Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Original Male Character(s)

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Inspired by Heated Rivalry (TV), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Royalty, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags Are Hard, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Gay Sex, Shane Hollander Deserves Better, Shane Hollander Deserves the Best, Bottom Shane Hollander, Anxious Shane Hollander, Praise Kink, Shane Hollander Has a Praise Kink, POV Original Character, Non-Canon Relationship, Wimbledon 2017, Blow Jobs, Shane Hollander-centric, Explicit Sexual Content, Boys Kissing, Shane Hollander's Hot Girl Summer, Summer Romance, Complete, Break Up, Light Dom/sub, BAMF Shane Hollander, Idiots in Love

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Advantage, Hollander

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-17 Completed: 2026-09-19 Words: 26,474 Chapters: 3/3

Changeover

Summary

Prince Alexander Bergström bribes his sister for her Wimbledon seat because: hockey.

(Spoiler: it's not hockey)

Alex has never wanted anything badly enough to work for it. And then he meets Shane Hollander.

Or: Alex's POV of Break Point, and everything he didn't say.

Notes

Alex's POV of the two weeks of Break Point. Technically could be a standalone, but be aware it's an original character POV of another fic. It centres on Shane and the OC Alex, with Ilya as a minor character. It's complete, and it follows some choice cuts (and smut) from the original, just from the other side.

After finishing Break Point I couldn't stop thinking about Alex and what was going on in his beautiful head, so here it is.

Small note: I'm a bit nervous. I never imagined Alex would end up having any fans given he was in competition with Ilya, nor did I imagine I would love writing an OC as much as I did. I guess I did make him kinda perfect. However as we'll see, he is flawed like we all are. I love him a bit more for it and I hope you do too. ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

BEFORE

The email was from the Club, forwarded by their mother’s office with the usual dry covering note from a secretary, and Astrid had sent it on to Alex with three words of her own: Look who I'm beside.

Alex had been eating toast over his laptop in his kitchen in Stockholm, the morning already too bright through the windows, and he opened the attachment expecting nothing. A seating plan. Row, seat numbers, small printed surnames. HRH Princess Astrid. And next to it, SHANE HOLLANDER.

It was the little lift in his chest that was the embarrassing part, his body reacting before his brain had chance to process it.

He put the toast down.

Rolex seats, Astrid texted, a minute later. First Monday. Your hockey man.

He’s not my hockey man.

Your favourite then.

Alex stared at the phone. Astrid was two years older than him and she was right about everything. It was her least appealing quality.

What do you want for the seat, he wrote.

The reply took four seconds. Oh this is going to be good.

The price, negotiated over lunch that weekend, was a public appearance at the national agricultural show in August, which Astrid had been trying to hand off to someone since March, which ran to four hours of speeches and prize-giving for cattle, and an afternoon at the aquarium with his niece, Sofia. Astrid had sat there, smug, with the same look she'd worn every time she'd beaten him at something since they were children. Alex agreed to all of it, and didn't mention the fact he would have taken Sofia to the aquarium for nothing, on any weekend she liked, and the only real difficulty would be leaving.

"I know what this is about. The hockey player," Astrid said.

Alex felt the back of his neck go hot. He'd hoped she wouldn't bring it up. "I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Shane Hollander. The one you watch on your phone with the volume down I'm not looking."

“I do not watch—”

“You know he’s straight,” she said, stabbing a tomato with her fork.

“He’s my favourite player in the league.”

“He has a girlfriend. That actress. The American one.”

“I want to talk to him about hockey.”

“Mm.” She’d looked at him over her sunglasses, and there was the look— another one from when they were children, the one that said I can see right through you. “You follow him on Instagram, don't you."

“I follow a lot of people.”

“Alex.”

“He’s interesting.” It came out more defensive than he meant it to. He set his fork down. "He's the best player in the world right now, and every year I sit in a box at Wimbledon next to men who want to talk to me about bitcoin. I'd like one afternoon of talking to someone about something I actually like. That's all."

Astrid had held his gaze a moment longer before letting it go. "The agricultural show," she said. "And the aquarium. It's so boring, I can't stand another afternoon of looking at fish. And you have to tell me everything about Shane Hollander after."

"There will be nothing to tell."

"Then you can promise."

"Fine. I promise."

MONDAY: 3rd JULY 2017

The thing was, he hadn't lied. Not exactly. He did love hockey. He'd grown up on it, and he still watched the MLH at hours when most Europeans were not awake. And Shane Hollander was the best player in the league. It had started honestly. His speed, the way he saw the ice—Alex had played enough hockey himself—badly—to understand what was going on, that he was watching someone who knew where the puck was going before the puck did.

The problem was that at some point, over the last winter, the watching had stopped being about the hockey.

It had started with a highlight reel. He'd been lying in bed one night in a hotel in Geneva, unable to sleep, scrolling his phone. A clip had come up—Shane Hollander scoring a goal from an impossible angle, the puck moving so fast the camera barely caught it. Alex had watched it three times. Then he had searched for the post-game interview. Then, over the following few months, he had watched more or less everything.

He found the interviews fascinating. Hollander sat there in his team suit with his hands folded and gave the most bland answers Alex had ever heard from a famous person—and Alex’s whole family were famous people; he knew bland answers. He'd given dozens of them himself, in multiple languages. But Hollander’s were different. They weren’t lazy. They were too good. Every sentence polished smooth, every smile arriving on schedule, eyes down, thanks to the fans, credit to the other team. But there was something underneath it that Alex couldn't put his finger on and he couldn't stop watching, waiting for something to slip. Nobody was that careful unless they had something to be careful about. Alex knew, because he'd spent a lot of his adult life being exactly that careful himself.

Alex had told himself it was curiosity. He’d told himself that a lot, in the small hours, watching Shane Hollander thank the fans in his careful monotone.

A hockey obsession, he told himself, and curiosity. Curiosity was easier than admitting he had a crush on Shane Hollander. The captain, the MLH's highest scorer, the pretty Canadian golden boy. The kind of face that made sponsors hand over their money and put him on billboards. The kind of body that Alex used to google in high school, always making sure to clear the search history before anyone else saw his laptop. The kind of closet-case crush he thought he'd grown out of, because he was twenty-eight, openly gay, and supposedly too old for this shit.

He'd seen photographs of the girlfriend. Hollander was dating Rose Landry, the actress, so Alex knew he was straight. Alex was going to Wimbledon to sit next to a handsome straight hockey player for two hours, and he needed to get a grip. He'd said as much to his reflection, the first Monday of Wimbledon, smoothing down his hair. It's a fun afternoon. You'll talk hockey. He'll be pleasant and dull, you'll have a story, that's it. Do not make it weird, Alexander.

And then he was late, because he was always late. He had stood for half an hour with three different shirts on the bed, deciding which one to wear. Then the traffic had been ridiculous, and there'd been a queue at the gate, and he'd arrived when the players were already knocking up. He told himself was fine. No waiting in his seat like an eager boy.

He made it into the Rolex suite just in time to meet the handler, who listed the rules for sponsor seating, while she led him through the maze of tents. They climbed the steps and she pointed his seat out, urging him to sit quickly as the match was about to start. Below him, the court was green and immaculate, the players already out and rallying.

Alex saw him immediately, perfect posture and a serious, closed-off mouth, and his first thought, looking at him, was: oh, you've got to be joking.

Because Shane Hollander in person was—the interviews didn't do it. The cameras didn't do it. The wide shoulders under the navy blazer, the clean line of his neck, the dark hair cut short and neat, the pale blue shirt collar open at the throat, revealing olive skin. He looked exactly like a man who belonged in a Rolex advertisement. Which, Alex supposed, was because he was in one. He felt his stomach turn in a slow, warm flip, and he had to remind himself how to move his legs.

Alex stepped into the row and dropped into the seat next to him. Hollander turned his head with a polite, prepared smile, removed his sunglasses, and that finished the job. Behind the dark glasses, the dark eyes, long lashes, freckles across his nose that no television broadcast ever picked up. And a jaw that had no business on a man that pretty. He was exactly, exactly Alex’s type, to a degree that felt personally targeted.

Alex sat down and started talking before his brain could form another thought. He heard himself say the line about the princess, the bribe confession, the apology—she's much prettier than me—and he was already half-turning to the court, running on autopilot.

Hollander didn't say anything. For the briefest moment, there was a flicker of surprise, then confusion, his lips parted, and he looked at Alex a beat too long.

Alex glanced back. Hollander was flustered. Visibly. The polite smile had never quite held.

“You’d probably rather have had the princess,” Alex said, giving him an out.

“No.”

It came out fast. Too fast, the way a word comes out when it escapes someone not planning to say it. Alex felt his eyebrows raise, and he laughed, surprised and pleased, and put out his hand, introducing himself. Hollander's handshake was warm and firm and Alex held it slightly longer than necessary.

Well. Canada’s Golden Boy, he thought, settling back, putting his sunglasses on, letting his arm rest along the back of Hollander’s seat because it was an easy thing to do and he was an easy person. Interesting. As he turned back to the court, he saw Hollander was blushing. A faint pink that started at his cheekbones and spread to the tips of his ears. Alex saw it from the corner of his eye and felt his own pulse kick in his throat.

Stop it, he told himself. He's straight. He's flustered because a Swedish prince knows his stats. He's glad I'm not a pretty Swedish princess, because he's got a girlfriend. That's all.

The first few points of the match went by. He snuck glances at Shane, who was watching the tennis with an intensity Alex recognized from his own father, who watched politics the same way. And they talked. He'd come prepared with conversation about hockey, and he used some of it, and Hollander talked about the game with quick, precise intelligence. He knew Alex's friend Larssen, and the differences between Swedish and Canadian hockey. But the hockey wasn't the interesting part. The interesting part was the other Hollander, the one that kept surfacing.

"On the ice you're ruthless," Alex said, at one point. "You're totally focused, like the rest of the world's been switched off. And here you are in a linen jacket, all polite, like you'd rescue a kitten from a tree. I don’t know how both of those are the same person."

It was a lot. He heard it as he said it. He had meant it to be charming, and it had come out too much, revealing too much about the amount of time he'd spent watching. He closed his mouth and made himself look at the court.

Shane was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Maybe I’m neither.”

Alex felt a jolt in his chest. That was not a media-trained answer. And when Hollander turned to him, visibly realising what he'd said, a flicker of horror passed over his face. The polite expression was gone, and what was left was something surprisingly real.

Oh, Alex thought. Oh.

He covered it with a joke, because covering things with jokes was what he was for. “Now that’s truly ominous. Now I have to know.”

“That’s the idea. It keeps your attention.”

And Shane said it dry, deadpan, eyes still on the court, and Alex grinned, because the door had swung open and there was a whole funny, sharp person standing behind it. “It’s working,” Alex said. “I’m riveted.”

There was a beat of silence, then Shane smiled, trying not to, and Alex felt a ripple of heat go down his back. He was in trouble. He had known he would be in trouble, but he had assumed it would be manageable, like when a handsome straight man was painfully nice and Alex wanted him quietly from a safe distance for two hours.

This was not that. This was Shane Hollander looking at him from under his lashes and saying things that did not fit the script at all.

He asked questions, about London, about whether Alex played tennis. He blushed easily and often, and tried to hide it by looking at the tennis, which did not work, because it went all the way down his neck under the collar of his pale blue shirt, and Alex knew this because he was watching it instead of the match.

He caught himself doing it and looked back at the court.

At the next changeover, Alex glanced across the court and saw Astrid in the Royal Box, looking very pleased with herself. She gave him a little wave. She'd never wanted the seat at all. She'd had a better offer the whole time. Alex looked back at Shane, and decided he didn't care.

Somewhere in the second set, he took his sunglasses off and turned to say something about the last point, and stopped. Shane had also taken his sunglasses off, and they were close, the space between their shoulders maybe three inches. Shane was looking at Alex’s mouth. Just for a second. Then his eyes flicked up to meet Alex’s, and the high colour came back into his cheeks.

Alex forgot the last point entirely.

He made himself look at the court. He could feel the warmth coming off Shane’s body, the slight movement of his breathing, the nearness of his knee.

Stop it. You’re reading too much into this. He blushes at everything—you’ve watched him blush four times in an hour. He’s a straight man with a famous girlfriend who’s never sat next to someone who talks like you, and you’re vain, and you want it, and wanting it makes you see things that aren't there.

He tried to steer it back to polite conversation. He asked what Shane had been doing since he arrived in London. When Shane talked about the park and the cafe and the museum, the way he had been spending his days anonymous, Alex felt a sharp tug of recognition.

“That’s it,” he said. “Exactly. I love it here because nobody’s interested in who you are. Even at Wimbledon.” He gestured at the match, which they were both mostly ignoring. “Everyone’s watching the tennis, not us. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

Shane looked at him then, not a glance but a full look, and held it a beat too long. Alex’s stomach flipped. Shane turned toward the court, giving Alex the side of his face: the dark lashes, the clean line of his jaw. Alex had the sudden, insane urge to touch the back of Shane’s neck, where the hair was cut short.

The players changed ends. The crowd around them applauded politely. Alex sat very still, one hand on his knee, and thought about what the linen under his palm felt like to keep from thinking about Shane’s mouth.

Then Shane turned in his seat, and he was blushing again, and he asked, awkwardly: "So how long are you going to in London for?"

Alex's body went still.

Oh.

Shane was Canadian. Shane was polite. Shane had just spent half an hour listening to Alex talk about tennis, and Alex had said he was here for Wimbledon, and this was probably just Shane being friendly. It was nothing. It was the kind of question people asked at networking events.

Except Shane’s face was blushing again, high up on his cheekbones, and he was asking it like the answer mattered.

“The whole fortnight,” he said. And then, because he could not help himself, he dropped his voice and added, "Why?"

Shane looked at him, his dark eyes steady. Then he said, “Because I don’t understand a single thing about tennis. I need someone to explain it to me.”

Alex looked at him. Shane Hollander, wide-eyed, burning, the worst liar in the northern hemisphere, a man who had just, with zero plausible deniability, had asked for more of Alex's company.

He made a joke. Deflected from himself. And called Shane Canada's pretty golden boy just to watch him squirm, and then turned back to the tennis before he could do anything else. Alex was flirting. Unmistakeably flirting. Alex felt his own face heat, and wondered if Shane noticed.

When the match ended, Alex could not have told anyone who asked who won. He clapped and made a generic comment about the tennis, and then he was standing beside Shane adjusting his jacket, aware of the cameras pointing toward their row. He kept his face easy. He was good at that.

He leaned in, keeping his eyes on the court, and said: "It was good to meet you." It came out sounding like he intended. A polite close.

“Hey—”

The word came out too fast, and Alex turned, and Hollander was standing there with his mouth dry and his face going red, explaining the hospitality suite to a man who had been to the hospitality suite every year since he was nineteen—there’s drinks, and photos—flailing, and it was so fucking adorable, that Alex let him flail for a moment too long.

Alex looked at him. The polite version of Alex had already said goodbye. The rest of him was taking a picture of this moment to keep: Shane Hollander, hair slightly mussed, blushing, asking him to stay.

And because he couldn't help himself, he said he wasn't going. Watched the drop. The stomach falling through the floor, right there on Hollander’s face, plain as day.

“But I am now,” Alex said, and walked off before he could grin about it.

In the hospitality suite, Alex did what he always did. He worked the room. He spoke to the Rolex people, shook hands, laughed at a story, moved away. A series of two minute conversations. He did not approach Shane, but he knew the entire time where he was in the room like you know where the sun is.

