Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Jackie Pike

Additional Tags:

Mystery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Threats, Coming Out, Stalking, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Bribery, Penetrative Sex, Anxious Shane Hollander, Porn With Plot, Angst and Feels, Shane Hollander is a Mess, Intense, Fear of Death, Obsession, Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts, Yearning, Long-Distance Relationship, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Secret Relationship, Family Drama, Complete

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-28 Completed: 2026-03-24 Words: 40,330 Chapters: 19/19

The Call of the Loon

Summary

The Montreal vs. Boston rivalry is a thing of legend.

Only Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov know what lives underneath it.

When someone calling themselves The Loon begins leaving cryptic and threatening messages, Shane and Ilya understand two things:

Someone knows.

And they cannot ask for help without explaining why.

The Loon believes something sacred has been corrupted.

They intend to correct it.

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

Quick note before you jump in.

This is a thriller of sorts. It’s heavier than canon — I think you can tell that from the tags and description.

But it’s also romance. It’s tender and yearning and explicit.

I know why we all landed here in this fandom. And while some folks might also read thrillers, that’s not a given.

The heart of this universe has always been Ilya and Shane — together.

That hasn’t changed.

Also, because it feels like a thing I have to say: I know some readers prefer a guaranteed happy ending. Writing a thriller makes that tricky to promise outright — but I can say this with certainty: no one dies in this one. The rest, you’ll have to trust me with.

November 2016 - Boston

“That is a five-minute major, Hollander.”

“Like hell it is.”

“On your knees.” Ilya’s fingers curl against the back of Shane’s neck, drawing him closer before pushing him back. “Do not make me upgrade this to a game misconduct.”

He doesn’t drop immediately — Shane has never been good at surrendering without a fight.

He laughs first — low and disbelieving — like this is still a joke, like Ilya hasn’t just shifted the air in the room. His hands come up to brace on Ilya’s hips, thumbs hooking under the hem of his shirt instead of obeying.

“Game misconduct?” Shane murmurs, stepping in instead of down. “You’d have to catch me first.”

He pushes forward, crowding Ilya back a half step, testing. Always testing.

But Ilya doesn’t move far. Doesn’t break eye contact. Instead, his grip tightens at the back of Shane’s neck, his thumb firm at the hinge of his jaw — just holding him there, contained.

That’s when Shane feels it.

The weight of it.

Not the command. The certainty behind it.

The way Ilya isn’t smirking, isn’t playing.

Shane’s pulse kicks. 

Game on.

He swallows, eyes flicking once to Ilya’s mouth, then back up. The space between them is almost nothing now — breath mingling, heat building.

“I will not tell you again,” Ilya says quietly.

And that’s what undoes him.

Shane exhales, slow and controlled, like he’s about to take a faceoff.

Then he steps back. Deliberate. Never breaking eye contact as he lowers himself — not rushed, not flustered, but choosing it. Choosing him.

His hands slide up Ilya’s thighs as he settles, fingers gripping fabric, jaw set in stubborn defiance even as he tilts his head up.

“Five minutes,” Shane says evenly, the drag of Iyla’s zipper punctuating his words. “Don’t waste them.”

Still competitive.

Still Hollander.

But kneeling. 

Mouth wet, ready. Eyes wide. 

Ilya’s breath stutters — just once — and that tiny fracture feels like a victory.

Shane sees it. Files it away.

His hands tighten around Ilya’s thighs, dragging him closer without looking down, refusing still to look away. He wants Ilya to feel it — the surrender that isn’t really surrender at all.

Ilya’s hands fist into Shane’s hair, breath breaking rough and uneven. Anticipation coils tight in the space between them, heavy and electric. Shane takes his time — deliberate, unhurried — like he’s studying tape. 

One soft trail of Shane’s tongue from root to tip and a low, strained blyat’ slips from Ilya’s mouth, sharp and unguarded.

Shane smirks before closing his mouth around the head of Ilya’s leaking cock, his tongue working steady and relentless, drawing another fractured sound from Ilya’s throat.

The power play begins. 

Advantage: Hollander. 

After, Shane lies on his back staring at the ceiling, heart finally slowing, body loose in that rare, unguarded way he never lets himself feel for long. The sheets are twisted low around his waist. The window is cracked just enough to let the cold kiss the heat from his skin.

Ilya is beside him, close but not touching yet.

They are both very good at not reaching first.

It has always been this way — sharp, quick, efficient. They collide, they burn it out, they separate. The rivalry remains intact because nothing lingers long enough to take root.

But tonight did not feel sharp.

It felt slow.

Measured.

Three periods and overtime, not one inch of their bodies untouched, unsated. 

Shane turns his head.

Ilya is looking at him.

Not smirking. Not smoldering.

Just looking.

“Stop,” Shane mutters, though there’s no heat in it.

Ilya’s mouth curves faintly. “Stop what?”

“Whatever that is.”

“You are very dramatic after,” Ilya says.

Shane huffs a laugh and sits up, running a hand through his hair. 

He hates how domestic this feels. How easy it would be to stay. How natural it seems to simply roll into sleep beside him.

He should leave soon. He never stays long. It’s cleaner that way.

Downstairs, Ilya insists on feeding him. A tuna melt with some chirp about Shane’s diet. Butter in the pan. Bread pressed down with the flat of a knife. The smell of it rich and grounding.

Shane stands at the counter, forearms braced against cool marble, watching Ilya move.

He knows this body in fragments — in flashes under arena lights, in the violent grace of a breakaway, in the tension of a post-whistle scrum. He should not know how that same body looks soft in kitchen light.

“How long are you staying?” Ilya asks casually over his shoulder.

“Until I finish eating.”

“That is not what I meant.”

Shane doesn’t answer. Because the real answer would be some combination of I don’t know how to leave anymore and tell me to stay, and there’s no world where that works.

The sandwich is cut diagonally. Ilya pretends it’s nothing. Shane pretends not to care.

They migrate to the couch with plates balanced on their knees. Game tape plays muted on the television — Boston’s power play, Montreal’s penalty kill. Familiar patterns. Structured opposition. A taste of what tomorrow holds for them.

Ilya’s thigh presses against Shane’s.

It’s not accidental.

Shane doesn’t move away.

The house is warm. The snow outside dulls the world into silence. The television flickers blue light across their skin.

Ilya drapes an arm along the back of the couch. His fingers brush the nape of Shane’s neck once, twice. Not demanding. Not possessive. Just there.

Shane exhales slowly, folding against his side. 

This is the dangerous part.

Not the sex. Not the rivalry. Not even the risk.

This.

A possibility.

A glimmer. 

The way Ilya’s thumb starts tracing absent shapes against his collarbone. The way their breathing syncs without effort. The way it feels less like something stolen and more like something kept.

Shane tilts his head back against the couch, and he can feel it happening — the shift.

This wasn’t a pressure valve tonight. If he’s clear-eyed and honest with himself, it hasn’t been for a while. And that terrifies him.

Tomorrow they will hit each other. Tomorrow they will snarl in front of cameras. Tomorrow this will need to look like animosity.

But right now, Ilya’s hand finds his hip like it belongs there. Their eyes meet, soft at the edges, and Ilya leans down to brush a kiss against the corner of Shane’s mouth — and something in Shane’s chest just cracks in half.

Shane moves before he can think about it.

He shifts, climbing over Ilya, thighs bracketing him against the couch. He takes his mouth harder this time, greedy, like he’s trying to swallow him whole.

Hands slip beneath fabric. Skin finds skin, the friction immediate and desperate. Shane’s hand isn’t quite large enough to stroke them both the way he wants, but he tries anyway — hungry for a challenge even now — grinding down against Ilya’s lap.

Ilya’s fingers dig into his hips. A broken breath ghosts across Shane’s mouth.

He doesn’t know where to look — at the crush of their cocks between them or at the unflinching hazel eyes staring up at him.

“Oh, fuck, Shane—”

Not Hollander.

Shane.

And all he can do is pant, “Ilya,” into his mouth as they both come between his fingers.

They come down slowly, still tangled together, breathless. Shane’s hand is trapped between them, sticky and useless, his forehead falling to Ilya’s shoulder as his pulse thrums in his ears.

For a moment, neither of them moves.

Then Ilya’s grip on his hips loosens. One hand slides up Shane’s back, the other follows. Soft, slow. Tender.

He exhales against Shane’s temple.

“Stay.”

It’s everything he wants and nothing he can have.

“Don’t,” Shane says quietly, eyes cast downward.

Ilya stills. “Don’t what?”

“Make it feel like this.”

“Like what?”

Shane swallows, presses his eyes closed until he sees stars.

“Like it’s more.”

The silence that follows isn’t sharp. It’s thick.

Ilya pulls him closer still, his hands flat against Shane’s spine.

The room feels too small, too warm. His chest heaves in a way that has nothing to do with exertion. Shane stands abruptly, the loss of contact carving a hollow beneath his ribs.

“I should go.”

It’s automatic. Muscle memory. Like Herbies at the end of practice — crushing, but necessary.

He pushes through the pain.

That’s what he’s conditioned to do.

“Hollander,” Ilya says thickly. 

He doesn’t trust himself to stay. Because staying would mean acknowledging the want. The need. The fact that Shane was absolutely weak for him now. 

He pulls on his sweater. Finds his wallet, phone, hotel key. Avoids looking at the couch where Ilya still sits, watching him with that unguarded expression.

The hallway light is dim. The house hums quietly around them. In quiet like that, it’s impossible to miss the absence of Ilya’s footsteps, the silence of his unmoving frame as he watches Shane go. 

Shane reaches for the door. Cold air pushes in as it opens. And that’s when he sees it.

An envelope on the hardwood floor, just inside the threshold. 

Not slid under the door. Not tossed carelessly.

Placed.

Centered.

Cream paper, thick and deliberate.

A red wax seal of a loon pressed into the flap. 

Shane’s pulse stutters.

He knows, with sudden clarity, that it wasn’t there when he arrived. That everything from the color to the placement of it is impossibly wrong.

“Ilya,” he says, voice low.

Footsteps behind him. Finally, but not how he wanted them, and Ilya is there, close enough that Shane can feel the heat of him at his back.

“What is it?”

Shane crouches slowly, the cold air biting at his ankles. He picks up the envelope. 

Unaddressed. No stamp.

He breaks the seal.

The paper inside is smooth. Heavy. Unlined. 

You two should be more careful.

The world narrows.

Ilya takes the page from his hand. Reads it once. Then again. His jaw tightening. 

“How?” Ilya asks quietly.

The door had been locked. The alarm set.

Shane steps back inside. Shuts the door carefully, as if the night itself might be listening.

“Was anyone here today?” Shane asks. 

“No.”

“Does anyone have a key?”

“No.”

The silence between them changes. Earlier it had been intimate. Now it’s charged.

Someone knows. Or thinks they know. Someone came close enough to leave this. Close enough to imagine what happens inside. Close enough to have seen it. 

Shane’s gaze drifts to the living room. The windows. The couch. The plates. The hall leading to Ilya’s bedroom. The life they had just been inhabiting. It suddenly feels exposed.

Ilya’s hand finds his wrist. Grounding.

“We are careful,” Ilya says.

Shane looks at him, an Are we? burning clear in the arch of his brows. 

Because careful doesn’t look like four orgasms between them. Careful doesn’t look like lingering on a couch. Like tuna melts and synced breathing. Like almost saying something irreversible.

Outside, snow continues to fall, silent and relentless. Inside, the letter rests between them like a blade.

Montreal plays Boston tomorrow night.

The rivalry has always been dangerous.

But this feels different to them. 

This feels like someone is watching the part they never meant to show. 

And for the first time, Shane isn’t sure whether the greater threat is exposure—or the fact that, for a moment on that couch, he almost didn’t care. 

Chapter End Notes

So, who did it? Drop your theories in the comments. Or come yap with me on Threads @amillionsparks.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

November 2016 - Boston

Shane doesn’t leave. But they can’t stay. 

Thirty-five meters of floor-to-ceiling windows are one problem. The fact that whoever did this got inside without shattering the glass is the other.

It isn’t safe anymore.

Shane lingers in the doorway of Ilya’s bedroom as he packs a bag in a hurry. Toothbrush, comb, a worn family photo from his bedside table, clothes from his hamper — most recently worn, most likely to be needed. 

“I have a hotel room.”

“You think they cannot get inside hotel? They do not know where a whole NHL team is staying?”

“We should call the police.”

“And say what? Someone knows I like to fuck Shane Hollander?” He huffs a humorless breath, lifts his shoulders in a tight shrug. “That is crime? Please help me?”

“Don’t be an asshole. This is serious.”

“I mean, yes. I think so. Probably.”

Ilya sits on the bed, crushing the duffle across his lap, his head hanging.

Shane — measured, reserved — reaches for him before pulling back.

There are windows here too.

Is this what the note was meant to do? Draw them out. Make them reckless. Make them choose each other anyway.

Undeniable proof. 

Defiance.

Shane fists his hands into his pockets and exhales.

“Maybe it’s a friend.”

“Hollander—”

“They could’ve hurt us. We were — we were very exposed.” 

Shane swallows thickly, willing himself not to think of just how exposed they were. To not look at the condom wrappers that still sit on Ilya’s bedside table. The bottle of lube Ilya didn’t bother to close, hopeful for another round. Now is not the time for any of that. 

“All they did was tell us to be more careful. And maybe we should be. I only disappear when we’re in Boston. You leave every time you’re in Montreal. We’re not that clever, Ilya.”

“This is not about clever,” he says at last, his voice lower now, steadier. “Why would someone have been paying that much attention? This is not a friend. Friends text and say, ‘Stop fucking that slow center, Ilya.’ They do not break into my house while I am fucking him.”

“We should go,” Shane says softly. 

“To fucking where, Shane?”

“I have an idea.”

Ilya watches him carefully.

He knows that look. It’s the one Shane gets when he has already made a decision and is busy arranging the rest of the world around it. 

“My parents are in town,” Shane says.

There is the smallest pause.

“In town,” Ilya repeats with a knot at the base of his throat. 

“They’re staying in Back Bay. My mom is negotiating a deal with a sponsor. The NDAs are ironclad. No one knows they’re here.” Shane speaks like he’s diagramming a play — exits, angles, contingencies. “If we take enough turns, we could at least tell if someone is following us.”

“You want to go to your parents,” Ilya says plainly. It’s not a question.

“It would be unexpected. It’s not a predictable place for us to go.”

Whoever this was had likely anticipated them calling the police, team security at a minimum. 

They didn’t expect Yuna Hollander. 

Ilya studies him.

“And what do we tell them?”

“That something happened.”

“That is not an answer.”

Shane’s jaw tightens. “It’s enough.”

Ilya believes him. Yuna would take one look at her son’s face and decide whatever needed deciding. She would do whatever needed doing. 

That is not what unsettles him.

“And what are we there? To them?” Ilya asks, not adding the ‘To us?’ that’s suddenly begging to escape. “They will ask. We do not just,” he waves a hand in the air, adding depth to the words, “have sleepover parties. Braid each other’s hair.”

Shane hesitates — not evasive, not strategic. Simply unprepared. The silence stretches long enough to be honest.

“I don’t know,” Shane whispers. “They don’t know. About me, I mean.”

“About you.”

“I don’t even know about me. Not really.”

Ilya feels that land somewhere quiet and complicated inside his chest.

Not rejection. Not shame. Just uncertainty. And there isn’t time to define any of it now. 

Even still, Ilya holds Shane’s gaze for just a beat longer, in case he wants to say more, in case he can. 

Outside, headlights sweep across the windows, light fracturing their reflections against the dark and the moment is gone. 

Shane shivers, imagining a figure beyond the glass, tucked into the trees that line Ilya’s property. 

“You are sure this is safer?”

“Yes.”

Shane means it and that has to be enough. 

He bends to pick up the duffel and slings it over his shoulder. The weight is uneven, packed in a haste, and that irritates him more than it should.

He hates that someone has made him move through his own home like this.

“They were here,” he says, quieter now. Just to name it. 

Shane’s throat moves as he swallows.

“Yes.”

“They stood in this room.”

“Probably.”

Ilya nods once.

That is the part he cannot forgive.

“That is not a fan,” he says. “That is not curiosity.”

Shane doesn’t answer.

“It is someone who thinks they are allowed.”

The word hangs between them.

Allowed to watch. Allowed to judge. Allowed to intervene.

Ilya steps past Shane into the hallway. He doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t need to. The decision is already made.

“If we go,” he says, “we do not pretend this does not change things. That this is just … logistics, safety.”

Shane closes the bedroom door behind them, the latch clicking softly into place.

“I’m not pretending,” he says.

Ilya doesn’t contradict him.

He stands there for a moment longer, listening to the house settle. The refrigerator hum. The pipes in the walls. The ordinary sounds of a place that no longer feels entirely his.

Shane is already moving toward the door, already calculating turns and timing and blind spots. He does not look back.

Ilya follows.

They leave together.

If someone is watching, let them see that.

***

Shane reaches for his phone as they turn onto Washington, thumb already hovering over his mother’s name. It’s late, but she’ll answer. 

Ilya glances at him, then at the screen.

“No.”

Before Shane can argue, Ilya rolls down the window and tosses the phone into the dark. The clatter is swallowed by wind and engine noise.

Shane stares at him.

Ilya’s own phone follows a second later.

“Is safer,” he says. “If they are tracking us.”

“Yeah,” Shane mutters. “Because this car is incredibly subtle.”

Ilya accelerates.

Shane had wanted to argue when Ilya jogged toward the cobalt blue sports car. It was, absurdly, the most tame color he owned. And for better or worse, it would blend in among the other expensive cars lining the streets and alleys of Back Bay. Besides, calling a car was out of the question and they weren’t about to walk. 

After zig-zagging from Chestnut Hill to the North End and back three times, Shane feels certain they are alone. Pulling into the alley behind the Airbnb, Ilya lets his hand slip from the gear shift just so, bumping a knuckle against Shane’s knee. 

In the dim light of the idling car, they glance at each other.

Shane could still tell him to wait in the car.

He doesn’t.

Shane knocks on the door, knowing Yuna will pull it open in the shape of a threat despite her lithe frame. Four taps later, the door swings open. David stands behind her holding the nearest heavy object he could find — a decorative brass orb. 

The tension drains from her shoulders in an instant. “Shane.”

She pulls him inside without hesitation. Ilya follows a half step behind, not waiting to be invited, the door closing firmly at their backs.

Yuna’s hands come up automatically, checking Shane’s face, his shoulders, as though she might find blood she missed at first glance. There’s nothing. Just the crush of freckles over his cheeks, same as always, and the wholly unexpected man standing just out of frame. 

“What is going on?” she asks.

“Someone got into his house,” Shane says.

Her attention shifts, sharp and immediate. “Inside?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“We don’t know.”

David sets the brass orb down slowly on the console table but doesn’t move far from it.

Yuna turns to Ilya fully now. “Was anything taken?”

“No,” he says. “Not taken. Left.”

She absorbs that.

“And the police?” David asks.

Shane shakes his head. “We haven’t called them.”

“Why?” Yuna’s tone remains even. Concerned, not accusatory.

Shane exhales slowly. “Because we can’t explain why I was there.”

It’s honest but still raw, and everyone gives his words a beat to breathe. 

“Why were you there?” Yuna presses gently. 

Shane doesn’t look at Ilya.

“I go there when we’re in Boston,” he says mostly to the floor. “Sometimes.”

It sounds smaller when spoken aloud. Less dramatic. More real.

Yuna’s gaze moves briefly between them, assessing the space they occupy in relation to one another.

“And in Montreal?” she asks.

Shane hesitates. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because saying it makes it tangible.

“He comes to me,” he says finally.

David shifts his weight almost imperceptibly. Toward, not back.

It’s subtle enough that Shane might have missed it any other night, but he doesn’t miss it now. 

Yuna nods once, slowly, as if confirming something she had already suspected rather than uncovering something new.

“For how long?” she asks.

“A while.” Shane tries to calculate the cleanest answer, but the truth surfaces before he can shape it. “Since rookie season.”

“No,” Ilya says quietly, leaning in just so. “The summer before.”

There’s no correction in his tone. Just accuracy.

Shane doesn’t look at him, just moves his foot a half inch closer and brushes the side of his shoe against Ilya’s while Yuna absorbs the scale of it. The years. The secrecy. The risk.

There is no visible shock. No anger. But something recalibrates behind her eyes. 

“Okay,” she says.

It isn’t small. It isn’t casual. It’s a word that makes space.

Shane didn’t realize until that moment how tightly he had braced for something else.

Then her expression sharpens again, returning to the immediate problem.

“How predictable is that pattern?”

Shane runs a hand through his hair. “Predictable enough, apparently.”

“So someone has been watching longer than tonight,” David says.

Neither of them contradicts him.

Yuna’s eyes narrow slightly. “Tell me exactly what was left.”

Ilya answers this time. “A note,” he says, pulling it from his coat pocket. 

“Deliberate,” she says, running the tips of her fingers over the wax seal, the measured, blocky letters. 

“Yes.”

Shane watches her shift into manager mode — efficient, contained, already mapping out the plan.

“You’re staying here tonight,” she says. “We’ll call someone I trust in the morning. Quietly. No league involvement yet.”

Shane nods.

For a moment, no one speaks.

Ilya stands slightly behind Shane, aware of the shape they make in the entryway. Not quite touching openly. Not distant either.

“What happens tomorrow?” Ilya asks.

Yuna looks at him, waiting.

“We go back,” Ilya says. “To the rink. To the hotel. To rooms full of people who think they know what this is.”

His hand shifts faintly between himself and Shane, not reaching for him, but not neutral either.

“If someone has been close enough to enter a house — my home,” he continues, “they already violate something private. I cannot pretend to know what that means for tomorrow in a room of thousands.”

It is not fear in his voice. It is calculation.

David considers that. “You think they’ll try to expose you?”

“We cannot know,” Ilya says. “That is the problem. If this person thinks they have the right to decide what is allowed inside a home that is not theirs, do they stop there?”

Shane feels the weight of that more than anything else said tonight, and it crawls up his spine with thick, cold fingers. 

Yuna’s gaze shifts between them, thoughtful rather than alarmed.

“You have a game tomorrow,” she says finally.

“Yes.”

“And you can’t not play it.”

Shane nods.

They can’t disappear without explanation. They can’t preempt a threat they don’t understand. They can’t unravel years of careful distance in one night without inviting more scrutiny than silence ever would.

“So you skate,” Yuna says quietly. “The way you always have.”

No promise that it will be enough. Just the only option available.

Ilya doesn’t argue. 

He knows she’s right. Tomorrow will happen whether they are ready for it or not.

“You two can take the room upstairs.” Yuna kisses the top of Shane’s head, smooths a hand over Ilya’s shoulder. “We’ll keep watch.”

Chapter End Notes

How we feeling? Drop a comment or come yap with me on Threads @amillionsparks. Your call.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

November 2016 - Boston

“Your mother — she thinks she is funny,” Ilya snorts, stopping in the doorframe.

