Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Rose Landry, Harris Drover, Troy Barrett, Svetlana Vetrova

Additional Tags:

Mentions of Ilya Rozanov/OFC, Retired Hockey Player Shane Hollander, Career Ending Injuries, Autistic Shane Hollander, The Cottage & The Lake as Characters, Anya the dog - Freeform, Artist Ilya Rozanov, But Remix Artist, Depressed Ilya Rozanov, Two adults trying their hardest and finding their way, mentions of death and dying, Summer Love fic

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-31 Updated: 2026-06-14 Words: 11,184 Chapters: 4/11

I feel different now than I did before

Summary

The other cottage on the lake - the one of the other side, tucked into the treeline of a cove - existed here before Shane Hollander bought all the land around it and built his own cottage.

The previous owner was one of his favorite people. He truly doesn't expect that to happen again - just as long as they're cordial.

It's just that...really, who could have guessed "the artist" his realtor told him wanted to put down roots is someone that Shane can't stay away from.

Notes

Wow, okay SO.

I said to you all that I was going to write the next thing on my plan, but I lied and I really just want to write a summer fic. This is my summer fic!

The fic title is from Cinderella by model/actriz which I have my motivations for but you will find those out later when we get there. Yes? Yes.
The prologue title is from Sweet Chamomile by Ruth B because I think it's really good for Shane's headspace at the beginning on this fic. I will likely use it for chapter one too.

Probably sticking to my previous update schedule of once a week on Sunday.

Obligatory fuck AI forever and ever. I don't edit with it, I don't feed it my thoughts. Please do not feed it my thoughts either.

Also, I think probably I should put a big disclaimer on my work that I am somehow highly degreed and poorly educated. My typos are many and flavorful. I read this shit back one single time to make sure I finished all my sentences and didn't type the same word twice because I sometimes do that on bad brain fog days. My fic manager has many degrees in English and somehow even she cannot convince me to let her handle my shit. I know people are well meaning when they offer to beta my stuff or fix typos but once I hit "post chapter" on something, whatever is there is between your god and the ao3 servers. I SAY THAT WITH LOVE. I just truly wish to not stare my own thoughts and mistakes in the face for longer than absolutely necessary.

okay, let's hold hands and go forth into summer love.

Chapter 1: prologue - I've been in the dark

Alina’s tea is not really passable as tea, but Shane drinks it anyway - bundled up in one of her softest blankets because it’s chilly on the porch this early in the morning, but he stays and he drinks the tea and he listens to the stories she shares about the universities she visited in between then and now. 

Shane finally feels like he’s at home, one week into being moved fully into the cottage and it finally settles in. He and Alina can have tea once a week and just…exist. There is no more hockey to go back to. Alina will be the one to fly away - off to some writer’s retreat, off to some far away place where people who understand poetry will listen to her and be in awe - give her the respect she deserves. 

Probably she always felt the same way when he would close up for the season. She never did care who he was or what he did, as long as he didn’t mind her foraging for tea ingredients, she left him well enough alone. That’s what she told the realtor she’d do when Shane had wanted to reach out before he bought the property. She had said that exactly.

As long as I can forage for my tea, he can buy the whole damn continent. Except of course, she pinned him down immediately and invited him over and now they’re friends in a way that Shane doesn’t really have friends and he’s learned things from her that he will never truly be able to repay her for - about himself and the world and about what it means to be quiet with someone here.

Shane sips at his tea and hums along as she talks about the writer’s retreat in Edmonton and the stacks of poems she came away with and he revels in the non-questions. She doesn’t ask him about his knee or his recovery or what his final payout was. She doesn’t ask him if it aches when it’s cold or if he will ever go into coaching or if he’s heard from the team. There is no discussion of his frankly nightmare inducing appearance at the end of season awards last year when he was still trying to not outright tell people he was never coming back.

Alina doesn’t care. 

She cares about him - she cares that he’s eating real food. She cares that he did try and read that book she gave him with the water tower on the cover and she cares that he comes over for tea and stays for oatmeal with nuts and frozen wild (foraged) berries. She cares about Shane and never Shane Hollander. 

“Is your lovely Rose coming by this year?” Alina asks, hand outstretched over the table towards him. 

Alina knows about him. She always has - before Shane even knew. She knew and she was quietly there for him until Rose came over for a few weeks and he brought her over for a visit and Alina said very firmly, “You are a lovely girl, Rose, but not for our Shane, you understand.”

Shane had only ever wished for the earth to swallow him up twice before that, but Rose had laughed and now Rose and Alina send each other postcards from wherever they are in the world and Shane looks at them tacked to fridges when he is in both of their houses and loves that they both have Alina. 

“You would know better than I would,” Shane admits, feeling slightly guilty for ignoring her calls the last two weeks. She wanted to be there for him as he was making the final preparations to leave his life in Montreal behind, but he didn’t want that. He had more than enough people being there for him since the injury and it was something he needed to do on his own. 

Alina raises one skinny eyebrow at him. Her face is unimpressed. “I expect you both over for dinner as soon as she arrives. Beginning of July, I think.”

It’s so easy and so simple and it’s exactly the kind of thing Shane has been craving since he went down on the ice for the last time of his career. “Sorry I missed you both last summer,” Shane says. “I was -”

“Don’t need to apologize to me,” Alina waves him off. “As long as you make an effort with this one.” She taps on the cover of a book. She’s always trying to push him, give him more to read, more to consider. To think about things from a different perspective. 

Shane nods and reaches for the book, smiling with Alina’s rough hand on his cheek. 

They have their oatmeal - made richer with milk and real butter that Alina churns herself. There’s a period of silence where Shane attempts to slog through the forward of the new book Alina has given him and Alina scribbles away at loose leaf pages she freewrites on when she’s away and they exist in the quiet together.

Shane sits on the porch and he eventually helps with the dishes and then he’s sent on his way, excited to see her again in a week. Excited to bring Rose back with bottles of wine that he might indulge in now that he’s retired and maybe he will finally allow her to run wild and set up a projector and they can invite Alina over and watch one of her old films. 

Rose would love that. Alina would love that. 

It feels good to be back - right. He had missed her last summer when he was stuck in Montreal, rehabbing and getting fourth and fifth opinions and trying desperately to work out the rest of his contract with the Metros without them thinking he wanted to leave. 

33 is not old in hockey these days. And sometimes at night when he’s got his compression sleeve on his leg and he’s relaxed down and he’s not aching, he wonders if he didn’t push hard enough, if he didn’t want it bad enough, but then he steps wrong or it goes out from under him and he remembers that he would never ever trust his body again and he knows it was right.

34 is barrelling towards him fast and it’s probably best he didn’t push it. He still has mobility. He still has function. Who knows what could have happened in a season or two if he didn’t stop. He never thought he’d be the guy who didn’t push and go for the experimental surgery and force it until failure, but the memory of his mother’s shaky voice as she told him she would find anyone to sign off on him if that’s what he wanted paired with the way he will maybe forever and ever hear the hurt, crumpled up noise she made that morning in the hospital when he opened his eyes and she had to tell him what happened made the decision for him.