Twice, across the room, they made eye contact. Alex smiled both times, a small private smile, and went back to his conversation. Shane was doing the same circuit, polite and polished. Alex found it fascinating and a little sad at the same time, seeing Shane slip back on the mask. He wondered, for a moment, if he too appeared that way to others. If anyone saw it.

There were the photos, and then the room emptied out, and Alex found himself near the door, shrugging into his jacket. He hadn't pushed. He wasn't going to wait until it was just the two of them in the room and he did something to embarrass himself. It was time to leave it up to fate, or Shane Hollander, or both. Alex had learned years ago that the only way to be sure was to let the other person come to you.

And then Shane was crossing the room.

“I don’t have your number."

Alex looked up. And for a moment—a longer one than he meant—he just looked at him. And then he did what he always did when something really mattered. He went blank, and he heard himself say, flat and unreadable, "No, you don't," and he watched Shane's face fall, watched him start to take it away—right, sorry, that was—and Alex's own stomach dropped.

For fuck's sake, what are you doing. He's standing in front of you with his face on fire, asking for your number, and you're going to let him take it back and apologize for it?

“Give me your phone.”

Hollander gave him his phone. Their fingers didn’t touch—Alex made sure of it, because he did not trust his fingers—and he typed his name and his number, unhurried, steady-handed. Alexander. Nothing else. No title. No little heart, for god’s sake. He handed it back.

“There,” he said. He turned half toward the door and straightened his jacket, and made himself sound like someone concluding a pleasant afternoon with a casual acquaintance. "Enjoy the rest of your fortnight, Shane."

Shane. First name, out loud, first time. And then he left, out and down the corridor and into the light, with his heart pounding and his phone in his pocket, which he was going to be checking roughly every four minutes for the rest of the week.

Astrid texted him before he reached the gate. Well????

FRIDAY: 7th JULY 2017

The gallery in Mayfair was crowded and too warm. As soon as Alex stepped inside he took a glass from a tray, said hello to the Rolex executive and her husband, asked after their daughter, and let his eyes sweep the room, while pretending not to.

He hadn't known for sure if Shane would come. Alex had told himself it was a work event. Rolex ambassador, the foundation, champagne, forty-five minutes or thereabouts. The fact that a certain Canadian might be there was incidental. He hadn't been back to Wimbledon, and couldn't have, even if he wanted to. Alex had been in Stockholm for two days. He'd told himself he wouldn't wonder if Shane would text. And in four days he'd checked his phone more than he usually did in one month.

He found him near the far wall, glass in hand, nodding at a banker type who didn't stop talking. Alex stayed by the window and watched for a little too long. Shane was wearing a grey suit, white shirt open at the collar, the Rolex obvious on his wrist, his hair a little too neat. He was smiling the smile from the interviews and nodding at whatever the man was saying, and Alex could see from thirty feet away that his attention was somewhere else.

He didn't go over. He found a group he sort-of-knew near the window and joined them and talked about the paintings. He talked to someone about a charity gala. The whole time he knew exactly where Shane was in the room without directly looking at him. Twice Shane drifted closer, while Alex was mid-conversation, and Shane moved on.

Then Shane ended up alone in front of one of the large abstract canvases, studying it with the intensity of a man pretending very hard to be interested in art.

Alex excused himself and crossed the room.

He stopped beside him, close enough to be intentional, not close enough to crowd. Shane started an apology before he’d even looked—“Sorry—”—and then he looked, and the word died, and Alex watched a look cross his face that he never saw in an interview.

“Hollander,” Alex said. “I was wondering if you’d make it.”

He took a sip of his beer and kept his eyes on him. Up close and standing face-to-face it was worse. His eyes. The lashes. The mouth he’d spent ninety minutes at Centre Court trying not to stare at.

“I went back yesterday,” Shane said. “To watch the tennis.”

“ I was in Stockholm. Had to go back for a couple of days.”

It came out too fast. Alex heard it as it left his mouth—Shane hadn’t asked where he’d been. Shane had made an observation about tennis, and Alex had answered a question that hadn't been asked. He never did that.

He moved on quickly, but the next words out of his mouth did not really make anything better. “You should have texted me.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” Shane said.

No apology. Just no. That was unexpected. That Shane would say something so bluntly and then just let it sit there. Shane's hand had tightened around his glass but he didn’t look away.

Alex had to change the subject. He asked about Stockholm—had Shane been—and Shane said no, and he said you should, it's beautiful in the summer. He watched Shane try to decode it. Small talk or suggestion? Both. Alex knew it was both, even if he hadn’t decided yet how far to push. He caught himself and thought: careful. You're flirting again. Change the subject. Alex looked out at the crowd and said, “This party is terrible.”

Shane laughed, surprised. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s worse. Everyone’s pretending to be interested in each other, and no one’s saying what they really think. It’s exhausting.”

“You don’t like small talk?”

“Nobody likes small talk.” Alex shrugged. “I’d rather talk about something real.”

Shane was quiet for one, two, three seconds. Then he looked at Alex and said, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Alex's stomach flipped. He kept his face as neutral as he could. “I was hoping you’d say that. Yes. I’ll get a car and meet you outside in ten.”

He walked away before his face betrayed him.

The club had a black door and a brass bell and nothing else outside to distinguish it, which is what Alex liked about it. He signed the register while Karim said good evening, Mr Bergström and pointedly did not look at Shane, and that was one of the other reasons why Alex had been coming here for six years.

Alex led them to a booth at the far end, near the small fireplace. When he slid in, and Shane followed, their knees brushed together. As Alex settled in to his seat, his sleeve rode up and he saw Shane’s eyes go to his bicep, to the edge of the tattoo. He pretended to look at the drinks menu and let Shane look. A few times, Shane's eyes would drift there, linger, then snap back to Alex's face like he'd been caught stealing.

The waiter came and poured water. Alex ordered two whiskeys without asking, then caught himself and glanced across the table. All right? Shane nodded. Alex made a note not to do that again. He was used to being the host and it came out at the worst moments, usually when he was nervous.

Alex watched him, noting the way Shane’s fingers tapped against the tabletop, the way his eyes darted toward the exit before settling back on Alex. He looked like a man who was trying very hard not to bolt. It took a while, but at some point Shane's shoulders dropped, almost like he'd only then realised he was safe.

They talked for over an hour. It was easy, easier than Alex expected. He loved to talk—not small talk, but really getting to know people, what made them tick, asking the questions nobody else asked. Usually it felt like steering. This time it just flowed. He hadn't expected Shane to talk so much, or to be so open.

Alex had built a version of Shane Hollander in his head, from one afternoon and a lot of old interviews. The real one kept surprising him. He was funnier. He listened properly, as if every answer mattered. And every so often he'd say something so honest that he looked startled by it himself.

The waiter appeared with two more whiskeys. Alex hadn’t ordered them—the owner must have sent them over. He nodded toward the bar, and the owner raised a hand in acknowledgment.

Shane wrapped his fingers around the glass. His hands were beautiful—Alex had noticed that at Wimbledon, the way his fingers curled around the champagne flute, the way he’d held his phone when Alex typed in his number. Strong hands.

When the bill came, Shane’s hand got there first.

“I’ve got this.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Alex leaned back and looked at him. Nobody did that. People let him pay—people assumed, correctly, that it meant nothing to him—and he’d long since stopped noticing. Shane’s jaw had a set to it. Stubborn, Alex said, and meant it fondly, and heard himself say next time, it’s on me. He saw Shane still when he said that, and he thought: good.

Then Alex made the decision he’d been circling since they sat down.

“I looked you up, you know. Before Wimbledon. When I saw your name next to Astrid’s and persuaded her to give me the seat. Purely so I could be well-informed, of course.”

Technically, it was true. What he didn't say was: the looking-up started a long time before that. That he’d watched Shane Hollander play hockey, on and off, for longer than he was prepared to admit on a first date. He was allowed one secret on a first date. Maybe two.

“Okay,” Shane said, carefully. “And what’d you find?”

Hockey. Brands. Adverts. And then, carefully, because this was the actual thing: Rose Landry, the two of them photographed at restaurants and games, captions about how happy, how in love. The assumptions he'd made, and the confusion of the afternoon—you spent an entire afternoon looking at me like that—and the pause when he asked for his number—I had no idea what to make of it.

The silence that followed hung between them. Shane looked down at the table, and Alex could see on his face the moment he decided.

Shane told him about Rose—we weren't compatible—and about trying to figure himself out, and how he had finally been honest with himself and others. Alex knew what he was being given. This was someone handing over a thing that he guarded the most tightly, and trusting Alex with it. Alex touched Shane's hand, briefly. Shane looked so fucking brave, sitting there with his face flushed and his jaw set in a line, saying things he didn't say to anyone, and Alex wanted—he wanted to be the kind of person who deserved that. He touched his hand and let go just as quickly, but what he really wanted to do was lean in and gather Shane up in his arms.

And underneath that, there was another thought, one that he didn't enjoy: I've given nothing back. Jokes about bribing his sister. Anecdotes about football. Shane had given him everything, and Alex had returned nothing, and didn't know what to do about it.

He wanted to tell Shane that he understood—that he’d spent years performing, being the right kind of prince, smiling for the cameras, never letting anyone see anything real.

Before Alex could say anything else, Shane said: “I Googled you too.”

Another surprise. “Did you.”

“The night after the tennis. I found your Wikipedia page.” Shane hesitated. “The interview. From 2011.”

Alex had done that interview half a decade ago, sat down with a journalist and said the words he’d been rehearsing in his head for months. It hadn’t been brave, exactly—he’d been terrified, sick to his stomach, convinced his family would be furious even though they’d told him they wouldn’t be. But he’d done it anyway, because hiding had started to feel like suffocating. He wanted to say that coming out in public was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and also the easiest, because he finally felt like he could breathe.

But he couldn't say that to Shane. Not yet. Instead, he only said: “Okay then."

That was all. That was the whole thing. He wasn’t embarrassed—he’d stopped being embarrassed about this years ago. But there was something about Shane knowing, about Shane saying it out loud in that careful voice, that made Alex’s throat tight.

“Okay,” Shane said. 

Alex looked at him across the table. The candle had burned down, the wax pooling on the wood. Shane's hair was slightly mussed, and his mouth was red from where he’d been biting his lip. He looked nothing like the polished man from the Rolex suite. He looked real.

“Let’s finish our drinks and go,” Alex said.

Alex gave the driver Shane’s hotel name—near Hyde Park, somewhere expensive—and his own address in South Kensington, and then the partition slid up and they were alone. Shane sat a careful distance away and looked out of the window, and Alex sat and was aware of every inch of the gap. The air was thick with unanswered questions.

He wanted to touch him. He’d been wanting to touch him since Monday—since Shane had looked at him with those startled dark eyes and said “no” when Alex asked if he’d rather have been sitting next to a princess.

The car went over a bump. Shane’s knee brushed against Alex’s, and stayed there.

Neither of them moved.

Alex counted his own breaths. One, two, three. The warmth of Shane’s knee through the fabric of his trousers. The faint scent of whatever shampoo Shane used. The way Shane’s hands were resting on his thighs, fingers curled.

Four, five, six.

“Shane,” Alex said.

Shane turned his head. His eyes were dark in the dim light of the cab, and his mouth was slightly open, and Alex could see the pulse beating in his throat. He put his hand on Shane’s jaw. Shane leaned into it before Alex had done anything else at all, eyes falling shut, and Alex’s composure developed its first crack of the night.

“Tell me if you want me to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

Alex kissed him. He’d meant it to be brief—a first kiss in a moving car, a promise, save the rest for another time. It did not stay brief. When the car jolted, they both pulled back, and then Shane was kissing him back, hand gripping Alex’s thigh, and then his shirt. Alex lost track of everything except the heat of Shane's mouth and the way Shane's body pressed into his. The kiss kept going, kept deepening.

Eventually Alex pulled back. “Wait—” He was breathing hard. His forehead was against Shane’s, and he could feel Shane’s breath on his mouth. “Wait. I need to tell the driver— What should I—”

“Tell him your place,” Shane said. “Say yours.”

Alex’s brain stopped working for a second. He’d assumed—he’d been prepared to drop Shane at his hotel, kiss him goodnight, spend the next three days overthinking every moment of this. He hadn’t expected—

“Shane—”

“Tell him.” Shane’s voice was rough. “I want to go back to yours.”

Alex leaned forward. Tapped on the partition. The driver slid it open just enough to hear, and Alex said his address, his voice steadier than he felt, and went back to Shane's mouth before the partition was fully closed.

This time it wasn’t careful. Shane’s hand was on his hip pulling him closer, and Alex’s hands were in Shane’s hair, and the kiss was hot and insistent and Alex couldn’t get close enough. He could feel the heat of Shane’s body through his shirt, the solid muscle beneath, and he wanted—he wanted—

Shane’s hand slid up his chest, fingers finding the open collar of his shirt, touching skin. Alex made a sound against Shane’s mouth and kissed him harder.

When they finally broke apart, Shane’s lips were swollen and his breathing was shallow and his eyes were so dark they looked almost black. Alex’s own pulse was hammering in his throat. He was aware, dimly, that he was smiling—a little dazed, a little wrecked.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all week,” Alex said.

“Since Monday?”

“Since about four seconds after I sat down next to you and you said ‘no’ when I asked if you’d rather I’d been a princess.” Alex’s thumb traced Shane’s jawline. He couldn’t seem to stop touching him. “I thought, oh no. This is going to be a problem.”

Shane’s voice was hoarse. “What kind of problem?”

“The kind where I meet a beautiful man at a tennis match and can’t stop thinking about him for four days, and wondering why he hasn’t texted.”

Shane kissed him again instead of answering. Alex laughed against his mouth, surprised—and kissed him back with the same desperate intensity as before.

Shane’s hands were on his back now, pulling him closer, his fingers pressing into the muscle there. Alex deepened the kiss, and Shane’s mouth opened under his, and Alex thought: this is happening. This is actually happening.

The car slowed. Alex pulled back just enough to look out of the window. They were on his street—the long terrace of white stucco houses, black railings, steps up to every door.

“My apartment,” he said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. “I have a serviced flat here. I stay whenever I’m in London for more than a few days.”

He got out, held his hand for Shane, and Shane took it. His fingers threaded through Alex's, warm and solid. Alex looked at him. At his dark eyes, his flushed face, the way he was standing there on the pavement like he’d made a decision and wasn’t going to second-guess it.

“Are you sure you want to come up?”

“Yes,” Shane said. “I want to come up.”

Alex closed the door behind them. Locked it. The deadbolt clicked into place.

In the hallway they both bent to take their shoes off at the same time. Alex caught Shane's eye as they both straightened up, and Shane laughed—a short, surprised sound that broke the tension.

Alex smiled. “Come on,” he said. “Living room’s this way.”

It was quiet. The tall windows looked out over the city, and the streetlamps cast long rectangles of light across the floor. Alex turned on a lamp, casting a dim glow over everything.

Shane stood in the middle of the room, still and watchful.

Alex wanted to touch him again. He stayed where he was.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked. “Water. More whiskey. Tea.”

“No.” Shane’s voice was steady. “I don’t want a drink.”

Alex crossed the room. He couldn't stand to be on the other side of the room any longer. He didn't reach for him but stopped close enough that if either of them moved, they’d touch. Shane’s face was half in shadow, his dark eyes unreadable.

“What do you want, Shane?”

The question hung in the air, and Alex watched him struggle to find the words. He’d seen this before—in the club, in the car, the way Shane would start a sentence and then stop.

“I don’t really know how to do this. Any of it. I’ve never—” He stopped. “I’m not good at saying it out loud.”

Alex’s chest went tight but he didn’t let it show on his face. “Okay. Easier question. Do you want this?”

