Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, Harris Drover, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Brandon Wiebe

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Career Ending Injuries, Event Planner Shane Hollander, Autistic Shane Hollander, Ottawa Centaurs Player Ilya Rozanov, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Light Dom/sub, Slow Burn, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Protective Yuna Hollander, Good Friend Scott Hunter (Game Changers)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-01-26 Completed: 2026-01-27 Words: 69,624 Chapters: 18/18

ghosts we've always known

Summary

“Seeing you smile like that, it makes me want to give you all of this,” he called out, making a sweeping gesture across the ice.

Shane turned back to look at him, eyes bright, and laughed. “Canadian Tire Centre? I know you’re rich, Rozanov, but an entire arena is a pretty big real estate investment.”

Ilya pushed off, skating to a stop in front of him, knowing his expression had morphed into something serious. “Hockey, Hollander. It should have been yours.”

Or, everything that happens when your dreams don’t come true.

Notes

Hello and welcome to ‘things that happen when my autistic Wasian hockey-loving ass is awoken by a fandom urge so powerful I am demonically compelled to write book-length fiction for the first time since ~2014.’

A few disclaimers as I arise from my yaoi coffin:

#1: I’m American, a lifelong hockey fan, and a pretty well-traveled tourist of Canada’s major cities, but I’m sure — despite my intensive research on Canadian-specific dialogue, settings, and hockey lore — that there will be some inaccuracies. That being said, I had a great time enriching Rachel Reid’s book NHL universe with easter eggs for my fellow puck enjoyers, so I hope y’all find that fun. Let’s go, St. Louis Bluefin Tuna! 😉

#2: I have read the entire Game Changers series. While it’s not essential that you have as well, this canon-divergent fic uses book-specific plot points, characters (and most of their physical descriptions), team names, NHL events, etc. that show-only viewers might not be familiar with. I imagine some knowledge of books 2, 5 and 6 would enrich your experience greatly. I’ve also shifted the timeline up a few years to make this fic slightly more contemporary (and so I can ignore writing through the weird 2020 NHL seasons, ifykyk). Oh, and my Ottawa Centaurs wear purple and green because their uniforms are canonically uggo and the red/black is just too slick, I’m sorry.

#3: Not a single word of this piece of hobbyist fiction was written or edited by AI. I despise it. If you choose to screenshot any part of this fic and put it on a social media platform with AI accusations, I will be in the replies of every single post you make with screen recordings of me hand typing every em dash and sentence fragment until you beg for mercy. I had ff.net and lj accounts (and a dozen now-orphaned ao3 fics) before you were allowed on the internet, sweetheart, so you can leave this very real author in peace ❤️

Chapter 1

March 2024

Shane Hollander was nervous.

Obviously so. 

A feeling made worse by the way his internal fight-or-flight instinct was convinced he should be hearing everything around him in stereophonic detail.

The clack of sensible dress shoes on cold pavement.

The crinkle and swish of a massive portfolio tucked under one jacketed arm.

The staccato tap-tap of middle finger and thumb, and a whispered count under a man’s breath. His. One, two, three, four to the beat, over and over again. Soothing.

All that near-painful auditory awareness ceased abruptly as he arrived outside the nondescript office building in downtown Ottawa.

His latest client. And biggest too, by far. Not in scale of production, no; he’d handled contracts with far more zeroes on the budget line. But the name recognition— well. This could be a turning point, an expansion across the province or heck, all of Canada even, if he pulled it off.

A few hours southwest, Toronto’s public and private sectors were well aware of Shane Hollander — that he was excellent at making plans, professionally certified and award-winning even, with contingencies mapped out for every possible events-related disaster. Not only would he turn your half-baked conference vision into reality, he’d do it under budget and with an air of perfectionist professionalism that had been described as almost terrifying to witness. 

Nothing ever went wrong at a VQ Event. Not anything the client would notice, anyway.

Caterer forgot the crudités? Handled. 

Thunderstorm at a garden party? Solved before the first raindrop could fall. 

Point being, Shane was fucking good at his job.

Which is why the anxiety that crept up in his throat as he stood before the Ottawa Centaurs’ admin offices was a ridiculous overreaction.

They’re not going to ask you about hockey. No one even remembers that you—

Shane shook his head to clear the thoughts away. No use in dwelling with old demons. 

He tugged on the end of his strategically dark green blazer to smooth it, sucked in a deep breath, and considered attempting the heavy revolving door that marked the main entrance. Thinking better of it, especially after the long walk to the building he’d hoped would settle his nerves (ha!), he instead opted for the automated side door with its press-to-open button. Thankfully, it was operational and allowed him access into the lobby without much fuss.

Looking around, Shane took in the outdated furniture and decor— probably the height of style in the 70s, still functional now but noticeably worn down. An apt metaphor for the Centaurs team, perhaps, who’d been floundering at last place in their division for enough seasons that many fans had all but given up hope for an actual post-season run. 

But maybe not for long, now that they have—

“Shane?”

A handsomely bearded man appeared before him, smile jovial and welcoming. He was shorter than Shane with a strong, stocky frame and had wrapped his attractive barrel chest in an oversized, ridiculously soft-looking green cardigan that Shane ached to reach out and touch. A purple badge lanyard covered in tiny green O-shaped logos hung around his neck. On it, two pins — an enamel rainbow apple and a round white button with PROTECT THE DOLLS in black text — were affixed prominently.

Shane thrust one hand out and felt the other man’s fingers clasp his own. “Hi, yes, I’m Shane. Hollander. And you must be—”

“Harris,” he confirmed, executing a firmly gripped handshake before slipping his hand back into the pocket of his cardigan. Harris rocked back on his heels, seeming a little nervous too despite his overtly friendly aura. 

“I’m the one you’ve been emailing with. Official title is Director of Communications but we’re a scrappy operation so… they’ve had me doing the work of the Event Production team they axed last season too, I’m afraid. Hopefully I don’t slow you up.”

Shane smiled reassuringly. “If all goes well, you shouldn’t need to do much after the initial planning sessions. Maybe a ‘yes, no, what color’ type of question here and there. But you’ve hired me to handle everything end-to-end. And I will.”

Harris blew out a relieved puff of air. “Ugh, fabulous. I’m up to my ears in short form video scripts for IG and so so behind on actual filming. It was a miracle when the higher-ups agreed to spare the budget I needed to contract your agency. You come highly recommended.”

There was a chiming noise and the Comms Director glanced down at the smart watch on his wrist, a soft smile blooming on his ruddy features as he read whatever message appeared there. 

“Sorry,” he said, looking back up at Shane, “Speaking of event planning, my fiancé is dead set on a European destination wedding and I’m doing a terrible job of reeling him in.”

Shane didn’t miss the way Harris placed a little extra emphasis on the pronoun, as if daring him to question it. Which was a little funny given that even a casual sports fan would’ve seen the recent news of the high-profile engagement. Or maybe Harris thought he might be homophobic which was equally funny given—

“I grew up rooting for the Cens,” Shane said instead, watching Harris’ expression shift into one of interest. “If a ceremony at an Italian villa will keep Barrett playing like he has recently, I’m all for it.”

Harris laughed then, a booming cackling sort of sound that surprised Shane into laughter himself.  

“I won’t be telling him you said that. He doesn’t need the support or the ego boost. Rozanov has already been a terrible influence and—”

“Ah, sorry, should we head up and get started?” Shane blurted, waving his folder a little lamely when Harris trailed off in surprise. 

How embarrassing.

It was just… That name. He wasn’t expecting the mention of the team’s last season acquisition to send shockwaves straight to his core. Still a hockey fan, Shane had been incidentally watching him play for years, of course. The NHL’s biggest star was impossible to avoid. But the thought of Rozanov being so near now…

It’s been more than a decade, Shane. You’ve got to let it go.

“Of course, yes! Follow me!” Harris was saying, “Sorry, I can talk anyone’s ear off, given the chance.”

He glanced down at the cane in Shane’s left hand. “And I really shouldn’t have kept you standing so long. I hope you’re not uncomfortable.”

“No, no,” Shane said, following Harris toward the elevator bay and trying to hide a grimace when his ankle did in fact twinge a few steps in. “I just have a lunch meeting after this,” he lied, “so I’m unfortunately a little conscious of time this morning.”

“Timely and professional, check,” Harris said, miming a tick box list on a clipboard. “Keeping me on schedule already, Mr. Hollander. Exactly why we hired you!”

As the elevator arrived with a ding, Shane let Harris’ excited chatter fill his ears, the name Rozanov all but forgotten by the time the meeting with the Director and his truly meager team of staff had commenced.

This was a huge opportunity and he needed to stay focused. There was no time to live in the past, to let the ‘what if’s’ consume him.

Shane Hollander had a gala to plan.

- 🏒-

“Hey, Roz,” Troy Barrett’s voice called from somewhere across the locker room. “Did Hunter send you those recs for Spain yet?”

Ilya tugged off the last of his pads and turned to find Barrett amongst the post-practice fray. 

“Ah yes, I will forward,” he replied, grabbing for his phone on the top shelf of his locker. Barrett crossed the room and Ilya reached out on instinct, unable to resist punching his tiny left winger’s shoulder. “But I have told you this does not have to be like passing notes at school, yes? You can message him directly. You are big boy with phone.”

His fellow Centaur looked down, cheeks pinking. “I know, Cap. It’s just— he’s like The Guy, you know? I don’t want him to think I’m just using him as a… a gay hockey guru or whatever.”

“Hunter does not mind,” Ilya assured, wrapping the forward up and patting him on the head like a little duckling. “It is important to keep elderly minds active.” At Barrett’s snort, he added, “But I can be gay hockey guru too, you know.”

Barrett ducked out from under his arm with a chuckle. “No offense, Roz, but you’re kind of the opposite of settled and monogamous. Which is more so the type of advice I’m looking for these days.”

Ilya gasped in mock offense, clutching his practice jersey to his chest. “Everyone!” he shouted into the room over the sound of Barrett’s mounting laughter. “Barrett thinks I am terrible manwhore!”

“Aw, Barrett, that’s not true,” Boodram called back, “Rozy’s a great manwhore. Really successful.”

“One of the best to ever do it,” Hayes agreed.

A few more disparaging chirps about Ilya’s virtue had the whole team dissolving into laughter, only interrupted by their head coach stepping into the room with a loud clap.

“Sorry to spoil the fun, boys,” Brandon Wiebe said, waiting as the locker room quieted. “Just an admin reminder that we’re hosting a pretty big event in a couple months. I know it’s summer break, but I do expect everyone who is able to come to be there. Don’t go making any last minute vacation plans.”

A few ‘yes coach’s echoed in response. 

Wiebe nodded. “Remember, it's for a good cause. And since Rozanov’s charity is involved, he’s leading the charge on player contributions to the silent auction. So if he asks you to sign something, you sign it, okay?”

Wiebe glanced over to where their goalie had raised a hand and sighed. “Within reason, Hayes.”

Ilya smirked, calling out, “Signed jock strap is for my personal collection only, don’t worry.”

Coach rolled his eyes. “Point is, we’re working with a fancy schmancy events agency out of Toronto and paying a pretty penny for it. So everyone behave. Listen to the planner guy we hired. And let’s make some people cough up their money for charity, alright?”

There were a few sporadic cheers. 

“Okay, thanks for your time, boys,” Wiebe said, all business. “Oh, and Rozanov?”

Ilya sat up. “Yes, Coach?”

“Offense looked terrible today. Meet me and the assistant coaches in my office and let’s pick some drills for punishment, shall we?

Ilya saluted lazily, ignoring the playful groaning from his teammates. He was pleased to see that his impassioned speech to the full roster and their coaching staff a few weeks ago was being taken to heart. He straight up refused to let Ottawa lose another fucking game, especially with Boston and Montreal on the schedule soon. They had the talent and the passion in spades. They just needed to play like it.

Ilya Rozanov was going to win them a Stanley Cup.

Probably. Eventually.

But he’d settle for a winning season for now.

Chapter 2

Harris wasn’t answering his phone. 

Which was fine, really.

He’d been mostly accessible in their first few weeks of working on the gala together so. He wasn’t becoming a problem client. Yet.

It was all completely fine.

Except that Shane was a few hours away from losing his top choice florist to a competing event; that is, if the Centaurs’ finance and legal departments didn’t manifest the vendor deposit and signatures needed to finalize the contract.

He sighed, punching the number on screen one last time and hoping for a miracle.

The phone rang once, twice and then—

“This better be important,” a man’s voice carried over the line. It was strongly accented. Familiar. Very much not Director of Communications Harris Drover. Shane felt the phone nearly slip from his hands.

“Hellooo?” the voice said again, “You are terrorizing my locker room with constant calling. Harris is not… available, just now. But I can get him if there is real emergency.”

Shane scrambled to put his mouth back up to the receiver. “Well, it’s not an emergency per say. Not like a family thing. I just—”

“Hanging up now!” the man sing-songed.

“No!” Shane yelped. “No, wait! I’m calling from VQ Events. We’re planning the charity gala in July. There’s a very important vendor contract I’m trying to finalize and it needs Harris’ authorization.”

There was a pause and an audible breath. He hadn’t actually hung up then, thank god. “What is contract?”

“Oh, it’s like an agreement between two parties where—”

“No, I know that,” came the exasperated reply. “I have signed many, obviously.” Shane could almost feel the force of the eyeroll through the phone. “I mean, what is it Harris is meant to approve? Thing that is so urgent you are calling and calling and c—”

“Flowers,” Shane responded, and then immediately felt like an idiot for it.

“Flowers,” the man echoed slowly, Russian vowels dripping with condescension. “You called ten times in last two hours because of flowers.”

Shane sniffed. “Well, yes,” he replied, tone a little more defensive than he would have normally let slip through his professional veneer. “Sarah is my top choice florist and she’s typically booked out for more than a year in advance, but she’s agreed to do me a huge favor by squeezing in the Centaurs’ charity gala. Except she’s asking for a pretty hefty deposit to book, which is fair, but I need Harris’ approval and then your finance department to wire over said deposit and she can only hold the slot until COB. After that, it belongs to the wedding of two D-list québécois actors also on the waitlist so—”

He paused, slightly out of breath, but poised to add even more context if it would get him somewhere.

“How much is deposit?”

Shane’s mouth did something koi-like. “What?”

An irritated sigh carried over the line. “I know my English is not that bad. I said, how much does this Sarah of the Flowers need?”

“Rozanov, you can’t pay for this yourself,” Shane said before he could stop himself.

“Oh no, I very much can,” came the immediate reply, “But how did you know it was me?”

I’ve dreamt about your voice since I was a teenager. You would whisper stupid shit to me during every face off and I’d chirp back, as if I wasn’t happier there on the ice with you than anywhere else in the world.

“Only one Russian on the Centaurs I can think of,” Shane said, which was marginally less insane than the places his inner monologue had been taking him. “Why are you answering Harris’ phone?”

“He left it in Barrett’s locker,” Rozanov replied, as if that was an obvious explanation on its own. “Social media intern came by with surprise couple challenge video in mind for them. Sounded cute.”

Shane’s heart practically fluttered at the casual way a major NHL player was discussing his gay teammate’s relationship. He’d heard good things through the hockey grapevine about how the new captain was building team culture in Ottawa, but the whole not shying away from queer people existing thing specifically was really endearing him to his childhood franchise. 

Rozanov continued, “Harris loved the idea so has been in makeshift studio filming since then. I was doing extra practice out on the ice and could hear phone ringing nonstop. Thought it might be important.”

“It is important,” Shane argued.

“Yes, of course. The flowers,” Rozanov parroted, and Shane could almost imagine his expression and the way his hands would be emphasizing every word. He was embarrassed to realize just how big the grin on his face had become in the course of the short phone call.

“So, how much?” the Russian asked again. “I am done with practice. I can send right now.”

“It’s a contractual thing, Rozanov,” Shane replied, “I can’t have you send the funds for like a dozen different legal reasons. And you probably shouldn’t be offering to wire money to a random person on your colleague’s phone.”

“You are not random person, though. You are Shane, yes?”

Shane felt his heart drop to his stomach. There was no way he actually—

“Shane comma VQ Events? You are saved in his contacts. Caller ID is miracle invention.”

“Listen,” Shane huffed, fighting something in the pit of his chest that felt a lot like disappointment mixed with fear and a deeper simmer that he didn’t want to think about. “My point is that you’d be sending money to a company in good faith, no strings attached. Which I don’t think you should do and which might complicate things on my end, finance-wise. So if you could apologize to the social media person and interrupt Harris for me that would be—”

“But what if I am on contract?” Rozanov cut in.

“What?”

“Let’s say philanthropy that I am Executive Director of is involved directly in gala and that my signature is on same contract as the Centaurs. Could I have my finance person send over money? My charity is benefitting from the donations, which event planner man is telling me will apparently be impacted if venue has ugly flowers so...”

Shane ignored that last little jab in favor of gaping at his phone again.

“Wait,” he said, “You run Anya’s Humane Rescue Alliance. The network of animal shelters they’ve been opening across Ontario?”

“Yes, Shane,” the hockey captain confirmed impatiently, “I named it after my dog. Who I would very much like to get home to soon, if we have found solution to your problem.”

“Oh my god, yeah. I mean, yes,” he blurted, still reeling at the idea of the three-time winner of the league’s most-punchable player poll raising a puppy. “If you could connect me with someone on your end, I can—”

“I just texted you the number. They will be expecting your call.”

Shane let out a breath, suddenly hit with the elation that he had pulled off another event planning win. Sarah’s arrangements were nothing less than breathtaking. The photos would be out of this world and exactly what Shane needed for his portfolio. 

And no matter what Ilya Rozanov seemed to think, the enhanced atmospheric beauty would make the wealthy invitees more likely to open their pocketbooks. He was going to stun the pants off these NHL fuckers and their fancy philanthropic guests.

“Rozanov, you’re a life saver,” he said, trying not to straight up gush his praises. It was a near thing. “Would you mind telling Harris to call me back when he has a sec, though? I just want to make sure he’s kept up to date.”

Keys jangled in the background. Rozanov must have been locking up. “Yes, will do,” he said, as the sound of footsteps and several doors falling shut echoed over the line. “And Shane?”

“Yeah?” he replied breathily, so eager it was mortifying.

The casual use of his first name — a thing they had never done as rival players — was as thrilling as it was painful. A reminder that Shane Hollander wasn’t anything to Ilya Rozanov anymore. Wasn’t anything to hockey at all.

“The second number I texted is my cell. This event means a lot to this organization, so.” He paused, seemingly thinking through the boundaries of their blossoming business relationship. “If you cannot reach Harris, text me and I can usually make things happen. I will send practice and game schedule though, so you know when I am not available.”

“I know when you play,” Shane said, wincing at what a creep that made him sound like. “I mean, I’m a big hockey fan. So. I’m usually busy watching a game most evenings too.”

“You support Ottawa?” And what a terrifying thing it was having the new captain and renowned terror of the NHL ask if you liked his team.

Shane gulped, figuring honesty was the best policy. “Ah, well, I grew up in Ottawa. So, it was my local team in a way. I loved the Cens as a kid. But historically, um, my family roots for Montreal.”

“Oh, eww,” Rozanov replied, the reaction so childish that it made Shane burst into laughter. “Don’t worry, though. When I am done whipping these boys into shapes, you will have no choice but to be Centaurs’ number one fan.”

“Sure, bud. If you actually make playoffs this season, I’ll put on a jersey and everything.” The sort-of bet was out of his mouth before he’d even thought through the words. 

What the hell are you doing, Shane? You don’t joke around with a client like this! And especially not him!

Rozanov made a little sniffing sound of amusement. 

“Deal,” came the reply. “You’ll look great in my number, Hollander.”

No.

He lowered his phone and looked down at the black screen in horror. The asshole had hung up before Shane could even process the moment of recognition.

Fucking shitting fuck.

What was he going to do now?

- 🏒-

INTERLUDE: Beginning and End

December 2012 - Regina

It started with a handshake in Saskatchewan.

“Ilya Rozanov? Shane Hollander. I wanted to introduce myself.”

The Russian boy was smoking directly in front of a ‘No Smoking’ sign, which made Shane wrinkle his nose for multiple reasons, but he thrust his hand out cordially anyway. Cold fingers wrapped around his own, ever so briefly, and he entertained the fantastical idea that Rozanov was a near-unstoppable force on the ice because he was actually made from it.

Be serious, Shane. He’s a hockey player, not a supernatural creature. And you’re the better centre anyway. Probably.

Shane had been watching the teenage phenom annihilate defenders in practice all week, creating space and firing off shots that felt impossible for any forward, much less a literal seventeen year old. He knew many people had a similar, if not more favorable, view of his own play style, but there was just something electric about Rozanov that Shane’s textbook hockey brain couldn’t always account for. He might have been a little... obsessed, actually. 

But then again, his intense surveillance had an actual research purpose, given that a Canada-Russia World Juniors final was all but certain this year. And not at all because every hockey analyst in existence seemed unable to utter a single word about Shane Hollander without including Ilya Rozanov’s name too. 

So yeah, he’d seen and heard a lot about his alleged rival, slouched against the brick wall before him and starting on his second cig of the morning. Shane could recite his stats from memory, probably pick his face out of a crowd in seconds…

The broadcasts don’t do him justice though.

An up close and personal Ilya Rozanov was something to behold: He was tall and broad, already better built for hockey than even some of the older guys on their rosters. His dirty blonde ringlets were tucked under a thick toque, though the curly ends peeking out the front gave him an almost sweetly cherubic look. He wore a permanently lazy expression but his eyes were sharp, studying Shane like he’d found a strange anomaly on a microscope slide. The combination of outward nonchalance with quiet intellect was extremely intimidating.

In the end, their conversation was short and very, very awkward— which was, to be fair, not unlike most of Shane’s social interactions at a tournament full of young men who’d spent more time in the brutal environment of competitive hockey camps than with normal kids their age. But Rozanov had initiated a little friendly chirping which Shane counted as a success.

Actually getting beat by Russia a few days later as Rozanov had predicted was the opposite of success, obviously. Despite some struggles with their defense, Shane had played one of the best games of his life for Canada that day; going head to head with a centre who matched his skill level had been exhilarating.

Their hands touched again as the players moved through the lineup post-game.

“See you at the draft,” Rozanov said loftily, and Shane felt the deep rumble of that Russian voice all the way down to his skates.

It wasn’t pure anger in his veins, exactly, but he knew from that moment onward that coming second place to Ilya Rozanov could not happen again.

- 🏒-

July 2013 - Los Angeles

It happened again.

Rozanov’s shoulder was pressed against his own as the press shouted their names, the heat of him almost searing through the layers of Shane’s stiff suit jacket. He was holding his jersey proudly — number 81, embroidered in black and gold — and smiling with all his teeth. Shane couldn’t recall having seen him smile before, not like that anyway.

Rozanov held up one finger for the photos, signifying him as the first round pick; Shane held up two.

Boston and Montreal. It was poetic, really.

Their teenage ‘feud’ based on skill and draft prospects would now be a full blown professional rivalry, fueled by decades of bitter history between two original six teams.

Shane truly hated Rozanov in that moment—the way everyone around him said he did. He’d wanted to be first, just one goddamn time.

And yet despite their handful of aggravating IIHF matchups, he couldn’t wait to play Rozanov on real NHL ice.

Couldn’t wait for a whole hockey career spent in competition with the man everyone said was his perfect equal.

Shane Hollander’s real life was finally beginning, his dreams all blossoming into technicolor reality.

He wondered if this was what Ilya Rozanov had dreamed of too.

- 🏒-

December 2013 - Ottawa

“Shit, Rozanov, did you see the news?” 

Ilya turned to his teammate, halfway dressed in his gear for Russia’s quarterfinal matchup against an annoyingly optimistic American squad. He couldn’t wait to send them back home in tears.

“Hmm?”

“It’s the Canadians,” Sokolov said, almost breathless, “There’s been an accident.”

Ilya froze. “What kind of accident?”

“I don’t know man, I just saw it on the TVs in the rec room,” Sokolov continued in rapid-fire Russian, “The bus that was taking them from their practice rink to the arena for tonight’s game… it hit a patch of ice or something. Completely flipped. No deaths reported, thank god, but they’re saying several players and some coaching staff were taken to the hospital with critical injuries.”

Hollander.

The buzz in the locker room increased as the news made its way through Ilya’s other teammates. Everyone had anticipated another final against the also undefeated Canadian squad. And while they were happily physical on the ice, no one wanted to see another player actually hurt. Especially not… permanently.

Please. Let him— everyone be okay.

The Russian coach entered the room not long after, clearing his throat.

“I’m sure you have heard,” he said brusquely. “Given that this tragedy hits close to home for Canada, the tournament organizers have chosen to postpone today’s games. They’re not yet calling the entire thing off, but no one will be playing until we have an update on the status of those injured.”

Ilya nodded along with the rest of his team and began numbly removing his skates. The locker room chatter faded out, replaced by a persistent ringing in his ears.

Of course, no one on Team Canada deserved to miss a chance at a medal, but selfishly, Ilya had been looking forward to facing off against Shane Hollander again. As rookies, they’d yet to share the ice together outside of one pre-season game, but he had watched Hollander’s few official caps for Montreal almost religiously. The Bears’ Video Coach probably thought he was insane.

Still, watching Hollander play onscreen paled in comparison to actually facing him. The rush of pushing the Canadian’s buttons, watching his pretty almond eyes narrow in focus or frustration beneath his helmet. The pouty frown he wore when Ilya beat him, again and again.

But anyway.

Shane Hollander, who many already considered invincible on the ice, was probably completely unscathed.

Ilya would get the updates in time just like everyone else.

Or he could—

He rooted through his bag for his phone and impulsively sent a text to the one person who might be able to help. Unfortunately, she was also the only person likely to read more into Ilya’s message than he’d meant to reveal.

The reply came much later, nearly midnight, starting with the address of a nearby hospital. Ilya sat up in the bed of his hotel room, clicking on the lamp and feeling his heart rate start to accelerate once more.

He’s alive, Ilya. You would’ve heard much earlier if he wasn’t.

He clicked into his messages to see that Svetlana had written the rest of her text in Russian, which his stress-addled brain was immensely grateful for.

Sveta: Room 141A. He’s stable but needed pretty significant emergency surgery. If you go see him, you should be kind. It doesn’t sound like he’ll play for a while.

Ilya: I’m not going there to gloat.

Sveta: I know. You like him.

Ilya: I don’t even know him.

Sveta: 6 am. In two days. Before visiting hours. They’ll be expecting you.

Sveta: Delete these texts by the way. Several people (Papa included) had to conveniently ignore some Canadian privacy laws for this.

Ilya swallowed. This was becoming a little too much of a thing. He should just send his condolences later like everyone else. The need to physically see that his rival was alive and breathing was bordering on obsession.

Still, something had happened between them in Los Angeles. Off the ice, his curiosity had been sparked.

And a curious Ilya Rozanov was a reckless one.

- 🏒-

“Rozanov!” the boy in the bed said loudly, voice pitched with an unrestrained glee that would’ve made Ilya laugh in any other circumstance. 

He supposed it was a good thing that a Shane Hollander obliterated with painkillers didn’t find anything odd about his sworn enemy turning up at his hospital room.

“Hiiii,” Hollander all but sang, even louder this time. He was smiling in a way that Ilya had never seen him do. Not even when he scored. It was strange to think Ilya might have anything to do with it.

Wincing, he immediately glanced around, though the early morning ICU hall was empty of other visitors as Svetlana had promised. There were two other Canadian players and a coaching assistant still in the hospital, as far as he’d heard, but they had been stabilized early on and moved to other wards.

He quietly tugged the door closed behind him as he stepped into the room, pulling anxiously at the sleeves of the PPE gown they’d made him wear. The nurse who’d let him up had emphasized something about limiting infection risk in rapid-fire English that he’d pretended to fully understand. It had sounded serious though and he definitely didn’t want to hurt Hollander any worse.

The initial reports that had come out yesterday had conservatively mentioned a leg injury. But from the state of the boy in front of him, it was much more severe than a simple break. At the end of the bed, a strange pulley-like contraption kept his left leg — wrapped and splinted from toes to upper thigh — suspended at an angle, and a whole host of IVs and monitors were plugged in around him. To him. 

The general trauma of the accident was just as evident. Hollander’s round face was littered with purple-black bruises, his lips bloodied and swollen, with several rough stitches through his right eyebrow. Ilya, despite having seen players look similar (or worse) after a particularly rough check or a puck to the jaw, felt inexplicably sick at the sight.

“Come here, please,” Hollander pouted. He was still smiling, the drugged up idiot.

Ilya shuffled closer, until he was at the boy’s bedside, and was shocked when Hollander reached out to grasp his arm. The pleased little sigh he let out as he did so made very strange things happen in Ilya’s chest.

“I needed to touch you,” Hollander said dopily.

Ilya coughed, feeling suddenly awkward, and carefully shifted his arm out of Hollander’s reach. “Well, now you have.”

“Nooo,” Hollander replied, frowning. “In LA. In the hotel gym. I needed to.” The boy’s eyebrows furrowed, as if he was thinking back hard on that moment. “I didn’t understand it then. How much.”

Fuck.

This was headed somewhere that Ilya really didn’t think a sober Shane Hollander was ready for.

He’d noticed, of course. When they’d both coincidentally ended up in the hotel gym after the draft that night, running on the treadmills next to each other until they were gasping for air. Collapsed on the ground across from his rival, chests heaving, sweat dripping in nasty rivulets… he’d seen the anger and confusion morph into hunger in those dark eyes. Probably the same hunger that was reflected in his own. He’d nearly done something about it too. Stupid freckles.

But Hollander had sprung up suddenly, panicked, and fled the room with a rushed ‘good night’. 

His departure had felt like a cold bucket of water dumped on Ilya’s intentions. Sobering. He found danger delicious in most contexts but… this particular secret in the wrong hands could ruin him. He’d nearly forgotten that.

Besides, he didn’t know if Hollander even knew what we wanted, what he was asking for. He suspected the seriously wound up eighteen year old hadn’t worked much of anything out beyond the baser instincts.

“I think I wanted to kiss you,” Hollander said suddenly, as if reading Ilya’s mind. God damn it. 

He smiled to himself, then punctuated with a decisive nod, “No, I did. Definitely.”

“Hollander, you cannot say that,” Ilya hurried to say. “When other people come visit later, your parents, coach, you do not talk about me, okay?”

Hollander looked disgruntled at the thought. “But everyone else always talks about me and you. We’re Hollander and Rozanov.”

“Because hockey, Shane,” Ilya replied, the first name slipping out in his frustration. There was a healthy dose of fear mixed in there too.

“Oh. Hockey.” Hollander’s mouth wobbled.

Oh god, were those tears?

“They…” he sniffled, expression so painfully vulnerable Ilya wanted to run from the room. “They don’t think I’ll play again. Not for a long time. Maybe ever.”

Ilya staggered at the news, grasping at the bedside railing to steady himself.

The prospect of hockey without Shane Hollander was horrifying. That couldn’t be right. Couldn’t be something that God or the forces of the universe or whatever would allow to happen. He touched the gold crucifix around his neck instinctually, a wordless prayer.

The future of the sport was lying in this bed right now.

It couldn’t end like this, before it even really began. Because of some freak accident. It wasn’t fair. Especially not when Hollander cared more about hockey, tried harder, trained better, than Ilya — his supposed equal — ever had.

Oh no, he was crying too.

“Hollander,” he said wetly. “You are on many drugs right now. Maybe you did not hear right? The doctors are very good. And you have support of NHL. I am sure you will heal. And we will play each other soon.”

“I—” Hollander started, but was interrupted by a soft knock at the door.

“Mr. Rozanov?” a kind-looking nurse said, poking her head in. “I’m afraid time is up. We try not to have our head trauma patients talk for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Plus, Mr. Hollander here is due for some follow-up scans of that leg shortly. He’ll need his rest before the next surgery.”

Ilya blinked at the long string of English again, but surmised that he was being politely asked to leave. 

“Rozanov,” Hollander said roughly, grasping his wrist again as he’d started to step away from the bed. “Thank you for coming. For everything, really.”

Ilya felt the nurse’s eyes on them, whether from impatience or perhaps curiosity at whatever moment two barely adult men had shared to make each other cry. He scrubbed at his tear-stained face, patted the starry-eyed boy on the forearm, and said, “See you next season, Hollander.”

He couldn’t let himself believe anything else.

Chapter 3

April 2024

It took Shane almost an entire week before — in a moment of extreme weakness involving several beers and a crushing Montreal 2-1 loss at home to the goddamn Centaurs — he was pulling out his phone and firing off probably the most ill-advised text of his life.

Shane: You knew.

The reply came almost immediately.

I.R. (Work): no. only suspected. but thanks for confirmation

Shane: How?

I.R. (Work): hmm. a shane from ottawa who loves hockey and roots for the stupid, ugly voyageurs? it was a pretty good guess

Shane bit his lip, shocked at the fact that Rozanov had kept a few facts about him stored away for over a decade. Or maybe he’d just googled ‘VQ Events’ while they’d been on that call; Shane’s full name and headshot were on the website after all.

His phone pinged with a second text.

I.R. (Work): also i remembered your voice 😉

Shane Hollander, all of twenty-nine years old, threw his phone across the room, buried his head in a couch cushion, and screamed.

- 🏒-

A few days later, Shane was cozied up under a blanket in his parents’ living room, watching some hockey analysts discuss the handful of teams all competing for a playoff berth with just two games left in the regular season.

While his relationship with Ottawa as a city was complicated, Shane was still close to his family and hopped on the short flight from Toronto roughly every six weeks or so to spend a weekend being fed and coddled a bit. He liked to make the four and a half hour drive too sometimes, which traced the edge of Lake Ontario, but as he aged it was getting harder to predict just how much his damaged joints were willing to cooperate with prolonged time in confined spaces. Reality was he couldn’t always push himself through the pain in the same way he did in his early twenties. His medical team would probably say that was for the best, but sometimes having his parents pick him up at the airport and tuck him into the back seat of their Subaru Forester felt kind of infantilizing.

Speaking of family, this week his dad was off on a golf trip with some work buddies, but Yuna Hollander — still the intense hockey fan she’d always been, even after her son’s unexpectedly early retirement — was sat in an armchair to his left, chattering away at the announcers onscreen as if they could actually hear how much she disagreed with their post-season projections.

Shane felt his phone buzz where it was tucked under his thigh and reached down to check his notifications. He looked at the message preview and nearly choked.

I.R. (Work): [Screenshot showing the Ottawa Centaurs in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with 95 points behind Boston’s 98] 

I.R. (Work): if we win tonight, wild card is ours

He was typing back a response before he could think better of it.

Shane: You really believe you’re going to beat Boston? They’re actively burning an effigy of you on TV right now.

I.R. (Work): so you are watching?

Shane: Just general pregame stuff. Montreal plays tonight too.

I.R. (Work): keep watching

Shane swallowed, shoving his phone back under the blankets. Something about the no-nonsense way the Russian man often spoke warmed him under the collar a little bit. He shifted uncomfortably, noticing the way his mom cast him a concerned glance from her corner of the room.

“Everything okay?” Yuna asked. “Your leg’s not bothering you, is it? You know you shouldn’t be running so many events so close together. It’s a lot of time on your feet, hon. And a mobility aid isn’t meant to replace actual rest.”

“I’m fine, mom,” Shane whined, knowing that his parents were prone to worry no matter how long it had been since his injury. Five separate surgeries over ten years and countless OT and PT sessions would do that to anyone. 

“Just some guys from my fantasy league chirping me about Ottawa.”

“Ottawa?” Yuna questioned, raising an eyebrow. “You never draft any of their players.”

Shane froze, caught in the lie by his mother’s keen powers of perception and her ridiculous hockey IQ. He recovered quickly: “I have Hayes in goal tonight, actually.”

Her frown relaxed a bit. “Ah, well, he is their best asset. Not counting… well, you know.”

Shane looked down, smiling softly at the omission. Yuna had been with him during all the darkest parts of his rehabilitation journey and knew just how triggering talk of his former rival’s blossoming NHL career had been. She was deeply protective and had spent those years swiftly changing TV channels, redirecting probing conversations, and otherwise attempting to censor the existence of one of hockey’s biggest stars. The biggest, probably. It was a futile effort, especially once he’d felt comfortable watching games again, but it had spared Shane prolonging some of the worst of his grief.

He took a steadying breath. “You can say his name, mom.”

At that, Yuna looked genuinely startled, full-body swiveling in her chair to look at Shane as if he’d grown a second head. “I can?”

He met her gaze and nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve been working on that gala for the Centaurs and Rozanov’s charity is involved. I can’t be terrified of his name forever. We’ll probably meet in person at some point too so…”

And he’s currently texting me, and I keep texting him back, and I have no earthly idea what this means for either of us.

Her eyes softened. “Shane, you know you don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, right? I love that you’ve built such a successful business all by yourself in that big city, but your father and I will always support you if you want to scale back. You work so hard.”

Shane bristled a little at the implication behind her words. 

“I signed a contract, mom,” he said, trying not to let the irritation slip into his voice. Notable distress of any kind would do nothing to convince her that he was in fact handling a hockey-related event without having a total meltdown. “And you know I’ve been wanting to break into professional sports for a while. This gala is a big deal for my career.”

“Of course, Shane,” Yuna affirmed. Her tone was neutral but something at the edges of her smile felt almost bittersweet. “I know you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I just worry about how much pressure you put on yourself to prove that to everyone else.”

The blaring musical intro for the sports show’s next segment distracted Shane from his reply.

Onscreen a pregame interview with Ilya Rozanov had started, that deep voice immediately drawing Shane in.

“How does it feel to go up against Boston in such a high stakes late season game?” a reporter asked. “Any emotions coming up for you as you face your old haunt?”

The Centaurs captain just shrugged. “Feels fine for me,” he said simply, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Bad for them though, I think, since they will lose.”

“Cocky son of a bitch,” Yuna muttered, making Shane snort. “What? He is!” 

Shane just shook his head, chewing at the inside of his cheek as Rozanov fielded question after inane question with abundant charm and as little filter as the network was likely to let him get away with.

“Ottawa is on the bubble of playoff qualification for the first time in eight seasons,” another reporter prompted. “Can you share with us a snippet of what you said to your team in the locker room ahead of tonight?”

Rozanov nodded sagely, seemingly poised to deliver a genuine response, and then: “Mostly I reminded them of super secret strategy where we put puck in net more times than other team.”

There was a ripple of laughter through the press area. Shane watched Yuna try to hide her amusement behind the back of her hand.

“Anything you tell yourself for motivation?” another reporter chimed in.

“Well,” Rozanov replied, flashing that damn crooked smile, “I have silly bet with, ah, old hockey friend who is Ottawa skeptic, so selfishly I need the win too.”

A dozen voices called out, asking for details of the wager, but Rozanov’s time was up and he was shuffled back toward the locker room. Shane gaped at the screen.

‘Keep watching.’ What the hell was he playing at?

“I wasn’t aware Rozanov had any friends left in hockey,” his mom joked.  

Shane startled, still stuck on the fact that an actual NHL star might have just referenced him on a live sports broadcast. “Ha, yeah,” he managed, tacking on an awkward laugh.

“Should we pause for dinner now?” Yuna asked after a moment, gesturing to where Boston was now on the ice warming up. “The Voyageurs don’t play for another ninety minutes.”

Shane didn’t move. “Oh, I…”

His mom gave him another odd look, but sank back into her armchair. “Or… I can place a delivery order and we can watch this game together too, if you want?”

Shane’s fingers found his phone beneath the blanket and squeezed. “Yeah, I do.”

- 🏒-

I.R. (Work): what size jersey do you wear? 😙 

- 🏒-

Some sort of hip hop track was blasting in the Centaurs’ locker room when Ilya finally stepped off the ice after a particularly brutal practice.

They’d already done what many had considered impossible by clenching the last wild card spot in the playoffs two nights ago. But the reality of not being a top three team meant they were left with a less than favorable first round matchup in the bracket. Hence, the kind of practices that were making Ilya feel his age a bit.

The source of the music was Harris Drover’s phone, with Gen, one of two social media admins, holding a ring light steady behind him.

In the corner, three of Ilya’s precious rookies were still in their pads and practice jerseys, awkwardly dancing along to the track. Forward Luca Haas seemed to be making a genuine effort at throwing it back though, which endeared Ilya to no end.

“Ok, that’s really good, guys!” Harris cheered, though he was doing a poor job of biting back his laughter.

“Harris, what are you doing to my rooks?” Ilya called out from his locker once Gen had motioned cut on the final take. 

“Making sure they understand the importance of social media marketing to a modern NHL franchise,” Harris replied primly, at the same time that their rookie D-pair deadpanned in-sync: “Torture.”

Ilya laughed. “Ok, well, do you have moment for me when you are finished with the Tik Tok-ing?”

“I think we’re done, right?” Haas said quickly, the two defensemen making pleading expressions behind him.

Harris rolled his eyes, shooed the rookies away and sauntered over to Ilya’s locker.

“What’s up, Roz?”

“About the gala,” Ilya began, feeling suddenly nervous about the request, “I have couple of signed jerseys and Anya’s HRA t-shirts from guys around the league for auction, but I worry about keeping them at home until July. I heard you sent over pucks with the events people for displays, so I wondered if I could do the same?”

Harris nodded. “Oh, sure, yeah. I can text Shane about what they’re doing for storage for now and where to securely send stuff.” He paused, considering. “Unless you want to?”

Ilya froze. “What?”

“I mean, you could text him yourself?” Harris said, “Shane mentioned you’d offered to be directly available for event support. Thank you so much for that, by the way. I’ve been a little all over the place with him from the get-go and I feel terrible, but now, with post-season promotional content to coordinate… I’m already so insanely booked.” 

Harris let out an extra panicked version of his booming laugh and rubbed at his chin. “It’s driving Troy a little batty, I think. He’s not used to being the one with the less crazy schedule.”

Ilya could sense the manic, near-burnout energy radiating off the man and immediately abandoned his original plan.

“I will text Shane, no worry,” he said, watching Harris breath out a sigh of relief. “And listen, if you want me to help with anything else related to gala, just let me know. I may not have experience of professional but I do have opinions on tablecloth color.”

Harris chuckled but Ilya could see in his tired eyes that he was actually considering the offer. “I am supposed to meet with Shane tomorrow while he’s still in town to tour the venue and make initial decisions on some room layouts…” He shook his head. “But no, you’re the captain of an NHL team in the freaking playoffs. You do not need to be worrying about any of this.”

“We have our rest day tomorrow,” Ilya argued, “I am either going to spend it nervous running on treadmill in home gym and taking Anya on longest walk of her life or you can let me do something, ah, productive.” 

“You should let Roz help, babe,” Barrett said, shyly approaching them from where he’d finished undressing from practice. “I’ve been trying to have you to myself for an evening for weeks.”

Ilya watched in amusement as Harris took approximately three full seconds to reboot after coming face to pec with his fiancé’s bare chest. Barrett snaked an arm around Harris’ shoulder who practically melted against him.

Ilya winked at his winger and said, “See, Harris. Take day off. Spend quality time with my player. Good for team morale which is good for winning.”