He can’t do that to her. 

He can’t do that to his dad who sobbed in the bathroom the first night Shane was home because everything hurt and nothing was working and Shane can’t…Shane can’t. 

It’s what he’s thinking as he pulls his car back onto the new concrete pad he poured for the carport. Even if it’s hideous, his contractor managed to mostly hide it in the woods. It’s better to play it safe than him slipping in the winter now that he’s here full time - or mostly full-time. He has an apartment in Montreal even though he sold his condo. And he bought an apartment in Ottawa because it made sense to not always stay with his parents when he needed to go into the city, but he’s mostly here now and it’s good, he’s good. 

Maybe he’ll call Rose and see if she could come out sooner. He shouldn’t have pushed her away and Alina would love to see her. He decides that’s what he’ll do as soon as he is done rearranging his new office furniture. 

Rose agrees to come in for Shane’s birthday. She insists he invite the Pikes - the Metro’s season over. She has already invited Alina and his parents. She hints at wanting to invite Miles, but Shane went there. It didn’t work. He would like to leave it well in the past. 

She orders a projector and a cake he’s sure David will be sent to fetch and Shane looks forward to his birthday for the first time in three years. 

Which is why it’s so devastating when Alina doesn’t make it - that they end up at a wake instead. 

Chapter 2: navigating on my own

Chapter Summary

Shane turns 35 and meets his new neighbor.

Chapter Notes

Well, actually I decided to go chaos mode on this one and I will update when I'm done. sorry to everyone who likes order. That won't be found here.

Chapter title from Sweet Chamomile by Ruth B

The snow melts properly for the first time this year and the construction crew arrives the next day. 

Shane has been anticipating it. The sale went through only a few weeks ago after Rose and Shane had talked it over at length if Shane was going to buy the property or not, but Janine had called and said that there was an interested party who was quietly asking around. An artist that wanted to put down roots in Canada. 

She probably should not be telling Shane details about her clients even if they are all some sort of celebrity but maybe that’s why she told him. Shane has met plenty of artists since catapulting to hockey fame and they rarely care about who he is. Besides, Rose had pushed him towards it, reminding him that even if this artist isn’t around all the time, it would be good for someone to be close to him.

He can read between the lines. Rose worries all the time that Shane is alone in the woods too much. She worries and Shane understands and so the sale goes through and Shane goes over to meet the ex-husband that Alina always spoke so fondly about and takes a box of things that he had labeled Shane and Shane had waited until he got home to cry and then he waited for the new owner. 

The new owner arrived in the form of a construction crew and more noise than he would like to deal with as the sun emerges from its winter cover, but it’s over quickly and somehow that settles Shane. Surely if the new owner gutted the whole thing, they would not be done in a few short weeks?

Maybe there will be some Alina left behind. 

Shane assumes it’s happening now and that he’ll miss the new owner moving in - the artist. He goes to Montreal for a doctor’s appointment that he has never bothered to move to Ottawa because the drive really isn’t that bad and it always gives him an excuse to sleep in Jackie and Hayden’s guest room for a few days and see the kids.

Except he gets back and he gets bold and drives all the way down the little dead end road and there is no car, no lights, nothing to indicate that anyway is there. 

He folds it into his routine. He stretches the hiking route he takes when the weather is good and nothing is slick and he goes all the way around to the cove where The New Artist’s house is and he maybe watches it for signs of life. 

When he hears the signs of a car on the road, he perks up and waits. It’s never them and Shane is thinking perhaps this is not the primary residence. Perhaps this new owner has no intentions of actually using this house which is probably fine, except Shane had been…hoping maybe…

Which is foolish. He moved out here for peace - he moved out here to really work it out how he might - how it might not sting so badly. 

And when he works to name that feeling or emotion or whatever the fuck the therapist his mom made him see for a year after his injury as some kind of (he only suspects this) gentle suicide watch because at some point she joined in with the hoards of journalists and hockey players and analysts that thought of Shane as Only Having Hockey and Nothing Else, he fails rather quickly because he has never been good at dealing with hope. It’s probably his most fatal flaw. 

He’s very good at what’s in front of him. Concrete things. He thinks it’s why hockey was the thing he clung to as a child when it became increasingly clear he was not on the same level as the kids around him - socially. Hockey changed, sure. Plays and players and ice and coaches and leagues were all different, but Shane could achieve the same goal over and over. 

Be the best, follow the rules, score, assist, skate fast, go go go. 

It’s why he was so utterly bad at his injury. Probably. The new therapist that he sees via Zoom three times a month is much better and doesn’t really push Shane to name his emotions much or talk about the injury. Instead they talk about Shane’s future. They talk about Shane’s relationships. They talk about the autism that Shane got diagnosed with after the injury and made Shane feel like he had lost more than hockey somehow. 

Shane thinks maybe the feeling discussions are coming - a sneak attack of some kind, but for now it’s good enough and he tries hard and it makes Yuna worry less.

He goes to LA for a week. Rose can’t come out for his 35th birthday and insists that this is how they should celebrate even if it’s a week too soon.

She buys him this outrageously gorgeous green shirt that he has no reason to wear and they eat sushi at that place in a strip mall that doesn’t allow phones and Shane remembers how unsettling LA is when they end up at some house party up in those hills where the houses hang off the damn side and everyone has too much money and they’re all crying about some band that is breaking up but playing one last show tomorrow night. 

They get invited. Over and over. Rose makes excuses and hides behind the diva she can be and Shane loves her because it sounds like hell. Concerts in general. 

They leave when there’s a rumor that a few of said band members are coming and they ride silently back to Rose’s apartment that is reasonably not hanging off the side of a hill and they hold hands over the middle seat. 

Rose told him once that she was his platonic soulmate, which sounds made up to Shane, but when they have weeks like this, it doesn’t feel so made up. When she holds his hand and runs her thumb over his knuckles, it doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin and it’s nice to be touched by someone he trusts and loves. 

Probably pathetic too a little bit. 

It’s a worry that his parents have for him, he knows. They had barely contained their glee when he told them he was coming to see Rose - not because they think something between the two of them will happen. They haven’t asked about that in ages even if they don’t know that Shane is gay. 

They just worry about him being alone and not getting hugs or whatever because his mom always hugs him twice before they leave. She started doing it when he got drafted. One for now and one for later, she would say. 

He realized much later - years later - that she was doing it because she knew that he wasn’t hugging people. 

It was harder back then. Hookups were more draining than they were worth. He realized later it was the female piece of that equation. It got moderately better when he slept with his first man. 