Shane looked at him then, and Alex saw the answer before Shane said it. “Yes.”

That was enough. Alex cupped his face in both hands, and kissed him. He meant to be careful. He meant to go slowly, to let Shane lead the pace, to offer an out every five minutes. But Shane kissed back hard, and put his hands on Alex's waist like they belonged there, and Alex’s plan went to pieces.

"You’re beautiful,” he said, before he slid Shane's jacket off his shoulders. "And right now, what I want is to take you to bed. If that's what you want."

“Yes.”

“Good.” And then they were fumbling with each other's shirts, Alex's hands on Shane's back, feeling his skin, warm and smooth, the muscle shifting beneath his palms. Shane made a sound that was half gasp, half groan, and he pushed into the touch, his hands coming up to grip Alex's face.

He walked Shane backward without breaking the kiss, one hand dropping to Shane’s hip, the other holding the back of his head. Shane’s back hit the wall near the window. Alex pressed against him, one thigh between Shane's legs, his mouth on Shane's throat. Shane’s head tipped back, exposing the line of his neck, and Alex kissed his way down to the collarbone.

Then Shane’s hand was on his chest. Pushing. Not hard, but firmly.

Alex stopped immediately. Pulled back.

But Shane wasn’t pushing him away. He was turning them. His hand found Alex’s shoulder and pushed, and Alex let himself be moved, let his back hit the wall where Shane had been a second ago.

Shane’s hands were on his belt.

Alex’s brain short-circuited.

He’d expected—he’d assumed he’d be the one leading. Shane had seemed so tentative in the club, so careful with his words, so new at this. He hadn’t expected Shane’s hands on his belt buckle, working it open with quick, sure movements. He hadn’t expected the way Shane was looking at him—steady and hungry and not tentative at all. Oh, I have got you completely wrong.

Shane pulled Alex’s belt free and dropped it on the floor, and then his hands were at the button of Alex’s trousers, and Alex’s breath caught in his throat.

Shane held his eyes as he undid the button and pulled the zipper down. Alex’s trousers slid to the floor.

Alex’s cock was already hard in his briefs, and Shane’s palm brushed him through the cotton, once, deliberate.

“Shane—”

Shane sank to his knees.

Alex’s hand found the wall behind him. He needed something to hold onto. Shane was looking up at him, his dark eyes catching the light from the window, and his hands were on Alex’s hips, and then his fingers were hooking into the waistband of Alex’s briefs.

Shane pulled them down. Alex’s cock sprang free, hard and already leaking, and Shane leaned forward and licked the tip.

Alex’s head hit the wall.

Shane’s tongue swirled around the head, slow and deliberate, and then dipped into the slit. Alex’s were in Shane's hair—he couldn't help it—and he desperately tried not to push, he didn't trust himself, and he heard himself say, in Swedish: "Titta på dig — jag skulle kunna—" Look at you—I could—

Shane opened his mouth and took him all the way to the back of his throat. He didn't break eye contact. Alex would think about that for a long time after: Shane Hollander on his knees, mouth on his cock, looking up, dark eyes steady. That was the thing. Not his mouth—his mouth was incredible, and Shane was not shy about any of it, about taking him deep, about the small, deliberate sounds. But the eyes. Shane looked up at him through those lashes, dark-eyed and intent, holding Alex's gaze while he did it, and he knew it was because Shane wanted to see exactly what he was doing to him. Nobody had ever looked at Alex like that before.

He watched Shane’s head move, his lips on Alex's cock, the way his throat worked when he took him deeper. Shane’s hands were on Alex’s thighs, holding him steady, and every so often his eyes would flick up to meet Alex’s, and every time, Alex would feel his stomach drop.

He was losing his grip. He could feel it happening—the careful composure he’d been maintaining all night, the easy charm, the control. Shane’s mouth was stripping it away, and Alex didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except the heat of Shane’s mouth and the way Shane was looking at him like he wanted to be there, on his knees, doing exactly this.

Shane’s hand slid from Alex’s thigh to the base of his cock, stroking what he couldn’t fit in his mouth. Alex’s hips jerked forward before he could stop himself, and Shane made a sound—a hum, low in his throat—and Alex felt it vibrate through him.

“Shane. Please.” He pushed gently at Shane’s shoulder and tilted his face up, and nearly lost it again at the sight of him, those eyes again, mouth wet, breathing hard. “Fuck, that’s so good. I want you in the bedroom. Now.”

Shane stood, and Alex—not even thinking—grabbed him by the thighs and lifted. He was heavy, solid, all that hockey muscle, and Alex loved every ounce of the effort. Shane's legs wrapped around his waist, like they'd planned it, and Alex carried him down the hall to the bedroom with Shane's mouth on his neck, and he thought, vaguely, that for a man who didn't know what he was doing, Shane Hollander was doing it with terrifying confidence.

Alex dropped him on the bed, and Shane lay there looking at him, chest rising and falling, his trousers still on, cock straining against the fabric. Alex stripped him, and then stopped and looked, because seeing Shane Hollander lying naked on his bed was something he wanted more than a second of.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he said. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. It just came out.

Shane’s face flushed, the colour spreading down his neck.

He crawled up Shane’s body. Kissed his ankle, the inside of his thigh, the crease of his hip, the hard plane of his stomach. Shane’s muscles jumped under his mouth. He kissed his way up Shane’s chest, pausing to swirl his tongue around one nipple. Shane arched up beneath him, a choked sound escaping his throat. Alex did it again, slower, and Shane’s hands fisted in the sheets.

Alex grabbed Shane’s wrists. Pinned them above his head. Held them there with one hand, and murmured against his ear: “What do you want? Remind me.”

And then he got the flustered version of Shane again, whining, wanting, but unable to manage the sentence: “I want—” Shane’s voice went. He tried again: “More— I want— Please Alex. I want you.”

Alex pulled back so he could look at Shane’s face. His dark eyes were glassy, his mouth open, his cheeks flushed. He looked desperate and beautiful and completely wrecked, and Alex wanted to give him everything.

“What do you want, Shane? Be specific.”

“Touch me.”

Alex smirked. Moved his free hand down. Hovered over Shane’s cock, not touching.

Alex drew it out of him word by word—where? —everywhere —what else? —and he wasn't doing it to tease, or not only to tease, he was doing it because every word Shane managed to say out loud seemed to release something in him, and Alex wanted all of it to let go. He had a strong suspicion, based on nothing, that Shane had spent years not being able to say anything out loud.

Alex released his wrists. Wrapped his hand around Shane’s cock, one slow stroke from base to tip. Shane’s hips bucked up and he moaned. “Yes. Like that. Yes.”

“What else do you want?” Alex asked. He was hard against Shane’s thigh, leaking onto his skin, but he ignored it. He wanted to hear Shane say it.

“I want you to—” Shane swallowed. “Please. Suck me.”

Alex moved down his body. He took his time—licked and kissed his way across Shane’s chest, down his stomach, his tongue dipping into Shane’s navel and making him gasp. He spread Shane’s thighs and settled between them, and then he flicked his tongue at the tip of Shane’s cock.

Shane groaned.

Alex took the head into his mouth and looked up at Shane. The sight of him—on his back, hands gripping the sheets, staring down at Alex like he couldn’t believe this was happening—made Alex’s cock throb.

He teased the head for a long time. Licking, sucking, pulling back whenever Shane’s hips started to lift. Shane’s hands found his hair, fingers twisting, pushing slightly, but Alex resisted. He wanted it to last a little longer, but he also wasn’t sure he could survive much more himself.

He stroked his tongue up the entire shaft. Took Shane all the way to the back of his throat. His hands slid around Shane’s hips, gripping his ass, pulling him closer.

“Fuck,” Shane babbled. “Yes, Alex, that’s so good.” And as Shane came apart under his mouth and hands, saying that’s so good, and Alex thought: I will do almost anything to keep being told that.

Alex increased the pace. One hand slid between Shane’s legs, cupping his balls, then moving lower. He pulled off for a moment, touched a fingertip to Shane’s hole, pressed gently.

“Is this okay?”

Shane’s whole body shuddered. “Yes. Yes. Fuck, yes. More.”

Alex wet his fingers in his mouth. Pressed one against Shane’s hole and took his cock back into his mouth at the same time. When the finger slid inside, Shane arched off the bed.

“Yes.”

Alex found his rhythm. One hand wrapped around the base of Shane’s cock, the other pressing deeper, finding the spot that made Shane make sounds he probably didn’t know he was making. Alex worked his mouth and his fingers together, and Shane’s legs were shaking, and his hands were fisted in Alex’s hair, and Alex thought: I could do this for hours. I could do this forever. He pushed the thought away. He added another finger and watched Shane come apart instead.

“Wait,” Shane said.

Alex stopped immediately. Lifted his head. Pulled his fingers out gently.

Shane was panting, his chest heaving. “Sorry—it’s so good—but I want—”

Alex waited. Let Shane find the words.

When he said it, Shane's voice was rough. “I want— I want you to fuck me.”

Alex felt a smile break across his face. He couldn’t help it. Shane, who’d told him an hour ago that he’d only just started being honest about himself, was lying naked in his bed asking to be fucked like it was the simplest thing in the world.

He climbed up Shane’s body. Positioned himself between Shane’s thighs. Looked down at him.

“I might not last long,” Alex said. He was still looking at Shane, his hands resting on his legs. “I haven’t had anyone here before. In this apartment. You’re the first—in a while. I don’t do this often.”

Shane’s expression flickered. “You don’t.”

“No. You’re the first I wanted badly enough to bring home since—” He paused. “Since a while ago. Look, I know we just met. This doesn’t have to be anything. I just need you to know.” It was more than he’d meant to say. But it was the truth, and he wanted to give Shane something, and knew from Shane's face that he understood this was something Alex wouldn't normally say. And then Shane gave him some more of his own truth back, that there'd been someone for years, another hockey player, and it was over now, and he didn't really know what he was doing.

Alex looked at him. At the flush on his cheeks, the raw honesty in his eyes, the way he was still slightly trembling. And Alex thought about how long Shane must have been hiding, how hard it must have been to say those words out loud, how brave it was to be here at all.

“I don’t know what I’m doing either,” Alex said. He smiled. “But I think we’re both doing okay so far. Do you want to stop? We can.”

“Do you want to stop?” Shane asked.

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

Shane pulled him down. Alex went willingly, his body pressing on top of Shane’s, their mouths finding each other. Shane’s legs wrapped around his waist, and Alex could feel Shane’s cock pressing against his stomach, hard and wet.

Shane was breathing hard. “I really need you to fuck me now.”

Alex reached for the nightstand, found the lube and condoms, and sat back on his heels. He didn't rush. He let his hands settle on Shane's knees, pushing them up and apart. He squeezed lube onto his fingers and worked Shane open slowly, one finger, then two, then a third, all the while watching Shane's face, the way his mouth stayed open, the way his eyes fixed on Alex and didn't move. Shane’s body was tight and hot around his fingers, and the sounds he made—small hitched breaths, bitten-off moans—went straight to Alex’s cock.

“Please,” Shane gasped. “Please, Alex.”

“I want you like this,” Alex said, sitting back and grabbing Shane by the hips. “I want to see your face.”

He rolled the condom on, more lube, and lined himself up. Held Shane's eyes. Pushed part way in. Shane’s mouth opened. His eyes fluttered, then found Alex’s again.

“Okay?”

Shane’s moan was almost enough to undo him. “Yes. Yes.”

Alex sank all the way in. The heat of Shane’s body around him was almost too much. He had to stop, to breathe, had to clench his jaw against the urge to come immediately. Shane’s fingers dug into his shoulders.

Alex set a rhythm, fucking into Shane slow at first, then faster, deeper. Shane’s body arched beneath him, his breath coming in short gasps. Alex’s hands slid under Shane’s hips, pulling him closer, and Shane’s legs wrapped around his waist. The head of his cock hit the right place, he knew, because Shane's body tightened and his head fell back, mouth open. Alex did it again, and again. He felt his own composure going, thinking about how Shane had looked at him. Wanted him.

“Fuck, Shane,” Alex groaned. He couldn’t stop talking. “You feel so good. Too good.”

“Keep going.” Shane’s voice was ragged. “Harder.”

Alex gripped Shane’s hips and hammered into him. The sound of their bodies slapping together filled the room, mingled with their breathing. Shane’s legs locked around his waist, pulling him deeper, and Alex buried his face in Shane’s neck.

“Oh shit, that’s so good.” Shane was gasping now. “Don’t stop. Alex—”

“Are you—fuck—I’m close,” Alex managed. He was losing it, he could feel it, he couldn't stop. “Want to see you come. Stroke yourself.”

Shane’s hand found his own cock. Wrapped around it. Stroked once, twice—and then his whole body seized, and he came with a sound that was almost a sob, come streaking all over his stomach and chest.

Alex drove in harder, watching Shane's face go slack. Two more thrusts, three—and then his own orgasm hit, ripping through him, pulling a groan from somewhere deep in his chest. He held himself there, cock pulsing inside Shane, until his arms gave out.

He collapsed next to Shane. Both of them panting, chests heaving. The room smelled of sex and sweat, and the sheets were rumpled beneath them, and Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this undone.

He turned his head. Shane’s eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling. There was come on his stomach and his hair was everywhere, and Alex thought: I want to remember this. I want to remember exactly how he looks right now.

Shane opened his eyes and reached for him, kissed him, but it was tentative in a way he hadn’t been all night. Alex got up. “Don’t move,” he said, from the bathroom door. “You look so fucking beautiful right now. I want to look at you like this again when I get back.”

In the bathroom, he caught his own face in the mirror. His hair was a disaster, his mouth swollen. He looked wrecked. He looked happy. It was by far the best sex he'd had in a long time.

When he came back, Alex sat on the edge of the bed. He wiped Shane's stomach gently, then his chest, then between his legs. Shane let him. He didn't say anything, just watched Alex's movements. He was still trembling slightly, but his body had gone tense. He was waiting for something. Alex knew exactly what it was, because he'd been there himself, in other beds, with other men. I’ve got an early start. I need to sleep. I’ll call you a car.

Alex threw the washcloths in the laundry basket. Flopped down next to Shane on the bed.

Shane didn’t move.

Alex propped himself up on one elbow. Looked down at him. Put his hand on Shane’s stomach, just below his ribs.

“All right?” he asked. “Was that—was it what you wanted?”

Shane turned his head. Met his eyes. “Yes. Yes, it was.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to run for the door?”

“I’m not.” He was convincing no one.

“Okay.” Alex didn’t push. “Well, for the record, I hope you’re not. I want you to stay.”

He lay back. Held one arm open. An offer, for Shane to take or leave. Shane hesitated—Alex counted the seconds, two, three—and then rolled into him, tucked into his side like he'd been built to fit there. Alex pulled the sheet up over them both and he thought about the line Shane had been braced for, and wondered who had trained him to brace for it.

It took a long time, but eventually he felt Shane's breathing slow against his chest and his fingers stopped gripping and just rested. It was only then that Alex let himself drift.

He woke briefly a little later, the room dark, the streetlight glow through the curtains. Shane was awake and looking at him. It was that look again, the one from across the table, from his knees, from underneath him. Like someone who wanted something but hadn't found the words for it yet. Everything he wanted was in his eyes, and Alex could have looked back at them for hours, figuring out what it was.

He didn't say that. Instead, he closed his eyes, because he didn't trust what he would say if he kept looking, and pulled Shane back in.

"All right?" He murmured.

“Yeah,” Shane whispered. “I’m good. Go back to sleep.”

“Mm. Good." He kissed Shane clumsily on the shoulder. And then, because he couldn't help himself, in Swedish: "Jag vill inte att du ska gå." I don't want you to go.