Harris looked thoughtful. “I mean, I guess everything is outlined in the contract. You wouldn’t have to do much more than follow Shane around and answer a few questions. I could send you the notes too.” His face lit up. “Oh, and you could drop off your shirts with him at the same time! Much safer than mailing them.”

“Then we have a plan,” Ilya said, nodding. “Send details to my philanthropy email address and copy my operations manager, please.” He wagged a finger at Harris. “And don’t text me tomorrow. Or I will tell Barrett on you.”

Barrett smiled. “You heard Cap, babe. No work allowed.”

Harris looked briefly sickened by the thought but recovered with a smile of his own. Still, he leaned toward Ilya as Barrett tugged him by the hand back toward his side of the locker room, and added in a faux whisper, “Seriously though, if you need anything, text me.”

“I will not!” Ilya said cheerily, waggling his fingers in a little wave goodbye.

Once the couple were totally engrossed in each other — which never took particularly long — Ilya let his smile fall. 

Actually seeing Shane Hollander again… after all this time…

As he haphazardly packed away his equipment, he couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of hesitation. Yes, that first call and the few teasing texts he’d sent had been easy fun, especially with Hollander mostly playing along. But they’d felt so divorced from reality; just a faceless person behind a screen. Now, with each subsequent interaction, the blurry smear of memories was sharpening into focus: a handshake, a smattering of freckles, a hospital bed... They might as well have been eighteen again.

A coward, Ilya had resisted looking the man up once he’d made the connection between his Hollander and Shane of VQ Events, despite the fact that the planner’s career probably necessitated a website About section or a LinkedIn page with a headshot at least. He knew the man would probably still be irritatingly pretty regardless.

There was a traumatic precedent for his avoidance, anyway; he’d gone years selfishly dodging all mention of Shane Hollander, fearful of spiraling back into the dark place he’d been in immediately following the accident. He could have reached out later, perhaps, but he was never sure if Hollander would have wanted to hear from him. They weren’t even friends. 

Instead, he lived with the unknown, in blind terror of a life for the former hockey player that was only pain and disappointment; even thinking the word ‘former’ made him grit his teeth. Ilya had gotten everything he’d wanted — besides a happy family, maybe — and yet depression had nearly destroyed him, still threatened to derail his progress more often than his on-and-off again therapist would probably prefer to hear. He had long accepted it was clinical, due less to his personal failings and more so to chemical imbalances of the brain, but a childhood of being told how ungrateful he was, how selfish, how lazy had twisted his mind into his own worst enemy.

He couldn’t help but compare their situations. Couldn’t imagine how the broken teenager he’d cried with in a hospital room had coped with losing all the things that Ilya got to keep, how he’d ever moved on from a dream destroyed in an instant…

In a fucked up way, Ilya had mourned too.

When Montreal had first announced that Shane Hollander would be put on LTIR, and then months later that his contract was being terminated, Ilya had not coped well. Or at all, if he was honest.

He’d spent the second half of his rookie season playing the dirtiest games of his career. He was putting up record numbers, sure, but he was so, so angry. It was catching him penalties in situations where Boston couldn’t afford to have their new star center off the ice and, maybe worse, bleeding into his team’s morale enough that Coach LeClaire had furiously pulled him aside before the playoffs. Boston was heavily favored for the Cup and the lecture Ilya had received was nearly as brutal as any Russian coach had given him as a child.

“Rozanov, I can’t lose your talent,” LeClaire had said, rubbing his forehead like the mere thought of Ilya was giving him a headache, “but you’re pissing a lot of people off right now, guys on the team even. Me. And the League is only going to look the other way for so long before you’re getting investigated and hit with a suspension.”

Ilya opened his mouth to argue that he knew exactly how to toe the line between a brutal but legal hit and actual misconduct, but the Boston coach’s icy glare had him swallowing the retort.

“Look, I know you’re young and that you’re clearly going through something, but I need you to leave that shit at home and keep it the fuck off my ice. I need you to play clean puck in the first round. The team you’ve barely bothered to bond with need you to play clean, to act like the eventual leader I drafted you to be. And if you don’t keep your mouth shut and your fucking gloves on, I’ll healthy scratch you until it sinks the fuck in.”

Ilya had left that office in a daze, somehow drove safely home, and then did the three best things he could think of: he stopped reading all news about Shane Hollander, deleted the burner accounts he used to keep track of hockey gossip online, and had a lot of hot, meaningless sex with the sort of pretty boys and girls who never asked to stay the night.

He didn’t feel better, exactly. But he threw fewer punches.

So maybe that was enough.

In the end, Boston won the 2014 Stanley Cup.

Montreal, whose scoring lines had not yet recovered from Hollander’s absence, had been eliminated in the second round; a blessing for Ilya who, in spite of his abundant ego, could admit he would’ve lost every faceoff against the Voyageurs to his own pathetic demons.

Chapter 4

Later that evening found Ilya on his living room couch, Anya laid across the length of his legs with her head resting on one thigh. She was dreaming, little snuffles and whines filling the air.

An episode of Gossip Girl played on the TV as he idly scrolled on his phone. Kip, Scott Hunter’s partner, had been so deeply offended that neither Ilya nor Scott recognized any of his 2000s TV references that he had assigned them both a watch list of ‘iconic’ shows. Ilya would never admit to Kip that it had taken him only a few months to binge four seasons; Chuck and Blair were so infuriating to watch dance around each other.

Speaking of dancing around a subject, he tapped back into his messages and opened the conversation with Hollander, debating how to announce he’d be the one attending tomorrow in Harris’ stead. In the end, he settled for something friendly but vague, hoping it would encourage the event planner to reply.

Ilya: see you tomorrow!

Hollander: Wtf

Ok, so not his best work. Maybe a little teasing would save it; Hollander seemed to respond better to that than surprises at least.

Ilya: wow 😦 do you treat all clients like this, mr. event planner?

Hollander: No, sorry. Just wasn’t expecting that. But also… what are you talking about? 

Ilya: i have things for gala to drop off. harris is taking a personal day and i will meet you at venue instead. did not want to shock you so this is advance notice 🙂

Hollander: Wait, you’re doing the walkthrough tomorrow?

Ilya: is not what i just said?

Hollander: Do you actually have any event planning experience??

Ilya: not really. but i can follow instructions. and answer questions, mostly

Ilya: is there a problem?

Hollander: Um, kind of??? You’re in the playoffs. Don’t you have hockey stuff to do?

Ilya: we have rest day. i asked for work to distract me

He bit his lip, wondering how to best bring up the elephant in the room. That whole thing where they hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade after Hollander’s traumatic injury… and the last time that they’d actually spoken, Ilya wasn’t sure his old rival remembered. Or wanted to remember, if he did, given the… confession of sorts. Not that Ilya was ever going to bring that up to Hollander’s face either.

I think I wanted to kiss you.

Ilya shook his head and fired off a series of texts before he could second guess himself.

Ilya: but i understand if seeing me is too difficult

Ilya: i know i am not reminder of very good things for you

Ilya watched the typing bubble appear and disappear for several minutes, feeling a growing worry that he’d ruined a new beginning before it had a chance to start.

After an eternity, a new notification came through. 

Hollander: Look, I can admit I’m a little scared to meet you again. It’s been a really long time, Rozanov.

Hollander: But I’m also a professional and this is my job. If you’re serious about helping, I can work with that.

Ilya: i am very serious

Hollander: Something tells me you’re being sarcastic with me right now.

Ilya: no

Ilya: i swear on anya i will be great assistant

Ilya: [photo of dog on his lap, her wide brown eyes at their most adorable and pleading]

Hollander: You are NOT my assistant.

Hollander: But also oh my god she is so cute 🥹

Ilya: finally you use emoji in your boring texts

Ilya: she says hello 🤗

Hollander: Hello Anya ❤️ You are perfect and your father is very annoying ❤️

Ilya felt his cheeks heat up at the gentle ribbing and frowned. Russians do not blush. But, while joking with Hollander was a great feeling, Ilya wanted to make sure he knew he wasn’t at all alone in his apprehension.

Ilya: for what it is worth, i am scared to meet you too

Hollander: What, why? I’m just a normal guy. Have been for a while now.

Hollander: I kind of assumed you’d forgotten all about me.

How completely absurd and wrong. So, so wrong.

Ilya: no

Ilya: i did not forget

Hollander: Oh.

Hollander: You still thought about me sometimes?

Ilya winced. How could he possibly answer that honestly? 

‘Sometimes’ is an understatement, Shane Hollander. I have never had another equal on the ice quite like you; every time I’ve played hockey for the last ten years, I have wished for a moment that you were there with me. There is a guilt that gnaws at my insides when I think about the unfair hand you were dealt, how I kept a dream that wasn’t mine. And a deeper guilt that wants to swallow me whole when I think about the way I would have kissed you back then — and even more — if you’d asked me to.

Ilya: of course i did. you were incredible player. was looking forward to playing you for my whole career

Ilya: and i was worried about you. after

More than you know. Or seem to remember.

Ilya: i am sorry i did not reach out. was not sure you would want that?

There was a long break between texts again.

Hollander: Honestly, I don’t think I would have. I might’ve thought you were trying to rub it in.

Hollander: I really, really wasn’t ok for a long time. But it’s better now. And I have my own business so… still something to pour myself into completely and obsess over.

Ilya: yes you were good at that

Hollander: But in a cool athletic way right?

Ilya: um

Hollander: 😡

Hollander: It’s kind of funny talking to you like this. I don’t know if I would’ve been brave enough in person.

Ilya: was the plan to ignore me rest of season and at gala?

Hollander: No

Hollander: Maybe

Hollander: You’re just kind of a huge deal now. Makes me nervous. I’m still a hockey fan at the end of the day.

Hollander: Would you have approached ME?

Ilya didn’t have to think twice, thumbs flying over the keyboard.

Ilya: as soon as i realized you were same hollander i knew? yes

Hollander: Should’ve known. You always loved to outdo me.

It was difficult to read Hollander’s tone over text, but Ilya hoped that — as true as the observation was — it was being made in jest. Yes, he had enjoyed nothing more than beating Shane Hollander on the ice, but being the braver of the two when it came to reconnecting? That was driven purely by his own impulsive need to know his teenage rival again, not by any sort of competition between them.

Ilya: are you sure it is ok i come tomorrow?

Ilya: i do not have to stay long. all business

Hollander: You’re being awfully nice and considerate about this. Are you sure I’m talking to Ilya Rozanov, scourge of the NHL?

That comment more than anything told him that Hollander hadn’t tuned out the hockey world entirely. Ilya’s years with Boston had brought out a nastier, angrier side of him, that much was true. Sometimes victory demanded more than pure skill; he had the Cups to prove it. And while Ottawa knew he wasn’t that player anymore, plenty of other teams and their fans were unlikely to forgive or forget. They would definitely always hate him in New York, fond as he was of the gay bar scene and the greasy miracle that was a bodega egg and cheese. And, no surprise, they still straight up wanted him dead in Montreal. 

Most Bears fans probably did now too.

Anyway, he was glad that Hollander felt comfortable joking around with him a bit, but he also wanted the man to know that he was genuine in his concern. Ilya had mastered downplaying his own emotions or even hiding them entirely, and he had a hunch that Hollander might be the same. While Ilya masked feelings with too much fun, turning life into one long standup routine, he could imagine Shane Hollander masking his with too much work instead.

Ilya: i am serious. i do not want to force you into anything. harris really is taking day off but i can make up some excuse why you need to reschedule

Hollander: No, thank you. We’re still all set for tomorrow. I’m borrowing one of my parents’ cars while I’m in town, so I’ll meet you at the venue. Address is [view on maps] in case Harris didn’t share it already.

Hollander: And sorry if I’m awkward. I think I only ever learned how to talk to you when you were chirping me.

Ilya bit his lip, typing out “I could be meaner” with a winky face before erasing the whole thing. Better to not push his luck. He wasn’t sure if Hollander was in a place to be flirted with at all, much less so by a man, and one he had a complicated history with, at that. 

This was just business now. Professional. No matter how tempting.

The ping of another text interrupted his thoughts.

Hollander: Is it weird that I’m trying to picture what you’re doing right now? It’s hard to imagine you not in your gear and at a rink. I think that’s my last clear memory of you anyway.

Ilya smiled.

Ilya: is true tho. i live here under floorboards. only come out for hockey and snacks

Hollander: 🐭🪤

Ilya: where did you get this photo of me?

His smile widened further when Hollander immediately laugh-reacted to that message.

Ilya: but honestly? i am watching gossip girl. on couch, in sweatpants

Hollander: ‼️

Hollander: You’re joking.

Ilya: i would not joke about chair. they are endgame

Hollander: Oh my god, who taught you these words??

Ilya: scott hunter’s husband

Hollander: You talk to Scott Hunter? Two days ago you tagged him in your IG story with a picture of dinosaurs and the caption “did you know them?” 💀

Ilya: hunter IS old as dirt and terrible at hockey. but, tho might sound shocking, he has fun taste in nyc nightlife. sometimes we hang out

He left out the fact that it was specifically gay nightlife, but wondered if Hollander might pick up on that regardless.

Hollander: Ok, that is shocking actually. I think I’d ask him for a protein shake recommendation before I’d think to get his list of favorite clubs haha.

This time it was Ilya’s turn to ‘Ha Ha’ react. He’d unfortunately laughed aloud too, the sound momentarily startling Anya who’d leveled him with a deeply judgmental look.

“извините,” he whispered to her, laughing again when she only huffed in response.

Hollander: Anyway, I shouldn’t keep you. I’ll see you tomorrow? 10 am?

Ilya was not quite pathetic enough to beg Hollander to keep chatting, but he was surprised by the disappointment he felt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed talking to another person so much, beyond the occasional check-in call with Svetlana. But that was different; they’d grown up together, for one, and she frequently threatened him in Russian with detailed bodily harm if they went too long without a boozy brunch on their schedules. She’d been clear that flying over from Boston was not an obstacle and that she had very flexible PTO.

But anyway. He hit the thumbs up on Hollander’s last message, a tiny grin still tugging at his lips.

Ilya: have a good night hollander 🐭💤 

Hollander: You too, Rozanov  🛏️🐀

“Анюта,” he whispered to the sleeping pile of fur on his lap, “мне крышка.”

- 🏒-

Shane pulled into the parking lot of the bayside yacht club that morning, heart in his throat.

He was almost thirty minutes early, overly eager even by his ‘on time is late’ standards. He glanced into his rearview mirror and winced at the noticeable bags under his eyes; he’d barely slept a wink the night before, too keyed up by the hour-long text conversation he’d had with Ilya fucking Rozanov. 

Who did he think he was? Messaging so casually with a professional athlete, a client? Even if said client did appear to have genuine care for his wellbeing and an active interest in their conversation. And used cute emojis. Ugh.

He needed to get out of his own head and wrangle back some self control, to stop letting interactions with his teenage rival actually regress him back to that vulnerable time.

You’re turning thirty in a few weeks, Shane. He’s just a man. A very famous, funny, hot man… but one who is only giving you the time of day for polite, professional reasons. His casual texting etiquette aside.

A knock on his driver’s side window startled him from his thoughts and had him jumping so badly his head nearly knocked the roof of the car.

Turning, he saw a young South Asian woman waving apologetically at him. He quickly rolled down the window.

“Hi, Shane, right?” the woman asked, “I’m so sorry for scaring you.”

“No worries,” he replied, sheepishly running a hand through his hair, “I was zoned out a little. Haven’t had my coffee yet!”

She laughed generously at the lame attempt at corporate humor, and then said, “I’m Devi, the venue coordinator here at the Reid Yacht Club. I was onsite earlier than anticipated and saw your car out here, so I thought I’d invite you in.”

“Oh thanks, yeah, give me just a second,” Shane replied, rolling up his window. He grabbed his cellphone and leather folio from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car, locking it with a click of his keys.

Devi smiled at him and reached out a manicured hand, which he shook politely. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties, petite in stature with blemish-free dark skin, a bold maroon lip, and black waves slicked into a high ponytail without a wisp of hair out of place. He took in her button-up vest and trouser combo paired with powerful heels and immediately intuited she’d run vendor deliveries and day-of event set up like the navy. Exactly the way he liked it.

“Great to meet you, Devi,” he said, “The Reid looked gorgeous in the website photos, so I’m thrilled to get a look in person.”

He glanced at his watch, now reading 9:45. “I do have a, um, representative from the Centaurs organization meeting us today as well, though we mentioned a ten a.m. start.”

“Not a problem,” Devi replied, her tone exceptionally even, almost soothing. “If you’d like to hang out in our front reception area for now, I have coffee and a few pastries laid out, and we can wait for them to arrive. It’s also where we’d likely display the items for the silent auction, if that gives you a sense of layout.”

Shane nodded and followed her inside, where sure enough, a central round table held a beautiful spread of French pastries and two urns of regular and decaf coffee with filigreed porcelain cups stacked beside them. He filled a cup from the caffeinated dispenser and paused to let it cool, admiring the inside of the venue.

The historic yacht club was set on the edge of a small private marina in a quiet inlet of the Lac Deschênes. It was built and decorated in a distinctly maritime style, all dark wood with navy accents throughout, and a back panel of floor to ceiling windows allowing for panoramic views of the water beyond. Shane had a deeply romantic summer vision for the space, with gauzy fabrics draped from the ceiling and dozens of floral arrangements in shades of cream, pale green, and lavender (a softened, sophisticated play on the Centaurs’ horrendous crayon box green and purple team colors).

“Pretty, right?” Devi remarked, interrupting his daydreaming, “And it’s a highly customizable space, not many hard restrictions. Tons we can do here.”

“Oh, I definitely have a lot planned,” Shane agreed, taking a sip of his coffee. No surprise, it was roasted to perfection.

He and the venue coordinator chatted for a few minutes more, discussing the general flow of attendees into the pre-dinner cocktail area before finding their seats. Shane could tell Devi really knew her stuff, which was giving him more confidence in the venue selection. Taking on a completely new location was always a risk.

Suddenly, there was the sound of an engine outside, that distinct ‘money you don’t have’ sports car purr, and then the beep of the doors locking.

“That’ll be him,” Shane said, voice coming out a little choked.

Devi just smiled and nodded, pleasant as ever and oblivious to the weirdly historic moment for which she was about to be captively present.

A minute later, one side of the club’s French double doors opened and, without further preamble, Ottawa Centaurs’ captain and star centre Ilya Rozanov stepped through.

His eyes found Shane’s immediately and he all but froze in his tracks.

Shane, similarly immobilized, could feel the blood rush to his ears as he took in the man in the flesh. He was big, in a way that the sports broadcasts couldn’t quite capture— bigger than Shane had remembered him even, with broad shoulders and visibly toned muscles even through the cover of his grey henley. His hair was still a familiar nest of dirty blonde curls, though arranged in a thoughtful style, and his ridiculous, perfect jawline was covered in an even layer of stubble— clearly headed into playoff beard territory. 

Shane had to bite his bottom lip, if only to check that he wasn’t openly salivating.

Ilya Rozanov was here. Walking toward him.

“Uh, hi,” the literal in the flesh NHL hockey player spoke into the silence, “Good morning. I’m here to assist Hol— ah, Shane.”

“He’s not my assistant,” Shane corrected quickly. “But his charity is involved in the fundraising aspect of the gala, so he’s here as a very attentive philanthropist and someone who knows the Centaurs well.”

“Ah, here are signed jerseys, by the way,” Rozanov added, thrusting the large paper bag he was holding at Shane.

Shane took it from him, their fingers brushing momentarily over the handle in a way that felt dangerously reminiscent.

“I’ll just…” he trailed off awkwardly, setting the bag on a side table to grab at the end.

Shane glanced over at the venue coordinator then, who had been staring at Rozanov with equally wide eyes and had still yet to say a word. Maybe she wasn’t completely unflappable after all.

“It’s… wow,” Devi began, then giggled at a higher pitch than Shane had yet heard from her that morning. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I’m a bit starstruck. You’re certainly not Harris Drover.”

Rozanov looked over at Shane, who shrugged, and then back at the woman in front of him.

“Devi is the venue coordinator here at the Reid,” Shane explained, trying to give her a moment to reel it back in. “I’ll be working with her mainly on the gala day of, handling a lot of the delivery logistics, room set up, and catering. Right now, though, she’s basically here to tell us what we can and can’t do in the space.”

“Hello, Devi,” Rozanov said, flashing her a trademark crooked smile, “I’m Ilya.”

The coordinator let out an audible squeak as he thrust out his hand, but she managed to execute the handshake in the end.

“Are you an Ottawa fan?” Rozanov inquired, shoulders rolling back like he was planning on activating his most charming, media-trained persona.

Devi laughed, snorted even, in a way that seemed to completely break the dazed spell she’d been under. “Ah, no. I totally respect your skill, you’re like… one of the greats, no doubt. But I moved here from Vancouver a few years ago, so when it comes to hockey I’m, well, usually not chanting very nice things about you.”

Rozanov sniffed, and said loftily, “It is a terrible burden being the best.”

“Don’t mind him,” Shane cut in, barely resisting rolling his eyes, “He’s the same with me, maybe worse, given I’m a Voyageurs fan.”

This time both the Centaurs captain and Devi wrinkled their noses.

Shane glanced at his watch again, seeing that it was just past their agreed upon start time, and added, “Should we, uh, get going with the walkthrough?”

Devi nodded, seeming to straighten up into her full professional form, and gestured toward the entrance of the main ballroom, “Mr. Hollander, Mr. Rozanov, you can follow me right this way.”

- 🏒-

Shane Hollander was a meter from him, if that.

And, much to Ilya’s absolute dismay, he looked… unbelievable.

Hollander had grown up, naturally, and the lithe hockey build of his youth had bulked out into something still slender but deliciously toned and masculine. His inky black hair, once cropped into a practical fringe, was now parted stylishly down the middle and fell in longer, face-framing waves. His baby face was gone too, of course, but Ilya was pleased to recognize the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his strong nose and high cheekbones. Even in the sort of bland professional outfit that made Ilya wrinkle his nose — beige trousers, sensible loafers, and a boring blue quarterzip — he was so pretty it was hard to think straight.

It was even harder to believe they were actually sharing the same space after all this time.

Ilya trailed a few steps behind Hollander and the venue coordinator — a Vancouver fan, ugh — mainly listening as they threw logistical terminology back and forth. Devi was very, very beautiful. He wondered if Hollander had noticed.

Occasionally though, Hollander would turn back and ask Ilya a clarifying question about a team policy or preference, and he thought he was doing passably well with his answers. He had, in fact, reviewed the dossier that Harris had sent over, if only for the opportunity to impress Shane of VQ events who clearly didn’t take him all that seriously.

“And will wives and girlfriends be invited as well?” Devi was asking. “I know you said most players were expected to make an appearance.”

“Any partner, any gender, is welcome at all team events,” Ilya cut in, a little harsher in tone than he’d meant to be. It was maybe a natural assumption, with just two actively out players in the league, but it had irritated him nonetheless. One of those players was on his team and the other was his friend (though you’d have to pull out his remaining real teeth to get him to admit it). And of course, there were many, many more who weren’t out to anyone and perhaps didn’t plan to be, but deserved to feel safe and included nonetheless.

“Oh, of course, yes,” Devi said, sounding genuine at least. “That wasn’t thoughtful wording on my part.” She turned back to Hollander, all business, continuing, “But if we expect plus-ones, we’ll want to do the check-in upfront by…”

Ilya tuned her out a bit, as she had him, focused on the way Hollander’s head had whipped around at his insistence on inclusivity. The man’s gaze had looked surprised but also deeply thoughtful, like maybe he hadn’t expected Ilya to care so much.

Or maybe Hollander had found it disruptive? Not Ilya’s place to jump in? Hollander had previously seemed unfazed by their conversation about the gay couples in Ilya’s life, so he didn’t think he was actively homophobic or anything. But that didn’t mean that a person was willing to be loud with their allyship when it was needed either.

The tour concluded with the club’s rooftop terrace, a beautiful space that made Ilya feel as if he could touch the horizon across the lake’s blue waters. It was lined all the way around with tall wooden posts, lights strung between them, and he could imagine just how magical this would feel as a dance floor under a warm July night sky.

He drifted apart from the other two and stood near the edge to gaze out over the water, half-listening as Devi mentioned ducking downstairs to finalize the last set of paperwork in her office.

“Hey,” a voice said softly. He felt the air shift as Hollander sidled up next to him.

In his periphery, he could see that Hollander was also staring straight ahead, eyes trained on a sailboat making its way toward the far end of the Lac where it curved and thinned back into the Ottawa River. The April air around them still carried a slight chill, a light wind making Hollander’s dark waves flutter prettily against his cheeks.

“What do you think?” Hollander asked after a moment.

Ilya turned to look at him. “This is a really beautiful location,” he said, honestly, “Everyone will be impressed.”

Some tension seemed to seep out of Hollander’s shoulders. “You think so?”

Ilya nodded. “You did a good job, Hollander.”

The man’s next exhale was noticeably shaky. “Thank you. That … means a lot. I, uh, hope we can raise lots of money for the Rescue Alliance."

Ilya found himself shrugging. “It would be good for operation cost, yes, but honestly, do not feel too much pressure. At least not on my end. We have nonprofit grants and I use hockey salary to pay for most costs remaining. I like a nice house and nice car, yes, but I do not actually have the expensive taste people think.”

“No hot model wife to splurge on?” Hollander joked.

Ilya eyed him carefully. “Just me and my dog.”

“That actually sounds pretty nice.”

“And you? You’re in Toronto, yes?” he ventured.

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

There was a long pause.

“Since we’re being honest,” Hollander said, laughing nervously, “I fucking hate it there. It’s a good hub for my agency but the sheer scale of it still feels so overwhelming even after five years. And I think I might be too awkward and boring to actually socialize with cool people in a cool city like that.” 

Hollander shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m sure the city is great for some, but… I haven’t been taking proper advantage.”

Ilya swallowed, not sure his next question was the right one. “Would you come back to Ottawa?”

“I… it’s still home,” Hollander replied, sighing, “I would love to be closer to my parents, but this place is full of a lot of really shitty memories. I end up feeling sort of haunted anytime I’m back for too long.”

He’s not here to stay, Ilya. Remember that.

“I am haunting you now too, sorry,” he attempted to joke, but it came out a lot more bittersweet than intended.

Hollander spun to meet his eyes. “Actually…” he cleared his throat, a strange sort of smile catching at his lips, “You’ve been an unexpectedly good ghost, so far.”

Ilya couldn’t help the shy grin that bloomed on his face in return. 

“Boo,” he said, stupidly, but Hollander made a noise somewhere between a snort and a giggle and shoved at his arm.

Two simple, miraculous things: a laugh and a touch. Ilya felt gluttonous, the way he craved.

Hollander took a sidestep away, ducking his chin. “And that thing you said earlier? About anyone’s partner being welcome? That was really important. You care a lot about your team.”

“Not just for my team,” Ilya shrugged, turning his face back toward the warming noon day sun. “We have to change how we talk in the league in general. There are many players not out, who may never be while they play, and many queer fans who love the sport too. They should all know that hockey is for them. One Pride Night a year is not enough, is not changing what happens in NHL board rooms.”

That little speech might have revealed entirely too much, but he found it difficult not to let his personal passion for the subject slip through. He was tired, had long been tired, of professional sports organizations happily making money off their queer fans and athletes, while committing to zero meaningful change.

“I—” Hollander began, nodding so furiously Ilya worried his head might get stuck bobbling forever. 

Whatever he meant to say next was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps behind them.

“Enjoying the terrace, gentlemen?” Devi asked, a folder now in hand. “Here, Shane. This should be everything you and the Centaurs org will need in terms of contracting, venue policies and set up/break down logistics. I also sent out a preemptive email to your vendors letting them know I’ll be the on-site contact on the venue side.” She hummed. “Oh, and since you’ve already authorized payment in full, you’re all set for invoicing.”

Hollander thanked her, slipping the folder into the brown leather folio he’d been carrying throughout their tour. 

“Other than that, I can walk you out, if you’re ready?” Devi offered gently, though it was clearly a polite suggestion to shuffle them off the property.

Hollander nodded and thanked her again. Ilya assumed his place, trailing a few steps behind the two, and in no time they were waving goodbye to the venue coordinator as she locked up after them.

Ilya lingered awkwardly in the parking lot, having parked his Porsche 718 one spot over from what must be the Hollanders’ family Subaru.

Hollander appeared similarly unsure of how to end their little errand day together. He was idly shuffling his feet, bag of jerseys in one hand, and leaning noticeably away from his left side; Ilya wondered if all the up and down flights of stairs had aggravated his leg.

“Are you ok to drive?” he asked.

Hollander’s look was unexpectedly heated.

“What do you mean?” the man questioned, voice tight. His expression morphed into something hard and unrecognizable, no longer the openly warm and curious person he’d been just minutes before.

Ilya frowned. “Ah, just… your leg seems…”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say; Hollander’s face shuttered completely. 

“I’m fine,” Hollander snapped. He added a muttered “thanks for today” that did little to soften the sting Ilya felt at his tone. 

Ilya watched him take two jerky steps toward his car and yank open the door. Without another word, Hollander started the engine and pulled out of the lot, leaving Ilya standing there in confusion. He was admittedly hurt too. The dismissal felt shockingly cold after the moment of vulnerability they had shared on the rooftop.

You’ve been a good ghost, Hollander had said, smiling even. But he’d added that conditional ‘so far’ after… Maybe he had believed it was only a matter of time before Ilya Rozanov disappointed him. He wouldn’t be the first person to have those doubts.

Ilya got into his car, texted a pleasant lie to Harris that the day had gone well (receiving a series of purple and green hearts in return, along with a grossly adorable photo of Barrett kissing a bearded cheek), and started off on his journey home.

Still, the need to figure out this new Shane Hollander lingered. 

Leave it, Ilya. But he only made it through two more sad songs on his driving playlist before he caved.

At a long traffic light, he sent a voice-to-text message, saying simply: “I am sorry. I just worry about you being in pain.”

Hollander’s response came back almost immediately, which he took as a good sign, until his car’s programmed voice read out:

“Well, don’t.”

Chapter 5

INTERLUDE: Breakable Objects

Shane Hollander was just eighteen years old when he watched everything he knew go up in flames.

Automotive crash. A stupid cliché. The universe laughing in his fucking face. 

The boy who was poised to live out his dream, reduced to a miserable cripple in a hospital bed. Trading the freedom of the ice for the knowledge that he might never skate again. He hadn’t even been the one driving.

What the fuck was there to live for now?

Those were the ugliest thoughts: the ones that beckoned death like relief. 

He knew his parents were afraid for him, of him even… the anger that radiated in constant waves from the black hole in his chest. Really, no one seemed to know what to say: his family, his medical team, the few hockey friends that stuck around at first… Everyone knew it wasn’t fair. That he didn’t deserve it. That he was meant to be a star. But they were just as hopeless to fix things as Shane was.

His mental state worsened when the others who’d been injured alongside him went back to the sport, emotionally scarred but not permanently broken in the ways that mattered. They were walking, skating, laughing again… A gratitude for life emanating from them, having found a light at the end of the long tunnel of healing.

Shane felt diseased in comparison. Sick with pain and envy and a grief so wide he could drown in it. He wanted to, spent nights begging for it even.

The post-accident months turned into a year, and then longer. Shane passed so much of it bored and alone, enduring surgery after surgery between endless hospital visits, learning to walk again each time that a little bit more of his lower leg was painstakingly reconstructed.

“You’re young,” the doctors had emphasized, “You’re lucky. You’ll heal better now than if this had happened later.” The ‘on the ice’ went unspoken.

To imply that there was any luck in this felt insulting. 

But as the time stretched onward, Shane supposed there was good fortune in some things. He was going to keep his leg, for instance. He could walk around the whole hospital wing now, without having to trace his hand along the textured pale blue walls for balance. 

And he still hadn’t killed himself.

Sometimes he could even whisper that sentiment into the cold air of a post-op recovery room without adding on a ‘yet.’

The PACU had four familiar lights built into the ceiling tiles above his hospital bed. Tapping each finger against his thumb allowed him to count them. Silently, soothingly. 

One, two, three, four.

- 🏒-

Ilya Rozanov was twelve years old when his world was turned upside down.

He’d found her— his mother, Irina. 

Collapsed across the velvet chaise in the corner of her bedroom, she had merely appeared to be sleeping at first, the most peaceful he had ever seen her. Still, he was old enough to know that her lax jaw was not natural, that the rigid curve of her hand on the pill bottle meant she would not wake up again. 

It was too much to expect comfort. That was a lesson he had learned years and years ago, the first time he’d dared to shed a tear and the only result had been a backhand across the cheek.

After declaring it a terrible accident, all his father had to say at the sight was, “I will call someone to clean this up.”

Ilya was back at practice the next day, sporting an ugly black eye; Grigori had responded… badly to the gold crucifix he’d worn around his neck that morning.

His coaches, having heard the gossip no doubt, had regarded him with a mix of horror and grim respect. Though, in lesser ways, they had seen him bruised before.

He didn’t miss a single pass. Executed every drill with perfect precision.

He would become something that mattered if it killed him.

It probably would.

- 🏒-

Shane was twenty years old when he sat in a therapist’s office, once a week, refusing to speak.   

This one was always asking him about what else he liked to do, what academic topics might interest him, in a futile effort to get him to plan a new future.

“You’re young, Shane. You have a whole life ahead of you.” 

“What if I don’t want it?” he’d replied, after one particularly grueling session.

She hadn’t liked that answer.

So Shane let himself get fired by therapist after therapist, much to the constant worry of his emotionally struggling parents, until one day, he found one that stuck.

She was just as comfortable with the silence as he pretended to be. She never pushed him for longer answers, or to speak at all, really. But if he chose to say something particularly melodramatic, she was also endlessly willing to call him out on his bullshit.

“I don’t think I want to die so often, anymore,” he’d admitted once, roughly six months in. He’d been lightly researching university programs, which felt a lot more forward looking than he’d dared to be before.

“Good,” she’d replied, “It will probably never go away completely.”

“It won’t?” he’d asked, a little horrified.

With a shrug, she’d explained, “Complex trauma is a little funny like that. Healing doesn’t always mean overcoming, Shane, or that everything magically becomes beautiful and better one day. Sometimes it just means learning to live with life as it is. That is also progress.”

The words had both terrified and inspired him.

It was the first time that he’d considered a future where he didn’t have to bury everything away to exist as something worthy, to be a person who could be loved for more than the things he achieved. Still, he had liked some parts of himself. Of the Shane who came Before. Could he reconcile all of that with who he had become— was becoming? The opportunity to redefine his life was as horribly unwanted as it was sort of spectacularly freeing.

Maybe healing wasn’t always letting go, but a little bit of holding on too.

Maybe he could live to find out.

- 🏒-

Ilya was in his twenties, at the height of his NHL career, when a single call had sent him spiraling back into a childlike state of fear.

The most horrible part about his father’s death was how much it felt like relief.

It was the end of so many things. Summers in Russia were no longer an obligation. The worst of the extended family had been pacified by him paying for the funeral arrangements. And he’d been able to cut his deadbeat cop of a brother out of his life just as expediently, after promising enough money along with the Moscow apartment to stun him into silent complacency.

Back in an empty Boston penthouse, Ilya Rozanov wondered if love and guilt would ever feel less than completely interchangeable.

If he could ever desire something that he didn’t also feel indebted to.

He doubted he would ever find out.

Chapter 6

May 2024 - Tampa

The goal horn sounded in OT as Tampa Bay’s brutish center sent a vicious slapshot to the back of the net, a combination of perfect placement and speed that even Hazy’s preternatural reflexes were helpless to stop.

Ilya felt his heart sink.

Six games into round one and the playoffs were over for the wild card Ottawa Centaurs, four games to two.

They’d given the top seed Livewire a hell of a time at least, he thought, skating to the boards as the opposing team slowly morphed into one big celebratory blob of electric blue jerseys. Barrett ended up next to him first, slapping a gloved hand on his shoulder and saying, “We’re going all the way next year, Cap.”

Ilya nodded, his limbs feeling heavier by the moment; the game time adrenaline was wearing off, replaced by both physical pain (he’d taken a teeth-rattling hit to his left side in the second period) and the draining disappointment of the loss.

At least they were back in Tampa, with fewer Centaurs fans in the stands to see them be eliminated. They’d won their two games of the series at home to an ecstatic Ottawa crowd, the arena at capacity for the first time in no one could say how long. Those had been some of the proudest games of Ilya’s career. And he’d won this whole damn thing before. Twice.

“I still can’t believe you led us here,” Haas was bawling now, helmet-less with his face pressed into Ilya’s jersey. “I got my first playoffs cap as a rookie, Roz. That’s so cool.” 

Ilya wrapped an arm around his sweet Swiss baby. “You had incredible tournament, Haasy. You are future for us. Maybe on my line next season.”

The nineteen year old looked up at Ilya with literal stars in his eyes. 

This. This is what you play for.

“Alright, boys!” Wiebe was saying, rounding up the lingering players. “Back to the locker room. Let’s debrief and then make plans to get the fuck out of Florida.”

Boodram caught Ilya by the elbow next as he headed down the tunnel. “Cap, we should get you to medical, I think.” 

Ilya gritted his teeth. “After. I need to be in locker room for post-game.”

“Look, whatever Wiebe says is stuff we already know,” Bood said, the Caribbean lilt to his accent distinctly stronger from either fatigue or frustration. Probably both. “What I need is to know that my captain’s ribs are in the right place and not sticking into his squishy bits.”

“You think that much about my squishy bits?” Ilya teased. 

The laugh he let out at his own joke betrayed him though, and he doubled over at the stabbing pain that radiated through his chest cavity. By the time he’d righted himself, his alternate captain was already halfway down the tunnel and motioning to their Head Athletic Therapist. 

“Broken ribs cannot even be treated, Bood,” he argued pitifully, even as the team’s medical staff began to crowd around him.

By the time Ilya was released from their ATs’ clutches, he had missed the team’s group transport back to their hotel. They’d been decent enough to take his equipment bag with them at least.

He sucked in a shallow breath to avoid undue pressure on his rib cage and stepped into a near-empty visitors’ side hallway of Benchmark International. The remaining arena staff milling around were quick to shepherd him toward the private drop off/pick up area where a new hired vehicle was waiting.

He slid into the backseat with a groan, fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket. There were a dozen texts in the team group chat debating how late they could be out and still make their flight the next morning, and another text from Svetlana with a ‘better luck next time!’ and a bullet point list of incisive game play observations that would almost certainly hurt his feelings. He decided to save that read for later.

The last unread message was timestamped just after the game’s conclusion, and the sender made Ilya’s breath catch in his throat. The little gasp sent a painful jolt through his sternum. 

Fuck, he really hated rib injuries.

Sent nearly two weeks after the message above and the radio silence from Ilya that had resulted, a new text had appeared. 

Hollander: Are you okay? My mom thinks you hurt your ribs.

In any other circumstance, Ilya might’ve been more magnanimous in his reply, but for now he was a grumpy, sore Stanley Cup loser and feeling distinctly petty too. How dare Hollander open their line of communication again with that question of all things?

Ilya: ah, so YOU are allowed to worry about me being hurt then

The typing indicator bubble blinked in and out a few times and then disappeared completely. Ilya rolled his eyes.

Ilya: i think this is what they call double standard, hollander

He quickly silenced all his notifications and leaned back in the leather seat, letting out another measured breath.

Hotel for one night and then home: the rhythm of an NHL season.

At least now it was officially summer.

- 🏒-

May 2024 - Montreal

“Shane Hollander!” a voice called as he stepped out of the airport’s sliding doors into the pick up area.

The source of the sound was a grinning blonde man obnoxiously posed against the hood of a white Toyota Sienna.

“Hayden, hey,” Shane replied, grumbling good naturedly when his friend wrapped him up in a hug and then deftly stole away his carry-on to load into the minivan’s trunk.

“Nice ride,” Shane teased as he slid into the front seat.

“Practical, safe, and family friendly,” Hayden parroted, which were definitely talking points given to him by his wife. He glanced over at Shane as they pulled out onto the airport exit road. “Also, dude, Jackie is so thrilled you finally agreed to make some time for us while you’re up this way. She’s had something weird and healthy, with like so many chickpeas, going in the crock pot since this morning.”

The callback to Shane’s intense, nutritionally-balanced rookie meal plan made him smile. He hadn’t followed any sort of diet for years, but it was true that he did still prefer his ‘rabbit food’ most days as Hayden called it.

“I didn’t not want to see you all before,” Shane protested, “I’m usually just only here for—”

“Like a day, for your events stuff, I know,” Hayden cut in, “And we don’t begrudge you at all. We just missed you, man. The twins especially. They’re ridiculously excited to celebrate your birthday, by the way, even if they think turning thirty means you’re one foot in the grave.”

Shane smiled, thinking of Hayden’s hoard of children (okay, there were only four, but the thought of caring for even one other sentient life form beside himself felt like madness). He wondered if the eldest twin girls were still in their phase of wanting to put everyone they knew in full glam, their over-indulgent hockey guncle included.

Speaking of: “Sorry about the playoffs,” Shane offered, “You had a great run.”

Hayden laughed. “Wow, ten whole seconds before bringing up hockey,” he teased, “Gotta be a new Hollander record.”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “But thanks. Sucked losing in game seven, obviously, but at least Carolina is favored to win the whole thing.”

“You still sure about retirement?” Shane ventured.

It had come up in conversation a few years ago already, before Montreal had offered up a three year extension. Hayden had told him back then, at twenty seven, just how difficult the prospect of hanging up the skates had seemed. Facing the outside world as someone who wasn’t actually that far into real mature adulthood and having to redefine yourself and your purpose had terrified him. Shane, obviously, knew that feeling well— younger than most.

Hayden smiled. “Public announcement dropping soon. I’m so ready, man. It’s a miracle this creaky body even held out for this long.”

Shane nodded, reaching out to clasp his friend’s shoulder. It was a sensible move. In such a brutal, fast-paced sport, forwards were often the earliest to phase out, and Hayden Pike had had a perfectly successful and relatively injury-free career for a first line left winger. Early thirties was typical retirement age for all but the most elite players in the game anyhow.

Rozanov will probably play until he drops dead on the ice, Shane thought before he could stop himself. 

He cleared his throat. “Any plans for the after times yet?”

Hayden laughed. “Not a clue. Jackie and I did a pretty good job of saving and investing over the years, so I can take some time to figure things out at least. Just be a dad for a bit, you know?”

Shane nodded, although he didn’t know, obviously.

“I’m a little jealous of you in a way, though,” Hayden added, “I know it wasn’t the dream but like, you’ve got a real person job and your shit all figured out long term.”

Shane tried not to wince visibly. ‘Wasn’t the dream’ was a bit of an understatement.

He and Hayden Pike had stayed friends after they’d technically been rookies together, for that first half season in Montreal before Shane’s accident; though, just like with Rozanov, sometimes being around players from that time in his life caused old wounds to reopen. Even if they usually meant well.

Fuck, I should really text him back.

“Anyway, how’s business been?” Hayden plowed on, a little bit oblivious as usual, “Anything cool coming up?”

Shane scratched the back of his neck. “Ah, well, you know I’ve got that meeting with the Museum of Fine Arts tomorrow. Hoping for good news on that proposal. And then there’s this fundraising gala in July in, um, Ottawa.”