He still didn’t do much casual sex. Shane knows now that his hangups and weirdness and all of that is something he can’t help and now that he’s more settled in his sexuality, it’s easier to not be so insecure about the things he needs from someone in his bed, but it’s still probably not enough to not meet the minimum human contact required for -

Jackie read this article about healing once. Hayden had snapped his ankle in their third season. One of those freak things that will probably never happen again, but it did happen to Hayden and Jackie had managed somehow to handle Hayden and the twins and had been full of grace and love and found supplements and exercises and studies about how best to help his recovery 

She read this article about contact and how it helped speed along the healing process and maybe it was all bullshit, but when Shane was hurt and he was crumbling inside, Jackie would show up and she would hold his hand and touch his arm and sit so close to him. 

It still happens now. Because he’s still healing, technically. Will be healing for the rest of his life and so probably he should have more touching in his life, but. Well, sometimes that’s not how life goes. 

“Shaney,” Rose says, her voice sleepy and low. “I think it’s going to be a good year for us.”

Shane smiles at her. He hopes it will be. For the both of them. 

Yuna and David bring over a cake that Shane actually likes. It’s tart lemon sponge with some sort of whipped cream that doesn’t dissolve and it’s delicious and almost a bit bitter and he asks for them to leave him a slice of it and does not miss the way Yuna’s eyes get a little misty. 

He spends three hours after they leave on the couch dutifully replying to text messages and Instagram DM’s and liking twitter posts and feeling a little overwhelmed that this many people are reaching out to him, but then again there is already talk about some kind of lifetime achievement award next year and hall of fame and and and - 

It’s why he sleeps in the next morning. It’s why he’s not sitting on his porch at dawn having his morning tea. It’s why he’s there when he hears the truck, loud and large and he knows immediately that the artist has finally arrived. 

He cannot stop hearing Alina’s voice in his head as he skulks around his house for the rest of the day. 

He should take a little basket over and introduce himself, but he only has a dusty bottle of wine that Rose brought a few visits ago and he thinks was probably pretty cheap based on the way Rose described it and it’s not like Shane thinks that this person will be his new Alina. Alina is irreplaceable. Alina was - is - Shane has struggled with the loss of her since he heard the ambulance come wailing down their little road. 

The memory of it - of standing at his kitchen sink, hearing it get closer and closer as something quiet in his chest got louder and louder. I will never be the same. 

It was what happened to him in the hospital. It’s what happened to him the first time a man licked over his collarbone in a questionable sports bar bathroom in West Hollywood. Shane can pinpoint each major deviation in his life by that feeling in his chest.

He does not have that feeling now and he doesn’t want it, he just wants to…be a good neighbor.

Which is how he finds himself driving over to the farmer’s market for those big fat cookies with the chip crumbs and the chocolate that Rose loves and Shane refuses. 

Maybe a bad move. They’re not vegan or gluten free or low fat, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe this artist does not mind any of those things. 

Shane buys a dozen and a bottle of the blackberry wine and one of those soy candles that smell like chamomile because maybe if there’s anything left of Alina in that house, she will recognize it and be at peace. 

It’s a respectable housewarming gift and Shane gives himself no time to back out of it - he drives his car right over there, stopping before he actually pulls into the driveway and very carefully shuffles his way down the steep stairs that deposit him onto the front door. 

He hears a dog before he’s even managed to knock on the door and then he sees a dog before he sees the artist. Mostly because the dog jumps onto Shane and begins to do their very best to knock him over. 

“Sorry, sorry,” The (presumed) artist says, bending down and scooping the dog up into his arms and that’s when Shane is hit by a long series of regrets all at once. 

It starts with buying this property and ends with wearing these fuckass shorts that Rose is always begging him to throw away. Because The Artist is…the artist is far more beautiful than anything Shane could have cooked up in his horny dreams. 

Tall and broad and there’s a mole on his cheek that Rose would declare herself jealous of and a jaw that Shane will probably think about feeling in between his teeth later.

“She has been living in the bus for months, she is too excited by all of this space.” His voice is deep and lush. “She does not know how to act.” The artist bends down and kind of shunts her back into the house and shuts the door behind him, leaning against it and then he very blatantly drags his eyes over Shane’s body and fuck these shorts, my god. Shane is stupid. 

Shane wants to say literally anything. Rose would make a joke about also not knowing how to act with a lot of space after being cooped up on a set, but Shane is not Rose and he lives in nothing but space so that would be weird. 

He could ask how he’s settling in, but if he’s been doing that Van Life thing, he probably doesn’t have much to settle. So, that seems strange. 

There’s an introduction. Shane should introduce himself. It’s not his first day on earth. His hand.

He ends up shoving the basket of things between their bodies and saying, “Shane Hollander” and then promptly wishing to be scraped from this earth. “I live -” and then he waves towards his house. Because he needs to be scraped from this earth. 

“Ilya,” the artist says, taking the basket from Shane’s hand, shifting it around so he can shake Shane’s hand. He says his name softly, it fits together so beautifully. Shane realizes he’s been saying that little figure skater’s name wrong this whole time. Ilya. Ilya. One seamless syllable.

He’s beautiful. 

It’s insane and Shane is no stranger to beautiful people and he’s no stranger to desire, but it’s shocking to him how…it flares up in his throat and consumes him. 

Shane knows desire. He lived with desire in one form or another forever. It made him the best, it sent him into questionable bars in Mexico and West Hollywood and Tampa Bay and he knows what it’s like to lust. He hooked up with a guy last year when he flew to see Rose while she was filming in Italy and it was fine and the guy was hot and he held Shane down and it was good. 

But maybe not good enough if Shane is immediately thinking about Ilya’s name and his hands and the way he’s grinning at Shane like he’s one word away from snapping those white teeth at Shane to see if he would flinch.

This has never happened to him before or maybe it did and Shane didn’t notice when he was repressing himself or he was repressing in front of other people or he was too tired from 82 games and travel and then recovery. 

Maybe Shane missed the opportunity for something like this to swallow him whole and he for sure should miss this because this guy lives on the same road as Shane and Shane has always tried to keep his failed attempts at something contained so they don’t contaminate his whole life, but Ilya is still shaking his hand and he says, “Hello, Shane, it is good to meet my neighbor.”

His accent is faint, but it’s there and he’s got a tattoo of a ribbon winding around his arm and ending tied around his wrist in a bow, full of cyrilic writing and Shane is the one that lets go of his hand first - coming back to his senses. 

“I just wanted to stop by,” Shane says, already backing away. “You know where to find me if you need anything.” He can feel his smile is weird and fake and he watches Ilya’s eyebrows come together in confusion as Shane shuffles backwards up the first step. 

He forces himself not to turn around, not when he hears gentle, lilting Russian and a playful happy yip from the dog. Not when he gets to the top of the stairs. Not at all.

Because Shane had a moment of heat stroke or temporary insanity or something because he was kind of rude and weird and it will be fine because Ilya - the artist - likely won’t live here full time. 

Shane only made an ass out of himself in front of a literal god and that’s fine because Shane is more than his misplaced desire. 

He very carefully does not tell Rose when she calls that night.