He went under again with Shane’s heartbeat close under his palm, and the last thing he thought, before sleep took him, was that he was going to have to find out what those eyes were asking for—and that he already suspected he’d give it, whatever it was.

Chapter End Notes

If I have any Swedish readers please do correct me on any errors with language! I'm reliant on google translate.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

A WEEK LATER - SATURDAY 15th JULY

Alex woke first and lay still, watching Shane sleep. It was Saturday, the day before the Wimbledon final. The curtains were cracked and the light fell across Shane’s back, catching the lines of his muscles. His hair was a mess against the white pillow. He hadn't moved in hours.

Alex didn’t wake him. He got up quietly, pulled on sweatpants, and went to the kitchen to start the coffee.

By the time Shane emerged, Alex was on his second cup, scrolling emails. Shane was wearing his boxer briefs and nothing else, his hair still tangled, and he was looking at his phone with a focused expression Alex was learning to recognise. Not scrolling. Reading something that needed his full attention.

“Training schedule,” Shane said, not looking up. “Pre-season starts September fifteenth. They want me in Montreal by the tenth.”

“It’s July.”

Shane looked up then, blinking. “I know. But I need to plan. Flights, accommodation, I like to be there early.” He put the phone down on the counter. “Do you have coffee?”

Alex poured him a cup. Shane drank it black, standing at the kitchen island, still reading whatever was on his screen. His shoulders were tight in a way they hadn’t been the night before. Alex didn’t comment on it. He just drank his own coffee and waited.

After a minute Shane seemed to remember where he was. He put the phone down again, face-down this time, and looked at Alex. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Being rude.”

“You weren’t rude. You were reading.” Alex topped up both their cups. “What’s the plan for today? Do you still want to go to Wimbledon? We can skip it if you want."

"No, I still want to go. I want to meet your sister. I just—" Shane's phone buzzed. He paused and looked down, whatever he was about to say lost.

"It's okay," Alex put his coffee cup down on the island. "You get that. I'm going to go and shower." He kissed Shane lightly and left the room.

When he came back, towel around his waist, Shane was still scrolling on his phone. Alex stood in the doorway for a moment, watching. Shane's hair was still messy from sleep. He looked like someone who’d been thinking too hard for too long, and Alex felt a surge of tenderness for him.

Alex got himself another coffee, and when he glanced over to Shane, he saw the phone lighting up with hockey news, and the photograph on the screen.

Rozanov.

Alex knew who Rozanov was. Alex followed hockey and the rivalry was famous. He knew the cocky grin, the stats. Rozanov was the only player in Shane's tier, and now Alex also knew what Shane's face looked like seeing him on the screen.

"Your great rival," Alex said dryly. Shane's thumb hovered over the photograph and he stilled, staring down.

Shane put the phone down. "Yeah, something like that."

"Drink your coffee," Alex said. "We'll be late." And went into the bedroom.

He didn't want to think about the way Shane's face had looked, when he focused on that picture of Rozanov, because that would mean admitting that he cared, and admitting he cared was one step too far in a week where he'd already given more than he planned to.

The truth was, at some point during the week he had forgotten to be careful.

It had started simply enough. The dinners, the tennis, the discovery that Shane Hollander was funny when he forgot to be careful. That was one thing that Alex kept coming back to: the difference between Shane performing and Shane relaxed, and it was surprising how quickly the second version had started showing up.

By the second time they'd had dinner, Shane had stopped scanning the room. He'd leaned back in his chair and laughed at something Alex said, and it was a real laugh, and Alex felt something unfurl in his chest.

Small surrenders kept happening. He'd stopped flinching from contact in public, and by the end of the week Shane was seeking contact like he'd forgotten to guard against it. Fingers catching against Alex's, a knee settling against his at the tennis, a shoulder leaned in. Alex noticed every time, because he was tactile with everyone and Shane manifestly was not, which made each touch a small victory.

He didn’t comment on any of it. He knew, without being told, that commenting on it would kill it.

The third time Shane stayed over, Alex started to notice other things. Shane always slept on the same side of the bed. He rinsed his cup as soon as he'd finished with it. His phone went face-down at ten-thirty every night, season or not. The way he would fold his clothes before sex, if you let him, and looked faintly put out if you didn't.

He told Alex about his life during the hockey season. The routines that followed him through the summer. He woke at the same time every day. He ate the same breakfast, a protein shake. He had a stretching routine that took him forty-five minutes. He reviewed game footage for an hour every morning, even when there were no games. He went to bed at the same time. He'd done the same thing for years. Years of the same wake-up time, the same protein shake, the same stretches. A life organised around a game played on ice.

Shane had been on skates at three, playing hockey at five, at some point it had stopped being a game and had become his whole life, and nobody had ever asked him whether that was what he wanted. Because by then he was the best player in every team, in every league he played in, so there seemed no need for the question to be asked.

“And you don’t get bored?” Alex had asked. They were in the Mayfair restaurant, sitting close together at a table in the back corner.

“Bored?” Shane looked genuinely puzzled. “No. It’s routine. Routine is—“ He paused, choosing the word. “It’s how I stay okay.”

“Okay,” Alex said.

But later, walking back to the flat, Shane’s hand brushing his in the dark, Alex had thought about what it would mean to live like that. To choose one thing in life and give everything to it. To wake up every morning and choose it again.

Alex had never chosen anything like that. He'd had a promising football career at seventeen that he'd abandoned when it started requiring the kind of monotonous devotion Shane had described as calmly as breathing. His longest relationship, with a man in Stockholm, ended because when it started to get serious, it suddenly stopped being fun. The foundation was the exception, and the foundation also had staff and Astrid.

Alex had a footballer’s body because he’d played football since he was a child and it came naturally. He was fit because he had time and money and a gym in his building. He was good at things because he picked them up quickly, and when he stopped being good at them, he stopped doing them. He’d never pushed through the middle of anything. He’d never wanted anything enough to be bad at it first.

He had a line for it. He'd been using it for years, at the moment a conversation drifted toward accomplishment. I’m not consistent enough to be very good at anything. It always got a laugh. He'd said it to Shane on the first day they'd met. He’d said it a hundred times, at parties and in interviews, and people laughed and found it charming. Oh, but you’re good at so many things. And he was. He was good at conversation. He was good at making people feel comfortable. He was good at disappearing before things got difficult. He was good at being good enough.

It had stopped being funny to Alex somewhere around his twenty-fifth birthday. He’d kept saying it anyway, because it worked. That was the thing about the line. It was true, and it was charming, and the charm made the truth deniable. He could say the most honest thing about himself and nobody would take it seriously.

He didn’t say any of that to Shane. When Shane asked him about football, about the charity work, about growing up as a royal, Alex gave him anecdotes. And when Shane smiled or laughed at them, Alex felt delighted.

Shane was not good at things. Shane was exceptional at one thing, and he’d given his entire life to it, and it showed in everything he did—the way he moved, the way he thought, the way he woke up at the same time every day even when there was no game to play.

It was magnificent. Shane on the ice, Shane in an interview, Shane folding his clothes into perfect squares on Alex’s chair—there was a precision to him that Alex found beautiful and alien and a little terrifying. Alex had never met anyone like that. He’d never loved anything enough to organise his existence around it.

Alex felt something that might have been admiration and might have been envy and was probably both, and he didn’t know what to do with it because he’d never had to hold two contradictory feelings about someone he was sleeping with.

That night, in bed, Shane curled against Alex's side, his breathing evening out almost immediately. Alex lay awake for a while, one hand resting on Shane's back, feeling the slow rise and fall.

This was not how things usually went.

Alex’s relationships followed a pattern. He was good at beginnings. He paid attention, asked questions, made people feel seen in a way they weren’t used to. He was good at it partly because he always knew how it would end. Not the details, but he knew. He'd get bored, or they'd get serious, or he'd find the flaw he'd been looking for, and it would end cleanly and kindly and he'd feel nothing but relief.

It wasn't so much that people were flawed. It was that Alex needed them to be.

With Shane, he couldn't see any of it. Not the flaw. Not the ending.

Shane was uptight, yes. Shane folded his clothes before sex, and had the same thing for breakfast every day, and the same bedtime every day. Shane was awkward in rooms, blushed like it was his job, took jokes literally for a full second before catching up. Shane was rigid about sleep and time and food, and none of it, none of it, felt like a flaw. It was just what made Shane, Shane. And Alex found all of it charming, and that was the problem.

He'd never thought about a man in this way before. Not looking for an exit. Not looking for a flaw. Thinking he would be the one who was left and not the one doing the leaving.

Alex knew the logistics made it impossible. Shane lived in Montreal. Alex lived in Stockholm. They both travelled a lot, never to the same places. It would be easy, later, to say why it wouldn't work, and let Shane go. He'd done it before. The exit was there, but for the first time, he didn't want to step through it.

The morning of the photos, Friday, Shane had gone back to his hotel to work out and collect some clothes, and Alex was on his second coffee when Astrid sent him a link and three wide-eyed emojis.

Shane Hollander and Prince Alexander Bergström together at Wimbledon.

Alex had looked at it for a while, drinking his coffee. It was a good photo, technically. Shane was laughing. Alex was in profile, looking at Shane. The second link came while he was still looking at the first. Then the one of Shane on Alex's front steps, in the morning sun, rumpled, flushed, wearing yesterday's clothes and an expression Alex recognised, because he'd put it there less than an hour earlier. New Couple Alert? Inside the whirlwind romance of Canada's golden boy and Sweden’s most eligible prince.

Alex snorted into his coffee.

That was his first honest reaction, and later he would be embarrassed by it: amusement. Pleased, even. Shane looked wonderful. He looked like a man who had been thoroughly well treated and was not sorry about it. The tabloids had decided it was a love story. Those were the good kind of stories. There was another kind, and he'd been in those too, and he knew the difference.

Then the second reaction arrived. Shane was going to see these. Alex's own relationship with the press was boredom. He'd come out at twenty-two in an interview that had terrified him for six weeks beforehand, and then it had run and the world had shrugged it off with remarkable speed. Over the following six years, he'd learned how little anyone actually cared. There were still photos sometimes. The word 'eligible' which he hated more than the speculation. The occasional man he'd be seen with, and a short flurry of news articles, and then nothing.

Alex meant what he said when he said it was fine. He was genuinely not bothered. It had happened to him before and life had continued.

Shane, on the other hand, was still navigating what it meant to be a gay professional athlete, still deciding how much of himself to show and to whom. And now his face was on a tabloid website, outside a prince's apartment, looking like he'd just been fucked.

Alex's next thought wasn't this is bad for me. It was Shane isn't going to be okay with this.

He understood that the photos would not be nothing to Shane. Shane had spent his whole career hiding. Built a public identity on being bland and unremarkable aside from being extraordinarily good at hockey, and these photos made him remarkable in exactly the way that he'd been trying to avoid. And Alex, who had been out for six years, had forgotten what it felt like to be on the other side of the divide.

His mind had done what it always did. He had started trying to fix things before he'd even finished reading the article. He could call the family press secretary. He could issue a statement. He could make some calls. Get the story reframed. He could fix this, or at least try.

By the evening, it was worse. They were on the sofa, Shane's head in his lap. Alex's phone was going and going, and he scrolled through the coverage with one hand and put the other on Shane’s head and said they’ll get bored, they always do, and he felt the exact moment Shane stopped hearing him.

He'd seen Shane nervous, but this was different. Shane sat up so fast he nearly dropped his phone, and his breathing went shallow and fast. Something on his face slammed down. Alex asked if he was okay but Shane's eyes were completely elsewhere.

Alex realised his mistake instantly. He was prepared, calm, in control. He had a plan and a reassurance ready. But what he had not done was ask. He had not yet asked Shane whether he needed reassuring, or what he was afraid of, or what Shane wanted. He'd assumed Shane wanted the same thing Alex wanted—for the whole thing to go away, for things to be easy again. But sitting on the sofa, watching Shane with his head in his hands, he realised he didn't know what Shane wanted.

He'd get it right eventually. This was new, and it made him feel clumsy in a way he didn't like, but he was trying. So he made himself ask. Talk to me. What's going through your head. He held Shane and listened.

Later Alex realised he had fixed nothing. That was the strange part. Shane had climbed down from the panic mostly on his own, and Alex had mostly just sat there and held him. And it had been enough. Shane had looked at the photos again, and had come back to himself, and Alex had felt something in his chest that he couldn't say, so he had joked about Shane's jawline instead and said yes when Shane wanted to go to bed. Because how did you say, out loud, I liked sitting here while you got through it to someone you had known for two weeks.

And now they only had two days left.

He dressed slowly. Linen trousers, a pale blue shirt. In the mirror, he saw someone who was confident, who knew exactly what he was doing. He held his own gaze for a moment, practising.

Alex thought about seeing Shane look at the photo of Rozanov on his phone. The way Alex had dismissed Rozanov with a line—you're better—he'd said it lightly, but he'd meant it. Shane was better. Shane was the best. And Alex, who had never been the best at anything, wanted to be the thing that Shane chose like he had chosen hockey, because he knew what it would mean to be chosen by Shane Hollander.

It was a dangerous feeling. Alex had spent his life avoiding dangerous feelings.

Today there was Wimbledon, and Astrid, and more photos probably. Next week Shane would fly back to Montreal and Alex would go back to Stockholm.

But that was next week. Now, Shane was here. Two weeks, he thought. Wimbledon ends on Sunday. This ends on Sunday. The thought stayed there, persuading no one.

The car smelled of leather and Alex's own cologne that Shane had asked for a spray of that morning, and Alex kept catching it every time Shane moved. He had worn that cologne for six years. Now it was going to smell like Shane's wrist for the rest of his life, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Shane's knee was going, up and down, a fast small bounce, his hands folded too neatly in his lap. Alex put his hand on Shane's knee. He'd rehearsed what he was going to say in the shower that morning, when Shane was in the kitchen. Alex had stood under the hot water and practised it in his head. He would keep it light, no pressure, an exit held open. And he would genuinely be okay with whatever Shane chose.

“We can arrive separately,” Alex said. His voice came out exactly as he intended—calm, easy. “If you want. It’s not too late for that.”

Shane turned. His dark eyes met Alex's, and Alex prepared for the yes—he would get the driver to pull over, he would call an Uber, he could ask Rolex for a different seat so they wouldn't have to sit together—and it would be fine. The photos were out, but arriving together at the All England Club was a different thing altogether, and Shane had a whole life built out of not being seen.

Shane looked at him. “No. I want to go in with you.”

“Okay.” Alex kept his hand where it was. “Then we go in together.”

The car turned into a side road and stopped outside a private entrance. Alex could see the security men moving toward them, camera noise going already from behind the barriers. He thanked the driver, opened the door, and waited for Shane to get out.

Alex kept his face pleasant and bored, scanning the crowd without really looking. He didn't smile. He'd learned that expression before he had learned to drive. Then Shane was beside him, doing his own version, a small closed smile, sunglasses on.

“Let’s go,” he said, close to Shane’s ear. “I’ve got you.”

He didn't touch Shane. He kept a careful eighteen inches between them—close enough to read as together, far enough to read as friends. Every few steps he let his arm bump against Shane's, a brief point of contact. Shane glanced over, and each time Alex thought: I'm still here, you’re fine, keep walking.

At the entrance to the Royal Box, out of sight of the cameras, Alex stopped him with a touch on the arm, brief, almost nothing.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Shane’s voice was thin. Alex heard the effort in it, the control.

He watched Shane for a moment longer, then nodded and led the way up the stairs.

