passed some kind of a test. A really shitty test that he actually really failed. His shoulders went back up. “I really am sorry. It’s— the worst thing I’ve ever done. And I did it to you. The person I want to hurt the least.”

Ilya rubbed a hand over his head. He looked so tired. “You have made me feel bad.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“No. I mean, yes, but more— guilty. I have not thought of Anna, not really. I did not think of her being raised by Alexei. Of her parents’ marriage. I knew it was not good. Anna was an accident. Like Alexei.” Ilya winced. “My father insisted that they marry and it was never happy. I did not even know about the flute.”

Not for one second would Shane have considered this angle. “She probably wasn’t playing. When you were there last. It’s not your fault.”

This did not appear to comfort Ilya in the slightest.

Shane grew defensive on his behalf. “You gave them everything you had and they threw it back in your face. Alexei wouldn’t even let you get to know her. It’s not your fault,” he said again. “You left her a trust, so that she could be comfortable when she was older, whatever happens. You did what you could.”

“And yet you felt she needed more,” Ilya jabbed at him.

“Not really for her. It was only for you. In the beginning. In case you… worried. One day.”

Finally, Ilya reached out and took Shane’s hand. He squeezed. “I wish you would have told me.”

“I know. So do I.”

“Sveta said— she said that your heart,” Ilya paused, as if he too was thinking of how to explain with the right words, “it was in a good place. And I think I agree with this.”

Shane’s breath caught. If only the world knew how kind Ilya was. He gripped Ilya’s hand back. So grateful. And maybe he was going to send Sveta something expensive. “But the execution could have done with some work, huh?”

“Yes.” Ilya squeezed his hand again and then let it go. His smile was grim and dry as paper but it was at least a smile. “For starter, you could not have involved son of ex-KGB Directorate.”

“Er, what?” Shane leaned forward. “Matveev’s dad was KGB?”  

“Yes. And the agency he uses are… well. Not official. Not… working within the law.” At Shane’s open-mouthed expression, Ilya leaned over and tapped Shane’s cheek. “My sweet Canadian boy. You really did not know the game you were playing.”

“Apparently not,” Shane breathed, his cheek burning from Ilya’s touch.

“I call Matveev now. We need to have words.”

Ilya stood with the intention to do just that and Shane’s anxiety reached a point of no return. He reached out to grab Ilya’s arm. “Wait. Are we— are we going to be okay?”

“Shane,” said Ilya, just as he had last night.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.” Shane wished he could let this go, wished that he wasn’t so needy, so incapable of interpreting situations without having them spelled out for him. “Can you use words? Please.”

“Shane,” Ilya said again. He bent to kiss him, softly, and Shane gasped out a shaky breath. “I do not think there is anything I could not forgive you for.” He let their foreheads touch. “But maybe don’t do something like this again, hmm?”

“God, no. Never again. Ilya.” Shane reached up, wound his arm about Ilya’s neck, and pulled him close, the relief such a physical sensation it was almost as if it was in his blood, rushing to his organs, the lifeforce keeping him alive. “Never again.”

*

Shane messaged his mom from bed, their bed, later that night. They’d eaten dinner together and it had been… gentle. Not normal but something close to it and after Ilya had kissed him, sweetly, before going to make another call. Ilya had made several calls in Russian that evening, he thought both to Matveev but also to Svetlana. Shane had caught his name more than once but little more than that.

Shane: Think we’re ok.

Mom: Good! Working through mistakes are a part of any relationship.

Shane: Sure but did you ever hire a mobster for dad and not tell him?

Mom: No, but I lost his grandmother’s engagement ring for six months once.

Shane: Shit, not Grandma Nora’s?

Mom: Yup.

Wow. That was a terrifying thought. His dad’s family loathed his mom. They didn’t actually talk anymore except for exchanging some excruciating family newsletters at Christmas. His mom spent months crafting them, cramming in every single one of Shane’s achievements and making it sound like he was the Second Coming.   

He wondered what would feature on the newsletter this year. Shane delighted us all by coming out as gay this year and married his long-term lover. His hockey career went down in flames and he’s currently seeking employment.

“You are thinking bad thoughts.”

Shane focused on Ilya. “Remind me to show you the family Christmas newsletter.”

Ilya plugged his cell phone into his side of the bed. “What’s this?”

“It’s this, like, letter that gets sent around by my mom at Christmas and my dad’s family does it too.”