The bedroom on the third floor is small and pitched under the roofline. Two white bunk beds sit against one wall, lacquered and pristine, dressed in bedding chosen by someone who still believes in fairy tales, for the children who do. The comforters are quilted and edged in frills, the pillows embroidered with tiny flowers and bows. 

Ilya looks obscenely large in the space, and something low in Shane’s stomach burns at the thought of being small beneath him.

“I will take the top.” Ilya smirks at Shane as he takes the ladder in one fluid movement, swinging his duffle bag and leg over the rail of the bunk. “You are the bottom.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Shane chirps back, warmth threading through it and curling the edges of his mouth. 

He’s not wrong, though — and Shane hates how easily his body agrees. That is until he notices the stuffed animals pinned beneath Ilya’s weight. This isn’t the time, this isn’t the place. Part of him wonders if it ever will be again.

He kicks off his shoes, turns out the light, and curls himself into the bottom bunk, staring up at the idea of Ilya above him. Then there is only darkness, the weight of their breathing, and the tingle of something wrong in the base of Shane’s spine.

“This is so fucked,” he sighs into the darkness, and the outline of Ilya’s arm drops down from above. 

Shane grasps his hand, fingers threading. The rough scratch of Ilya’s palm, warm against his skin. Foreign and new, despite how much they’d touched. 

“Yes, this is fucked,” Ilya says into the dark, a thumb brushing against the back of Shane’s hand. “But you are brave.”

You two should be more careful. 

Shane’s fingers flex gently against Ilya’s knuckles and it feels that way — careful. Cautious and measured. Wholly unlike how hasty, how ravenous for each other they’d been earlier in the day. No, this touch is as careful as they could be. And Shane swallows around the weight of what that might mean. 

It’s been years of this, but nothing like this. And the thought that he was ready to run from it hours ago settles heavy in his chest.

“What are we going to do?” Shane asks the dark as much as he’s asking it of Ilya. 

“Right now, I think maybe we sleep. And when we wake up, we will be on my couch and this is just a dream.” 

“Ilya—”

“Go to sleep, Shane.” 

He hates the sharpness of his name against Ilya’s tongue. He wants to pin him down and lick the bitterness from his mouth. Instead, Shane’s fingers tighten around Ilya’s hand.

“We didn’t even get to try,” he says — low and unguarded — against the dark. 

The words feel stupid as soon as they’re out. They’ve been hooking up for years. They’ve memorized the shape of one another’s bodies. But that’s not what he means.

He means the part downstairs. The part where he didn’t tell him to stay in the car. The part where his mother said okay and made space for it. The part where it could have been something they didn’t have to hide from every room they walked into.

Ilya is quiet for a long moment.

“We are trying,” he says finally, voice lower now. “We just do it badly.”

A faint huff of air that might be a laugh, might not.

Shane swallows. “If this gets out—”

“I know,” Ilya says, almost quickly — as if he’s already weighed the same consequences, already let himself wonder what if.

“I’m not asking you to—” Shane stops. He doesn’t even know what he would be asking. Stay. Choose me. Burn it all down. 

Ilya shifts above him, pulling his hand back. Shane can practically hear it rake over his face.

“If it gets out,” he says carefully, “it is not only headlines. It is not only asshole teammates and fans, the fucking league. It is my father. It is my country. I could not walk back into that life the same way.”

He doesn’t say so I choose Russia.

He doesn’t say so I choose you.

He just leaves it hanging heavy between them.

Shane exhales slowly. “I know.”

The mattress above him goes still. Then it creaks again.

“What are you doing?” Shane asks quietly, sitting up as the ladder rattles under Ilya’s weight.

“I do not like this arrangement.”

There’s a thud as Ilya climbs down. The top mattress shifts, drags, then drops to the floor with a muffled thud. He pulls Shane to his feet and hauls the bottom mattress after him, the bunk frame left hollow and useless.

The two mattresses press together awkwardly on the carpet, too small for the space.

Ilya lies down without ceremony and looks up at Shane in the dark, a thin wash of moonlight resting gently over his face. It softens him — blurs the hard lines, turns him into something almost fragile. From above, Shane watches him breathe and feels something in his chest give.

“We did not get to try,” Ilya says softly, reaching for Shane. “So we try tonight.”

It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t a vow.

It’s an answer — the only one they have right now. 

He pulls Shane into him, one arm heavy and certain around his back.

Shane presses his face into the hollow beneath Ilya’s collarbone and lets himself settle there. The steady rise and fall of Ilya’s chest. The heat of him. The solid weight of an arm that does not loosen.

The threat still exists. Morning still exists. But this — this does too. Tucked against Ilya’s chest, Shane lets himself feel it — the version of them that could have been ordinary. The version that doesn’t have to be calculated or hidden or rehearsed.

He lets himself feel what it would be like to keep this.

Ilya’s thumb moves once, slow and absent, against the hollow of Shane’s lower back.

Neither of them says anything more.

They just lie there, holding the shape of something that might not survive the light. And neither of them sleeps.

***

Yuna sits at the island in the kitchen, already on her third cup of coffee and fourth phone call. The sky beyond the windows has only begun to pale, a thin wash of gray-blue spreading over Commonwealth Avenue two floors below. The house still carries the softness of early morning, but her voice is clear and measured.

“I need discretion.”

She looks up as the stairs creak, snapping her fingers softly in David’s direction where he stands by the window, absorbing and cataloging Yuna’s side of each conversation. 

Shane comes down first. Ilya follows, hands in his pockets, gaze steady but not sharp. To Yuna, he looks younger than he does on the ice.

She takes them in without staring.

“You’re up early,” she whispers to Shane, covering the bottom half of her phone with her fingertips.

He gives a half shrug. “Couldn’t really sleep.”

She nods once and mouths, Sit, while she finishes the call.

Shane drops onto the stool across from her, elbows on his knees, already wound tight for a game that hasn’t started yet. Ilya takes the seat beside him, not opposite, not creating distance. Close enough that their shoulders almost touch, though neither of them leans.

Yuna has watched Ilya Rozanov for years from behind glass and on broadcasts. She has seen him fly down the ice with ruthless precision, seen him finish checks with unapologetic force. He moves in that arena the way he must move in his first language — fluent, instinctive, knowing the ice as well as he knows Russian. He has always looked certain there.

The boy sitting across from her now is not those things.

He is still large. Still controlled. But there is something stripped back about him here. His hands in constant motion, worrying at his earlobe, smoothing over his jeans. And every few seconds — so subtle it would be easy to miss — his attention shifts toward Shane.

Not to stare. Just to see.

The way she used to watch Shane across a playground when he was small and reckless and convinced he was invincible. The way she would track the line of his brow to check if he was hurt, or angry, or about to do something stupid.

Ilya does it the same way — quietly taking stock. A flick of the eyes when Shane shifts in his seat. A slight adjustment of his posture when Shane exhales too sharply. It doesn’t look conscious.

And that’s when she knows.

Whatever they are, it’s not casual.

It’s gravity.

Yuna folds her hands on the counter and allows herself one measured breath.

“We don’t know what this is yet,” she begins evenly. “A prank. Someone who lost a big bet. A parasocial fan. We can’t be sure.”

Neither of them speaks.

“The note wasn’t a threat,” she continues. “There was no demand. That matters.”

Shane nods once, jaw tight, and his hands flatten on the marble. Yuna watches as Ilya watches them splay there, as he rubs the back of his own hand while he does. Soothing by proxy, she thinks. 

“But it was a boundary crossed,” she says, meeting Shane’s eyes. “And until we know who crossed it and why, we assume the worst and behave accordingly.”

Her eyes flick to Ilya, then back to Shane.

“Which means for now, you separate.”

“Mom—”

“For now,” she repeats, not unkindly. “You do not meet before games. You do not see each other after. You do not talk to each other unless there are blades on your feet and time is on the clock. You do not give anyone even the illusion that there is something to find.”

She watches the resistance bloom in Shane’s posture before it becomes words.

“And before you argue,” she says calmly, “I need to ask you something.”

Her gaze shifts deliberately between them.

“If this requires you to hit each other tonight — really hit each other — are you prepared to do that?”

The question lands heavy, a blow in itself.

“Enough to sell it,” she clarifies. “Enough that anyone looking could see what they need to see.”

Shane recoils. “We don’t fight like that.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “That’s why it would work.”

Ilya is very still beside him.

“You’re asking us to brawl,” Shane says flatly, his posture ready for a fight.

“I’m asking you to control the narrative before someone else does.”

Silence.

It’s Ilya who breaks it.

“I can take it,” he says, not looking at Yuna — looking at Shane. “You can hit me.”

Shane turns on him. “That’s not the point.”

“It is exactly the point.” Ilya’s voice is calm, almost gentle. “If someone is watching for softness, we give them blood.”

Yuna does not interrupt.

“If it protects you,” Ilya adds, softer now, still to Shane, “you can hit me.”

There it is again — that instinctive tilt toward him. Not bravado. Not ego. Offering himself like a shield. Yuna feels something complicated move through her chest at the sight of it.

Shane swallows hard. “And after?”

Yuna doesn’t hesitate.

“After, you give people something easier to talk about.”

Shane’s brow furrows. Ilya’s gaze remains steady, though his shoulder shifts almost imperceptibly toward Shane again.

“I spoke with Rose Landry’s team last night,” Yuna says. “They were already circling. She’s coming off a messy breakup. She needs wholesome. You need uncomplicated. A photo outside a restaurant. A charity event. Nothing dramatic.”

The words sit heavy in the room.

“It’s optics, Shane. It buys you distance. It reframes the narrative before anyone else decides what it is.”

Ilya says nothing.

He doesn’t look at Yuna. He doesn’t look away, either. His jaw tightens once, barely there, and then smooths out again. His hand, which had been resting near Shane’s on the counter, withdraws a fraction of an inch as if correcting a mistake.

Shane notices and shifts a half measure closer.

“Temporary,” Yuna continues. “Public appearances. Nothing more. It doesn’t have to be real.”

The irony of that word hovers between them.

Shane’s mouth opens, then closes. “And we just — what? Pretend?”

“For now,” she says quietly. “Yes.”

Silence gathers again, but it’s different from before. Less shock. More calculation.

Ilya is the one who finally answers.

“Is like the summers,” he says, his voice level. “We do what we must. Then we come back.”

Shane turns toward him. “That’s not the same.”

“No,” Ilya agrees softly. “Is not.”

Yuna watches the way Shane’s resistance isn’t anger — it’s grief. Grief for something he only just allowed himself to imagine existing outside locked doors.

“This is not forever,” she says carefully. “It’s until we understand who crossed that line and why. You don’t burn your lives down over a note.”

Her eyes move between them, choosing her words carefully. “But you also don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. All of it matters.” 

No one argues after that. 

The morning has fully arrived, pale light stretching across the kitchen floor. The house feels steadier in daylight, even if nothing else does.

***

Time is running short — Shane’s morning skate is at 9:30, Ilya’s at 11:30 — but they take what they can, slipping back up to the third floor as if five stolen minutes might last the rest of their lives.

The mattresses are still on the floor, pushed together and slightly crooked, the sheets twisted from the night before.

Ilya reaches for him without preamble and pulls him down. There’s no heat in it. Just contact. He wants the weight of him. The proof that he was there.

They lie on their sides, knees knocking, foreheads almost touching. The quiet of the house presses around them.

“This is stupid,” Shane mutters, though he doesn’t move.

“Probably,” Ilya says.

His hand slides up Shane’s back and settles there. 

They’ve done this before — beds, floors, couches, hotel rooms in cities that weren’t theirs. They’ve memorized each other in the dark. But yesterday shifted something. The way Ilya had said his name like a promise. How Shane had returned it.

The note didn’t create what they were feeling. It just forced them to look at it.

Shane exhales slowly. “We’re not—”

The words falter. But Ilya doesn’t push. He just waits, eyes searching.

“We never said—” Shane tries instead.

“No,” Ilya whispers against Shane’s lower lip. “We did not.”

“You know though.”

It isn’t a question.

Ilya’s hand presses at the base of his spine as he takes Shane’s mouth.

“Yes,” he says as they break apart. “I do know this.”

They leave it at that, and just hold each other until leaving is all they have left to do.

Chapter End Notes

Not going to lie, this one hurt a little to write. 🥺

How are y’all? Any theories yet? Drop ‘em in the comments.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

November 2016 - Boston

The building isn’t full yet, but rivalry games start long before puck drop. The noise is already building in the stands, restless and eager, like the whole place is waiting for something to break.

Ilya skates out with the first wave, shoulders loose, jaw set. The ice gleams under him, untouched for only a moment before it’s carved by drills and passing lines.

He doesn’t let himself look at Shane, but he knows he’s there. Across the red line. Not looking at him either.

He keeps his head down and focuses on the work — the rhythm of passes, the bite of his edges, the clean release of a shot. He is here to win a game. To beat Montreal. To do what he has always done.

He is not here to notice the pull in his chest when Shane skates too close to center. Not here to register the way proximity rearranges the air between them, even when they don’t touch.

He is here to perform something simple and familiar.

He is here to lie — to the cameras, to the crowd, to himself — about how little it costs to share a sheet of ice with him and pretend it means nothing.

Their eyes don’t meet until the first faceoff. Shane wins it cleanly, because Ilya allows himself to look. Because he can — finally, he can. He lets his gaze hold for a fraction too long, but Shane is more disciplined and wins the puck almost too easily. 

Ilya wins something else, though — a fresh memory of Shane’s freckles under the sharp arena lights burned into his memory.

From there, they keep to the script through two periods. No contact. No chirping. Faceoffs only. Clean. Controlled.

Until the third.

A defender gets into it with Shane — too close, too loud — and Ilya sees the opening.

An opposing captain with a temper and a mouth, his rival for the better part of a decade, stepping between them with all the right posture and none of the right intention.

Shane takes the bait.

Something snaps in Ilya as Shane’s fist connects with the underside of his jaw. It’s not easy to land one clean with helmets on, but Shane commits to it.

The crack of knuckles against plastic and bone rings sharp in his skull.

It sounds like devotion.

And Ilya takes it.

Shane hits him again and blood pools warm in Ilya’s mouth, copper and salt sliding across his tongue. He smiles through it, slow and almost soft, even as hands grab at jerseys and the crowd roars its approval. To anyone watching, it looks vicious — teeth bared, eyes bright with hostility, two men finally giving in to years of bad blood.

But that isn’t what it is.

Ilya feels the intention in every swing. The control. The choice. Shane could pull back. He doesn’t.

The next one lands harder, and Ilya lets the sting flare along his jaw before shifting his weight and driving his own fist into Shane’s ribs. Not wild. Not reckless. Deliberate. He won’t let Shane carry this alone. If this is the story they’re selling, it has to belong to both of them.

They move together in it, trading blows with a rhythm that feels almost practiced, even though it isn’t. Fabric twists under their fists. Helmets knock. The ice shudders beneath their skates as the crowd swells, hungry for the spectacle.

To the arena, it’s hatred finally uncorked.

To Ilya, it feels like something steadier than that — like two people standing in the open and choosing the same thing at the same time. Each punch lands with purpose. Each hit answered. Knuckles bloody, hearts soaring. 

He had already known, in the quiet upstairs that morning, in the way Shane had looked at him like the world had tilted and settled differently. But here, under unforgiving lights and thousands of watching eyes, the doubt has nowhere left to hide.

Shane isn’t swinging because it’s easy.

And Ilya isn’t standing there to endure it.

He swings back because he’s in this, too.

When the linesmen finally wedge between them and drag them apart, blood on both their mouths, Ilya meets Shane’s eyes across the distance and feels it settle — not the pain, not the adrenaline.

Certainty.

He hopes the bruises last a while, if that’s all he’ll have left.

***

The locker room smells like sweat, tape, and liniment in a way that’s comforting to Ilya as he sits on the wooden bench with an ice pack pressed to his jaw. The noise of the room rolls around him — laughter, arguments about the fight, someone replaying the clip on a phone. Teammates slap his shoulder when they pass. Someone calls him sumasshedshiy — a lunatic in Russian — and grins.

He grins back because that is the role he has always played.

Blood has already dried along the seam of his lip. His knuckles ache when he flexes them, the skin split in two places where Shane’s helmet caught bone just right.

The trainer asks if he needs stitches.

Ilya shakes his head.

He showers quickly, water stinging where the skin has broken, and dresses without looking at the television mounted in the corner where the fight is looping on the post-game show. He doesn’t need to see it again. He remembers every second.

Outside, the night air is cold and sharp. Boston hums around the arena — rideshares and taxis idling, fans spilling onto the sidewalks, the familiar postgame churn of traffic and noise.

For a moment, he almost turns back.

But there is nowhere else to go but home. His father is a shell of a man half a world away in Russia, living out the rest of his days beside Ilya’s useless brother. His mother has been gone long enough that what’s left of her now is only bones and teeth under the soil.

The drive is short and silent. His jaw stiffens as the adrenaline drains away, leaving behind a deep, throbbing ache that spreads up into his temple. By the time he pulls into the driveway, the certainty from the ice has softened into something more fragile.

Inside, the house greets him with stillness.

Every room feels larger than it did before.

He locks the door behind him. Then checks it again.

Upstairs, he fills the bathtub until steam curls against the mirror and pours in a generous handful of epsom salt. The water smells faintly medicinal as he lowers himself into it, heat wrapping around sore muscles and blooming bruises.

For the first time all day, there is no noise.

Just the quiet.

And the creeping realization that he’s alone here — the fear that he isn’t.

Ilya sinks lower in the water until it laps at his collarbones, eyes drifting toward the bathroom door he left open just a crack. Every small sound in the house feels magnified — the groan of the pipes, the hum of the refrigerator downstairs, the faint creak of the settling frame.

He tells himself it’s nothing.

But his shoulders remain tense above the water, listening.

He doesn’t stay in the bath nearly as long as his body begs him to. After a few minutes he climbs out, dries off quickly, and pulls on whatever clothes are closest to hand. His duffel bag is repacked almost without thinking. The drive takes even less time.

Soon enough he’s on I-90, heading toward Back Bay.

He tells himself he’s only looking for signs of life when he pulls up across from the brownstone, squinting at the windows for movement inside.

Yuna is the first shape he makes out, sharp in the bright kitchen light. Her head is bowed as David leans over her and pulls her into his chest.

For a moment Ilya stays very still in the car, watching.

He imagines they’re talking about Shane. About the fight. About the plan she set in motion that ended with her son bleeding on the ice.

Then Shane appears, stepping into the light and slipping an arm around both of them.

Something in Ilya’s chest loosens.

He watches just long enough to see Yuna lean into it, to see Shane say something that makes David laugh. The moment folds in on itself — warm, ordinary, safe.

That’s all he needed to know.

Ilya sits there another minute anyway, hands resting loose on the steering wheel. Then he starts the car.

The world grows quieter the later it gets, the more distance he puts between himself and the city. A few bars glow along the street, windows fogged with bodies and beer. He drives past them without thinking, heading west until the highway opens up in front of him.

The first all-night store he sees is bright as the ice he bled on hours before.

Inside, the air smells faintly of plastic and floor cleaner. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead while a bored employee scrolls through his phone behind the electronics counter.

Ilya buys the first phone the kid points to, along with a charger and a cheap case. He pays in cash out of habit and opens it before he leaves the store. 

Sitting in his car with too much fast food from the drive-thru in the same strip mall, Ilya Googles his realtor and calls without thinking twice about how late it is.

The call goes to voicemail.

“I need the house listed,” Ilya says after the tone, voice steady in the empty car. “As soon as possible. Priced to sell.”

He ends the call and looks at the dark windshield for a long moment before pulling up a hotel nearby.

Home isn’t a place. Tonight it’s an ache in his chest.

***

In the morning, Ilya grabs coffee from the breakfast bar in the lobby along with a stack of waffles and a few other odds and ends. He lingers too long in front of the tray of egg white muffins, thinking about how Shane would reach straight for those and ignore everything else. 

He puts one on his plate just because.

Hunched over in a booth, ballcap pulled low, Ilya zones out while clearing his plate. Syrup sticky on his fingers, coffee gone lukewarm beside him.

Until he hears Shane’s name on the small TV mounted in the corner.

“Montreal captain Shane Hollander was spotted out in the early hours with actress Rose Landry,” the anchor says brightly.

A grainy photo flashes on the screen — Shane outside a car, jaw still bruised from last night’s fight.

“Ballsy move after trading punches with Boston’s beloved Ilya Rozanov,” the anchor adds with a laugh. “Looks like someone was there to kiss those bruises better.”

Ilya dumps the rest of his plate in the trash and stalks back upstairs.

The room smells faintly of detergent and stale air when he lets himself back in. His new phone sits on the bedside table where he left it charging overnight, screen dark and unfamiliar.

He picks it up and, for a moment, just stands there with it in his hand, composing a message in his head.

Your face is okay, yes? maybe. 

Or, because neither of them ever says what they mean the easy way, Next time I see you I am punching your face again for this Rose Landry bullshit.

The kind of message that pretends to be a joke and isn’t.

His thumb hovers over the empty screen before the thought finally catches up with him.

This phone doesn’t have Shane’s number.

He tossed the old one somewhere in Boston yesterday without thinking. Every contact gone with it. Jane — Shane — included.

Ilya sets it back down harder than he means to and stares at the wall, the urge to rip this unknown loon person limb from limb burning hot in his chest.

Chapter End Notes

Enjoying the madness? All the cool kids are leaving comments and telling their friends. Just sayin'.

PS: Next chapter we're heading out of Boston, I swear.

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

December 2016 - Montreal

Shane never really saw the point of social media, despite his mother’s constant efforts to get him on Twitter at a minimum. It was good for his brand, she liked to say. To him, it was a distraction — time he could’ve spent watching tape, perfecting his backhand, even doing those endorsements she loved so much.

So it was certainly out of character for him to be sitting in bed at two in the morning, typing combinations of “Hollander,” numbers, and stray words into Instagram until he found an unused username he liked enough to claim.

He can’t see all of Ilya’s account without it.

He told himself he wouldn’t follow him. Or message him. That would be ridiculous — and far too obvious for everyone they’d been trying to hide from, fans and threats alike.

He would just look.

It was the only thread he had left to him now.

The account sits there for a moment after it’s created, the blank gray circle where a profile photo should be staring back at him like it expects something. In the back of his mind, he knows Ilya will see whatever he chooses. That thought alone makes the decision for him.

He scrolls back to a photo his mom took over the summer — shirtless and grinning, the warm Ottawa sun bringing out the freckles across his nose and shoulders. He’s seen how Ilya’s eyes catch on them, how his thumb always seems to drift there without thinking.

Shane sets it as the profile picture before he can reconsider.

Then he starts filling in the edges.