Chapter End Notes

Okay so the official book club for this fic will be for the Prologue:
Book with water tank on the cover: Joan Didion - Miami
Book he gets during their scene: Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury (Which did not have a traditional forward when published, but the copy I own has one!) ((Alina is trying to speak to himmmmmmm))

No books this chapter, but books next chapter!

The cookies that Shane picks up are what I would call trash cookies and unfortunately Ilya Rozanov would love them. I have this chocolate chip cookie recipe that has maple syrup in it and I swap out half the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips and then I add in some crushed up wavy potato chips (they have to be the wavy kind) OR if no wavy chips you can use some crunched up hard pretzels. I prefer the chips and then I like to press the top of the unbaked cookie into some baking sugar and when they're fresh out of oven, they get a healthy sprinkle of your favorite finishing salt. They are insane and so over indulgent. The perfect sweet/salty snack. Shane would HATE them. What do you mean there's maple syrup in the cookie and then you put more sugar in them and then you put more sugar on top.

Anyway, I'm headed out of town, so probably a week between chapters, but I'm a lying liar who lies.

You can come talk to me on Tumblr as long as you don't bully me :)))) WolfieMcWolferson

Chapter 3: and I notice you are elegant

Chapter Summary

Shane has two (2) unexpected visitors.

Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Cinderella by Model/Actriz.

I promise, I have most of the next chapter written and it is quite a bit longer. I just am doing set up for where we are and what will happen in this fic.

From here on out, it's all uh, insanity. :) :) :) :)

Shane nearly proposed to Rose Landry. 

It’s something that will live and die between himself and the jewelry store associate that helped him in downtown Vancouver. 

He knew that things were rapidly cooling off between them because of Shane, but the thing was - is - that even when it was bad, even when Shane was crawling the fucking walls to get out of kissing Rose at a houseparty in front of her X Squad cast, he still wanted her around. When it was just the two of them, it was fucking magic. 

Miles had helpfully informed him three months later when she finally agreed to let Rose cover for them to meet up after a game that what Shane was experiencing was something he called queening out. Shane doesn’t really like that term, and really that’s probably why he has so much fucking problems dating, but for two whole days after Rose patted him on the chest at the hotel entrance and told him they’d talk when he got back to Montreal, Shane convinced himself he was going to lose her forever and the only way to keep her was to propose.

He had picked out a ring. It was probably really fucking great for someone to get if being proposed too. Shane still has no real understanding of how much jewelry costs because he’s not bought much of it - his mom prefers practical items like huge leather bags and trench coats and snow tires - but he imagines that if he had bought that ring, eventually some hack journalist that worked for TMZ would have found that store associate and would have printed a quote about how only a man that deep in love would buy a diamond that big. 

Shane had held it in his hand and looked down at the ring and even though it was pretty, he didn’t feel anything. Dread. 

And he had spent years at that point listening to Hayden wax poetic about buying Jackie’s ring even though Shane was there with him and Hayden was far too hungover to really have any show of outward emotions about the ring. But, the point was - Shane felt nothing that could even be twisted around into happiness and he realized that probably meant that proposing to Rose to keep her was probably the wrong thing to do. 

Shane thinks this more than anything else he put himself through while contorting himself and his desires into approved heterosexuality shows just how far Shane is willing to take something to not think about it.

He can twist and grind and force something into a palatable nothing by sheer force of ignorance and he’s good at doing it. 

Which is what he tries very very hard to do with Ilya. His new neighbor. 

It’s just that.

Well.

This is not supposed to be happening.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but not this and Shane is working hard to ignore that spark of something that he absolutely knows, but refuses to name because if he doesn’t name it, it’s not happening. 

He spent all day on the long list of things he’s been putting off to get ready for the summer and it made his leg ache enough that he took one of his muscle relaxers and slept through the night and his first alarm as a result. 

He’s determined to not think about it again today, but also not overdo it, so what he does is make himself a cup of tea and one of those cold porridge bowls that made him go viral on TikTok last year when Montreal was still pushing him out on socials because they were convinced he wouldn’t really retire and he goes to sit in his hammock and make his yearly try with the first book Alina ever gave him.

He’s read it all the way through. Probably more than once, but he somehow never fully grasped it the way Alina wanted him to and so he keeps trying. He always keeps trying. 

And that’s when he is confronted with the knowledge that he absolutely cannot press this down because one single syllable from Ilya when Shane is not expecting it and it feels like someone grabs the base of his spine and yanks. 

“Oh,” Ilya says and Shane’s book goes flying on account of the yanking and he slops some tea onto his chin and his shirt and then kind of goes tumbling out of the hammock in a way that ensures Shane will replay this moment for the rest of his life. 

Miraculously, Shane does some kind of flip because he lands on his ass - which is still great, thank you - and the only real injury is to his dignity. Even his book is dry and his mug is unharmed. 

“Fuck,” Ilya rushes forward, but Shane’s vision is obscured by the dog who is eager to help Shane clean himself of the tea, but also just to check on him based on the way she’s sniffing him. “Anya, sorry,” 

Shane is once again forced to watch Ilya scoop his dog - Anya - up and hold her tightly against his chest. He’s in a tshirt with the arms cut off and now Shane is being treated to an even more muscled tattooed surface of skin. It’s ridiculous. 

“Are you…okay?” Ilya hesitates over the last word and Shane realizes he’s not said a single word. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Shane shakes his head, plucking up his book and also the handle of his mug and Ilya shuffles back so that Shane can stand. Ilya is still close though so Shane reaches out to pet at Anya’s head because he has no idea what to do with his hands and also it seems easier to look at her if he’s petting her and that will save him from having to look at Ilya’s little wrinkle between his eyes that deepens with Shane’s answer. 

“You are…hurt?” Ilya asks.

Shane takes a breath and before saying no, of course I’m not hurt, he sighs. “I think probably just my pride.”

Ilya rewards him with a laugh, throaty and deep. Anya wiggles more violently in response. “Yes, you went ass over tea kettle.”

It makes Shane flush further. “I did, didn’t I?” And then he looks up at Ilya’s face and finds some odd softness there that feels too intimate and makes Shane take a startled step back. 

“We were out for our morning walk,” Ilya says, “I spoiled her on the road and now she always always wants to go on very long walk after breakfast.” His face is doing something serious, but his voice is still so fond. “Anya, be good girl, yes? No licking.” 

Anya leaps down from his arms and does as she’s told. She puts her nose down and immediately starts to make a circle around Ilya’s feet. 

“The trees are very thick here,” Ilya gestures to the mouth of the trail between his cottage and Ilya’s. It is an immediate bend. If you do not know that Shane’s cottage is here, you would be startled by it - one turn and then open space. “I think maybe I am not as good with distance? I thought we were not close enough to be here yet. I did not mean to -” and then he does a little flipping motion with his hand.