“Like the gift baskets?”

“Yeah. A different form of passive aggression.”

Ilya nodded. He pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it into the hamper. “You don’t speak about your dad’s family.”

“No,” said Shane, his eyes on Ilya’s abs. “They’re mostly racist assholes.”

This gave Ilya pause. “David’s family are racist? This is hard to imagine.”  

“Yeah. He’s, like, the black sheep of the family.”

This made Ilya shake his head. “What the fuck do sheep have to do with it? No, you know what, I do not want to know. We can talk tomorrow about the racist sheep.” He crawled up the bed. “Tell me why you are wearing clothes right now.”

*

By the time Shane tripped, and Montreal was out of the playoffs, he was so strung out that if one more fucking thing went wrong he was pretty sure he was going to commit actual homicide. It hadn’t helped that he and Ilya had agreed not to see each other during the playoffs. Despite everything, they both wanted to win and it would only add further fuel to the bonfire of their careers if they were spotted with each other.

But things still felt a little shaky. Ilya was holding something back, he was sure, and he didn’t know if it was because of what he had done or something else. They needed time together to work on their relationship. Actual time. Not fleeting visits weeks apart. Not Facetime conversations and text messages and missed calls.

With nothing else to do, and not wanting to do anything else, Shane watched all his fiancé’s games. And every analysis of his fiancé’s games. He listened to podcasts. He contemplated starting a podcast and then dismissed that idea because he was a terrible public speaker and no one on earth would want to listen to Shane Hollander rhapsodize about Ilya and Ilya’s backhand.

What he observed was that Ilya was playing like himself again. Or – more specifically – like he was part of a team again. The last couple of years he had been like an island. An island that occasionally phoned it in, if it was really mixing his metaphors.

They came so close – but when Ottawa was knocked out after a heroic battle with the Admirals, Shane was right where he wanted to be. In Ilya’s house. Waiting for Ilya to come home.

He knew as soon as he opened the door that whatever was wrong with Ilya – the sadness he sometimes saw in his eyes – was more front-and-center than he had ever allowed Shane to see it before.

“Shane?” he whispered, once Shane had coaxed him into bed. His eyes were closed. “If we are getting married—”

Dread suffused him. Had he changed his mind? “If? Of course we are.”

Ilya swallowed loudly. The loudest fucking sound the world, louder even than Shane’s pounding heartbeat. “You need to know, then.”

“Know what?” Shane asked, his mouth dry as the Sahara.

Ilya opened his eyes. “I am not okay.”

“With what?” With Shane? With what he had done? They had talked about it, on and off, in brief snatches. Ilya had renegotiated Matveev’s contract but hadn’t actually ended it which had fleetingly made Shane feel some sense of validation which Ilya had promptly, and sternly, shut down. They were repurposing the agency to focus on Alexei. Temporarily. If Alexei was going to go nuclear, Ilya wanted to know in advance.

As for Anna, Ilya had asked for an introduction to Katya and through her directly he would open communications with Anna. When she was a little older.

But this was not what Ilya meant. Ilya was depressed and wanted Shane to have the full picture of who he was marrying. That he would never be ‘fixed’, even with therapy and medication, because he was not fixable and there was nothing Shane could do about it.

As if, after all this, Shane might possibly reconsider the fathomless depths of his love for Ilya. As if somehow Shane hadn’t already known this. Deep inside.  

“Ilya, I’m never giving up on you, or on us. So whatever you need, I’m right here.” He kissed him. “We’re going to get married. We’re going to have kids. And then I want to be your date when we’re inducted into the Hall of Fame. I love you so much.”

Ilya’s face was wet again. Shane kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth. “Now, go to sleep.”

Chapter 5: Epilogue - a number of years later

Shane arrived early because it was ingrained in him. Just as he had called ahead to make sure the table was the good one – in the corner, framed by potted plants, a little more private than the middle of the room – and just as he had already made a table plan and pre-arranged the high-chair for Tilde that she wouldn’t use.

He took the seat facing away from the window where he could see the entrance to the restaurant and ordered water for the table. “Room temperature,” he specified of the bemused waiter. None of the Russians liked cold water.

Whilst he waited, he alternated looking between his cell phone at the photos his mom was sending him to reassure him that Nikolai was alive and well and refreshing his messages with Ilya which had, concerningly, stopped just over an hour ago.