Teammates first — Hayden Pike, J.J. Boiziau, a handful of others. Coach Theriault. A couple of the trainers. The team doctor whose posts alternate between injury-prevention tips and photos of a dalmatian that somehow gets more comments than anything hockey-related ever does.

After that the circle widens naturally: the team account, the league, TSN, ESPN, a few broadcasters whose voices have praised and punished him in equal measure. Rose. Some of her friends. A scattering of teammates’ wives and girlfriends.

By the time he’s finished, the account looks almost lived in.

Almost.

The empty grid still gives it away.

He scrolls through the camera roll on his new phone. There isn’t much yet — a few weeks of photos, plus the handful his mom texted him after he complained about losing everything on his old device. Draft night. Commercial shoots. Magazine covers. A few other shots from his summer at the lake.

He chooses three at random and posts them without captions.

Only then does he type Rozanov into the search bar.

Ilya’s profile appears almost immediately.

Shane lets it sit there for a second before opening it, suddenly aware of how ridiculous this would look if anyone ever saw it — two in the morning, his thumb hovering over a name he knows by heart while the quiet of his bedroom presses in around him.

When he taps into the profile, the grid takes a moment to load, the images filling in. The first three are the ones he was able to see without logging in. A promo shot, a video of his latest goal against Tampa Bay, Ilya and a few teammates at the local children’s hospital.

Then a photo of a neon sign glowing against a dark window.

OPEN 24 HOURS.

Shane’s breath catches before he can stop it.

Twenty-four.

His number.

He tells himself not to read anything into it. It’s a sign in a window. Another random thing in a sea of random things Ilya’s posted.

Still, he scrolls.

Carefully.

His thumb drags along the screen with more caution than he’s ever used on a phone before, his hand unsteady as the images move under it. The last thing he needs is to double tap something by accident and leave a glowing red heart behind like a flare announcing exactly where he is out in the wilderness of missing him.

The next photo slides into place.

A chair sits at the foot of a bed, the Vegas skyline dim behind gauzy curtains. At first glance it looks like any hotel room — anonymous, temporary, the kind of place meant to be forgotten the moment the suitcase closes.

But Shane recognizes the scene anyway.

Not the exact room.

The placement.

The chair pulled there deliberately, turned toward the bed instead of the window.

The memory comes back all at once — Ilya sitting there with a glass of vodka loose in his hand, watching him with that steady, consuming focus that had always made Shane feel like the only thing in the room worth looking at. The Strip had glowed through the glass behind him while the city stayed loud and electric outside, and Shane had felt that gaze on him the entire time.

Another swipe brings up a street he recognizes instantly.

Commonwealth Avenue in the fall, brownstones lined shoulder to shoulder beneath trees shedding orange and gold and rust across the sidewalk. The place where they’d last held each other weeks ago.

Shane scrolls back to the top of the grid and then down again more cautiously, his thumb hovering instead of resting as he studies the images like they might rearrange themselves if he looks long enough.

A neon sign.

A chair at the foot of a bed.

A street that makes his chest ache.

Nothing, if you look at them the way anyone else would.

And yet the thread is there anyway, faint and impossible to ignore, running quietly through the images like something meant to be followed.

Shane knows he’s probably imagining it — building meaning where there isn’t any because the alternative is worse — but the feeling settles stubbornly in his bones all the same.

Because if he lets himself believe it, even a little, the pictures stop looking random.

They start to feel deliberate.

Almost like a message no one else would ever recognize.

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m still here.

And Shane holds on to that thread with both hands, scrolling until the world drops out beneath him and sleep overtakes him. 

***

It feels dirty at best, but Ilya can’t stop his hand from drifting down to his cock through his shorts as he scrolls through Shane’s Instagram feed for the first time.

A desert for ages, and then suddenly a flood — and he is greedy for it.

He strokes himself hard and fast, his thumb flicking the screen in the same steady rhythm.

Shane in full gear for a polished promo shot.

Him in a compression shirt, hair dark and dripping after a game.

Leaning over the bench talking to a teammate, shoulders broad under his jersey.

Laughing in the locker room, a towel slung around his neck.

Grinning in the sunlight, lashes casting shadows across his freckled cheeks.

He comes to that image with a stifled cry, faster than he thought possible. 

After, he lies there, his release drying on his stomach as he taps in and out of his DMs.

They said they wouldn’t do this.

No contact.

His thumb hovers over the keyboard anyway.

Before he can think too hard about it, he types, “Welcome to the internet”, and hits send.

Regret floods in immediately, but there’s no taking it back. He can see the sharp crease that would build between Shane’s brows, the same as his mother’s. He just wants him to know.

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m here. 

Before he can stop himself, he deletes the app from his phone. Not trusting himself to leave it at one message — especially if Shane responds.

***

The next time Ilya downloads Instagram is days later, weak and needy, cock in hand in a hotel bathroom like a fiend.

The first post in his feed is from a hockey blog — photos of Rose and Shane tangled up outside a restaurant in Montreal, her hand on his chest, his head tipped down toward hers like they belong there together.

His dick goes limp against his palm, his whole body deflating.

He stares at the screen longer than he should, jaw tightening, thumb hovering before he swipes the post away.

The thread is buried in his inbox under dozens of unopened messages from fans, and he digs for it.

Welcome to the internet.

Seen.

Nothing else.

Something small in his chest gives way at the sight of it. He knew the risk and did it anyway. He hadn’t expected anything else. But it still aches.

Ilya closes the thread and sits there for a long moment in the harsh bathroom light, the cigarette already between his fingers before he really thinks about it.

When he posts the photo a minute later — smoke curling from his mouth — he knows exactly who it’s meant for.

Not the fans.

Not the media.

Just one person.

And he knows it will land like a punch.

***

For Shane, checking Ilya’s Instagram becomes as regular as checking the mail — daily, expectantly, always hoping for something waiting there.

He’s out to lunch with Rose and Hayden when he finds his thumb on the app like muscle memory. They’re tucked into a booth in the corner, waiting for their food while Rose freshens up in the restroom. It’s reckless, maybe, but Hayden’s on his phone too, texting Jackie back about the kids. Shane tells himself he’s only looking. Just a quick check. A small hit to get him through the day.

The latest post fills his screen as he tilts his phone just so.

A cigarette dangling from Ilya’s lip, the fog of smoke turning his jaw soft at the edges. Other parts are sharper still — his brows tipped downward, hazel eyes fixed on the camera with a look so direct it almost feels confrontational.

Shane knows immediately — without knowing how he knows — that it’s because he didn’t respond.

Ilya has never hidden that he smokes. But he’s never made a show of it either. Never turned it into a performance.

He knows how much Shane hates it.

Shane’s thumb hovers over the message thread, words already forming in his head.

That’ll kill you, you know.

It’s stupid. Petty. Familiar.

Exactly the kind of thing they would say to each other.

He’s about to type it when the notification appears at the top of the screen.

New follower.

Easy to miss in the constant stream of followers, but the name stops him cold.

TheLoon2481.

It can’t be a coincidence.

Their numbers. That fucking bird.

Shane’s breath catches in his throat.

And suddenly the restaurant feels too loud. Too open. Like someone might be watching.

“Okay, which one of you has the burger?”

Chapter End Notes

Man, I could really go for a burger right about now. I'll settle for some comments, though, if you've got 'em. 😘

Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

January 2017 - Montreal

The Raiders open the year with a four-game road trip through Buffalo and Canada, and the weather has been unforgiving since the ball dropped.

The short walk from his West End high-rise to the Garden is brutal in the wind off the harbor, the kind of cold that reminds Ilya of winters in Russia — the kind that feel like a punishment you somehow earned.

He thinks about how going north into Canada just feels like asking for more of it. In a lot of ways.

At his core, though, he’s molten — burning at the thought of seeing Shane for the first time in months — and part of him fears the ice will melt right under his feet.

He drags a boot through a pile of snow outside the team bus just to test the theory and boards the plane with cold feet.

Buffalo is up first and it comes and goes in a blur of gray skies, the Raiders grinding out two points before boarding another plane. Toronto is colder, louder — the opposition and their crowd hostile in a way Ilya usually enjoys. Ottawa is a kind of bitter that cuts deep into Ilya’s bones. Doubly so when he spots what he’s almost sure is David Hollander in the stands a few rows up from center ice.

By the time they’re meant to fly to Montreal, the storm that’s been stalking them all week finally catches up. The plane sits on the tarmac while ground crews crawl through mounds of snow, the departure time on the screen ticking up and up, later and later.

Ilya knows games don’t get canceled for weather. Not in Canada of all places. 

But the longer the delay stretches, the heavier the ache that settles in his chest — a quiet, unreasonable dread that the one night he’s been counting toward for weeks might somehow slip away from him.

Montreal is only two hours away by road, and their delay stretches nearly as long. Then they’re finally wheels up and Ilya sinks into the last row of the plane, grateful to have it to himself as the knots he’s tied himself into slowly unwind. 

He opens Instagram before he can talk himself out of it. 

A few taps and Shane’s profile loads. 

A new post sits at the top of the grid from fourteen minutes ago: Shane at center ice in lotus pose, shirtless and gleaming under the arena lights, with a caption about finding his center ahead of the Boston game.

Ilya knows it’s for him — his center. Wrong team. Right position. 

They’ve been playing this game for weeks. Never commenting. Never liking. Never messaging. 

And the reminder of why is always there, liking every post Shane and Ilya make. Following only them, and no one else.

It makes Ilya want to delete his account and throw away his phone all over again. 

But he suspects that would only make the Loon escalate. With no other messages and no outright threats, he can’t prove anything — and he’s not willing to gamble on a guess. Not with Shane’s safety.

If they want access, they can have it. From a distance. A thirty-thousand foot view. 

That’s all Ilya gets now. Why should anyone else get more? 

***

“Game day, baby!” J.J. booms as he enters the locker room. He crosses to Shane in one quick stride, a laugh splitting his face nearly in half. “You going to fuck him up again, Hollander?”

“Let’s just focus on the game,” Shane says, shaking his head and pressing out a laugh.  

He’s telling himself as much as anyone else. 

All he wants is to feel his tongue in Ilya’s mouth — two minutes for high sticking while his hips grind against Ilya along the boards. 

That would fuck something up. And it wouldn’t just be Ilya. 

Shane has to physically shake the vision from his head more than once as they take the tunnel. From there, gravity starts to pull. 

Names and numbers blur across the jerseys, but all Shane needs is a sliver of jawline and the ends of golden hair curling from a helmet as he turns at the blue line. That’s enough to know it’s him. 

He tries not to look, not to float toward center. Mostly succeeding, often failing, despite all of his storied discipline. 

They line up at center ice, neither of them able to tear their eyes away.

Then the puck drops. 

The game is the game, and they play it. 

The first chance he gets, Shane checks Ilya into the boards. With the play in motion and the linesman out of earshot, he lets himself say, “We need to talk.”

“No shit,” Ilya grinds out, making a show of shoving Shane off of him. 

They collide together again nine minutes into the period, and Shane is wasted at the thought of how fast their sixty minutes of opportunity are ticking by. 

“The Loon,” Shane says against him, a gloved hand twisting at his collar for show. “They’re back.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Not here yes?”

Shane skates back to his bench for a line change, the logistics already working overtime in his head. Hotel rooms weren’t safe the way they used to be. But maybe they never had been, if someone had found them out. 

It’s the best he can do. 

“Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth,” he tells Ilya in a rush, middle of the second period when they steal another violent moment alone along the boards. “Say it back.”

“Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth,” Ilya repeats. “What is this?”

“Rose’s hotel.”

Shane skates away before he can see the hurt in Ilya’s eyes — the hurt he knows is almost certainly there. Ilya can take it out on him later, if he needs to. The thought makes Shane’s lungs burn as he drives for the blue line.

They don’t get another clean moment until late in the third.

The puck rattles loose along the boards and Shane rides Ilya into them hard enough to sell the play, their skates carving shallow grooves into the ice. From the outside it looks like every other battle they’ve had all night.

“Eleven seventeen,” Shane mutters against his ear.

Ilya shoves him back just as hard. “Eleven seventeen,” he repeats.

Ilya doesn’t look at him again after that.

The rest of the game plays out the way these games always do — fast, ugly, and close. Hits land harder than they need to. Sticks get tangled. They both score.

Montreal takes it 3–2.

By the time the final horn sounds, Shane’s pulse hasn’t slowed once.

The real game is just beginning.

***

Ilya could easily get lost in Montreal, and he gives it a good try as he winds through the streets of downtown. The hotel is only a few blocks from the Bell Centre, but he takes the long way anyway, making sure no one follows.

Up one side of a block, down the other. Across the street and into a bar, then out again. Down the same block twice.

He thinks he probably looks like a madman, and his toes are nearly frozen in his boots, but he keeps walking another fifteen minutes just to be safe.

What’s waiting for him in room 1117 is worth it.

The lobby of the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth is warm and bright after the cold outside. Ilya keeps his head down and walks straight through, ignoring the front desk entirely.

He lets the first elevator go when a family piles inside, waits for the next one, and rides it up alone.

The hallway on the eleventh floor is quiet.

Room 1117 sits halfway down.

He knocks once.

The door opens just enough for a hand to catch his sleeve and pull him inside.

He knows it’s not what they’re here for, but Ilya’s mouth can’t find Shane’s fast enough, fingers curling against his jaw. Their bodies tangle around the need before Ilya can even think of the possibility that they’re not alone — that Rose might be in the room. 

She is and clears her throat, and Shane breaks away from Ilya.

“He told me,” she says, “but I didn’t believe it.”

Ilya freezes, one hand still caught in Shane’s hair.

Rose looks between them, one eyebrow arched, then huffs out a small laugh.

“Relax,” she says, grabbing her coat from the back of a chair. “I’m going out.”

Shane blinks. “Rose—”

“Ultraviolet’s down the street,” she says, already pulling her hair into a loose knot. “I’ll be gone a few hours. Try not to destroy the room.”

She pauses at the door and looks back at them — Shane flushed, Ilya still standing half a step too close.

“Or do,” she adds with a shrug. “It’s his credit card.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

“You told her?” Ilya breathes against Shane’s jaw.

“That’s what you want to talk about right now?”

“I don’t want to talk at all.”

Ilya drops to his knees and mouths at Shane’s cock through his pants, already straining greedily toward him through the denim. His hands move fast and impatient, his mouth slack and waiting as he frees him. 

He looks up at Shane as skin meets skin, Shane hard against his tongue, and neither of them looks away as Ilya begins to move on him.

“Fuck,” Shane presses out above him, one hand tangling in Ilya’s curls while the other closes over Ilya’s where he’s groping at Shane’s chest.

“I plan to, yes.” Ilya smiles around his cock, sucking hard after — covetous and hungry for him.

“I don’t have any—”

“You and Rose don’t—”

“We don’t. We haven’t.”

Ilya nearly loses himself at the admission — that Shane is, and has always been, just for him.

They take their time after that, or at least as much time as they can. Languid mouths, roaming hands. Ilya alternates between sucking Shane’s cock and pressing his hole open with his fingers and tongue, then drags himself back up his body to take his mouth while Shane strokes them both slowly between their bodies. Their moans fill the space between them as they come together.

Afterward, Shane curls into Ilya’s chest, fingers toying with the cross that glints in the soft light.

“We need to talk about it,” he ventures softly.

“I know.” Ilya presses a kiss to the top of Shane’s head, a sigh slipping out of him.

The moment shifts, and Shane shifts with it, pulling back to look at him.

“I made sure I wasn’t followed,” Ilya says. “But this was stupid probably. That fucking Loon. It has been following me — on the internet at least. Maybe more.”

Shane’s fingers still against the cross.

“TheLoon2481,” he says.

Ilya’s eyes flick over to his.

“You see it too.”

“Likes everything,” Shane says. “Mine. Yours. Nothing else.”

“No messages?”

“None.”

Ilya exhales slowly, his fingers tracing absent patterns along Shane’s ribs.

“So maybe nothing.”

Maybe. Shane wishes that word meant more.

The account has been there for weeks now — quiet, persistent. TheLoon2481 liking everything, following only them, never speaking. Watching.

Watching isn’t nothing.

“And if it isn’t?” Ilya asks.

Shane doesn’t answer right away. His thumb and forefinger turn the cross where it rests against Ilya’s chest, the metal warm from his skin as he runs through the possibilities again — what the account has done, what it hasn’t, what it could become.

Nothing yet. 

Nothing concrete.

Which means the risk isn’t zero.

But it isn’t absolute either.

“How do you feel about calculated risk?” he asks finally.

Ilya’s mouth curves faintly.

“I play in the NHL, Hollander.”

Shane huffs out a quiet breath.

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

Shane shifts slightly where he’s draped across him, propping himself up just enough to look at Ilya properly.

“If it escalates,” he says carefully, “messages, threats, anything like that — we stop again. Immediately.”

Ilya nods once.

“But it hasn’t,” Shane continues. “Right now it’s just watching.”

“And that is supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” Shane says. “It’s supposed to make it measurable.”

Ilya studies him for a long moment.

“So what are you proposing?”

Shane’s mouth tilts faintly.

“Careful idiots.”

That earns him a quiet laugh.

“Careful idiots,” Ilya repeats.

It isn’t the worst plan Shane’s ever had.

They’ve already tried the other one — distance, silence, pretending none of it ever happened. Almost two months of it. And still the account appeared, watching from the edges of their lives like it had been there the whole time.

If stopping didn’t make it go away, then the risk is already there. The only thing left to decide is how carefully they take it.

They leave the room fifteen minutes apart.

Ilya goes first. He pulls his jacket on slowly, the warmth of Shane’s weight still lingering on his skin, and pauses at the door just long enough to look back once before slipping into the hallway. The door clicks softly behind him.

Shane stays where he is for a moment, staring at the empty space Ilya left behind while his brain runs through the sequence again — timing, exits, the lobby, the walk to the club.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Logistics.

Only then does he grab his coat and head downstairs.

***

Ultraviolet is loud enough to swallow a conversation whole.

Bass thrums through the floor, lights sliding across the crowded dance floor, washing everything in shades of violet and blue. The place is packed with players, media, and fans who managed to talk their way past the rope.

The perfect cover.

Ilya keeps to the far end of the bar, a drink in his hand he hasn’t touched, the glass sweating slowly against his palm. From here the dance floor spreads out in front of him — bodies shifting under the lights, colors flashing across sweat-slicked chests, bare shoulders, open mouths.

It takes him less than a second to find Shane.

He always does.

Shane slips through the crowd like he belongs to it, easy under the lights, Rose catching his wrist and pulling him onto the floor. She spins once beneath his arm as the music surges around them, laughing at something he says that Ilya can’t hear.

Anyone watching would see exactly what they expect to see. Shane Hollander dancing with his girlfriend. Ilya knows better.

He leans back against the bar, forcing himself to look anywhere else — the mirrored shelves behind the bottles, the press of people waiting three deep for drinks, the pulsing lights sliding over the ceiling.

It doesn’t work.

His eyes find Shane again.

Shane never looks at him.

Not once.

Which is how Ilya knows he sees him.

Chapter End Notes

Ah yes. Careful idiots. How are we feeling about their life choices? Drop a comment. Tell a friend. Thank you for pasta.

Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

January 2017

Shane is all but floating when he unlocks the door to his apartment the next day.

Despite falling asleep beside Rose, he wakes feeling like Ilya is still with him — the ghost of his hand at Shane’s waist, the warmth of his mouth against Shane’s throat, the steady rise and fall of his chest under his weight. The memory lingers long enough that Shane catches himself smiling as he drops onto the couch and reaches for his phone.

A DM is no riskier than what they shared the night before, and his password is strong — he hopes Ilya’s is too. Getting hacked wouldn’t be ideal.

He opens Instagram, intending to scroll down to the message Ilya sent weeks ago, but before he can find it he sees the notification.

TheLoon2481.

Unread. Sent an hour before, just as the sun was beginning to rise.

Shane opens it before he can even think not to.

The message is short.

You’re not fooling anyone.

There’s a photo attached.

It’s a wide shot of the club floor, grainy in the low light but clear enough to make out the crowd packed together under bruise-colored lights. It takes him only a second to find himself on the dance floor, Rose’s arm looped loosely around his shoulders.

And across the bar, unmistakable even through the blur, is Ilya.

He’s watching Shane with the same hungry focus that had Shane’s pulse racing all night, like he wants to devour him whole.

Shane stares at the image a moment longer than he should.

Whoever took the picture wasn’t standing across the room or tucked against the bar. The perspective puts them somewhere on the floor, close enough to see exactly where Ilya’s attention was fixed — close enough to watch both of them.

Somewhere behind Shane. Leaving him exposed.

The realization settles slowly, replacing the warm haze that had followed him home. He locks the phone and lets it rest against his knee, his thoughts already moving ahead to the next problem.

Telling Ilya is out of the question. Not if Shane wants to see him again at the end of the month in Tampa for the All-Star Game.

Shane studies the photo one last time.

Then he deletes the message.

***

Ilya doesn’t check his phone until he’s back in Boston.

The early flight out of Montreal had been brutal — too little sleep, too much vodka, and Shane still everywhere in his head when the alarm dragged him out of bed. By the time the team plane touches down he’s running mostly on autopilot, moving through the airport with the rest of the team while the memory of the night before keeps replaying itself in fragments he can’t quite shake.

It isn’t until he’s back in his apartment, standing under a shower nearly hot enough to brand his skin, that the fog of the flight and the leftover vodka finally begins to lift. Even then his thoughts keep circling back to Shane.

Shane’s mouth against his throat.

The salty taste of him on Ilya’s tongue.

The weight of Shane pressed along his side.

His hand slides down his stomach and wraps around his dick.

For the first time in weeks, he lets himself think about Shane without hesitating — without the heartbreak that usually follows, the certainty that he cannot have him.

Before, this was all he had.

Now it’s only anticipation.

In the quiet of the bathroom he moans Shane’s name, coming hard against the shower tile.

Afterward he pours himself coffee — strong and bitter — and only then reaches for his phone where it’s been sitting untouched on the counter.

The Instagram notification is the first thing he sees.

The username makes his stomach drop before he even opens it.

TheLoon2481.

Unread. Sent hours earlier, sometime around sunrise.

Ilya opens the message.

You’re not fooling anyone.

There’s a photo attached.

He knows what it’s going to be before he even taps it, but the image still makes something in his chest tighten.

The club floor spreads across the screen in a wash of violet light and blurred bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. It takes him only a moment to find Shane in the crowd, Rose’s arm looped loosely around his shoulders as they move with the music. The same scene he’d stared at all night.

And across the bar — himself.

Watching.

Even in the grainy blur the direction of his attention is unmistakable, the way his body has turned slightly toward the dance floor, the focus of his gaze fixed entirely on Shane like nothing else in the room exists.

Ilya stares at the photo longer than he means to, the details settling slowly into place.

Whoever took the picture was impossibly close to Shane — at his back, where they could’ve taken far more than a photo.

The thought makes his jaw tighten.