Hayden wrinkled his nose. “Oh, really? What’s in Ottawa? I mean, besides your parents obviously. You doing some kind of government stuff?”

“Uh,” Shane hedged, staring straight out the windshield. He bit the bullet. “I’m… well, I’m working with the Centaurs.”

Hayden’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Right,” he said slowly, “And how are we feeling about that?”

“Fine, great,” Shane answered, way too quickly to sound even remotely normal.

Hayden nodded, skepticism written clearly across his features. “Lotta good players in Ottawa these days.”

Shane shifted in his seat. “Yep.”

“Guys you had some history with even.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Shane.”

“What?”

Hayden took his eyes off the road just long enough to level him with a motherly look of ‘cut the bullshit.’

“Have you talked to Ilya Rozanov?”

Shane swallowed.

Yes, a weirdly enjoyable amount, in fact. Until I probably ruined it forever.

“The charity he runs is involved, so, you know… we’ve had some professional discussions.”

Hayden nodded again. “And how’s the crush going?”

“Hayd,” Shane hissed, his cheeks flaming, “I don’t. I wouldn’t. How did you—”

“Shane, brother, I’ve known you for more than a decade,” Hayden said, laughing when he glanced over to see the mortified look on Shane’s face, “There’s no way you were like, alone in a room with the man you’ve been obsessed with since we were teenagers and didn’t want to jump his bones at least a little bit.”

“Where did you even get all this?” Shane groaned, head in his hands, “I only came out to you a few years ago.”

Hayden shrugged. “I can’t pretend I understand it. Rozanov’s a nasty son of a bitch on a good day. But every time his name comes up you either look like you’re experiencing a prey flight reaction or your eyes turn so moony it’s gag-worthy. Just now, you did both.”

He laughed even harder at Shane’s aghast expression as he raised his head. “And like, tell me if I’m not allowed to say this but, that whole arch rivals thing they had you guys doing? Pretty fucking gay, dude. Like, why was there a photoshoot about it?”

Shane choked, sinking into the passenger seat to try to catch his breath from this unexpected onslaught.

After a moment, he said evenly, “Rozanov has been surprisingly professional and easy to work with, but I’m mostly liaising with Centaurs’ admin staff. Troy Barrett’s fiancé is their comms director and he’s super nice.”

“Good for Barrett, by the way,” Hayden replied with a smile, accepting the bait. He then shook his head. “I’ve been fighting a losing battle in the locker room trying to get the guys to not be dicks about the engagement. Some of those assholes still support Dallas Kent though, so what do you expect?”

Hayden’s frown deepened. “Honestly, another reason why I’m glad to leave now. I don’t think Montreal’s going to end up on the right side of history when it comes to inclusion in the sport. Maybe I can say more off the team than on it.”

Shane let out a long breath. As a queer fan, he’d always kept the team at arm’s length, having heard similar stories from Hayden over the years. Not that there was any franchise that was completely clean of controversy and boys’ club behavior, but most of the Voyageurs’ exclusionary values seemed to be universally shared by players and coaches alike. Shane tried not to think too hard about what a career as a closeted player there would have felt like.

“Speaking of Rozanov, though,” Hayden offered cheerily, “lots of chatter about the initiatives he and Brandon Wiebe are up to in Ottawa. Some guys I know around the league are even gunning for a trade soon, thinking they’d rather play for a kind of shit team that’s trying to embody diversity in the sport over a winning team that makes you hate yourself.”

“Yeah, he uh… told me a little about that,” Shane acknowledged.

His mind went back to Rozanov’s hazel eyes blazing as he’d boldly corrected the venue coordinator’s heteronormative assumption. And then that impassioned speech on the rooftop… the way Shane had been about to thank him as a gay fan and former player before they’d been interrupted.

Shane exhaled. “He might be a nightmare on the ice, but I got the feeling he cares a lot about his team and like, making the league better in general.”

“And do we think he’s doing all of this out of pure allyship or…?” Hayden fished, his eyes flashing as they always did when he was on the gossip hunt, “I’m sure I could poke around in search of some particular rumors.”

Shane shook his head. “Hayd, the ethics of that aside, I can’t even entertain the thought that he might not be straight. He’s so diabolically out of my league, it feels criminal even looking at him.”

“Ugh, eww,” Hayden retorted, reaching one hand over to poke Shane repeatedly in the bicep. “Don’t you ever compare my perfect, beautiful, kind, funny, neurotic best friend Shane Hollander to that beast.”

“Anyway,” Shane said, flushing, “I was kind of rude to him recently, so I don’t think he wants much to do with me anymore.”

“Your guys’ whole thing was being mean to each other,” Hayden argued, “He probably liked it. But still, just apologize if you’re worried.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And then keep putting those sweet Hollander moves on.”

“This has been horrible, Hayden, thank you,” Shane muttered.

“No problem, bud,” Hayden said, reaching back over to clasp him on the shoulder. “But, just so you know, there are plenty of nice boys here in Montreal too, ones who even like hockey, so… say the word.”

Shane shut his eyes, like this entire conversation might disappear when he opened them again.

“We just want you to be happy, Shane,” Hayden said, voice softening.

Shane cringed, wondering if people in his life caring about his boring, sorry ass would ever not feel fucking exhausting.

“I am happy,” he argued anyway, steering them back from the cliff that led to deeper emotional conversation, “but I’ll be happier once I’m sat at your dinner table eating Jackie’s cooking.”

Hayden grinned. “Ah, that makes one of us.”

- 🏒-

June 2024 - Ottawa

Ilya was in one of the team gyms, lifting heavy, when his phone buzzed against the bench. When it continued to buzz, he racked the weight with a roll of his eyes.

“Yes?” he answered, wiping away a few drops of sweat from his hairline.

“Rozanov, hey,” said the voice of Harris Drover across the line, “Sorry to call like this, but you wouldn’t still happen to be at the Censplex, would you?”

Ilya glanced around the Centaurs’ dedicated practice facility and briefly considered saying no. With most of the team taking advantage of their post-season month off elsewhere, he had been enjoying the opportunity to work on his strength conditioning in relative peace and quiet (not counting the noise from the summer hockey camp attendees out on the rinks who were always cutely eager to catch a glimpse of him).

“Um, yes,” he replied, annoyed by the compulsion for good behavior that Harris brought out in him.

“Oh, fab!” Harris cheered, “You wouldn’t mind letting Shane in via the private entrance would you? He’ll be there in like five minutes tops. I was supposed to meet him myself, but I’m coming back late from the farm and stuck in an obscene amount of traffic so I’m still an hour out.”

Ilya grimaced. It had been almost a month since their last texts. Seeing Hollander would be… uncomfortable, to say the least.

He frowned. “Why would Shane need to meet you at Censplex?”

“Oh, he’s not meeting me for anything,” Harris replied cheerfully, “He actually asked if he could skate. I guess it’s been awhile since he’s been out on the ice, so he wanted somewhere less crowded to do some easy laps. His leg bothers him, you know.”

“Harris,” Ilya started, deciding now was better than never to pick at something that had been nagging at the back of his mind, “You grew up in Ottawa, yes? And you were big hockey fan?”

“Yeah, but you know that, Roz,” Harris replied slowly, “What’s this about?”

“I think…” Ilya hedged, “I think that you know who Shane is. That you have maybe known from the start. But you are being really nice about it.”

He heard Harris scoff through the line. “Okay, yeah, I might’ve heard a lot about our world class hometown prospect growing up. And then… the WJC accident. But come on, Rozanov. Shane obviously knows that you know. And you’ve been keeping it a secret too, from me and from the team.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ilya argued, “It is no one’s business. I am… saying it is a good thing you are doing. Letting him work as professional and not feel like ex-player. Not like Rozanov’s old rival. Thank you, really.”

Harris hummed. “You’re kind of obvious, you know.”

“Obvious?” Ilya echoed, brows furrowing, “What do you mean obvious?”

“That you like him.”

Harris’ voice was gentle and teasing, lacking any judgment, but Ilya couldn’t help the excuses that poured out anyway. Flustered, he found his English came out noticeably more stilted than usual.

“Of course, yes, I like Hollander. As person. He was great player. Best I ever played against maybe. And you know I saw gala venue. It is beautiful. He is clearly good planner too. Talked through so much detail with the, ah, coordinator. Very…” he swallowed, concluding lamely, “… professional.”

Harris’ laughter floated over the line. “That was a lot of words for you, Roz. Feel any better?”

Ilya flopped back on the bench completely, letting his limbs dangle. “No,” he moaned, “Having a crush as grown man is stupid.”

“Oh,” Harris replied, giggling, “I thought I’d have to work a lot harder to get you to admit it. You’re down worse than I thought.”

“He is hot, Harris. And he is also mad at me.”

“Not that much different than your dynamic before, though, is it?”

Ilya made several unintelligible noises of frustration in response.

“Well,” Harris said, clearly amused, “this has been cute and very illuminating. But, um, he’s downstairs so. Could you finish twirling your pigtails and let him in please?”

Ilya squeezed his eyes shut tightly and let out the longest sigh of his life. “Ugh, fine.”

“Good luuuuck,” Harris sang, ending the call. Smug, nosy bastard.

Freshening up as best he could, Ilya made his way downstairs a moment later. 

As promised, Hollander was waiting at the Cens’ private entrance to the complex, wearing a distractingly tight dry-fit workout shirt, a skate bag slung over his shoulder.

He looked suitably startled when Ilya propped the side door open. “Come on in.”

“I… uh, thank you,” he replied.

Ilya noticed the way those eyes seemed to linger on his own sweat-soaked muscle tee. He probably smelled awful.

“Harris said you wanted to skate?” Ilya asked, starting to walk down the hallway toward the reserved rink. He motioned for Hollander to follow.

“Yeah, um, after my last surgery a year ago — the one that put the new plate in — I wasn’t cleared to be on the ice for like eight months,” Hollander explained, trailing after him, “but now I’m allowed to skate slow laps again. With a lot of breaks. Real community skate at Christmas type stuff.”

Ilya nodded, trying to picture a version of Shane Hollander who wasn’t flying by him on the ice. He never would have admitted it as a teenager, but the Canadian had been the faster skater between them, those few tenths of a second always enough to irritate him endlessly.

“Cute,” he muttered before he could stop himself, “Are you going to do a little spin for me?”

He heard Hollander scoff from behind him. But the snappy comeback he expected didn’t manifest.

“Did you… want to skate with me?” he heard Hollander ask as they stepped through the sliding doors and into the practice rink area.

Ilya turned back to look at him. “What?”

Hollander lowered his gaze. “I don’t know, I’m being stupid, sorry. I just thought, well, we clearly need to talk. And I talk better when I’m… physically occupied.”

“I don’t have my skates,” Ilya replied, truthfully. 

He’d only been onsite for a change in weightlifting scenery after getting bored with his home gym. Plus, it was rare for players to do any real work on the ice right after the season ended; mostly rest, recovery, and basic conditioning. As a veteran player, Ilya was mostly left alone by the training staff to complete his routines in peace.

“Oh yeah, of course,” Hollander said, his expression even more downcast. He gestured to the rink. “Well, uh, thanks for letting me in, anyway. Have a good rest of your workout.”

He sat down on the bench and began taking off his shoes, radiating a horrible mix of sadness and resignation. 

Ilya was only a man. God help him.

“Hollander,” he said, watching those dark, watery eyes turn to look up at him. “Can you still handle a stick?”

- 🏒-

“Can you still handle a stick?”

Shane felt himself freeze at the question. Could he? He hadn’t since…

Years ago, one well-meaning PT had surprised him with a session at a local rink. He’d been almost out of his mind with fear just standing on the ice in his running shoes. She’d meant to show him that he could still balance. That maybe the skating basics were possible again. But then she’d pulled out the sticks and a handful of pucks and Shane had fucking spiraled.

Much like he was edging toward now.

“Yeah, I uh… I’m sure I can do a little passing back and forth,” he managed, feeling his breaths begin to come faster. “But I haven’t— it’s been a really long time… I, ha…”

The world narrowed completely, one pinprick dot of pure and utter overwhelm. He was sitting on a charter bus again — in the third row window seat, as his strictly superstitious routine dictated — watching the scenery spinning and spinning until it exploded into a kaleidoscope of colors so bright they were nauseating. In the boomerang of resultant darkness, someone was screaming. Maybe he would never open his eyes again.

“Hollander,” a voice was saying, soft but colored with concern. Then, more emphatically, “Shane.” 

Sensations followed: A large, warm hand cupping his jaw, and the achingly sweet swipe of a thumb pad across his cheekbone.

Oh. He was crying.

“Hollander,” Rozanov said again, tilting Shane’s chin up with a feather-light touch, “Look at me.”

Something in the gentle but firm command tugged at his psyche in a way he didn’t want to unpack further. He forced his eyes open, lashes clumping wetly as he blinked away the few tears that had fallen.

His blurry view sharpened slowly into reality— a wide, worried pair of eyes met his own head on, Rozanov having fallen to his knees in front of the bench. He had one hand gripping Shane’s thigh for balance, the other still cupping his cheek. The unconcealed concern in those hazel eyes would’ve normally irritated Shane to no end, but in his wobbly mental state his heart only thumped harder. Traitor.

“Forgive me,” Rozanov was saying, hurriedly enough that his clipped English syllables were all smushed together, “I am so sorry for— ah, fuck, what is word? Saying something that was trigger for you. I swear I did not know.”

It was a completely unnecessary apology, but in the final throes of his panic attack — shutdown, maybe — Shane could only exhale shakily between them in response. At the slight sound, Rozanov jolted backward, hands pulling away with him. Shane watched as he glanced around and turned visibly pink. Though he was sat back on his heels, hands now grasping the fabric of his own green Centaurs track pants, he seemed to have realized he was still more or less camped between Shane’s spread legs. 

Regardless, Shane should’ve felt relief from the absence of the touch. 

He didn’t.

The silence between them now was infinitely more horrible than the initial awkwardness of seeing each other after weeks of no communication. Shane let his eyes blur out of focus for a moment, staring downward until everything was green, green, green.

“I will go,” Rozanov whispered eventually, pushing to his feet and regarding Shane like a ranch hand might a spooked horse.

“No!” Shane blurted, jumping to his feet. He winced, his socks a poor barrier against the cold of the rinkside floor. 

Why had he shouted like that?

He was too loud. Always too fucking much.

“No, I—”

Verbal communication failed him again, at the worst possible moment. Classic Shane. He was fucking this up. And in a spectacularly unprofessional way. Rozanov would go back to Harris who would be sure to fire him and then word would spread that VQ Events was run by a pathetic, neurotic shitshow of a failed professional athlete and no one would ever hire him again and—

“Tell me what you need.”

For some ungodly reason, Rozanov was still there, hovering a few feet away, instead of fleeing like any normal person should when confronted with the monster that was Shane’s anxiety and his PTSD and his… everything, really. Shane shook his head.

“Hollander,” Rozanov pleaded, his eyes a little shiny and horribly sincere, “Please. Let me help. I don’t— I would feel wrong now to leave you like this.”

God, Shane hated this man. This beautiful, patient, aggravating, hockey playing nightmare. He would open his mouth and tell him to go. He would hire another assistant and assign the rest of the gala coordination to them. He would preserve what little was left of his dignity and—

“Touch me.” The words were out before he’d even had time to process the thought. His cheeks flamed, surely a clownish red beneath his stupid freckles. 

Touch me. Clear as a goal horn. No taking that one back.

Shane braced for the sound of footsteps and the whoosh of the sliding door.

When he felt brave enough to look back up, Ilya Rozanov — your client, his brain hissed — had indeed left the doorway. But he wasn’t running away. Why the hell wasn’t he running?

With several steps forward and a quirk of his eyebrow, Rozanov said, “You will have to be more specific, I think.”

God.

Shane had no sooner mouthed the word “hug” than there were thick, muscular arms wrapped around him. All the tension in his body melted into lava lamp blobs of nothingness, leaving him nearly buoyant with relief. He sagged into the embrace, moaning a ‘thank you’ into those shapely shoulders that would’ve embarrassed him to death in any other context. Good thing shame was off the table for now.

For a moment they breathed in tandem and Shane felt his heart rate sink back to something approximating normal. It was, in possibly a very sad way, the most at peace with another man he’d ever felt. Another person, ever, maybe.

“You feel a lot. Deep.” This was stated like a simple observation, without the sharp tone of Russian judgment Shane had spent the last weeks irrationally in fear of. “It is hard when there is so much pressure, yes? From others. Maybe from yourself too.”

Shane snuffled, then tilted his head back just far enough so that he wasn’t slobbering into Rozanov’s tank top. He let out a long, shaky exhale and then, before he could think better of it, said, “I’m autistic.”

He felt Rozanov stiffen slightly around him, but he didn’t pull away.

“It’s a recent thing,” Shane plowed on, “Or, I mean, I guess I always have been, just not… officially. I’m still, um, learning to cope with certain triggers. Realizing what those even are, and which ones are the PTSD too. And sometimes, I— well, I can care too much or get irritated by the smallest things, more than is reasonable. I can’t always explain why.” 

He paused, thoughts racing, his fingers itching for a chance to stim the overwhelm away. One, two, three, four. One—

“And I sometimes find communication really difficult,” he managed, “I might take things very literally. Or else badly overthink them and then spiral a bit. As you’ve… experienced, obviously.”

He trailed off, waiting for the inevitable expression of doubt or else a deluge of probing questions. Instead, Rozanov just hugged him harder and said, “Okay.”

Shane wriggled out of the man’s grasp, ass hitting the edge of the boards as he gazed up, surprised. “Okay?”

Rozanov was almost smiling. “Yes. Okay.” He reached out to ruffle Shane’s hair. “I’m glad you are telling me. One of my players is also. But he says everyone on the, ah, scale is different. So I will listen when you share with me what things you like and do not.”

Taking in Shane’s still gaping expression, he smiled for real, crooked and perfect. “I will try my best to remember those things.” Of course, the smarmy bastard had the audacity to wink before adding, “And I will hold you anytime.”

Rozanov leaned forward, then, bracing himself in a way that practically caged Shane against the boards. Shane swallowed down a whimper and willed his legs not to part of their own volition. He could not end this already mortifying experience with a boner too. Rozanov, however decent an ally he was proving to be, would never let him live that down.

“You should rest. Enjoy skate,” Rozanov said easily, “We can continue this. Tuesday, maybe?”

“This?” Shane asked, thoughts clouded by the places where the bigger man’s thighs met his own.

Rozanov leaned in further. His eyes sparkled with clear amusement. “You wanted to skate with big NHL star, yes? Turns out my schedule opened up.”

The tension broke when Shane let out a flustered, slightly hysterical giggle. His molten blush was giving Mercury a run for its money at this point. 

“Oh, yeah. Ha. Tuesday. I’ll see if I’m free,” he blabbered, then shook his head. “What am I saying? I’m definitely free. So, uh. I’d love to skate. If you really have the time.”

Rozanov leaned back, putting merciful space between them once more. “I always have time for you, Mr. Event Planner,” he said, sounding strangely happy about it. “Except Anya has doggy playdate ten to eleven. But after that. All yours.”

Shane was not going to commit those last words to memory. Definitely not.

“Yes, great. Amazing. You’re ama— alllll set. You’re all set. For today. Thanks!”

God, Shut up! Shut. Up.

The bemused expression Rozanov wore when it came to Shane’s special brand of awkward shifted to one of thoughtfulness instead. 

“I am sorry, again, to upset you,” he said, reaching out to clasp his shoulder. He squeezed once in comfort before his eyes flashed with something impish. “You are normally very pretty, but not when you cry.”

Shane choked out a startled laugh, shoving Rozanov’s hand away in mock offense. “You’re such an asshole!”

“Is what they all tell me,” Rozanov replied, looking pleased with himself. He spun away from where Shane was still half-folded against the boards, stunned immobile by this bizarre, hot and cold interaction.

Nearly out the door, cherubic blonde curls bouncing, his personal hockey demon turned back to add a cheerful, “See you Tuesday!”

And then that son of a bitch blew a kiss.

Asshole.

Shane — a little bit ruined by that encounter, god help him — started to pull his skates on.

His hands were still shaking.

- 🏒-

Shane: Did you really mean it, about Tuesday?

I.R. (Work): yes. 6 pm. easy skate, no sticks, i promise

I.R. (Work): but i want you to talk to me

Shane: I might get upset again.

I.R. (Work): i think i have proven i can handle that

Shane: Ha, you’d be the first.

I.R. (Work): has been my lifelong mission to always be first when it comes to you, hollander. of course i am 💪🏻

Shane: So dramatic 🙄

Shane: See you then 🐁🛹

I.R. (Work): 🐭👋🏼

Chapter 7

Hollander was already lacing up when Ilya arrived, a brightly colored compression sleeve peeking out the top of his left skate.

Harris had mentioned that he’d shared the facility’s off-hours entry code with the event planner, ending his text with a suggestive string of emojis that Ilya refused to acknowledge.

Said event planner was dressed in loose-fitting black track pants and another dry-fit top, this one a bright blue long sleeve that outlined the shape of his pecs in a way that made Ilya’s mouth go dry. His dark hair had gotten even longer, curling at the nape of his neck. Ilya wanted to—

Fucking hell. All of this would be so much easier if he didn’t constantly look like… that.

A navy blue cane was propped against the bench next to him, its handle inscribed with what Ilya realized was a tiny set of letters: ‘VQ’. 

“For after, in case I’m really tired,” Hollander explained when he followed Ilya’s gaze, “I don’t need it all the time now but… it helps.”

Ilya nodded, sitting down a respectable distance away from him and tugging off his sneakers.

“You sure it’s ok you’re here?” Hollander ventured, glancing over at him. His posture was awkward again, hunched in on himself in clear discomfort.

Ilya regarded him coolly. “Season is over. I can do what I want now.”

Hollander’s shoulders curled up even further. “I know, I just…” he trailed off, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to start this conversation.”

“Okay, then I will,” Ilya said, shrugging, “At the venue, I was only trying to help.”

“Because you thought I needed the help,” Hollander bit back, bitterly.

Ah, well at least that had gotten him talking.

Ilya frowned. “No, because Harris did. Or do you mean after? In parking lot?”

He watched as Hollander stood up with a huff, gingerly taking a few steps and passing through the gate onto the ice. He moved awkwardly at first and then seemed to settle in, gliding slowly, though his perfect form made it clear he had once been built for competitive speed.

Ilya finished lacing up his own skates and stepped into the rink as well, catching up to him in a few long strides.

“I’m… still not sure why you are mad at me,” he admitted a little pitifully, slowing to match Hollander’s pace.

Probably biting back a more impulsive response, Hollander sucked his bottom lip between his teeth instead, those dark almond eyes blazing in a way that felt nearly nostalgic. 

For a moment, Ilya longed for the simplicities of a teenage hockey rivalry— emotions translated through full-bodied checks, bloodied noses, and the occasional escalation of tossing gloves onto the ice. Honestly, he’d rather take a bare knuckled punch to the chin than endure the forced, passive aggressive politeness of adult conflict. 

Another half lap in and Hollander’s shoulders drooped. “I’m not sure either. I’m just… I’m used to people babying me or seeing me as less competent once they realize. Makes me… defensive.”

Ilya bristled. “So you assumed I was like that? After I spent whole time telling you I want people who are different to be included, to be safe.”

“No!” Hollander protested, then backtracked when he saw Ilya’s incredulous expression, “Well, I— okay, yes I did. And that wasn’t fair of me.” He pushed off his right foot, putting a little distance between them on the ice. “But it’s more common than not that even well-meaning people become aware of my… disability… and then start to define me by it.”

For a long moment, only the schick, schick of their skates echoed in the open air between them.

“Hollander,” Ilya said firmly, “I have only ever thought of your injury in terms of how it makes you feel, not what you can or cannot do. I don’t mean to baby you. I meant it when I said I just worry if you are hurting. I have worried same way for eleven years.”

“You— what?” Hollander coughed out, the full weight of Ilya’s words appearing to sink in.

Ilya skated ahead of him, executing a quick half turn and catching him by the shoulders. Hollander looked back at him with wide, startled eyes as they skated to a stop. He didn’t pull away though, his arms coming up to grasp Ilya’s elbows for balance.

Ilya let out a deep breath, a little terrified by what he felt compelled to admit.

“When accident happened,” he began, watching Hollander’s face carefully, “I didn’t just hear about it. I came to see you in hospital. I don’t think you remember, what with painkillers and all. But I was there on second day. ICU.”

Hollander looked stricken. “I thought I dreamt that,” he almost whispered. His cheeks colored. “I felt embarrassed for weeks after. That my drug-addled brain had wanted you of all people there. That after LA, I… couldn’t seem to stop thinking about you.”

“I was embarrassed too,” Ilya confessed, dropping his hands. “That I had crazy need to see you, alive, in person. I wanted to trust reports but I could not wait. I was… a little obsessed with you back then.” He winced and then appended a cowardly: “In platonic, competitive way, obviously.”

”Obviously,” Hollander echoed.

“When I left, I told you I would see you next season,” Ilya admitted, voice a little strained, “I did not want to let myself believe any other outcome was possible. I did not want to…” He felt his throat tighten. “… to play hockey without you.”

Hollander’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny and he ducked away, starting to skate a wide lap again. “You cared about our rivalry that badly?” he called back.

Ilya rolled his eyes. This man and his thick fucking skull. “Is it so hard to believe that I just cared about you? As person?”

“We hated each other,” Hollander replied, though he looked uncertain.

“They wanted us to,” Ilya agreed. 

‘I think I wanted to kiss you.’

He shrugged. “But I don’t think we did.”

Hollander slowed again, reaching out to balance himself with one hand against the glass. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to know that I have always had respect for you. That I have always cared. And to understand that there is no, ah, sneaky motive.”

”Ulterior,” Hollander supplied, a small smile beginning to form on his face.

“Yes, ulterior,” Ilya echoed, “I am not pitying you. Or making fun. Or hanging around because I think you are some kind of charity project. I already have charity, Hollander. And the rescue animals bite less than you do.”

Hollander laughed and the air in the rink felt noticeably lighter. He was smiling.

“I just… like you, as Shane,” Ilya confessed, feeling like he was back in school again. “I had a good time that day at the venue, watching you in your element, and… our texting… but I would like to spend time with you as actual friends even more.”

Hollander’s smile had grown almost blindingly wide. “You’d really want that?”

“Yes,” Ilya said simply. “I want to get to know you, not as old rival but as…” he cringed, laughing at himself a bit. “I don’t know how not to be cheesy.”

“I like cheesy,” Hollander replied, then with a terrible wink added, “Ilya.”

If anyone else had been around in that moment to see the NHL’s generational talent trip on the ice — completely wipe the fuck out actually — Ilya would’ve done something drastic to everyone in the rink and then himself. He was already considering asking Censplex security to erase the camera footage just in case.

When he raised his head, Shane was laughing so hard he had to brace himself on his knees.

“Holy shit,” he choked out, “If I knew all it would take to disarm the great Rozanov on the ice was to say his first name, I would’ve done that in every faceoff.”

“I cannot believe our rivalry would have made me look like evil one,” Ilya complained, still sprawled on the ice. “Whole time Shane Hollander is the asshole.”

“I heard a rumor that you like him though,” Shane teased.

Ilya groaned, limbs growing colder by the second, “I am changing my mind.” 

“If you’re done being a drama queen down there,” Shane giggled, skating a wide loop around Ilya’s frozen corpse, “I think I have about five more laps in me.” He paused, looking a little apprehensive, “And then dinner, maybe?”

“You’re buying,” Ilya retorted easily, hauling himself up off the ice. As he did so, he scooped a handful of the flurry his skates had kicked up and tossed it at Shane’s nose.

Shane scrubbed at his face, snorting. “Mean and cheap. What a catch.”

“Many people have thought so,” Ilya sniffed, skating by close enough to count Shane’s freckles and then sticking out his tongue. He pitched his voice purposefully lower: “No complaints.”

He didn’t miss the way Shane’s eyes briefly narrowed. Interesting.

“Well they’re not here now, are they?” he grumbled.

It was Ilya’s turn to gape.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t make a habit of… dating long term.”

If Shane found that statement surprising, he didn’t show it. 

“Just you and your dog,” he said, a clear callback to the terrace, “Who I would very much like to meet by the way. Now that we’re… friends.”

“Ah, the truth comes out,” Ilya replied, nodding solemnly, “You were only using me to get to Anya.”

Making Shane Hollander smile was quickly becoming a dangerous addiction. “Can you blame me? She’s way cuter.”

“I cannot even argue,” Ilya bemoaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “And she loves men most too. She will betray her father.”

“Three more laps, Ilya,” Shane stated, still grinning, “I feel like I can go just a little faster on this next one.”

“Okay, Shane,” Ilya said, fearing that his own wide smile must look ridiculous now, “Let’s go.”

 - 🏒-

The tavern that Ilya had suggested for dinner was fairly empty when they arrived later that night.

The interior was dimly lit and cozy in a way that Shane immediately appreciated: all dark wood and burgundy leather booths, everything a little bit dingy in a way that suggested years of wear and tear by appreciative patrons. 

A few flatscreens around the space were showing baseball, Toronto up by two runs in the sixth, while a soft alt-rock mix played over the sound system. A sign reading ‘MONKS’ in neon purple script flickered above the liquor shelves.

“Rozanov!” one of the bartenders called out, waving, “Your regular booth’s open. Feel free to seat yourselves.”

Shane winced, watching as a few heads swiveled to look at them with polite curiosity. Still, no one seemed to be interested in immediately bothering their hometown superstar. A couple guys at the bar in baseball jerseys, crowded around one of the TVs, didn’t turn around at all.

Ilya led him to a particularly private booth, tucked away to the right side, near the entrance to the kitchen. What appeared to be the lone server materialized almost the moment they sat down, gliding by to place a menu on the table with a wink and a casual, “If you need it.”

“The team likes to come here after home games,” Ilya explained, “The regulars do not tend to bother us.”

Shane nodded, glancing at the menu full of greasy bar food appetizers and Italian entrees with a bit of trepidation. He supposed a few bites of chicken parm wouldn’t kill him… He’d just skated for longer than he had in years, after all.

He shook his head a little, hearing the nagging voice of his former therapist reminding him that food was a necessity, not something to be earned or balanced out. Still, it was hard, even so many years later, to let go of the need for complete and total control over everything— his body just one piece of that obsessive puzzle. Though, as he watched the professional athlete across from him shimmying his shoulders to the music, seemingly not a care in the world as he asked the server to sub his fries for a side of mozzarella sticks, Shane felt himself letting loose, just the tiniest bit. 

He ordered the chicken parm. And a beer, too. Fuck it.

For a while after, they found themselves sitting in companionable quiet, the ambient sounds of the bar floating around them as the late night weekday crowd trickled in. It felt like a luxury to Shane — so often made to feel strange for his tendency to lapse into long swathes of silence — to be sat with someone who seemed perfectly comfortable with it.

“How’s it been? Being here instead of Boston?” he asked eventually, as their drinks arrived.

Ilya hummed, taking a sip of his beer before he answered, “It is a boring city, in comparison. But I think I am reaching time in my life where boring feels… kind of nice, you know?”

Shane nodded, immediately thinking of the years of gossip rags and hockey podcasts and thirsty stan accounts that had seemed to giddily catalogue Ilya Rozanov’s… proclivities. “That makes sense, I guess. You had, uh, quite a run of high profile fun there for a while.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed, looking decidedly amused. Tilting his head, he remarked, “You were following my career, then?”

Shane flushed, though he knew the complete answer was a lot more complicated than that. “I like hockey, okay. Obviously. And some might say…” he lowered his voice and muttered, “you’re the best active player in the NHL.”

At Ilya’s raised eyebrow, he clarified, “Some people say! Not me.”

“Oh, and who would Shane Hollander say is best player then?” Ilya retorted, his crooked smile morphing into a smirk, “One of your Voyageurs? Who haven’t seen Cup in decade?”

Shane rolled his eyes, knowing his smile was betraying just how much he was enjoying their banter. “Well, they have a pretty legendary roster down in DC, you know? Ov—”

“If you say another Russian name to me right now I am walking out of this bar.” Ilya’s reply was clipped, his expression incensed enough to make Shane burst into laughter.

“Look,” Shane interjected, through his giggles, “the point is I wasn’t like… keeping close tabs on you or anything. You were just always on my screen, impossible to avoid really, and scoring on my team more often than I’d have liked.”

He took another long sip of his pale ale, tone sobering a bit. “It wasn’t easy to see you play at first. After. But eventually I kind of started living vicariously through you a bit. Enjoying your progression of skill over time. You were supposed to be my equal after all.”

Ilya was staring back at him, hazel eyes intense and thoughtful. “There were some things you… beat me at.”

Shane nearly preened. “Oh? Things, plural?”

“I am not going to list them,” Ilya replied, turning up his nose, “But playing against you, even for short while… I can admit you made me better.”

The compliment warmed Shane’s insides as much as it stung with all the connotations of what could have been. He coughed out an awkward laugh. “I’ll be sure to send the Boston Bears my skills clinic bill then. Maybe they’ll put my name on the Cup.”

At that moment, the server returned with their meals, interrupting whatever reply Ilya had been contemplating. Suddenly ravenous post-skate, Shane found himself tucking in with real hunger, not a thought spared for the sugar in the tomato sauce and the fat in the cheese.

“It is good to see you on the ice,” Ilya said quietly, between bites of his bolognese, “You look… happy there.”

Shane bristled. “Do I look so unhappy elsewhere?”

Ilya gazed back at him coolly, keeping the calm between them. It was almost more aggravating how he refused to rise to the bait like so many others did when Shane regressed to defensive hockey-talk mode. He felt strangely vulnerable, seeing this man — who had long been both a total stranger and his oldest ghost — unravel his worst habits with ease.

“I think we should keep skating together,” Ilya said instead, ignoring Shane’s question entirely. “I think it is good for both of us.”

Shane rolled his shoulders back. “What do you get out of it?”

“Getting to know you again,” Ilya replied, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Shane found himself blushing again, actually seriously considering the possibility of a genuine friendship with Ilya Rozanov.

Maybe it really could be that easy.

Two guys hanging out. Dive bars and hockey rinks.

Ignoring the fragile web of history between them, like spidering cracks across a frozen pond. It was all fine. 

Shane would watch his step.

 - 🏒-

The call of a loon announcing the coming dusk stirred Ilya from his half-nap. 

He sat up in his deck chair with a yawn, rubbing at his eyes. An uncharacteristically pleasant afternoon in mid-June had found him outside on his oft-neglected back patio, frogs croaking in the nearby pond beyond the unkempt hedgerow that formed the edge of his property. Though most of the Centaurs players preferred the detached brick homes and plush apartment complexes on the tree-lined streets of The Glebe, Ilya had purchased a home to the west of the arena instead. South March was hardly far from the city (and growing steadily in population besides) but the loose collection of larger estates in Ilya’s neighborhood were dispersed enough to have an almost rural feel. 

His cozy two-story cottage — a mix of deep brown wood shingling, stacked grey stone, and tall windows — was in stark opposition to his ritzy Boston penthouse and even more so to his late father’s chilly family fortress in Moscow. Still, there was a kind of peace here that he’d yet to find anywhere that wasn’t center ice. 

(And yes, it sometimes felt a little silly to drive his small collection of sports cars through a veritable nature preserve, but life was about balance, or something.)

His phone let out a familiar chiming song and he sat up, reaching over to where he’d left it on the side table.

Ilya answered the FaceTime call from ‘🦕’ with a playful frown. “Are you finally calling about retirement party?”

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Scott Hunter said, grinning easily. He was dressed in a thin white pullover with the Admirals logo embroidered on the right side. Behind him, Ilya recognized the flaking leather booths of the Kingfisher, where something weird and indie was playing over the bar’s chatter. 

“Happy birthday, Rozy!” Kip chimed in, visibly drunk even as he briefly squished his face into the frame.

Oh. His birthday. He’d forgotten.

Ilya grimaced at the way Hunter looked offscreen for a moment, eyes practically shooting out heart-shaped beams like a cartoon. He couldn’t imagine loving someone so damn openly, especially after you’d already up and married them. After kissing them for the whole world to see like some kind of crazy person.

Maybe, just maybe, he was a tiny bit jealous.

“Listen, Roz,” Hunter was saying, “When can you be back in New York? Eric and I have a little thirtieth birthday surprise for you.”

Ilya frowned. Anything those two ancient queens had cooked up together couldn’t be good. “Surprise?”

“Blind date!” Kip’s merry voice cut in.

Hunter rolled his eyes, muttering indulgently, “Yes, thank you, baby.”

“Date,” Ilya deadpanned.

“Just wait until you see the guy,” Hunter all but gushed, “Mikey’s been bartending at the Kingfisher while finishing his MD/PhD at NYU. And he used to play in the AHL in his early twenties, for Belleville if you can believe it. Never got called up though. Anyway, he’s looking at university hospital research positions back home in Canada starting next spring.”

“Wow,” Ilya said hollowly, a strange feeling beginning to grow in the pit of his stomach. “He sounds—”

Onscreen, Hunter was nodding enthusiastically. “Perfect, right? We have a shirtless poster of you up in the bar now — don’t ask — and he jokingly asked if Ilya Rozanov was as terrible as the announcers make you sound.”

Ilya scoffed. It wasn’t an out of pocket observation or anything, but he found those kinds of jokes funnier when his teammates made them. Or when Shane did.

“Obviously, we said yes,” Hunter teased, “But I, uh, sort of hinted that you might be single and potentially interested too. I figured he’s safe since he’s… been in our skates, so to speak.”

Ilya supposed he should feel grateful, that they could speak so openly like this. That years ago now, while still playing for Boston, he had intensely observed and then wormed his way into the Admirals’ circle of queer elders through sheer force of annoyance alone. For a long time, he had simply sat in the Kingfisher post-game enjoying their company: Scott Hunter and Eric Bennett and some of the more liberal players who didn’t have a stupid complex about being in that kind of space. 

When he’d made the decision to leave the Bears, however, the full truth had come pouring out, and he’d been shocked by how happily Hunter and Bennett had taken him under their wing. He refused to think of them as mentors or ‘found family’ or whatever, but they were accepting and discrete and always happy to make time for him, which was a luxury he had not often been afforded.

Still, whatever expression was currently on Ilya’s face seemed to give Hunter pause. He narrowed his eyes. “You are still single, right?”

“Um,” Ilya replied inelegantly. A flash of dark hair, deep brown eyes, and a freckled nose appeared in his mind unprompted.

Hunter’s famously charming smile seemed to spread across the entire phone screen, big white teeth gleaming in the bar’s neon lights. “Roz! No shit? Who are they?”

Well fuck. He was really in it now.

“He’s, um, old friend,” Ilya lied carefully, “But we have only been on a few dates. It is not serious or anything.”

It is not anything at all.

“Old friend, huh?” the Admirals captain mused, “As in Russia, old friend? Or…?”

“Or,” Ilya confirmed. With any luck, Hunter would think it was another active NHL player and leave it for now. Maybe even a fellow Centaur. It wouldn’t be the worst assumption, given that Ilya was captaining a team that increasingly looked like an international pride parade.

“Well, I hope the dates continue then,” Hunter said, looking genuinely pleased for him, “This guy seems to have done a real number on you already, if that blush is anything to go by.”

“There is no blush!” Ilya hissed, peering at himself in the smaller FaceTime window to check for evidence. Just in case.

“Sure, pal,” Hunter agreed, chuckling, “Anyway, I’ve got to get the hubby home soon I think. But tell your not-boyfriend that we’re a very discreet group and you’d both be welcome at the Kingfisher anytime.” His voice softened. “I miss your grumpy face around here, Rozy. And happy birthday, really.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ilya said, waving a hand as if he could wipe away the saccharine feeling that came from being on the receiving end of genuine kindness. He would not admit to missing the gaggle of New York gays in return, least of all their prehistoric leader sat virtually across from him.

Hunter cut the call, still smiling, with a bubbly “good night!” from Kip floating through.

Ilya dropped his phone to his side, flopping back in his deck chair with a low groan.

In the distance, another loon called, almost frantically. He knew now from his ‘Identifying Canadian Wildlife’ app — which he may or may not have downloaded after having the shit scared out of him by horrible nature noises the night he’d moved in — that this particular ‘tremolo’ was used to signal an approaching threat.

You’re right, stupid wolf bird, he thought, We are very much in danger now.

- 🏒-

Shane: Happy birthday 🎂🐁 

I.R. (Work): bring cake to censplex gym tomorrow pls. and feed to me. strength trainer is evil and i am tired of having arms

Shane: I have heard those can be necessary for hockey though.

I.R. (Work): i quit. switching to soccer

Shane: Also has a net I guess. Transferable skills.

Shane: Throw-ins might be a problem though 🤸

I.R. (Work): who told you about bday btw. harris? 👀

Shane: I’ve always known your birthday.

I.R. (Work): oh of course. you were born first. only time you beat me

Shane: Sounds like you know my birthday too 🤗

I.R. (Work): had to do research on my rival. for evil purposes 😈

Shane: Ah right. Your decade-long master plan to… take me ice skating twice a week ⛸️

I.R. (Work): many booby traps on the ice. you are lucky to not hit one yet

Shane: 🪤 😱

I.R. (Work): you are so lame lol. see you thurs?

I.R. (Work): and ty, for bday wish

Shane: See you!

Shane: And you’re welcome. I hope your wish comes true ⭐️

- 🏒-

July 2024

Shane collapsed onto the bench, chest heaving.

“I’m gonna feel that tomorrow, fuck,” he moaned. 

He watched Ilya’s eyes flash with concern. And something else he couldn't quite place.

“Not in a bad way,” he corrected, tugging off his skates, “Just… forgot what it was like to push myself.”

In truth, Shane had spent years avoiding the ice, even after knowing he could passably skate again. Though it wasn’t like he would’ve had much time at the rink anyway… The continued series of surgeries trying to rebuild his lower leg — now more rods and plates and screws than actual bone — had necessitated long periods of rehabilitation. Most of the time he was just grateful he could still walk, much less glide like a toddler at their first figure skating lesson.

Hockey was another thing entirely. His medical team had been clear that Shane would never regain the stability in his leg required to play such a high impact sport without risking immediate re-injury, but they’d also conceded that he could probably do simple drills in lieu of full competition. In the end, they didn’t have to caution him much anyway; Shane was so terrified of reaching his limits and realizing how diminished they were that he hadn’t bothered to try at all. Hence, the slow laps, and the lack of stick.

Ironically, it was only now, with an obnoxious skating partner who spent the whole time yapping at him in circles, that he had felt comfortable enough to work on his speed and agility a bit. Week to week, he could actually feel himself getting a little stronger; though, with chronic pain, there were just as many days where the cane made an appearance, or where he managed only a lap or two before needing a break. He knew that their skating sessions probably felt like molasses to an elite NHL player used to 30 kph as a baseline, but Ilya had been nothing but patient and encouraging each time they’d met at the Censplex when Shane was in town.

(If he’d been coming to Ottawa over the last month more often than strictly necessary, and staying longer each time too, with the excuse of gala planning things, well… neither his parents nor Ilya Rozanov were any the wiser.)

Ilya settled on the bench next to him, interrupting his thoughts. “Give.”