Anna arrived first and Shane saw her before she saw him, her serious little face scanning the restaurant almost anxiously as she was relieved of her winter coat and bag by the host. The smile that broke free when she saw him was Ilya’s, though, slightly crooked, but like the sunrise. She was beautiful.

She hurried over and Shane stood to hug her. “Uncle Shane,” she said in Russian.

“Anya the First,” said Shane, just to see her laugh. He pulled back to look at her. Was she taller? When did girls stop growing? “How was rehearsal?”

Anna beamed and held out her bare arm. Around her wrist was a trinket bracelet that they had given her on sixteenth birthday. “I still have little ants.”

Years of translating Russian idioms had Shane duly admiring the goosebumps on her skin. “That’s good, I guess?”

“Very. We are making beautiful music. It’s a dream.” She shivered ecstatically and dropped down into the seat next to Shane. “Where is Uncle Ilya? The children?” Her eyes lingered on the highchair. “They are still coming yes?”

“They are extremely hyper and, yes, they are still coming,” Shane replied drily. This morning, he had been on the receiving end of no less than one hundred messages from Ilya whilst he’d been in back-to-back meetings. Initially when they had decided to divide and conquer today’s schedule, Shane had ‘taken one for the team’ and agreed to attend all the Foundation meetings by himself. But he was beginning to feel perhaps Ilya had suffered the most. “Ilya took them to FAO Schwarz and they had to make a stop at the hotel on the way.”

Anna didn’t immediately recognize the significance of this as she was young and child-free and also not American. Her head turned to the side like a little bird. “It’s a toy store. Apparently, they ran feral and had to be bribed with more toys than we can conceivably return home with.”

“Uncle is a softie.”

Shane thought they both were, when it came to the children, just in different ways. “He can be.”  

A commotion at the door had both of them turning. Matveev and his wife had arrived, Matveev making an entrance like he always did, hailing the host like they were old friends. And insisting on being the one to devest his wife of what was probably a real fur coat. “Oh, they’re here.”

Anna jumped up, her hands coming together, and bounded forward to meet her old mentor. Shane also rose but mostly because Katya Matveeva was probably the most terrifying woman he had ever met and she made him want to stand to attention. Like the Queen.

After hugging and kissing Anna thoroughly, Katya turned to greet Shane. Her deep brown eyes were piercing, like she could see straight through him to every bad decision he’d made in his life. Though Ilya repeatedly pointed out that it was Matveev, whose connections to the Russian underworld (Shane was unclear if this was a KGB thing or even a mafia thing and he did not want to know), who was demonstrably more terrifying, it was this retired music teacher that actually sent chills down Shane’s spine.

“Madame,” Shane said, switching to French, which she preferred. “It is wonderful to see you.”

“Shane. Your hair is in need of a trim.” She gave him her papery hand, be-ringed with glittering rocks. Shane held it but did not shake. Because that was what she expected. If Ilya had been here, he would have kissed it flamboyantly. Shane didn’t have that in him.

Matveev pulled the chair out for his wife and only once she was seated did he turn to greet Shane. “Shane Hollander,” he boomed before taking Shane into a back slapping hug. This went on for some minutes and was accompanied by boisterous cheek kisses. Apparently, Matveev knew how to have people killed. He’d suggested it once, for Alexei.  

“Where are the children?” Katya demanded in Russian for the benefit of the rest of the table, and making it clear that the adults were of little interest to her.

“With their father, I hope,” Shane said drily, scanning the door.

As if summoned by their collective thoughts, a tall man with riotous dark-blonde curls emerged through the velvet curtain that covered the front door of the restaurant. His face was grim as he greeted the host and then he turned his head, finding Shane without direction.

Uh oh, Shane thought, as Ilya made his way towards them. Tilde was in his arms and Eva was being pulled along by hand. The rest of the table leaped up to greet him, and the girls, but Shane held back.

As he expected, Ilya avoided looking at him. And Eva was very quiet, answering questions politely but with a pinched, unhappy expression.

Quickly, Shane reconfigured the table plan in his head. He nudged Anna over one seat, pushed Eva between them, and firmly guided Ilya next to him. Tilde would spend the meal moving from lap to lap, the high-chair but a faint hope, and she started immediately with Katya, her Russian ‘grandmother’.

Eva slid over in her chair until she was pressed against Shane’s side. And, amusingly for no one but Shane, Ilya did the same thing on his other side.