Shane needs to see this.

Ilya takes a screenshot and sends it before he can talk himself out of it.

You get this too?

***

Shane’s phone buzzes on the couch beside him. He reaches for it, still replaying the club in his head — J.J. at the bar, Hayden and Jackie leaving early to relieve their sitter, Rose pulling him onto the dance floor, one of her friends grinding against them, two reporters he half-recognized near the DJ booth — trying to remember who had been standing behind him.

He jumps at the sound, half expecting the Loon again, his breath loosening when he sees Ilya’s name.

When Shane opens the message, the screenshot fills the screen immediately. The same photo. The same message.

You’re not fooling anyone.

And beneath it, Ilya’s question.

You get this too?

Shane stares at the image for a long moment, the realization settling slowly into place as his mind runs through the same calculations all over again — distance, exposure, what the person has actually done versus what they might do next. Minutes ago he’d convinced himself the smartest move was to keep it quiet, to handle it on his own and spare Ilya the worry until there was something concrete to worry about.

But Ilya hadn’t hesitated at all.

He saw the message and sent it straight to Shane.

The honesty of it sits heavily in Shane’s chest. If this is going to work — if they’re going to keep doing this, seeing each other when they can and pretending the rest of the world isn’t watching too closely — then he can’t start it with secrets. Not from him. Not from Ilya. Not about something like this.

Tampa is only a few weeks away.

When he sees Ilya there, he’ll tell him everything.

He wants to leave nothing unsaid.

***

By the time Shane pushes into the bar in Tampa the place is already crowded, players and media packed shoulder to shoulder beneath the low lights while music hums softly under the buzz of conversation. He pauses just inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust as he scans the room out of habit more than intent.

It only takes a second to find him.

Ilya is leaning against the far end of the bar with one elbow braced on the counter, a drink resting loosely in his hand as he watches the room.

As if he feels it, Ilya lifts his head.

Their eyes meet across the crowded space and hold there, the noise of the room falling away for a moment while neither of them moves. Shane’s hand drifts toward his phone without him quite thinking about it, already anticipating the message he knows will come. The screen buzzes a second later.

1217. 7:15.

***

Ilya is on Shane the second he pushes through the door, pulling him into a hug — simple, sweet, longing. There will be time for more later, or there won’t, but for now he just wants to hold him.

There’s been a time bomb in his chest since Montreal, since the Loon sent the photo, and he wasn’t sure if they would have this. If they could. If this would be the risk that became too great to bear.

For Ilya, the stakes remain high. His father is at the other end of the world, withering as Ilya’s need for Shane blooms. Despite everything, he has to be able to go back. To see him again before he’s gone. And this thing with Shane — whatever it is — getting out would ruin that.

It isn’t safe for him there. It isn’t safe to embrace a man and embrace his country at once.

So for now he holds Shane in secret, for so many reasons.

Their careers. Their safety. Whatever future they might still have.

Before he knows it, he’s sobbing against Shane’s neck.

They aren’t like this with each other. They haven’t been. But he just leans harder into Shane. 

Shane pulls back just long enough to look at him, then tugs him down to the edge of the bed and climbs into his lap, turning to face him. Ilya’s arms come around him automatically, instinctively, and Shane settles there like it’s the most natural thing in the world — knees bracketing Ilya’s hips, hands sliding up the back of his neck.

“Hey,” Shane murmurs, pressing his forehead to Ilya’s. “What is this? Talk to me.”

But there aren’t any words.

Only the thoughts tumbling through Ilya’s head, loud and merciless.

My father is police, my brother is police. 

My mother is in the ground and everything I love will leave me.

If I have you, that fucking bird can take you from me.

Just hold me until I’m nothing.

He cries against Shane’s middle, arms wrapped so tightly around each other that not even a breath could slip between them. He lets it all out until there’s nothing left. When it’s finally quiet again, Shane keeps holding him just the same.

“My father is sick,” Ilya says after a while.

It’s not immediate, but Shane puts the pieces together — his fingers digging into Ilya’s back at what must be the realization before he says, “And you have to be able to go back.”

Ilya lifts his head slightly at that. He knows he’s mentioned it before, but never the why. Shane misses nothing.

“He will die. Like my mother,” Ilya says plainly. Not to be cruel. Just to be honest. “And after—”

He trails off. Shane waits, but nothing comes.

“And after,” Shane says quietly, “it feels like this could be something.”

Ilya lets out a breath that shudders against Shane’s shoulder.

“But it’s nothing until then.”

Shane pulls back just enough to look at him.

“It was never nothing. Not for me. And I don’t think for you either. Not for a long time.”

For a moment Ilya doesn’t answer. He stays folded into Shane, breathing slowly now, the worst of the shaking passing as Shane’s hands move in steady, absent circles along his back. The quiet stretches between them.

“But it is impossible,” Ilya says eventually, the words rough where they press into Shane’s shoulder.

“Right now,” Shane murmurs.

Ilya lifts his head at that, eyes still red-rimmed, searching Shane’s face like he’s trying to decide whether he’s being comforted or argued with.

“You say this like it changes something.”

Shane shrugs a little above him, his hands still resting warm at the back of Ilya’s neck.

“It does. Doesn’t it?” he asks, but Ilya only flexes his fingers against Shane’s spine as his brow softens. “The things making it impossible aren’t all forever.”

Ilya watches him quietly. His father hangs between them without being said again, the reality of it heavy and unavoidable. That clock is running whether either of them likes it or not.

“And the Loon?” Ilya asks after a moment.

Shane’s thumb drifts absently along the line of his jaw.

“It is still out there,” he says. “Still watching.”

The memory of the photo flashes through both of their minds at the same time — the angle of it, the closeness, the way whoever took it had been standing far too close.

“But watching isn’t the same thing as stopping us,” Shane continues, his voice calm in that deliberate way he gets when he’s thinking several moves ahead. “Right now it has something it thinks is leverage. Maybe it thinks it can scare us into disappearing again.”

Ilya’s arms tighten slightly around him.

“And maybe it can,” Ilya says.

“Maybe,” Shane agrees. “But that leverage changes — eventually. A man is only a man for so long.”

Ilya frowns faintly.

“When your father is gone,” Shane says gently, “you don’t have to go back there anymore. Not if you don’t want to.”

The words settle between them.

“There is still the league,” Ilya says after a moment. “Still the press. Fans. Our teams.”

“Yeah.”

None of that disappears. But it isn’t the same danger waiting for him in Russia, and they both know the argument is thin.

Shane brushes his thumb beneath Ilya’s eye, wiping away the last dampness there.

“It’s still complicated,” he says quietly. “But it isn’t the same kind of impossible.”

Ilya studies him for a long moment, the tension in his shoulders slowly easing as the weight of what Shane is saying settles in. Then he leans forward again, pressing his forehead to Shane’s sternum, breath warm between them.

“And until then?” he asks softly.

Shane doesn’t hesitate.

“Until then,” he says, tightening his arms around him again, “we keep choosing each other anyway.”

Chapter End Notes

Eventually life will get in the way and I’ll stop updating daily. But while the gettin’ is good, I’m doing it. So here’s two in one day. Hope you’re enjoying. Yell at me in the comments or on Threads (@amillionsparks) if you are. Or if you’re not. Whatever.

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

January 2017 - Tampa

Shane wakes ravenous.

The clock on the bedside table reads 11:08 pm. He blinks at it for a moment, disoriented by the dark and quiet around him, trying to remember what day it is and where he is before everything settles back into place — like the arm across his waist.

Tampa. The All-Star break. 1217. Ilya.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

He’d only planned to let Ilya rest for a little while, the man sprawled warm and heavy across him. But the weight of him had been solid, grounding, and somewhere between tracing slow circles along Ilya’s back and listening to his breathing even out, Shane had slipped under with him.

For a moment he doesn’t move.

The room is dim except for the thin glow of the night filtering through the curtains, and the air smells faintly of salt and soap and the lingering warmth of the day.

Ilya is still there.

Curled against him, one arm thrown across Shane’s middle like he’d refused to let go even in sleep. His face rests evenly on Shane’s chest, the anguish of earlier softened into stillness.

This is not the Ilya the world knows on the ice — sharp elbows and sharper words, impossible skill and deliberate cruelty. That man moves through the world like a weapon.

This one is different.

Shane shifts just enough to look down at him, golden in the moonlight.

His long lashes are still clumped faintly where the tears have dried. The tension that had been wound tight through his shoulders earlier has loosened in sleep, his mouth parted slightly against Shane’s shirt.

He looks younger like this, and Shane’s bones ache at the softness of him.

He hadn’t expected this — not the crying, not the way Ilya had crumbled in his arms like something inside him had finally cracked open after years of pressure. Not the way Shane had wanted to hold him there.

Shane lets out a slow breath and, carefully — so carefully — brushes his fingers through the ends of Ilya’s hair.

Ilya shifts at the touch, but only enough to tighten his arm around Shane’s waist, anchoring himself there, to him. 

The room is quiet enough that Shane can hear the muffled thud of music somewhere far below in the hotel. The All-Star festivities are still going on out there — players, league staff, and media filling the space between the hotel and the beach while the league celebrates itself.

While two of its biggest players — its biggest rivals — lie tangled in hotel sheets and each other.

Shane’s stomach growls quietly. 

Carefully, he shifts beneath Ilya, testing the weight of him. The man is not small, and Shane resigns himself to stay and starve, unwilling to wake him and unable to move him. 

“You are ruining my beauty sleep, Hollander.” 

The words are quiet against his chest, and he can feel the way Ilya’s mouth drifts into a grin around them. 

“You don’t need it.”

The absurdity of openly complimenting Ilya in a bed together while half the league parties underfoot makes Shane’s head spin.

He knows the night has been reckless — not the careful idiots they swore to be. Especially with someone watching.

But he wants it.

If Ilya’s father is dying, there might be a someday. Maybe.

It’s selfish to think. Horrible to almost wish for.

But he likes this — the weight of Ilya on him, unhurried and soft.

He turns into him and takes his mouth like a question.

Do you want this too? 

Is this okay? 

Can I keep you? 

Ilya’s tongue slides against his in answer, and Shane moans against it, shameless. 

He had thought this was what Ilya invited him for — the press of their bodies, an aching need. But the need is deeper now. Different. All-consuming.

He can taste it in Ilya’s mouth, feel it in the dig of his fingers at Shane’s hip.

“I want you,” Shane says thinly — his voice trembling, the meaning twofold.

“You have me.”

One hand closes around Shane’s jaw while the other reaches between them. Ilya holds his gaze in the dark as he presses out the words, low and steady.

“Now take what you want, Hollander.”

It hangs between them, and for just a moment, Shane just looks at him. 

Then he’s hands and need and longing, and the only hunger left in him is for the man biting at his throat. 

He pulls them both up and pushes Ilya’s shirt up and over his head without breaking the rhythm of their mouths, tossing it somewhere onto the floor.

Ilya’s hands slide under Shane’s shirt a moment later, dragging it up and off. His gaze flickers over Shane’s chest when it’s gone, something lighting there, and Shane basks in it.

“You are staring,” Shane whispers.

Ilya’s mouth curves slightly.

“You like when I stare.”

He’s not wrong.

Shane dips his head and kisses him again, slower this time, letting the moment stretch between them. Ilya’s hands are already moving, impatient now, tugging at the waistband of Shane’s jeans where they’re still half-twisted beneath the sheets.

“Helpful,” Shane laughs when Ilya manages to pop the button and drag the zipper down one-handed.

“Move,” Ilya says into his mouth.

Shane laughs softly but lifts his hips, enough for Ilya to shove the denim down over them. Shane kicks the rest of the way free. He folds them quickly at the foot of the bed as he watches Ilya pushing at the blankets with one heel, working his own pants down his legs with growing impatience.

He settles back down and catches Ilya’s mouth once more while his hands shove the rumpled sheets out of the way, leaving nothing between them but warm skin and wanting. Ilya’s breath leaves him in a quiet rush when Shane shifts closer, their bodies fitting together in a way that feels almost inevitable to him.

Shane pulls back just enough to look at him.

Moonlight spills across the bed, catching in the pale line of Ilya’s throat, the sharp planes of his collarbones, the dark focus of his eyes.

For a moment he simply takes him in.

Then Shane presses forward again, guiding Ilya back into the mattress beneath him.

“Can I have you like this?” Ilya asks, voicing the question just as Shane thinks it, the words hot against his throat. A hand finds his cheek blindly, and Shane turns into it, his mouth pressing hotly against Ilya’s palm. “I want to see your face when you come for me.”

“Fuck,” the word comes out as nothing more than a gasp around Ilya’s fingers as he presses them into Shane’s mouth.

When he pulls them free, they move immediately between them — two fingers pressing at Shane’s hole while his other hand closes around Shane’s cock. He works both in the same slow rhythm until Shane tips his head back, aware of Ilya staring up at him and not caring in the slightest, already wrecked by the way those hands know his body.

It’s unfair how well Ilya knows him — every shift of his hands, every pause timed exactly where Shane will feel it most.

He almost wonders what this would feel like, how good it could be, if they’d had more than stolen moments.

When they do.

Shane grinds himself down on Ilya’s hand, chasing the pressure, and Ilya gives it to him, knuckles deep and fingers curling.

“Impatient,” Ilya says softly.

“Then give me what I want,” Shane shoots back, the challenge in it almost a reflex between them.

Ilya obliges, rolling on a condom without looking away, his eyes fixed on Shane hovering above him, ready.

Shane sinks down on him slowly at first, the pressure and length still somehow surprising despite how long he’s wanted this, how often he’s imagined it. He drags himself back up, slow and deliberate, before dropping down again, a moan slipping from his mouth like a prayer as Ilya fills him completely.

“Look at you,” Ilya whispers up at him. “You are desperate for me.”

Shane looks down at him, eyes hooded and dark, clenching around Ilya as he says, “You fucking love it.”

Something in Ilya breaks open at the words. His fingers dig into Shane’s hips as he drives up into him, eyes wild. Shane can’t help but think it was the love that did it — but there’s no room for thinking against Ilya’s frantic pace.

“Touch yourself for me, Shane.”

He does as he’s told, keeping time with the speed and power of Ilya’s thrusts, his thighs burning and his chest heaving. When he comes, he forces himself to keep his eyes open and locked on the man beneath him, so he can see the way he breaks apart.

Shane folds forward over him, breathing hard and unable to care about the mess between them.

Ilya’s hands slide from his hips to his back, cradling him to his chest as Shane’s breath evens out. 

Eventually Ilya shifts beneath him, careful, nudging Shane gently to the side. The mattress dips as he sits up, the soft rustle of sheets and the quiet sound of the bathroom door following a moment later.

Shane lets himself sink deeper into the pillows, the warmth of the bed still wrapped around him. His body is loose now, pleasantly heavy, every sharp edge of the day smoothed away.

Somewhere far below, the music from the party is still thumping through the hotel, but he barely hears it.

By the time Ilya comes back, the mattress dipping again beside him, Shane is already drifting.

The hunger that woke him earlier is gone.

And he falls asleep fully satisfied.

***

In the morning, Ilya is gone.

For a moment Shane lies there in the quiet, staring at the ceiling, a bit dazed, the sheets still warm beside him.

A note by the door reads:

Calculated risk. See you at breakfast.

Shane stares at it for a second longer than necessary, then huffs out a quiet laugh.

He goes to his room and showers quickly, letting the hot water wake the rest of him up, then pulls on clean clothes and heads downstairs.

The restaurant is already busy when he gets there.

Players and staff fill the room, scattered across tables in loose clusters. The All-Star break is one of the few times the usual rivalries soften — teammates mixed with opponents, guys who spent the last few months trying to knock each other clear into next season now sharing coffee.

Shane spots the table immediately.

Ilya is sitting with a handful of players, long legs stretched under the table, one elbow resting lazily along the back of his chair. Hayden is there too, mid-story about something that has two players across from him laughing. Cliff Marleau, Ilya’s alternate captain, is one of them, the other a defenseman from Colorado whose name Shane can’t quite place pre-coffee.

Ilya looks completely at ease.

Shane grabs a chair without asking and drops into the empty seat across from him, next to Hayden.

“Morning,” Hayden says around a mouthful of eggs.

Shane nods, reaching for the coffee pot in the center of the table.

“Morning.”

Across from him, Ilya doesn’t look up.

Shane nudges his foot forward under the table until it brushes Ilya’s ankle. Then taps it lightly.

Ilya still doesn’t lift his head, but the corner of his mouth twitches.

Someone further down the table asks, “Who’s up for a game of beach volleyball later?”

Chapter End Notes

Listen, I promised tender and yearning and explicit in the Chapter One notes. Hopefully this delivered a little of that for y’all. Comments are open for complaints or compliments.

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

January 2017 - Tampa

There was once a television in Ilya’s hotel room that couldn’t change channels. After that night’s company left — a girl or a guy from Columbus or St. Louis, he can’t quite remember — he stayed up all night watching a documentary series about fugue states. All-Star weekend feels suspiciously close to what those people described.

Everything is too bright. Too loud. He smiles too much.

Sunlight glints off the water as he cuts through the pool in measured, steady laps, the cool drag of it the only thing that feels real. The hotel courtyard is already crowded — players stretched out on chaise lounges in the warm Florida sun, media drifting along the edges, someone laughing too loudly near the bar.

He keeps his head down and swims.

It’s easier than thinking. Easier than remembering the feel of Shane Hollander in his hands just a few hours ago.

He turns at the wall and pushes off again.

When he surfaces this time, Shane is exactly where he left him — stretched out on a lounge chair nearby, sunglasses tipped low on his nose, one long leg bent lazily at the knee like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

He meets Ilya’s eyes for half a second before Ilya slips back under the water.

Like they didn’t spend the night wrecking each other in a hotel room upstairs, then sat across from each other at breakfast like friends.

All of it feels easy. And terrifying. And wonderful.

And like it might disappear after the game later today.

Tomorrow it’s back to their own benches, their corners of the league, rivals once more — at least to everyone else.

To each other, they go back to complicated stolen touches and the constant fear that each one might be the last.

The touch that outs them and drives a wrecking ball straight through their lives.

Too soon and he loses Russia.

He told Shane it was about his father being sick. That part was true.

What he didn’t say is that if this comes out — if he comes out — Russia might decide he no longer belongs to it. And if that happens, he might never go back. Not to see his father. Not to bury him and lay his anger to rest beside him.

Maybe the league decides the same — that he doesn’t belong there either. A quiet conversation in an office somewhere, the commissioner deciding the distraction isn’t worth the trouble, and they bury his career.

And without the league he cannot stay in America.

Without Russia to return to, what moors his life?

The space in Ilya’s chest begins to shrink and he comes up from the water gasping for air. 

In the shallow end of the pool, several of the players’ children are playing a game of tag in front of where Shane sits. Ilya swims over and splashes one of the pre-teens, earning a shriek of laughter. He needs the distraction, and letting them chase him for a while feels like the right kind of escape.

Plus, the sun is warmer here.

Like the world has an axis and Shane Hollander is somehow on it.

***

The game passes in a blur, like anything Ilya has ever tried to hold onto too tightly. Three periods are gone before he even thinks to savor them, and by the time the final horn sounds, the night is already pulling him in a dozen different directions.

Shane disappears almost immediately into a knot of reporters on the other side of the hallway, and after that they never quite land in the same place at the same time.

Ilya looks for him in every room anyway, even though he knows he’s not there. It feels a bit like the light has gone out.

Before he leaves the last party, he sends Shane a DM with his phone number. 

If they could DM, they could text. If they’re going to risk it, they might as well commit.

He doesn’t hear anything back and falls asleep reaching for the side of the bed that still holds the ghost of Shane Hollander.

When he wakes at four in the morning to some first-timer too drunk and loud in the hallway, there’s a text from an unknown number, sent sometime around midnight — when he was already back in his room hoping Shane would knock.

5:30 am.

There’s a dropped pin with it that leads to a spot a quarter mile down the beach near what looks like a wildlife preserve. Private. Secluded. He’ll take what he can get. He’s just glad he woke up in time to see it.

Going back to sleep is impossible, so he heads down to the gym for an early workout. A little cardio to burn off his nerves. He’s grateful to find the room empty, and he starts moving right away.

An hour later, he’s showered and back in his room, absently rubbing his earlobe between his fingers as he sits by the window watching the clock on the bedside table.

At five-fifteen, he jogs down to the water and hangs a right.

As he approaches the spot where the pin was dropped, it occurs to him in real time that the number could have been anyone.

He stands on the strip of beach that corresponds to the red pin glowing back at him from his phone and opens his DMs. The message he sent Shane sits there in the thread exactly where he left it.

Unread.

There’s no little seen beneath it, no read receipt, nothing to suggest Shane ever opened it at all.

The unease settles in slowly at first, quiet and insistent, the way the first bad thought always does. The text had come anyway. Five-thirty, a pin dropped on an empty stretch of beach far enough from the hotel that no one else would wander past by accident.

He lifts his head, suddenly aware of how alone he is.

The ocean stretches dark and endless in front of him, the tide sliding in and out in a slow rhythm that sounds a little too much like breathing. Behind him the dunes rise into thick brush, the narrow path back toward the resort already swallowed by shadow.

Private. Secluded.

He had thought that was the point.

Now it feels like a mistake.

His pulse begins to pick up, a familiar, sharpening awareness settling into his body the same way it does on the ice when something is about to go wrong. His eyes move automatically along the shoreline, measuring distance without thinking — the water, the brush, the faint glow of the hotel lights far down the beach.

Too far.

The thought comes to him then, unwelcome and immediate.

The fucking Loon.

The wind shifts across the dunes behind him, stirring the tall grass into a dry whisper.

Ilya turns toward the sound, heart suddenly hammering harder than it has any right to.

He doesn’t see the figure approaching until it’s nearly on him.

“I’m glad you saw my message.”

Shane’s voice.

The tension leaves Ilya’s body so fast it’s almost violent.

For a moment he just stands there, the rush of adrenaline draining out of him all at once, his lungs still working like he’s been skating full ice.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, all but throwing himself at Shane as their mouths crash together. “I thought you were going to murder me.”

He can still feel his pulse everywhere — in his throat, in his wrists, in the tight grip he doesn’t quite realize he has on the back of Shane’s shirt.

Shane pulls back just enough to look at him.

“The Loon, Shane,” Ilya says, breath still uneven, shaking out one hand before dragging it back to Shane’s shoulder like he needs something solid to hold onto. “I thought you were that fucking Loon lunatic.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“You did not read my message. I get a text with only a pin and a time. What was I supposed to think?”

“But you still came?” 

“Blinded by the fucking thought of you, yes.”

Shane digs his phone from his pocket and shows him the text thread, the name Lily at the top of the screen, an L inside a grey circle. 

“It was me. It’s me. See? It’s okay.”