Shane frowned. “What?”

Ilya motioned toward Shane’s lower half and then his own lap. “Give me your foot.”

Shane swallowed, worried about the degree to which his body might betray him if confronted so directly with those strong hockey-playing hands. There was no reason he couldn’t say no to his… friend. He should definitely say no.

And yet, his socked foot was settled on Ilya’s thigh before his mouth could form a single syllable of rejection.

Ilya hummed, peeling back the sock and tossing it on the floor between them. He ran his hands slowly over Shane’s bare ankle, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“You don’t have to—” Shane choked out, words cut off entirely when Ilya’s thumb found a specific knot and pressed in deeply. The moan he let out in response was nothing short of obscene.

“Sounds like you need it though,” Ilya commented lightly, a crooked smile beginning to etch its way into his cheek.

Mortified, Shane tried to jerk his foot back, cheeks flaming bright red, but Ilya just tightened his grip.

“Relax,” Ilya all but purred, applying a magical sort of pressure again that made him fall limp.

“Oh my god, Rozanov,” Shane panted, back arching as one hand reached down to grab the edge of the bench for purchase.

He knew he had to be tomato-colored by now, the way the heat was radiating off his skin. He could sense other parts of himself starting to warm up as well, and tried to zone in on the sharp jolts of the acupressure instead. Too bad Ilya’s handiwork was bordering so beautifully on the exact type of pain-pleasure that Shane had dabbled with in his sporadic hookups; he could only hope his dark-colored sweatpants would be roomy enough to hide his reaction.

“Where the fuck did you learn this?” he questioned, almost breathlessly, feeling the perpetually strained tendons around his ankle joint loosening with each rub and press of Ilya’s unfairly dextrous fingers.

“Looked it up, after I saw you in pain at yacht club,” Ilya replied, distractedly, “Thought it might come in handy.”

Shane felt his mouth fall open. “You decided to learn a specific pressure point massage? For me? Even after I snapped at you?”

Ilya shrugged. “I was not going to give up on getting to know you again that easily.” 

The admission was staggering. Romantic, even. And not for the first time, Shane looked at the man in front of him with an expression he could only hope read as Kiss me. Please kiss me. Because I’m too scared to ask. Because I can’t be sure until you do.

Ilya cleared his throat and released Shane’s ankle with a gentle pat, seemingly done with his ministrations.

“Better?” he asked hopefully.

Shane fell back on the bench with a groan. “You know it is, asshole.”

Everything was beginning to seem better with Ilya Rozanov involved.

That was the fucking problem.

Chapter 8

ATTN: GALA TONIGHT. PLAYERS/STAFF ARRIVE NO LATER THAN 7 PM. 

Ilya spooned cereal into his mouth, rereading the subject line of Coach Wiebe’s email to the team listserv. He clicked on the message to open its contents in full and poured over the details carefully, as if he hadn’t heard Shane mumbling nearly all of them out loud already whenever he was stressed. Which had been often, in the last few weeks leading up to the main event.

He tipped his bowl back to drain the milk before tossing it in the dishwasher. A quick glance at the microwave clock showed 9:30 am, almost time for—

His phone buzzed and he felt a smile creep onto his face as he reached over to check the message. Of course he wouldn’t allow himself to be even a minute late.

Shane: Here? 🐭🏡

Ilya: coming 🐀💨

He carded a hand through his messy curls and smoothed out his workout tee before walking very slowly and coolly to his front door, definitely not nearly skipping in excitement. Anya, awoken from her morning nap by the footsteps, trailed behind him with polite curiosity.

He opened the door to reveal a very eager looking Shane Hollander, dressed only in mid-length running shorts and a thin white tank top. The amount of smooth, lightly tanned skin on display must’ve been taking Ilya too long to process because Shane waved a hand in his face, laughing.

“Good morning!” he said, oh so cheerfully Canadian, “Now move aside so I can meet my girl.” 

Ilya lifted his arm from the door frame, still dazed, and let Shane duck past.

“Your girl,” he scoffed after a moment of mental recovery, only to turn around and see that Anya, who was usually the ‘takes time to warm up to strangers’ type of dog, was already rolled over in the foyer, tongue lolled out, and receiving belly rubs from her apparent new best friend.

“Я знал, что ты меня предашь,” he hissed at her.

Shane’s head snapped around at the sound. He gazed up at Ilya wide-eyed from where he knelt on the floor. “Oh.”

“What?” Ilya questioned.

Shane shook his head. “Nothing. I just… I don’t think I’ve heard you speak Russian in front of me before.”

He nodded in understanding. “Ah, it does sound harsh, many people say.”

Shane’s cheeks looked a little flushed. “No, I… I like it. It’s beautiful. Will you say something else?”

Ilya stared at Shane for a long moment, purposefully avoiding Anya’s too-human eyes; his traitorous pet seemed to be judging him more harshly than ever.

He took a deep breath and said, as blandly as possible, “Если бы мне пришлось прожить эту жизнь снова, я бы нашел тебя раньше.”

Shane smiled. “I know you were trying to hide it, but that sounded like a compliment.”

“I called you a terrible, no-good, dog-stealing villain,” Ilya deadpanned, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shane laughed, carding a gentle hand through Anya’s fur. “I don’t think she’d mind coming home with me, would you, baby?”

Ilya could’ve sworn Anya was mocking him as she yipped happily and pressed her nose to Shane’s cheek.

Habitual as ever, Shane checked his watch for the time and eased himself back up to standing. As he did so, Ilya found his eyes drawn to the man’s left leg, which he’d yet to see completely bare. It was slightly less muscular than the right, a little bonier at the knee and ankle, and covered in a constellation of jagged white scars and more precise surgical incisions. The most prominent scar of the bunch must have been more than twenty centimeters long, starting at the upper shin, bisecting the kneecap and ending somewhere higher up, where it disappeared under the hem of Shane’s running shorts.

“Thanks for inviting me on your walk, by the way,” Shane was saying, interrupting Ilya’s wandering eyes just as they’d started to reach dangerous places, “You were right to assume that I’d be reaching peak levels of freak out this morning. Barely slept last night too, unfortunately.”

“Tonight is going to be perfect,” Ilya stated firmly, “And then I will personally make sure you rest.”

He was serious about that too. He’d seen the endless work that Shane had put in, the almost fanatical attention to detail. Ilya could choreograph a handful of players on the ice, sure, but the way the event planner had seamlessly coordinated a whole complex web of clients and vendors, not to mention legal and finance and marketing and… and those other buzzwords he’d picked up from Shane’s stressed out ruminations, all while carrying out a half dozen other small events in the months in between? It was astonishing and absolutely exhausting to watch. Ilya couldn’t imagine how Shane felt now, nearly at the end of it.

After tonight, he’ll go back to Toronto. Back to his real life. Where he isn’t haunted by this place. By you.

Well, Ilya knew what his own predominant feeling on the matter was at least: Dread.

“Should we head out?” Shane prompted, “I’m squeezing in a quick lunch meeting with, uh, an old client who’s in town, so I should probably leave time to shower beforehand.”

Ilya nodded jerkily, thoughts still swirling. He reached for Anya’s leash and harness near the front door, clipping her in.

He handed the leash to Shane, who beamed as if he’d just been entrusted with the keys to the city.

“I usually take her on a loop of the nature preserve,” Ilya explained, “It’s about four kilometers, give or take.”

Shane nodded enthusiastically and they headed off, Anya trotting beside her new best friend with an exuberance he hadn’t seen from her since she was a puppy.

“What made you start the rescue alliance?” Shane asked, after they’d left the paved road of the neighborhood and hit the well-maintained hiking trail.

Ilya smiled, a warm memory immediately coming to the forefront. “Ah, it was Harris, really.”

At Shane’s questioning glance, he continued, “His family has this big farm. They make cider. But they also have so many dogs running around. A lot of them were abandoned.” 

He blinked hard, trying to keep the tears at bay. While human interaction rarely moved him enough to emote externally, anything to do with animals, especially their suffering, was liable to turn him into a weeping mess in an instant.

“Like Anya,” he added, looking down at his cherished little mutt and her adorable floppy ears with a wobbly smile. 

Shane gasped, appearing genuinely sickened by the thought. “That’s horrible. Who the hell would give up this perfect angel?”

“Only evil, evil person,” Ilya agreed, though he added with a patient sigh, “or maybe someone who did not know they had any other option.”

“You’re very forgiving,” Shane said sweetly, even as his pupils turned dark, almost pure black under the shadowy tree cover, “But personally I will avenge her to the death.”

Ilya’s smile brightened. “Anya has many loyal followers. You may have to get in line.”

As Shane pouted cutely, he explained, “So, it was Harris who brought Anya into my life. And we have team dog too, Chiron. Although he lives with Harris and Barrett now and doesn’t visit so often anymore.” 

It was Ilya’s turn to pout.

“But anyway,” he said, smiling as he watched Anya tug on the leash in Shane’s hand to snap at a passing butterfly. “At first, I asked for ways to sponsor the care for dogs and cats at the farm, but the Drovers would not take my money. Harris’ mom pointed me toward local shelter instead that was always struggling to hit fundraising targets. The shelter manager and I came to agreement. And then I just… started adding more shelters around the province to our network.”

“They are all no kill,” he added hastily, “Though I understand having the, ah, resources can be difficult, any outcome besides adoption or long term care would break my heart. I also don’t plan to replace work of SPCA or anything, just… ease burden so they are not the only option.”

“You’re amazing,” Shane replied, the compliment delivered so assuredly that Ilya was almost tempted to internalize it. 

He watched him reach down to Anya, ruffling her perked ears. “You hear that, sweet girl? Your dad is amazing.”

Anya surely could not have cared less about Ilya in that moment, though she looked pleased by all of the attention anyway. 

Shane paused their walk to crouch beside her, carefully untangling a tiny leaf that had gotten stuck in her wavy beard. He glanced back up toward Ilya, their eyes meeting as he faux-whispered near Anya’s ear, “You are very lucky to have him.”

Ilya flushed, scrubbing a nervous hand over the back of his neck.

“What, um, made you do events?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

Shane shrugged. “I kind of fell into it honestly,” he said, “After the accident, I knew pro sports weren’t going to be an option, so I enrolled in university. Virtually at first while I did my initial recovery. And then on campus at McGill’s Faculty of Management, once I had a working leg again.”

Seeing Ilya’s puzzled expression, he clarified with a laugh, “It’s a business school in Montreal. A good one, okay! My dad went there.”

Ilya gave him a playfully skeptical look, but motioned for him to continue.

“Anyway, asshole,” Shane continued, still smiling, “I did a few internships at big firms, but nothing was really speaking to me. Until I worked for a summer with a wedding planner.” 

His smile turned fond. “It was a beautiful nightmare most of the time, but I realized that event planning, the control of it, gave me the same sort of high that hockey did. It’s probably not my healthiest coping mechanism but… it gave me the purpose I needed and it kind of just… works well with a neurodivergent brain too. I started making plans to launch my own events agency right after I got my degree.”

“VQ,” Ilya said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, VQ,” Shane echoed, looking sheepish, “I’m a little nostalgic, sue me. It’s short for vingt-quatre.”

Ilya, who had been in Canada both long enough to learn to passably count in French and to memorize the hockey profile of his teenage rival, sucked in a breath.

“And Toronto?” he asked.

Again, Shane shrugged. “I started accepting clients and doing online meetings from my parents’ house, for the first year at least. I booked so many events in Toronto though, it just made sense to look for physical office space there.” He looked off into the distance, at the winding trail ahead of them. “I was excited about life in the big city once, but like I told you on the terrace, I’ve felt a little trapped there ever since.”

For a moment, there was only the crunch of dirt and pebbles beneath their shoes, interspersed by the bright jingle of Anya’s leash ahead of them.

“I am still your favorite ghost in Ottawa though, yes?” Ilya joked, a stupid attempt at easing the tension. Talk of Shane’s job and resident city always seemed to stress him out more than it served as polite conversation.

“You’re my favorite ghost, anywhere,” Shane stated plainly. “Ten out of ten haunting.”

Ilya nodded sharply, trying to hide just how pleased he felt at being Shane Hollander’s favorite anything. “Good, because I am very available to haunt remotely.”

Shane’s answering smile made his heart swell even as it ached.

They rounded another corner with Anya leading the way, emerging from the trees to see a glistening pond full of ducks to their left and sprawling marshland to the right.

“We’ll keep in touch,” Shane said softly, stopping to watch the ducks dive beneath the water. “I won’t be far, only a few hours’ drive. And I come here often.”

“You make time for all your friends like this?”

Shane frowned. “Honestly, yeah. I don’t have many close ones. Hayden Pike — he plays for the Voyageurs, or played, I guess — I visit him and his wife and kids in Montreal like twice a year. Maybe I’ll go more often now that he’s retiring. And I have a few work acquaintances around the province, from school and networking and stuff. Plus, some former clients who like to keep in touch.”

“Ah, yes, your lunch date,” Ilya recalled.

“Yeah, Rose,” Shane said, with a fondness that made Ilya raise an eyebrow, but didn’t expound any further.

At that, they fell back into companionable silence for another half kilometer or so.

There was something still bugging Ilya though, and as usual, he was incapable of letting sleeping dogs lie.

“And you never wanted to… go back into hockey?” he ventured. 

At Shane’s sharp look, he quickly amended, “Like as coach or ATC or something? Maybe work for university or NHL office?”

“No,” Shane replied sharply. Then sighed, tone softening, “I mean, sure, I know it would’ve made sense. Plenty of guys who get injured or never called up still contribute to the sport in other ways.”

“But Ilya, you have to understand, I was really…” he paused, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth, “Angry, I guess is the simplest word. I was so, so angry those first few years. At myself, at the driver and all the players who left the accident uninjured… hell, even at December weather in Ottawa. But I was mad at hockey most of all. I didn’t want to talk about it or hear about it, much less consider any pathway that would bring me closer to the sport again.”

His lips quirked. “You know, after we started talking, I totally freaked my mom out when I said she could say your name out loud? There used to be a permanent ban on all mention of Ilya Rozanov in the Hollander household.”

“Wow, I really am your ghost,” Ilya said dryly, pleased when it made Shane laugh. 

Anya seemed to love the sound of that laugh just as much because she executed a perfectly timed zoomy spin. The pure joy of a happy dog made her two grown male handlers dissolve into giggles.

As their laughter faded, Ilya hesitated, then asked: “Do your parents know that we are…?”

“Friends?” Shane offered, filling in the blank. “No, I haven’t mentioned it. My parents are kind of… still really protective when it comes to hockey stuff. Which I get, I mean, they know how dark of a place I was in. But like, my mom was already worried about me just working with the Centaurs in general. They’d probably consider skate nights with Ilya Rozanov to be a genuine cry for help.”

Ilya acknowledged that with a little huff of amusement.

Shane’s gaze cut away then. “I know your parents are…”

“Dead?” Ilya said drolly, a little sorry for the way it made Shane wince. “It’s ok, Shane. Like you with hockey, I have had a long time to process. Got a therapist even.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to compare those two things,” Shane said haltingly.

Ilya shrugged. “Why not? Things die. People. Dreams. Plants I forget to water.”

Shane’s laugh was nearly a guffaw this time. “There is something very wrong with you,” he said, almost affectionately in jest, “I think that might’ve been the most Russian you’ve ever sounded.”

“Should I say it again in Russian, then?” Ilya teased, “I heard you like that.”

Shane scoffed. “We are not making that a thing.”

“Мне не нужны мечты, потому что у меня есть ты.” Ilya replied instead.

He watched as the tips of Shane’s ears immediately turned pink.

“I know you think I can’t tell when you’re being sweet,” Shane argued, still avoiding eye contact, “but that was definitely another compliment.”

Ilya blinked, surprised at how well Shane seemed to pick up on his tone in a foreign language. Or maybe he was just more transparent than he realized.

“You have a good ear,” he appraised, “I bet you would find Russian more easy to learn than most.”

“I mean, maybe, if I had the time to study another language,” Shane replied with a shrug. He looked over at Ilya, smirking, “I am already bilingual, you know that, right?”

Ilya felt his brain short circuit a little bit. “You are?”

“Oui, abruti,” Shane deadpanned, rolling his eyes. He muttered a longer sentence in rapid fire French that was definitely an insult.

Despite the fact that he was obviously being made fun of — or maybe not despite, exactly — Ilya immediately understood the effect his non-English phrases might have been having on Shane; he was suddenly feeling very, very warm.

“Anya, we are being bullied, I think,” he proclaimed dramatically, trying to distract from his own blush.

His dog didn’t even glance back, still trotting along happily over on Shane’s left side. She’d long abandoned any pretense of walking between them.

“She knows it’s not about her,” Shane said, looking smug, “Just her father, who can be a little bit of an idiot sometimes.”

Shane laughed delightedly as Ilya scowled, reaching over to give him a playful shove. At Shane’s yelp, Anya actually turned her head around in concern. Would the betrayals ever cease?

“I thought I was amazing,” Ilya parroted, in his best approximation of the Canadian’s flat affect, “and that she was lucky to have me.”

Shane just grinned. “You contain multitudes, Rozanov. Including a terrible impression of me, apparently.”

The two men walked in quiet contentment for a few more minutes, until the tree-lined street to the cottage appeared on the horizon. 

“We have almost done full circle,” Ilya noted.

He glanced over at Shane’s leg, his stride looking as healthy as it could be. “How is your pain? Lots of standing tonight.”

“I’m fine, mom,” Shane replied, rolling his eyes. 

Ilya sighed. It wasn’t complete vulnerability, but it was still a far cry from the way Shane had first reacted to him expressing his concern.

He had already decided not to push, so was surprised when Shane shook his head and added, “Sorry, habit. My leg feels fine. Really strong today actually. Sometimes a long walk is a good way to warm everything up.”

“Oh. Good.” Ilya replied haltingly, trying to hide how thrilled he was just to hear Shane tell the truth.

They were nearly at his driveway now, Anya picking up the pace a bit in her doggish excitement at seeing Home.

In the last block, Shane wordlessly passed the leash into Ilya’s hand, their fingers briefly intertwining through the loop of fabric.

“Thank you for this,” Shane said, as they ended their walk in front of the Hollander Subaru. “You’re getting way too good at knowing what I need.”

“Someone has to,” Ilya huffed, but found that he really meant it. That selfishly, he wanted to be the someone who knew Shane Hollander best of all. 

What a ridiculous, improbable notion.

Shane quirked a half-smile at the retort, oblivious to Ilya’s inner turmoil with the way he was focused on giving Anya her farewell scritches. 

“Bye, Anya,” the man cooed sweetly, glancing up to meet Ilya’s eyes once more, “Bye, Anya’s dad.”

“Anya’s amazing dad,” Ilya corrected.

Shane snorted, then said with finality, “Goodbye, Rozanov.”

“See you tonight, Hollander,” Ilya replied roughly, unsure if the smile he flashed ended up as more of a grimace instead. “Have a good lunch.”

- 🏒-

Minutes later, after the blue Forester drove down his street and out of sight, Ilya Rozanov remained frozen in his driveway, heart pounding with a realization he could not afford to have right then. Or ever. 

The thickly sewn edge of Anya’s leash had to be leaving a stark imprint in his palm with how tightly he was clinging to it. Like a literal lifeline, keeping him tethered to the moment.

A moment in which he didn’t feel like a big bad NHL star.

Just a guy and his dog.

A guy who seemed destined to love only the things that wouldn’t last. The things that he would break and leave him broken in return.

A little bit of an idiot, indeed.

Chapter 9

“And the way he was all ‘what if you showed just a little more cleavage?’ like it’s not a hand modeling gig,” Rose was ranting, espresso martini gripped in one manicured hand, “Absolute pig.”

“God, yeah, eww,” Shane replied, taking a swig of his ginger ale as if chasing a shot with it. Rose’s stories from her latest foray into commercial modeling were certainly making him feel like he needed one. “You were definitely right to get out of there. And also you should, like, report him to someone, probably.”

Rose Landry — former agency client, vaguely ex-girlfriend, and lowkey New York nepo baby who was always on a bizarre side-quest — flashed him a smile from her side of the booth in the downtown restaurant they’d selected for reunion brunch purposes. 

“But enough about me,” she said, waving a flippant hand. She placed her martini glass back on the coaster and leaned forward, arms folded on the table between them, assuming what he knew to be her prime gossiping position. “Tell me how you’ve been.”

“And don’t say fine!” she cut in, right as he’d been about to say just that. “I need real details, Hollander. Spill.”

“Well,” Shane began, still planning to omit a pretty big fucking detail; one he’d seen that same morning, in fact. “We’ve got the Centaurs gala tonight. Thank you for coming by the way. And I’ve been back here in Ottawa quite a bit while coordinating that. Basically temporarily based here right now.”

“That’s probably been tough, right?” Rose asked, big earnest blue eyes trained on him as she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “With the bad memories and all?”

(God, she really was so pretty and nice. Shane sometimes still found himself in a comphet spiral when they hung out, wishing he could turn that appreciation into something more.)

“It was hard at first,” he agreed, nodding, “but um, some of the guys with the Centaurs I’ve worked with ended up being really great so…”

“So…?” Rose prompted, nearly cooing, “You made new friends?”

Shane felt his cheeks flush. “Stop it. You make it sound so… grade school, when you say it like that.”

“Hey now,” she placated, palms in the air, “It’s not every day a girl gets to see her painfully endearing, awkward, introverted gay ex-boyfriend spread his wings and leave the nest.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I feel like you could’ve used fewer adjectives in there.”

“What, like gay?” Rose said, widening her eyes innocently and making him snort. “I’ve got bad news for you, babe.”

Shane kind of hated how funny he found her.

“I’ve, um, I’ve also been skating a lot,” he added quietly, “It’s started to feel fun again.”

Rose looked appropriately astounded by this news. She really was a great friend to celebrate your wins with. 

“Making friends and resurrecting old hobbies? Shane Hollander, who are you?”

He ducked his head, suddenly bashful. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Mr. Snail, crawl right back out of that shell, buddy,” she urged, radiating genuine enthusiasm, “This is a huge deal! I’m really happy for you.”

She paused, eyes narrowing. “And I presume you started skating regularly again because of the Centaurs?” At his nod, she continued, “And they’ve been cool about it, right? Do any of them know about your history?”

Shane hesitated. Rose was a pretty well-versed Detroit Blackbirds fan and could probably sniff out a hockey rat if he misstepped here. 

“No, yeah, they’ve been great, actually. Harris Drover — you’ll meet him tonight, he’s the comms director and engaged to one of the forwards, Troy Barrett — uh, he’s the one who arranged for me to have rink access at the Censplex. Because of him, I’ve been able to do private sessions, so that I don’t get too overwhelmed.”

Private in the sense that Ilya Rozanov is also there with me but…

Rose nodded. “Right, amazing. But they don’t really know what it means for you to be on the ice again?”

“Well, uh, one of them knows,” Shane admitted, “We played together in Juniors so.”

He realized his mistake too late as he watched the gears turn behind Rose’s eyes. “Rozanov,” she said, with the same air of disgust that most hockey fans did, “That rat bastard.”

The oddly appropriate insult for a man who was now saved as ‘Ilya 🏒🐀’ in his contacts made Shane nearly choke on his sip of ginger ale.

Rose barreled on. “He hasn’t been bothering you, has he? Does he know I can fight?”

Shane quirked a smile at her protectiveness. Mortifyingly, he’d spent one of their handful of couple’s date nights recounting nearly the entirety of his tragic personal hockey lore to her after several ill-advised glasses of red wine.

(It was also on this same night that she’d asked if he had ever tried sleeping with men too— a question which had led to a whole new teary tirade as he ranted about boys with big dicks but zero interest in loving him back.)

That had been their last and final couple’s date night, actually.

“Easy there, Landry,” he pacified her, adding, “Rozanov has been… fine. Sort of nice, actually. His charity is one of the beneficiaries tonight, so we’ve had to, you know, move past the old rivalry and work together a bit.”

Something in Rose’s eyes shifted shrewdly at his answer, but the look had disappeared before Shane could place it. 

“So anyway, this gala,” she continued, “Who’s going to be there tonight? And how much do I need to look like I’m head over heels for you?”

“For the last time, Rose,” Shane whined, fighting a laugh, “this is not a beard assignment. I’m just… nervous. And it’s nice that you were going to be in town anyway.”

“So I’m convenient?” At Shane’s groan, she softened, “Okay, okay, I’m done, I promise. But I am actually curious about the vibes.”

“We’re expecting about a hundred and fifty attendees total,” he outlined, switching into planner briefing mode, “The Centaurs players and a handful of franchise executives along with their plus ones make up like a third of that. Then there are a few representatives from each of the three charitable beneficiaries. And the bulk of the guest list is wealthy donors from around the province and a couple Americans, though it’s mostly Ottawa-based tech guys to be honest.” 

At Rose’s curious look, he explained, “They pay a pretty penny to reserve a table at the gala, usually to impress their colleagues or dates by rubbing elbows with NHL players. Some of them are big Cens fans too though, a lot of season ticket holders. With any luck, after the open bar, they’ll then spend even more coin bidding on the memorabilia we have up for auction. Vibes will probably be an even split between pretentious, boring, and messy.”

“Fun,” Rose said, sounding like she actually meant it.

Grinning, she pulled out her phone and turned the screen to face him. “Now let me show you what I’m wearing.”

- 🏒-

Ilya adjusted his bowtie in the mirror, eyebrows furrowing at the way something still seemed off.

“Do the dark purple one, my love,” Svetlana suggested, Russian syllables floating through his phone speaker and into the quiet of his en-suite bathroom.

He glanced at the FaceTime window where his childhood friend looked effortlessly radiant as usual. The plum-colored dress she wore was a sensual contrast to her brown skin, the neckline plunging to just above the line of what was appropriate for the ‘Creative Black Tie’ dress code. Her hair was styled naturally, though she’d recently lightened it to a rich honey blonde, just a few shades off from his own. With her darkly lined eyes and lips painted a tantalizing burgundy hue, she looked the perfect part of a vampire seductress. Given her habits, it wasn’t far off from the truth.

“You just want us to match,” Ilya complained, though he could unfortunately see the vision as he lifted the purple bowtie up to his collar.

“It would be nice for pictures,” she said, putting on a little pout, “You know Papa will want us to take some.”

Ilya rolled his eyes, though he was always secretly pleased by the chance to banter in his native tongue. “He still thinks we might get married, Sveta. You shouldn’t encourage him.”

“He knows my first and only love is hockey,” she replied easily, “That’s why he bought me a PWHL franchise to manage. And if my second love is sexy women who are a little bit mean to me, then that’s none of his business right now.”

Ilya said a brief prayer for the women in attendance tonight. A bicurious wife with an indulgent husband was like blood in the water to a Svetlana Vetrova on the hunt.

“And he knows what he’s doing, right? Giving you a blank check?”

“Silly Ilyusha,” she teased, “I’m writing two checks tonight. One from his business account and one from mine. I can still hook you up with that accountant if you want to know how tax write-offs actually work.”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Rich people, you’re all the same.”

She laughed, then pursed her lips, considering. “And you’re an unfortunately modest millionaire with a real charity and not a thinly-veiled cover for your white collar crimes. How boring.”

“We’re Russian, Sveta,” he cautioned in jest, “You can’t keep joking about money laundering on an unsecured line.”

Ilya turned away from the screen as she laughed, frowning at his reflection again and adjusting the dark purple bowtie until it was perfectly centered.

The laughter had stopped.

“You’re nervous,” Svetlana observed, cocking her head, “Why?”

He waved her concern away. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it because wearing the C still feels new?” she ventured a guess, “You brought them to playoffs, Ilya. They respect you.”

“I know that,” he said, a little snappier than he’d intended. He sighed. “Forgive me. I am nervous, you’re right.” 

Chewing on his lip, he decided to inject a little bit of truth: “But it’s more about the other people in attendance than the Centaurs.”

One other person, really.

“I will handle the boring rich men,” Svetlana assured, picking up exactly the thread he’d hoped she would. “I’m very good at nodding while looking beautiful and interested.”

“The best,” Ilya agreed, easily, “I’ll raise the signal if I need you.”

He glanced at the clock, realizing he ought to get going relatively soon— the purple bow tie would have to do then. He actually planned to arrive slightly before their call time, a rarity for him, and not at all because it might impress a certain Japanese Canadian event planner.

“I’ll be fashionably late like a good Slavic girl, I hope you know,” Svetlana said, as if reading his mind. “You can text me if you need to look busy. But remember, I am single and you are not my date.”

“I couldn’t dream of it,” Ilya smiled at her. He hoped it looked reassured and not just mildly nauseated, as his anxiety bled through. “See you soon.”

- 🏒-

Six o’clock and the Reid Yacht Club was thrumming with a steady pulse of productivity in anticipation of that evening’s event.

“Everything came out great,” Devi was saying, leading Shane around the first floor of the venue. “No delivery issues or anything. Vendors all on time too. Honestly, my support staff might build a shrine to you in the kitchens. You’re either a miracle worker, Shane Hollander, or secretly blackmailing every service provider in Ontario.”

Shane grinned. “No blackmail. Just a really exclusive list of people I trust to get it right.” He gestured toward her. “Which now includes you, by the way.”

Devi ducked her head at the compliment. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Shane. Let me make sure we all get through the evening first.”

“I’ll be right here with you,” he said, saluting.

“Great,” Devi replied dryly, raising an eyebrow, “Though it would make me feel better if you had your tux on.”

Shane sniffed. “I was getting to that. Just wanted to make sure all was well with you first.”

“I’m fine,” the venue coordinator reassured him impatiently. Her powerful pantsuit said as much. “Go upstairs and get pretty. The guests will start arriving before you know it.”

He nodded, heading toward the stairwell that led to the second floor.

“Oh, and Shane?” Devi called, “There’s a little present for you outside the men’s dressing room.”

“I really hope you didn’t feel the need to get me something,” he said, turning back to face her.

The venue coordinator only leveled him with a knowing smile. “I didn’t.”

- 🏒-

Shane: You really got me a jersey?

Ilya 🏒🐀: a bet is a bet, hollander

Ilya 🏒🐀: and do not even think about sneaking it back into auction. that is not replica. it’s one of mine

Shane: I would never. 🤔💰

Ilya 🏒🐀: mmhmm

Ilya 🏒🐀: be there soon

- 🏒-

When Ilya Rozanov entered through the front doors of the Reid just like he had all those months ago, he was shocked by the transformation.

The reception area held an impressive array of Centaurs’ and other NHL memorabilia, displayed under crystal clear glass. Informational placards alongside historic photos created a rich collage of franchise history. In front of each item, sat fancy lined cardstock and gilded fountain pens, instructing bidders on the silent auction rules.

Lining the edges of the space were tables piled high with platters of fruits and meats and cheeses, as well as rows and rows of pre-poured glasses of bubbly. Smartly dressed waiters floated around, offering an array of colorful canapés and even more cocktails.

Just beyond the foyer he could see the open doors to the main ballroom where twenty or so round tables were set up for dinner, draped in grey and lavender fabrics. Candles in shades of blush and sage flickered throughout the space. And the flowers…

Okay, Shane might have been right about the flowers.

Seemingly every inch of the yacht club had been covered in florals or greenery of some kind, arranged in sweeping centerpieces or cascading down from the rafters. It was hard to even tell you were completely inside and not in some terraced garden or the courtyard of a fairytale palace.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” a voice said next to him, slightly muffled by chewing.

He turned to see a beautiful petite brunette in a shiny lavender gown, almost iridescent in the way the fabric seemed to refract the light. She had somehow acquired an entire plate of appetizers and was going to town on the prosciutto. Ilya could respect the hustle.

“It is… breathtaking,” he agreed, pleased when the more complex English adjective came to him without too much thought.

“You’re Ilya Rozanov, right?” the woman asked, something in her tone that he couldn’t quite place.

He nodded once and she stuck her non-prosciutto hand out for him to shake. “I’m Rose Landry. Former businesswoman, current model. Might do something new soon though.”

She was sort of startlingly confident, though not in an egoistic way. Just someone with that bold knowledge of exactly who they were. And she really was very pretty.

“Are you… with one of my players?” he asked. He didn’t recognize her from the wives he’d met, but a few of the guys had girlfriends or… short term acquaintances that hadn’t made it out to a game or team event before.

Rose smiled. “Oh, no. Unless you’d like to introduce me?” She winked, explaining, “I’m Shane’s date. Isn’t it incredible how he planned this whole thing?”

Ilya felt his mouth fall slightly ajar as all the blood rushed to his head in shock, making him almost stumble with the sudden vertigo.

Shane’s date, Shane’s date, Shane’s— 

For god's sake, get it together, Ilya.

He cleared his throat, suddenly nauseous. She’d asked a question, hadn’t she? He chanced a reply: “Um, yes.”

Rose was looking at him, really looking; the same pleasant on the surface but secretly deeply calculating expression that Svetlana often wore. Within that brief pause, she’d managed to effortlessly snag a passing waiter, exchanging her now empty appetizer plate for two glasses of champagne. She handed the second one to Ilya, insistent.

“Shane said you were being cool about his skating, but I’m serious, don’t pick on him. It’s a big deal that he’s out on the ice again.”

I know that, better than most, Ilya wanted to snap, but something about her leading comment felt like a trap. Reminiscent of his Sveta, indeed.

“Shane and I have a professional relationship,” he said evenly, taking a steady sip of his champagne, “We are not still… rivals, like that.”

He purposefully left out pretty much every other detail, not knowing just how much Shane might have told his… date… about his new friendship with Ilya. If she was as protective as his parents were, Shane probably hadn’t mentioned anything at all.

“Good,” Rose said primly, “because I can fight, you know.”

Ah, there was the protectiveness, then.

Ilya politely chose not to mention that he had at least a hundred pounds on her and that he was sort of notoriously good at knocking grown men on their asses. Something about the intensity of her stare told him she’d find a way.

“Rose, are you accosting my guests already?” another voice said, floating toward them.

Shane Hollander stepped into the light, a clipboard in hand and a tiny headset mic curled over his right ear. Ilya took one look at him and felt his mouth go dry. Shane in a tailored tuxedo… with his perfectly styled waves… Oh, this was bad. Really bad.

He watched Rose glance meaningfully between the two of them.

“Oh hi, uh, Rozanov,” Shane greeted, looking a little apologetic about the formality. As if he hadn’t just been walking Ilya’s dog that morning. 

Shifting clearly into full event planner mode, he stuck out his hand. “Really appreciate you coming. Big night for your charity, we hope.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow, but he completed the handshake anyhow. It was a big night, for Shane most of all, so he had committed to being on his best behavior. He would follow his lead.

“Anyway, I’ve… um, got to start herding the guests toward the ballroom for dinner,” Shane said to both of them, then tilted his lips toward his headset, “Yes, Devi, all set to wrap on the cocktail service.”

Ilya bit his lip, watching Shane hurry away. He’d known the planner would be occupied most of the night obviously, he just hadn’t realized how much it would sting to be known as the business acquaintance of a man he was… well, sort of, probably infatuated with. Here, tonight, they weren’t even friends.

He glanced around, noting that most of the guests were indeed making their way into the main ballroom for the dinner. Following the flow of the crowd, he found his name placard at one of the tables upfront, listing him as both an Ottawa Centaur and as the Executive Director of Anya’s Humane Rescue Alliance.

Ilya said a polite hello to the very disinterested elderly woman in Chanel to his right, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Brandon Wiebe slid into the other empty seat.

“No date tonight, Roz?” Wiebe asked. It was a perfectly friendly question but Ilya had to fight to suppress a wince.

“My wife couldn’t make it either,” his coach continued, looking genuinely gutted at the fact, “The curse of being a super important ER nurse while your husband just yells at boys on ice all day.”

“You don’t yell that much,” Ilya remarked, thinking of the many hockey coaches he’d had over two decades of competitive play, “Comparatively.”

“I guess it’s not often I need to,” Wiebe acquiesced, quirking a smile, “Since we decided to start winning occasionally.”

Ilya nodded back. “You are doing a good job. For a new coach. I cannot imagine it is that easy to transition from being active player.”

Prior to signing with Ottawa, Wiebe had played eleven seasons in the NHL, mostly in Detroit, before retiring unceremoniously right around the time Ilya had been drafted. Ilya had read his stats sheet, and while the forward certainly hadn’t broken any scoring records, he’d been a steady second line presence for the Blackbirds, with an impressive number of career assists.

“Well, I had about a decade off to think about coaching anything seriously,” Wiebe was saying, “But it still wasn’t easy, that’s for sure.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not thinking about retiring on me, are you, Rozanov? Because I’m kind of counting on you to be Ottawa’s Ovechkin. No pressure.”

Ilya was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be up to taking checks from an ice full of monstrous nineteen year olds at nearly forty, but he still shook his head at Wiebe's question. “No, no, I definitely have more hockey in me.”

“Great,” Wiebe said, clapping him on the back, “because you’ve got five years left on your contract anyway and I’d hate to get the lawyers involved.”

Ilya chuckled, though quickly found his eyes drawn to where Shane was now up onstage, speaking with two of the venue’s AV techs. The overhead lights were causing a sort of halo effect on his dark, glossy hair. He was mesmerizing.

“I remember him, you know,” Wiebe said offhandedly. 

Ilya whipped around to look at him. “What?”

“Shane Hollander,” his coach clarified, shrugging, “The whole league was buzzing about you two back then. Detroit spent our whole losing season frantically trying to engineer a top three draft pick.” 

Taking a long swig of his white wine, Wiebe continued, “Real shame what happened. Though it’s good to see he found something to channel his energy into instead.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed, slowly, sensing the conversation was still headed into uncharted territory.

His coach met his eyes dead on. “I’m glad you two were able to move past that whole rivalry thing.”

At Ilya’s startled expression, he added cheekily, “A lot of glass offices on the Censplex top floor with a view of the rinks, you know?”

Ilya simply continued to gape at him, shocked into silence. 

Wiebe laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “Relax, Roz. I just happened to be in late one evening. No one else on the team knows about your wholesome skate dates.”

“But listen,” he barreled on, “You let Hollander know that there’s a spot for him in Ottawa if he ever wants it. I know he’s stayed away from the sport, but he spent about fifteen uninterrupted minutes of the cocktail hour today telling me how to rebuild our lines and I unfortunately might agree with him. I could use that kind of hockey IQ in my coaching staff.”

For a brief moment, Ilya let himself indulge in the fantasy. Both of them in Ottawa, Shane at the bench drawing up plays and Ilya on the ice executing them, scoring for the Centaurs together. And after games, they’d go home and—

“I don’t know if he wants to work in hockey again,” Ilya said, swallowing down the bitter feeling. He gestured at where Shane continued to buzz around the ballroom. “He really does like this, I think.”

“I don’t know, Roz,” Wiebe replied, leaning back as a waiter came by to place the first course dinner plates on their table. “He seemed pretty damn happy at that rink with you. But tell him to think about it at least. Open invitation. Between you and me, the head honchos have been a little more generous with this season’s budget. I’m sure Harris could find a use for him on that side of the house if I can’t.”

Ilya nodded, his next reply being cut off by the lights dimming and the host for the evening — a local meteorologist who also served on the board of one of the invited charities — speaking into the standing mic.

“We are gathered here to celebrate quite a few notable things,” she began, her green sequined gown sparkling in the spotlight, “This beautiful summer evening, our incredible charitable honorees, and of course…” she winked right on cue, “that drought-ending Ottawa Centaurs’ playoff run.”

The room filled with applause and a few hoots from the hockey players in attendance. The host smiled winningly.

What followed then was a five course dinner and an interminable number of speeches, one of which Ilya had politely neglected to give when Shane had proposed the idea a few weeks ago. Post-game pressers were all the public speaking his English could withstand under pressure, thanks very much.

Around course three, Ilya had managed to meet Svetlana’s eyes from where she was sitting at Table 8. She had artfully mimed impaling herself with her fork, making Ilya nearly snort out his bite. He would have regretted that; the food was delicious, at least.

Later, as the servers came around to whisk away their dessert plates, the venue coordinator — Devi, Ilya recalled — announced that guests were free to mingle in the first floor ballroom or reception areas or to make their way up to the rooftop where the dance floor was now open. 

“Oh, and,” she added over the mic, “the silent auction will be accepting bids until ten thirty.”

In desperate need of a break, Ilya excused himself from the table and went in search of the restrooms. He tried his best to be gracious to the number of hungry-eyed Ottawan investors he shrugged off in his ballroom escape attempt; they would find him again later, he was sure. Or have their assistant email his assistant, or whatever.

Around the next corner was a one-room gender neutral toilet, blessedly unoccupied, and he quickly tugged open the door. Right as he went to pull it shut behind him, a strappy stiletto heel positioned itself in front of the doorframe.

“In use,” he said gruffly.

“Yes, by both of us,” Svetlana agreed, slipping into the room and locking the door.

She stood in front of him, arms crossed over her chest. “Ilya,” she said, English syllables dripping with Bostonian disapproval, “What is Shane Hollander doing here?”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes, and replied in careful Russian. “Running the event he planned, I imagine.”

“And does he know you’re in love with him?”

Ilya turned to look at her then. “Sveta,” he hissed, “I’m not—”

The look she leveled him with was almost cruel in its disbelief. “You’ve been watching him all night.”

“That doesn’t mean I—”

“Well if you don’t already, you will,” Svetlana cut in. She shook her head, muttering in clipped Russian, “Looking at him like that. Obvious.” 

He felt the intensity of her gaze return to him, but found he couldn’t meet her eyes. “How long has he been here?”

“Months.”

“And how long have you been talking to him? Maybe spending time together?”

He hesitated. “… months.”

Svetlana looked almost afraid for him. “Ilyusha, losing him once nearly destroyed you. And you were just a boy with a silly little obsession.” She searched his face. “Is he going to stay this time?”

Ilya felt his heart start to blacken beneath his fragile ribs. 

“No,” he said, voice breaking, “he’s not.”

Svetlana crowded in close and reached a hand up to tenderly cup his jawline. “My big-hearted sunshine,” she cooed softly, patting his cheek, “You have such… complicated taste in men.”

It startled a laugh out of him, though it was more of a wet choke given his barely repressed tears. He took a step back, bending to perch pitifully on top of the closed toilet seat. 

“He doesn’t know I like him, Sveta, not like that at least,” Ilya admitted, shrugging his shoulders, “We only just became friends. But he’ll be leaving to go back home to Toronto after this. He doesn’t… like what Ottawa reminds him of. I don’t blame him.”

“Only Toronto?” she said, raising an eyebrow, “That’s not exactly the moon.”

Ilya frowned. “He also brought a date tonight. A woman.”

Svetlana rolled her eyes. “You of all people should know that doesn’t mean he’s straight. And you said he told you once, in the hospital, that he wanted to kiss you.”

She was still the only person Ilya had ever spoken to about that morning in the ICU. He had been eighteen and terrified out of his mind by the enormity of it all, but he still felt guilty for sharing a secret that wasn’t entirely his own. Even if Svetlana — or rather, her extremely well-connected father — had arranged the meeting for him in the first place.

“He wasn’t in his right mind,” Ilya argued, a little petulantly, “Plus, plenty of people want to kiss me. You did.”