He put one hand on his daughter’s head and one hand on the back of Ilya’s neck, using the barest pressure of his fingers to turn Ilya to face him. “Bad?” he asked in an undertone.

Ilya did not meet Shane’s gaze. But he nodded.

“Okay.” He leaned forward the couple of inches needed and kissed him, protected by potted plants and the cocoon of their family. “Have some water, Ilyusha. I’ll order some wine.”  

*

Shane took Eva for a walk between courses. There was a little wall that ran the perimeter of the restaurant, just the right height for a six-year-old to march along with her dad walking below, his hands in his pockets, casual as you please.

And march she did, her little face militant. Back and forth they went until she stopped, sighed, and fell forward into his arms.

Shane picked her up and she wound her legs around him and her tentacle-like arms around his neck. She was light as a feather. Small for her age. He rubbed her back and sat on the wall with her. “Tell me about your fight with Daddy.”

“He was mean.”

“Daddy is never mean.”

Eva sat back. Her face was a riot of fury. All pinched cheeks and flashing dark eyes. “I am not spoiled!”

“I don’t think so but if you are, that is our fault, not yours,” Shane countered. The problem with very bright children was that they were, in fact, very bright and knew it but often didn’t have the emotional capacity to match.

Ilya thought Eva was just a little too much like himself.

Ilya worried that Eva was a little too much like himself.

Ilya was maybe not very rational about Eva.

“You always take his side!”

“I am on both your sides, because I love you both very much. You father, you and your sister and your brother are the loves of my life.”

Eva switched to Russian, petulant. “Kolya is too small to be the love of your life. Kolya is boring.”

Shane did not smile. But it was close. “Even when he laughs? You like making him laugh.” Everyone liked making Kolya laugh. He was an incredibly serious little boy but when he laughed his whole body shook, and his chortles were deep whooping hoots, and infectious. The first time he’d laughed, after Eva had dramatically ripped up a picture she was drawing in disgust, they’d gone through reams of printer paper to keep him going, crying with laughter themselves.

Eva dramatically swooned onto Shane’s shoulder. “Ugh, Papa.”

Shane wondered how exactly Eva had tormented Ilya today. Did she have a public meltdown? Did she cry in a devastating but silent way? Did she try to run away? He couldn’t ask her because she would probably lie to avoid being punished or not remember, lost to the heat of the moment. “I will talk to Daddy about today. I expect at the very least you owe him an apology and a kiss.”

“I won’t.”

“You will. Because you hurt his feelings and we should try not to hurt the feelings of people we love.”

“Ugh,” she said, again.

*

Anna had a way with the girls, because she had younger siblings herself and spent lots of time with her cousins when she could. She soon had Eva giggling and Tilde transfixed as she described what living in New York was like, however temporarily she might be living there. She even made the rats in the alley beneath her bedroom sound vaguely romantic though this part of the story made Katya’s eyes swing to Ilya and Shane in an accusatory way, as if they’d had any input into Anna’s accommodation, as if Anna would let them.

“What were we supposed to do?” Ilya wondered, turning his head away to speak into Shane’s ear. “Buy her a penthouse?”

“Aren’t you only ever six feet away from a rat in New York at any time? Not sure a penthouse would cut it.”

They snickered together.

“What are you two laughing about like schoolboys?” Katya demanded imperiously, though her eyes twinkled.

“Small, private joke. Not for sharing,” Ilya claimed which, as always, sounded vaguely suggestive and it would probably have been better if he'd just told the truth about the rats.

Tilde lifted her arms up suddenly, the universal sign for her to be picked up by one of her fathers and Shane did the honors, plucking her from Matveev’s lap, and sat her sideways so she could make cute faces at Ilya.

“And how are your music lessons going, Vava?” Matveev asked, topping up everyone’s glasses. Tilde went for Shane’s wine-glass with the unerring precision of a three-year-old that knew she wasn’t allowed anywhere near it.

He swapped this out of the way and exchanged it for the blue plastic cup that they took everywhere with them. She gave him an appalled look, like he had just insulted her ancestors, and then took a long, noisy drink from it.

“You mean you don’t know?” Ilya replied drily, leaning his chin on his propped-up hand and batting his eyelashes across the table. “I thought you and Miss Hawthorn corresponded regularly.”

Katya sniffed and waved a hand airily. “An occasional email, nothing more.”