Ilya drops into the sand — collapses into it. Shane sits beside him, as if they’re about to watch the sunrise, but sunrise is still hours away. Their fingers meet in the sand between them as they stare out toward the water.

“I’m sorry about last night. I had a sponsor dinner that ran long and then an interview, a Make-a-Wish thing. It was endless and I didn’t even have time to...” He trails off when Ilya’s pinky hooks around his. “I wanted to see you.”

“I am always wanting to see you, Hollander.”

They sit there until the sky just barely begins to lighten, the dark water slowly turning the color of steel.

Neither of them says it out loud, but they both know how little time they have.

Eventually Shane checks his watch.

“My car’s coming soon.”

Ilya nods once.

The words we won’t see each other for weeks sit between them without needing to be spoken. Their teams won’t cross paths again until March. Different cities, different schedules, different lives.

They stand at the same time, brushing sand from their hands.

“Text me,” Shane says.

“I will.”

It sounds simple enough. Like something people say every day. Like it isn’t a promise that could unravel their lives if the wrong person sees it.

They walk in silence for a while, then as if realizing they’re losing their chance to really say goodbye, they both pull to a stop. 

Ilya looks toward the hotel, then back at Shane. Close enough now that someone could see them if they happened to look in the right direction. Close enough that it would be easy to walk away and pretend none of this happened.

It feels like a risk to stay. It feels worse to leave.

Before Shane can say anything else, Ilya reaches for him, one hand sliding up behind his neck as he pulls him in. The kiss is quick and hard and a little desperate, the kind that belongs somewhere private and very much isn’t.

They break apart just as quickly.

“March,” Shane says, his voice quieter now.

Ilya lets out a small breath.

“March.”

They separate there, each heading toward a different entrance.

***

By the time Shane settles into his seat, the cabin doors are already closing.

The early flight is quiet, most of the passengers half asleep, the low murmur of the engines starting up blending with the rustle of blankets and seatbelts. Shane leans back and exhales slowly, the last few days finally catching up with him.

His phone buzzes in his hand.

A new message.

For a moment he assumes it’s Ilya.

Instead, the notification shows the username he’s come to dread.

The Loon.

Shane opens the message.

The first thing that loads is a photograph.

It’s the hotel courtyard from the day before. Shane stretched out beside the pool, sunglasses tipped low on his nose. In the water nearby, Ilya has his arms draped over the edge of the pool, body facing the water while he looks back at Shane over his shoulder.

The photo is followed by a short line of text.

You look happier.

A second message appears beneath it.

Would be a shame to lose it.

Shane stares at the screen for a long moment before locking the phone and sliding it back into his pocket.

Outside the window, the plane begins to move toward the runway.

Chapter End Notes

I know I’ve spoiled you with insanely fast updates this week, but there’s a busy weekend ahead, so apologies in advance for taking a few days for the next chapter. Drop some theories in the meantime. Or tell your pals. I’d be thrilled as hell with either of those options.

Chapter 10

January 30, 2017

8:42 PM
Jane: have you heard from our bird friend today?

8:44 PM
Lily: No.

8:45 PM
Jane: they messaged me while i was on the plane

8:45 PM
Lily: What did they say?

8:46 PM
Jane: sent a photo from the pool yesterday

8:47 PM
Jane: said i looked happier

8:49 PM
Lily: They did not send this to me.

8:49 PM
Lily: Must think you are the pretty one.

8:51 PM
Lily: Was it good photo?

8:52 PM
Jane: be fucking serious

8:52 PM
Lily: I am serious.

8:53 PM
Jane: you tell me
Attachment: IMG0378.PNG

8:56 PM
Lily: Ah.

8:57 PM
Lily: Yes. Makes sense.

8:59 PM
Jane: what?

9:03 PM
Lily: I look good here.

9:05 PM
Lily: Explains why you look happy.

***

February 2, 2017

11:09 PM
Lily: I googled these fucking birds.

11:13 PM
Lily: You know about them yes?

11:14 PM
Jane: i’m canadian so yes

11:15 PM
Lily: Territorial. Serially monogamous.

11:16 PM
Jane: wow big words

11:16 PM
Lily: Fuck you. Listen.

11:17 PM
Lily: They do not care about their partner.

11:18 PM
Jane: that’s rude

11:19 PM
Lily: They care about their territory.

11:20 PM
Lily: They return to the same lake every year and defend it.

11:21 PM
Jane: are you calling me a lake

11:22 PM
Lily: I am saying someone thinks they own you.

11:22 PM
Lily: Or me.

11:23 PM
Lily: Maybe both.

11:23 PM
Jane: jesus christ

11:25 PM
Lily: When another loon comes into territory they fight.

11:26 PM
Lily: Sometimes to death.

11:27 PM
Jane: cool 

11:28 PM
Jane: love that for us

***

February 5, 2017

9:41 PM
Jane: how many people have you dated? like let’s narrow it down

9:43 PM
Lily: That would not narrow it down.

9:44 PM
Jane: that many?

9:45 PM
Lily: Define date.

9:46 PM
Jane: you know dating

9:47 PM
Lily: No.

9:48 PM
Jane: oh my god

9:49 PM
Jane: people you saw more than once

9:50 PM
Lily: That is still not narrowing it down.

9:52 PM
Jane: jesus christ rozanov

9:53 PM
Lily: You are the one who asked.

9:54 PM
Jane: ok new question

9:55 PM
Jane: how many people hate you enough to stalk me

9:56 PM
Lily: That narrows it slightly.

***

February 8, 2017

10:07 PM
Lily: How many for you?

10:09 PM
Jane: you waited days to ask me this?

10:09 PM
Jane: were you counting yours this whole time?

10:10 PM
Lily: How many?

10:11 PM
Jane: none

10:12 PM
Lily: What about Rose?

10:13 PM
Jane: what about rose?

10:14 PM
Lily: You dated her.

10:15 PM
Jane: that was not dating

10:16 PM
Lily: It looked like dating.

10:17 PM
Jane: it looked like a publicity contract

10:18 PM
Lily: Ok.

***

February 9, 2017

11:01 PM
Jane: your house, the club, all stars

11:02 PM
Jane: who was at all three?

11:04 PM
Lily: You and me were only ones at house.

11:04 PM
Lily: And tuna melts. 

11:04 PM
Lily: But probably not them. 

11:06 PM
Lily: Was it you?

11:07 PM
Jane: ilya

11:08 PM
Lily: What? I am eliminating possibilities.

***

February 10, 2017

9:15 AM
Lily: I think it is someone from league.

9:16 AM
Jane: could be

9:18 AM
Lily: All Star hotel had good security.

9:19 AM
Lily: Not easy to get near players.

9:21 AM
Jane: media?

9:22 AM
Lily: Or staff.

9:23 AM
Jane: well that’s comforting

***

February 14, 2017

7:39 PM
Lily: I have been reading more about these birds.

7:42 PM
Lily: Sorry. Are you with Rose?

7:44 PM
Jane: we “broke up” weeks ago

7:45 PM
Jane: must’ve missed the announcement on the bird blogs

7:46 PM
Lily: So you are not busy?

7:47 PM
Jane: tell me about the birds ilya

***

February 15, 2017

10:28 PM
Lily: Did you hear about this shit with Zullo?

10:30 PM
Jane: real piece of shit 

10:31 PM
Lily: Big enough piece of shit to be Loon?

10:31 PM
Lily: Was he at All Stars?

10:32 PM
Lily: I only remember one boring hockey player.

10:32 PM
Lily: And Montreal’s 15th best player: Hayden Pike. 

10:33 PM
Jane: wow

10:36 PM
Jane: i don’t think so though 

10:37 PM
Lily: You don’t think you are boring?

10:39 PM
Jane: i don’t think zullo was there

10:41 PM
Lily: Good to have one less homophobe in the league.

10:42 PM
Jane: only one million to go

***

February 18, 2017

7:46 AM
Lily: I do not like they only sent you photo. 

8:02 AM
Jane: good morning to you too

8:03 AM
Lily: I am serious, Shane. 

8:05 AM
Jane: well you sound jealous 

8:06 AM
Lily: Yes. That is it. 

8:06 AM
Lily: I want to be stalked by crazy person. 

8:09 AM
Lily: I think maybe they are obsessed with you.

8:10 AM
Lily: I am … other bird in territory?

8:11 AM
Jane: well i am the more famous player

8:11 AM
Jane: more likely to be obsessed over 

8:12 AM
Jane: you going to fight to the death for your lake?

***

February 23, 2017

8:11 PM
Lily: One week until we beat you.

8:18 PM
Jane: yeah fucking right

***

March 1, 2017

4:18 PM
Jane: just landed

4:21 PM
Lily: See you soon. 

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

March 2017 - Boston

Despite having known the date for weeks, it doesn’t feel real until Shane looks out the window while the plane dips low over Boston — the Charles cutting through the city, rows of red-brick buildings packed tight against the muted grey of late winter. 

A warm memory of late January rushes in. He hasn’t seen Ilya since Tampa. Since the beach and the quiet weight of Ilya’s hand at the back of his neck like he’d finally decided to stop pretending they were anything but what they are. 

Whatever that is.

The plane bumps once, then again, as the wheels hit the runway. Around him people are already in motion, seatbelts unlatched, bags dragged from under the seats in front of them.

Shane pulls out his phone and opens the thread.

The text he usually sends his mom, he sends to Ilya instead.

Just landed.

It feels dangerously close to honey, I’m home.

The reply comes before Shane even stands up.

See you soon.

For a second he just looks at it, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Around him the aisle has turned into a slow-moving traffic jam of gear bags and elbows, guys half standing in their seats waiting for the door to open. 

Shane slips the phone back into his pocket and finally stands with everyone else.

Soon.

It’s a fluid word, the how of it still not quite pinned down — team meetings and obligations pulling at both of them. In their world it might mean an hour, or two minutes stolen in a hallway. But the thought settles warm in his chest anyway as the line creeps forward toward the open plane door.

Boston air hits him sharp and cold on the jet bridge.

Somewhere in this city, Ilya is already waiting.

***

It’s midday on game day before their schedules finally align — team dinner the night before, a late video session for Shane and treatment for Ilya, and by the time they’re finally free the team curfew is already looming. Morning skate and media come early, followed by the usual pre-game shuffle.

But he can’t help wanting more. Stolen minutes aren’t enough now that he’s had Ilya fully, the memory of his warm, sleeping weight still haunting the hollow of his chest.

Ilya’s penthouse isn’t far from the Garden, and Shane pulls his hat low as he walks over, doubling back down side streets just in case.

It isn’t lost on him that Boston is the only place they’ve received a physical message from the Loon. The thought makes the base of his neck tingle and burn.

When he’s certain he’s alone, he pushes through the door of the building on Sudbury Street.

The lobby is quiet, polished marble and muted light. The doorman glances up as Shane steps inside, his hat still pulled low.

“Afternoon.”

Shane clears his throat. “Rozanov.”

Recognition flickers almost immediately. The man reaches for the desk phone, presses a button.

“Mr. Rozanov, your guest is here.”

A pause. Then the doorman nods toward the elevators.

“You’re all set.”

Shane keeps his head down as he crosses the lobby, stepping into the elevator and pressing the top floor. The ride feels longer than it is, the quiet creak of the cables stretching every second thin.

When the doors finally slide open, the hallway beyond is empty.

Except for the door to Ilya’s apartment.

Already open. Waiting for him. 

Shane feels his pulse quicken in his throat, unsure what he’ll find on the other side of the doorway. The odds of the Loon being there aren’t zero.

Mostly, it’s anticipation.

Shane pauses at the threshold before stepping inside.

Afternoon light spills through the tall windows behind Ilya, painting him golden.

He’s pacing slowly across the kitchen, a phone pressed to his ear, voice low and controlled as he spits something sharp across the ocean in the language that still holds all his secrets.

Shane can’t make out much beyond nyet and papa, but the crease in Ilya’s brow and the hard line of his shoulders suggest that’s likely at least the subject — if not the person on the other end of the call.

He wants to give him space.

He also wants to fold him into his arms.

Instead, he stays where he is, leaning lightly against the doorframe as the conversation winds down.

Ilya ends the call with a clipped nod and drops the phone onto the kitchen island. For a moment he just stands there, rubbing a hand across his forehead like he’s trying to smooth away whatever headache the conversation left behind.

“Is it… is it your dad?”

“Oh, you speak Russian now?”

“Papa is pretty universal.”

“Is nothing. Still dying. Slow. Expensively.” 

“Ah,” Shane nods.

“Yes. My brother was asking for money.” Ilya stares out into the harbor for a moment, like he might be able to glare straight across the ocean and into Russia. “Always money.”

“Will you give it to him?”

“I already have. He wants more.”

Shane hesitates. “I’m sorry.”

“Is fine.”

Ilya leans back against the long marble island, crossing one leg over the other at the ankle. He looks Shane over from head to toe, something soft passing briefly across his face, before lowering his head and saying quietly, “Come here.”

Despite the urge to close the distance quickly, he takes his time. Careful steps, watching Ilya’s face as he moves closer. The call with his brother had left something there — tension in the set of his jaw, the sharp tilt of his brows toward center.

Shane doesn’t want to pretend that moment didn’t just happen.

But Ilya just looks back at him, steady.

So Shane steps in close, bracketing Ilya’s legs with his own and pressing him lightly back against the island.

For a moment they just breathe the same air.

Then their mouths meet.

Shane leans in slowly, giving Ilya time to meet him halfway, the first brush of their lips warm and careful, like they’re both confirming the other is really there.

Ilya exhales softly against his mouth, one hand coming up to curl into the fabric at Shane’s hip as the kiss deepens — not urgent, but certain. Familiar.

Shane slides a hand up the back of Ilya’s neck, thumb warm against his throat, and for a few quiet seconds the rest of the world falls away — the game tonight, the Loon, the phone call, all of it dissolving into the simple fact of Ilya’s mouth moving against his.

“I think you missed me,” Ilya says, breaking the kiss with raised brows and a glance between them.

Shane doesn’t bother to hide it, his need. Every cell in his body strains toward Ilya — how could he hide that from someone that sees him so fully.

His gaze flicks past Ilya’s shoulder to the kitchen clock. 1:42. Lobby call is at 3:45.

Shane wants to take his time with him. Wants slow kisses and wandering hands and the kind of quiet that lets them forget, for a while, that the rest of the world exists outside this apartment.

But that isn’t the life they get.

What they get are stolen hours and hurried goodbyes.

If all they have today is fast and frantic, then that’s what it will be.

He’ll take whatever time Ilya gives him. And he’ll give himself fully in those moments. For as long as he’s allowed.

Shane kisses him again, deeper this time, the careful restraint from moments ago giving way to something more urgent. Ilya’s hands tighten at his hip, then in his hair, as Shane presses closer, his own hands sliding down the warm line of Ilya’s sides.

Ilya is already only half dressed — sweatpants and nothing more — and the feel of him like this sends a sharp pull through Shane’s chest.

They don’t have much time.

But they have this.

From there they’re a tumble of limbs and half-removed clothing, kissing their way through the apartment and down the hallway toward Ilya’s bedroom. A frame on the wall tilts crooked when Shane bumps it with his shoulder. Ilya’s pants land somewhere near the laundry room. Shane’s own sweater disappears onto the floor beside it.

For a split second he almost doubles back to fold it.

But Ilya catches him by the hips and pulls him down onto the bed, and he’s useless against the gravity of it.

“Tell me how you want me,” Shane says quietly.

Ilya answers with his hands, turning him until he’s on his knees, one palm pressing between his shoulder blades, guiding his chest down into the mattress.

Shane breathes in the scent of him on the sheets before gasping at the sudden warmth of Ilya’s tongue — flat and needy against his hole — and the grip of Ilya’s hand around his cock. He works both until Shane is whimpering shamelessly underneath him, words shifting into sound and nothing more, his hips rocking into Ilya’s hand, against his mouth. 

“Do you want me to fuck you, Hollander?”

“Ilya—”

It’s a name, but it’s also a plea — Shane asking to be Shane here, with him — and he feels Ilya’s breath leave him at the keening sound of it on his lips.

For a second it’s easy to forget what they are to each other outside this room — opponents, rivals, men who will be trying to put each other through the glass in a few hours.

“Shane,” Ilya says, voice rough now. “Do you want me to fuck you, Shane?”

“Ilya, please.”

Ilya keeps his mouth on Shane as he works the foil open, rolling the condom on with practiced efficiency, one hand steady on Shane’s back to keep him where he wants him.

They don’t have long now, and Ilya pours everything he has into each press of his hips — a hand braced on Shane’s shoulder, his mouth open against the line of Shane’s spine as he drives into him.

Shane meets him with equal urgency, pushing back against every thrust, the curl of his fingers tightening over Ilya’s at his shoulder as Ilya all but drives him into the mattress.

When Ilya comes, it’s with Shane’s name falling from his open mouth, and Shane isn’t far behind him, crying out Ilya’s in return.

***

When Shane presses Ilya into the boards only a few hours later, he can’t help but think of the way Ilya’s body moved against him that afternoon — the weight of him, the heat of his skin, the quiet sounds he’d pulled from him in the bare spill of daylight.

The glass rattles under the impact.

The crowd roars.

Ilya shoves back immediately, hard enough that Shane’s skates scrape for balance before he steadies himself. Their helmets knock together for a split second, close enough that Shane can see the familiar sharp line of his mouth behind the cage.

For a heartbeat neither of them moves.

Then the puck breaks loose along the boards and the moment crumbles around them.

Ilya drives past him, shoulder low, chasing the play like nothing happened at all.

Boston takes the game, 5–3, and Shane hates that he doesn’t get the chance to even the score after, the next city already waiting for him.

*** 

The charter leaves Boston just after midnight.

The plane is quiet in the dim cabin light, most of the team already half asleep, headphones on and hoods pulled low. Shane leans his head against the window and watches the runway lights blur past as they lift into the dark, leaving a piece of him on the ground below.

He wishes, briefly and uselessly, that he could have stayed longer — just another quiet hour in the warm sunlight spilling into Ilya’s apartment, Ilya breathing slow and even beside him.

But the plane hums steadily beneath him, carrying them west through the night, and somewhere over the dark stretch of Michigan the exhaustion of the last two days finally pulls him under.

Detroit is quiet when they land.

By the time Shane reaches the hotel the sky is just beginning to dream of morning, and sleep comes quickly then.

The next night’s game comes just as fast.

Detroit beats them 3–2.

Shane doesn’t remember much of the third period beyond the burn in his legs and the dull thud of bodies along the boards. The final horn sounds and the ice fills with motion — sticks tapping, gloves tugged loose, Detroit celebrating at center.

By the time he makes it down the tunnel and into the visiting locker room, the arena noise has already dulled to a distant roar behind the thick concrete.

He showers quickly.

When he pushes back out into the room a few minutes later, a towel slung low around his hips and water still dripping from his hair, the usual post-game chaos has settled in. Equipment bags lie open on the floor. Someone has music playing too loud. Tape rips somewhere across the room.

Shane is halfway to his stall when J.J.’s voice cuts through the noise.

“Did you guys hear about Rozanov?”

Shane slows.

“What about him?” someone asks.

“He didn’t travel with the team.”

“To where?”

“Nashville. They left this morning.”

A couple of guys glance up.

“Maybe he’s sick.”

“He’s not sick,” Shane says absently.

J.J. shrugs, holding up his phone to show Shane a tweet about Boston’s travel roster. “Just says he didn’t travel.”

The room drifts back toward its usual rhythm — gear clattering, someone complaining about the refs, the low buzz of the dryers.

Shane stands there for a moment, dazed.

He already knows — not because anyone told him, but because yesterday afternoon Ilya had been pacing barefoot across his kitchen, voice sharp in Russian as he spoke into the phone.

Still dying. Slow. Expensively.

Nothing else would pull him away this close to the playoffs. 

Shane lowers himself onto the bench at his stall and reaches for his phone, his thumb hovering over Lily’s name.

He wants to hold him.

And now, maybe, he can.

Chapter End Notes

Never did I imagine when I started posting this last weekend that so many of you would be reading it. I'm so flattered you're here, thankful for every comment and every time you share it with a friend. You're the best. ❤️

Chapter 12

March 2017 - Moscow

Ilya asks Svetlana to come to Moscow for a number of reasons, the least of which is the appearance of arriving with a beautiful Russian woman on his arm. They grew up together, the Vetrovas and Rozanovs intertwined for ages, and she stood beside him the last time he buried one of his parents. It seems fitting she should be there to send his father off, too. Even if Grigori never cared much for either of them. Children were only an unfortunate consequence of his appetite for women.

By the time their connecting flight takes off from Paris, she already knows that there’s someone named Jane in his life. His phone pings with the name several times while she watches Ilya leave every message unread. 

Somewhere over Belgium or Germany — he can’t tell — he turns the phone off. Svetlana levels a stare at him.

“Okay. Who is this Jane?” she asks bluntly in Russian. They’re too old and too familiar to pull punches — even after months apart.

“I’m not jealous,” she says. “But maybe they are a little needy.”

Ilya glances up from the plastic cup of airline vodka in his hand.

“Needy?”

“The phone,” she says, nodding toward his jacket pocket. “It buzzed every thirty minutes until you turned it off like a man fleeing from the law.”

He exhales slowly through his nose.

“Jane is not needy.”

Svetlana raises an eyebrow.

“Oh? Then what is Jane?”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

Outside the window the clouds stretch white and endless beneath the wing. He watches them drift and welcomes the quiet purgatory it offers. In the air there is no grief. No time. No love. Just distance and motion and a few dozen strangers who can be anything or nothing until they’re returned to the ground.

“Complicated,” he says finally.

Svetlana snorts.

“You are the complicated one, Ilyusha.”

She steals the vodka from his hand and finishes it.

“You brought me because you wanted a respectable woman beside you at the funeral. That I understand. You also brought me because you did not want to arrive alone.”

Ilya looks at her, eyes narrow but not unkind. 

“And because you know my family,” he says.

“Yes,” she agrees simply.

Svetlana studies him now with the same sharp, clinical patience she’s always had. Sometimes he thinks it’s how his mother used to look at him.

“But mostly,” she says, “you brought me because this Jane person maybe cannot come.”

Ilya’s jaw tightens. He tastes the words before he says them.

“I think he would have.”

“He?” Svetlana repeats carefully, giving him a moment to take it back.

He swears quietly in Russian and rakes a hand over his face. “Yes, Sveta,” he says. “He.”

Svetlana leans back in her seat, satisfied.

“Ah.”

The hum of the engines fills the silence between them, heavy in Ilya’s head.

“How long?” she asks after a moment.

“A while.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Years.”

Svetlana whistles softly.

“And you thought maybe I would not notice a man you have loved for years sending messages every twenty minutes while you pretend he is just ‘Jane.’”

“I did not say loved.”

“You did not have to.”

He turns his head toward the window.

“You cannot bring him here,” she says quietly.

“I know.”

“You cannot even speak of him here.”

“I know.”