Astrid was already there, standing at the back of the box in the shade, talking to a man in a blazer who Alex vaguely recognised as someone from the All England Club. She was tall in her heels, her dark blonde hair twisted up, dress the colour of champagne. She looked, as she always did, immaculate. When she saw them, her face brightened. She said something to the man in the blazer and walked over.

“You’re late,” she said, and kissed Alex’s cheek. Then she turned to Shane, her hand already extended. “You must be Shane. I’m Astrid.”

Shane shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

She gave a wide smile. “Likewise. He’s been insufferably cheerful this week. Now I see why.” She glanced at Alex, her expression pure mischief. “Alex has told me almost nothing about you, which means he likes you enormously and knows I’ll tease him mercilessly.”

Alex felt his jaw tighten. “Astrid.”

“What? It’s true.” She was already turning back to Shane, her arm slipping through his. “The whole family are talking about it. Mama asked me if I’d met him and I said no, and she said, ‘He sounds happy on the phone.’ And Papa said, ‘Is he bringing him home? That’ll be the first since Erik.’”

Heat came up Alex’s neck before he could do anything about it, which almost never happened, which was exactly why Astrid had done it. When he glanced over, Shane was grinning at him, openly delighted, and Alex realised with horror that he was blushing more because Shane had noticed.

“Astrid,” he said again, and this time his voice had an edge.

She didn’t even look at him. She was already walking Shane toward the seats, her head bent toward his, saying something Alex couldn’t hear. Shane glanced back once, his expression caught between surprise and something that looked almost like delight, and Alex realized Shane was enjoying this. Enjoying watching him squirm.

He followed them to the seats, his face still warm. Erik. Of course she’d brought up Erik. Erik had been easy. Easy to be with, easy to introduce to his family, easy to say goodbye to when he took a job in Berlin and they agreed long distance wasn't worth the effort. It had ended amicably and without drama. It had been fine, except his mother had not stopped mentioning Erik at every family dinner since as though he were the gold standard against which all future partners would be measured.

He watched Astrid put Shane between them in the third row, and he felt a moment of quick, private gratitude. The cameras could photograph the three of them and get a picture of a prince, a princess, and a hockey player watching tennis. It gave them another story. It gave the newspapers something harmless to print.

The tennis started, and Alex gradually relaxed. Shane leaned forward, elbows on knees, and got lost in the rallies the way Alex had seen him get lost in a hockey highlights reel at one in the morning, his attention total. Alex liked watching Shane like this. It was the only time he wasn't doing anything with his face. Alex had never had that thing, that let a person disappear into something completely and he envied it.

Alex watched the court, but was mostly aware of Shane beside him, the two inches between their knees, their arms almost touching. The wanting to touch him was a steady pressure in Alex’s chest.

He leaned over, not that close, not enough for cameras to make anything of it. “You’re doing very well,” he murmured.

Shane turned. “At watching tennis?”

“At being watched.”

Shane held his gaze for a moment. His eyes were very dark in the sunlight, the freckles across his nose standing out. Alex wanted to kiss him. He wanted to put his hand on the back of Shane’s neck and pull him close and kiss him in front of every camera in the box. He didn’t. He sat back in his seat and faced the court.

Astrid said, without looking at either of them, “If you two are going to stare at each other like that, for God’s sake go somewhere with fewer cameras.” She did not whisper.

Alex snorted and sat back and loved his sister and wanted her dead at the same time. Shane made a sound that might have been a laugh. The second set started.

And then, Shane put his hand on Alex's.

Just laid it there, on top of his, on the armrest, in front of everyone. Alex’s head turned before he could stop it, genuinely startled. He looked at Shane, then down at their hands, then back. Shane Hollander had just put a hand on his hand in the most photographed seats in tennis and Alex’s face showed all of it, he could feel it showing, his mouth slightly open, his composure simply gone.

“Hi,” Shane whispered.

“Hi.”

Then he turned his own hand over, slowly, palm up and let Shane’s fingers slide between his. He closed his fingers around Shane’s hand and squeezed.

He didn’t say anything. Saying anything would break it. Instead he turned back to the court, his heart beating under his ribs, and kept his hand where it was, and moved his thumb back and forth over Shane’s knuckles. Somewhere a camera was capturing it. Alex knew that. He didn’t care. The best moment of his fortnight was a hand on top of his, in public, with no words said.

The third set started. Alex watched the tennis without seeing any of it. His entire awareness had narrowed to the point where his hand met Shane’s, the steady pressure of it, the way Shane’s grip hadn’t loosened. He wanted to look at Shane again. He wanted to see his face, wanted to know what he was thinking, wanted to watch him watching the match with his hand in Alex’s. He didn’t look. He was afraid if he moved at all the moment would end.

During the next changeover, he heard himself say, “You should come to Sweden.”

The words came out flat. He was looking at the court, not at Shane, and his voice was casual in a way that sounded fake even to his own ears. He’d been thinking about it for days. The house on the water, the boat his father never used, the way it looked in late July when it stayed light until nearly midnight.

“What?”

“After this.” He nodded at the court, like they were discussing the score. “The summer’s beautiful. We could go sailing.”

Shane didn’t answer immediately. Alex felt the silence stretch, felt his own pulse in his throat, and hated himself a little for how small he’d made it sound. He could have said it properly. Turned to him, put his hand on his cheek, said come home with me, made it into something real, important. But something important required an answer, and an answer could just as easily be a refusal, so he'd offered it like a passing remark. Some distant part of him noted it was what he always did, what he had always done. Made important things light, so he could not be disappointed.

“I’ve got pre-season,” Shane said.

“Not for weeks.”

“You want me to come to Sweden?”

“If you want.” A shrug he didn’t feel. “Just a thought.”

“Maybe,” Shane said.

Alex took maybe as good news for approximately four minutes. He turned it over in his head — maybe wasn’t no, maybe meant he was thinking about it, maybe meant there was something to think about. He held Shane’s hand and watched the court and let himself imagine it: Shane in Sweden, on the boat, in the house with the big windows and the view of the water, the sauna, two weeks becoming four.

Then Shane took his hand back.

Both hands returned to his lap, eyes on court. Alex kept his own hand where it was for a moment and then moved it carefully to his knee. Too much, he thought. The invitation, the boat, the house. Two weeks and he'd asked a man to come and stay in a country he'd never been to.

He gave it a few minutes. He made a comment about the second set, and Shane said yes, or something like it, and then nothing else. The umpire called the score. The crowd applauded a good point and Shane didn't.

Alex looked at him properly then.

Shane's jaw had gone tight, his smile disappeared. His free hand was a death grip on the armrest. He sat very still, staring at the scoreboard, without seeming to register what was on it.

It had come on fast, or maybe Alex hadn't noticed it happening—he'd been too focused on Shane, on the hand-holding, on the invitation, on the strange feeling in his chest—but now he looked around and saw that the sun was too bright, the crowd too loud, the day too long.

Alex had seen this before. Not in Shane—Shane had held himself together all week with a discipline Alex had found almost alarming—but in other people. In himself, years ago, before he’d learned to manage it. The thousand-yard stare. The knuckles gone white on the armrest. The way the body kept going through the motions while the person inside it checked out.

Alex leaned in, his voice low.

“Do you want to leave?”

“I’m fine,” Shane said. Then, a moment later, quieter: “Just a lot of people.”

Alex waited. He gave Shane one more changeover, watching the clock tick down on the scoreboard, watching Shane’s breathing get shallower and the tension take hold of his body. Then he stood.

“Let’s go.”

Shane didn’t hesitate this time. He nodded and got up, and Alex saw the relief flash across his face before he got it under control.

“Astrid, we’re going to head off,” Alex said. “I’ll call you later.”

She looked up, started to object out of reflex, saw Shane’s face, and stopped. She was good like that, fast. “Okay,” she said, gently, for her. “Shane, it was lovely to meet you. Hope to see you again.”

Alex guided Shane out of the row and down the stairs. Near the exit, Alex put his hand flat on the small of Shane's back, applying steady pressure, steering him through the crowd. Shane didn't flinch away. He leaned into it, just slightly, and Alex matched his pace as they walked out.

The car was waiting. Alex opened the door and let Shane get in first, then slid in beside him and pulled the door shut. The noise of the crowd cut off, muffled to a distant hum.

Shane exhaled. It was a long breath, almost a shudder. He sat with his eyes closed, head tipped back against the seat. Alex reached over and took Shane’s hand, and their fingers tangled together on the seat between them. Shane’s skin was hot. Alex's thumb moved in a slow line across Shane’s knuckles.

“Better?” Alex asked after a while.

Shane nodded. “Better.”

Alex told the driver to take them back to the flat. He didn’t let go of Shane’s hand the whole way.

Back at the flat, Alex did what he was best at. Jacket on the hook. Windows open, curtains drawn to block out the bright afternoon light. Water in a glass, pressed into Shane’s hand. He'd been making rooms calmer for people since he was a boy—Astrid before exams, his mother after funerals—and he was very good at it.

Shane sat in the dim room and came back slowly. Alex watched the colour return to his face and didn’t rush it.

“Sorry,” Shane said eventually.

“For what?” Alex took his hand and held it.

“Leaving early. It just got too much. It happens sometimes. Too much going on, too many people. Too long being on. I hit a wall.”

“I could see it.” Alex ran his thumb over Shane’s knuckles. “I spent the last hour wondering how much longer you had in you. Today was a lot. You lasted longer than I would have.”

“Nothing bothers you.”

“It used to. I’ve just had more practice.”

Shane looked at him. Alex could see him deciding not to ask, and he didn't help him. It was the closest he had come all week to volunteering anything deeper about himself. He could have said more—could have told him about the years of smiling for cameras while his chest went tight, about the rooms he’d left early and the cars he’d sat in afterward with his forehead against the glass—but that was a story for another time, for someone he'd known more than two weeks.

Alex got up. “Do you want a shower? I’ll make something to eat.”

They took turns showering and then Shane lay on Alex's bed in the cool darkness.

Alex moved around the kitchen with easy efficiency, pulling out cheese, bread, a bowl of salad from the fridge. He poured two glasses of wine. When he brought it to the island, Shane was already standing there, and Alex waved him to sit. They ate there in the kitchen, Alex watching the tension gradually drain out of Shane's body.

Alex’s phone buzzed on the counter. He glanced at it, saw Astrid’s name, and said, “Sorry. My sister.” Shane nodded, once, and Alex turned half away, answering in Swedish.

Astrid wanted to know how Shane was, if they'd eaten, whether he was planning to go to Wimbledon on Sunday. She said the doubles had gone on forever and it had only gotten hotter. Then she said she liked Shane a lot, but Alex was reaching. Alex laughed and said something rude about her own judgment. She said the whole family would hear about the hand-holding, and he said good, because he was tired of pretending not to look at Shane in public. She told him not to be an idiot. He told her to mind her own business. They rang off the way they always did, each of them smiling.

He went to the sink, where Shane had already taken the plates. “She was asking if you’re feeling okay now,” Alex said. “She said we didn’t miss much." He took a plate out of Shane’s hand and started drying it. “She liked you. Said I’m punching above my weight.”

 Shane laughed, quick. “You’re literally royalty.”

“Barely.” Alex dried the plate and put it away. Shane was washing, soaping one plate at a time with more care than it needed. Their shoulders brushed each time one of them moved. Alex felt each touch, a warm point, and saw Shane leaning into it. A week ago Alex would have said that was impossible.

They ended up on the sofa with the wine, not watching anything, just talking. Shane had his legs stretched out, feet in Alex’s lap. The room had gone dark except for one lamp. Alex ran his thumb over the arch of Shane’s foot without thinking, and Shane made a small sound and put his feet down on the floor, moved up the sofa. He settled against Alex's shoulder.

“Are you tired?” Alex said. “We can just have an early night if you need to sleep.”

“I’m fine.” Shane’s thumb moved slowly over the seam of Alex’s shorts.

Alex turned his head. Shane was watching him in the low light, his mouth soft, his eyes heating. Alex felt the familiar pull in his stomach. He set his glass on the table and kissed Shane lightly, one hand cupping his jaw.

When he went to sit back, Shane caught his wrist—this was new, Shane initiating, Shane detaining—and then Alex kissed him properly, his tongue sliding into Shane's mouth. Shane's fingers went into his hair and pulled him in.

They kissed like that for a long time, Shane loose and warm against him, Alex’s hand sliding down his back. When he said, “Come here, sit on my lap,” the words came out in the calm voice he used for all of it, the one that said I’ve got you. Shane climbed onto Alex's lap without hesitatation and Alex pulled him in. They sat chest to chest, kissing slow and deep, Shane’s hands braced on Alex’s shoulders. Alex’s hands settled on Shane’s hips, possessive but not urgent.

Then Shane pulled back.

“Can we go to the bedroom?” he said.

“Of course.” Alex stood, pulled Shane to his feet, and kissed him once, quickly. He kept their fingers tangled as he led him down the hall. In the bedroom, he kissed Shane again and started to guide him back toward the bed. He had Shane by the hips, walking him backward, and when the backs of Shane’s knees hit the mattress, Alex leaned in to tip him down.

“Wait.”

Alex stopped immediately. His hands lifted from Shane’s body. “You okay?” 

Shane’s chest was going fast. His eyes were on Alex’s mouth. “Yeah, I’m—can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Alex waited.

Shane looked at him for a long moment. “Can we try something different tonight? I want to—” He stopped. Swallowed. “Can I— I want to tell you what to do.”

Alex breathed out. There was surprise at the request—he'd thought he had understood what Shane liked—but equal surprise at the asking. Eleven days ago he couldn't say touch me without blushing and looking away. And now he was standing in Alex’s bedroom asking if he could tell Alex what to do.

“You want to be in charge,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“Of me.”

Shane's face flushed. “If that’s okay.”

“Shane.” He tipped Shane’s chin up with two fingers. “It’s more than okay. I’d love it. If you really want to.”

“I want to. I’ve been thinking about it since earlier. I want to try it.”

Alex took two steps back. “Then I’m all yours. Tell me what to do.”

And that was the thing he hadn’t anticipated. Shane studied him like he studied the ice. Total. Purposeful. His hands moved over Alex’s chest and stomach, patiently, like he owned him. Shane’s fingers grazed the crease of his thigh, and Alex’s cock twitched. Shane still didn’t touch it. Alex liked that more than he expected. He liked being made to wait. He liked the heat of Shane’s hands and the desire to be touched where they didn’t go.

Alex’s own hand started to drift toward his cock without his permission. Shane batted it away.

“You’re not allowed to touch yourself,” Shane said.

Alex’s mouth dropped open. “Fuck. Okay.”

Shane pulled him closer by the hips and opened his legs. “Get on your knees. Kiss me.”

He sank to his knees and kissed him, slow, mouth open, hands on Shane's thighs. Shane tugged at his t-shirt until Alex stripped it off without being told. He was kissing Shane again when Shane said, “I didn’t say you could do that.”

Alex laughed into his mouth, helpless and delighted. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re very strict.”

“I haven’t even started.”

Shane stood and undid his own pants, pushed them down, folded them neatly on the end of the bed. Alex watched, still on his knees. The neat fold was so absurdly Shane that Alex wanted to laugh and also wanted to put his mouth on every inch of him. Shane stood in front of him in his briefs, this time Alex asked: “Can I help?” He heard how eager he sounded and didn’t care.

Shane hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

Alex reached up and hooked his fingers in Shane’s briefs, pulling them down. Shane’s cock was hard and leaking, and Alex made a show of folding the briefs carefully and placing them on top of the folded pants. He looked up.

Shane sat back down on the bed. “Suck my dick.” It sounded rougher this time.