Svetlana scoffed. “Yes, and now I’m a raging lesbian. Sexuality is a spectrum, Ilya. Why don’t you just talk to him? You are friends, right?”

He frowned. “I don’t really think he’s straight, okay. I might… have a feeling. But he hasn’t told me, so who knows if he’s out or not? Or if he’s even come to terms with it?” He sighed, considering, “Maybe after tonight, we could… find time. To talk. It’s just that this gala is a big deal for him. I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“Too late for that,” Svetlana said teasingly, “He’s had his eyes on you all night too. It’s obvious he cares for you a lot, maybe even in the same way.”

Ilya shook his head. His nerves were already so frayed from this conversation and this endless night of socializing that he couldn’t allow himself to even consider the possibility that Shane might have… feelings. For him, of all people.

“I don’t know that I can ever ask him that.”

Svetlana leaned up on her toes again to press a light kiss to his cheek. “Don’t be a coward forever, Ilyusha. You are brave. And I don’t like to see you so sad.”

Ilya wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.

He tried to internalize her words, to tell himself that yes, he would be brave. He would tell Shane everything.

Eventually.

Chapter 10

Shane was just pulling off his headset, the final coordination piece of the night concluded, when the door next to him swung open.

Out of the single stall bathroom tumbled a ridiculously gorgeous woman with brown skin and brilliantly contrasting blonde hair. Shane recognized her from the guest list as the General Manager of Boston’s new PWHL team. She was followed unexpectedly by… 

Oh.

“It is so unbelievably not what it looks like,” the woman drawled. She seemed to spot someone in the crowd, winking at Shane before slinking away with a hungry look in her eyes.

“What she said,” Ilya affirmed, a lazy smirk on his face. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants, the perfect picture of nonchalance.

“I’m trying to run a classy event here, Rozanov,” Shane said. He’d meant it half-jokingly but his raw irritation had slipped through; it came out sounding judgmental and a little mean instead.

A brief flicker of hurt appeared on Ilya’s face before he was scowling. “Is that what you think of me?”

“It’s been your reputation for a decade,” Shane snapped back. Oh god, the jealousy in his veins was turning him into a monster. “What else am I supposed to believe?”

“You know me, Shane,” Ilya hissed, running a hand through his curls, “or I thought you did. You know that I wanted this night to go well for you. That I have always taken this seriously. Whatever you think you just saw would not change that.”

“It is going well for me!” Shane all but snarled, switching abruptly to a pleasant smile and wave as a group of guests strolled curiously past.

“Good for you then,” Ilya spat, already stalking away. He flung an irritated hand back in Shane’s direction. “Enjoy your date.”

Shane watched him leave, already regretting every second of that conversation. Why should he care if his friend Ilya Rozanov was fucking women in bathrooms at his party? He’d probably been doing that the whole time they’d been hanging out together. Maybe even other genders too, though Shane had never once come close to working up the courage to ask the NHL player about his sexual preferences.

Probably because there was an even worse implication buried in all of that: If Ilya Rozanov likes men, it means he just doesn’t like you.

Shane rolled his shoulders back, repeating a little mantra to himself that he’d been saying all morning. For weeks now, if he was honest.

He is not yours. You cannot stay.

Sighing, he found the nearest staircase and made his way up to the far corner of the rooftop, hoping the crisp summer air of the terrace would cleanse the rot from his lungs. He felt mean and jealous and horrible. He had been. But the fire that had burned in his veins at the idea of that beautiful woman putting her hands, her mouth, all the places he wanted his to go…

“Uh oh, what’s wrong?” a voice asked.

He turned to see his venue coordinator standing almost angelically under the terrace lights. Devi really had been his savior throughout this. Bless her.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbled, “It’s perfect. Just like I planned.”

“Then stop looking all spooky Batman over here in the corner,” Devi replied, “We did it, Shane. You did it. Seriously, go have a little fun before this thing is over.”

“I heard fun and here I am!” another voice chimed in. 

Shane groaned.

Rose appeared before him, a big tipsy grin on her face. “Shane, you were so right, the dinner part was a god awful snooze fest.” She glanced over at Devi. “Ah, no offense.”

Devi just laughed and waved her off, mouthing a silent ‘I get it.’

“But now we get to daaaance!” Rose enthused, putting about five extra vowels in the word. “Come dance with me, Shane Hollander. You have to!”

He glanced at Devi, who merely shrugged. “Sounds like you have to.”

Shane’s face must’ve shown his uneasy agreement because Rose was cheering happily, grabbing his hand and pulling him out onto the dance floor.

It really was a beautiful party, the cloudless night allowing for an uninterrupted view of the water. The string lights, swapped for a softer dreamier bulb, were twinkling like distant stars all around them. And the DJ they’d hired was spinning a series of inoffensive indie pop hits from under a gazebo draped in garlands of boxwood and eucalyptus and lavender, the braided swirls hanging nearly down to the floor.

‘I don’t know you at all, but I hold you like I do,’ a woman’s voice sang over a bright mix of guitars and drums.

Shane ignored the lyrics in favor of bopping his head to the beat, his hands hovering school dance style around Rose’s waist, with a respectable amount of room between them.

“How’s your leg?” Rose asked, glancing down at his slightly stiffer steps.

Shane bristled, prepared to deflect her concern. With Ilya’s voice in his head, he sighed instead, taking one deep centering breath; he’d had some good practice being less defensive about his injury as of late. 

“Knee is a bit sore,” he admitted, “but nothing unmanageable. I went on a long walk this morning with Il— um, a friend and their dog. So, I’m probably more fatigued than usual.”

Rose executed a cute little spin. “It’s almost eleven at least. You’re free once we all clear out, right?” 

Shane nodded, knowing most of the immediate clean up would fall to Devi’s staff. “More or less, though I might duck away here in a sec to pack up some of the items we’re shipping back. Otherwise I’ll have to do it before my flight out. Are you going to be okay getting back late to your hotel from here?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Yes, dad. You worry too much and work too hard. Promise me two more songs, at least.”

And even though Shane felt like an insane, swirling ball of overstimulated emotion and maybe a little heartbreak besides, the glittering brilliance of the night was hard to ignore. He’d planned it like that after all.

“Sure, Rose,” Shane agreed easily, “Two more songs.”

- 🏒-

Ilya needed a fucking cigarette.

The big metal ‘no smoking’ sign affixed to one of the terrace’s wooden pillars was mocking him, surely. 

Still, he’d meant it when he said he cared about this event going well for Shane — even if his supposed friend had basically called him an inconsiderate slut earlier — and so he let the packet of cigs in his suit pocket languish. 

Maybe he could sneak one at the very end of the night. There was barely a half hour left anyway.

Across the rooftop he watched as Shane and his date — Rose, Ilya remembered, piecing together her earlier introduction with Shane’s lunch plans — were dancing together, albeit with generous space between them and in a way that was decidedly more silly than sensual.

Ilya stewed anyway. 

He wanted to dance with his friend. His friend who was leaving him tomorrow. Who only wanted to see him twice a year like he did that stupid Montreal Voyageur. 

His friend who he had become horribly infatuated with; for the second time in their lives, if he was honest.

‘I don’t know you at all, but I’ll pretend to. To keep you,’ a woman’s voice on the speakers was singing inanely.

He watched Shane idly mouth along with the lyrics, his lips forming an echoing ‘to keep you’ just as those shiny dark eyes met Ilya’s own across the dance floor.

The world came to a shuddering, sparkling halt.

Ilya hadn’t realized he’d even left the terrace edge, that he’d been slowly drifting closer.

Shane still hadn’t broken eye contact, maybe as transfixed by the energy flowing between them as Ilya was, though his hands were still gripping Rose’s waist, his arms and legs moving awkwardly to the beat. Ilya could tell his leg was starting to bother him.

Don’t be a coward forever, Ilyusha.

He shook his head, agitated, clearing Sveta’s voice away. It was then that Rose’s hand crept up Shane’s chest, settling around the back of his neck. She rocked up on her toes, leaning in closer like she might whisper or—

Fuck this.

Ilya crossed the dance floor in several long strides, watching Shane’s eyes widen as he noticed his approach. He was sure the intensity in his gaze was giving everything away.

As he reached the pair, he tapped Rose’s shoulder, gritting out a barely polite request. “Mind if I cut in?”

He braced for her dismissal, but she only patted Shane on the cheek with a bemused smile and slid aside. Unexpectedly, she spun to poke Ilya in the chest with one sharp silver nail, expression turned threatening. “Be good to him, Rozanov.” 

Ilya could only watch in confusion as Rose twirled easily into a circle of Ottawa players, that gorgeous lilac dress glinting in the lights like a disco ball.

Shaking his head, he gathered a shell-shocked Shane into his arms just as the music transitioned to something slower and sweeter, clutching at the man’s tuxedo jacket in a way he hoped wasn’t physically translating the desperation behind it. 

“What are you doing?” Shane hissed. His hands had come up to grasp Ilya’s biceps, not quite agreeing to be held, but not quite fighting it either. 

“Dancing with you,” Ilya said, summoning up every bit of his remaining nonchalance.

“We’re fighting, aren’t we?” Shane replied, though he seemed unsure.

Ilya shrugged, pulling him a bit closer. “I don’t want to fight. We should stop.”

“Okay,” Shane acquiesced, searching his face. “I’m sorry for what I said. I was…”

“Jealous?” Ilya prompted boldly. Surprised by Shane’s strained nod, he added, “Me too.”

“And I am also sorry,” Ilya continued softly, knowing how transparently fond he must sound. “I was being a baby. I did not know hiding who we are to each other would bother me. The way I wanted everyone to know Shane Hollander is my friend, not my… business associate. So I could tell them just how proud of you I am.”

He watched Shane duck forward bashfully, a forehead pressing against his shoulder. 

“People are watching,” Shane muttered.

Ilya, emboldened by the magic of a beautiful evening with a beautiful boy, slid a hand around Shane’s waist and arranged them into a proper slow dance position. He leaned in and whispered into the pretty curls at Shane’s ear: “Let them.”

Shane seemed to shudder against him at the words. They swayed stiffly together for a moment more before, finally, blessedly, he felt Shane let out a pleased little sound and melt into his arms.

Rose Landry, whoever she was, could have him back after this. Just one dance, Ilya promised himself. One dance and then I’ll let him go.

- 🏒-

“Well, hey, you two,” Harris Drover said, appearing in Shane’s periphery with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Shane was not proud of the way he jumped back from Ilya like he’d been stung. It was sobering to realize just how completely, blissfully adrift he’d been in those arms. And for how long?

The DJ had started winding down the party in the minutes after Ilya had stormed over with a sexy sort of determination and requested a dance (Rose was never going to let Shane hear the end of it, he was sure), and the two or three more slow songs that followed had felt like a very good excuse to let the hockey player keep holding him.

Said hockey player was now standing at Shane’s side, looking a little bit like he wanted the concrete of the terrace to swallow him whole. A completely relatable feeling.

“Uh, hey,” Shane said, lightly elbowing Ilya to continue when further words failed him.

“Harris,” Ilya acknowledged, then tilted his head at the handsome man attached to Harris by the hand, “Barrett.”

“Hey, Roz,” Centaurs’ winger Troy Barrett greeted, looking decidedly amused. “Enjoying the party?”

“I was,” Ilya all but grumbled, making Shane snort.

“Shane,” Harris said cheerfully, “This is the wonderful fiancé I’ve been talking your ear off about. Troy, this is Shane. He made all of this happen, as you know.”

“You have my eternal gratitude for taking this event off Harris’ plate, even if they did pay you to do it,” Troy said, flashing a charming smile. He cut a glance over to Ilya. “And it seems you have my captain’s gratitude as well.”

“Anyway,” Harris jumped in, their communication sort of irritatingly seamless in the way that in-sync couples could be, “we just wanted to catch you both before the gala officially ends.” 

He glanced between them, suddenly looking a little nervous. “I’m, well… I’m not sure if you two have plans together after this already?”

“Plans?” Shane repeated, just as Ilya said, “Together?”

“Yeah,” Harris said slowly, “It’s ok if you do. I just… I put together a little surprise to thank you for everything. If you happen to be free. I know it’s late though.”

Ilya shifted next to him. “Shane is here with—”

“We’re free!” Shane blurted, ignoring the incredulous look he could see Ilya leveling him with in his periphery.

Harris nodded and held out a hand toward the Centaurs captain; a small silver key on a green and purple zamboni keychain was pinched between his fingers.

“You know all the door codes, obviously,” Harris explained, as Ilya took the key from him with wide eyes. “But this gets you on the ice.”

Shane looked back and forth between the two men, completely lost, but sensing that some important exchange was happening without him.

Ilya was frowning. “Harris, tell me you didn’t pay to—”

“No, Roz, don’t worry,” Harris assured him, “I just called in a favor.” He looked thoughtful. “Wiebe was like really enthusiastic about it, for some reason.”

Harris turned back to Shane, winking. “You boys enjoy, okay?”

And with that, Harris was leading his fiancé off the dance floor, the two men joining the flow of guests who were starting to descend from the rooftop.

“I should find Devi,” Shane said, turning toward Ilya. “Before we go and do… whatever it is we’re doing.”

“And Rose,” Ilya reminded him.

“Oh, no, she already left,” Shane replied, watching Ilya’s expression move through several stages of confusion. “I got a message on my watch while we were, um, dancing. She said she was going back to her hotel with some hot Russian.”

If possible, Ilya looked even more perplexed. “So you are not—”

Realization dawned in Shane’s mind like a sunrise. “Oh my god, you idiot, we really need to talk.” 

At Ilya’s pouty frown, he added, “But no, we’re not.”

Shane felt like every nerve ending in his body was on fire. He needed to fix some of this ridiculous miscommunication. Now.

“Just, give me like ten or fifteen minutes to get everything settled with the venue, ok?” Shane pleaded. “And then will you meet me in the parking lot?”

His foolish, handsome Russian remained rooted to the spot, staring. Eventually Ilya nodded.

“Ok, perfect!” Shane said hurriedly. “I’ll be quick, I swear.”

He couldn’t say exactly what had possessed him, but a moment later he was leaning up to press the lightest of kisses to Ilya’s cheek. “See you down there!”

Chapter 11

Shane couldn’t quite believe it, sure it was a mistake when Ilya had said a simple ‘follow me’ and led him on a midnight drive from the yacht club right up to the reserved front row parking at the Centaurs’ arena.

“This is the ice Harris was talking about?” Shane gasped as he locked the Subaru. “You’re shitting me, Rozanov.”

From a few steps away, where he was leaning against his ridiculous Porsche in his ridiculous tux, Ilya simply shrugged. He stubbed out his cigarette on the parking sign between them, having ignored Shane’s disapproving glare from the moment he’d lit up. It was still a terrible habit, in Shane’s opinion, but the image of two Ilyas smoking a decade apart was almost brutally nostalgic.

(And this Ilya promised him he’d cut back to special occasions only, at least.)

Shane gazed back up at the arena, genuinely awestruck. He’d already been experiencing a sort of giddy childlike wonder every time they’d skated at the Censplex just down the road, and those rinks regularly played host to youth tournaments and open skates. A completely private arena skate on the other hand? On real NHL ice? With the current captain of his hometown team?

This… this was really, really sweet. Shane’s eyes narrowed. Suspiciously so.

He spun to look at Ilya accusingly. “You had something to do with this. Surprise, my ass.”

Ilya’s eyes went wide. “Was surprise to me too, I swear.”

“Uh huh,” Shane said, stalking closer, “And if I asked you if there were two pairs of hockey skates in there in our sizes? Maybe even in your locker? You’d say…?”

Ilya, clearly recognizing he’d been caught, bit his lip to hide a smile. “I would say, wow Harris, you are very good planner. Almost as good as Shane.”

“Rozanov,” Shane said, threateningly, close enough now to where his fingers were lightly brushing Ilya’s mid-section through his suit jacket.

Ilya glanced down, immediately realizing Shane’s devious plan to torture the confession out of him. Shane watched his throat move as he gulped, and then slowly held up his hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay,” Ilya said quickly, laughing at Shane’s little wiggle of victory. “I… may have suggested it, as possible idea,” he admitted, “But for next time you were in town, honest. I did not know Harris would make it happen tonight.”

Shane smiled but quickly took a step back, having realized he was still essentially holding him hostage by the bottom half of his lapels.

Ilya, maybe mistaking Shane’s sudden distance for hesitance, blurted out, “But we don’t have to. I know this place has memories. Mostly bad. And you have already been on your feet all day.”

Shane was shaking his head violently before he could even finish. “Shh, stop it, you big worrier. I love this idea,” he emphasized, then flicked his eyes to his watch out of habit. “How much time do we get?”

“Ice crew won’t be in until four,” Ilya replied, looking relieved. “So you can take your breaks.”

Shane smiled and, feeling all sorts of brave apparently, grabbed Ilya by the hand. “Lead the way, Captain.”

- 🏒-

The ice between them was smooth and nearly unblemished, just a few criss-crossing skate lines for the eyes to trace, as if reading a palm.

“Oh my god, this is amazing!” Shane cheered, letting out a whoop that echoed through the empty stands.

Ilya watched from the nearest blue line as his skating partner, dressed in only a white undershirt and tuxedo trousers, skated a slow, looping figure eight around one face-off circle and then the other.

If Shane wobbled a little bit more than normal on the edges of his turns, it was probably due to the introduction of the hockey stick in his right hand. One of Ilya’s sticks.

It was a beautiful thing to see Shane Hollander where he’d always belonged. Happy.

Not twenty minutes ago, Ilya had been visibly shocked when Shane had turned to him as they’d laced up in the Centaurs’ locker room and gestured at the stick rack against the wall with a raised eyebrow.

They’d yet to do anything with a puck yet, but if Shane’s increasing confidence had anything to say about it, he’d probably have Ilya running drills by sunrise. Not that Ilya would allow it. He was prepared to accept all the grief and mothering accusations the moment he had to cut Shane off. He’d played enough games while injured to know that the pain was a lot less fun when the adrenaline wore off by morning.

But for now he just watched, his own stick jutting out for balance, as Shane sported the truest expression of joy, of freedom even, that he’d ever seen on the other’s man face.

“Seeing you smile like that, it makes me want to give you all of this,” he called out, making a sweeping gesture across the ice.

Shane turned back to look at him, eyes bright, and laughed. “Canadian Tire Centre? I know you’re rich, Rozanov, but an entire arena is a pretty big real estate investment.”

Ilya pushed off, skating to a stop in front of him, knowing his expression had morphed into something serious. “Hockey, Hollander. It should have been yours.”

He watched a complex swirl of emotions pass over Shane’s face.

“You were better,” Ilya pushed on, meaning it, “You would have been a star. A captain. You deserved it. More than I ever have.”

“Rozanov,” Shane said finally, his voice breaking on the last syllable, “You know how incredible of a player you are. Even if you didn’t— don’t live and breathe hockey in the same pathetically obsessed way I did at seventeen, we both had our reasons to be on the ice.”

Ilya shook his head. “Your reasons mattered. It was an escape for me, nothing more. Dead mom, shitty dad, shittier country… classic sob story. But Hollander, you… you cared.”

“Ilya,” Shane said, dropping the last name address they both seemed to default to when emotions ran high. “We aren’t teenagers anymore. It’s been a decade — a sometimes painful one, yes — but I think… I just, you’ve helped me realize I don’t have to keep defining my life in terms of hockey past and present anymore. For a long time, it was the thing that existed to give me purpose, to make me better, to… to be a way to control myself, in all the ways I couldn’t control the world around me. But turns out, it’s also just a game.”

Shane’s eyes flashed, as his voice got a little louder, a little more passionate.

“And yeah, sometimes it made me angry to see you again. It was that way with Hayden too, with my parents even. It can be hard not to view the people who knew the unbroken me as a reminder of everything I lost. And with your public persona, I always assumed that you’d be— well. It doesn’t matter what I assumed anyway because you’re here and you’re you. And the Ilya Rozanov that I know is so good.” 

“Good?” Ilya echoed, almost choking around the word. He felt a little pathetic at how badly he’d needed to hear someone tell him that. Not good at hockey or sex or being everyone’s perfect villain— just… good.

“The best.” Shane affirmed. “Plus, I still have hockey in my life. I get to watch you play, and all the guys like you who did make it to this level. Sure, I may have lost my shot to face you on the ice in front of thousands, but we’re here on that same ice now, aren’t we?”

He waved the stick in his hand as evidence of the fact. “You gave me this back. You, Ilya. When no one else could. When I was too scared to let myself have it anymore.”

It was hard to accept Shane’s gratitude at face value, even as plainly as he’d stated it. Not when Ilya had spent eleven seasons treating hockey like a dream he’d stolen. A lucky thief with an acceptable amount of talent and a lot of ego, who cared about the sport in the sense that it was something he was good at. A silly fun little thing that made him money. That got him out of Russia. 

It was a whim; it wasn’t his life.

“I am glad you have found a different way to look at things,” he said after a long moment, “That you are happier now. And maybe I played a part? But still, if I could turn back the time, I would get on that bus instead. I would give hockey to Shane Hollander. Even if just to spare you from pain you did not deserve.”

“I…” he hesitated, feeling the words catch in his throat. “I know well what it is like to feel like life is out of control, especially so young. Difference is I did not dare to dream it would ever get better. The accident would not have changed much for me, not back then. Not when I was… always a little bit close to dying anyway.”

Ilya knew he was on the verge of crying then. And he was certain there were tears in Shane’s eyes too, with the way they glistened from his side of the blue line. He wanted to reach out, desperately, but he could tell the distance was helping the both of them to get their words out.

Still, it was torture, watching someone he cared about visibly react to the admission that he might not have survived to live this moment. He was terribly selfish for burdening Shane with that knowledge, and yet he’d needed him to know. To understand that hockey had never been his dream; that he’d never had a dream at all. And all the guilt he still carried because of that.

Shane pushed forward, closing about half of the distance between them. Ilya could visibly see him swallow, scrubbing at his eyes with his free hand. His stick hung at his side, the fingers wrapped around it tapping rhythmically. Something that calmed him, he’d explained to Ilya once. Sets of four.

“You know better than anyone that hockey isn’t forever, Ilya,” Shane said, “I would’ve had to learn how to exist without it at some point. Whether from injury or a best case scenario retirement by forty. That’s a lot of post-hockey life left to live; even Hayden, with a full house of kids to keep alive and entertained, is struggling with it.” 

Shane gestured between them. “And look, we both deserved this sport. We were talented, passionate. And obviously compensating a hell of a lot for all the shit we had going on in our lives. I loved playing against you, but if we’d both had NHL careers? I don’t know that we could’ve been…” he hesitated, then seemed to settle on: “…friends. Our schedules would’ve rarely overlapped. And they were really setting up that whole arch rivals thing, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Ilya said, unable to help the smirk that tugged at his lips despite his still-damp eyes. “Was kind of sexy.”

As Shane laughed, the air seemed to lighten around them once more.

“I can promise you I would not have thought so as a rookie.” At Ilya’s raised eyebrow, he added, “I wasn’t even closeted so much as completely oblivious to what I was supposed to be feeling ever, for anyone. Cute hockey boys weren’t yet on the radar.”

Maybe I could have been though, Ilya allowed, thinking back to the floor of a hotel gym in Los Angeles, what he’d felt between them. What Shane had once admitted that he’d felt too. But maybe he’d been mistaken.

Seeking total clarity, Ilya tried to keep his expression neutral as he ventured, “And Rose?”

Shane shook his head. “Rose is just a good friend. We met at a brand launch I worked on years ago, when she was on her latest entrepreneurial kick. I brought her tonight because—”

He seemed to rethink the end of that sentence.

“Because she’s good at calming my nerves.” He shrugged. “And yes, we did date briefly, but that was really the last time I tried to make women um… work for me… sexually.”

Shane was slowly turning a shade of red that Ilya had never seen before. “Rose was very blunt about being sure my interest was… ah, not in topping, as a pretty universal concept it turns out.”

Ilya burst out laughing, trying to dampen the victorious, almost vicious smile that was threatening on his face.

“I might have had suspicion you were not straight,” he said carefully, “But I thought women were still… on table? And so Rose was… something to you.”

The awkward phrasing still made Shane smile. 

“Good of you not to assume I was totally heterosexual just because you imagined a girlfriend for me,” he teased, “But yeah, no, I’m gay. Exclusively. I didn’t say anything at first because, well, it wasn’t relevant to the job. But then we kept hanging out like this and I wanted to tell you, I just… the NHL isn’t exactly known for its inclusivity.” 

“Ottawa is inclusive, though,” Ilya protested mildly. “Coach and I make sure of that. And you met with Harris first. I am sure he told you.”

“He did say that the Centaurs were supportive of Troy coming out and them being together. And I love your team for that,” Shane affirmed, “But you… you’ve always had this larger than life ladies’ man reputation. I know things get exaggerated in the press, but…”

“I do have a lot of casual sex, Shane,” Ilya cut in, “but I am not ashamed of that.”

“And you shouldn’t be,” he agreed, sighing, “I’m sorry for earlier, by the way, with the PWHL GM. It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have made you feel bad for it either way.” 

Ilya couldn’t help his snort of amusement. “Apology accepted. But just so you know, that GM is my childhood best friend. And a lesbian.”

“Oh, right,” Shane coughed, looking more than a little bit embarrassed.

He shook his head. “Anyway, I just… I was going to come out to you earlier. Right after that moment on the rooftop when you talked about allyship in the NHL, before we were interrupted. But then we kept hanging out and the closer we got, the more scared I became. I know it doesn’t really make sense. It just… it took me into my mid-twenties to figure out my sexuality and even longer to really … accept it… so sometimes I still worry that the people I care about most will be… disappointed. Disgusted, even.”

Ilya nodded empathetically. Though he had understood and experimented with his own sexuality from a much younger age, it hadn’t made the reality of it any easier. Even now, it was still hard to be more publicly forthcoming when his status as an NHL star — and a Russian one, at that — loomed like a shadow over his personal life. Trust was a dangerous proposition. The Centaurs were an oasis, yes, but they were fighting against a Sahara’s worth of sand.

And though Ilya felt like he was an obvious flirt in many ways, actually saying the words out loud to Shane felt… vulnerable. It would be too close to acknowledging that while he was definitely attracted to men in general, his current interest was in one man. Pretty damn exclusively, if his recent summer dry spell was any indication.

Still, this very brave man on the ice had shared so much with him; maybe he was owed a little bit of truth in return.

“Shane,” Ilya said eventually, heart pounding, “Do you know why I left Boston?”

“Of course not,” Shane said, a little petulantly, “You won’t talk about it. Not really. Just vague interviews about the franchise no longer aligning with your needs.” He softened. “Not that… not that you ever owed anyone an explanation. Sorry. You know my mom’s like the world’s biggest hockey fan and sometimes her takes rub off on me.”

“It’s okay,” Ilya acquiesced, finding the honesty refreshing more than anything, “I know people do not understand why I went to a losing team.”

“Winning, now,” Shane corrected with a grin. “At least, sometimes.”

“Careful, Hollander,” he warned, “People are going to think you’re a Cens fan.”

“I think I must be,” Shane said, preening a little, “I’m the proud owner of a signed Rozanov jersey, after all.”

Ilya smiled, trying to ignore the possessive flare of heat in his stomach at the idea of Shane Hollander wearing his number. Mindful of how long they’d been standing, he gestured over to the boards, skating until he was close enough to hop up to perch on the exposed ledge, legs swinging. 

“Of course it was fun to win with Boston,” he said, watching as Shane skated closer, coming up to lean beside him with one hand on the top corner of the open door to balance. Ilya was tempted to praise him for not risking his same jump on an already tired leg, but kept his mothering quiet for now.

He let out a long sigh then, hating the particular memories he was about to share but knowing the context was necessary. 

“Winning became less fun when Scott Hunter came out and management was not subtle about feelings. No rainbow stick tape here in Boston. And do not dare use your personal platforms for anything so political. They would say ‘We do not care about queers in hockey, of course, but it isn’t who we are.’ I was captain and yet I felt, ah, overpowered to stop this.”

“God, I hate that,” Shane cut in, expression livid, “As if simply showing support for a fellow player via Instagram story or something would’ve overshadowed the championships you won for that fucking city.”

“Yes,” Ilya said simply. “And anyway, I was already planning for new team when the big bosses called me into their office. They wanted to discuss my ‘lifestyle’ being a risk for the organization.” 

He watched Shane’s expression shift at the coded language into one of realization, then bittersweet understanding.

“I had been spotted at a gay bar with Scott Hunter and some others maybe a year or so after Hunter’s awards speech. They were worried I was going to be… similar problem.”

Shane was gaping at him openly now, looking more surprised than Ilya had thought he would be. Did he really not think—

“Were you?” Shane blurted, then seemed to cringe so hard it looked painful. “I mean, not were you, like were you a problem. It’s not a problem. Obviously. I just…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, you know what I’m asking.”

Ilya did know but he broke their eye contact anyway, a little ashamed, knowing he didn’t have the perfect Scott Hunter answer. 

“I wish I had been brave enough to be a problem for Boston actually. But no. Not then. The risk of losing my spot on roster, in NHL, of getting sent back to Russia where they would— I don’t even want to know.” He shrugged, swallowing the bitter taste of his own cowardice. “Still, I did not want to hide forever. When I finally had the chance to renegotiate contract, I chose to leave instead.”

In an instant, Shane had reached over to place a hand on his knee, rubbing his thumb into the fabric of Ilya’s tuxedo pants in a gesture of comfort.

Ilya sniffed. His hand reached back to grasp at Shane’s wandering fingers. Threading them together, they both held on.

He took one labored breath and then bit the bullet. “Here, Ottawa, they know I am bisexual. They told me it is not a problem. And now I don’t want anyone to ever feel like it is a problem ever again.”

Ilya felt his pulse in his ears now, though he tried to tamper the anxiety by focusing on the feeling of Shane’s hand in his.

“Ilya, thank you for telling me,” Shane said, earnest as ever. At Ilya’s eye roll, he emphasized, “I’m serious. I knew you were captaining the Centaurs in a way they’ve desperately needed, but to know part of that is because you’re building others the safe space you weren’t afforded for so many seasons is— you’re just incredible. I want you to know that.”

Ilya scoffed. “I don’t think it is so incredible to want the NHL to do, ah, barest minimum. And I am still not out, not to the public at least, which makes me a coward I think.”

“You are not a coward,” Shane hissed, his eyebrows furrowing almost comically in his outrage, “How many guys do you see actually pushing for change in the NHL? Queer or not?” He squeezed Ilya’s hand. “You’re doing something about it. You’re fighting. I admire that about you.”

If Shane didn’t stop looking at him like that, Ilya was going to do something ridiculous. Like kiss him.

“Enough!” he whined, tugging his hand back. 

He jumped back onto the ice, executing a quick half turn to point an accusatory stick in Shane’s direction. “No more compliments or nice talk with your big teary brown eyes. You will kill me. Hockey only now, please.”

Shane laughed delightedly, glancing down to check his watch.

“We have plenty more ice time, you’re right,” he agreed, still grinning, “Let’s use it.”

- 🏒-

The feeling of a stick in his hand was somehow both foreign and familiar. 

Bent forward, nearly nose to nose with Ottawa’s star centre Ilya Rozanov, a hockey puck’s width between them, Shane could’ve sworn he felt something in the universe tilt cosmically into place. Like they’d done this before somehow. Like they were always meant to.

“Go ahead, score on me,” Ilya teased in a near-whisper.

“I don’t think this is a fair fight,” Shane whispered back, quite aware of his limits. His leg was aching now, but the slow release painkiller he’d taken in the locker room was also yet to fully kick in. He could last another hour if it meant having Ilya alone and happy like this. “I’m just an amateur player after all.”

Ilya hummed, gliding aside to leave Shane on the dot alone. “I guess you are right. You could not score on me back then either.”

Shane gasped, lunging forward to shove at him. “Okay, asshole, now you’re just straight up rewriting history!”

Ilya was beaming, clearly having the time of his life as Shane clawed at him, calling out a dozen different unapplicable penalties. “Misconduct!” he yelled, when Shane landed a particularly effective punch to his left shoulder. 

“I’ll show you misconduct,” Shane threatened, leaning forward and checking Ilya against the boards.

It was hardly enough force to do any real damage, but Ilya looked thrilled. “Oh, Mr. Event Planner is big tough guy now, huh?” he joked, shoving off the glass and darting over to collect a puck from center ice. “Let’s see him score.”

Never one to back down from a Rozanov challenge, Shane skated closer and received Ilya’s gentle pass with only a little bit of fumbling. He started to line himself up, brow furrowed in concentration.

“No need to shoot from so far away,” Ilya said with amusement, skating over and placing his hands on Shane’s hips. “You do not have to be a hero.” 

Shane tried to keep his breathing even as Ilya glided them both forward several meters, positioning him just slightly to the right of the goal before letting go with a gentle pat on his lower back. Whether he’d actually remembered one of Shane’s most consistent scoring angles or just had the pure coaching intuition for it, Shane couldn’t say for certain.

But with professional encouragement, he readied himself, leaning to each side a bit and testing his weight. Taking a deep breath, he unleashed a slapshot that he could immediately tell was about 90% power and 10% aim.

It sailed wide of the net by a decent margin, not even close to counting as a shot on goal. Jesus, he thought with a playful grimace, his rookie stats were going to be terrible at this rate.

Ilya made an aborted noise behind him, clearly trying to stifle a laugh to preserve Shane’s dignity. But he didn’t need to worry because Shane was already laughing. Almost crying with laughter actually.

“Oh my god, that was fucking terrible,” he choked out, stick dangling limply against the ice.

“Form was… good?” Ilya offered but he could barely get the words out around his snickering.

Shane laughed again, so hard that he snorted, which made both men laugh even harder. “I really believed that would go in too.”

“To be fair,” Ilya admitted, “so did I. You looked very determined.”

Shane gazed back at him, standing there in suit trousers and a black dress shirt, half unbuttoned, his blonde curls a little sweaty against his face. He licked his lips. “I think I need you to pass it to me.”

Ilya blinked. “At full speed? I don’t think that is good idea, Hollander.”

“No, obviously not,” Shane replied sheepishly, though he’d definitely been thinking about it before the total miss had taken the air out of his sails a bit. “Just like, give me a nice apple, so I’m not shooting standing totally still.”

Ilya nodded, scooping up another puck and sending it lazily in Shane’s direction.

This time, he could feel something shift, a little bit of muscle memory kicking in as he met the puck smoothly and chipped it toward the upper left corner.

It was funny how totally life-altering and yet completely mundane it felt to watch the puck sail into the net. Shane scored, top cheddar— something he’d done a thousand times in this very same life, but had convinced himself he would never do again. 

Maybe this life was more a series of tiny miracles than big explosive wins. Like skating a little bit farther and faster each time he was on the ice; like flexing neglected muscles that had been mending alongside his mind this whole time. Like playing hockey again. 

Ilya, the total cheese ball, came skating over to him immediately, scooping him up like an actual team celly and chanting some nonsense about the game winning goal in OT.

Maybe it was the fact it was nearing two in the morning on the longest day of his life or else some kind of hypnosis from the arena lights reflecting onto the ice… or maybe it was just because a beautiful man was holding him, gazing at him with hazel eyes full of unadulterated affection, making him feel seen, known, in a way he’d never been before…

Maybe it was the realization that Ilya had always looked at him like that.

Regardless of the reason, in that perfect, fragile moment, Shane Hollander let his stick clatter to the ice, twisted both hands in a probably too expensive to ruin dress shirt, and kissed Ilya Rozanov like his life depended on it.

Chapter 12

Shane Hollander was kissing him.

Which meant Ilya was dead, dreaming, or had sold his soul to win some kind of proverbial lottery and would be dead soon either way.

But, until then, he obviously wasn’t going to tell him to stop.

He’d been sort of mid-sentence when something had shifted on Shane’s face that had him pulling Ilya’s mouth haphazardly down to meet his own. It was awkward, a little, until Ilya took a careful moment to realign them, a gently guiding hand coming up to that smooth jaw.

Yes. There.

He deepened the kiss, swallowing a breathy moan from Shane before lightly teasing with his tongue. Shane parted his lips instantly, allowing Ilya into his mouth with a grateful little whimper. He groaned at the easy submission. God, this man was so deliciously pliant, it was going to kill him.

As they both parted for air, he locked eyes with Shane in a brief moment of ‘are we doing this?’ — the dazed, almost pleading look that met him in return was enough to have him licking into Shane’s perfect mouth like he was starved for it. And in truth, he was.

Shane had his fists twisted in Ilya’s dress shirt so tightly, solid body molded so fully against his own that Ilya worried they might phase together into a single entity against the glass. He would’ve been okay with that, probably, if it meant tasting Shane forever in the way he was doing now.

Ilya eventually broke the kiss, exhaling hard at the way Shane instinctually pursed his lips, chasing after his own. He granted Shane one more solid peck, before getting a hand into those wavy black locks and tugging experimentally. The moan that echoed into the air between them went straight to his half-hard cock like a lightning rod. 

Satisfied with that result, he tilted Shane’s head back just enough to expose a bit of throat and then feasted, pressing lips and tongue and teeth all along the column of that gorgeous neck. Shane was practically writhing against him, making the prettiest moans and whimpers of pleasure. Ilya wanted to memorize and catalogue them all. 

Feeling a little mean, he shifted his stance, getting a leg right between Shane’s parted thighs and applying the slightest pressure. The sound Shane made as he rutted up against him would haunt Ilya for the rest of his life.

“We… we shouldn’t… here,” Shane was panting, eyes a little unfocused, wobbling on his skates to the point that Ilya, with an arm around his waist, was mostly keeping him upright.

“Then where?” he teased, pressing kisses to the corner of Shane’s mouth. “At center ice? The locker room? Maybe the backseat of your cute little Subaru?”

“Ugh, you’re awful,” Shane complained, unconvincing with the way he continued to circle his hips against Ilya’s thigh. “Just feels like,” he gasped when Ilya snaked a hand in between them to palm him through his trousers, “god, fuck, that’s— like we’re taking advantage of Harris’ gift.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, removing all touch entirely. He skated backward, enjoying the view of a thoroughly debauched Shane Hollander collapsed against the boards: glassy eyes, swollen lips, wavy hair all mussed, and the evidence of arousal abundantly clear even in his black suit trousers.

He watched a complicated series of emotions flit across Shane’s flushed face. The last thing he expected him to say was “I’m sorry.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow. He took a breath, even as his heart threatened to sink in his chest, and made sure his voice was soft but firm when he said, “Why sorry? I only want to do things if you want to do them. That includes when and where.”

At Shane’s reddening ears, he asked, “You have… done this, yes?”

“Oh my god,” Shane said, almost exasperated, practically stomping over to grab his hand. 

Scooping up Shane’s discarded stick, Ilya let himself be tugged across the ice, through a side gate and down the tunnel until they’d reached the Centaurs’ locker room. Pushing Ilya down onto the cushioned seat in front of his locker, Shane finally said, “Take off your skates.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow but complied, watching as Shane sat down a short distance away and yanked his own skates off with tiny angry huffs. Adorably, he still took time to arrange them neatly in front of the bench.

“Done,” Ilya said, socked feet now pressing into the purple carpet.

In the blink of an eye, Shane was tossing a folded bundle of fabric down on the locker room floor (was that… his tuxedo jacket?) and kneeling in front of Ilya, in between his spread legs actually. 

“If I do this,” Shane prompted, meeting Ilya’s eyes, “are the Ottawa Centaurs going to blacklist me for life?”

Ilya must have looked like a total idiot, the way his mouth fell open as he realized exactly what Shane meant to do. “There are no cameras,” he managed after a moment, “And, ah, it is off season?”

He wasn’t entirely sure if that changed anything, policy-wise, but it seemed to be sufficient for Shane who nodded sharply.

With a look of nearly zealous determination, Shane quickly unzipped Ilya’s trousers, tugging his pants and underwear down just enough to expose his rapidly hardening cock. After a few contemplative strokes that made Ilya a little cross-eyed, he watched as Shane grabbed him at the base, licked his lips, and took all of him down his throat in one perfect swoop.

Ilya yelped.

And then, unbelievably, Shane just stayed there for a moment, nose pressed into the skin at his abdomen, swallowing calmly. If it wasn’t already clear that he knew exactly what he was doing, it became abundantly so when he flicked his eyes up to meet Ilya’s own, letting Ilya’s cock slowly slide back out against his tongue, and then sucking hard enough around the first few inches to cause his cheeks to hollow out. He felt Shane’s fingers flexing where each hand was gripping a corresponding thigh, bracing himself.

Just as soon as it had started, Shane was pulling off with a ragged gasp. He looked irritated, and a little smug. “Does that answer your question?”

If Ilya had asked a question, he didn’t remember it.

“I told you it took me some time to figure out my sexuality,” Shane explained, “I didn’t mean, like, in theory. I’m a... learn-by-doing kind of person. And there’s not much I haven’t done at this point, outside of like, things we’d really have to talk about and negotiate anyway.”

Ilya was still breathing hard, his dick stiff in the open air between them.

“Ask your follow-up questions,” Shane said, rolling his eyes. He’d taken Ilya back in hand, still slick with spit, and was idly stroking him with a pressure-perfect grip. “I can tell you have them.”

Ilya was actually pretty unconcerned with Shane’s sexual proclivities at this point given the hand on his dick, but he played along.

“So you’ve been with men?”

Shane snorted. “Obviously.”

“And you like sucking dick?”

Shane’s expression shifted into something ravenous. “I love it.”

“And you… don’t top?” Ilya ventured, recalling Shane’s comment about Rose’s… observations.

“Not if I can help it.”

Ilya bit his lip, nodding. “Then we are… very compatible.”

At the heat in his words, Shane glanced around, considering. “Listen, as much as I’d want you in me immediately, and I do, I’d rather we do that, um, not in your actual professional locker room. And when I don’t have a flight in,” he glanced down at that damn watch, “six hours.”

Ilya nodded, voice not quite as casual as he hoped it would be when he offered, “Next time, then.”

“Next time,” Shane agreed, though he also sounded a little unsure about the implications.

They’d have to talk about this at some point, Ilya knew. This… addition of benefits to their friendship, if you could call it that, was only going to complicate things, just as they’d untangled them. And Shane was still leaving in the morning, to be more or less permanently several hours away, and even farther most weeks once Ilya’s season resumed in the fall. Ilya didn’t know if a relationship was even on the table, if there was anything more than lust here, and was a little terrified to get his heart broken if he asked.

But all those thoughts would come later. His brain, which Shane had attempted to briefly deepthroat out of his cock, hadn’t moved much past the whole ‘instinctually kissing hot man who is kissing me’ on the ice thing and had been on pure sensation autopilot ever since. Currently, in his pathetic service top headspace, he would give this man as much or as little as he asked for, whenever and wherever. But preferably a good deal of it right now.

And so, Ilya’s voice came out a little rougher when he asked, “And do you like submission?”

Shane looked contemplative, eyes darting away as he clearly thought back to previous encounters. “I don’t know that I’ve ever called it that exactly, but… I like being good, being told what to do, and, um… working hard for my rewards. Rough and the right side of painful is okay too. I can’t say I’ve hooked up with someone regularly enough that I could trust them with anything… really intense. But I’m not… disinterested. In more.”