He looks over at her and his chest aches at the furrow of her brow, the crooked line of her mouth — concern softening every feature.

“Does he know that?”

Ilya hesitates. 

“Yes. Probably.”

But he’s less certain than he wants to be. He has told Shane a little, but he isn’t sure he understands the gravity of it — what it would mean, how quickly Ilya’s life could unravel. Or end.

The plane jolts slightly in the air.

Svetlana’s hand slips into his where it rests on his thigh. 

“I hope Jane knows how lucky he is,” she tells him, her fingers squeezing his.

Ilya bites the knuckles of his other hand and stares toward his homeland, realizing home is no longer a place. He has no idea what to do with that now.

***

The cleaners have been through the apartment. Fresh sheets, every surface dusted. Ilya hasn’t been here since last summer and hadn’t planned to return until the next. Even so, the place stands exactly as he left it — a shell of a home, a shadow of a life he never really lived, ready to swallow him whole.

Without thinking, he taps Jane’s name, then disconnects before it rings. He should have checked the schedule, done the math for the time difference. It’s late in Montreal and Shane has an early game. 

Still, his phone buzzes in his hand a second later, Jane’s name lighting up the screen.

“Were you sleeping?” Ilya says instead of hello.

“Are you okay?” Shane responds instead of no.

“Can we FaceTime?”

“Yeah,” Shane says immediately. There’s the rustle of fabric, the soft creak of a mattress. “Hold on.”

The line drops.

Ilya stares at the screen for half a second before it lights again, the FaceTime request sliding across it. He accepts.

For a moment the camera shows nothing but a blur of ceiling and lamplight as Shane adjusts the phone. Then his face settles into view.

He’s propped up in bed, hair flattened on one side, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. A book is folded open against his bare chest like he’d been trying — and failing — to read himself to sleep.

And just like that, something in Ilya loosens.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks again.

“I don’t know.” 

The admission deflates him.

“Where are you?”

“Home.” But the word feels dirty in his mouth. He tries again. “Not home. Russia. Moscow.”

“Did something happen? Your father?”

“Yes. Dead.”

“Ilya, I’m—”

“No. No pity.” 

Shane shifts in the frame, pulling the glasses from his face and folding them neatly.

Ilya makes a soft, disapproving sound. “Nyet. Glasses back on.”

Shane hesitates, studying him through the screen.

Ilya hates the way the silence stretches between them, how easily Shane can read him even from an ocean away.

“Ilya—”

“Back on. My father is dead. Let me look at you.”

Shane obliges, a half smile wrapping around a sigh. Ilya settles back, drinking him in, knowing from the shift in his shoulders that Shane’s adjusting himself, hard from just the idea of Ilya looking at him.

“What are they saying about me?” Ilya asks.

It’s that or Touch yourself for me.

“Nothing. Which is why I knew it was serious.”

“The funeral is tomorrow.” Ilya stiffens at the thought of it, paying respects to a man who paid him no mind. “I will be back by end of week.”

“You should take some time—”

“No, end of week.”

“You don’t have to decide that now.”

Ilya lets the words sit there between them.

He watches Shane instead of answering. The glasses have slipped low again, the lamplight caught faintly in the lenses, glinting against the frame. Shane pushes them back up with the side of his finger without thinking, settling deeper against the pillows.

The movement is small. Familiar.

Something in Ilya’s chest shifts.

The grief hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still there, sharp and stubborn, sitting under his ribs like a knife. But looking at Shane pulls his attention somewhere else for a moment. Somewhere warmer.

Shane catches him staring.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

Ilya doesn’t bother denying it. He just keeps looking.

Shane exhales slowly, patient as ever. Waiting for Ilya to say the thing he’s circling around.

He doesn’t.

Instead Ilya says, quietly, finally, “Touch yourself for me.”

Shane blinks.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

Shane scrubs a hand over his face, pushing the glasses up again as if they’ve suddenly become the problem.

“Ilya, your father just—”

“Yes.”

“And you’re—”

“Yes.”

Shane stares at him through the screen for a long moment, trying to read something in his expression.

“This is how you’re coping?” he asks finally.

“Maybe.”

“That’s not healthy.”

Ilya shrugs slightly.

“My father is dead. I am not,” he says evenly. “Now show me your dick.”

The words land heavier than he meant them to, but he doesn’t take them back.

For a moment Shane just watches him the same way Ilya has been watching him — carefully, like he’s measuring how fragile the moment is.

“Okay,” he mutters.

“Okay.”

Shane shifts against the pillows again, the phone tilting slightly as he adjusts it. The glasses slip lower when he moves, and Ilya feels that familiar pull low in his stomach at the sight of them.

The distance between Moscow and Montreal shrinks to the size of the screen.

Neither of them says much after that.

They don’t need to.

The call fills instead with the rustle of sheets and clothing, the slow drag of Shane’s hand, and the unsteady sound of him breathing into the phone.

It’s not really about the release.

It’s about the way the grief loosens its grip for a few minutes. About the simple fact that Shane is still there, steady and warm on the other end of the call.

Ilya comes apart at the sheer softness of him, the way he’s whispering Ilya’s name across the ocean and directly into his veins.

The line grows quiet. Shane stays where he is, one arm flung loosely above his head, chest rising slowly as he catches his breath. The glasses have slid crooked on his nose again, covering the smattering of freckles on one cheek.

Ilya watches him.

The grief hasn’t disappeared. It’s still there, patient and immovable, waiting somewhere behind his sternum for the moment this call ends and the room falls quiet again. But for a few minutes he could breathe through it, and that is more relief than he expected to find tonight.

Across the screen Shane lifts his head slightly and looks back at him.

“You okay?” he asks.

The question hangs there.

Ilya considers it longer than he probably should. Okay is not the word for what he is, but the sharpest edge of the pain has dulled a little, and that will have to be enough.

“Yes,” he says finally.

Shane studies him like he isn’t entirely convinced, but after a moment he lets the matter drop. One corner of his mouth tilts upward instead.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

“I have heard this before, yes.”

Shane huffs quietly and reaches toward the phone, probably to straighten the angle where it’s slipped against the nightstand.

The movement stops halfway.

At first Ilya thinks nothing of it. Then he notices Shane’s eyes lift just slightly above the camera, tracking something on the screen. The warmth that had settled in his expression a moment ago fades, replaced by something tighter.

Ilya notices immediately.

“What?”

Shane doesn’t answer.

His gaze flicks back to the camera, then away again, reading whatever has appeared in front of him. A moment later Ilya’s own phone vibrates in his hand.

He glances down.

A text from Shane. A screenshot. Ilya opens it.

The image fills the screen: an Instagram direct message from TheLoon2481. The account name alone is enough to make his stomach drop.

It must have killed you not to be with him.

For a moment Ilya just looks at it, the words settling slowly into place.

When he lifts his eyes again Shane is tracking him through the screen with that same sharp focus he gets on the ice — alert, watchful, ready.

“The annoying part,” Shane says slowly, “is that they’re not wrong.”

The words land heavier than the message itself.

Shane glances away from the camera, reading it again somewhere on his screen, then back at Ilya.

“I should be there,” he says, eyes brimming with tears. “With you.”

For a moment Ilya can’t answer.

“Is impossible,” he says quietly.

Shane nods, but the tension doesn’t leave his face. If anything it settles deeper, into the line of his mouth, the tight set of his shoulders. Ilya knows that look. It is the one Shane gets when something is wrong and there is no way to fix it.

The message glows on Ilya’s phone.

It must have killed you not to be with him.

A cruel thing to send someone.

But watching Shane now, Ilya understands what makes it worse.

The message was never meant for him.

It was meant for Shane.

Sent so he would read it at exactly this moment — while Ilya is here, a world away, while the distance between them is something neither of them can cross.

Ilya watches him through the screen: the frustration, the helplessness he’s trying to hide, the way his gaze drifts away like distance might still be something he can solve if he thinks about it long enough.

And suddenly the cruelty becomes precise.

Someone knew this would hurt him.

Knew exactly how.

The miles between them settle over Ilya all at once.

Moscow.

Montreal.

A screen and a voice and nothing else.

And the worst part is that whoever sent the message was right about one thing.

Shane should be here.

And Ilya cannot let him be.

Chapter 13

Chapter Notes

March 2017 - Moscow

Ilya pauses in the doorway of the private dining room, shrugging snow from his coat before stepping inside. The table is already nearly full. Relatives, old family friends, a few faces he half recognizes from years ago. Plates of black bread and pickled vegetables crowd the center beside open bottles of vodka. 

A photograph of his father sits at the center of the table beside a small glass of vodka meant for the dead. Someone has tucked a sprig of dill beneath the frame. Grigori stares out from the picture in his uniform, unsmiling as ever.

Ilya wonders who chose that one.

Not the photographs from when he was younger. Not the ones with his wife — any of them. Not the ones from a dacha in summer.

The uniform.

Of course.

Alexei sits near the head of the table, pouring another round like this is any other family dinner instead of a memorial for the man they buried this afternoon.

Svetlana’s hand at his back centers him, and he nods down at her as they step inside.

Alexei notices immediately.

He pushes back his chair and rises with an exaggerated bow at the waist, as if greeting royalty.

“How nice of you to finally join us,” he booms in Russian.

This is exactly what took Ilya so long — no longer having the distraction of a body, a grave between them. 

He leads Svetlana toward the other end of the room, where two seats remain between the first boy he ever kissed and a colonel who served with Grigori at the MVD.

“Come, sit. A toast — to Grigori.”

The colonel shoves vodka toward Ilya and Svetlana, splashing some onto Ilya’s suit as his hand shakes.

Ilya wonders absently how steady his father’s hands were toward the end. If the vodka did him any favors. He’s certain Alexei plied him with it instead of the pills he claimed the care home was charging him for.

“None for me, thank you.”

Ilya sets the glass on the table in front of the colonel as he sits, a distant sort of rage beginning to simmer in him.

“The NHL superstar can’t have a little vodka to toast his only father?”

Ilya’s eyes lock on Alexei as he gropes for the glass blindly, throwing it back quickly when he finds it. 

“There. To Grigori.” He slams the glass on the table, causing plates and glassware to rattle. “Happy now?”

He hadn’t wanted to drink, knowing how it would break open something inside him no one could afford to bear. But it was always easier to give in to Alexei. With the money, with this.

He could be relentless. Cruel. Not unlike Ilya.

But Ilya channeled his into hockey.

Alexei focused his on destruction.

“Yes, Ilya. Happy. That is the word for today.” 

Alexei slaps the chest of the man beside him as if to say can you believe this?

“For you, I think yes,” Ilya spits back. “You are free now, no? You can steal openly now. No one left to suffer for it.”

“Watch your mouth, boy.”

The words barely land before Alexei’s chair scrapes violently across the floor.

He’s on his feet in two strides.

The table erupts in startled shouts as he grabs a fistful of Ilya’s suit and drives him backward, hard enough that the chair tips and crashes to the floor behind him.

Ilya’s shoulder slams into the wall at the back of the room.

Glass rattles across the table.

Alexei crowds into him, breath hot with vodka.

“You think you know anything about what happened here?” he hisses. “While you’re in America skating around like a fucking fairy?”

“With the salary that pays for everything you snort,” Ilya all but snarls back. “I would have been here if I could have. Only someone had to be a man.”

Alexei’s mouth twists.

“It must have killed you not to be with him.”

He leans closer.

“I hope it did.”

Something snaps in Ilya’s chest — the words familiar. Menacing.

The edges of his vision bleed red as he lunges.

When he comes back to himself, he’s on top of Alexei, knuckles bloody and chest heaving. Svetlana is pulling at his shoulder, calmly repeating his name and nyet, nyet, nyet like a prayer.

“Do not ever speak to me again, Alexei. Do not threaten me again,” Ilya says, voice shaking with rage. “Do not ask me for money again. Do not contact me. You are dead to me.”

He spits on him as he stands.

“Go lie in the ground with him and rot.”

Silence spills after them out of the banquet hall, and Ilya stops just outside, waiting to hear the door to his past slam shut behind him.

When no one follows, he sniffs once, then again, and shoves a hand through his hair, the blood painting the tips red.

“Your hand,” Svetlana says uselessly, the skin torn open by the sharp bones of Alexei’s face.

“Is nothing,” Ilya shrugs. “We should go.”

“Go where, Ilyusha?”

He looks over his shoulder, then back at her.

“Home.”

***

The earliest flight Ilya can find doesn’t leave until the next day, and he wanders Moscow aimlessly for hours after he and Svetlana part ways. His apartment will be the first place Alexei looks for him, and he has no interest in defending himself against desperation, too much vodka, and a bat or a knife or a gun.

For now, he just walks, the snow collecting in his hair, and replays Alexei’s words in his head.

It must have killed you not to be with him.

He tries to work out the odds of the phrase haunting him on both sides of the world. The odds of Alexei blackmailing him and Shane. The logistics of it.

There are Russians throughout the league. He can count through both hands before he has to strain to think of another name. It isn’t impossible Alexei could have had watchful eyes.

That someone could have found out about him and Shane.

That Alexei had leverage and was simply waiting for the right moment to make demands.

He walks circles around the part of the city he used to call home and thinks in the same shape. 

He cannot make sense of it any other way. 

When he’s certain, he pulls his phone from his coat and sends a text to Shane. 

Are you alone? 

Two minutes later, a reply: Yeah. 

Can I call you?

***

“I’ll be right back,” Shane says, holding up his phone as he heads for the door.

“You can talk to her in front of me, you know.” Hayden reclines on the queen bed closest to the bathroom and laughs. “I’d like to meet her someday too. We could double date. I’ll even leave the kids with a sitter and we can get really wild.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Shane throws over his shoulder.

“Tell her I say hi!” Hayden calls after him.

The hotel stairwell is at the other end of the hall, and Shane jogs for it, knowing it’s an unlikely place for anyone on the twelfth floor to stumble across him.

He sits on the top step and taps Lily’s name on the screen.

“Hello?”

The word comes through thin with wind.

“Ilya.”

There’s a brief pause.

“Shane.”

Something in his voice makes Shane sit up straighter on the concrete step. Not panic. Something heavier than that. 

“I think we’re safe now,” Ilya says.

The words should sound like relief. Instead they land tired. Hollow.

“Safe from what?”

Another pause stretches across the line.

“My brother.”

Shane rubs a hand over his mouth. “What happened?”

“I think it was him,” Ilya says slowly. “All of it. The messages. The… the—”

He stops.

Shane hears him breathe in sharply, hears the wind scrape against the phone.

“I think it was about money,” Ilya says finally. “He— I—” The words falter again. “It is… difficult to explain.”

Shane frowns. Ilya almost never struggles for English now.

“Hey,” he says gently. “Do you want to say it in Russian?”

A pause.

“I won’t understand it,” Shane adds, “but maybe it’ll help to just get it out.”

For a moment there is only wind.

Then Ilya starts talking.

The words spill out fast and sharp, Russian tumbling over itself in a way Shane has never heard from him before. He closes his eyes and leans back against the cold steel of the railing, listening even though he understands almost none of it.

There are fragments he recognizes, mostly names — papa, Alexei, Svetlana — but the rest is carried in tone alone. Anger. Hurt. Something heavier underneath it all.

Shane stays quiet.

Eventually the torrent slows. The words soften, then stop altogether.

For a moment Shane keeps his eyes closed, listening to the wind on the other end of the line.

He doesn’t understand what was said.

Not really.

But he understands enough.

The anger had been obvious. Sharp and fast, like the way Ilya talks when he’s arguing with referees through the glass. The hurt underneath it had been harder to miss.

Shane doesn’t know exactly what happened tonight in Moscow, but he can piece together the shape of it. A brother. A funeral. Something ugly that’s been building for years finally breaking open.

The word that sticks with him most, though, is still the first one Ilya said: safe.

We are safe now.

Shane isn’t sure what that means. But he knows the way Ilya sounded when he said it. Like someone who’s been carrying something alone for a long time. And like he can finally put it down.

“Okay, I am done,” Ilya says after a moment, his English returning carefully.

Shane opens his eyes.

“Do you feel better?”

There’s a small pause.

“Yes,” Ilya says softly. “I think… yes.”

“Do you want to try to tell me what you said in English now? Do you think you can?”

“No,” Ilya starts. Then, “Not yet.”

“Okay.” 

There’s silence and wind and weight on the line, but neither of them does anything but breathe for a while.

“I should get to the airport,” Ilya says finally.

“Not home?”

“That is why the airport.”

Shane presses the phone tighter to his ear.

“Yes,” he says softly. “Come home.”

Chapter End Notes

A couple of things:

I know none of my chapters are exactly epics in length, but this one did end up a little shorter than the others. It’s what the story needed from my perspective. And since you’re getting two chapters today, I feel slightly less guilty about it.

Also, I’m well aware I’m mixing elements of both book canon and TV canon. It’s intentional. In my brain it helps the thriller side of the story a bit because you don’t quite know which exact pathway we’ll go down, even if they’re very close to each other.

And lastly, I’m living for your theories. Keep dropping them in the comments or shouting them at me over on Threads @amillionsparks.

Chapter 14

Chapter Notes

March 2017 - Montreal

Ilya is stateside a full week before fate and their schedules deign to let Shane lay eyes on him again — the space between scattered with texts and tired voice notes while the push toward the playoffs gets into full swing. Days and nights stacked with practice, meetings, treatment, press, and pure exhaustion.

He had hoped they’d have time before they both had to be on the ice — rivals first, whatever else this was second — but Boston didn’t travel until the day of and there just isn’t any.

Ilya loops slowly near the red line, his stick tapping idly against the ice as he turns another lazy circle with his line. Shane knows how it would look to anyone who doesn’t know about them if he skates into that orbit. The last time they met on the ice there was quite a bit of shoving, the blows they traded earlier in the season.

He lets himself be pulled anyway.

Captain to captain, nothing more. 

When they pass each other, they keep their hands at their sides, no matter how much Shane wants to crush Ilya against him. They nod instead, their mouths both pressed into serious, thin lines. Cordial, professional.

Voice low, Ilya greets him — not with his last name, but his first — and it’s as intimate as they can be in such an open space.

“Ilya,” Shane murmurs back.

“After?” Ilya asks, his eyes bright and hopeful in a way Shane doesn’t expect to see.

“Yes,” Shane says. “After.”

They shake hands, and Shane tries to say with his thumb against Ilya’s knuckles what his mouth can’t — at least not here. Then he skates back to his bench with one last nod.

“What was that about?” Hayden asks, spinning his stick slowly while he wraps fresh tape around the blade on the bench.

“I was just, you know, offering my condolences.”

“Yeah, his dad, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it wrong to still hope he has a terrible night?”

Shane huffs a laugh, grabbing his helmet. “Fuck Boston.”

“That’s right, cap — fuck Boston,” Hayden echoes with a smile. 

***

The game is as tense as anyone expects — hopes — it could be, with both teams gunning for the top of the division so close to the end of the regular season. The rivalry just deepens it and the crowd grows more feral with each minute off the clock. 

Shane gives it his all and then a little more, crushing Ilya into the boards as hard as he can just to feel his body against him as he strips him of the puck.

Ilya gives it right back in the next corner, his hips pinning Shane to the glass as he knocks the puck free. Shane presses in and lets out a quiet moan against Ilya’s pads just because he can, the roar of the crowd more than enough to swallow the sound.

It makes Ilya hesitate for half a second — just long enough for Shane to steal the puck back and skate away with it.

Shane never sees it coming. 

***

Sound comes back before anything else. 

The arena roars, but it’s far away, like someone turned the volume all the way down. Ilya’s voice swims in the distance — “Fucking tell me.” A skate scrapes, cutting tight across the ice.

Then the whistle. Shouting.

The sounds swell and fade in strange waves, like the arena itself is breathing around him, breathing him right in.

Shane tries to open his eyes.

For a moment nothing happens. Just darkness and the vague sensation of the ice pressed cold against the back of his neck, through his jersey. Then the lights of the Bell Centre filter slowly into focus above him — bright enough to make him squint and wince, the rafters drifting in and out of alignment like someone knocked the world slightly off its axis.

His shoulder throbs.

He tries to take a deep breath and the pain sharpens instantly, running hot and electric down his arm.

“Oh — fuck.”

“Easy. Easy, Shane,” someone says.

A hand settles against the middle of his chest, firm enough to keep him from trying to sit up. One of the trainers, Shane thinks dimly, though the man’s face is still a blur hovering somewhere above him.

“Stay down.”

Shane blinks again.

The noise around him grows clearer in fractions — the restless roar of the crowd, sticks tapping against the ice, the muffled bark of officials trying to regain control of something that has clearly gone sideways.

And over it all, that same voice again.

“Fucking answer me.”

Closer now.

Angrier.

Shane turns his head slowly toward the sound.

The movement makes the arena tilt for a second, but the world steadies enough for him to see skates, legs, the dark stripes of the officials’ uniforms.

Beyond them, Ilya.

He’s circling just beyond the trainers and medical kits, one glove off, his stick forgotten somewhere behind him. A linesman has a hand planted against his chest, keeping him back.

“I asked you a question,” Ilya snaps, his accent thick enough that the words come out almost rough.

“Rozanov, back up,” the official warns.

“I am asking if he is conscious.”

“You’re not part of this.”

The linesman pushes him back another few feet.

Ilya doesn’t fight him.

But he doesn’t take his eyes off Shane either.

Shane watches him for a second, disoriented enough that it takes his brain a moment to catch up to what he’s seeing — Ilya pressing toward him, all pretense forgotten, as if he might skate straight through the officials if they give him half an opening.

Something tightens in Shane’s chest.

He tries to lift his head.

Pain shoots through his shoulder hard enough to drag a rough sound out of him.

The trainer presses him back immediately.

“Don’t move, Shane.”

But Shane barely hears him.

His eyes are still on Ilya.

And suddenly it feels important — absurdly important — that he let Ilya know he is okay.

“Ilya,” Shane croaks.

The word is barely louder than the scrape of a skate against the ice.

But he knows Ilya hears it, his eyes snapping instantly to Shane’s. 

For a moment he just stands there.

Then some of the panic drains out of him in a visible rush, his shoulders sagging.

The linesman still has a hand on his chest, but Ilya doesn’t try to move past him.

He just watches as the trainers start working around Shane again, jaw tight, eyes fixed like he’s making absolutely sure Shane doesn’t disappear on him.

Across the ice, someone shouts again — Hayden’s voice, furious — and the referee’s whistle cuts sharply through the arena.

But Shane’s vision is already starting to blur again, the lights above him smearing into soft grey-blue streaks as the trainers begin lifting him carefully onto the stretcher.

The last thing he sees before the tunnel swallows him up is Ilya still standing there at the blue line, watching him go. 

***

Ilya does not sleep.

By morning he is standing outside the medical center anyway, legs heavy with memory.

He was twelve the last time he’d set foot inside a hospital, his mother already cold and grey by the time the ambulance left them there. They’d let him stay inside and gave him sweet black tea and a packet of biscuits until his father came for him.