Alex bent his head. He licked around the head, then took Shane in deeper. He didn’t rush. Shane’s hips jerked, and Alex held him down with both hands on his thighs. Shane let out a small, desperate noise. Alex looked up at him and hummed, approving, and the vibration made Shane's whole body clench. Alex kept his hands where they were but didn't guide or try to take over. He did exactly what he'd been told and when Shane said, "Stop," Alex pulled off immediately.

He was breathing hard, lips wet. “Good?” he asked.

Shane nodded. Then he leaned in, took Alex’s chin in his fingers, and kissed him. It was harder than before. Alex kissed back, keeping his hands on Shane’s thighs. Shane bit his lower lip a little, and Alex shivered.

“Stand up,” Shane said.

Alex stood. His cock was hard and aching, precome on his stomach. Shane stood too, then turned him around until the backs of his knees hit the bed, and pushed him down. Shane knelt on the floor between his thighs. His hands ran up Alex’s calves, over the muscle of his thighs. He bent forward and licked a line up Alex’s cock. Alex’s head went back. Fuck.

Shane took the head into his mouth, sucking, then pulled back and set a rhythm. Slow, deep. His eyes stayed on Alex’s face. Alex couldn’t look away. The sight of Shane kneeling there, working him, watching—it was too much. Alex’s hands went to Shane’s hair without thinking.

“No,” Shane said. “Hands off.”

Alex let go. He put his hands on the sheets, fingers digging in. “Fuck,” he said, his voice shaking. “Shane, you look—” He didn’t finish.

Shane sucked him until Alex was panting, his hips fighting not to thrust. Then he pulled off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Alex stared at him. He felt undone. He hadn’t known he could feel this way. It wasn’t the submission alone. It was the way Shane was looking at him, not to please him or because Alex had asked for it. Shane was looking at him like he wanted it. Alex could see it in the set of his jaw, the heat in his eyes. It went through him like a current.

“Lie down,” Shane said.

Alex moved onto the bed and lay back, propped on his elbows. He could feel his own pulse in his ears. Shane looked at him for a long moment. There was something in Shane’s face Alex hadn’t seen before.

 “Condoms and lube,” Shane said. “In the drawer?”

“You know where they are. You put them back last time.” Alex paused. He couldn’t help it. “Very neatly. I’ve been meaning to say. It was adorable.”

“Shut up,” Shane said.

Alex’s mouth dropped open. Shane moved around the bed and got the things from the drawer. He climbed onto the bed and knelt over Alex.

“Keep your hands on the bed unless I tell you otherwise,” Shane said.

“Yes, sir.”

The word slipped out. Alex felt it go through both of them. Shane’s eyes went dark. Good.

Shane kissed down Alex’s body—throat, chest, stomach—and when Alex’s hands went to Shane’s hair again, Shane said, “No. Hands on the bed.” Alex grabbed the sheets and held on. Shane’s mouth went lower, and then he took Alex’s cock into his mouth again. When Shane went deliberately, infuriatingly slow, Alex’s hips lifted off the bed.

“Fuck, Shane,” he said.

Shane pulled off. “Quiet.”

“You’re joking.”

“You’re supposed to be following orders.”

“I am following orders, I’m following them so well, you’re—God.” Alex lifted his head to look at him. “Where has this been hiding?”

“Nowhere.” Shane sat up. “Roll over. No—actually. Stay there. I want you on your back.”

Alex stayed where he was. For a moment he wondered whether Shane had been thinking about fucking him and whether he'd have said yes. He suspected he would have said yes to almost anything Shane Hollander asked him to do in that room, on that night.

And then it was forgotten because Shane was touching his cock again, and sucking it, and Alex thought he was going to die if he didn't get to fuck Shane soon, but he stayed still, because that's what he had been told to do.

Then Shane pulled off and sat back on his heels, and looked at him, and waited.

"Shane. Please." He heard it come out of his mouth, too late to do anything about it, and the worst part was Shane's face—a flicker of something delighted and disbelieving. Alex did not do this. He had never in his life begged anybody for anything like he had in that voice. He was the one who said not yet, and no one ever got a please out of him in the bedroom.

"Please what?"

"I want—" It was hopeless, he was gone. "I need to be inside you. Now."

Shane took his time. Alex watched him think about it, which was new, and infuriating.

"Sit up," Shane said. "Sit at the end of the bed. I want you to watch. You don't get to touch."

Alex sat up and moved to the end of the bed and knelt there with his hands on his thighs, his cock hard, waiting.

Shane reached for the lube and settled back against the pillows, knees up, and he was flushed and clearly testing his own limits of what he could do in front of someone else, but he was doing it anyway. He poured the lube over his hand and it ran down between his legs. Alex couldn't look away.

Shane slid a finger into himself, then two. Alex was surprised how quickly he went.

Not gentle like Alex tried to be. He couldn't believe he was getting to watch this.

“Swap places,” Shane said. “I want you on your back.”

Alex moved under him, and Shane straddled his hips. He handed Alex the lube. “Your fingers first. Put some lube on your own fingers. Do it.”

Alex did. He coated his fingers, then pressed two against Shane's hole, not taking his eyes off Shane's face the whole time.

“Slower,” Shane said.

Alex went slower.

“Another.”

Alex added another, and Shane’s head tipped forward, his hands braced on Alex’s chest. Alex watched him. He wanted to say something, but the words were caught in his throat. Shane pushed back down onto his fingers, and as Alex felt Shane's body open, he crooked his fingers and Shane said, “There. Don’t stop. Don’t you dare.”

“Shane,” Alex murmured. “You’re incredible. You’re—fuck. I love this. Keep talking.”

“You like this,” Shane said, surprised all over again.

“Shane.” Alex’s hand tightened on his hip. “I’ve never been this hard in my life. Aren’t you getting that?” It was true. It was the hottest thing he'd ever experienced.

Shane laughed. “Condom. Now.”

Alex didn’t hesitate. He reached for the condom and rolled it on while one hand stayed between Shane’s thighs. The concentration of doing it one-handed must have shown on his face, because he heard Shane laugh again, softly. Then Shane reached back and lined him up.

“Okay,” Shane said. “I’m going to—”

“Yes,” Alex said. And Shane sank down.

Alex’s whole body went still. The heat of it, the slow pressure, the way Shane's mouth fell open—Alex didn't move. His hands stayed on Shane's hips because Shane had said that was allowed, and he waited. He lay there with his hands still on Shane's hips and let Shane take him, and it was the longest, best silence of his life. Alex watched him. The line of his throat, the sweat at his hairline, the way his stomach tightened. Alex’s jaw ached from clenching it.

Then Shane began to move.

It was perfect. Shane rode him slow, then faster, then slow again. Alex kept his hips still. Every time Shane moved, Alex's body wanted to answer, but he held it. His hands stayed on Shane's hips, not pushing, and he let Shane use him.

When Shane leaned back, hands on Alex’s thighs, and fucked himself hard, Alex heard himself make a sound he didn’t recognise. His whole body was tight with the effort of staying still. His cock was buried in Shane, and Shane was taking what he wanted. He had never let anyone do that. Not like this.

“Touch me,” Shane said after a while. “My cock. Stroke me while you fuck me. Slow.”

Alex's hand came up at once. He closed it around Shane, and Shane's head fell back. Shane rolled his hips and kept giving orders—harder, slower, there—and Alex obeyed each one. It was the most turned on he'd been in his life, and he had the thought that he would do this every night if Shane would just say the word. The pleasure built like a tight coil.

Then Shane’s rhythm faltered.

Alex felt it in the way Shane's thighs started shaking, in the small hitch of his breath. The commands stopped. Shane’s concentration was breaking. Alex watched his face.

“You okay?” he said softly.

“Yeah— Just— I need you to do it now.”

“You want me to take over?”

Shane nodded, wordless.

Alex didn’t need to be asked twice. He pushed up, gripping Shane's hips tighter, and started to thrust. The relief was immediate, and Alex felt it in a loosening of Shane's body. Shane sank against him, his forehead coming down against Alex’s shoulder, and Alex fucked up into him.

“Yes,” Shane gasped. “Yes — please —”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

Then he flipped them, and settled over Shane. He caught Shane’s mouth in a slow, careful kiss, and his hand held Shane’s jaw, trailing along it. “You were so good at that,” he said into Shane’s mouth. Shane’s body went loose under him. Alex pulled out an inch and pushed back, hand lifting Shane’s thigh, opening him deeper. Shane arched up, legs wrapping around Alex’s waist, hands in Alex’s hair.

Alex found a rhythm Shane didn’t have to think about. Shane’s head went back into the pillow, and he made a sound that went straight to Alex’s cock. He watched Shane’s face the whole time, the way his brows drew together, the way his mouth fell open. Shane grabbed at the sheets, and Alex pushed harder.

“You’re incredible,” Alex said. His voice was wrecked. “Look at you, fuck.”

“Harder,” Shane said, and this time it was a plea, not a command.

Alex gave him what he asked for. He fucked him hard and steady, his mouth at Shane’s ear, saying good boy, that’s it, let go. Shane reached down and wrapped his hand around himself. Alex watched him do it, the way his fingers moved, the way his stomach tightened. Shane stroked himself once, twice, and then he came, his whole body going tight, fingers dragging lines down Alex's back.

Alex kept going, working him through every aftershock, even when Shane’s body clenched and shook. He didn’t slow until Shane’s body went slack.

Then Alex let himself go. The rhythm turned frantic, and he came with a low groan, buried deep, his face pressed into Shane’s neck. For a long moment he stayed there, his weight braced on his forearms, his pulse loud in his ears.

For a minute neither of them moved. Alex lay on top of Shane, still inside him, sweaty and breathing hard. He could feel Shane’s heart under his chest. He waited until Shane’s breathing evened out, then eased out and went to the bathroom. He came back with a damp cloth and cleaned Shane off. Shane lay still, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling. Alex settled beside him and pulled the sheet over them. Shane turned into the circle of his arm, his face pressed to Alex’s shoulder.

“So,” Alex said after a moment. “That was new.”

Shane huffed. “Don’t. You’re going to be smug about it.”

“Absolutely not. You were fantastic. Scary but fantastic. I should have asked you for a safe word.”

Shane groaned. “Stop.”

“‘Quiet,’” Alex repeated, doing the voice. He was grinning. “You told me to be quiet. In my own bed.”

Shane was laughing now, helpless, his face red. He tilted his head to look up at Alex. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“It most definitely worked.” Alex looked down at him. The teasing went out of his voice. “Shane. It was the hottest thing that’s happened to me in years. I’d pay money for you to boss me around like that again.” He paused. “But it was hot because you were asking for what you wanted. Out loud. You have no idea what that looks like from where I was lying. Two weeks ago you couldn’t tell me what you wanted for breakfast.”

Shane went quiet, and Alex could tell he was thinking, and then he said, “I don’t know if I’d want to do it all the time. It’s a lot. By the end I just wanted you to take over.”

“I know. I felt it. But that was the whole point. You told me what you wanted all the way through. You wanted to be in charge, and you were. Then you just wanted to be taken, so you let me take you. You got what you wanted the whole time.”

Shane didn’t answer. Alex could feel him thinking. He pressed his mouth to Shane’s hair and let him be quiet.

“Next time,” Alex said, his eyes closing, “if you want to be in charge again, I’ll allow it.”

“You’ll allow it.”

“Mm. As long as you do the voices. I want quiet on repeat.”

“There won’t be a next time if you keep talking.”

“There’s going to be a next time,” Alex said, smug and half-asleep. He said it with total confidence, and did not believe it for a second. Then he lay still, Shane warm against his side, and he did not let go. 

Alex woke first. He lay still with Shane's back against his chest and watched the light come through the curtains. He'd already decided what he was going to say, and lay awake going over the words.

He would say, I’m not going to ask you for more. He would say, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. He would say, if things were different, I would never let you go. It was the right thing. It made sense. It asked nothing of Shane, and left no space for Alex to be hurt.

It did not occur to him, then, that it was the worst decision of his life. That came later.

He felt Shane breathe against him and buried his nose in the back of Shane's neck. Alex’s chest hurt in a way he didn’t have a name for.

Shane stirred. He turned, blinking, and his hand reached for Alex's jaw. They kissed, slow and warm, and Alex thought, careful, this is the last one if you mean it. He pulled back first.

“We should talk,” Alex said, and he felt Shane's body tighten.

“Yeah.”

“I’m flying back to Sweden on Tuesday. The offer still stands.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“So have I. Not just about the trip though. About what happens after.” He looked at Shane’s face — sleep-soft, guarded already, bracing. “I don’t want this to end.”

Shane exhaled. “Neither do I.”

Alex kept his voice steady. “There’s something I want to say. Don’t say anything, just listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

 “Not because I don’t want you. I’ve thought about it more than I’ve thought about anything in a long time. But I know what your life is. A few weeks from now you’ll be back in training. Then your season starts, and it’s nine months of your year, and you’re the captain, and you’re one of the best players alive, at the top of your game. I’m not going to ask you to walk away from that, for someone you’ve known for two weeks. I won’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

Shane opened his mouth. Alex held up a hand. He couldn’t stop now. He had to finish what he'd started.

“But I can’t leave it unsaid either,” he went on. “If things were different, if you played for a team in Stockholm, if I’d met you at some other point in your life—I would never let you go.” He aimed for a small smile. His fingers moved on the sheet, tracing the same line over and over, and he couldn’t make them stop. “That’s it. That’s what I wanted to say.”

Shane was quiet for a long time. Alex watched his face. It did what Shane’s face always did when he was thinking through something that hurt: it went very still. And then, carefully, the refusal Alex had predicted.

“I’m not going to come to Sweden,” Shane said. “Not because I don’t want to. But if I come, I’ll just have to do this again in two weeks. And it’ll be worse.” His voice sounded tight. “I don’t want it to end either. But you’re right. Hockey is—it’s my whole life, Alex. It’s been my whole life since I was four years old. This week is the first time I’ve ever—” He stopped. Tried again. “This is the first time I’ve ever thought my life could be something other than that. But that’s—I only just started thinking that. Two weeks isn’t enough to change my whole life.”

“I know.”

Shane pressed his hands to his eyes. “What if it didn’t have to be Sweden? What if you came to Canada?”

Alex had an answer ready for that too. He had answers ready for everything; he’d lain awake half the night preparing them. “I’ve thought about that too,” he said. “I thought I could visit. A week, maybe two, during your winter break. We could see each other next summer. But it would never be enough. I have commitments in Sweden. The foundation. Other charities. I’m not an important royal, but I am a public one, and I do work that requires me to be in Sweden. It’s not impossible. Nothing is impossible. But it’s not something I could do any time soon.”

It was all true. Every word of it was true and it was also a wall he'd built to protect himself, and the question underneath—can we try anyway—never got asked, because he made sure the conversation never got close enough.

“I wouldn’t ask you to give that up.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Alex lifted Shane’s hand and kissed the back of it. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? We’re both far too sensible.”

Shane laughed, a choked sound. “I hate this.”

“Me too.” Alex kissed his hand again, then his wrist. He let go.

Shane sat up. He ran a hand over his face, then looked at Alex with those dark eyes, and Alex thought, don't do this. You can still take it back. Ask him. Tell him you want him. Tell him you can make it work. Say: come to Stockholm. Two weeks, anything. We'll figure it out. Say it.

But Alex didn’t. He had spent the night building the argument for letting go, and it had done its work. He kept his mouth shut. This was right.

They looked at each other. Shane’s eyes were wet and his jaw was fixed and he was so beautiful it was ridiculous, and then Shane said, “Don’t text me.”

Alex went still.