“But we had video last time,” Eva protested in English, her face scrunched in confusion. She switched to Russian, “You listened to me sing.”

Ilya hid his laughter behind his napkin.

Caught, Katya’s red-painted mouth twitched. “That was supposed to be our secret, little bunny.”

Anna, a sweet child, rescued the situation by asking about school and Eva’s vast friendship group – she was extremely popular, which was an unfeasible concept to Shane who could count on one hand the number of friends he’d had at school, and he could only be proud – and Matveev leaned over to ask Ilya about this year’s drafts.

Shane bent his head to kiss the top of Tilde’s head. “And what about you, sweet pea?” he whispered to their middle child. “Did you have a nice day?”

Tilde thought about it. “It was okay,” she said somberly. “I got a bear.”

“So I saw.” It was about the size of her too. Ilya had sent a photo from the store. Tilde had been sitting between the bear’s legs. They might have to buy it a seat for the flight home.

“The toy store was loud,” she sighed, like a little old lady. “But Eva and Daddy were louder.”

Ah. So, a proper fight then. Good to know.  

*

They said goodbye to Katya and Matveev – more kisses, more back slapping hugs, some mild threats – and took a walk through the park after lunch. There was a little playground that Ilya shepherded the girls to whilst Shane and Anna sat on a bench and watched.

Anna rested her head on Shane’s shoulder. “I like being in America. I like being so much closer to you all.”

Shane liked it too. They talked regularly, through messages and video calls, but it wasn’t the same.

“Are you looking for permanent placement somewhere?” Anna was currently on a guest contract. Though they had longed for her to move to North America, neither of them had wanted to push. Her mother was still in Moscow, and her half-brother and sister, whom she was close to. Alexei had not been heard of for many years though Matveev assured them he wasn’t dead.

“Or maybe freelance. New York is an amazing place to expand my repertoire.”

He put his arm about her shoulders. “I hear Ottawa has a thriving musical scene.”

“Oh, it does not.”

He laughed. “Imagine. Katya would kill you.”

“She has very high expectations of me.”

“She does,” Shane acknowledged and though he didn’t think she had meant anything by it, he felt compelled to add his two cents. “Because she loves you and wants the best for you. But you should only do what feels right for you.”

“Speaks the voice of experience.”

“Exactly.”

“Speaking of. Was Uncle joking about Kolya skating already?”

“The fact that you have to ask is terrifying. His skull is only just fully formed.” Shane shuddered, dramatically.

“I’m sorry to miss him.”

Shane did too. It was as if he had cut off an integral part of himself and left it behind in Ottawa. It had always felt like that when they were away from the children. “You are not. He is very loud and doesn’t sleep much.” Kolya had never slept through the night and had recently started to wake at four every morning, trenchantly demanding to be picked up and brought into their bed where he was would doze for maybe five minutes at a time until one of them gave in and started the day. The idea of also bringing him to New York for this reunion would have been madness personified.

“But he’s so cute.” She blew out her cheeks to convey the degree of adorable plumpness of Shane’s youngest child. Nikolai was indeed very round. Neither of the girls had been and Shane didn’t know if that was a boy thing or a genetic thing. Apparently, it would all go away when he started walking.

“He is. You can see his cuteness at the cottage this summer. In fact,” Shane said, alighting on an idea, “he can sleep in your room.”

Anna turned shining eyes to Shane. “You joke but I would love that.”

“Me too!” Because it would mean he and Ilya would have their room to themselves. For the first time in nearly seven years.

Wow. He couldn’t wait to tell Ilya. He was a genius.

They watched Ilya sweep Tilde up from the end of the slide and spin her around. His face was lit from within, a glow Shane had really only seen when he became a father.

Anna hummed. “Do you think you guys going to have another?”

Shane’s brain whited out. “We just had Kolya.”

“He’s practically a year old.”

“He’s six months!”

Anna blew a very Rosanov raspberry. “Don’t tell me Uncle isn’t making noises about it.”

Mercifully not. “We agreed to three.”

They had agreed to two. Shane didn’t know how they had got three – he did, it had been the night after their seventh (his eighth) Stanely Cup and he had been woozy with adrenaline-crash and lust and Ilya’s eyes had been earnest and loving and all sweet talk about their beautiful family and maybe one more beautiful baby – but three was the limit. Definitely. Any more and he would hear Hayden howl with laughter from all the way in Florida, where he had retired.