“You here for Shane?”

David Hollander claps a hand on Ilya’s shoulder.

The touch startles him a little — not because it’s unwelcome, but because he hadn’t heard anyone approach, lost in a memory.

“Yes,” Ilya says, clearing his throat. 

David studies him for a moment, the way fathers do when they’re measuring something they haven’t quite decided how to name yet. Ilya stares back in much the same way.

“They’re still running some scans,” he says around a swallow of coffee. “Collarbone’s definitely broken. Head hit the ice pretty hard too, so they’re being cautious.”

Ilya nods once.

“Concussion protocol,” David adds, knowing Ilya understands the language of injuries better than most. “Out for the playoffs — but you guys made sure of that anyway.”

“Yes.”

For a moment they stand there together in the early morning sun, watching as people come and go through the automatic doors in various states of emotion. 

Then David squeezes his shoulder once.

“You should come in,” he says gently. “Yuna’s with him.”

Something in Ilya loosens at that.

“Is he awake?”

David’s mouth tips faintly at one corner.

“He asked for you twice.”

That lands somewhere deep and dangerous. 

Ilya exhales slowly through his nose before nodding once. 

Then he follows Shane’s father inside.

***

Shane is awake when Ilya steps into the room behind David, and Ilya’s heart aches at how Shane’s eyes go wide at the sight of him.

“Ilya,” Shane says, the last vowel stretching thin and high. “You came.”

“It’s good to see you again,” Yuna offers once the surprise wanes. The words land sharper than they should, and Ilya knows it’s because he should not be here. Yuna did not lift the embargo.

But she softens when David presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“Let’s give them some space,” he says gently.

As they leave, Ilya moves toward Shane’s outstretched hand and takes it, settling into Yuna’s chair beside the bed. For a moment he just holds it, his thumb tracing slow circles where the IV and other wires and tubes allow, watching Shane’s eyes follow the motion.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Shane says quietly. “That we didn’t get to — after.”

“You think I am worried about this?” Ilya laughs humorlessly around the question. “Shane, I am worried about you.”

“It could’ve been worse.” Shane smiles lazily as he says it and Ilya just knows that’s the drugs. “We all get our bell rung or whatever it is they say.”

“Marleau is feeling badly about it. Probably because you are a nice boy. But also probably because Pike broke his jaw last night.”

“He what?”

Ilya’s mouth twitches despite himself.

“Very heroic,” he says dryly. “Very stupid.”

Shane huffs a small laugh that makes him wince almost immediately. 

“Fuck.”

Ilya shakes his head, his thumb still moving slow circles against Shane’s hand.

He hadn’t been able to do it himself. Marleau wears the same crest he does, sits ten feet away in the same locker room. There are rules about those things.

Hayden Pike apparently has fewer hangups and, for that, Ilya finds he is strangely grateful.

They fall into a comfortable silence then. Ilya watches Shane drift in and out of sleep or something like it for the better part of an hour. Waking every so often and seeming surprised Ilya is still there. 

As the clock ticks closer to lobby call, Ilya tells himself the next time he stirs, he will go. 

Shane wakes a few minutes later.

His eyes open slowly, unfocused at first before they settle on Ilya, still sitting where he was before, one hand wrapped loosely around Shane’s.

“You’re still here,” he murmurs.

“Yes.”

Shane studies him for a moment, like he’s deciding whether the sight of him is real or another dream.

“Stay,” he says quietly.

Ilya huffs a breath through his nose.

“You know I have to go.”

Shane nods once, accepting it in the vague way of someone still drifting somewhere between sleep and waking.

After a moment he says, “Stay with me this summer then.”

Ilya stills.

Shane’s eyes slip half closed again before he adds, softer now, “Come to my cottage this summer. We could have a week. Maybe two. Try.”

The words sound almost accidental. Like they slipped out of a dream.

For a long moment Ilya doesn’t answer.

Because there is still so much to consider. Russia is behind him now, and the Loon with it, but the future is not suddenly simple. The feelings are not simple.

“Maybe,” he says at last. Then, softer, “We can talk when you are better, yes?”

Shane’s mouth curves faintly, like that is enough.

Ilya watches him drift back toward sleep and thinks that maybe — just maybe — it is. 

Then, he kisses Shane’s freckled cheek and goes. 

Chapter End Notes

Ilyaaaaa. WYCTMCTS? Tell me in the comments. 🫶

Chapter 15

Chapter Notes

April 2017 - Boston

They hold the flight just long enough for Ilya to stumble aboard and collapse into the only open seat on the charter — beside a particularly rough-looking Marleau, hoodie pulled low over his head, jaw bruised and wired shut. 

He would’ve sat there anyway. Captain first and foremost. Marleau is his to look after.

Ilya gives him a tight-lipped grin, one sharp nod — the silent reassurance of yes, everything is fine, you did not break the man I am in love with.

And he is. He knows that now. 

He told Shane so in Russia — shaking beneath the admission of it, blaming the cold — in words Shane couldn’t yet understand and Ilya couldn’t yet bring himself to translate.

I’m so in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it.

Last night there was a real possibility he’d never get to do anything about it at all. Shane crumpled on the ice, unmoving. The panicked rush of medical staff. The backboard. The stretcher.

Shane is going to die and he will never know, he thought uselessly at the time, while his mouth spat profane words at the linesman, consequences be damned. 

He hadn’t slept all night, spent half of it walking back and forth across the block where Shane’s apartment sits watching for a light to flicker on, for movement inside. By the time morning broke, his hands were cold and useless in his coat pockets, and he wrung them together all the way to the hospital in the back of an Uber.

He almost said the words — in English — the second he’d seen David. 

I love your son and I don’t know what to do about it. 

But David leveled a hand on his shoulder and asked him to come up, like he already knew. 

Then there was Shane, pale and broken against the hospital sheets, washed out beneath the fluorescent lights. He imagined the pull in his chest was something like what his mother felt for him when he was a boy, why her fingers so often found the nape of his neck, curling into his hair. Soft, sacred. 

He almost told him then. A thousand times over. A bedside confession he could pin on the drugs pumping through Shane, if Shane didn’t say it back. If Shane woke up later and decided differently.

If Shane woke up later and chose something easier.

Someone easier.

Still, the words caught somewhere in his throat, and they’re hard to swallow even now as Ilya pulls out his phone and opens the Notes app.

I went to see him. Is okay.

Marleau reads the message and types beneath it.

I feel terrible. I never meant to hit him that hard.

He’s played with Marleau a long time. A hit like that could’ve come from anyone, happened to anyone. This is what they all sign up for.

How is your idiot face? Ilya types back and Marleau winces instead of smiling, the shape of it right around his eyes but wrong everywhere else.

As he types back, a notification slides into view at the top of the screen.

1:14 PM
Jane: thank you for coming to see me

Then another before Ilya can grab the phone back from him.

1:14 PM
Jane: i know i’m concussed but i meant what i said about the summer

Ilya shoves his phone into the bottom of his duffle bag just as Marleau thrusts his own into Ilya’s face.

You are blushing Roz, the Notes app reads.

Ilya pushes it away with the back of his hand and offers a low, dismissive, “Never in life have I blushed. Russians do not do this.”

Marleau types again.

Jane, the Notes app reads.

Then beneath it:

Shane.

Ilya feels something cold creep up the back of his neck. The two names sitting there together on the screen look too much like the truth. He slides his eyes to Marleau, watching him as his thumbs move over the screen.

What are the odds two people you know get concussions?
The same day?
And their names rhyme?

Ilya snatches the phone and types quickly before setting it firmly on Marleau’s tray table, the sound similar to a slamming door.

Let me call Hayden Pike and you can be #3.

Marleau huffs something that might be a laugh through his nose and pulls the hood lower over his eyes. They don’t speak again for the rest of the flight.

***

May 2017 - Ottawa

Shane wakes slowly, the way he has most mornings in the weeks since the hit — the world coming back in pieces, like it did when he was laid out on the ice. The ceiling first. Then the lake outside the window, dark and flat in the early light. Then the dull ache at the base of his skull and the heavier one across his collarbone where the bone still hasn’t quite decided to forgive him.

Downstairs, he can hear his parents moving around the kitchen. Cabinets opening. The quiet clink of a coffee mug on the counter.

For a few seconds he just lies there, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about hockey.

It lasts until maybe a count of three.

Then he’s thinking about Ilya instead.

7:22 AM
Jane: big game tonight

7:22 AM
Lily: All games are big, Hollander. 

7:23 AM
Lily: Show me your dick and I will score a goal for you.

Shane rolls his eyes, but does it anyway, pulling his cock from his briefs, his hand wrapped around the base, the Ottawa sunrise glowing in the windows behind it.

He gives it a few slow strokes as he thumbs through the recent photos in their text thread, until the ache in his bones outweighs the want.

It’s a familiar feeling. The push and pull.

He wants Ilya to lift the Cup, no matter how badly he wanted it for himself too. Montreal was knocked out of the playoffs largely because of him. The least he can do is cheer on the man he loves in the second round.

7:26 AM
Lily: Ah yes. You are looking pretty today.

Shane snorts quietly to himself and rolls onto his hip, careful of the shoulder. The lake outside the window is brighter now, sunlight catching on the water in streams. The day will be warm and Shane will bask in it later, but for now he watches the typing bubble appear and disappear twice. His glow fading with them.

7:30 AM
Jane: how are the ribs?

There’s a longer pause this time.

Long enough that Shane can hear his mother laugh downstairs.

7:31 AM
Lily: They are excellent ribs. Very strong ribs.

Shane huffs.

7:31 AM
Jane: ilya

Another pause.

7:32 AM
Lily: Is little bruise.

That night it doesn’t look like a little bruise to anyone who knows anything about hockey — or about Ilya. He’s protecting his middle, turning away from hits instead of into them, losing pucks easily to Scott Hunter and everyone else on the New York Admirals.

“This is hard to watch,” Yuna says.

“Why’s he dropping his shoulder?!” David yells at no one. “Cut inside!”

Goal after New York goal, Shane watches his parents grow more and more irate. Yuna leans forward on the couch like she might somehow will Ilya to move faster. David throws his hands up every time he gets pinned along the boards, muttering under his breath like the referees can hear him through the television.

It’s how they watch Shane during big games.

That quiet, helpless kind of investment. The way every hit looks personal, every mistake a small tragedy.

And they’re doing it now for Ilya.

Shane sinks lower into the corner of the couch, something warm and strange settling in his chest as his mother swears softly when Ilya loses another puck along the boards.

He hasn’t told Ilya he loves him. 

But somehow it’s spread anyway. Outward, like the ripple from a rock dropped into water. 

Quiet and certain.

All the way here, to this lakehouse outside Ottawa, where his parents sit on their couch and yell at the television like the fate of the Stanley Cup — and Ilya Rozanov personally — matters very much to them.

He has a ridiculous urge to send Ilya a text that says i love you.

Instead, he waits until he’s alone in his room and sends another dick pic with a note about how he can still score anyway.

Then he follows it with: i’m sorry. i know how much you wanted this.

Shane sets the phone on his chest and stares up at the ceiling. The house has gone quiet hours ago — the lake black beyond the window, a loon’s tremolo in the distance, the house settling softly around him — but sleep never really comes. 

At 3:07 am, his phone lights up in his hand.

Is okay.

Then:

Goodnight, Shane.

Shane types back.

goodnight ilya.

***

“I think it’s New York,” Yuna says over breakfast the morning of game seven in the Finals. “Scott Hunter goes all the way.”

“Scott Hunter, huh?” David says, sounding almost jealous, as he slides eggs and a piece of toast from the pan onto Yuna’s plate.

She grabs the towel from his shoulder and snaps it at him as he turns away to start on Shane’s protein shake.

Shane rolls his eyes across the table, but something hollow beats behind his ribs.

“You two are disgusting.”

“Speaking of,” Yuna says around a bite, “how are Ilya’s ribs?”

They haven’t talked about Shane and Ilya. Not directly. Not about the way Shane smiles down at his phone — despite her being very clear months ago about no communication — or the way Ilya looked on the screen whenever the televisions replayed Shane’s injury.

The Loon, though, they talked about. Shane used the fragments Ilya had given him — about being safe, about his brother — as a way to explain why Ilya had come to the hospital, and everything he didn’t want to hide from them after.

Yuna ran a check before Shane had even been discharged.

The results hadn’t been comforting. Corrupt police. Extortion. Rumored mafia ties. And that was just what she could find from half a world away. 

And that’s when she softened about Ilya.

Shane noticed it in the way she stopped saying his name like a warning, like the problem was Ilya himself. After that, when she said it, it sounded soft, more like a question.

“He says they’re fine.”

Yuna hums like she doesn’t believe that for a second, but she lets it go.

The morning stretches out around the lake the way it always does.

Sunlight climbs higher over the water. David disappears to fix something in the boathouse. Yuna settles on the dock with a book she only half reads, dozing off between pages. Shane drifts between them and the quiet of the house, his phone rarely far from his hand.

He and Ilya text on and off all day.

Nothing important. Not really.

Shane sends a picture of the lake when the light turns bright and glassy around noon. A selfie later, squinting into the sun from the dock, cheeks pink in a way he thinks will remind Ilya of how much he wants him. At one point a grainy zoomed-in shot of an actual loon floating near the reeds.

2:33 PM
Jane: look who showed up

2:34 PM:
Lily: What is this?

2:35 PM:
Jane: a loon

2:36 PM:
Lily: Fucking fight it. This is your lake, Hollander.

Shane laughs quietly to himself and sends another picture anyway.

He keeps doing it through the afternoon — little fragments of the place. The water. The dock. The crooked pine that leans toward the shore. Things that don’t quite say what he means.

You could come here.

You would belong here.

I asked you.

I would beg.

The lake holds the light for a long time after the sun drops behind the trees. By the time evening settles in, the windows have gone dark enough that the television reflects faintly in the glass — players gliding ghostlike across the water behind them.

Game seven stretches deep into the night.

Shane watches the way he always does when he’s not the one playing — half inside the game, half outside it, noticing the small things that decide everything. The tired legs. The short shifts. The way the ice opens and closes like a living thing.

It goes to overtime.

By the end the game feels less like hockey and more like endurance, every line change carrying the quiet understanding that the next mistake will end it.

Scott Hunter makes the play.

Hockey’s favorite son.

The puck slips through traffic and under the pad and the arena detonates. Bodies crash together in the corner, sticks and gloves scattering across the ice while the horn screams overhead. Families begin spilling onto the ice to celebrate.

Scott pulls free of the pile and skates toward the glass, looking at first like he’s headed to clap with the fans before he points into the crowd — not broadly, but directly, at one person.

A man in a Scott Hunter jersey.

Security helps him down over the boards and onto the ice. For a second the guy just stands there, one hand braced against the wall as his shoes slide a little on the game-worn surface.

Shane almost laughs, thinking he must be Scott’s brother or cousin — someone who won a contest maybe.

Then Scott skates straight to him.

Shane feels the moment his brain catches up to what his eyes are seeing — the way Scott catches him by the front of his jersey, steadying him when his shoes slip again, the way he pulls him in without hesitation.

And then he kisses him.

Right there under the arena lights.

Not quick. Not hidden.

For a moment the broadcast doesn’t seem to know what to do with it — the commentators talking over each other while the camera pulls wide and the sound of the crowd swells into something halfway between celebration and disbelief.

Shane barely hears any of it.

What he feels instead is something inside his chest giving way — not a crack exactly, but the sudden swing of a door that’s been stuck shut for years.

He is a wide-open net, and the moment finds him.

His phone vibrates in his hand.

Shane doesn’t even bother to leave the room before he answers.

“Ilya—”

“I’m coming to the cottage.”

Chapter End Notes

I meant to post this sooner, but I’ve been pretty sick the last few days. I did manage to write this funny little smutty one-shot last night while I couldn’t sleep, though, so consider that a small consolation prize.

If you’re feeling kind, drop a comment here or there — I’m pretty sure praise works better than antibiotics, though I’m not a doctor.

Also, um, see you at the cottage soonish? I’ll try to update as soon as I can, but I need a minute to recharge.

Chapter 16

Chapter Notes

June 2017 - Ottawa

The weeks of anticipation have built into something that wants out, a knot in Ilya’s throat tightening with every passing minute. By the time the plane cuts through the soft midday clouds and descends into YOW, he almost turns to the person beside him in 2B and tells them he loves them — just to have somewhere to put it.

He chews on his lip and pulls his phone from his pocket instead. There’s already a message waiting for him, sent a minute ago.

1:02 PM
Jane: welcome to canada

Ilya sits with it for a moment, eyes closed — long enough that the person in 2B nudges his elbow when it’s time to deplane. But he’s lost in it. The thought of Shane tracking his flight, refreshing the page every few minutes until the arrival and gate are confirmed there in the details.

Something pulls tight in his chest.

He has no idea what will spill out of him when Shane pulls up at the curb. When it’s just the two of them, the space between them, and fourteen days stretching out ahead.

Because this — whatever this is — has started to feel like something that might last.

And Ilya has never once kept anything that mattered.

For now, he types back “see you in fifteen” as he steps off the plane, then walks the length of the concourse twice, trying to force everything burning through his veins into something he can say.

Thank you for inviting me.

What does this mean?

Do you feel it too? 

Outside the terminal, Shane comes rushing around the back of his SUV toward him, arm extended, and for half a beat Ilya thinks he’s about to be pulled in. He lets himself imagine it — what the world would look like if he could hug a man in the airport pickup lane. If he, Ilya Rozanov, could pull his age-old rival, Shane Hollander, into his arms in broad daylight.

But Shane only takes his bag from where it hangs limply in his fingers.

Ilya all but deflates.

“What the fuck is this, Hollander? A bus?” comes out instead of anything resembling disappointment.

“It’s a Jeep,” Shane says dryly as they climb inside. “Dealership was out of Soviet tanks.”

“You got a family here? Five kids to take to practice? Explains why you like Hayden so much.”

“Fuck you — it’s practical.” Shane merges into the lane out of the airport and cuts a glance at Ilya. “Better than your sports cars where my knees are over my damn head.”

“You like your knees over your head.”

“Fuck you.”

Silence settles in then, and Ilya draws absent circles with his thumb on the door handle and thinks about how the last time they were in a car together, there was still so much unknown. Not just about the Loon after first contact — about the two of them. And there are still no answers about them. But at least now, it feels like something they might get to decide on their own terms, with Alexei taken care of.

He hasn’t heard from him since Russia, but he’s heard from Svetlana that he’s gotten in deeper with Aleksandr and Nikolai and a few other names Ilya has tried to forget over the years. Ilya likes to think it’s because he can no longer bleed him dry and needs to find a new mark. He tries not to think about what it could mean — that he’s planning to retaliate, strengthening his position.

A shiver runs down Ilya’s spine, and Shane’s voice drifts into his thoughts, already mid-sentence. “—a two-hour drive, and I did some grocery shopping, so we shouldn’t have to leave very often.”

Something in Ilya catches on the words and holds there.

His brain used to work like this a lot when he was new to America, translating in real time. Now he turns it over in his head — not because he doesn’t understand, but because he does.

Groceries. 

We.

“Thank you,” Ilya says quietly after a beat, eyes fixed on the side mirror.

He swallows hard.

“For inviting me.”

Shane’s hand settles on his knee, and Ilya knows if he looks at it, he’ll crack open.

“I’m glad you came.”

Ilya blindly tangles his fingers with Shane’s. 

“I am also glad,” he says quietly. “But terrified.”

The words hang there, heavier than he meant them to be. For a second, something sharp flares in his chest — the urge to take it back, to laugh it off, to make it smaller.

He doesn’t. He forces himself to breathe through it and stay exactly where he is.

Shane’s fingers tighten around his just once, his thumb rubbing over the back of Ilya’s hand.

“Yeah, me too.”

***

Ilya wakes to the weight of Shane along his side, warm and solid in a way that still feels faintly surreal.

The cottage is quiet around them — the gentle lap of water against the shore, sunlight filtering in through the thin curtains and painting the room a soft gold, the warm smell of wood touching everything. 

Shane’s arm is slung across his middle, his face turned into the hollow of Ilya’s shoulder, breath slow and even and warm.

Ilya lies still beneath it all, watching the light shift across the blanket, feeling the steady rise and fall of Shane against him.

“Let’s just be honest with each other while we’re here.”

They had said it that first night — or maybe the second.

“Let’s just say what we’re actually thinking.”

Four days in and time has started to blur for him, stretching and softening at the edges.

“For two weeks, let’s try.”

Ilya had agreed.

He hasn’t kept up his end, though. Not really.

Something pangs in his chest, right where Shane’s fingers rest loose and unguarded against his ribs, and he feels it again — that same pressure, familiar now.

He decides then, he’ll say it. 

When Shane wakes up, he will say it.

All of it.

He turns his head slightly, just enough that his mouth brushes against Shane’s hair.

“Ya lyublyu tebya,” he murmurs, so soft it disappears into the space between them.

Shane shifts against him, a small movement, breath catching just once before settling again.

Ilya closes his eyes.

When Shane finally stirs properly, lifting his head with a soft, half-formed groan, he blinks up at him, still caught somewhere between sleep and waking.

“Morning,” Shane says, voice rough.

Ilya just looks at him, then he palms his cheek and presses his mouth against his.

The words are right there — clear, certain, waiting.

“I like you,” he says instead, and when Shane says it back, he lets his body fill in the blanks — in the way he holds him as they move together, the broad press of his hand over Shane’s heart, the quiet way he murmurs, “Mine,” against Shane’s throat.

The way Shane answers, “Yours,” his voice thick with sleep and wanting.

They take their time, pulling each other right to the edge and then back again.

When they’re done, it’s midday, the sun streaming bright through the windows. Ilya lies there with Shane beside him, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest, thinking it’s not an airport pickup lane — but it will more than do.

***

Shane sits on a boulder he had moved from his parents’ property just up the road — the one he used to climb as a kid, the one that left a scar on his shoulder — and watches Ilya cut through the water in slow, steady laps.

His body moves with the same practiced ease he skates with, and Shane finds himself wondering, not for the first time, if there’s anything he can’t do well. Then he feels heat climb up his neck and decides he doesn’t want to think too hard about that.

His cheeks are still warm when Ilya nears the shore, and Shane shifts, pulling his knees up to his chest. He wouldn’t put it past him — this version of Ilya, who lets himself cling to Shane and kiss him against flat panes of glass, under the sun — to notice. To do something about it. Right here in the open.

The thought twists low in his stomach, electric and a little unsteady. And underneath it, something quieter, heavier.

Eight more days.

That’s all they have now.

Unless.

He drags a hand over his face, like he can physically stop the thoughts from forming.

He wants to talk to Ilya.

He just has no idea how.

“You are drowning on land.”

Ilya’s voice comes from beside him, startling him. He’s no longer in the water — a towel slung low around his waist, lake water dripping from the ends of his darkened curls.