He had not prepared for that. He had prepared for every version of the conversation except the one where Shane asked for nothing—asked, in fact, for less than nothing. He was already regrouping, forming the words of course, whatever you need, to be gracious—when Shane said, fast, “That came out wrong. I mean I don’t want to do it like that. Waiting for a text. Waiting for a week here and there. It’d just be this again. Every time.”

Alex was quiet for a while. He'd pictured a slow fade. Shane's name lighting up on his phone less and less. But Shane was right. That version was worse. The only thing worse than losing him all at once was losing him in pieces over a year and calling it staying friends.

“You’re right,” he said.

Shane looked at him, and for a second Alex saw the finality of it. Then Shane looked away.

“So this is it,” Shane said.

“This is it.” Alex found Shane’s hand and held it.

“What about today?”

 “Today, we go to the final. We’ll drink some champagne, and watch two men playing tennis. And then we say goodbye.” He pulled Shane down into the sheets, wrapped around him, and for a while neither of them said anything at all.

They took turns. Alex went down on him and stayed there until Shane’s thighs shook. Shane pulled him up by the shoulders—my turn—and Alex lay back and watched Shane’s dark head over him, and his hand rested in Shane’s hair, not guiding, and the sadness mingled with the arousal, and Alex let himself feel both of the things at once.

He opened Shane with his fingers, slow, watching his face the whole time—okay? okay—and Shane turned onto his side and Alex fitted himself behind him and drew Shane’s leg up over his own and pressed in, deep, and then didn’t move.

He put his arm around Shane’s chest and laid his palm flat over Shane’s heart.

It was going fast. He could feel it under his hand, and he matched his breathing to Shane’s breathing and stayed deep in him and held. This is the last time, he thought, and then stopped thinking it, because it was unbearable, and then thought it again anyway, because he remembered things that hurt and he wanted to remember it.

He moved, barely. Shane reached back and found his hip and pulled, and Alex shifted them, lifted his leg higher, and the next thrust went so deep that Shane’s whole body clenched around him and Alex said his name into his neck. Shane turned his head and they kissed awkwardly, neither of them caring. Alex wrapped his hand around Shane’s, around Shane’s cock, and they moved together like that.

“Don’t stop,” Shane breathed.

“Not going to.”

Shane came first, in long waves, come over both their hands, and Alex held the pace through every aftershock until his own finish took him apart against Shane’s back, face pressed into his neck.

After, he didn’t pull out. He kept his hand where it was, over Shane’s heart, and felt the heartbeat slow, and then he felt something else—a small tremor, a change in Shane’s breathing, a small wet sound, quickly swallowed.

Shane was crying. Quietly, privately, facing away, clearly meaning for it to go unnoticed.

Alex felt it. He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He pulled Shane closer and kissed the back of his neck once, and left his mouth there for a long time. He could have said I know. He could have said I’m sorry. He could have said don’t. But he decided, in the moment, that the most tender thing he could do was to say nothing and hold on.

“We should get up,” Alex said eventually, his hand moving through Shane’s hair.

“Five more minutes.”

Alex huffed. “Five. We’re already an hour later than planned.”

“The final doesn’t start til two. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“That’s what you said an hour ago.”

“And I was right.”

Alex’s hand kept moving through Shane’s hair. “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

Shane had to think about it. “Afternoon. Two-something.”

“Mm.” His hand didn’t stop. “I can get your bags sent to your hotel later. If that’s what you want.”

“Okay.”

They showered together, exchanging small touches—soap on a shoulder, a kiss at the nape—and dressed in silence, Shane in a pale suit, Alex in a dark one. Shane checked the mirror and Alex stepped in behind him and straightened Shane's tie, an excuse to stand close, and both of them knew it.

“Ready?” he said, into Shane’s ear.

Shane nodded.

They walked down the stairs and out into the street. It was bright and hot and the city was full of people who had somewhere to be and all the time in the world to get there. The car waited at the curb. Alex opened the door and let Shane in first, and then got in after him, sat close, and took his hand.

The car pulled out toward Wimbledon, and Alex looked out the window at London going past and did not think about Tuesday, or Stockholm, or the word maybe, or how long the rest of the day was, which was not long at all.

Chapter End Notes

I'm an idiot for breaking them up and making myself sad and then doing it all over again by writing Alex's POV. Alex is an idiot too.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

SUNDAY 16th JULY 2017, LAST DAY OF WIMBLEDON

The traffic on Fulham Road moved in stops and starts. Alex leant against the door with his left hand on the seat between them, palm down. The leather was warm from the sun through the glass. Shane sat with his hands folded in his lap and his sunglasses on. Alex shifted his hand half an inch, close to Shane's, not touching. He was very aware of the not touching.

Alex had already decided what Sunday was going to look like. He had about four hours before the goodbye started, so he rehearsed the whole thing in his head. A glass of champagne in the suite, cold, the good bottle. Then tennis. Then the goodbye. It would be easy and warm because that's what Alex was good at.

Shane was quiet. That was normal. Shane was quiet a lot of the time, and Alex had learned the different silences over the last two weeks. The one where he was thinking. The one where he was anxious. The one after sex where he was loose and happy and affectionate. This one was different. Alex couldn’t read it, which bothered him, but he didn’t push. It wasn't a day for pushing. He wouldn't make Shane talk about it. He wouldn't ask. They'd had two weeks, and now they'd agreed, and he wouldn't make it ugly. Alex couldn't bear things when they got ugly.

Instead, he looked out of the window and watched London go past and thought: four hours. You can do four hours of anything.

He thought about what he’d do after he dropped Shane at the hotel. Go back to the flat. Answer the emails he’d been ignoring. Call his mother. He had a dinner on Tuesday back in Stockholm with someone from the foundation and he should probably read the briefing notes Astrid had forwarded him twice. He would do none of it. He knew himself well enough to know that.

By the time they arrived at the All England Club, there was no time for champagne. The car pulled up at the same private entrance as the day before and Alex got out first and waited. He did up the middle button of his jacket and adjusted the watch on his wrist. Shane got out beside him, and Alex watched him set his shoulders and fix his face into the careful smile he wore for cameras. Alex knew that smile now. He knew it from the first afternoon in the Rolex suite, when he had seen him doing the loop of the room.

“Ready?” Alex said.

Shane nodded once. They walked toward the gate. The cameras on the other side of the barriers started going off. Alex heard his own name, then Shane’s, then a woman’s voice asking if they were together. He didn’t turn. Alex kept his pace easy. Shane walked beside him, and Alex was aware of him the way he’d been aware of him for two weeks, as if his body had learned a new frequency and was tuned to it all the time. Shane’s shoulder. Shane’s stride. The way Shane’s sunglasses hid his eyes and made his face unreadable.

They passed the white tents, the sun's heat on the back of Alex’s neck. He wanted water, or champagne, or to be somewhere else with Shane, but the day had a plan and he was going to keep to it.

Astrid was already sitting near the front in the Royal Box, fanning herself with a programme. She saw them coming and stood. Alex watched her eyes move from his face to Shane’s, then back to his. Her smile held for a moment and then faltered, just for a second. She knew. Of course she knew. Astrid could read him better than anyone.

He was glad they'd been stuck in traffic for forty minutes because it meant there was no time for her to corner him before the first set, no chance for her to say anything that would make the afternoon harder.

“You’re even later than yesterday,” she said. She kissed Shane on the cheek, and Shane looked startled for a second.

“The traffic was diabolical,” Alex said.

Astrid rolled her eyes but she said nothing else. Alex took the seat beside her, Shane in the middle, and opened his programme. The players were warming up, the stands filling slowly, the hum of conversation rising and falling. He pretended to read. His knee was two inches from Shane’s, and he kept it there, still.

The first game was halfway through when Alex saw Shane’s body change.

His shoulders tightened. His hand curled into a fist on the armrest between them. It was the kind of thing you would miss if you weren't sitting close enough to feel the shift. Then Shane went very still.

“What is it,” Alex murmured.

“Nothing.” Shane didn't turn his head. “Hot. I’m just hot.”

Alex turned his head only a little. Shane was looking straight ahead at the court, but his eyes were not fixed on the ball. Alex let it go. He let it go because he knew what pushing Shane would get you, and that was nothing. He knew a lie when he heard one, and he knew Shane was not hot.

He turned back to the match. But Alex was now tuned in to something else. He counted points. He listened to the crowd. He made himself watch the ball. Then he turned, casually, as if checking the scoreboard, and looked behind them.

Three rows back, off to the left. A man in a dark suit sat at the end of a row, looking totally out of place at Wimbledon. He was leaning back with one arm over the empty chair beside him like he owned the row. Sunglasses on. Hair a mess of curls. Too casual. He was not watching the tennis.

He was watching Shane.

Alex turned back to the court. His heart had picked up. He knew exactly who he was looking at. He was a fan of hockey. He had stayed up at two in the morning in Stockholm to watch games live. He had watch Shane Hollander for years without knowing he would ever meet him. But he had watched Ilya Rozanov as well, because anyone who watched the MLH had watched Rozanov. He was a menace on the ice who scored goals and started fights and made the game interesting.

And the moment he saw the way Rozanov was looking at Shane—not at the tennis, not at the crowd, not at anything else in the box—he understood.

This was the man. The other hockey player. The one Shane had talked about once, lying in Alex's bed. I was seeing someone. A man, another hockey player. For years, on and off. That was all Shane had said, and Alex hadn’t pushed, because he never pushed.

And now he was here, three rows back, in London. He had got himself into the Royal Box somehow and was watching Shane like no one else in the world existed. He had come here because whatever it was, it was not finished.

Alex didn't look at Shane. He kept facing the court, and left his arm on the rest where Shane could take it or not.

By the second changeover, Rozanov was directly behind them. Then he spoke.

“Hollander. You look different.”

Shane went rigid. Alex turned slowly, over his shoulder. Astrid had turned too, then looked at Alex, raised her eyebrows, and gone back to the court. Alex faced Rozanov and and made his face pleasant. Rozanov was leaning forward, one hand on the back of Shane’s seat, the other braced on his own knee.

Rozanov ignored him. Kept his eyes fixed on Shane. “Not going to say hello?”

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Alex said.

“Rozanov,” Shane said. Interrupting. “What are you doing here?”

“Tennis,” Rozanov said. He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Big fan. Love tennis.” Then he looked at Alex, and the smile changed, got an edge. “So. You are the prince.”

Alex stood. He did it slowly, unfazed, and offered his hand. “Alex. And you’re Ilya Rozanov.”

The handshake came a beat late. “You know my name.”

“Of course. I’m a big hockey fan." Alex kept his voice easy. "Everyone knows your name. Buffalo, right?”

He knew perfectly well it wasn’t Buffalo. He knew Boston, he knew the stats, he knew exactly how good the man was, and he knew Buffalo was a terrible team, and he knew Rozanov's face would do what it did. A flicker of confusion followed by a narrowing of eyes as the insult landed. Alex watched it happen and took his small, disgraceful satisfaction.

“Boston,” Rozanov said flatly.

“Of course. Now I remember.” He paused—not long but long enough. “It took me a while because Shane has never once mentioned you.”

Alex knew it was petty, and he did it anyway because Rozanov had come here on his last day together with Shane, and had put his hand on the back of Shane's seat and looked at Shane like he owned him.

“Is nice,” Rozanov said. “What you have done. Very generous. Famous hockey player comes to London, prince shows him a good time. Tennis, restaurants, two weeks. Like tour guide.”

Rozanov took half a step closer. Alex didn’t move. He could feel Shane beside him, utterly still, and he knew Shane was afraid of something, and Alex knew that if Rozanov said one more thing, he going to hit him, right here in the Royal Box, in front of everyone. His hands had curled into loose fists at his sides.

“Leave it.” Shane’s voice was low, directed only at Alex. His hand was tight on Alex’s forearm, the fingers pressing through his jacket. “Please, Alex. Leave it.”

He sat down. He picked up his programme. He crossed his legs and looked at the court like it had been nothing and he hated himself for it.

Rozanov said “Hollander—” and then Shane said “Leave. Now,” and Rozanov moved away, up the row, taking his time.

Shane let out a breath. His hand came off Alex’s arm and rested on his own knee. Alex didn’t look at him.

“Thank you,” Shane whispered.

“Don’t thank me.” Alex kept his eyes on the court. His own voice came out level. “You asked me to leave it. So I left it.”

He did not say the rest. He did not say, I wanted to put him on the ground for the way he looked at you. He did not say, I have never wanted to hurt anyone the way I wanted to hurt him. He sat and kept his eyes on the court and counted the seconds until the next changeover.

Astrid got up during the second set, said something about shade and a drink. She squeezed Shane’s shoulder as she passed, and Alex felt her eyes on him for a second longer than necessary. He didn’t meet them.

That was when Rozanov came back.

Alex heard him before he saw him, moving down the row, low apologies in accented English, before he dropped into Astrid's seat next to Shane.

“Alex.” Shane’s voice was tight. “Can you give us a few minutes. I’ll handle this.”

Alex paused. He looked at Shane. Then at Rozanov. Then back at Shane. He could refuse. But Shane wasn’t his boyfriend—they’d been very clear about that, very adult, very reasonable—and he had no right. And Shane was looking at him with something in his eyes that Alex recognised, the same thing he’d seen that first night when Shane had said I don’t do this and meant I don’t let people in.

“I’ll get us some water,” Alex said.

He stood. He walked up the aisle without hurrying. At the back of the box, by the entrance, there was a small bar set up for the guests. He asked for two bottles of water and stood with his back against the wall, holding them, and watched.

He couldn’t hear a word. But he could see.

Alex opened one of the water bottles and drank. The water was cold, and it did nothing for the heat in his chest. He watched Rozanov say something, and Shane’s shoulders went tight. Then Rozanov’s face changed. The hard, flat look dropped away. Alex saw it happen from the back of the box, even without hearing the words. Rozanov’s head dipped forward. His hands curled on his thighs.

Alex knew what he was looking at. He was looking at the thing he could never give Shane, the thing he had never given anyone. Ilya Rozanov had got on a plane and flown to London and turned up at Wimbledon in a dark suit that was wrong for the occasion and sat in the Royal Box and watched Shane like Shane was the only thing in the world worth looking at. He had risked looking like an idiot. He had risked looking desperate. Alex had spent the morning explaining, beautifully, why he wasn’t going to ask Shane for anything.

He watched Shane say something to Rozanov, saw Shane's face go soft. It lasted only a second and then Rozanov stood and walked away, past his own seat, and disappeared toward the stairs.

Alex stayed where he was until the next changeover. Then he walked back down to the seats with the two bottles. He gave one to Shane and sat down. His own bottle was half gone.

“You all right?” Alex said after a while.

Shane nodded. “Yes.”

“You don’t have to explain what that was,” Alex said. He kept his eyes on the court. “I worked it out.”

Shane looked at him. Alex didn’t look back.

“I’m sorry,” Shane said.

“Don’t be.” Alex’s hand found Shane’s, just for a second, and squeezed. “Not for that.”

The match went on. Astrid came back, and they talked about a charity event in Stockholm, and he answered with half his attention. He watched the tennis, but his mind was not on the tennis. Every time the crowd clapped, he thought about Ilya Rozanov somewhere in the club, maybe gone, maybe still watching. He thought about the way Shane’s face had gone soft. He thought about what he'd said to Rozanov himself, and how petty he'd been, and he would not take it back if he could.

When the match ended, they stood with everyone else and clapped through the trophy ceremony as Federer lifted the cup. Alex clapped on autopilot, his face set in its public expression.