Ilya hummed. He could work with that.

Reaching down, he took Shane’s lower jaw in one hand, tilting the man’s chin up to force a bit of eye contact. “So if I said, for example, enough talking, be a good boy and suck that dick in front of you?”

Shane’s eyes glazed over almost instantly and he nodded. “Then I would.”

Ilya smiled, a little mean. “Good. Don’t touch yourself. You can come after you have swallowed me, hmm?” He checked to make sure Shane liked that idea, pleased by the enthusiastic nod into his hand that followed. “And maybe, if you impress me, I’ll be very, very nice and return the favor.”

Shane whimpered when Ilya slid the hand that was on his jaw up into his hair, twisting his fingers at the roots for a tighter hold. “Go ahead, sweetheart,” Ilya coaxed, “Take what you need.”

At that, Shane lowered his head, and Ilya knew immediately he wouldn’t last long. He shouldn’t have been at all surprised to find that the man who was obsessed with being perfect at everything he tried would have applied that to his blowjob capabilities. Shane’s mouth was all delicious wet heat and suction. He bobbed his head at the perfect pace, pulling off at times to lick up the shaft with his tongue and to suckle lightly on the head, and — hottest of all, honestly  — did all of that while moaning almost nonstop, like he was having the time of his life getting Ilya off, not even focused on himself.

And he was getting Ilya off. Quickly.

“Shane, shit,” Ilya cursed when he swallowed him to the root again, burying his nose into the curls there, and humming happily. He couldn’t help the way his hips snapped up a little bit, immediately apologetic when the motion made Shane pull back with a splutter.

“Sorry, sorry,” he started to say, concerned, but Shane was shaking his head almost violently.

“No, that was—” Shane began, voice hoarse and cracking over the words, “I want you to fuck my mouth. Please.”

It was the unprompted ‘please’ that had Ilya groaning, and he immediately shifted back into the role that Shane clearly craved. “You’re such a sweet little slut, aren’t you? Begging for my cock like that?”

Shane looked simultaneously devastated, those big brown eyes so wide and wet, and absolutely fucking thrilled.

“Please,” he pleaded, desperate, in a tenor that Ilya had never imagined from him, “I need it.”

“But do you deserve it?” Ilya prompted, releasing the man’s hair to test out a light slap against Shane’s cheek.

Shane moaned. “Yes, I’ve been so good,” he almost whined, blinking prettily, “Don’t you think I did a good job tonight? Planning that party? And scoring a goal?”

“Mm,” Ilya pretended to consider. He rose slowly to his feet, giving Shane space to scoot back slightly, and watched the way his eyes widened in anticipation, zeroing in on his prize. “It was a very nice goal. But you brought a date to that party. And that made me very jealous.”

Shane frowned, reaching out to grab at Ilya’s waist, just above the curve of his ass. Ilya allowed it, seeing as Shane immediately used the leverage to press his face up against his stomach, licking down a v-line and around the base of his cock, before ducking his head to suckle at one ball and then the other. 

“Let me make it up to you,” Shane breathed out, sitting back on his heels, “I’ll be the perfect mouth for you. No one else.”

“No one else,” Ilya nodded, more pleased and turned on by that response than he was willing to admit. He grabbed his throbbing cock, hissing at the sensitivity (god, he was so, so close), and nearly died at the vision that Shane was presenting. 

This beautifully willing man had opened his mouth and was holding it open, just waiting patiently, hungrily, to be fed. It was textbook total and natural submission; no real instruction needed. It was… ranking high on the list of the hottest things he’d ever seen.

“Mine,” he almost growled. His pretty little cockslut.

“Mm, yours,” Shane echoed, smile dazed and his eyes a million miles away.

“Pinch my thigh if it is too much,” Ilya instructed, watching Shane jerkily nod his understanding. With that, he lined up and pushed the head past those spit-slick red lips, then further still. Once seated, he pulled back, finding a steady rhythm, nothing too brutal just yet. Not tonight. Though with the way Shane was blinking up at him through tears, literal stars in his eyes, he could sense that he would be willing to take even more.

Ilya could feel his thighs beginning to tremble, and the tightening sensation of his approaching release. Shane was inhaling sharply through his nose, eyes almost rolled back in his head, and squeezing Ilya’s ass in both hands with a vice grip, like he could sense that he was close and wanted him deeper still. Or maybe it was obvious from the desperate noises Ilya knew he was making, though he doubted that any of them were actual words.

“Where?” Ilya panted, slowing his hips and pulling out to let Shane speak.

“Down my throat,” Shane begged, sounding absolutely wrecked, “Hold me there. Want to choke on you.”

Christ. This man would be the fucking death of him. 

Knowing it wouldn’t take much, Ilya slid back to the hilt, their dual moans echoing through the empty locker room. “Fuck, Shane, you are being so good for me,” he said weakly, voice catching as he felt the familiar pressure mount, and then, “Oh fuck, I’m—”

Ilya came with a jolt, holding Shane down with a light pressure on the back of his head, just like he’d asked. He watched Shane’s throat jerk in an abbreviated swallowing motion, once, twice. Gently guiding him off by the grip on his hair, Ilya murmured another appreciative ‘fuck’ aloud at the string of saliva that trailed from his cock to the man’s swollen lips.

“Fuck,” Shane echoed, coughing wetly. “Holy shit. That was…” 

He trailed off, clearly still a little spacey.

Ilya switched immediately into aftercare mode, equally concerned about the intensity of the sex they’d just had and the amount of time that Shane had been on his knees, even with a little cushioning on the carpeted floor. He tucked himself back into his briefs and hauled Shane up, pulling the man into his lap until he was fully straddling him. He sighed, already knowing he was ruined by how badly he too craved the contact, the feeling of Shane melting completely into him when embraced body to body like this.

“Perfect boy, let me take care of you,” he whispered, snaking a hand between them. 

Shane mumbled something unintelligible into his shoulder. As his fingers dipped below the waistband of Shane’s underwear, he immediately understood.

“I told you not to touch yourself,” Ilya chided.

Shane raised his head, cheeks blazing, making his freckles stand out more sharply against his skin. Ilya wanted to kiss each and every one, but knew they didn’t have that kind of time.

“I didn’t,” Shane confessed, becoming even redder if that was possible.

Ilya gaped back at him. “Hollander, that is so—”

“Embarrassing,” Shane whined just as Ilya said ‘fucking hot.’

“Does that always happen?” he asked.

Shane shoved at him, slowly coming back to a state of fuller awareness. “I am not going to give you the satisfaction of answering that.”

Ilya was grinning smugly anyway. So, no.

He raised a hand then, tenderly swiping at the tear tracks down Shane’s still-flushed cheeks. He searched his eyes carefully. “It really was not too much?”

“God, no,” Shane said hurriedly. He shifted on Ilya’s lap, voice dipping a little as he said, “On my knees, choking on the dick of the hottest man in the NHL, in his locker room? Top three fantasy of all time, maybe.”

Ilya sucked in a breath. “Hottest man in NHL, hmm?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I knew you’d pick up on that first,” he complained playfully. He turned to slide off Ilya’s lap, back onto his feet, and straightened up to stand. “You’re supposed to ask me what the other two fantasies are.”

Oh, fuck. “What are they?” he questioned eagerly.

Shane shook his head, practically skipping away as he sang, “Not telling! You missed your chance.”

Ilya stood, following him with a laugh. “Oh, I can think of a few ways to make you tell.”

The resultant look in Shane’s eyes — now that he recognized it as the pure desire that it was — was going to be very hard to ignore going forward.

“Hey, do the showers still work in the off season?” Shane called out from where he was leaning against the doorway.

Ilya grinned hungrily. “Let’s find out.”

- 🏒-

Shane felt a little like he needed to crawl out of his skin and disappear forever, standing in the parking lot of an NHL arena with the famous hockey player friend that he’d come out to, kissed impulsively, and then had actual mind-blowing sex with all in one infinite, sleepless evening.

What the fuck were you thinking?

They were positioned awkwardly apart, distant even, Ilya leaning against his Porsche and Shane against the Subaru, both of them haphazardly dressed in their tuxes again and sporting still-wet hair from the shower they’d taken to clean up.

Shane hated this. The way he’d felt the energy flip from hot and fun and flirty to completely sobering when he’d put his watch back on in the Centaurs’ dressing room and announced it was time to leave.

It really was time, and as horrible as the thought of returning to an empty apartment in a city he hated felt in that moment, Shane was a creature of stubborn routine. He couldn’t allow himself to turn his life upside down for a man who’d once told him explicitly that he didn’t date long term. For a man who was his friend two hours ago, and was still his friend now— albeit a friend who’d kissed him in a way that had his small, boring world tilting on its axis.

He didn’t kiss you after the locker room, though, did he?

“When is your flight?” Ilya asked, not meeting Shane’s eyes as he broke the uncomfortable silence.

He’d lit a cigarette again and the way the smoke floated between them was once again reminding Shane of distant memories. A world before Ilya Rozanov, without him, felt impossible to imagine now.

“Boards at nine,” Shane replied truthfully, knowing he technically had a few hours of breathing room, “but I’ve got to swing by my parents’ house first to drop off the car and get my suitcase, so…”

“So,” Ilya echoed, expression unreadable, “I guess this is goodbye then.”

“Ilya, please,” Shane pleaded, the dismissal stinging more than he could let on, “Nothing is ending here. I’m promising you that, okay. I’m just a few hours away, and I’m here every couple of months to see my parents. We’ll stay in touch. Maybe we’ll even end up in the same city during hockey season.”

Ilya took another long drag, lips pursed. His eyes were downcast, almost resigned. “Maybe,” he said, and then offered quietly, “Or you could stay here, at my cottage. A few more days. Enjoy summer a little longer. Anya would—”

“Rozanov, you know I can’t do that,” Shane replied, a little snappily, “It’s… not healthy for me to be here in Ottawa, for so long. Even if some things have changed. Staying longer would just… make it harder on me.”

Ilya looked momentarily as if he might protest, but let out a quiet breath and fell terribly, uncharacteristically silent instead.

Shane knew he was right to decline… right? He… he had business to attend to back in Toronto, surely. It would cost a fortune to change his flight at the last minute. And there were just too many ghosts in Ottawa. He couldn’t stay in this city any longer and risk falling in love with… it.

Shane let out a shaky breath and attempted a smile. “You have such a full life here, Ilya. You have your team and Anya and the charity and…” he chewed his lip, fighting to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he continued, “and endless fun, hot people who want to sleep with you. Soon, you won’t even miss me at all.”

Ilya’s head jerked up then, his eyes blazing. 

“Is that really what you think?” he snapped, the first sign of vulnerable emotion he’d shown since he was holding Shane in his lap and calling him perfect. Still, Ilya grimaced and looked away, falling silent once more and not giving any indication that he meant to expand on his question.

Shane shifted, feeling suddenly ill-footed. Something in this conversation had taken a wrong turn, but he felt a little powerless to stop it. Sleep deprived and hurting, he just shrugged helplessly.

“What I think is… that I’m glad we reconnected and became friends through my work with the Centaurs,” he said slowly, “and I… I’m also a grown man who has casual sex and doesn’t regret anything we did tonight. I would… do it again, and more, if we can.”

To have you call me yours, even in the heat of the moment.

He swallowed. “But I have a life I’ve built elsewhere, and it’s time for me to get back to that. That’s all I meant, really, when I said you have a full life of your own. That I don’t expect you to carry on the same, um, intensity of friendship we’ve had this summer. We have to consider what’s actually realistic. We’ll both be busy and traveling and—”

“I get it, Shane,” Ilya cut in, voice flat, “Casual. No pressure. I am glad we agree.”

The silence lingered. Ilya exhaled another puff of smoke.

“So, friends?” Shane said, crossing the space between them and offering his hand like a hopeful idiot, even as everything in his body was screaming that this all felt wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ilya looked down at said hand, cigarette caught between his lips in a way that was seventeen and thirty all at once. Shane could almost feel him then, in all his iterations: a stranger, a rival, a friend— something, briefly, closer.

Ilya clasped Shane’s hand and shook it. He didn’t let his fingers brush Shane’s palm as he pulled away, didn’t allow the contact to linger. 

Just one perfunctory pump of their hands intertwined.

A finale without fireworks. A fade to black.

“I’ll text you,” Shane all but whispered, stepping back and turning to grasp his driver’s side door handle. The distance felt visceral.

Ilya stubbed out his cigarette and nodded. “Okay.”

He was still standing there in the parking lot when Shane glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled away, feeling a lot like he’d broken something he didn’t even know he could break.

- 🏒-

Shane’s parents were up early when he crept from the garage into the kitchen. Great.

“Where have you been all night?” Yuna Hollander questioned, a coffee mug in hand, “And still in your tux? We thought you’d come home after the gala wrapped.”

Shane bristled. “I’m a grown man, mom. Chill out.”

She pursed her lips, replying with a clipped, “I know that, but maybe I worry a little when my son disappears after an evening focused on a particular sport in a city that took so much away from him.”

“Oh my god, mom,” Shane whined out, exasperated, “I’m not scared of hockey anymore.”

When Yuna just stared at him, disbelieving, David Hollander jumped in from where he stood on the other side of the kitchen island. “And that’s great, son,” he said carefully, “But you have to admit it’s sort of a recent development.”

Shane winced, a little terrified by the idea that all the skating nights with Ilya had changed him in more visible ways than he’d known. “Look, I’m sorry, I was out with an old friend after the gala and we… had a few drinks and lost track of time. I slept over at his place rather than drive home in the middle of the night.”

Both his parents nodded slowly, but seemed to accept the explanation. Or so he thought.

“If you’re dating again, Shane,” his mom said suddenly, “you know you can tell us, right? We would love to meet him.”

“Mom, no,” Shane snapped, then softened his tone, “I’m not… there’s nothing like that going on.”

“Okay, fine,” Yuna said, holding up her hands in surrender, “You’ve just seemed a lot happier, that’s all. And you were spending so much time here in Ottawa that we thought—”

“What your mother means,” his dad said, jumping in, “is that we’re always happy to have you at home, but um, if you’ve met someone, you don’t have to use visiting us as an excuse.”

Shane couldn’t handle any of this right now, not as raw and vulnerable and confused as he was currently feeling. He shook his head. 

“I need to finish packing,” he excused himself, knowing damn well his suitcase had been perfectly organized with rolls of clothes and coordinated travel toiletry bottles for several days now. “I’ve got my flight back home in a few hours.”

It was a little petty, the way he emphasized the word, knowing that Toronto had never been home, not once in all the years he’d lived there.

“Okay, sweetie,” Yuna said, a little tiredly, her dark eyes still regarding him with concern. Even so, she tucked a strand of her angular black bob behind her ear and turned away from him, back to her morning coffee and newspaper sports section like nothing had happened.

“I’ll drive you to the airport in a bit, Shane,” his father offered, voice kept perfectly neutral, before lifting a pencil to the puzzles section that Yuna slid over.

As Shane climbed the stairs to the guest room, over-taxed left leg throbbing torturously, he bitterly wondered if there was anyone else he cared about that he could manage to piss off or disappoint today.

See, this is what this place brings out in you.

He needed to leave, that much was clear.

Not play pretend family at a South March cottage with some guy and his dog.

Some distance would surely be better; he and Ilya could figure out how it would look to maintain a friendship long term. Be normal adult friends who lived far apart and saw each other occasionally around their work schedules, instead of sharing their deepest trauma, and holding one another, and kissing like it meant something…

Shane shook his head decisively.

New rule added to the mantra: He is not yours. You cannot stay. You are not in love with him.

No more ghosts.

Chapter 13

One week after the best/worst night of his life, Ilya Rozanov was not proud of how he’d been coping.

Day one was mostly spent crying into Anya’s fur.

Day two had meant cracking open the emergency packet of cigarettes.

And on day four, he’d found himself sinking to new lows: he texted Scott Hunter.

A text conversation which had ultimately led to this moment— day seven, where he was perched on a stool in a divey New York gay bar, being served a series of increasingly whimsical vodka cocktails by Eric Bennett’s twinky boyfriend.

“I did not know you even had these,” Ilya remarked, a little tipsily, gesturing at the colorful cocktail umbrella sticking out of his drink. It tasted only vaguely alcoholic, like some kind of tropical juice, though he’d watched Kyle’s pour and knew the Deep Eddy’s Pineapple was doing some heavy lifting.

“We don’t, usually,” the bartender said, quirking a smile, “but Scott and Eric were in the Kingfisher group chat yesterday acting like a sad Ilya Rozanov coming into the bar was DEFCON 1 or something. I bought the umbrellas at Trader Joe’s this morning to cheer you up.”

He reached somewhere below the bar and produced another colorful package, waving it enticingly. “I also have bendy straws, if you want one.”

Ilya narrowed his eyes. “I am not a child,” he said, then paused to admire the fun twisty shape of the straw on the front of the label. “Blue, please.”

Kyle snorted, fishing around in the package until he produced a bright blue straw. Bending it into a satisfying double loop, he reached across the bar top and plunked the straw into Ilya’s bright yellow drink.

“So what brings you here, really?” Kyle asked nonchalantly, gathering a handful of receipts and beginning to input the credit card tips from the happy hour crowd into the POS. “It seemed kind of… sudden.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Ilya replied sullenly.

“Ah,” Kyle nodded, “A boy.”

Ilya groaned, flopping his head into his folded arms. 

“How did you know?” he grumbled as he sat back up, fixing his curls.

“Baby, I bartend,” Kyle said easily, “You start to get a sixth sense for drunk people's problems.”

“I am not drunk,” Ilya pouted, staring sadly at his yellow and blue monstrosity. Maybe he was a little tipsier than he thought though, having abandoned his vodka purist principles after the first boring drink on the rocks.

“Not yet,” the bartender winked, “But seriously, what gives? You’re like a super hot rich dude. You’re not supposed to have dating struggles like the rest of us plebes.”

Ilya sighed and just went for it. “Have you ever gotten really close to a friend, hooked up with them even, but then you have feelings for them? Maybe had those feelings the whole time?”

Kyle looked a little like he’d been stung. “Uh, yeah,” he replied with an awkward laugh, “I’m pretty familiar with that scenario.”

Ilya took another sip from his straw, grimacing at the sweetness. Before Bennett’s retirement, he’d spent plenty of time teasing the goalie about his obvious interest in the much younger man, but he supposed he’d never really heard the full lust to love story. One day they’d just sort of been together, for real.

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing advisable,” Kyle said grimacing, “Mostly just kept hooking up, having half-conversations about dating and feelings, then everything sort of devolved into a huge mess. It… took time to sort out. Longer than it should have.”

“So it is better to keep the feelings inside?” Ilya asked, “If you are not sure they, ah… what is fancier word for return?”

“Reciprocate,” Kyle supplied, “And yeah, Rozanov, I guess suppressing the feelings is simpler in the short term. But trust me, you can’t do a friends with benefits situation forever if one of you doesn’t actually want to stay friends. Something will slip out.”

At Ilya’s suggestive eyebrow raise, Kyle laughed, waggling his own eyebrows in return. Ilya hadn’t spoken much to Bennett’s boyfriend in his brief visits to the Kingfisher, but he liked that they’d always seemed to have a shared taste for innuendo and flirting with shy men until it embarrassed them thoroughly.

Anyway, Kyle had been even more absent in the last year, since he’d actually finished his interminable Art History degree and had cut back on his bar shifts. He was doing some sort of museum fellowship, looking at Greek penis pottery all day or something. Bennett had sounded stupidly proud about it.

If one more queer person in Ilya’s extended sphere of hockey influence fell disgustingly in love with the whimsical partner of their dreams, he was going to do something drastic.

“Ah, there he is,” a voice cheered, and a large hand slapped him on the back.

Scott Hunter, every perfect blonde Adonis inch of him, slid onto the stool next to Ilya. Speaking of disgustingly in love hockey players. Ugh.

Hunter frowned at Ilya’s cocktail. “What the hell are you drinking?”

“Vodka but worse,” Ilya deadpanned, even as Kyle stuck his tongue out at him. “Straw is fun though.”

“Roz, this is looking a little bit like a cry for help,” the Admirals captain murmured.

“He does need help,” Kyle chimed in and, before he flitted off to another patron, added, “He’s fallen into the classic FWB trap.”

Hunter furrowed his brows. “I thought you said you were seeing that guy.”

Ilya groaned. “I lied a little, so you wouldn’t set me up on more dates. But I did say it was not serious.”

“And I’m pretty sure I said it looked serious for you, at least,” Hunter volleyed back, “And that was… what? Months ago?”

“Yes, yes, you were right,” Ilya muttered, “Thank you, oh ancient gay prophet.”

“You’re such a little shit,” Hunter replied, though he looked amused, “It’s a wonder my wise gay ass puts up with you.”

Hunter flashed him an annoyingly handsome smile, squeezing Ilya’s shoulder, “Now tell me what happened, for real, before I order us both ‘Scott Hunters’ for our next round and we end the night with blueberry vodka headaches.”

Ilya, a little emboldened by fruit-flavored liquor already, shifted in his stool, leaning toward him to whisper, “This is very… secret, okay?”

Hunter nodded, still smiling, “You know, I happen to be pretty good at those.”

Ilya leaned back, drained his glass with one more long sip, and said, “Do you remember Shane Hollander?”

Hunter looked surprised. “I mean, a little bit. Never met him, but I remember all the talk about you two being rivals. And, uh, one of our draft prospects was on that Team Canada bus. Broke his hand, but he played six seasons for us before he went to Colorado. Hollander never played again, did he?”

“No, he did not,” Ilya affirmed, knowing he sounded sort of pitifully sad about that. “I had sex with him.”

“Who? Hollander?” Hunter asked, very obviously startled. At Ilya’s nod, his eyebrows approached his hairline, and he continued, “At World Juniors?”

“Last week.”

Scott Hunter blinked. “Ok, Roz, you’re gonna have to back things up for me a bit,” he said slowly, “So you somehow reconnected with your teenage hockey rival, managed to sleep with him — which is the part I find least surprising by the way, just to be clear — and then presumably developed real feelings? Feelings that you’re sitting here in my bar doing nothing about?”

Ilya shrugged helplessly. “More or less in that order.”

Scott waved his hand at Kyle, ordering them both two very standard, normal-colored beers, and then spun on his stool to gaze at Ilya dead on. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, hmm?”

So Ilya did, recounting the entirety of March to July and doing his best not to shed actual tears in front of his dinosaurial hockey adversary as he reached the end of that horrible parking lot conversation. Scott Hunter was not to know that he had any weaknesses, on or off the ice.

“Well, shit,” Hunter said simply when Ilya had finished, scrubbing at his face, “This convoluted gay nonsense is more Eric’s expertise than mine.”

“Yes, I know, you were basically married from the start,” Ilya replied, rolling his eyes. “Congratulations.”

Hunter scoffed. “Do you want my thoughts or not, asshole?”

Ilya sighed, took a long sip of his beer, and waved a hand.

“So, I’m thinking there are two potential realities here,” he continued, “One, Shane isn’t interested in a relationship with you but likes you as a friend and also thinks you’re hot enough to sleep with occasionally. Which would normally work fine for you, except it wouldn’t at all be casual sex on your end this time. Bad idea.”

Hunter paused, looking contemplative. “Or, option two, Shane does like you back and won’t say it because he doesn’t know that you obviously reciprocate and/or because you’ve basically described him as a stubborn, overly dramatic son of a bitch who thinks being with you means he has to give up his entire life for you and move into your house on the first date.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow, not sure if Hunter was that purposefully lacking in self awareness. “I have heard that second one can happen.”

The notorious romantic between them visibly bit his tongue and turned a little red. “In… extreme cases, sure,” he said haltingly, making Ilya genuinely laugh for the first time in days.

“But, Roz, both scenarios are going to require that you actually talk to him again,” he continued, “You either say ‘hey, I’m in love with you, and being casual hookup friends wouldn’t be healthy for me’ or ‘hey, are you also in love with me because if so, it’ll be hard but can we figure out how to be together?’ and then leave the ball in his court to decide.”

The thought of actually saying anything about his feelings to Shane felt akin to putting his fingers in a garbage disposal, but Ilya knew that Scott Hunter was probably right. Not that he would be admitting that out loud.

“You’re probably right.” Ah, well, that was the vodka talking.

Hunter laughed, reaching over to slap him on the back. “Okay, pal, that’s how I know for certain it’s time to cut you off.”

Ilya stuck his tongue out, ready to tell Hunter off.

The sudden buzz of his phone had him scrambling at his pockets to pull it out.

Shane: Hey are you ok? Harris texted me worried about you. Said you called out and skipped a virtual team meeting yesterday?

Ilya frowned. He would make sure to call Harris a traitorous snitch later.

Ilya: fine. in nyc 💃🏻

“Is that him?” Hunter asked, looking concerned when Ilya nodded distractedly.

Shane: What the hell

Shane: With who?

“Hunter, stay there. Kyle, come back here,” Ilya said, leaning over the bar. When the bartender approached, looking at him quizzically, he opened his front camera and said ‘say cheese!’

Kyle just laughed, posing for the selfie in the background with one bicep curled. Hunter looked decidedly less approving, but managed a soft smile anyhow.

He sent the photo back to Shane with about ten rainbow emojis.

The phone rang immediately.

“Hello?”

“Ilya,” Shane’s voice said sternly. “What are you doing?”

“Having a drink with my friends.”

“No, what are you doing in New York? You didn’t mention you had plans.”

Ilya frowned. “Was not plan. I was sad though, so then I made one.”

“Sad? Because of me?”

“Yes, because I wanted to kiss you more and—”

The phone was unceremoniously yanked from his hand. He pouted, making grabby hands as Scott Hunter continued the conversation for him.

“Hey, Shane. This is Scott.”

Ilya gave up the fight after a moment, as Hunter stood up and walked to the end of the bar. He ended up sort of half-listening to the one-sided conversation, watching Hunter frowning with the phone pressed up to his ear. 

“Nice to, uh, officially meet you too. And yeah, he’s staying in our guest room, don’t worry.”

Hunter’s expression turned conflicted.

“I don’t want to lie and say he’s okay. He’s been, um, pretty torn up about the way you both left things in Ottawa so…”

There was a long pause.

“No, no, I have no doubt you really care about him. He‘s just… a lonelier person than you might realize, I think. We try to be a little family for him here. One he’s not the captain of, at least.”

Hunter listened again for even longer.

“I… yeah, I do think you should talk. In person, probably.”

Ilya watched as Hunter’s face morphed into one of total shock.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s an emergency,” he coughed out, “In fact, it’s probably better if you wait a bit. Let the thoughts settle, you know?”

With a few agreeable nods, Hunter said an eventual goodbye and hung up the phone, returning to Ilya’s side.

“It’s, uh, definitely option two,” he said plainly, “Good fucking god.”

Ilya, eyes swimming after that last drink, wasn’t sure he remembered what he had options for. “Is that good?”

“You’re really made for each other, let’s just say that,” Hunter replied, reaching over to gently pet Ilya’s curls. “Now how about we head back to the apartment, hmm?”

Ilya hummed at the touch, leaning his head over until it was tucked against a firm chest. “Will Kip paint my nails?”

The handsome hockey man smiled down at him. “Yeah, pal, first thing in the morning, okay?”

“Yay,” Ilya murmured sleepily, “Thank you for…”

He trailed off, watching the neon bar colors blur prettily around him.

“Of course, sweet Rozy,” the man whispered softly back. “We’ve got you.”

- 🏒-

Shane: I hope you got home from New York safely.

Ilya: i did

Shane: Do you feel better?

Ilya: a little

Ilya: [photo of his nails painted a sparkly lavender shade]

Shane: Oh, those are so pretty!

Ilya: i know

- 🏒-

August 2024 - Montreal

“There you are,” a woman’s voice said, startling Shane from where he was hiding in a quieter corner of the backyard.

“Oh, hey, Jackie,” he greeted, raising the plastic cup of lemonade he held in one hand. “Great party.”

She looked as pretty as ever, in a blue sundress printed with tiny yellow flowers, her long brown hair curling loosely down her back. It was hard to believe she was a mother of four, with how young she still felt to him. Shane couldn’t imagine making that much… life, and not looking perpetually exhausted by it.

Though, in the chaos of hosting her husband’s retirement party — and consequently a herd of current and former NHL players — in her home, she was probably putting on a particularly brave face.

“You can’t be coping worse than Hayden is,” she joked. “I found him in the kitchen earlier looking just as dazed. He didn’t even notice the giant blue smear of cupcake icing our youngest was applying to the knee of his jeans.”

Shane blew out a breath, part laughter and part apology. “I’m sorry, I just needed a quick breather. I didn’t know this would feel so…”

“Bittersweet?” Jackie suggested. She smiled gently, touching him on the arm. “I know it must be hard, seeing him give it up voluntarily.”

He winced. “I wouldn’t wish the alternative on anyone else.”

“Oh, I know, Shane,” she remarked, eyes softening, “It’s amazing how decent and lovely you turned out, given all you’ve been through.”

He looked back at her, considering. “Hey, Jackie?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you and Hayden decide? That giving things up for his career was the right thing for you?”

Jackie looked a little amused. “I don’t know if I’m the right WAG to ask, to be honest. The short answer is that I was twenty-one and stupid and in love with a hockey player. I’d just kind of accepted that having him in my life at all meant a lot of time without him.”

She peered closely at him. “Is this about Ilya Rozanov?”

“Hayden,” Shane cursed, looking skyward.

Jackie shrugged, a smile tugging at her lips. “He’s my husband. You had to know he’d tell me everything.”

She took a step closer, lowering her voice. “So you worked on some charity thing together recently, right? Did something happen?”

Realizing just how much he’d kept pent up in the two weeks since the gala, Shane gave her an abbreviated, bullet point summary of meeting and befriending the Centaurs’ star. With the way her eyebrows rose even at the mention of their heated kiss on the ice, he decided to keep the locker room details… sparing at best.

“And then I left,” he concluded, “and even though it made sense, I still felt so awful. And apparently so did he, because he ended up in New York drinking about me with Scott Hunter.”

Jackie hummed. “The problem isn’t whether or not you’re in love with each other, right? Because you are. Like obviously so.”

Shane opened his mouth to protest, but closed it just as quickly seeing the look she leveled him with.

“So you’re in love with him but you’re worried because you have a business in Toronto and his job is sort of Ottawa-based and you both travel a lot for work?”

At his hesitant nod, Jackie laughed. “I mean that’s kind of just a modern long distance relationship, babe. I’m afraid many people do it for years, even.”

He must have looked sick at the idea because she reached out to touch his arm again. “Ah, but you want to be the place he comes home to, don’t you?”

Shane let his eyes fall shut momentarily, nodding again.

“And the city you’d have to live in for that to be possible, you… don’t see a future for yourself there?”

“It’s stupid because I actually like Ottawa,” he blurted, then sighed in frustration, “I’ve just spent so many years running from the memories there that moving back would feel like reverting to a past me. Like I’m undoing the healing somehow?”

“From what you just told me, with the skating especially, it seems like you grew a lot in the last few months,” she argued, “And my terrible gossip of a husband has been harping on about how much happier you seem there, with… Rozanov.”

He laughed at the way her face twisted at the name.

“Sorry, just… ugh,” Jackie said, shaking her head playfully, “He’s hot, I get it. But I have a lot of seasons of cursing him to hell and back to unlearn.”

Shane smiled at the continued willingness of his friends to accommodate his stupid feelings. Still, he felt the doubt and fear linger. “Being happy when I’m with Ilya is one thing. But looking into more permanent ties to Ottawa? For a man who might not want anything serious with me? Am I crazy, Jackie? I feel crazy.”

“Well, first you’ll have to ask him what he wants, remember?” she pointed out, tone a little sharper, “I know you’re a planner, Shane, but you have skipped ahead a few steps on this one.”

Shane groaned, stressed, a hand coming up to his hair to tug at the root. “Ok but even if miraculously we’re on the same page, what if… what if it doesn’t work out in the long run? He’d still be there. It’s his city now, Jackie. They’ve put literal billboards of his face up everywhere to remind me of that.”

Jackie sighed. “Then you experience the heartbreak that a lot of people do when they move for a partner. It’s risk versus reward, Shane.”

At his petrified look, she continued, “And honestly, you’re sort of acting like he asked you to stay permanently for him, when it sounds like all he’d proposed was a little more time together?” Her lips twitched. “You could try, I don’t know, hanging out at his house first before up and buying one yourself next door?”

She glanced toward her own house then, where some kind of drinking game chant had erupted amongst the hockey players. 

Turning back to Shane, Jackie smiled softly. “Love doesn’t mean you have to give up everything for someone, it just kind of makes you feel like you would.”

He blinked, the realization coming easy, like a sunrise. “I… I think I would. For him.”

“Then tell him that. And see what he asks for,” Jackie said with another gentle smile, “I highly doubt it’ll be the scary ultimatum you think.”

The words hit Shane like a freight train. All this circular planning he was doing, all the sacrifices he was considering in advance… when maybe there was a way to actually get what they both wanted, without all his ridiculous angsting about it. Or what he hoped Ilya wanted too, at least.

“Hey, you, um, wouldn’t happen to have any comp tickets left for the preseason, would you?”

Jackie’s eyes narrowed. “Depends.”

“On?” Shane gulped.

“What jersey you’re planning to show up in.”

Seeing the way he blushed, she let out a faux gasp. “That’s cold, Hollander.” 

There was another series of whoops from the back patio and then some sort of minor crashing sound. Jackie sighed, equal parts fond amusement and exasperation.

Hooking their arms together companionably, she started to lead him through the grass and back toward the revelry.

“C’mon, Shane, let’s go see what my husband and the singular shared Voyageur brain cell have cooked up now.”

- 🏒-

Svetlana: hey cutie

Rose: hiii 💕

Svetlana: first thing, i’ll be down in new york next weekend if you wanted to…

Rose: i do 😏

Svetlana: 💙💙💙

Rose: second thing?

Svetlana: how is your boy? 

Svetlana: mine is grumpier than usual and training so intensely i’m worried he’ll hurt himself before the season even starts

Rose: mine is like… suspiciously ok, i guess? he wouldn’t really say much about what happened after the gala, just that they hooked up and agreed to stay friends. but knowing shane, he was totally overthinking it. he kind of ghosted for a while tbh

Rose: but he’s been acting happier, freer lately. i think he’s planning something 🤔

Svetlana: maybe for the preseason?

Rose: oh, yeah! he asked me if i was busy first week of october, but i’ll be in LA

Svetlana: montreal plays at ottawa on the 4th… i wonder

Rose: big sweeping romantic gesture omg??

Svetlana: it would work on ilya if so. he’s secretly a huge softie

Rose: off the ice anyway

Svetlana: but ugh, i just hope they won’t keep sleeping together without actually talking about it

Svetlana: sex with feelings attached sounds exhausting

Rose: ha

Rose: yeah

[1 missed call from Svetlana Vetrova]

Svetlana: Rose, pick up the phone

- 🏒-

September 2024 - Ottawa

Ilya sat on the bench in the Censplex locker room, listening as their coaching staff outlined the timed drills and scrimmages for that day.

The Centaurs had already neared their cap after a series of trades to beef up their checking lines, but their training camp practices still included a dozen eager AHL guys, some veterans on PTOs, two NCAA players, and one particularly wide-eyed eighteen year old prospect who looked way too terrified of everything to possibly be the USHL’s leading goal scorer. He’d turned bright red at Ilya’s first casual ‘hello’ and had not uttered a single audible word in the week since.

(“Is that how I seemed around you as a rookie?” Luca Haas had asked at yesterday’s practice.

“Yes, but don’t worry, Haasy,” he’d teased, chuckling, “We aren’t picking up this one. Too expensive. Your status as number one fanboy is safe.”

Haas had stuck out his tongue, but was clearly pleased by the lack of competition anyway.)

“We’ll have seven preseason games,” one of the assistant coaches was saying, “Two against Toronto, then New Jersey and Buffalo, Montreal in QC, and then Montreal again here.”

He paused, looking stern, “If you’re on the bubble, and you should know that by now, use these next few weeks to impress us. If you want to get called up or stay up and be one of the twenty three men on this roster, this is your chance.”

Ilya nodded along but internally he was grimacing, unable to imagine the cutthroat competition of clawing for a roster spot every season. He’d been lucky to play well enough out of Russia to be scouted early and had basically engineered a straight shot to NHL stardom for his eighteenth birthday. Playing years’ more hockey before even getting a look at the big leagues sounded miserable.

“Rozanov,” Coach Wiebe said, stepping in. “We’ll dress you for the last game, maybe last two if we decide to try someone new on your line. Boodram and Barrett, same for you. For our other vets, you’ll be rotating through a handful of games each. Obviously we might throw you out there more often to evaluate some things. Or if I think you’ve got some rust to kick off.”

The existing Centaurs around the room all nodded.

“In other news,” Wiebe continued, consulting his clipboard, “we got the final numbers back from Finance and Partnerships on the Centaurs gala, and I’m pleased to say we raised a record $647,000 CAD, more than double the figure the last time we hosted this event in 2022. Thanks to all of you, really. It makes me proud to be a part of this organization.”

As the locker room erupted into cheers and applause, Ilya felt a proud smile tugging at his lips.

“Wow, Roz,” Barrett said, leaning over, “Your boy killed it!”

Ilya nodded, face warming as it always did when thinking back to the good parts of that particular night. “Yes, he did.”

- 🏒-

Ilya: amazing job on gala. new record 🥇

Ilya: i’m proud of you

Shane: Thank you.

Shane: 💜💚

Ilya: you would not happen to be interested in coming to preseason game would you?

Shane: Sorry, wish I could. Work travel late Sept to early Oct :/

Ilya: okay

- 🏒-

October 2024

The preseason wins were meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it still felt nice to watch rookies and veterans and potential call-ups learn to work together effectively.

They would be going into tonight’s last game at home against Montreal with a 5-1 record, and Ilya — despite understanding that his job was to set up plays for the prospects and not get hurt before the real season started — was hungry for some ice time against the Voyageurs regardless.

He’d done just a handful of shifts during the previous Montreal game at the neutral site in Quebec City, but the Voyageurs’ checking lines had been very invested in trying to squash him like a bug and not much else. It had been a distracting and irritating couple of minutes. But they’d won 4-2 anyway, with some eager kid from Minnesota scoring off Ilya’s assist.

He wanted to score on Montreal badly tonight, himself, just to remind them who they’d be dealing with all season.

The goal horn sounded.

It was time.

Their home announcer finished his hype intro, letting out one long “Centauuuuurs!” and then they were darting out of the tunnel onto the ice as the guitar licks of Refused ‘New Noise’ synced up with the arena light show.

God, would he ever get tired of this?

The announcer read out the starting lineup, ending with a thrilled, “And your captain, number eighty-one, Ilyaaaaa Rooozanov!”

The modest pre-season crowd in the arena roared, and he smiled, winking at a few of the fans banging against the glass as he skated a wide circle around the Centaurs’ side.

He blinked when he realized that the shape of one blurry face in particular had looked familiar.

Oh great, Ilya, you’re straight up hallucinating him now.

He shook his head, snagging a puck to warm up his hands, eyes focused down on the ice. Still, he found himself drawn to that right corner, slowly edging toward it across the rink as he flitted between skate drills, puck handling, and a short stretch. When he got near the glass, he waved first at a small child wearing a tiny version of the Centaurs jersey, making eye contact with their guardian as he flicked a puck over the netting for them. 

And then, with a gulp, and the certainty that he must be going absolutely insane, he rotated ten degrees to the right…

… and came face to face with Shane Hollander.

A smiling Shane Hollander, in fact, who was dressed in a familiar green and purple jersey and very much not the opposing Voyageur red and blue. Shane waved at him through the glass and he waved back, a little stupidly, knowing that some fan would have a ~Rozanov Core~ TikTok edit with that clip uploaded within the day.

“Good luck!” Shane shouted. He did a horribly dorky sort of half-jump spin, gesturing to the ROZANOV printed across his back. When he turned back around, his smile was huge.

Ilya’s cheeks flamed.

“You’re gonna kiss that guy later, right?” Hayes remarked, scaring the shit out of Ilya from where he was frog-stretching beside the crease.

“Mind your business, Hazy,” he grumbled, looping back around the net.

“A happy Ilya Rozanov is my business,” their goalie argued, “They’re trialing a new pair of d-men tonight, so I’m gonna need a hatty from you, at least, for insurance.”

Ilya shrugged. “Okay, yes, no problem.”

With Shane in the crowd as motivation, he could almost believe that was possible. With the knowledge that his coach wanted him rested and uninjured, he knew it wouldn’t be. Could be fun to try though.

Twenty-ish minutes later, as the second period was just underway, Ilya came tumbling over the boards from the long change, breathing hard but smiling like a madman. 

A second goal. 3-0 overall, with a goal from Barrett off a first period powerplay.

“Jesus, Roz,” Wiebe said, but he was laughing a little, “Did you want to let your fellow linemen touch the puck that shift?”

Ilya shrugged, squirting water into his mouth. “Not worth wearing them out when Montreal defense leaves me hole that big.”

“I’d say take pity on the babies out there, but I fucking hate that team,” Wiebe discreetly mouthed behind his whiteboard, “I want you sat for most of the third, but you can score whatever the hell you want until then.”

Ilya chewed on his mouth guard, grin big. “Roger that.”

He didn’t end up scoring his hat trick, but he was sure the next-day highlights would be spectacular anyway.

One of the Voyageur defensemen had leveled Barrett near the end of the second, likely out of pure frustration. Before the fucker could fully spit out a snide, “Whole team of fa—” Ilya had arrived full force, checking him straight over the boards into his own bench. The solid punch to the chin he received in the ensuing eight person brawl was worth it. Climbing out from a whole pile of irate Voyageurs and grinning fellow Cens had been glorious.

He couldn’t wait to hear Shane’s reaction.

True to his word, Wiebe didn’t send Ilya out again after he sat his penalty, but he was hardly needed anyway. Coach tried his best to look disapproving each time they locked eyes at the bench, but ended up biting back a smile straight through to their 4-0 finish.

The vibe in the locker room afterward was buoyant. 

“Lotta good stuff out there, guys,” Wiebe was saying, concluding his post-game speech, “I love this momentum going into the season. Let’s bring the same energy next week, alright?”

He glanced around the room. “Okay, get out of here and have some sensible fun.”

“Sounds like a Monks night, eh boys?” Bood called out, and was met with some rowdy cheers.

As his fellow players planned their local bar outing, Ilya was tugging off the last of his gear and grabbing for his phone from his locker’s upper shelf. He let out an embarrassing little sigh of relief seeing there was a text from Shane waiting.

Shane: Great game tonight! 💚💜

Ilya: thank you 🐭

Ilya: you still around?

Shane: Had to leave earlier with the regular crowd.

Ilya frowned, wishing in a silly way that Shane’s surprise had been spoiled if only so he could’ve arranged something with security.

Shane: But um

Shane: [Address of downtown hotel] Room 613

Shane: If you… wanted to?

Ilya blew out a long breath, considering. He remembered Scott Hunter’s words at the Kingfisher, calling this exact situation a quote ‘bad idea’ … but surely they could talk after right? Maybe even before, if he spoke really quickly and avoided looking at Shane’s mouth… or eyes… or generally acknowledging his existence in the room with him whatsoever.