“Alina was free to wander,” Shane says. “I told my -” He’s stumbling over the explanation because Ilya is…staring at him. Intense and wild and Shane feels ass over tea kettle. “You are free to use the property however you want. The trails, the plant life, the lake. I um…I live here full time, but I'm quiet and -”

Ilya reaches over and touches Shane’s hand. A brush. Nothing more than that. “Anya and I,” Ilya says, “we have not had quiet in a couple of years, we would maybe like some quiet.”

Shane has no idea how to interpret that because his brain has stopped processing anything beyond the burning on his hand. 

How did he not notice Ilya’s eyes how did he not notice the scar on his eyebrow how did he not notice the peek of a tattoo on his neck. 

He’s wanting on him to speak. 

“Well, we have plenty of that,” Shane says. 

We have plenty of that?

Shane will have to run away and change his identity if he cannot even converse with his neighbor. 

He decides to put both his hands to use before he does something ridiculous so he shuffles the mug over to one hand and the movement draws Ilya’s gaze. “You are reading -”

“Alina,” Shane cuts him off because this is truly his first interaction on earth and he has never spoken to a single person in his life. “Alina gave it to me, I have uh -”

“No no,” Ilya shakes his head and Shane tries very hard to be fine about the way his bangs kind of sway. “I think it is great. Bell hooks. It is the classic, right? For good reason.”

Artists. “Yes, uh.” Shane is completely out of his element. “I have to be honest, I am not very good at um -” he kind of shakes the book. 

“I am not very good at it either,” Ilya says and Shane thinks he’s definitely lying for Shane’s benefit. He winks. Ilya winks. It makes him feel so wobbly. Like the first time he got back on skates after his injury. 

“I have to make some more tea,” Shane says, “if you wanted to -” he gestures back to his cottage, but Ilya’s gaze is now locked on the patch of chamomile that Anya is sniffing and something inside of him has gone startlingly still. 

There’s a long moment where it appears that Ilya is completely unreachable before he makes a kind of clicking noise with his tongue and Anya immediately bounds for him. “I am sorry, Shane, but I think today I will take Anya home, yes? Some other time.”

It’s far too similar to the way Shane retreated - quick and almost stumbling over himself. He starts to speak calmly to Anya in another language. But, the difference is that when Ilya and Anya get to the treeline, Ilya turns back to wave at Shane - none of the warmth has bled back into his eyes, but he waves anyway. 

Shane tries to work it out the whole time he is making himself another cup of tea. That far off look that Ilya had on his face. 

He never can.

Shane opens his back door the next morning, tea in hand and finds the basket he took to Ilya’s on his table. There’s a bottle of probable vodka in it and a beat up yellow book resting against it. 

Shane picks it up, depositing his tea carefully next to the basket and opens it up to the page where a card is peeking out of the spine. 

It’s a carefully written phone number in scratchy penmanship and the words Ilya Rozanov - dinner at my cottage tomorrow night? Text me.

The word cottage is underlined.

Shane is…unsure about everything. He’s not great at reading people normally, but there’s something here. 

It feels a bit like the night he met Rose. Even though he ran away and then Ilya kind of fled too - something about him feels good. Shane tries to imagine what Rose would say. She would tell him to go. She would take his phone and text him herself.

Shane leaves the book and the vodka and the tea and goes back inside for his phone. 

What time is dinner? He texts.

And then adds And what can I bring?

The response is immediate. Nothing. See you at 7, Shane.

Shane shocked, but happy. In a way that he doesn’t yet understand.

Chapter End Notes

I have an outline, but I'm going to be honest with you, I've already deviated.

The other night I was messaging Sol absolutely batshit things about what suffering I can give them and she saved you all from this taking a hard pivot lol I feel better now and no longer have plans to get Shane Hollander shot. Everyone say "thank you sol" in the comments. I'm American. I can still get a gun.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe is officially up on my Tumblr @wolfiemcwolferson and you're only allowed to come get it if you are nice

Chapter two book club:
Shane is reading Bell Hooks - All About Love when Ilya wanders up on him - it is theeeeee love book to me. Real and true.
The book that Ilya leaves Shane is a book of translated poetry: Cat Town - Sakutaro Hagiwara, Translated by Hiroaki Sato. I first read Sakutaro on Tumblr of all places when reading about banned literature. Every time I read translated work I become irate that I only speak one language and then I try and am immediately bad at a language and am full of shame and loathing so deep that I quit. Anyway, reading translated Sakutaro Hagiwara was the first time I wished I could brave Japanese.

Chapter 4: and I notice you are gentle

Chapter Summary

Dinner at Ilya's

Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Cinderella by Model/Actriz

Hello hello, Sorry to leave you guys hanging for a little bit, but here's this chapter.

Anyway, if you're here from any sort of social media, wow thank you, welcome. I only use Tumblr, but I have seen some Instagram reels with recs for my long Ilya centric fic and I hope if you found me from there, you stick around for my other works.

I gave this whole chapter truly like...one pass.

Shane does not tell Rose about dinner which means he can’t FaceTime her and ask her what to wear, so he settles for that ridiculous shirt she bought him and a good pair of shorts - not one of the horrible pair that he resolves to throw away. 

He thinks he looks…nice. Hot, probably. The shirt has the best kind of tag (nonexistent) and the sleeves stayed rolled up (even though the material is so soft) and the shorts hug his thighs and maybe Ilya is in a committed relationship or is vaguely into men in the way that sometimes happens where flirting is fine, but anything more is not. 

He risks it. If it’s nothing more than a nice outfit and some dinner and maybe a vague friendship that will be enough. 

He drives even though he could walk because it looks like rain a little bit and Shane won’t risk slipping. His knee and ankle feel stable, but he’s learned to not push it too hard. Driving means he convinces himself to stand at his front door until exactly 6:57 because he doesn’t want to be early but anything more than 5 minutes late is probably too late. 

He’s got one bottle of wine he will not drink and a six pack of his favorite organic ginger ale and he does not let himself spiral about not bringing the hockey book he pulled out of his office that was about soviet era hockey because it felt…like too much. If Ilya doesn’t know who he is, he feels like hockey might be a topic he doesn’t know how to navigate yet, so he leaves it on the entry way table to be re-evaluated after he understands what this is meant to be. 

He can figure that out and then think about the book. 

There’s no time for him to spiral about it because Ilya is waiting on his front porch when Shane starts in on the stairs down the hill, but Ilya makes a kind of clicking noise and says, “I heard your car. Come and park down here. Those terrify me.” He points aggressively towards the empty parking space under the tree and at the stairs. 

Ilya is right. The stairs are not great. They needed replacing two years ago and that has only doubled at this point, so Shane waves at him and turns. He’s better at not pushing. He’s better at following the limits he’s set for himself. 

Ilya is still on the porch, but this time he’s leaning against the post closest to the driveway and it’s ridiculous how beautiful he is. 