They waited while the crowd filtered out. Astrid hugged Shane, a real hug, her arms going around him without hesitation. Alex watched her, and saw her say something into Shane's ear. Shane's face changed as she spoke, just slightly.

Then Astrid turned to Alex. He took her arm and steered her a step away, and she went without fuss, but she looked at him.

“You're an idiot if you let him go,” she said quietly. "It's not too late to say something."

“Astrid,” he warned.

 “I’m going, I’m going.” She held his gaze a second longer, and then she hugged him, hard and brief, and was gone down the stairs into the crowd.

Then it was just the two of them.

Alex leaned in, close enough that his mouth was by Shane’s ear. “Let’s go.”

Shane nodded.

They turned toward the stairs. Alex didn’t rush. He walked slowly on purpose, letting the crowd thin out around them, giving them a few more minutes. The back of Shane’s neck was visible above his collar, the dark hair damp with heat. Alex looked at it and wanted to put his mouth there and didn’t.

Just before the exit, he stopped.

“Wait,” he said. “Before we go out there.”

Shane stopped.

Alex looked at him. There were three minutes left before they reached the car and the goodbye happened and it was done.

“Stay one more night,” Alex said.

The words came out before he could stop them. He hadn’t planned to say them. He’d spent all morning planning not to say them. But now he was standing with three minutes left and nothing to lose, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Alexander Bergström was asking for something that was not just sex.

“I don’t expect it to change anything,” he said. “I just don’t want this morning to be the last time.”

He couldn’t look at Shane while he said it. He looked at the wall, at a small mark near the floor, anywhere else but at Shane's face. He knew Shane was watching him and his own face was giving away more than he wanted to. He didn’t try to hide it. There was no point hiding it. There were two minutes left.

Shane was quiet for a long time. Then: “I can’t, Alex. I want to, but I can’t do this twice. This morning was already too hard.”

Alex nodded. He had known before he said it. He tried to smile. It didn’t quite work. “Let me at least drop you at your hotel. Don’t argue with me about it, I’ll win.” And he did win. He won by making it sound like a joke. Shane looked at him for a second, then nodded, and they kept walking. Alex’s hand found the small of Shane’s back. It was the last time he would touch him, probably. Shane didn't move away.

They were halfway to the car when Ilya Rozanov stepped out in front of them.

Alex’s hand on Shane’s back went still. Rozanov was standing there, face flat and insolent, the same look from the box, and Alex's body reacted. A spike of adrenaline. His chest tightened with anger. Real anger, like he almost never let himself feel because nothing bad ever happened when you were calm and nothing good happened when you weren't.

“Keep walking,” Shane said quietly.

Alex wanted to say something. He wanted to put himself between Rozanov and Shane, to say, no, you don’t get to do this here, make him go away. But he didn’t. He walked, and he kept the anger inside.

“Hollander,” Rozanov said, when they were close. “I want to talk to you. Alone.” He didn’t look at Alex at all.

Shane stopped. Alex stopped beside him. Alex’s hands wanted to do something—close into fists, grab Rozanov by the collar, something—but he kept them at his sides and kept his face still.

“Alex,” Shane said. He turned. “Go to the car. I’ll be five minutes.”

Alex looked at him. Then at Rozanov. Then back. He was angry, and he knew it showed on his face, and he knew Shane had never seen him angry before. Not once. Not a moment of irritation even in the last two weeks. He stood there with his heart pounding and there were a hundred things he wanted to say and every one of them would have made it worse. He walked past Rozanov to the car and did not look back.

The car was cool. Alex got in and shut the door. He sat with his back straight and his hands in his lap and his face turned toward the window. He could feel his pulse in his temples. He didn't look. He sat and counted his breaths. He'd never been angry in front of Shane. He was never angry in front of anyone, really. Not in a way that showed. Alex was a man who was calm and made things easy.

Then the car door opened and Shane got in.

“Are you all right?” Alex said as the car pulled away from the curb.

Shane nodded.

When Shane tried to explain, Alex felt his throat close and all he could say was, “You don’t have to explain him to me. It’s not my business any more.” He knew it would hurt Shane. He didn’t take it back. He couldn’t. If he opened his mouth, he would ask questions, and asking them would be worse. Neither of them spoke much for the rest of the drive.

Shane had his hand on the seat between them. Alex kept his own in his lap. He knew it was cruel, and unnecessary, but Shane had asked him to leave it, and now he couldn't stop. If he spoke, if he touched Shane now, he would ask him to stay again, to come to Sweden again, and Shane had already said no, so he kept his face turned and asked nothing.

They didn't speak again until they reached Shane's hotel and the car pulled into a side street.

Alex turned to face him.

Shane was looking at him with his sunglasses off, his eyes red. Alex took in the whole of his face for the last time. The freckles across his cheekbones. The mouth that had been against Alex’s neck that morning.

Shane leaned in and kissed him. Alex kissed him back, slow, his hand coming up to cup Shane’s jaw. He let himself have it, the heat and the taste and the last of Shane’s mouth. Then he made himself stop, and he ended it.

“Go,” Alex said. “Before I ask you to stay again and embarrass us both.”

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. It was the most honest thing he'd said all day and he said it like a joke, and then he watched Shane get out of the car. He didn't watch him walk away. He faced the window, and then he looked down at the seat between them, and he put his hand where Shane’s had just been and kept it there.

When he got back to his flat, Shane's bags were still by the door. Alex took them downstairs and loaded them into the boot of the car, and asked the driver to take them to Shane's hotel. Then the car was gone, and Alex went back to his flat. He opened the windows a little, letting the evening air in, still warm. Then he went to the kitchen and took a beer from the fridge. Alex turned on the television, highlights from the last day of Wimbledon, sat down on the sofa, and didn't move for a long time.

At some point he became aware that it had gone dark and his beer had gone warm. He got up and went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, and stood under the water with his hands braced on the tile until the water ran cold. Then he got out and dried off and put on clean clothes. He answered two messages from Astrid about the charity event. He was fine.

He went to bed early, and did not sleep for a long time.

On Monday morning, he slept late. He lay in bed for a while, looking at the ceiling, and then got up, made coffee and sat at the kitchen table with his laptop open. He answered some emails. Confirmed a charity event in Stockholm for the following month. Texted Astrid about a family dinner. At midday, he called the car service to check the bags had been delivered. They had. The hotel had signed for them.

He didn't look at the news or social media. He didn't want to see any more photographs. But when evening came and he was lying on the sofa with his phone, a news notification slid down his screen. He saw the name Hollander and something about hockey. He tapped it without thinking.

The first photograph filled his screen. Ilya Rozanov on a London pavement in broad daylight, his hand raised, his mouth open mid-sentence. Shane was a step away, facing him. The caption underneath said: “Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov in a heated exchange outside the Mayfair Hotel, London. The MLH stars have a long-running rivalry.”

There were more photographs below. One showed the same moment from another angle, Ilya’s hand not quite touching Shane’s arm. Another showed Shane getting into the car, his back to the camera, and Ilya standing alone on the pavement, looking after the car. The last one was a close-up of Ilya’s face.

There were two ways to read it. The public read, how the press described it: a rivalry, tennis-adjacent, a coincidental encounter in London. Or, the one that Alex knew was correct: a man had followed another man across an ocean to say something to his face, and he was looking at the only thing Shane Hollander had ever been unable to walk away from, and that was Ilya Rozanov.

Alex had spent Sunday morning explaining to Shane—and himself—why he wasn't going to ask for anything. Rozanov had got on a plane to ask. Alex had been calm and adult and unselfish. He had made it sound like the only reasonable thing in the world. And Shane had listened, and nodded, and said okay.

Alex put down his phone. He thought about the line from the caption: long-running rivalry. He thought about how much or little anyone looking at those photographs would understand. He thought about how much he understood, and how much he had not said. Ilya Rozanaov had not given Shane a speech about why he wasn't going to ask for anything or why it wouldn't work. He had stood in front of cameras and looked like an idiot doing it. Alex had never taken anything seriously enough to look like an idiot in front of a crowd. Alex did the right thing, he was calm and he didn't take risks.

Alex got up from the sofa. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine. Then he went back to the sofa, picked up his phone again, and typed Ilya Rozanov into the search bar. He wasn't searching for hockey stats.He knew exactly how good Rozanov was on the ice.

He scrolled past the news articles about the confrontation—there were already dozens, each with the same photographs—and clicked on a fan site. The first page was game photos. Rozanov in a Boston Raiders jersey, yelling, one glove raised. Rozanov on the bench, leaning back, laughing at something off-camera. Rozanov taking a faceoff, his body low, his eyes locked on the puck. In every photo he looked like he owned the ice.

Alex clicked to the next page. Event photos. Rozanov in a black suit at a charity gala, a woman in a red dress on his arm, both of them laughing. Rozanov at a fashion show, wearing a leather jacket, his arm slung over the shoulder of a model. Rozanov at a club, face half in shadow, a bottle in his hand. Rozanov with a different woman at a premiere.

Alex scrolled slowly. The women were all beautiful. They were all looking at Rozanov like he was the only interesting thing in the room. And Rozanov was looking at the camera or past it or at the woman, his expression cocky or blank or amused. Alex kept scrolling. He found a photo of Rozanov standing next to a yellow Lamborghini, grinning.

Alex scrolled for a long time. The more he looked, the worse he felt. Not because Rozanov was attractive, though he was. Because in every photograph, Rozanov looked like a man who was never afraid. Alex had never once looked like that in a photograph. He wasn’t sure he had ever looked like that anywhere. Rozanov looked like someone who would bleed for Shane Hollander. A prince only ever knows how to smile.

Alex opened his messages. Found Shane's name. He typed: I saw the photos. Hope you're okay. He looked at the words. He deleted them. He thought of all the other things he could say. Come back. I was wrong. I take it back. I should have asked. I should have asked in the sun where everyone could see. He typed nothing. He locked his phone and put it face down on the arm of the chair.

He showered. He slept badly, which was becoming a habit. He didn't look at his phone and in the morning he was fine again. And he would keep being fine.

A MONTH LATER

The Stockholm flat was quiet. Alex stood in the kitchen, rinsing a plate under the tap. He had eaten dinner alone at the small table by the window. The window was cracked open and the air that came in had the faint smell of rain from earlier. His phone lay face up on the counter. Most people Alex knew was away at a summer house somewhere, an island or a lake, and the city felt quiet and warm.

He'd been back from London four weeks and kept his days full and evenings quiet. He went to the gym. Went for coffee. He played football on Thursdays with the same six men he had played with for years, and after he drank one beer and went home.

Two weeks after he got back, a notification on Instagram. ShaneHollander requested to follow you. He followed him back.

He was still telling himself he was fine. He said it out loud once, to Astrid, over lunch at the end of July, and she had looked at him over her glass and said, “All right,” in a tone that made it clear she had noted it as a lie.

He shut off the water and set the plate in the drying rack. He reached for a towel and dried his hands. His phone buzzed. He looked at it from across the counter, saw the screen light up. He reached for the phone and stilled when he saw the name. Shane Hollander.

There was no message. Only a photograph. A lake, a wooden dock, the water holding the last of the sun. There was a line of pine trees on the far shore, green and dense. The sky above the trees was still light at the edges, a pale late-day blue. He could feel the lake in the photograph. The air around it would be warm and full of insects. Shane would have taken this standing on the dock, and then he would have put the phone back in his pocket and gone inside.

Alex knew this must be Shane's cottage in Ontario. Shane had described it once, lying in bed, when he was relaxed. Alex remembered how he had described it in detail: the dock, the rock on the point, the loons. He checked the time. Eight in the evening here, that meant two in the afternoon in Ontario, so Shane must have taken it another day and only decided to send it today. He knew that about Shane. He would not send anything on impulse.

Alex’s thumb hovered over the reply field.

He typed: I know that lake.

Deleted it. Too much. It said he’d memorised things Shane had told him in bed.

He typed: I miss you.

He put his phone down and laughed quietly at himself, because he had just done the exact thing he imagined Shane doing. In the end, he didn't answer that night. He went to bed late and even then he lay in the dark for a long time before he slept.

In the morning, he sat at the kitchen table with coffee, and opened the photograph again. Then he typed, That’s very beautiful. Is the water cold?

Shane didn't reply immediately. When Alex woke the next morning, he opened his messages on the photograph again and he saw Shane had replied, Freezing.

Alex typed, You'd survive a Swedish summer then.

He knew exactly what he was doing. The second line was a hint. An invitation, even. It meant, come to Sweden. It meant, I still think about you here. But he phrased it as a joke, as he always did, because if Shane ignored it, than nothing had been refused. He would not have been rejected. He knew this as he typed it and knew he was a coward. He sent it anyway.

Then he put the phone down and went for a run. He ran the same loop along the water he always ran. He came back and showered and made breakfast before checking his phone.

No reply.

Shane was six hours behind. He’d be asleep, or just waking.

By evening it was midday there. Nothing. He told himself Shane was at the cottage, no signal, on the dock, on the water. He told himself Shane had seen it and smiled and put the phone down, and that a reply would come in Shane’s time.

By the third day he stopped telling himself anything.

Over the next couple of weeks, he wrote three more messages and sent none of them.

The first, on the Friday: That was an invitation, in case it wasn't clear. He got as far as holding his thumb over send and then pictured Shane reading it on the dock and replying, Sorry I can't. He deleted it.

The second, the following week, was just: How are you? He stared at it and hated it. Two weeks of the best conversations and the best sex of his life, and this was the best he could do. He deleted it and put the phone down and went and stood in the shower for a long time.

The third, near the end of the month, was long. It said he was sorry he hadn't been honest. That he hadn't been braver. That he should have told Shane how he really felt in London. That he wanted to try, even if it was hard. It was all true and he didn't send it.

Sometime in the last week of August, he understood it was done. And it was his own fault.

On the second Saturday of September, Astrid dropped Sofia off at his flat so he could take her to the aquarium.

He held her hand and they moved through the aquarium at Sofia's pace, which involved running one minute and stopping without warning the next, so she could press her face and hands to the glass. At the shark tank, she stood on tiptoe and he lifted her so she was level with the glass. Her legs kicked a little, and one shoe hit his thigh. The sharks moved slowly at the bottom of the tank. Sofia stared, her mouth open.

“That one’s big,” she said.

“That’s the sand tiger shark,” Alex said, reading the sign to his left. “He’s not as mean as he looks.”

Sofia laughed. “He's got a lot of teeth.”

“He does,” Alex said. “But he keeps to himself.”

At the touch pool she put one finger in the water with enormous seriousness and declared it cold.

“You’ll survive,” Alex said. “You’re tough.”

She gave him a look that was pure Astrid—a quick, unimpressed glance—and went back to the water.

Alex stood behind her with his hands in his pockets and watched her fair head bent over the pool. The place crowded, full of families, and Alex stood in the middle of it, pleasant to everyone who passed, no one looking at him twice.

He checked his watch. It was 15:47 in Stockholm.

In Montreal it was 9:47 in the morning. Shane would be in preseason training. He'd be drinking his terrible protein shakes and doing his precise stretches, and the season would start, and Alex would see his name when he checked the hockey scores. He'd known what time it was in Canada, without checking, every day since London.

Sofia turned and held her arms up, damp to the wrists, and he lifted her.

“Now the seahorses,” she commanded.

“Now the seahorses,” Alex agreed, and carried her off through the blue light.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for reading, and for all the comments and kudos on Break Point. I inhale every one like it's air.

Alex has been such a joy to write so I hope you enjoyed his POV.

If the end of Break Point hurt you as much as it hurt me, I'm writing a sequel right now which will be Shane x Alex all the way and may or may not include an alternative ending to Break Point, a chance for me to get it right. ❤️‍🔥