Ilya: i want

Shane: Should I wait?

Ilya: for me?

Shane: To touch myself.

Ilya hummed. Oh, so they were starting like this already.

Ilya: no.

Ilya: keep getting yourself close. but don’t come.

Shane: Mm fine. But hurry up please

Ilya: think i might take my time actually. and there could be traffic

Shane: Mean 😡 guess I better use my fingers then. Keep myself busy.

Ilya choked, clocking the knowing look that Wyatt Hayes leveled him from a few stalls down.

Ilya: now who is mean one?

Ilya: give me 30 min

The one benefit of his Centaurs’ teammates thinking (okay, knowing) he was a little bit of a manwhore was that they immediately pieced together his intentions for the evening when he begged off the bar invitation. He only had to suffer a few teasing remarks before he was able to slip away, jumping into his car in the private parking garage, and plugging in the address Shane had shared.

The hotel was located about halfway between downtown and the airport, and Ilya wondered if that meant Shane was on another short trip. Leaving in the morning maybe.

He winced, already thinking about the next goodbye. 

Still, Ilya was determined not to leave things as they had before. 

Maybe it wasn’t full-on love confession time, but he wasn’t going to let Shane go without telling him that he would be interested in more at least.

That they could figure something out, somehow, to be together.

That it would be worth it.

Chapter 14

When the knock on his door came later that night, Shane practically leapt to his feet.

He checked the peephole before opening the door just wide enough to yank the man inside, shutting the door a little too loudly behind him.

Ilya Rozanov, here, in front of him again. Looking freshly showered, curls still damp, and in the kind of easy athletic combination of grey zip-up hoodie, team t-shirt and black sweatpants that made Shane’s mouth water. There was the lightest suggestion of a bruise forming on the lower right side of his jaw, no doubt a result of the all-out brawl that the centre had sparked during the game. 

His guest slowly kicked off his Nike slides, saying nothing, hazel eyes locked on his own.

“Hi,” Shane breathed, watching as Ilya glanced down his body, clearly taking in the way he was dressed in the Centaurs jersey and little else, the hem of the shirt only just long enough to cover the black briefs he wore underneath.

Ilya was quiet for a long moment before he took a step forward, twisting a hand in the front of the jersey, and saying, very clearly, “I am going to fuck you in this.”

Shane was on him in an instant, their lips coming together in a brutal clash that was more teeth and open-mouthed gasping at first than anything. It was hungry to the point of near-violence and Shane’s blood was singing with it. Blessedly, he felt Ilya carefully realign them, as he had on the arena’s ice, and then Shane was sinking, sinking, sinking…

It was a mind-numbing experience being kissed by Ilya Rozanov, who used his lips and tongue and clever fingers to spin a web of pleasure that plucked Shane out of reality entirely. Prey, caught. 

He felt his whole world narrow to a pinprick dot where only the gasps and groans of the man in front of him existed. In an instant, he had Ilya backed up against the entryway wall, peeling his jacket and t-shirt off and kissing down his chest as he fell to his knees.

“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya groaned as Shane dipped his fingers below the waistband of his sweats.

Tugging them down fully, he pressed his face into Ilya’s groin and inhaled with a happy little moan. He mouthed around that perfect cock through the thin fabric of the man’s grey underwear, watching the color darken with his spit. Chest heaving, Ilya’s hand reached down to grab at Shane’s cheek, two fingers finding his mouth and slipping inside. Shane sucked, moaning harder when Ilya pushed those fingers deeper and let him choke just a little. Pulling back and moving that same hand into his hair, Shane nearly purred at the familiar tug at the roots. 

God, he had missed this.

Mouth empty again, an unacceptable state, Shane yanked down those confining briefs and pulled out his prize. He licked one long stripe up the shaft, before sliding the foreskin back to tongue at the slit. Smiling at Ilya’s low moan, he parted his lips and dove in, sucking that cock like he needed it to live. It felt like that sometimes, this constant pull to be blissfully full. He was so hungry for it.

After a few minutes, Ilya was calling out a choked ‘stop, stop’ and pulling Shane to his knees. He stepped out of his pants and, now completely naked, spun them both over to the bed.

Shane felt himself go down, face first into the duvet, and then those hands were back on him, roaming everywhere. Ilya rucked the jersey up his back just enough to expose the curve of his ass, and he felt his underwear being slowly slid off entirely. At the sensation of the cool air against his cheeks, Shane moaned again, rutting his now exposed cock against the bedding beneath him. As instructed, he had in fact edged himself twice before Ilya’s arrival and was keyed up beyond belief. It wouldn’t take much.

“God, Hollander, look at you,” Ilya whispered appreciatively, poking at the back of his legs and saying a soft “On your knees, head down.” As Shane immediately complied, he added, “Hands behind your back, clasp them, if you are feeling especially good for me.”

Shane reached back, joining his fingers, mind so wonderfully quiet with simple instructions to follow. It was probably pathological at this point, how badly he wanted to be good, and for this man specifically. He turned his head to breathe, one cheek pressed into the sheets, and said, “I’m already prepped, you know.”

He heard Ilya suck in a breath of his own. “Oh, is that right? You think you are ready for me?”

The brat in Shane would have said something snippy about being more of a size queen than Ilya knew, how he could take dick with the best of them, but the soupy-brained, subby Shane in that room right now just nodded. “Please.”

“Such a polite boy,” Ilya murmured, hand tracing one of his ass cheeks and then connecting with a loud smack.

It wasn’t a particularly hard hit, but Shane jolted with a gasp just the same, cock leaking where it hung heavy between his spread legs. A second hit to the other cheek to even it out had him turning his face into the bed to muffle a truly wanton moan.

Ilya thumbed at his hole, already slick with lube, and asked, “How many times can you come?”

Shane shuddered, mumbling a muffled, “Twice.”

Ilya’s hand yanking his head up just an inch or so off the mattress by the hair had him letting out a pleased, broken breath. “Twice,” he repeated, unprompted, “I… I get sensitive in a bad way after that.”

“Okay,” Ilya agreed, tone as pleasant as if they were discussing the weather, “And if I fuck you through the first one?”

“Yeah, yes,” Shane moaned, shoulders aching a little at the unnatural arch he was being held in.

As Ilya released his hair, he arched deeper anyway, knowing he was presenting perfectly.

“Fuck,” Ilya breathed out, and then he spit, using the tip of one finger to spread it across the puckered entrance. Shane shivered at the sensation, feeling filthy, when just as suddenly there were two thick fingers buried in him. The lack of warning was like a gut punch and he let out his loudest moan yet.

“Shh, Shane,” Ilya commanded, a little laughter in his voice, “I love to hear you, but I am not sure rest of the hotel feels the same.”

Shane nodded, face warm, but was a little too far gone to feel any real shame about his reaction.

Ilya seemed to trace his own number on Shane’s back before he tapped him between the shoulder blades and added, “Put your hands in front of you now, sweetheart. You did so well holding still for me.”

Shane shrugged his arms forward in relief, only to find himself immediately clawing at the sheets as Ilya’s expert fingers found that spot in one fatal curl. As Ilya practically milked his prostate, he buried his face once more, knowing his appreciative words and sounds were ending up as nothing more than drool on the duvet.

“I wonder if I even need to touch you,” Ilya mused aloud. As if to prove the point, he tugged once, mercifully, on Shane’s neglected cock. Shane yelped, scrabbling for a pillow in front of him to better muffle his shouts.

The pressure building was almost torturous as Ilya continued his ministrations. Shane found himself teary-eyed, turning his head again to beg a repeated ‘please’ into the air between them.

“Please, what?” Ilya teased, ending his question with a bit of murmured Russian that sounded very fond.

“Fuck me,” Shane replied instantly. “I don’t want to come just from your fingers,” he continued, nearly begging, “I want to come on your cock.”

Ilya hummed, pulling his fingers out entirely. “Someone is very demanding this evening.”

“Please,” Shane whined again, knowing that his wet hole fluttering around the emptiness must have made a tempting sight at least. 

“I think,” Ilya began slowly, his hands running down Shane’s ass and then slapping the back of each trembling thigh. “That if you want to make the rules, you will have to get yourself off.”

Shane blinked as Ilya climbed fully onto the bed next to him, rolling him gently to the side. He watched the man prop himself up against the pillows, arms arranged behind his head, nonchalant.

“Go on,” he gestured, where his thick cock stood at attention, “Use it.”

Shane knew this was a punishment of sorts, but the opportunity to get that dick inside him — no matter how it happened — was too tempting a prospect to resist.

He crawled over to the bedside table, grabbing for the travel bottle of lube he’d stored there earlier. He reached for the strip of condoms as well, turning to present them to Ilya with a raised eyebrow.

“I got tested recently,” he offered, a little embarrassed as he added, “And, uh, haven’t been with anyone since…”

“Since?” He watched as the understanding dawned on Ilya’s face. “Ah, yes. Me too. And we had full physical before training camp. All clear.”

Shane nodded, returning the condoms to the drawer. 

Then he froze. 

He turned back to Ilya, crawling into his lap and leaning over him, eyes searching. “Wait, you too? Like you haven’t been with anyone else since the arena?” At the nod, he protested, “But that was—”

“Months ago, yes, Shane. I know.” Ilya rolled his eyes. “My dick knows too, believe me.”

The smile that filled Shane’s face probably felt a little incongruous to the intense sexy moment they’d been sharing leading up to this, but still… the lightness he felt at the thought of the NHL’s playboy bachelor holding out for him was giving him a head rush. And a little bit of an ego, too.

All that aside, Shane sat back on Ilya’s legs and was quick to pour a bit of lube into his palm, warming it. Ilya’s eyes on him were intense as he slicked up that delicious uncut cock, before shifting forward and lining himself up.

He wondered what he must look like, still clad in only his Rozanov jersey, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he felt the head catch on his rim before he sank down all the way. Fully seated, he shifted a little, a breathy ‘oh my god’ leaving his mouth at the feeling of finally being filled up the way he craved.

He met Ilya’s eyes again, and was pleased to see he had his bottom lip bit harshly between his teeth, fighting hard to seem unaffected. Ilya reached forward, snaking a hand under the jersey to palm at Shane’s stomach and chest. 

“Hold this in your mouth,” he instructed, hand pulling back to tug at the hem of the jersey. His crooked smile was absolutely lethal. “I know you will be loud once you move.”

As if proving the point, he thrust upward the tiniest bit and Shane practically keened.

Bundling up the thick jersey fabric, Shane shoved it in between his lips and bit down, grateful for the feeling even, his oral fixation satiated. Ilya pawed at his face appreciatively, before dropping both arms behind his head again. It made his arm muscles pop beautifully and Shane actively felt his hole twitch at the sight, startling a groan from them both.

“Go ahead, sweetheart,” Ilya instructed. It was a firm suggestion but a little breathless still, as if he needed Shane to move just as much as Shane did. Shane was happy to comply; the cliff’s edge of his orgasm was approaching rapidly enough as it was.

Concerned about the effect of riding on his ankle joint, he slipped onto his knees instead, rolling his hips in a slow, experimental wave. It felt fucking indulgent and he moaned into the fabric in his mouth, feeling every inch of Ilya’s heat inside of him.

After a few minutes, Ilya’s hands came up to his hips and he leaned forward even more, bracing one hand against the headboard as Ilya began to rise to meet him. The sound was filthy.

“Look at you,” Ilya praised, almost growling, “Taking what you need. So fucking hot in my jersey.”

“Mm, yeah, yours,” Shane agreed happily, though it was muffled by his mouthful. Needing a deeper breath, he grabbed the jersey with his free hand instead, and then greedily leaned forward to connect their mouths in a sloppy kiss.

Another moment passed and he felt his pace begin to slow, legs tiring a bit. Ilya, of course, noticed immediately and lifted Shane’s hips, pulling out. He peeled the jersey over Shane’s head, tossing it somewhere across the room, and then rolled them over, their eyes connecting with an intensity that made Shane’s breath catch in his throat.

He had almost expected Ilya to take him from behind, a little impersonal still. Instead, Ilya caged him in, gently bending his good leg at the knee and sliding back to the hilt, the other hand reaching to tilt Shane’s chin up into a tender kiss.

The sweetness ended there, however, as Ilya soon picked up a punishing pace, the claps of skin obscene in the quiet of the room. Shane moaned into Ilya’s mouth, gasping out a ‘right there, god please, I’m so close’ as his orgasm became inevitable.

Ilya reached down and had hardly circled his fist around him before Shane felt his whole body tense, back arching as he came, his release painting him from stomach to chest as he clawed at the bigger man’s back like a bottom possessed. Ilya blanketed him, fucking him through it, the man’s body hair smearing the cum between them. Shane knew that once he had possession of a single working brain cell again, he would find this disgusting. 

But for now, he just clung to Ilya in the sticky heat of it all, encouraging the man to find his own release. 

“Come in me, please,” he begged, almost pathetic with it. He usually found the act more inconvenient than sexy, but there was something about the primal need to be claimed by the man inside him that was turning Shane into a little bit of a monster.

“Shane, fuck,” Ilya was muttering, fucking into him with abandon. He added something else after that in stilted Russian, repeating it. 

The syllables became clearer as he shuddered out his release, holding Shane tightly against him as he came in hot spurts. In the midst of the overstimulation bringing tears to Shane’s eyes, he felt his heart soar.

Ya lyublyu tebya.

Shane knew that one.

- 🏒-

When Ilya crawled back onto the bed, warm washcloth in hand, Shane was still lying there as he’d left him.

Shane’s eyes were teary, his limbs loose, and his mouth turned up in a dazed, fucked-out smile.

He nearly purred as Ilya wiped him down, cleaning gently from his abs to his softened cock and lower still. He was tempted to tease a bit, but knew that Shane was likely spent, having let Ilya eat him out after being fucked so prettily. Two orgasms as promised.

“I missed you,” Shane said, so painfully soft, once they were both tucked back under the covers.

Ilya carded his fingers through those pretty waves, where Shane was nestled against his chest.

“I missed you too,” he replied, frowning a little, “Do you leave in the morning?”

He felt Shane nod.

“Do you have to?”

There was a moment of hesitation.

Ilya used that precious second to tilt Shane’s chin up, connecting their lips in the softest kiss they’d shared yet. It was now or never, he supposed. Enough of wondering where their heads were at, even if it meant his heart might get broken in the process.

Don’t be a coward forever, Ilyusha.

He took a deep breath and, into the silence, admitted:

“I really like you, Shane Hollander.” A beat. “I have always liked you.”

He heard Shane sniffle a bit. After a long moment, he said, “You know, I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t anything more, to keep things easy between us, but…”

Ilya made a questioning noise.

“But,” Shane sighed, sounding fond even in his resignation, “I don’t think I can. Ilya Rozanov, I like you too. Too much, even.”

Ilya closed his eyes, letting the concept of Shane Hollander’s affection wash over him. Shifting, he pulled Shane onto his side, their legs overlapping beneath the sheets, and kissed him again thoroughly.

“Our first game is in six days,” he said, when they broke apart.

“I know.”

“I was thinking…” he ventured, braced for the full weight of Shane’s rejection a second time, “Will you stay here until then? At the cottage?”

Shane pushed up onto his elbows, bracketing himself above him, his eyes searching Ilya’s face. 

“I will have to go to practice, of course, some of the days but… if you were there when I got back,” Ilya continued, “I would be so happy. To have any time with you I can.”

Shane leaned down to briefly kiss him once more. Pulling back, their foreheads still touching, he asked, “What does it mean if I stay?”

“It means that we do a lot more of this,” Ilya joked, palming an ass cheek through the blankets and laughing when Shane smacked his chest. 

He leaned up to press an apologetic kiss to Shane’s cheek and then a peck to his lips too. It seemed almost impossible to keep their mouths apart, drawn in magnetically, and worsened by the way Shane kept looking at him all sweet and sleepy.

“I think you know though,” Ilya continued, “that it would mean something more than friends.”

Shane’s eyes widened, as did his smile. “You’d want that?”

“To be with you?” Ilya asked, heart beating loudly in his chest. He wondered if Shane could feel it. “I think so, yes. But maybe we could spend some time together first? Now we know there are… feelings?”

Shane snuggled up against him once more. “Are you asking me on a date?”

Ilya shrugged his shoulders, though he felt anything but nonchalant about this exchange. “A date, and a sleepover,” he joked, “Several sleepovers actually.”

Shane pretended to gasp. “I’m a chaste girl, Mr. Rozanov,” he argued, putting on a silly, old-timey accent, “I’m afraid I don’t put out on the first date.”

“Good thing we have time for more than one then,” Ilya said easily.

He felt Shane wiggle happily against him, then fall suddenly, completely still. He could almost hear the man overthinking as the silence lengthened.

“Do not go,” he whispered, pressing lips to Shane’s ear, “Stay with me. Wear my jersey at our first home game. Give me and you a chance.”

Shane turned his head, their eyes meeting once more. “And when the week ends? And you have to travel every few days for half the year?”

“And when you have to go back to Toronto?” Ilya argued back, “And are busy working just the same? It will be hard for both of us, Shane.”

Shane was quiet for a long moment again. “I… I might not. Stay in Toronto, I mean. I’ve been talking to some friends and… I know I can’t keep being unhappy there. I told you as much. But I don’t know what I’ll do yet, instead.”

Ilya hummed, suggesting playfully, “I know of really boring city. Might be perfect for you.”

Shane ducked his head, smiling into Ilya’s collarbone. “I’m… thinking about it, okay. Give me time. I have a lot of logistics to untangle.”

“I can be very patient,” Ilya affirmed, carding a hand through those dark waves again. “But know that I will always want you with me. Wherever that is.”

“Cheeseball,” Shane teased, his expression quickly sobering, “But hey, we got one honest conversation out of the way tonight. Maybe we can talk about the rest… at yours.”

Ilya blinked. “At mine? So you are…?”

“Staying. Yeah, if you’ll have me.”

Forever, Ilya thought, a little hyperbolically and also not exaggerating one bit. 

(But almost a whole week together would do for now.)

“Do you need to do something about your flight?” he asked.

Shane immediately looked sheepish. “There was no flight. I rented a car and drove here. I was just going to rent another car to go back, if I had to.”

Ilya gestured between them. “You were confident? About this?”

Shane shook his head. “Yes and no. Yes, in that I was confident in how I felt about you— am confident. No, in that I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t just ignore my texts, which you’d be right to.” 

He took a shaky breath, continuing, “I’m sorry I got so in my head. I seem to like… crush on someone and then immediately envision all the stressful life moments with them and create all this undue pressure, like ‘oh god, imagine waking up every morning and there’s another person in your house, is he the right person?’ and then I sort of spiral. It’s hard for me to think big picture sometimes, when I’m so obsessed with all the details.”

Ilya sat up against the pillows, rubbing at Shane’s arms to soothe him. “And if you woke up and I was there?”

Shane seemed to ponder for a moment, something like a smirk tugging at his lips. “Then I would be very distracted and have to do a few other things first before any of the overwhelm could hit I think.”

Ilya flopped backward, starfishing, with a dramatic moan. “Ah, I knew I was just this sexy body to you.”

“Nooo,” Shane protested, pushing at him as he laughed, “I mean, yes, you are. But you’re also compassionate and funny and sweet and… you just… get me. In all my disastrous anxious, autistic, chronic-pain-having ways. No one has ever been this patient before. Or given me the space to really… be myself.” 

He frowned, brows furrowing. “I was stupid for thinking I could treat this the same way as any other friendship — or as a friendship at all — and only see you a few times a year. You’re with me right now and I miss you. I never understood that stupid cliché before.”

Ilya looked at him, sure that the pure adoration he felt was visible in his gaze. “I missed you from moment I met you I think.”

“Ugh, Ilya, that’s gross,” Shane whined, wriggling against his chest like he was trying to burrow away from the feelings.

“It’s true,” Ilya argued, poking at Shane’s cheek. “When I first saw your freckles in that back lot, I knew there was something.”

Shane was quiet for a moment. “But seriously, it wasn’t just me, back then, right? Like in LA?”

Ilya swallowed, the memory still a flare of heat in the back of his mind. “No, Shane, it was not.”

“I got off to you when I went back to my hotel room,” Shane blurted, “I was already cursing you for ruining my draft day, but that made it even worse.”

Ilya laughed. “I’m sorry. But also, I did the same, thinking of you too.”

“And I almost kissed you in the gym before that,” Shane admitted, “I wanted to. So badly. To just crawl into your lap right there.”

“I know. You told me.”

Ah well, there goes that secret.

Shane’s body went rigid against him. “What?”

“Um, in the hospital,” Ilya quickly explained, “Was the first thing you said to me. I begged you not to tell your parents after. Was never sure if you did.”

Shane narrowed his eyes. “So you knew this whole time that I was attracted to you?”

Ilya shook his head. “I mean, sort of. I hoped anyway. But it could have been mistake. Or confusion. We were very young.”

“God, imagine if we’d done something then,” Shane mused, looking suddenly thoughtful, “And if the accident hadn’t— I was already so obsessed with you, I would’ve lost my mind trying to balance that and a pro career.”

“I would have given hockey up for you, just the same,” Ilya spoke plainly, finding that sentiment to be true even as he answered on impulse, “Left Boston and our rivalry for boring expansion team. Retired early, even. I would have made a very hot WAG.”

At that, Shane startled, brows furrowing. “Wait, in this universe, am I your WAG?”

“You would have to be my boyfriend, first,” Ilya deadpanned, “Or my husband.”

He hummed, musing, “Marriage would be nice for my citizenship process, you know.”

Shane flopped onto his back on his side of the bed, covering his eyes with his hands. “I… am officially overwhelmed.”

Ilya laughed at the honesty. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“What? Marriage?”

“If you want,” he replied easily, shrugging. “I am very serious about us.”

Seeing Shane’s horrified face peeking out through his fingers, Ilya laughed again. “Sweetheart, I am only joking. Let’s go on that date first, remember?”

Adorable when shy, Shane pulled the duvet over his head entirely, asking a muffled, “Can we take Anya on a walk again?”

“Yes, Shane,” Ilya replied indulgently.

The little blanket pile snuffled. “And you’ll give me a house tour?”

“A very thorough one. All the surfaces.”

At that, Shane peeked his head out a bit, duvet at his chin. “What if I want it slow and romantic in your bed?”

Ilya tilted his head. “Do you?”

Shane wrinkled his nose. “Well we should do it that way once, at least. For posterity.”

“Posterity,” Ilya echoed. He would look that word up later. “And then kitchen, shower, living room couch, outside…”

“Now who only wants who for their body,” Shane huffed.

Ilya sighed, amused, but was serious when he replied, “I want you in every way.”

Shane was beet red in seconds, disappearing back under the blanket. “I hate you, oh my god. You are insufferable like this.”

“Like what?” Ilya questioned, laughing as he lifted the covers to peer beneath. “When I am being nice to you? I have always been nice.”

“I know,” Shane whined, avoiding his eyes, “And it’s been killing me this whole time.”

Ilya scoffed. “You have been killing me,” he argued, dropping the blanket to let Shane resume his hiding. “You are so hot and hardworking and good at everything. And I do not have to see your face to know you love to hear that.” 

Shane grumbled.

“You and your praise kink,” Ilya teased, petting the Shane-shaped lump, “Was very easy to spot.”

“Ugh, no more talking,” Shane complained, head popping out once more, “Let’s sleep. I want to cuddle you.”

Ilya smiled, gathering him up in his arms. They breathed in and out together for several moments before he pressed his lips to Shane’s ear and whispered, “Goodnight, солнышко.”

Shane snuggled back against him with a contented sigh, and whispered his own sweet ‘night’.

Much later, under cover of darkness as Shane snored lightly beside him, Ilya felt his fears start to creep back in.

This is real. Isn’t it?

They had admitted that they both liked each other, and that there was something brewing that was beyond friendship. And that was good; more than he’d dared to hope even. But were a few pretty words and some hot moments enough to convince Shane to consider this in the long run? The way that Ilya was thinking? A genuine future for them both.

The relationship that he wanted, as public and as real as any other NHL player’s, would require him to come out of course. He would do that, no question. With the Centaurs, he was barely hiding now as it was. And Russia… well, his former home had nothing left for him anymore. He hoped his mother, God rest her soul, would understand.

But Shane… would it be fair to put a regular person through the scrutiny of dating a major athlete? Surely hockey fans — even his well-meaning supporters — would be chomping at the bit to know all about the man that had turned a famous playboy’s head. And when they learned Shane’s name and put two and two together? Would Shane be willing to endure the painful nature of his past being held up once more for the world to see? When he’d spent a decade healing away from the spotlight? 

And the media attention aside, what about Shane’s family and friends, who all seemed to fear what hockey had done to him… how could they accept the very man who had long been a manifestation of Shane’s trauma as someone who wanted to care for him through it?

Was Ilya worth any of that?

He’d never loved someone before, to ask it of them.

Now that he did, he wasn’t sure he was brave enough to ask at all. Surely, Shane deserved a simpler relationship than this.

He tossed and turned listlessly to his cyclical thoughts, adding up all the sacrifices that would need to be made as if he was counting sheep. Eventually, he drifted into a fitful sort of half-sleep, the slow beat of Shane’s heart beneath his palms the only thing keeping him tethered to the moment.

At one point, he pulled one hand back to touch the crucifix at his throat, saying a quiet prayer that he might be allowed to have this, to keep it.

To love something for real, forever, and not have it taken away.

Chapter 15

A beam of soft autumn sunlight hit his eyes just as Ilya awoke that morning. 

He let himself sink deeper into the sheets, pleased at the warmth of the cozy hotel room bed and the man curled up in his arms, even if his sleep had been far from restful.

He pressed a kiss to the back of Shane’s neck and felt an indulgent smile begin to tug at his lips. Stretching his limbs a bit, he rolled over and then scrubbed a hand over his face, forgetting his injury entirely. The contact with his now swollen chin made him let out a little hiss of pain. 

“Motherfucker, ow.”

At the sound, Shane stirred beside him and blinked into awareness, rolling over so that they were nose to nose. Looking at him with concern, he reached out a hand to gently cup Ilya’s jaw, thumb tracing the bruise.

“Are you ok?” he asked. At Ilya’s nod, he continued softly, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Ilya replied, smiling back despite the ache in his jaw. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Shane echoed instantly, pressing a kiss to his sore cheek. “You were amazing out there yesterday, by the way. A real captain.”

“They are my team,” Ilya replied. It had been a simple calculation. “I will protect them.”

Shane frowned. “Do I even want to know what Simard said to Troy?”

The memory made Ilya scowl. After the brutal contact with his own bench, Félix Simard, the Voyageur defenseman, had left the ice with his mouth dripping blood. Ilya hoped he’d knocked a tooth out at least. Would teach him to talk less shit.

At Shane’s expectant look, he explained, “Nothing you would not have heard before. Homophobic asshole.”

“I knew it was deserved,” Shane said, nodding, “Once I saw you on the warpath.”

“Players like Hunter and Barrett are very brave,” Ilya replied stiffly, “They do not deserve the extra grief it causes them to play.”

Shane nosed against his cheek. “No, they don’t. It’s good you’re reminding those assholes that not everyone is on their side.”

“Not everyone,” Ilya agreed, sighing, “But… still most.”

“Yeah,” Shane echoed, frowning, “Still most.”

There was a moment of sobering silence between them.

Then, stifling a yawn, Ilya asked, “Check out soon? I can drive us to mine.”

He watched something shift on Shane’s face, a devilish smirk growing. 

“Last night we talked about what I might do if we woke up together,” Shane said lightly.

“Oh?”

A hand had reached down between them, tracing a pattern against his bare thigh. Those fingers edged ever closer to where the blood was rushing. He found himself moaning softly, hips shifting to meet each teasing touch.

“Yes?” Shane asked, meeting his eyes.

Ilya nodded. “Yes. And then after that I want to suck you off.”

Those same eyes darkened. “I think that can be arranged.”

If they very nearly missed the check out window, it was only because Ilya had found their shared post-sex shower — with every inch of Shane’s supple skin on display — to be very… inspiring.

Rushing down to reception, it became abundantly clear that showing up in a hurry the night before still in his post-game official Centaurs gear maybe wasn’t his most brilliant idea. Ilya was stopped for a photo no less than three times as he and Shane valiantly attempted to make their way across the busy hotel lobby, and then once more out in the parking lot. No one had seemed outwardly suspicious of his male companion nor the fact that he was at a hotel despite the preseason game being at home. 

Ironically, Ilya found the lack of sensationalism a little insulting. Of course, he didn’t want Shane’s safety or privacy to be compromised, but he hoped in a silly way that at least one of those fans would add the morning’s selfie and an anecdotal meeting story as ‘proof’ of the Boykisser Ilya Rozanov agenda.

Soon, if the circumstances allowed, he would be providing that proof himself.

- 🏒-

Ontario’s leaves were at their peak fall colors, blurring into a red-orange sunset through the passenger’s side window.

As they turned onto the long, winding road leading to the cottage, Shane’s heart was nearly in his throat.

There was another man’s hand in his own, fingers intertwined and a thumb rubbing comforting strokes across his skin. Surely Ilya could feel his pulse accelerating the closer they got to their destination.

This… meant something now.

Something he would find very hard to take back.

Ya lyublyu tebya, Ilya had said. In the heat of the moment, but…

Shane wondered when the right time would be to confess that he knew the translation— if he even could without thoroughly embarrassing himself in the process. It would require more or less having to explain that he’d once spent a sad tipsy night in his Toronto apartment looking up common Russian phrases and terms of endearment. Just in case. 

“Are you hungry?” Ilya asked, as they pulled into the circle drive, “I could make us something.”

“You cook?”

Ilya glanced at him from the driver’s seat as he switched off the ignition. “Nothing fancy. But I manage.”

“House tour first, I think,” Shane replied, unbuckling. “Actual tour,” he clarified with a laugh, seeing Ilya's lascivious eyebrow waggle.

He met Ilya at the back end of the Porsche, where he immediately, stubbornly refused to let Shane bring in his own carry-on luggage. He carried Shane’s cane as well, tucked under one arm with ease.

Locking the car, they passed through the front door and into the foyer, where Ilya immediately deposited his items and spun around to kiss Shane breathless. The slight commotion had summoned Anya, who trotted over and promptly shoved her head in between their legs as if to separate them.

“My girl,” Shane cooed, ignoring the incredulous look on Ilya’s face as he broke the kiss and bent down to begin smothering the collie mix with tiny pecks instead.

“Unbelievable,” Ilya muttered, but his expression was so openly fond that it nearly took Shane’s breath away when he glanced back up at him.

“Your father wants to keep us apart,” he faux-whispered in the dog’s ear. She cocked her head and then proceeded to lick a disgusting wet stripe up his cheek. Shane cringed, laughing delightedly, and gave her a few more pets for good measure.

When he looked back up, Ilya had propped himself against the entryway to the next room. 

“Maybe I should leave you two alone, hmm?” he said dryly.

Shane stood, still smiling as he kicked off his shoes and immediately crossed the foyer. Grabbing Ilya by the waist, he kissed both of his cheeks before connecting their lips once more.

“I’m very interested in real estate, you know,” he said, which was the truth despite his own bland portfolio of functional Toronto and Montreal condominiums. “Tell me about how you found this place.”

“Well—” Ilya began and then launched into a description of his property search across Ottawa proper before settling on the more rural locale.

Shane followed behind him as he then showed off the cottage’s first-floor layout, moving from the spacious living and dining rooms to the well-appointed kitchen and eventually outside. The back patio space and the vast wildscaped lawn beyond it were clearly Ilya’s pride and joy. Shane smiled as they stood side by side, gazing out toward the pond in the distance as Anya ran happy laps through the tall grass.

“This is such a gem,” Shane said, meaning it. He hadn’t known there was real peace to be found like this, so close to the city. His parents maintained a much larger lakeside property several hours north of here, though its many cobblestone stairs had long made it inaccessible to Shane in his early days of rehabilitation. Maybe he could go back now. Maybe he could take—

“I will still live here after I retire,” Ilya mused from beside him, “It is quiet. Perfect for Anya. Not big, but enough space for what I need.”

Shane nodded. “You really think you’ll stay with the Centaurs until then?”

“Yes,” Ilya replied, with a single word affirmation as he often did, effortlessly confident.

He guided them back inside after a few more minutes in the crisp October air, showing Shane to the upstairs bedrooms.

“Mine is just here,” he explained, pushing open a door to the master suite. The center of the space was occupied by a king size bed with a fluffy grey comforter, a sensible number of throw pillows, and a sumptuous navy-colored blanket in a velvety fabric. 

“Looks comfortable,” Shane remarked, licking his lips.

Ilya nodded, heat in his eyes, and moved to initiate another kiss just as Shane’s stomach growled audibly between them. Shane blushed and they both giggled, Ilya pressing a kiss to his cheek instead.

“Okay, lunch time,” he announced.

Later, as they sat side by side on the living room couch, homemade tuna melts in hand and an episode of Gossip Girl playing on low volume on the TV, Shane could feel his anxiety begin to creep back in.

It was so… domestic, it was almost disorienting.

The way he’d stood in the kitchen, watching the NHL’s biggest star sing along to Bad Bunny in a terribly accented approximation of Spanish, shimmying across the hardwood in his socks as he prepped their sandwich ingredients.

The way that Ilya had then reached into his fridge and produced a cold ginger ale, clearly having paid much more attention to his preferences at their post-skate dinners than Shane had ever realized.

And especially the way that those big Russian hands had lifted him up with ease, setting him gently on the marble kitchen island and palming him through his jeans until he’d nearly come from the touch alone. He’d finished in Ilya’s mouth instead, hand in those dirty blonde curls and a half-dozen curses on his tongue.

Could he endure this for the rest of the week? This picture-perfect vision of a future that felt impossible to claim as his own?

“Ilya,” he said softly, swallowing his last bite and sliding the plate away from the edge of the coffee table, “What are we going to do about us?”

Ilya turned to look at him, their knees knocking. “What do you mean?”

Shane shifted uneasily. “I still don’t know if I can stay… here.”

“At the cottage?” Ilya asked, brows furrowing, “I thought you had couple days free.”

“No, no, I do,” Shane affirmed, “But I meant… stay… as in Ottawa.”

Ilya was silent, listening, and so he quickly added, “You clearly love it here. And it sounds like you’re willing to finish your career out with the Centaurs. So that’s ten years, maybe, if you stay healthy. And… I like you, I really do. So much it’s killing me. But I know that our circumstances haven’t really changed beyond how we left the friendship before, with that… moment in the parking lot. I still won’t be here, usually, when you’re home during the season. And if I take more complex jobs like the gala, or contracts with other NHL teams like I hope, I might not be able to squeeze in much personal travel at all.”

He let out a ragged exhale, fingers of his right hand moving to count in fours. “I just… I’m so terrified of change. You know how obsessed I am with my predictable little life, all my boring routines I’ve fought so hard to maintain… But I find myself equally terrified of being without you, now that I’ve had you like this. So…” he sucked in a breath, “I don’t know what to do. I was hoping you might.”

“You know that I would quit hockey for you?” Ilya said after a long moment, “That I would move to Toronto in a heartbeat if it meant having shot at this.”

Shane felt his face redden, the anger he’d long suppressed seeping through. 

“I know you would,” he snapped, watching Ilya’s face contort in surprise. “Don’t you think that pisses me off a little bit? That you would give hockey up so easily? For something uncertain? I know it wasn’t your dream, Ilya, but god… sometimes… you act so flippant about it, I—” he trailed off abruptly, throat tight as the tears in his eyes threatened to spill over.

“Shane, hey,” Ilya cut in, reaching out to brace a hand on his thigh, “It would not be easy, for me, okay? Hockey is fun and unserious, yes, but it has also been the only, ah, consistent thing I have known since I was a child. It means something to me. This team I have now means something to me. You just… you mean more. Do you understand?”

Shane blinked back at him, paralyzed by the sudden intensity of the sentiment.

“Мне не нужны мечты, потому что у меня есть ты,” Ilya said, a flurry of Russian words spoken too quickly for Shane to parse any one individually. “I told you that once. You knew somehow that it was… affectionate. And you were right.”

Ilya hesitated, drawing his hand back. “It means that I don’t need dreams, because I have you. I believed that then, before the gala, before I even knew that being with you in romantic way was possible. And I believe it now too. Whole heart.”

Ilya’s hand found his cheek then, cupping it for just a brief moment. “Let me find a way to keep you, Shane Hollander. Without holding you back.”

Shane sniffled, ducking away to scrub at his eyes. “It’s just… a lot of pressure, isn’t it? How can you be sure I’m worth any sort of sacrifice? Much less your entire career?”

Ilya shrugged, so casual despite the way his eyes were glistening. “I had not once in my life imagined more happiness than at center ice. Certainly not with any person. But Shane, I am happiest with you.”

As he opened his mouth to protest, Ilya jumped back in, his voice growing louder, “And what about on my end? How can you think I am worth it? The man who has been living your dream like thief? Being with me would put you back in the hockey spotlight in a way that could hurt you and your… progress. How can I be so selfish to ask for that?”

Shane inhaled sharply, not having considered how public the relationship would actually be. “God, this just— why does it have to suck so bad? Why doesn’t being in love fix everything?”

There was a moment of complete and total silence as Ilya’s eyes widened.

Shane froze, realizing. “Sorry, I—”

“I love you,” Ilya breathed out, his gaze softening from the way it had been blazing moments before. He let out a strange laugh, colored with nerves. “I did not expect you to say it first. Or at all.”

“I didn’t,” Shane replied, too quickly, and immediately cursed his stupid know-it-all brain.

Ilya stared back at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Ya lyublyu tebya,” Shane repeated clumsily. “You said it last night. I… may have familiarized myself with some Russian expressions at one point. So… I knew.”

Ilya was off the neighboring couch cushion and into his lap in an instant, Shane wrapping his arms around him instinctually to anchor that big body in place. 

“My man is so brilliant,” Ilya mumbled, in between kisses pressed to Shane’s forehead and cheekbones and chin.

“Моя Мышка,” Shane tried, sure he was butchering the phrase. From the dazzled look on Ilya’s face, however, maybe he was doing alright.

“I am so in love with you,” Ilya replied, forehead pressed to Shane’s own and those hazel eyes as close to tears as he had ever seen them, “I have been for so long.”

Fuck his stupid rules. 

He is yours. You can stay. You are so unbelievably in love with him, you absolute idiot.

“I love you,” Shane repeated, the sheer freedom of it like a pair of wings lifting up the weight of him.

He buried his face in Ilya’s neck, fighting a full-on sob. “We are going to figure this out, okay?”

He felt Ilya nod in return. “Okay.”

- 🏒-

Anya’s leash in hand, the golden hour on his skin, Shane looked radiantly happy.

Nearly as happy as he did on the ice.

Ilya loved him.

They had spent the rest of the day allowing themselves to live in a naive bubble of happiness. Abandoning all the tricky logistics conversations for a moment to simply acknowledge that there was something beautiful blossoming between them. Something they wanted to protect.

“Did you ever date, before?” Shane asked, as they traversed the familiar marshland loop.

Ilya shook his head. “Always just hook ups, really. Though in some cities, I had, um, convenient arrangements I could repeat. Never any feeling involved, at least for me. I was chasing people more for thrill, I think, than looking for something serious.”

Shane nodded. “For a while it was the same for me, in a way. With the whole… sleeping experimentally with guys thing. I mean, I had a girlfriend in Juniors but—”

Ilya blinked, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “You had a girlfriend when we met?”

“Yes, Ilya,” Shane replied, casting him a deeply amused look, “I know I’m just a boring nerd to you, but the local girls who hung around the hockey academy thought I was cute, okay? And… nice.” He looked away. “Anyway she didn’t stay with me… after. So.”

“Did you love her?” Ilya questioned.

“No,” Shane said, “And I wasn’t in love with Rose, either, before you ask. We were together for like… four months. I get along really well with women, actually, it’s just… that’s all it is.”

Ilya could feel something tugging at his chest, a little uneasy as he asked, “And with men?” 

Shane hesitated for a moment, Anya’s leash jingling in the quiet between them. 

“There was one,” he said, “Back in Toronto, when I first moved. He was… not very nice, actually. He wanted to change a lot about me. I almost let him. Spent a long time undoing that.”

“There is nothing to change,” Ilya replied almost viciously. He felt a righteous anger simmer under his skin at the idea of some faceless man having the privilege of Shane Hollander’s affection and choosing to squander it instead.

Shane smiled softly, reaching over to grab Ilya’s hand. As he tangled their fingers together, he said, “Everything made a lot more sense after my autism diagnosis. I spent a lot of my twenties terrified that I didn’t have an actual likable personality, that I was better off just being whatever another person expected of me. That maybe if I met the right person, if I loved them enough, I could be… normal for them, I guess.”

Ilya frowned. “I would never want you to be anything but who you are right now,” he replied, voice insistent, “I think… I would know if you were trying to be something else.”

“I know,” Shane replied, squeezing his hand, “That’s why when you say you love me, I believe you.”

They walked in silence for another few minutes, autumn leaves crunching pleasantly beneath their feet.

“Do you think it’s fate… that we met again?” Shane asked suddenly.

Ilya considered the question. “No, not really. I think we would have run into each other somehow, if you kept working on NHL events.” 

He hummed thoughtfully. “But I am glad that I answered Harris’ phone that day. That felt lucky.”

“I am too,” Shane agreed, chuckling a bit, “It would have been a lot more difficult to get your number otherwise.”

“I wanted to flirt with you the moment I recognized you,” Ilya argued, “I think it would not have been so hard.”

Shane glanced at him, clearly doubtful. “Surely you had better prospects lined up back then than the routine-obsessed event planner guy with the cane.”

Ilya halted their walk for a moment, unable to hide a brief snort of amusement as Anya looked back at him indignantly. He spun ninety degrees, grasping Shane’s chin in his free hand and pulling him in for a deep kiss that he hoped conveyed more than his limited vocabulary always could. 

Pulling back, he looked Shane dead in the eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

Shane resumed the walk abruptly then, moving with purpose and obviously trying to hide just how red Ilya’s response had made him. Still, he didn’t let go of his hand.

“You have to admit, it is a little poetic, in a way,” Shane mused, as they rounded another tree-lined bend, “that we both felt a tiny spark as teenagers and then managed to rekindle it fully all these years later. When we were actually ready for it, maybe.”

“I was so happy to find you again,” Ilya agreed, regarding him fondly, “I would not have been brave enough to reach out, but I think I would have spent my whole life wondering about you. Not quite ‘one who got away’ but something a little like that, yes.”

“You…” Shane started, and then just shook his head. “You are so earnestly romantic, you know that? It’s actually kind of impressive.”

Pleased by the lover boy accusations, Ilya smiled back at him, full teeth on display. “And I have only just started.”

Shane let out a playful groan. “Anya,” he faux-whispered, “your father is very wonderful and very annoying.”

Ilya’s dog let out a happy little yip at the sound of Shane’s voice, pleased as always by his attention. Ilya understood her in that way.

“Yeah,” Shane said seriously, as if they were having a full conversation. He glanced back up to meet Ilya’s eyes. “I love him too.”

Chapter 16

Lamp light flooded the darkness of the bedroom as Ilya felt himself being roused awake.