He’s got on jeans with holes in the knees, but they look real. Kind of like the jeans his dad wears every year when he gets the garage unpacked from the winter. Worn through and broken down by one body until they have creases and worn patches and places that only one person could make. The tank top is obscene and Shane wonders briefly if Ilya wore it because he knows what his shoulders look like and he’s trying to…show off. It’s why Shane wore these shorts. And this shirt. He knows he looks good and maybe…

“Hi,” Ilya’s face is scrunched up by the force of his smile and then he tries very hard to sound displeased. “I told you not to bring anything.”

Shane does his best to shrug with the bottle of wine in the crook of his arm and the ginger ale in the other hand. He wants to say I am used to having to bring my own drinks because he did because it was easier than asking everyone for ginger ale during the season and because Yuna would have some sort of cardiac event if she found out Shane was showing up at people’s houses without wine.

He’s saved from that because Ilya steps off the porch and onto one of the little rock steps and reaches for the ginger ale and Shane lets him take it. Ilya holds it up in front of his face. “Is this your favorite?”

Shane blinks and manages to choke out a little “yes,” and Ilya nods at him, still smiling, still looking at him soft and kind. 

“I locked Anya in the bathroom,” Ilya says, turning around and waving at Shane to follow up. “Harris -” and then he pauses as he yanks the door open, “his family alllll have dogs -” he’s smiling so widely and not explaining who Harris is at all. “He told me maybe because she is not so used to meeting just one new person at a time in her own space, we can try this. I put her in the bathroom and let her smell that someone is here and then she will be calmer and not jump all over you.”

It’s strange. Shane normally would mind. He’s not big on dog hair or being licked because dog’s mouths are surely full of disgusting things he really doesn’t want to think about, but there’s something endearing about Anya and her owner. Shane maybe would not be thinking that way if he had a truly satisfying sexual experience with someone else in the last six months, but he hasn’t, so he doesn't mind Ilya’s hyperactive dog. 

Thinking about Anya saves him from looking at the house too closely until Ilya is setting the ginger ale down inside the fridge and saying, “I will get her, hold on.”

And then Shane is standing in the open kitchen/dining room/living room area and staring at the empty walls. 

He assumed it would be covered in artwork, but Ilya did just really move in and maybe he has some storage unit somewhere he’s waiting on things from, but then Shane has to stop thinking about it because Anya comes scrambling around the corner, but does stop abruptly right at the edge of the kitchen and sits down and waits. 

“Good girl, Anya,” Ilya says, looming over her - his legs on either side of her body, petting at her head, his hair hanging down in his face. “Okay, this is the solution, yes?” Ilya tilts his face up at Shane and is still smiling. “I did not want to make the house hot with the oven, so I made cold dinner, I hope that is okay?”

Shane kind of shrugs one shoulder again because he feels on the backfoot again and disarmed by Ilya’s beauty and he just doesn’t know. 

Ilya doesn’t seem to mind because he scoops Anya up and walks her towards Shane and says, “I also have emergency pasta if you do not want salad.”

Shane doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he reaches up and pets at Anya’s head, looking at the little bow clipped to her fur over her ear. That makes his stomach flip over. It’s so silly and sweet and it must mean she trusts Ilya a great deal to let him do that and leave it there. “Salad is perfect,” he says, his voice a little tight. 

Ilya makes a kind of huffing noise and Shane glances up at him to try and work out what it means, and freezes. Ilya is looking at him in a way that Shane cannot misinterpret. It feels like he can’t breathe. It suddenly feels like he can’t breathe and he doesn’t know what to do because they’ve really exchanged so few words, but Shane feels it all over - the pull. It’s insane and crazy and Shane doesn’t know what to do with this feeling because he’s never been the one to tip something over into something else. 

But, that’s crazy because Shane doesn’t know this man at all. Not really. 

He watches Ilya’s tongue dart out and swipe across his lower lip. Shane stares at it wondering what it would be like to taste it. 

And then Ilya leans back and takes a shuddering breath - like he’s decided that no, he can’t do this either. “I have a question,” Ilya says, his voice bright still. 

Shane nods, tries to work out words that make sense, but all he’s really thinking about is Ilya’s shoulder and the bow on Anya’s fur and the salad that Ilya made them apparently. 

Ilya starts to walk backwards and only stops to let Anya down at the edge of the hallway. “What is this little room?” He pats on the door that’s behind him and Shane kind of laughs, but mostly it sounds strangled. 

He’s never actually been in that room, but Ilya is opening the door - the one that opens up into the hallway, not into the room because every inch of space was precious. 

It’s smaller than Shane even realized - not really big enough for the two of them, but he follows Ilya right inside and stands across from him with his thumbs tucked into his pockets. “Alina -” he tries not to wince. “She had the room built for her writing desk.” He gestures towards the back wall. “When she needed to edit, she said she couldn’t be anywhere else but a very small space, so she had a desk there and would shut the door.”

Ilya is nodding. “The photo online made it seem larger. I do not know what I will do with it.”

It solidifies for Shane that Ilya did not see this place before buying it and that worries him for a moment because it’s a different life out here and Shane wants him to like it, which is kind of insane. He can admit to himself. 

He’s pulled away from that thought by Ilya reaching out and taking hold of Shane’s shoulders and holding him out all the way. Shane’s back is against the wall and Ilya’s back is against the wall. It’s that small. Ilya is smiling at him and it does something unbelievably lovely to his face. “I could store…I do not know. I could build a shelf and store something.”

Shane wrinkles his nose up. There’s a little storage shed and a basement on the property already. “You could build an Anya room.” Which is silly, but Ilya’s touch is kind of scrambling his brain. “A bed and you could put a half door in and this could be the place you use to introduce her to new people? And her own space for her toys?”

Ilya releases him just to clap his hands and he looks so childlike with delight. “Yes, Shane, this is an excellent idea! She will love it and I will love to have a place for all her squeaky toys.”

Shane knows his eyes are all squinted up, but Ilya really is…something. He’s -

“Okay, but this is not a room for me,” Ilya laughs and reaches again for Shane, but this time grips his bicep and leads him out. “I do not maybe like very small spaces. I had a bad experience in a coffin for a show and now I am kind of -” and then he shivers in an exaggerated way. 

He must be one of those performance artists. 

Rose made him watch a documentary about a female performance artist once. It was kind of lost on Shane like, the whole meaning of it, but he did get a little emotional about the part where she was sitting at a table and her ex came to sit down with her. It felt like…a little bit like what it was like to sit with Rose sometimes. 

A romantic connection doomed to fail, but still full of immense love and respect and support. Shane knows it’s different, but it’s really the closest thing he could pull from and it had meant something to him. 

Ilya must do that stuff. Coffins and running through little rooms that have no end because they’re spinning constantly and painting things with an audience. He certainly is beautiful enough. People would pay to watch him do literally anything. 

“We should eat,” Ilya says, releasing Shane so he can pull the fridge open. “I made everything kind of separate so we can assemble what we like best.” And then he’s pulling lots and lots of covered bowls from his fridge and placing them on the counter. “Can you grab the wide bowls?” He nods towards the cabinet and Shane goes. 