There was no way Ilya would let Hayden have the last laugh, Shane thought, suppressing that panicky, fluttery feeling.   

*

Shane was in charge of bedtime. He’d never found it particularly taxing to get the girls to follow a routine, whereas whenever Ilya was in charge it all seemed to go to hell. Normally with some kind of water fight involved, which he always claimed he didn’t enable, and toothpaste mysteriously on the ceiling.

They had a two-bedroom suite this time but Tilde was on a cot in their room as she had a tendency to wake up disorientated and would get upset. This meant that their confab on the day’s events had to take place in the living room, in whispers.

“She was being brat. Rolling her eyes. Sighing in this irritating way,” Ilya demonstrated said sigh, a full body effect that was absolutely the mirror of his own.

Shane pressed his lips together and kept stroking Ilya’s hair, careful not to disrupt the curls.

“I told her she was being too much. Asking for too much. I know this. She is like me. Want, want, want.” Ilya blew out a raspberry. “She lost her temper. Shouted. I shouted back. Then she cried and I looked like asshole. It was mess.”

“Mmm, English or Russian?”

“Russian.”

Ah. Worse then. Eva was particularly eviscerating in Russian. And in turn Ilya more reactive. Often speaking in English meant he could choose his words more carefully and not blurt out the things he had been told when he was a boy. About his greed. His laziness. His neediness.

His greed (how he had used things to fill the holes).

His laziness (his sadness, his inability to achieve the dizzying heights of constantly shifting goalposts and unreasonable expectations).

His neediness (his hunger for the scraps of love and affection that anyone might give him).

“And now I feel awful. I took her to that store full of toys, was treat, what did I expect? I’m a horrible father, to shout at my daughter.”

Shane winced. This, of course, had nothing to do with Ilya’s relationship with Eva and everything to do with Ilya’s relationship with his father. It was a pointless thing to say. In his better, more rational moments, Ilya knew this, because it was a subject he spent a great deal of time on with Galina. But right now, Ilya was pure feeling and he just wanted Shane’s comfort.

He cupped Ilya’s downturned face with his hands and lifted it, forcing Ilya to meet his eyes. “You are a wonderful father. I am so glad to be on this journey with you.” Ilya snorted because it sounded like therapist-language, because it was. Ilya still saw Galina but Shane had also started seeing someone in his thirties when things in his head grew too much to cope with alone. His relationship with Ilya was a hot-button topic. “I’m serious, Ilya. I couldn’t imagine a better partner. And Eva adores you and knows you adore her. She’s just going through a very… independent phase. She’s smart. Like you. And is testing her boundaries.”

He thought about it. “And I would definitely have shouted at her, too.” Eva had a particular talent for pressing buttons, that emotional intelligence for finding chinks in armor. That she definitely got from her father, but there weren’t forces on this earth to draw that information from him.

Shane kissed Ilya, whose had begun to lean forward in that way he did when he was asking for one, his eyes round and glistening. Shane would never not kiss Ilya when he needed to be kissed. It was foundational.

This expression of affection grew rather more involved, quickly, and Ilya was pressing Shane back into the soft couch cushions when Shane was reminded of the good news.

“By the way. Anna,” Shane imparted, breathlessly, pressing damp kisses to Ilya’s jaw, “is going to have Kolya in her room this summer.”

Ilya grasped the connotations of this instantly. And stopped undoing the buttons of Shane’s shirt. “Shane.”

“I know.”

“Shane.”

“I know. Can you believe it. Sex. In a bed.” He groaned. Their sex life was almost exclusively shower-specific or hurried hand-jobs. Occasionally, his parents would take the girls for a weekend but since Kolya, he didn’t want to over-burden them with all three kids. They were retired, too. “I almost can’t remember what that’s like.”

Ilya’s gasp was dramatic. “Now you’re insulting me.”

Shane laughed, or tried to, as Ilya attempted to smother the noise with his mouth. Things were getting, once again, reasonably out of hand for the couch in a hotel room when they both twitched at the sound of their eldest daughter’s voice coming from the second bedroom. “Daddy?” she called plaintively.

Shane tapped Ilya’s behind. “That’s you,” he said, confidently. In much the way they had learned to determine the sound of a newborn’s hunger cries from the sound of a wet diaper cry, so they had been able to translate which interchangeable ‘daddy’ or ‘papa’ was being asked for in different situations. If pressed, Shane would say that the girls called for Ilya in a sweeter way than they did for him, but it was something Ilya denied.