He grumbled, scrubbing at his face as the shadowy silhouette of his lover gazed down at him.

“I have an idea,” Shane was saying, with decidedly too much energy for the middle of the fucking night.

Ilya told him as much and he merely scoffed, leaning over to balance one hand on Ilya’s pec. “No, no listen. What if you got traded to Toronto?”

“Uh, what? No,” Ilya said, slowly waking to full alertness, “They are too close to their cap for a new, big name centre. And you hate Toronto. I am not moving somewhere just to let you keep torturing yourself with more of same.”

“But we could do it for a season or two? Just until—” Shane’s eyes were so round and earnest, Ilya almost let the silly plan make sense.

“Until what, Shane?” he asked tiredly, “I do not want to end up on PTOs until I retire.”

Shane flopped onto his chest. “Ugh, you’re right. I know you’re right.”

Ilya regarded the despondent lump of man on top of him with suspicion. “Mm, and you know hockey management too well to suggest something like that seriously. What is it you are actually thinking? And waking me up for?”

Shane hesitated, grumbling into his skin. “Brandon Wiebe, your coach, he um… he gave me his card. At the gala. Told me to call him.” 

He raised his head to meet Ilya’s eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it. I just… needed to think about it on my own, without any other… influences. Admitting to the possibility felt too much like making a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.”

Ilya pressed a kiss into his hair. “I already knew, Shane. He told me at the gala too. That he thought you would make good AC.” He frowned, considering. “Though we already have four, so I do not know how soon it would be possible.”

Thinking back to Wiebe’s words from that night, he added, “But he also mentioned that they had more budget for the other side of house. Marketing and communications and all that. Maybe better fit? Best of… two worlds in a way?”

Shane’s dark eyes were intense, even more so in the low light. “Is it crazy if I call him? Do you think he would change his mind knowing we’re…?”

“Boyfriends? Partners?” Ilya filled in the blank, smiling at how the words seemed to embarrass Shane still. “Not if Harris and Troy are not a problem for the organization, no? And also… I think he might already suspect.”

Shane pushed himself up onto his hands again, hovering over Ilya with a near frantic look on his face. “This isn’t our only solution,” he said haltingly, “but it would be so… perfect.”

“And you would be okay with this?” Ilya asked, reaching up to cup his cheek. He rubbed a thumb in a comforting pathway across the constellation of Shane’s freckles. “You would give up the business you built? For this opportunity?” 

“You would give up more for me,” Shane argued.

“Yes, like my sleep, apparently," Ilya teased, stifling a yawn. He smiled when Shane muttered a familiar ‘asshole’ in response. “But let’s not compare. I think we have both made clear we will make the hard choices to be together.”

Shane nodded. “You have practice tomorrow, right?” 

“Just afternoon skate, yes,” Ilya affirmed, “but after that we could do dinner? Maybe somewhere downtown?”

“Like in public?” Shane questioned. His smile wobbled at the edges. “You’re really that serious about this?”

Ilya pouted his lips, shrugging. “I have hot boyfriend now, yes? Is it so wrong I want to show him off?”

Shane’s ears had gone strawberry-colored again. “No, but… are you planning on making some kind of official statement?”

“If I have to,” Ilya said easily, “but for now, I think simplest choice is just to start being seen together. Many people will not assume it is romantic, anyway. I don’t want the attention to… overwhelm you.”

“For now, sure. But what about when you kiss me center ice after winning the Stanley Cup this season?” Shane teased.

“Stupid Scott Hunter,” Ilya grumbled, rolling his eyes, “How am I going to outdo that?”

“I will accept a sushi date for now,” Shane said, kissing him lightly, “I know a place.”

“Fine, but I’m buying,” Ilya replied, just to be contrary, “And then we are coming straight back here.”

At Shane’s raised eyebrow, he added, “We have not done soft, romantic sex in this bed yet. You said it was… posterity?”

Shane bit his lip, clearly amused. Still, his expression reflected a quiet hunger as he whispered, “We could do it right now? And tomorrow too? Just to be sure we get it right?”

Ilya wrapped his arms around him, teasing, “And the next day? And the day after that?” 

Shane shook his head, voice pitched lower as he said, “I’ll want you to fuck me through the mattress again by then, I think.”

“Mm, okay. I will add it to my calendar.” He mimed writing a note on his palm. “October seven: Make Shane come hands free.”

“Can’t wait,” Shane snorted, even as his hands began to wander beneath the comforter. “Can I use mine though?”

Ilya couldn’t help but to regard him with an adoring expression, one he knew was a little ridiculous for their bantering foreplay.

“You can do anything you like.”

- 🏒-

Heading back into the city was quite the change after the blissful afternoon Shane had spent at the cottage— reading in the living room with a view of the autumn woods through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, Anya’s head resting in his lap.

He’d gotten a bit of work done too while Ilya had been away at the Censplex, emailing the legal and financial services people he contracted as agency support about the possibility of scaling back his business or even shuttering it entirely. He wanted to have plans in place in the event that he did switch from entrepreneurship to full-time employment. It was probably overkill, given how unlikely it was that the Centaurs organization would actually hire him for real, but it never hurt to be prepared. He wouldn’t have been successful for this long without that kind of thinking anyway.

Ilya had returned from practice around four, Shane greeting him at the door with a searing kiss that had left them both gasping. If this was what it meant to be a WAG, he wasn’t exactly complaining, especially not when Ilya had gone upstairs to change and reappeared in black trousers with a matching black silk shirt, several buttons undone to expose his collarbones and his gold chain. After Shane had kissed him silly yet again (and a little more than that), they briefly bickered about which car to take to dinner. Shane had won in the end, Ilya begrudgingly opting for his least-flashy option: a sleek black Land Rover that Shane knew still cost an easy six figures with all the add-ons.

Luckily, the izakaya in Centretown was not yet crowded when they arrived around six, the few long tables occupied by a handful of students and some office workers still in their suits. None of them even glanced up as Shane and Ilya entered, heads down in their Friday ramen.

Shane led them to a familiar two-seater in the corner, where an older Japanese woman was quick to circle by with a pair of menus.

“Hello, Shane,” she said in kind, accented English. Having known him since childhood, she often addressed him by his Japanese name but seemed to adjust based on the current company. “No Yuna today?”

Shane shook his head, “Not today, Hina-san. I brought, um, a friend instead. This is Ilya.”

Ilya, suddenly a little timid, did the tiniest of waves back.

Hina smacked Shane in the arm with one of the laminated menus, making him yelp in protest. “Don’t lie to me. If you are going to bring a handsome date to your auntie’s restaurant, you are going to be proud of it.”

Cheeks red, Shane lowered his head in an apologetic half-bow. He chanced a look at Ilya who had quickly overcome his shyness at Hina’s antics and was now grinning smugly.

“I will put your order in,” Hina said, “And a few extras, since it is clearly a special night.” Her sharp eyes flicked over to Ilya. “Anything to drink, dear?”

“Just a coke, please,” Ilya replied, voice almost saccharine in its politeness.

Hina nodded approvingly and disappeared back through the curtains to the kitchen, ever the efficient host. 

“My mom’s been coming here since she was a kid,” Shane explained, “And then she started taking me. Hina’s not actually related to us in any way, but she’s not much older than my mom so she’s kind of like an aunt to me. They like to gossip about me in Japanese, knowing I’ve gotten really rusty.”

“I like her,” Ilya replied, finger idly tracing the patterns on the varnished tabletop between them. “Is your mom… similar?”

Shane burst into laughter. “Oh god, no. Yuna is… way worse.”

He laughed harder at the way Ilya’s face paled. “She’s not mean or anything. Well… actually, she is a little bit. But in a very tough love Asian mom kind of way. She cares a lot. She’s just also really, really intimidating, I think.”

“Okay, so no pressure there,” Ilya breathed out, looking a little sick.

Shane’s fingers flexed, wanting to reach across the table and grab Ilya’s hand, but not knowing yet what their boundaries were. “She’ll love you, once she gets to know you. She’s just… protective. And also she’s a born and raised Voyageurs fan with a more encyclopedic knowledge of hockey than even me so—”

“Do your parents know? About you?” Ilya asked suddenly.

Shane nodded. “They do. And they’re supportive, don’t worry. I came out to them a few years ago and they said they basically already knew."

Ilya nodded back slowly, clearly processing. “So your mom will not care that I am a man. She will care that I am Ilya Rozanov.”

He blinked. “Um, yeah, that’s the likely outcome.” At Ilya’s furrowed brow, he quickly added, “But she really does want me to be happy. So it might just… take some time… for her to accept.”

A server approached their table then, carrying a tray with their drinks, plus more appetizers than two people could ever feasibly consume, especially with actual entrees on the way. 

“This is your normal order?” Ilya asked, raising an eyebrow.

Shane groaned. “No, this is Hina showing off for my date.”

Ilya looked pleased at the spread of dishes, as they slowly covered their table almost entirely. “Maybe dinners in Ottawa are on you then. You clearly have the connections.”

Before Shane could bicker back about who the real celebrity was between them, Ilya was scooting back from the table apologetically and excusing himself to the restroom.

Not so subtly watching Ilya walk away, Shane breathed out on a long exhale, letting some of the giddiness wash over him at being out on a date with his very sexy professional athlete boyfriend. When he’d shown up at that Ottawa game just days ago, hoping against all odds that Ilya Rozanov would give his dumbass the time of day, he could never have predicted this as the outcome. It was incredible as much as it was torture, the way he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“No shit, Shane Hollander? Is that you, bud?” a voice asked, interrupting his daydreaming.

Shane looked up, shocked to see the familiar, albeit older, face of his childhood teammate Jason Jang looking back at him. They’d played together for years, all the way to CHL, though last he’d heard Jason had opted to play college hockey and finish a degree instead of becoming draft eligible. His strict immigrant parents had never been particularly thrilled with his love for hockey, and Shane knew that a lot of his talent was a result of sheer stubbornness to prove them wrong.

“Yeah, Archie, hey,” he said, defaulting to the Juniors nickname out of habit. 

(Every standard hockey variation of the man’s last name sounded a little… racist… in their very white sport, so Jason had offered up ‘Archie’ to their U9 team at practice one day — explaining that Jang meant ‘archer’ in Korean — and it had stuck.)

“Holy shit, man, how have you been?” Archie asked, before plainly glancing down at Shane’s leg under the table. “I mean, not counting the—” 

“I’ve been good,” Shane cut in, tone clipped but polite, “I own an events planning agency now. Had some pretty cool clients recently. What about you?”

Archie’s chest puffed up with pride. “Just started this season as the goalie coach at Carleton.”

This was legitimately exciting news. “Back at the alma mater, Arch, that’s great! How do your folks feel?”

Before Archie could answer, Ilya reappeared at their table, sliding casually back into his seat and eyeing the tall, admittedly very handsome Korean man with suspicion.

“Hi, friend of Shane?” he said pointedly, “I’m Ilya.”

“Yeah, no fucking shit,” Archie blurted, immediately going a bit red in the face. “Oh my god, sorry. I’m just.. It’s, ha, it’s an honor really. I’m Jason. Jang.”

He thrust out his hand and Ilya shook it, clearly amused.

“Arch— ah, Jason and I played together up through Juniors,” Shane explained, “He’s a hell of a goalie. Just started coaching at a local university now.”

“A good goalie is important,” Ilya pronounced elegantly, in the way a monarch surveying his kingdom might. Archie looked like he could’ve jumped to the moon with the power of his elation. 

“Let us know if you’d like to organize a clinic with the Cens at some point,” Ilya continued magnanimously, “Hayes has been talking about more community work for us.”

Archie looked impossibly more starstruck at the offer. “Jesus, yeah, we’d love that. Here I’ll give you my card.”

He passed a business card into Ilya’s hand, startling when a woman up front called out what must have been his order number.

“Anyway, I’m just picking up carryout for the family, so I better get going. Shane, good to see you, bud,” he said quickly, “Rozanov, nice to meet you. Sorry to bother you on your uh…”

“Date,” Ilya said boldly. 

Shane kicked him hard under the table.

Archie’s eyebrows rocketed nearly to his hairline but he recovered quickly and seemed to offer them both a genuine smile. “Didn’t want to assume. But that’s cool, man. Shane, you still have my number?”

Shane nodded, where he was still panic assaulting Ilya’s leg under the table.

“Shoot me a text sometime. We can catch up now that we’re both in Ottawa again.”

Shane didn’t bother correcting him on his home address.

“And Rozanov?” Archie said, a little more confidence in his voice, “You’re the best gift this tired Cens fan has received in years. Win us a championship, alright?”

Ilya saluted lazily, wearing a confident smirk. With one last nod, Shane’s old teammate departed toward the host stand where his takeout bags awaited him.

“I think that went well,” Ilya said, turning back to Shane with an easy grin.

“Ilya, are you crazy?” Shane hissed, “Jason is a nice guy, I think, but he could tell anyone!”

“I hope he does,” Ilya replied, shrugging, “That is more fun than starting the rumor myself.”

He cracked his chopsticks in two, nonchalantly reaching across the table to snag a fried dumpling. Swallowing a bite, he did a little pleased shimmy with his shoulders, apparently physically moved by the taste.

“I cannot believe I like you,” Shane deadpanned.

Ilya shoveled another dumpling away, that damn crooked smile poking into his cheek as he chewed.

“I’m happy,” he said, after a moment.

Shane felt himself melt pathetically at the words.

“Fuck you,” he replied, so so fond, “I’m happy too.”

Chapter 17

November 2024

It was a strange sort of deja vu, being back here— the downtown Ottawa office building that had started it all, in a way.

Shane glanced down at his watch, early as always, and approached the reception area.

“I’m here to meet with Brandon Wiebe and, um, Lauren Walter?” Shane said, watching the young man at the desk type away at his computer for a moment.

“Sure thing, Mr. Hollander,” he said, looking up, “Let me just scan this guest pass for you, and then you’ll want to head to the fourth floor. Ms. Walter’s office is the first one on the left, right by the elevators.”

Shane nodded at the instructions, accepting the ID badge and making his way toward the elevator bay. His heart raced, a similar anxiety to the day he’d met Harris Drover, hoping against all hope that he could make a bigger name for himself in events production. Little did he know just how far that one gala would take him.

His watch vibrated against his wrist and he smiled, seeing the message there.

Ilya 🐭💜: good luck today! i love you

A sentimental thought hit him then: No matter what happens today, I am already so, so lucky.

Shane: 💚

He made his way through the building, ending up on the brightly lit fourth floor just as the Centaurs’ Head Coach came around the corner.

“Shane! Perfect timing!” Brandon Wiebe greeted, slinging an arm around his shoulder and guiding him down the hallway. “Right this way. I told Lauren you’d be early, so she’s expecting us.”

Shane felt himself flush a bit at the physical contact. As a relative newbie coach, Wiebe wasn’t that much older than him and had been an uncommonly handsome hockey player in his time. Ilya had been right when he said the new salt and pepper beard he’d been growing out was… very nice to look at.

They entered a large corner conference room, the glass windows overlooking the tree-lined streets below. A notably tall blonde woman in a plum pantsuit approached them, reaching out a hand for Shane to shake. Although he wasn’t short by any means, it was extremely intimidating to have to crane his neck up to meet her eyes. Her severe, slicked back ponytail only emphasized the sharpness of her features.

“Shane, hi,” she said pleasantly, “I’m Lauren, Vice President of Marketing and Fan Experience for the Centaurs.”

He greeted her back politely and she motioned for Shane to sit, a dossier of printed materials on the table in front of her.

“I have to say,” she began, “it’s a little unorthodox for the Head Coach of a franchise to bother poking his head over to our admin side of things, but…” She gestured to Wiebe, who was posed in the doorway. “This guy seems to think we’d be crazy not to take you on.”

“Shane is a former elite player himself,” Wiebe said, “And a long time fan of the franchise to boot. He really knows his stuff. Add in the fact that he pretty much singlehandedly doubled our fundraising results for the year? I’m confident you could stick him anywhere in the organization and see him succeed.”

Lauren nodded. “Thank you for that endorsement, Coach. It’s well noted. I’ll chat with Shane here a little more one-on-one and send an email update out later today.” 

Wiebe nodded back. “Good to see you, Shane. And thanks, Lauren. This kid is the real deal.” 

After he shut the door behind him, Lauren swiveled to face Shane head on, her bright blue eyes almost as intimidating as her stature. “Level with me, Shane, you’re sure you don’t want to take Coach up on his offer to work more directly with the team?”

Shane shook his head. “While I’m flattered, I don’t think my experience really aligns with coaching. It’s been a long time since I was active on the ice and while I have my opinions as a spectator, a lot of the game has changed.” 

He smiled softly to himself, adding, “And I really do love working in events. I once told my, um, boyfriend that it gives me almost the same high that playing hockey once did. So, to me, it’s really not much of a tradeoff. Sort of the best of both worlds really.”

“Well,” Lauren said, her expression a little warmer now, “your portfolio is extremely impressive. My hiring team was very thorough in their evaluation, looking for blindspots, but honestly your references could not stop gushing about you. Plus, your wide range of experience across nonprofit and corporate events in terms of scale is a real asset to us.” She paused, flashing him a wry smile. “Our production budget here can… fluctuate, let’s say… quite a bit year to year depending on my bosses’ whims.”

“Ah yeah, I’m pretty familiar with that scenario,” Shane replied, “I’ve had a few annual events suddenly lose major funding while the mandate to meet attendees’ expectations remained. We do what we must.”

“We certainly do,” Lauren affirmed, looking visibly impressed, “But are you sure you’d prefer a corporate job to the flexibility of your current self-employment? We rarely get to pick and choose the kinds of projects we take on.”

Shane considered the question for a moment. “I’m proud of what I built over the years, and yes, I definitely enjoyed the independence and control that contract work afforded me.” He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “But honestly? It got a bit lonely after a while, doing everything largely on my own. I’d love the opportunity to work with a regular team, to create things and celebrate the wins together. And learn from the challenges we face too.” 

At Lauren’s intrigued expression, he added, “And I also have a vested personal interest in a role that keeps me in Ottawa most of the time so… you wouldn’t have to worry about me going anywhere.”

He had no idea if she’d been briefed on his increasingly public relationship with the Centaurs’ captain and franchise star, but if Wiebe had deemed it an acceptable workplace romance, Shane hoped it wouldn’t matter either way.

“I appreciate your candor,” Lauren remarked, lips curling into a fond smile, “I was in a travel-heavy executive position prior to coming to the Centaurs. My wife had no shortage of complaints, I assure you.”

Shane’s heart warmed at the admission, glad to see some representation reflected amongst the top brass. He wondered if Ilya knew just how deep the gay agenda ran through the organization, given how much he already joked about his ‘World Pride’ player roster.

“With that out of the way,” Lauren was saying, “let me ask you a few questions about your vision for events programming here…”

A few questions turned into an in-depth conversation on fan-to-franchise relationships, when suddenly there was a series of soft knocks on the door.

“Ms. Walter?” an iPad-wielding associate said, poking their head into the room, “Your 2:30 is here.”

Shane startled, realizing he’d basically talked this woman’s ear off for a half hour longer than their allotted time.

“We got a little carried away there, hmm?” the VP said pleasantly, meeting his eyes with an assured nod. “Exactly the type of conversation I would expect to have with my Director of Events Production.”

Lauren stood up and Shane followed suit, trying not to openly gape at what he hoped was basically a soft job offer.

“We’ll be in touch, Shane. Very soon, in fact,” she said, extending her arm for a final handshake. “I’m sorry to have to run, but can you find your way out?”

Shane nodded, shaken by the unfamiliar feeling of optimism growing in his chest. “Thank you for your time, really.”

With one final smile in his direction, Lauren Walter departed the room, ice blonde ponytail swishing behind her.

As the door clicked shut, Shane took a moment to collect himself, letting out a long exhale of relief.

That… had gone well, right?

Still, it was easy to spiral, and he found his thoughts racing as he made his way out of the building and over to where he’d parked down the street. 

All his new dreams coming true? Everything he’d planned for tied up in a neat little bow? The universe had never been so effortlessly kind to him. How could it possibly start now?

His watch buzzed again, the contact name grounding him back in the moment.

Ilya 🐭💜: home soon?

Ilya 🐭💜: i put anya in centaurs turtleneck. she hates it rn but i think she will wear it if you compliment her

God, he loved this stupid man.

Shane slid behind the wheel of his borrowed black Land Rover, his panic attack abated and the smile on his face returning fully at the thought of getting back to his boyfriend and the collie mix he was incidentally co-parenting. Six weeks of dating officially and he had already told Ilya that they could simply never break up because he would be coming for Anya in the divorce.

Shane: On my way!

- 🏒-

“Are you sure about this?” Shane asked for the millionth time, which was impressive given it was only a twenty minute drive from the cottage to the Hollander family home.

They pulled into the driveway of a modest split-level house, painted in shades of grey, with landscaping that Ilya knew must look incredible at full bloom. He cut the engine, turning to Shane with concern in his eyes.

“I am sure,” he replied, “But are you? It’s ok if you want to take time. We are… very new.”

Shane shook his head. “No, I need to tell them. They were convinced I was seeing someone months ago, and I know they’re extra suspicious now that I basically never leave. There’s no way they think I’ve been on a yoga retreat for workaholics this whole time.”

“That is… not your worst excuse,” Ilya teased, stifling a laugh.

“Ugh, okay, c’mon,” Shane said quickly, unbuckling and hopping out, then opening the rear door to grab the dessert they’d prepared as tribute. 

Ilya may have been underselling his culinary abilities, the first time he’d had the opportunity to cook for Shane. He was borderline average in the kitchen, yes, but baking? Best believe he could whip out a medovik with the best of them. He had told Shane a little more about his mother as they’d prepared the honey cake together earlier that day, the tears only worsening when Shane had assured him that Yuna would love the cake — and him — just as much.

As he came around the vehicle, Shane immediately grabbed his hand, grip iron tight and pulse fluttering rapidly. Ilya tried to radiate calm and serenity as he was tugged up the steps and through the front door, Shane calling out a shaky ‘Mom, Dad, we’re here!’ as they entered. He kicked his shoes off into a pile of other footwear by the entrance and Ilya quickly mimicked the action. He knew Shane was really, really nervous by the fact that he didn’t stop to arrange his sneakers into neat alignment on the mat.

As they rounded the corner into the living room area, a white man with strong eyebrows and Shane’s square jaw came into view. 

“Hey, bud—” he began, then seemed to choke on the word the moment he registered Ilya as the guest of honor.

“We brought cake,” Shane blurted, perhaps hyperaware of the staring contest that was currently unfolding between his boyfriend and a presumed David Hollander. He had untangled their fingers in the brief commotion and Ilya immediately missed the anchor of comfort.

Shane’s father shuffled forward, his eyes never leaving Ilya’s own, and accepted the paper bag from his son’s outstretched hands. 

“I’ll, uh, put this on the kitchen counter,” he said, slowly backing away like he’d just spotted a venomous snake on a hiking trail. “Hey, honey,” he called out, voice a little unsteady, “Shane and his, uh… boyfriend are here.”

Well at least he didn’t seem to think it was a terrible prank or something. 

Ilya selfishly reached for Shane’s hand again just as a striking Japanese woman came from the direction of the kitchen.

“Welcome!” she was saying, her precise bangs and angular jet black bob making her eyes — Shane’s eyes — stand out sharply above her otherwise delicate features. She was dressed in light wash denim jeans and, of all things, an oversized Montreal Voyageurs hoodie. Ilya winced, knowing they had a game that night, coming off a 2-0 loss at Ottawa that he’d engineered singlehandedly.

“Mom, hi,” Shane replied, stepping slightly in front of Ilya in an act that felt a lot like preemptive protection. He’d definitely also clocked the Voyageurs gear. But surely this tiny woman wasn’t that dangerous, right?

Yuna’s wide smile faded almost comically fast when she seemed to take in exactly who was standing next to her son.

Well, shit.

“Shane,” she said, tone shifting into something hyper-pleasant and terrifying, “Why is Ilya Rozanov in my living room?”

“Um,” Shane replied inelegantly. He seemed to completely stall out there.

David returned then, sidling up next to his wife and placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“Honey,” he said, in the voice a person might adopt to soothe a cat with warning airplane ears, “Isn’t it nice that Shane, um, found someone who likes hockey as much as we all do?”

Yuna seemed to let each of her tense muscles relax one by one, snake-like, adopting the posture of a perfectly happy host. 

“Yes, that is nice,” she said, smiling but somehow not smiling at all. Her left eye twitched. “And such a good player too.” 

“Mom,” Shane finally managed, almost in a whine, “can you be chill about this please? Ilya was really nervous to meet you.”

At the mention of his name, Yuna’s dark eyes were back on him. 

“Hello, Ilya,” she greeted him, sounding marginally less like she was being compelled at gunpoint at least. “Come have a seat at the table. It’s Italian night. I hope that’s okay.”

“Ilya loves pasta,” Shane interjected, squeezing his hand in some kind of warning.

“And I also love your son,” Ilya added, watching as three pairs of Hollander eyes turned on him with varying degrees of incredulity. “Um, I just… thought you should know.”

“Oh my god,” Shane actually said aloud, pulling him away from where his parents were regarding Ilya in open disbelief, “Just come sit down.”

Once they were all settled around the table, Ilya was more than happy to accept the healthy serving of bolognese that David Hollander plopped onto his plate.

“We don’t, um, usually say grace or anything here,” Shane’s father said, eyeing the crucifix around his neck, “But go ahead, if you like.”

Ilya smiled at the gesture, surprised when the very act of smiling seemed to visibly shock both parents. He supposed he was routinely described as a terror on the ice, so… maybe it was a little strange for them to see him play nice in real life.

“It was my mother’s,” he explained, “I wear it in memory of her. So please, eat.”

Shane’s hand snuck under the table from where he was sitting next to him and gently squeezed his thigh. He hoped that was a signal that he’d done something good.

They ate in silence for a few uncomfortable minutes before Yuna cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry we weren’t more… welcoming,” she said evenly. She paused to gesture between them. “I’m afraid this just came as a shock. Rozanov—”

“Ilya,” he corrected immediately.

“Ilya,” she amended, her gaze deeply analytical, “I’m sure if you… love my son, then you know all that he’s been through. And how often your name came up as a source of pain for him.”

Ilya felt his mouth go dry. This was exactly the reaction he had feared, from Shane’s friends and family alike.

“Mom, he came to the hospital,” Shane butted in.

Yuna whipped her gaze to her son, eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”

“After the accident,” Shane explained, his grip on Ilya’s thigh beneath the table bordering on bruising now, “He heard what happened to me and he came to see me in the ICU. He… he cares about me mom. He’s not… how people say he is. He was never like that, really.” Shane paused, swallowing. “And honestly, you more than anyone — with all your infinite hockey knowledge — should know that he’s not the same player anymore, not since he left Boston. He’s doing good at Ottawa, real good, on and off the ice.”

Yuna seemed briefly stunned into silence.

“Shane,” David said slowly, “are you telling us this has been going on since you were teenagers?”

“No, no!” Ilya burst out, nearly in sync with Shane’s own protests.

“Well,” Shane started to say and then shook his head, seemingly thinking better of admitting that in another accident-free universe that would have been exactly what happened.

“We met again during the gala,” Ilya offered, giving Shane a break from running defense, “For first time since World Juniors. I run a charity, an animal rescue, and so I was… ah, involved in planning.”

He watched Shane’s parents nod, seeming to piece together the much more realistic timeline of their relationship.

“Did you…” Yuna began, hesitating. She looked… almost emotional somehow. “Are you the one Shane was skating with these last few months?”

Next to him, Shane jumped. "You knew I was skating again?" he asked.

Yuna leveled her son with a knowing look. "You kept bringing your old skate bag here with you. Natural assumption."

As she turned back to Ilya, he nodded. "Ah, yes. Shane and I have been skating twice a week. He has made such good progress. And..." he hesitated, knowing his face was softening into something revealing, "It makes him really happy... to be on the ice again. I know it was not an easy thing for him to get there."

Several expressions passed over Yuna's face in rapid succession: the briefest moment of appreciation, followed by an almost wary acquiescence, and then ending on something decisive.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked, looking surprised when the rest of the table blinked back at her. “What? Shane doesn’t live or work in Ottawa, as far as I know. And I think I would’ve heard if someone in the NHL even bigger than Scott Hunter had come out recently.”

That’s a lot of questions. 

Ilya chose that moment to take a huge bite of spaghetti, turning to look at Shane for guidance as he chewed.

Shane sighed, gesturing at his mother with a mix of fondness and resignation. “You see where my event planning instincts come from.” 

Yuna rolled her eyes, but she was definitely smiling now. “I just want to make sure you’ve thought this all through. If it’s… serious.”

“It is,” Ilya affirmed, preening when it earned him a fond look from his boyfriend.

“Ilya isn’t publicly out as bisexual, yet,” Shane said, launching into an explanation, “but he is to his team. The Centaurs organization is really supportive — they’ve been through it already with Troy Barrett and his fiancé — so we’re kind of just… letting ourselves be seen out and about for now. And when people start asking questions, we’ll answer them honestly.

As for Ottawa, I’ve been interviewing locally for a full-time position. Still in events but very much based here the majority of the time. With Ilya’s job already involving a lot of travel, we don’t want to be apart more than we have to.”

Shane took a deep breath. “Any more questions?”

Ilya watched Yuna and David glance at one another, twin smiles blooming on their faces. He felt the tension leave his body, just a little bit, hoping this meant that they were getting somewhere.

Shane’s mom leaned forward then, catching his eye as she said, “I’d like to know more about that beautiful cake I spotted back there.”

Ilya smiled shyly, taking the peace offering for what it was, and immediately launched into a detailed explanation of the recipe that had Yuna ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ in all the appropriate places.

Beneath the table, he felt Shane’s fingers tap on his thigh. One, two, three, four. He waited, holding his breath. Five. He exhaled.

The rhythmic tapping was Shane’s most notable stim — a word Ilya had come across in his probably overzealous research into being the best possible partner to an autistic person — but it had also evolved into something a little deeper between them.

Four taps meant fear, anxiety, a pressing need to exit the environment if possible. Shane had been tight-lipped when Ilya had asked him ‘why four?’ but the pain in his eyes was evidence enough that it had traumatic origins. Ilya had decided that needed no further discussion.

Five, on the other hand, was code for happiness, contentment, and even excitement. It was easy to remember, given the syllables roughly matched up to the Russian. Shane had bashfully confessed to the secret meaning the moment Ilya had pointed out the change in pattern one day as they’d been cuddling together.

Ilya grabbed Shane’s wandering hand, flipping it over and tapping five times back against his palm.

Yah lyoo-BLYOO tyeh-BYAH.

Shane sniffed beside him, intertwining their fingers, and leaned over to peck Ilya on the cheek in full view of his parents. This time, he could admit that maybe Russians did blush… a little.

“Ilya,” Yuna prompted a while later, as they had all finished up their dessert, “Join me in the living room, would you? The game’s about to come on and I want you to tell me exactly what the hell my Voyageurs are doing wrong to have this record.”

Employing Félix Simard for one thing, Ilya thought testily, but he kept his expression neutral as he bantered back. “How much time do you have?”

- 🏒-

It was mid-afternoon, a week or so later, and Ilya had Shane on his back.

They were kissing lazily along the length of the couch, not working up to anything just yet. Shane probably wouldn’t let him try, given that Ilya had taken a puck to the shin while blocking a shot — a move which Hazy had thoroughly chastised him for in the locker room last night — and was technically meant to spend the next forty-eight hours avoiding ‘significant exertion’ per the Team Physician.

Just as he moved to attack Shane’s neck — a known location of weakness — they both reacted to Shane’s phone buzzing in his pocket between them.

‘Ignore it,’ Ilya mouthed, but Shane shook his head sharply, incapable of letting anyone think he wasn’t completely professionally available at all times.

“It’s Wiebe,” Shane whispered back when he checked the caller ID.

“Put it on speaker,” Ilya replied and was surprised when Shane complied. He must have really been nervous. 

Ilya was too, a little, knowing that Shane had recently interviewed with the Centaurs organization. He’d said it had gone well and that Wiebe had provided an additional glowing endorsement, but still… they both had something riding on this.

Sitting up, Shane answered the call with an achingly polite, “Hi, sir. Good to hear from you!”

“Oh, yuck,” Wiebe replied immediately, “You can call me ‘Coach’ if you’re dead set on formalities, Hollander.”

“Coach,” Shane affirmed, sounding sheepish.

“Look,” Wiebe continued, “I know this is unorthodox, to borrow Lauren’s term, but I wanted to call you first.”

Ilya held his breath, letting out a silent cheer and a series of fist pumps as Wiebe said, “They just let me know you’re being offered the position.”

Shane punched him in the arm, leveling him with a chastising look that immediately fell flat given the blooming smile on his face. 

“The salary is market rate for Director level,” Wiebe was saying, “Maybe not anything spectacular given you were previously doing contract work, but anyway, I’ll let HR share all that and the benefits with you. And hey, I also know what we pay Rozanov so, hopefully your own salary’s not a deal breaker.”

“I’m sure it won’t be,” Shane replied, a little breathlessly, and apparently happy to ignore the fact that Ilya’s head coach might have unintentionally implied he was a sugar baby.

“It’s unlikely you’ll travel often with the team,” Wiebe explained, “but enough so that I’m sure it would, uh, benefit your personal situation. Harris certainly finds that to be true.”

At that, Ilya leaned over to make kissy faces in Shane’s direction, barely suppressing his laughter when Shane swatted him away.

“Thank you so much for your help getting me through the door,” Shane gushed, the giddiness bleeding through a bit, “I honestly can’t wait to start.”

“Good to hear,” Wiebe replied, “I like having you around, Shane. Don’t think that just because they put you up in some fancy office that I won’t be picking your brain about our offense. I know how to use Slack now.”

“Of course, Coach,” Shane agreed, his smile huge, “Happy to critique your lines anytime.”

“Congratulations, though, for real,” Wiebe emphasized, “You earned this, Shane. Now go celebrate. And tell Rozanov I said hello.”

“I will. Thank you, Coach!”

The moment Shane ended the call, Ilya was tackling him back into the cushions, pressing kisses all over his face.

“Oh my god, I did it,” Shane managed to say after a moment, wriggling his face free from Ilya’s smothering.

Ilya was ecstatic for him. “Yes, you did, baby.”

There was a moment of silent communication between them, as Ilya watched Shane’s eyes darken with a now-familiar hunger.

“Fuck me,” Shane gasped, “I need you to fuck me right now.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Events Director,” Ilya said, making Shane laugh even as his pupils were blown out with arousal. 

He scooped Shane up with ease, those shapely legs wrapping around him, and carried him across the cottage to the first floor guest bedroom. They kept it well-appointed with supplies and blessedly free of terribly inconvenient throw pillows, for anytime the climb to the second floor master suite seemed too long to wait.

“This is not an approved exercise!” Shane was nagging, though it was a weak argument with the way he was hardening against him.

Ilya gently tossed him on the bed, more careful of Shane’s leg than his own, and climbed over him until they were sandwiched together head to toe.

“I love you,” he said, pressing a kiss to one freckled cheek. 

“I’m proud of you.” A kiss to the other.

Shane squirmed, turning red as usual, but clearly pleased with the praise.

Some time later, as Ilya fucked into him slowly (‘posterity’ as they still referred to it), he was shocked to discover his eyes brimming with tears.

“Hey, you big softie,” Shane cooed, reaching up to cup his cheek. He gasped as Ilya hit his prostate just right, but managed after a moment, “You are so good to me.”

With the surprise of the praise kink script being flipped back on him, Ilya felt a mortifying tear fall for real. He ducked his head and snapped his hips a little harder, fighting off the emotion that threatened to consume him. Shane’s moans were very motivational in that regard.

Almost cinematically, as one more tear rolled down Ilya’s chin, they both reached their climax. It was simultaneously hot and very melodramatic, and Ilya found himself laughing wetly as Shane giggled back, reaching up to wipe his eyes.

“Моя Мышка,” Shane said gently, though there was fond amusement in his expression, “Don’t cry. I love you.”

“That’s why I’m crying, you asshole,” Ilya hissed back. 

The reply only made Shane’s smile grow bigger, the kiss that followed so sweet it turned Ilya as pink as he’d ever been.

Later again, as they were cuddled up post-shower in Ilya’s proper upstairs bed, he ventured, “So now that you are employed in Ottawa, I guess you will be needing a house?”

Shane snorted. “Very subtle, babe.”

Ilya shrugged his shoulders. So he had an agenda, sue him.

“I was thinking about finding a place downtown, maybe,” Shane said after a moment, “Closer to the office. And just so nothing feels too… intense with us right away.”

“I would have you here, you know that,” Ilya replied, not proud of the way he nearly whined. “I want you here.”

“I know, love,” Shane replied easily, “But maybe that’s not the healthiest option, while things are still new. I want us to last.”

“You and your healthy options,” Ilya grumbled, starfishing dramatically across the mattress when Shane didn’t budge. 

“Fine, add another condo to your real estate portfolio. But the minute you get tired of it, you move in, okay?” He crossed his arms back over his chest, pouting heavily. “And I’m telling Anya you don’t want to stay.”

“You leave our daughter out of this,” Shane gasped, “You’re a dirty player, Ilya Rozanov.”

“Many have accused me of this,” Ilya sniffed. “It has not stopped me before.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “I hate you.”

Cliché as ever, Ilya played along. “No, you don’t. You never did.”

Chapter 18: Epilogue

June 2025

In the end, Troy Barrett didn’t go through with his opulent European destination wedding. 

But what he did get was as spectacular as the combined efforts of the Drovers could afford— an entire section of the orchard set aside for the wedding itself and a reception in one of the unused barns, everything decorated to the nines with rustic country charm.

Ilya glanced over to where the two grooms were chatting away with Harris’ parents, both men beaming in their apple red bowties with Harris in a pair of matching suspenders to boot.

“They look so happy,” Shane said, his hand slipping around Ilya’s waist.

Ilya nodded and pulled him in closer. “They really do.”

Across the rest of the space, guests were mingling cheerfully, a few beginning to brave the dance floor as the DJ queued up the classic rotation of wedding hits. Amongst the herd of Centaurs players, Ilya also spotted Brandon Wiebe and his wife, and Shane’s boss Lauren and her wife too. Several other familiar couples had stopped to greet him and Shane at one point during the evening, including Scott Hunter’s entire pack of queer New York athletes. Troy Barrett, like many other NHL players, had found the Kingfisher particularly illuminating, and so its staff and patrons made up a decent chunk of the guest list.

Ilya had yet to speak to Hunter himself though, but was unsurprised to find the man approaching with Kip in tow as soon as the thought had entered his head. That old witch.

“Hey, Rozy,” he greeted, “And Shane, lovely as always.”

“Hi, Scott,” Shane replied, his smile doing a very annoying and gooey thing whenever the hunky Admirals captain was around. 

“Tough break in the finals,” Kip remarked, referencing the recent end of the Centaurs’ unexpected Stanley Cup run. They’d suffered a devastating championship loss to the Bluefins in Game 6, so close to the Cup that Ilya had nearly imagined it in his hands again.

“I’m a little relieved actually,” Shane jumped in, ignoring Ilya’s playful look of betrayal, “The parade planning for these things is a nightmare. My team and I need at least a full season to prepare now that I know the extent of it.”

“Start now then,” Ilya replied, kissing his cheek, and then spinning him away entirely to an open spot on the dance floor.

“Ilya, that was rude,” Shane chastised, even as he melted happily into his arms.

“I am remembering the last time we danced like this,” Ilya said instead, watching as Shane smiled immediately at the memory of the floral-filled rooftop. “I wanted to kiss you so badly, but I thought you had a girlfriend. Was torture, waiting until later.”

“I probably would have allowed it anyway,” Shane deadpanned, “Given how both of our supposed ex-girlfriends started dating one another instead.”

(Ilya had received a jarring FaceTime request from Svetlana last month, where the screen showed her relaxing on a Tahitian beach, a very familiar brunette on the lounge chair next to her. ‘Oh, Rose?’ she’d murmured, acting as if Ilya’s shock was a surprise, ‘We sort of have a nice thing going. I’ll tell you at brunch next week.’ 

He’d felt validated by Shane’s near crash out at the news at least, his ‘WHAT?’ echoing through the cottage loud enough to scare away the nearby wildlife.)

“I love you,” Ilya said, just because he could, smiling when Shane tapped his shoulder five times.

Their mouths found each other effortlessly, sinking into a kiss that felt as familiar as it did delightfully new, given its unabashed public nature.

(Had Ilya been looking, he would have seen that none of the other wedding guests — the majority of them lifelong Drover Ottawans — blinked an eye at the way that the captain of their beloved Centaurs was joined at the lips with their equally beloved Shane Hollander, former hometown prospect and the current number two most followed hockey WAG on Instagram.)

Of course, the wider hockey world had not been universally kind when confronted with the mounting and undeniable photo evidence of one of the league’s biggest names out on dates with a man. But the people that mattered to him and Shane had stuck by them, and the general public support for inclusion of all types in the league was growing stronger every day. 

Maybe soon none of this would be so scintillating anymore. Ilya was thirty-one now and ‘boring’ felt pretty damn good.

“Where’d you go, little ghost?” Shane asked in Russian, his accent irritatingly adequate for less than a year of self-guided study.

“Nowhere,” Ilya replied, hugging his boyfriend a little tighter as they swayed to the gentle instrumental track.

“I was thinking,” Shane said suddenly, smacking Ilya’s chest at the way he playfully groaned. “Shut up! I was thinking that it’s kind of inconvenient for me to come over a few times a week just to walk Anya, don’t you think?”

Ilya stared back at him, realization dawning.

“Maybe it would be easier if I just… lived at yours full time?”

The words that left Ilya’s mouth in response were a complete surprise, even to him: “Marry me.”

Shane punched him again, harder. “We’re at a wedding, you asshole. You can’t just—”

Ilya found himself barely nodding, frozen by the mortification of that impulsive slip-up. He had been thinking of it, of course, just… in the far future… obviously. Even Scott Hunter, in all his U-Haul glory, had waited three years.

Shane lowered his fist, expression immediately softening as he looked around furtively and said, “Ask me later.” 

Ilya’s frown transformed into a toothy smile, the one he knew made Shane both irritated and endeared with him.

It worked a charm; they continued to sway to the music, Shane grumbling a series of non-stop good-natured complaints, half in English and half in broken Russian. “... proposing at a wedding? My god, nearly gave me a heart attack. The way I almost died on the spot, right on this straw-covered dance floor. I would have haunted your ass forever.”

“I am your favorite ghost, remember?” Ilya corrected, interrupting his dramatic monologue, “I own the haunting rights.”

“I think it’s fifty-fifty, now that I’m moving in,” Shane argued back, before immediately frowning, “But actually, I’ve just decided that you’re not allowed to die first.”

Ilya blinked. “This arrangement is getting very complicated.”

“But it’s worth it, right?” Shane asked, those brown eyes as wide and earnest as ever.

Ilya had a feeling they weren’t really talking about being ghosts anymore.

“Yes,” he said. 

His one word affirmation, simple and confident.

And then, because Shane Hollander always deserved a little more — and as long as Ilya Rozanov lived and breathed, he would get it — he added:

“With you, it is.”