There are only two deep shallow bowls, but they look handmade. They’re kind of wonky and a blue green color that maybe look like Ilya’s eyes.

“Sveta is trying her hand at new hobbies in retirement,” Ilya laughs. “I will buy better ones when I figure out -” he waves a hand around the mostly empty space. “I am trying to figure out what I even like anymore.”

It’s said a little more raw. Like maybe he didn’t mean to say it. It’s also deeply relatable. Shane didn’t know either when he finished with hockey. 

“Retirement does that to you,” Shane smiles with his lips pressed together and Ilya hums but doesn’t push and that more than anything else that’s happened tonight makes Shane wonder what the inside of Ilya’s mouth might taste like. 

He sets the wobbly bowls down next to Ilya and watches Ilya start to pry the tops off things. Little uniformly cut peppers and onions and chickpeas that look to be marinated in something and a bowl of dressing that Ilya must have made and Shane blinks at the food, the bowls, and then Ilya in that order. 

Obviously Shane’s diet has changed since retirement. He eats gluten pasta and real cheese and red meat when he goes to BBQ’s with people because there’s no reason not to do those things, but this is comfort to him. This meal and he never said anything and it feels weird and something Rose would call serendipitous and Shane is always always having to wade through his emotions after going home and figure out how he really feels about something because of delayed processing, but that strange tingle underneath his skin that he gets when he’s overwhelmed and needing a moment to process isn’t there at all. 

This feels like he is existing in a moment - something that doesn’t really happen to him, but it’s -

“Here,” Ilya says, placing a ginger ale down in front of Shane. “I will maybe have one glass of wine, if you want?”

Shane considers it for a moment, but then shakes his head. “No, this is good. Thank you.”

Ilya stares at the wine glass and then says, “You know what -” but it’s mostly to himself because he turns back towards the fridge and pulls it open and then pulls a ginger ale for himself out and cracks the top immediately. The fridge is still open - the light falling over his shoulder in a deeply concerning way and Shane is forced to watch Ilya’s throat work as he takes a long drink before he promptly chokes. 

Shane starts to laugh as ginger ale dribbles down Ilya’s chin. 

“This is not soda,” Ilya insists. “This is carbonated ginger.”

Shane likes all ginger ale, but this brand really is mostly carbonated ginger. It’s barely sweet and too strong, but it’s good and overpowering and grounding. He cracks the top of his can open and takes a slurping sip. It’s kind of gross, but Ilya laughs and sighs, taking another sip. “I should have warned you,” Shane concedes, but Ilya waves at him as he sets the can down and starts to dig in a cutlery drawer that seems to just be…loose silverware and a few serving spoons and Shane cannot help the shocked noise that falls from his throat. 

Ilya whips around to look at him wide eyed and that’s when Shane realizes he sounded wounded and maybe he is a little bit. “Ilya,” he says, his voice grave. “You do not own a silverware divider?”

Ilya’s laughter is the kind of noise that could power whole cities. “Fuck, Shane. I thought you were dying or something.” He’s clutching at his own chest as Shane kind of shoves him out of the way to inspect the drawer. It’s really an overfamiliar gesture, but Ilya is laughing and trying to jostle him back. 

“I just told you I am starting over, do not judge me.”

Shane allows himself to be crowded back towards the food, but only because Ilya is looking at him with joy on his face and also like he wants to eat him whole and Shane finds it hard to breathe with one of Ilya’s hands on his hip. 

“I have a whole list of things to buy,” he says. “You can actually help and tell me where I can buy things?” He lets go of Shane and moves towards the bowls, unstacking them and starting to load the bottom of both with lettuce that he’s obviously cut up into little slivers and then holding up each individual bowl of ingredients to ask if Shane would like some as he builds their dinner bowls and Shane recounts all the places in a 40 mile radius that have anything. Groceries and bakeries and the farmer’s market and the little hardware store that has catalogues of things that you can order from like the 90’s. 

The long answer, of course, is that Ilya might be better off shopping online because Amazon does deliver out here even if it is definitely not two day shipping, or driving into Ottawa and doing a big bulk buy. 

Shane admits he does that once a month. He goes in and buys things he can’t get out here at the local store. He’s telling Ilya about the little fish market that is probably not legal, but beloved in the next town over as follows Ilya to the couch and curls up and takes his bowl of dinner from him, insisting that Ilya will come over and have some of the flaky white fish that Shane always keeps in his freezer because it’s really his favorite and then Ilya will trust him and then he stops himself. 

“I don’t mean -” he shakes his head and pushes a slice of onion around with the tines of his fork. “I don’t want to interrupt your art time, I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask about that, I’m not being rude on purpose, it’s just…”

He has no idea how to talk about this or why he’s even talking about it because they’re having a lovely time and -

Ilya’s bowl makes a clanking sound against the wooden stool he’s using as a coffee table and Shane looks at him to find him looking at Shane openly - non-judgementally. “We can talk about anything else,” Ilya says, and probably he knows, but he is giving Shane an out and so Shane nods and Ilya slides closer to him on the couch and pulls his phone out of a pocket unlocks it with a long password, immediately opening his texting app and a thread with someone called “Baby Tramp” with the profile picture of Sidney Crosby which solidifies for Shane that Ilya knows who he is and is letting it go and then Shane is looking at photos of a little baby smushed between two men. 

“This is my goddaughter,” Ilya says. He’s letting them talk about anything else. Shane watches as Ilya starts swiping through photos and videos of a tiny little baby in outfits that seem to oscillate between frilly and goth like? Shane has many questions. “Her name is Willa.” And then there is one of her and Ilya. Ilya is beaming at the camera, tears running down his face as Willa is apparently screaming in displeasure based on how red she is and her open mouth. “She does not know it yet, but I will be her favorite uncle. I will take her to alllll places and spoil her rotten. Do you like kids?”

Shane doesn’t really know how to answer that.

He does like babies. He thinks when they’re small and squishy, they’re wonderful. He really loved holding Hayden and Jackie’s kids when they were tiny and small and precious. 

And then he lost them when they started walking. He always talked to them wrong or said the wrong thing or didn’t play right which was ridiculous because there is a right way to play, but he apparently doesn’t understand.

When they got to be about eight, he got them back. He felt like he could talk to them in a real way. He felt like he could talk to them as himself and they understood him. 

“I do,” he says because that’s easiest. “My best friend has four and I’m their -”

“Four?” Ilya huffs and laughs. “That is many children.”

Shane nods because it is a lot and he feels like maybe it’s too many children sometimes, but he also was kind of lonely growing up sometimes and he says so and then Ilya talks about how he wishes he had two brothers instead of just the one because maybe one would have been decent and Shane doesn’t want to press on that because Ilya gets tense and quiet so Shane says that people can’t just have three kids because then one is always left out and somehow he starts to argue passionately for four children.