With a brief, slightly promising kiss, Ilya crawled off Shane, did up his pants and padded in the direction of the bedroom. Lying there in the semi-dark, he got to listen to his daughter and husband lay bare their feelings to each other, whisper their apologies and promise to love each other no matter what. He grinned to himself in the dark, hopelessly in love with Ilya, the man he had become, the boy he had once been, and didn’t stop grinning when Ilya returned and fell back upon him.

“I want another one,” Ilya groaned into his neck.

Shane pinched Ilya’s side. “Did Anna put you up to this?” It wouldn’t have surprised him to find out they were colluding.

Ilya snickered. So that was a ‘yes’. He rose up onto his elbows and made an adjustment to Shane’s thigh so that he was more comfortably situated between Shane’s legs. He rolled his hips. “Is still not a ‘no’, though?”

“Are you being serious? Are we seriously having this conversation?”

“You need time to process. I know.” Ilya kissed Shane, politely, twice. “We discuss again in a few months. After Kolya is out of diapers. Let me take off your pants.”

Shane shoved at Ilya, who was squirming a hand between them. “But you have relentlessly chirped Hayden for having four. Relentlessly.”

“I do not care about Hayden.” This was not true. The Pikes remained one of their closest family friends. “Besides, four makes sense. One for each hand.”

Still not convinced this was some elaborate prank, cooked up between Ilya and his niece, Shane narrowed his eyes. “Is this what you and Anna were whispering about when we said goodbye earlier?” It had looked emotional and so Shane had stayed clear but perhaps he had been mistaken.

“No, that was something else.” Ilya’s eyes grew a little guarded. “Er. We talked a little about— before.”

“Before?”

“You know.”

“I do not know.” Shane wrapped his hand around Ilya’s determined wrist, which was now in Shane’s underwear, an inch from his intended destination. “What about before? You mean before you left Russia?”

“No. She asked me. About— Katya. And Matveev. And the flute lessons.”

“Oh.”

They had never said anything. For obvious reasons, it was a sensitive subject, not just between them but – as Anna grew older – the idea that telling her Shane had her watched had not sat well with either of them. A guilty little secret.

“She knew. Or she had worked it out. She,” Ilya sighed and pulled his hand from Shane’s pants, pushed himself up to sitting, “tried to thank me. I had to stop her. Tell her truth.”

And now Shane winced. “Oh, God. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did, Shane. It wasn’t me. It was you.”

“I’m sorry.” It was a near compulsion. He still sometimes shuddered to think about how it could have all gone very wrong. Had Ilya not been so forgiving. Had Matveev not been a giant dangerously-well connected Russian teddy-bear who thought of Ilya like the son he never had. Shane had been tremendously lucky.

“No.” Ilya patted Shane’s thigh, the pat then turning to a distracted rub, his eyes lowered to watch as his fingers shaped around Shane’s muscled thigh. “I think I should be thanking you.”

“Ilya.”

“Let me say this. I think, if you had told me this idea, to look out for Anna, back then. I would have said no. I was…angry with Russia. With anything associated with Russia. I put her out of my mind.” He tapped his head. “Locked box. Do not touch.”

Shane nodded. Ilya sometimes used this to reference other precious things he had compartmentalized. His mom. Shane. “Maybe I would have convinced you. Or we would have found a better way together.”

“Maybe.” Ilya did not sound convinced. “Maybe not. Maybe there would have been no flute lessons. No music school or international career. Maybe Anna would not know her cousins or stay in our cottage. Maybe we would not have got to love her, too.”

“I don’t believe that. I think it would have worked out in the end. I shouldn't have done it.” There had been other mistakes they had made in their relationship. Words and actions said or done in the heat of the moment. Other apologies they had to make. But this one had been by far the worst, even if it had a fortunate outcome.

“Maybe.” Ilya patted his thigh again. “She will call you. She wants to hear the whole story.”

“I’m going to sound like a creep.”

“No, you are going to sound like my Shane." Ilya flashed him a toothy grin. "Controlling. Obsessive. Neurotic.”

All of this was true. He was all those things. Shane sighed. “Yeah, a creep.”

“My creep.” Ilya shifted back onto all fours, switching from sentimental to horny in that way he had always been able to do. “Take off your pants.”

 

-end