At some point, Ilya plops his bowl back into his lap and argues back between mouthfuls of salad about three being the perfect number of children and Shane is laughing too hard for whatever this is and Shane realizes that this is flirting. A weird form of it sure, but Shane points his fork threateningly at Ilya and Ilya gnashes his teeth like a dog might and Shane feels faint with it - the knowledge that this is easy and flirty and if he wanted to he could probably slide into Ilya’s lap and kiss him and Ilya would let him.

And something must be too visible on his face because Ilya goes quiet, but not in that scary uncomfortable way where someone is waiting for Shane to figure out what is happening without using words. Ilya goes quiet because he’s watching Shane carefully, like he’s waiting for Shane to work out exactly what he’s thinking for himself. 

It feels good and weird and Shane is thinking about asking Ilya if he wants to kiss him, but he’s not quite bold enough so when he decides that he definitely wants Ilya to kiss him, he resolves to ask him at the end of the night and in the meantime he can - 

“I read a little bit about the poet.”

Ilya brightens. “Yes, I hm, I read a lot of poetry. All styles. I do not know if you have any interest, but if you do, I could find something you like.”

Shane shrugs one shoulder. He’s not disinterested in poetry, it just sometimes seems…it’s not straightforward ever and it makes him feel dumb. He thinks maybe if he said that, Ilya wouldn’t laugh at him the way that sometimes Rose’s Hollywood friends would when Shane admits to not understanding something arty and full of symbolism. 

Ilya knocks their knees together, one eyebrow raised. 

“Hockey players are not known for their appreciation of poetry,” Shane admits because he thinks probably Ilya already knows and also because it will help Shane feel less…pressure to respond in some thoughtful way. 

Ilya humphs and then sets his bowl back on the little stool and stands up, waving at Anya so she won’t follow him and disappears down the hall. 

There’s a library down the hall. In the original plans it was two bedrooms with a bathroom in the middle, but Alina had them open the space and build shelves all around the walls from floor to ceiling. It still wasn’t enough bookcases for her. She had books stacked in little piles in every corner of the house and famously inside the island in the kitchen. 

Shane is suddenly not really interested in the dredges of lettuce so he places his own bowl neatly next to Ilya’s on the stool and tries to keep himself from sitting on his hands because Ilya comes right back with a little book in his hand, laying it on the counter as he passes. “You can take that one.”

He throws himself back onto the couch with a little more space between them so he can pull one leg up and mostly face Shane. 

“You might like that one,” he nods. “Also, I think hockey players can enjoy anything.”

It hurts to breathe but not because the reminder of not being a hockey player aches. It’s like…Ilya saying that so casually - like the thing Shane used to say to himself when his anxiety was at its highest - when he was tearing himself to pieces to try and fit into boxes he could never cram himself in. 

He said it enough, but he thinks he’s just now believing it. 

Ilya’s mouth twists around like he’s tasting something in his mouth and his brows come together and he looks serious for a moment before he says, “I hope I did not make it…” he waves a hand. “I did not know it was you next door when I bought this.” He waves the same hand, but wider. 

“You do know who I am then.” Shane tries to keep his face neutral, but his voice kind of cracks. 

Ilya nods his head just a bit, but then he stops and he shakes his head instead. “I know Shane Hollander. Calvin Klein ads and GQ covers. But, no. Not that you are even prettier in person -”

Shane feels lightheaded.

“And that you are a tiny bit awkward,” Ilya winks and Shane feels squirmy inside his skin because he can’t really make that out. What Ilya means, but he doesn’t have to because Ilya drops his knee and hauls himself across the couch cushion until he’s pressed his chest into Shane’s shoulder. 

His eyes are tracking all over Shane’s face, one hand comes up to cup the back of Shane’s neck. 

Yes, he does want to kiss Shane. 

“Even prettier than the GQ cover,” Ilya says and then he does kiss Shane and Shane is immediately sinking into it like no first kiss has ever allowed. 

He doesn’t have to think or question, Ilya cups his neck and his face and he leads him where he wants him and sets a slow, beautiful pace and Shane is only present inside this kiss, inside the press of Ilya’s tongue on his mouth. 

It’s maybe the best kiss of Shane’s life and that is probably embarrassing and not something to admit to someone who kisses like this, but -

“Shane,” Ilya is beaming at him, stroking one thumb across Shane’s cheekbone. 

Shane doesn’t really trust his words right now, so he hums and blinks and nods all at the same time. A very normal, human gesture. Completely natural. 

Ilya’s eye crinkles deepen. “Do you want to help me put away dinner and then maybe I could kiss you some more and if you don’t have objections about sex on the first date, I could suck you off?”

Shane finds himself blinking and humming and nodding again because words are suddenly beyond him completely. Because all of that is insane. Ilya wants to - 

“Alright,” Ilya kind of…giggles. Which is ridiculous from someone that looks like that, but Shane finds himself making the same noise which is even crazier. 

“Only if,” Shane finds his voice, but it sounds weak so he tries again. “Only if I’m not taking too much of your time?”

Ilya looks at him so fondly it makes Shane want to dissolve into particles so small they can be carried away by the wind. “I think I’ll find the time for you.”

Shane is saved from having to come up with some kind of reasonable reaction to that because Ilya pats his thigh and then gathers their bowls and heads for the sink with them. 

Fuck him, he should not have an ass that good when he has everything else. 

Of course, he’s not thinking that at all when Ilya is sprawled on top of him on the couch 20 minutes later, Shane’s hands gripping his ass as Ilya ruts against him like a fucking teenage boy, lips attached to the hinge of Shane’s jaw while Shane makes tiny blissed out horribly embarrassing noises of pleasure and feeling like his body has ceased to exist outside of this tiny press of time.

He’s not really thinking about anything at all. Not then and not when Ilya helps him clean up in the tiny bathroom in the hall and not when Ilya insists that Shane wear some of his sweatpants and leave his clothes here for Ilya to wash. He’s not really thinking about anything at all until Ilya is kissing him on the mouth firmly and tucking the book he picked for him into Shane's hands and telling him that he’ll see him soon. 

And even then he’s only thinking about all the times he was told the same thing by a guy only to never see them again. He knows somehow that it’s different with Ilya. And not just because they’re neighbors. 

It’s the way Ilya’s eyes track over Shane’s face, the way his hands linger, the way he presses one last kiss not to Shane’s lips, but to the tip of his nose. 

Shane doesn’t really understand it, but he knows that his life has shifted. Tonight. The whole thing shifted a little to the left and maybe for the first time ever, he welcomes the shift.

Chapter End Notes

Book club time!

Ilya gives Shane A Further Range by Robert Frost. This is a little selfish of me because Robert Frost was my grandfather's favorite poet and was maybe the first bit of poetry I ever read. Ilya is thinking about the themes of nature will appeal to Shane and that it's not love based because he's (obviously) immediately tracked that Shane is gay and a little bit uncomfortable existing in the world already and making him think about romance is not the way to his heart.