“What? No, I—”

“You were thinking hard about something.” Ilya leans in, shoulder to shoulder, and Shane’s skin prickles where his lake-cooled body presses to his sun-warmed arm. He presses a kiss there, and Shane shivers. “Was it me?”

“You’re cold.”

“Give me kiss anyway.”

And so he does, and he loses all of his words against the warmth of Ilya's mouth.

*** 

The house smells like roasted garlic when they step inside, the windows thrown open to let the evening air move through.

“Shoes off,” Yuna calls from the kitchen as the door latches behind Shane. “And if either of you tracked sand in here, I swear—”

“We didn’t,” Shane says, already toeing his sneakers off by the door. His hand stays at the small of Ilya’s back as Ilya slips out of his shoes beside him. The longer he keeps his hand there, the more he feels it — the urge to kiss him right there in the entryway of his childhood summer home.

Then Ilya’s attention catches on something in the room, and the moment passes.

He moves ahead, unhurried. Shane watches him pause by the record player, then drift along the wall of photos — lingering in front of one of Shane in full gear at eight, grinning with two missing teeth. Ilya hums under his breath with the music before moving on, hands in his pockets, leaning in closer every few frames.

“Look who finally made it,” David says, appearing in the kitchen doorway with a lifted wine glass. “We were starting to think you two ran off into the woods for good.”

“Almost did,” Shane says.

Yuna appears then, wooden spoon still in her hand, and her eyes go straight to Ilya.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m glad you’re here.”

A grin pulls at Shane’s mouth before he can stop it, widening as he watches Ilya step in and fold her into a hug.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Ilya says, smiling as he pulls back to look at her. “Your home is lovely.”

“Hopefully you feel that way after you try my cooking.”

The evening settles around them easily — plates full of pasta, the low hum of conversation, light catching in the curve of wine glasses. Laughter comes quick, familiar. Ilya taps Shane’s foot under the table, his arm slung across the back of Shane’s chair as David carries the dishes to the sink.

“So, you go home when?” David asks, waiting for the tap to warm.

“In four days,” Ilya says.

Shane tries not to wince at that — the ticking clock — but he can’t help it. His hand moves instinctively to Ilya’s where it rests on the table between them, thumb brushing the side of his sweating water glass. Their fingers tangle, and Shane hopes it’s enough.

“And then what?” David asks, a hand motioning between them. “You two just hide this until you’re retired?”

It’s Ilya who answers, because Shane is too busy choking down a no, Dad, I love him.

“I think so. Probably.”

“And is that what you want?” Yuna asks, her eyes soft across the table.

“It’s complicated,” Shane says, and means it for all of them — Ilya included.

“Yes,” Ilya nods, his hand tightening around Shane’s. “Is complicated.”

They leave it there, the conversation burning unfinished in Shane’s chest. Walking back to the car, Ilya’s hand finds his again like it belongs there, and something in Shane settles and aches all at once.

He wants this. Nights like this. A place where they don’t have to hide.

The drive back is short, quiet, and by the time the cottage comes into view, dark in the cut of his headlights, he knows he has to say it.

Shane cuts the engine and sits there for a second, hands still on the wheel.

“Go on in and start the firepit?” he asks finally, folding the keys into Ilya’s palm. “I’m going to walk down and grab the mail.”

Ilya studies him for a beat — like he might say something — but then just nods and heads up the path, the door creaking open and shut behind him.

Shane waits until the light inside flickers on before he pushes himself out of the car.

The night is quiet. The lake somewhere out beyond the trees, unseen but present. He drags a hand over his mouth as he walks down the driveway, trying to shake the weight of dinner, of everything they didn’t say. Just a minute. That’s all he needs. A minute to get his head on straight.

The mailbox sticks like it always does. He yanks it open, flips through the stack without really looking — flyers, bills, something addressed to his parents.

And then he sees it.

An envelope, heavier than the rest.

The wax seal.

The Loon.

Shane goes very still.

Then he turns and runs.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry it’s been a minute since the last update — with so few chapters left, I wanted to take my time with this one and make sure it was just right. Also, the Oscars happened and I fear I lost several hours (days?) of my life to Threads.

I did work through some writer’s block by knocking out a smutty one-shot, if you feel like checking that out too.

But ANYWAY. Buckle up. We’ve got a Loon to deal with. Yell at me about it in the comments, if you’d like.

Chapter 17

Chapter Notes

June 2017 - Ottawa

Ilya lights the firepit exactly as Shane showed him — turning the dial, holding it in, waiting for the flame to catch, then adjusting — and sinks down into the patio sofa. The flames rise and stretch, pulling the world inward until the lake and trees behind them disappear into the dark, existing only as sound.

Shane had walked him through it earlier in the week, casual, like it was nothing. Like this was just something Ilya would need to know.

He’d done it with other things, too — the coffee in the morning and how to work the machine instead of just handing over a mug; the back door that sticks if you don’t lift as you pull; the alarm code, given over without hesitation so Ilya could come and go, slip out into the early light while Shane slept in.

The flame grows into something bright and sure, and Ilya feels it then — a warmth that has nothing to do with the fire.

Every few seconds, something stirs beyond the light — a creak, a chirp, the soft brush of leaves, a distant splash — but he doesn’t look. Instead, he leans back, closes his eyes, and breathes.

He hasn’t felt this at ease in ages, the wine and pasta settling warm in his belly, the scent of the Hollander house still clinging to his skin.

The feeling of Shane’s hand in his. 

For a moment, he lets himself drift there, cataloguing it — tucking it away alongside the press of his mother’s lips to his crown, the warmth of light through his childhood window on slow Saturday mornings.

Safe.

The word settles, quiet and unfamiliar. Nearly forgotten.

And then something shifts.

Footsteps carry out from the side of the house — too fast, too uneven — and Ilya is moving before he even knows why.

Shane comes around the corner at speed, all motion, no grace, his breathing loud and wrong in a way Ilya can feel before he can name it. Shane, an athlete in his prime, does not sound like that. Neither of them does. Not on the ice. Not ever. 

He’s still half in shadow when he reaches the edge of the patio, more shape than person — and then he steps into the firelight.

Ilya sees him — sees his eyes, wide and unsteady, searching.

“We have to get inside,” Shane gasps, clutching the front of Ilya’s shirt in his fist.

Ilya catches him just as hard, already pulling him in, closing the space between them as they stumble together around the firepit.

“Shane — what is this?”

A sound tears through the night, rising sharp and sudden, before it fractures. The sound carries over the water and back again, until it feels like it’s coming from everywhere at once. Until it’s in Ilya’s blood.

He stops dead, one arm still braced around Shane, turning his body instinctively between him and the dark.

He knows it — the same sound that startled him on his first night, the one that turned, somehow, into laughter between them. A loon.

“Fucking loon.” Shane’s breath hitches around the words, but he’s still in motion, one fist tightening in Ilya’s shirt, the other pressing something into his chest. “The fucking Loon, Ilya.”

Recognition flares in him.

“That’s not—”

“Inside. Now.”

Shane shoves at him again, and Ilya goes — through the sliding glass door he left cracked so Shane wouldn’t have to deal with it sticking.

Inside, under the amber glow of the overhead lights, Ilya looks at it — really sees it — the envelope crushed in Shane’s palm, the wax seal pressed beneath his thumb as he fumbles with the lock on the door, the remote for the blinds.

Everything in him shifts and burns.

“The fucking Loon?” Ilya spits.

He wants to tear the envelope out of his hand, rip it into a thousand pieces. He reaches for Shane instead.

“I thought that I—”

“I haven’t opened it.”

They speak at the same time, Shane’s mouth pressed to his shoulder, Ilya’s buried in his hair.

“Should we call police?” Ilya asks quietly. 

Things are different now. He doesn’t want to go back to Russia ever again. He will figure out the rest. They will, he thinks pointedly.

“I don’t know,” Shane says, already moving again.

He catches Ilya’s wrist and pulls him past the kitchen, toward a door set back in the corner — one Ilya hadn’t noticed or been shown before. It opens into a narrow room, deeper than it first looks, with shelves lining one wall and a bank of security monitors along the other.

Shane pushes him inside and follows, shutting the door hard behind them. 

The sound of a bolt scrapes into place, and for a split second, Ilya wonders what it means that Shane built this.

Then Shane folds forward, dragging in sharp, uneven breaths that don’t seem to go anywhere, and Ilya knows the look. His mother — panic. It’s been a while, but he knows what to do. 

A grounding hand on his back. A level voice. Give it a name.

“Shane, you are having panic attack. Is okay,” he says softly. “Breathe with me.”

“I thought we were safe,” Shane threads through a gulp of air. “I thought we were—”

Ilya drags his hand across Shane’s back, steady and deliberate, until the rhythm of his breathing begins to settle. When Shane straightens, tears breaking at the corners of his eyes, Ilya folds his arms around him — loose enough to be an offer, not a demand. Shane just clings.

“What do we do?” Shane asks against the base of his throat. 

Ilya swallows hard.

“I think that is maybe up to us now, yes?”

***

Shane sits at one end of the safe room, legs stretched out in front of him, one knee bent, a foot brushing Ilya’s where he sits opposite, eyes locked on the envelope where it lies on the ground beside him.

It’s been over an hour, and the monitors are quiet. Everything is quiet. Except for the pounding in Shane’s ears, and the scattered Russian slipping quietly from Ilya’s mouth, low and to himself every so often. Shane catches the occasional Alexei, but nothing else he understands.

“Should we open it?” Shane asks after a while, watching his own hand as his fingers hover near one corner of the envelope, the way he’d reach for something that might bite him. “We should open it, right?”

“Does not matter,” Ilya says flatly across the room. “Not to me.”

Shane’s brows pull together as he tries to follow. All of it matters. The room, the lock, the letter sitting there beside him like something alive and dangerous. They’ve spent the last hour sealed in here because it matters.

“How?”

“Is simple.” Ilya lifts one shoulder, dismissive, a hand waving once between them. “Changes nothing for me.”

“You can’t know that.”

Ilya tips his head back against the wall, eyes closing for a second. When he looks at Shane again, something in him has shifted — in the set of his jaw, the way his mouth settles, the way he draws in a breath and lets it out slow. His eyes are darker, steady.

“No, I think that I can,” Ilya says evenly. Then, quieter, “Come here.”

He doesn’t think. He just goes, pulled toward him until he’s tucked between Ilya’s legs.

Their mouths find each other easily, and Shane loses himself in the feel of Ilya’s tongue along his bottom lip, the shift of Ilya’s jaw under his palm. Even now, like this, he is lost in him — completely lost.

Something catches in his chest, the same way it has been for days now — nearly a third of his life, if he lets himself be honest. It’s there, breaking open in him every time he wakes to find Ilya looking at him like he’s trying to memorize something. In how he moves through the house, a presence Shane can feel even when he’s not in the same room. In the toothbrush that rests on the other side of the sink, like that’s exactly what that stretch of granite was meant for.

He knows then — what Ilya means.

There is nothing that could make Shane change his mind.

When they break, it’s just barely. Close enough that Shane can still feel the warmth of his breath, the shadow of his mouth, their foreheads resting together like there is nothing beyond the space that lives between them.

Ilya says something then, low, the words slipping into Russian, rough at the edges, close enough that Shane tastes them more than he hears them.

But it’s there — threaded into the way Ilya is looking at him. Steady and certain, the same as the weight of his hand at the back of his neck.

Shane’s eyes search his. Ilya’s search back.

Then, bare as a breath, Ilya murmurs, “I love you.”

Everything folds inward at once, the world dropping out around the words, echoing somewhere deep in Shane’s chest, against his mouth.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

Ilya stiffens at it.

Shane feels the shift in him before he understands it — the way something starts to pull back, inward. Like he’s trying to stop time, spin the whole world backwards, disappear. 

“I mean—”

Before Ilya can say anything else, Shane cuts in, soft but urgent, “I love you too.”

Ilya exhales against his mouth with his whole body, something in him giving all at once. His hand slips at the back of Shane’s neck as he sags into him. Shane draws him in, keeping him close as he feels the damp heat of it, the salt of it — Ilya’s tears between his lips.

They stay like that for a while, lips dragging slowly, not quite kissing so much as lingering there — pressed close, something quiet and careful passing between them.

When Shane shifts, it’s small. A press of his mouth against the underside of Ilya’s jaw as he turns and settles against Ilya’s chest. Ilya holds him there as he leans back, eyes dropping briefly to the envelope on the floor, then back up to Ilya.

Back again to the envelope.

A feeling pulses low in his stomach, climbing hot up his middle. Anger — clear and sharp — as his eyes linger on the envelope. Still there, despite the way they’ve named this.

Shane sits with it for a moment, letting the feeling roll through him as his thumb traces absent shapes against Ilya’s forearm where it’s pinned against his chest.

He thinks of how unfair it is. This moment — after all this time, after everything it took to get here — forever being colored by this threat. Darkened at the edges instead of soft. A stance against instead of a falling into.

He knows that’s not why he said it, and he’s certain it’s not Ilya’s reason either.

But it’s there, lingering.

The reason they cannot just fold into each other now and not come up for air.

It looms.

Ilya’s hand flexes just slightly against his chest, pulling him back into himself. His eyes close against the feeling, and he loosens into it, unravels. Something shifts in him then under the weight of Ilya’s palm, settling into a quiet realization.

What threat remains, if he can be held like this?

Whatever this is — whoever is behind it — it only has the power they’ve been giving it.

He dips his head and lays a kiss in the crook of Ilya’s arm as his gaze cuts back to the envelope. He watches it change — the shape of it, the weight of it — until it’s just paper. Not an omen, not an ending. Just words on a page.

Something in him steadies, no longer fragile.

He looks up at Ilya and says, quietly, “We’re opening it.”

Ilya just tucks his mouth into Shane’s hair and says, “Okay.”

***

When Shane unlatches the door and pulls him out into the stillness of the house, Ilya’s hand goes automatically to the knife block — the largest one — before he follows him through to the island.

“Just in case,” he says with a shrug as they come to stand on opposite sides of the marble, the floor-to-ceiling windows at Shane’s back.

Ilya can’t help but watch them, even with the coverings drawn. Waiting for something to move. To break. His hand flexes once, then again, around the handle of the knife, the weight of it grounding him. 

“Okay,” Shane says, staring down at the envelope where it rests on the counter between them, cheeks puffing with a breath he doesn’t seem to finish. “So we open it.”

He doesn’t move.

For a moment, neither of them do.

Then Ilya reaches across the island and palms Shane’s cheek.

“I am here, okay?” he says softly, the gentle tap of the knife blade against the marble accenting each word. “No matter what this says. We do this — together.”

Shane leans into it like nothing else matters, eyes closing just for a moment as he presses his mouth against the heel of Ilya’s hand.

“Together,” Shane echoes, quieter now, his gaze moving between Ilya and the envelope as he says it.

Ilya lets his hand fall away, his thumb lingering for a fraction longer before it slips from Shane’s cheek.

Shane reaches for the envelope, and Ilya feels his attention pull with the motion — but he can’t look away from the tilt of Shane’s brow, the pulse in his throat, the way his shoulders hitch higher with every half breath he takes.

This is what matters, where his focus stays.

The tear of the envelope is soft, like a finger drawn through sand, and the shape of Shane changes around it. His throat bobs with a swallow. Ilya swallows with him.

Another sound — quieter, the flap folding back — and Ilya adjusts his grip on the knife without looking down, settling it more firmly in his hand.

Shane’s mouth falls open, then closes. Falls open again.

His eyes cut to Ilya’s, searching — for what, Ilya is not entirely sure. But he knows the look. Knows what it asks of him. He nods. Shane closes his eyes, steadies himself, and does the same.

The scrape of the paper, drawn free in a slow, measured pull, follows — the sound of it stretching thin between them. Ilya watches the tightness in his throat, the way his breath stays shallow, trapped.

Then the color drains from Shane’s face.

His balance shifts — forward, then back again — small, but wrong, like he has to find himself again inside his own body.

And then he looks up.

Eyes wide, alight with fear.

That is enough.

Ilya moves, the knife clattering from his grip.

By the time the paper slips from Shane’s hands, he is already there, closing the space between them, one hand coming to his side, the other bracing at his back, solid and certain.

Then Shane falls apart.

Chapter End Notes

I know, I know — two cliffhangers in a row is a little much. I promise I’ll post the final two chapters together, so you get closure all at once. You’re allowed to yell at me in the comments until then.

Chapter 18

June 2017 - Ottawa

It’s not until the three o’clock hour is half gone that sleep drags Shane’s consciousness under, pulling him into a fitful sleep below the weight of Ilya’s arm. It came after hours of unanswered questions and the slow, exhausting burn of tears, but Ilya is still grateful he’s finally given in. 

The rage in Ilya won’t let him sleep quite in the same way the hurt in Shane does.

Instead, Ilya watches the slight rise and fall of Shane’s chest in the thin light of the bedside clock, a thumb rubbing steady circles on his ribs. His other hand turns the paper over on an endless loop. It’s dark enough that he can only make out the shape of it, but by now he’s all but memorized every detail.

The postmark from late May — sent from Montreal. 

The red wax seal. The impression of what he’s since learned is a common loon. The shape exactly the same as the first.

The crisp white cardstock and the text printed on its face. 

You’re invited. 

Join us for an afternoon of food, drinks, and family.

17 June at 3:00 pm. 

The address Shane knew instantly. 

The name and phone number below it. 

No matter how many times Shane had paced the kitchen with it clutched in his hand, there was no making sense of it. Not for Shane, and certainly not for Ilya. Everything matched, lined up perfectly. But the shot went wide — not a threat, an invitation.

“I don’t get it,” Shane had said over and over, between breaks of “Why would she, of all people?” and “What the fuck even is this?” and “This has to be a coincidence.”

Ilya just sat there, biting his lip, wringing his hands as he watched Shane, unable to bring himself to point out the obvious.

Not a coincidence. 

A miscalculation. 

Shane had finally gotten there himself around midnight, the thought stopping him in his tracks and bringing him to his knees, and Ilya had been there like he’d been hours before, pulling him in.

“It has to be a coincidence,” Shane had said again, broken against his shoulder. “Why would he do this? He’s my — I thought we were friends.”

Ilya had seen the calls lighting up Shane’s phone for days, the name flashing across the screen again and again before Shane silenced it, turned it over, ignored it — like he’d done with every call that wasn’t from Yuna or David since he’d arrived.

Now, looking back, he wonders if someone was calling to come clean — or worse, dig deeper.

By the time morning comes and slivers of gold break between the gaps in the curtains, Ilya’s eyes and heart are equally heavy. He knows that soon Shane will wake and the tears will come again. 

For now, there’s time. 

Ilya gropes for his phone where it sits tangled in the sheets under his hip, the movement shifting him just enough to stir Shane, his fingers flexing against Ilya’s middle.

He waits until Shane settles again before typing a name into Google.

It’s a fraction of the search results he’d get for himself or Shane, and he snorts at just how insignificant this man is to the rest of the world — despite how painfully relevant he is here in this bed.

From there, he searches for his wife. Their home in Mount Royal. Property values. Their neighbors. His parents. Her siblings.

He searches for information about loons. The NHL and its new Hockey Is For Everyone bullshit. Wax seals and stationery sets. 

Emergency protection orders. Self-defense laws.

When Shane stirs against him, Ilya locks his phone, but the tension in Shane’s body tells him it wasn’t fast enough — that his eyes snagged on the glow of the screen, on the words Ilya hadn’t meant for him to see.

“I could not only do nothing,” Ilya explains before Shane can ask. 

“We don’t even know—”

The words don’t come from there, and Ilya offers a gentle, “I think that we do.” 

Shane shifts against him, nestling deeper, his thigh hooking over Ilya’s as he tucks himself in, pressing close like he’s trying to disappear into him, and Ilya’s hand follows the line of his arm, slow and steady, up into his hair.

“I have to call him,” Shane says after a while, so quiet that Ilya nearly misses it. 

Ilya’s hand stills for a moment before it starts moving again, slow and steady, like nothing has changed.

“You can,” he says quietly. “But you cannot just ask him.”

Shane pulls back just enough to look at him, something harder cutting through the exhaustion on his face. “What do you mean?”

“If he is not—” Ilya trails off, choosing his words with care. “Then you will have to explain why you think he is. And if he is—”

He doesn’t finish that either. He doesn’t have to.

Shane’s mouth presses into a thin line, his gaze drifting to the corner of the room, unfocused.

“I can’t just say it,” he says, more to himself than to Ilya.

“No,” Ilya agrees softly.

Shane exhales, the sound uneven, and folds back into him.

“I still have to call him,” he says.

“I know,” Ilya murmurs, pressing his mouth briefly to his hair. “We will. Just — we need a plan first.”

Shane is quiet for a long moment, thinking, and Ilya lets him, his hand steady on his chest, even as his own mind is already moving ahead — to what that plan might look like, to what he will do if it goes wrong.

“Okay,” Shane says finally.

Then he goes quiet, and a moment later Ilya feels the heat of his tears against his chest, and he just holds him, like that might be enough.

***

The world filters in slowly, and Shane’s head pounds with it. He feels like he does after a long practice without enough fuel — like a copy of himself, blurring at the corners.

He tries to think of the last time he drank anything — wine at his parents’ house more than a half a day before, but nothing since — and the thirst hits him all at once.

Ilya is asleep beneath him, and he shifts in small increments, careful not to wake him, then pads out of the room. 

Everything is as it was, even if nothing is the same — curtains drawn, the knife resting in the middle of the island exactly where Ilya left it, and something low and sharp pulls in his stomach at the sight.

He doesn’t make it to the sink before a dry heave tears out of him, and he winces around it.

When he regains his composure — or something like it — he drinks water straight from the tap until he can feel it sloshing in his stomach, then a little more, runs a wet hand over his face and into his hair. Then, with knuckles turning white at the counter’s edge, he just hangs his head and sighs.

He’s gone over it again and again, thinking himself into and out of knots. 

For him, it comes down to two things: either someone is going to lie to him, or he has to lie to them.

They are the Loon or they aren’t.

Shane is in love with Ilya or he isn’t.

The only option that makes any sense is to drive to Montreal tomorrow and look him in the eye. If he sent the letters — if he’s the Loon — he’ll know damn well that the envelope and the seal are the same. He has to know Shane will put it together.

Before Ilya can wake up and talk him out of it, he pulls up a text thread and shoots off a message.

hey. sorry for the late rsvp... i never check the mail out here. see you guys tomorrow. let me know if i can bring anything. looking forward to it.

He turns his phone off as soon as it shows delivered, checks the locks on the doors, and goes back to bed.

*** 

The rest of the day passes in clipped conversation and nervous energy, starting with Shane chewing the side of his thumb as Ilya stirs beside him.

“I texted her,” he says the moment Ilya’s eyes form small slits against the light of late morning. “I had to.”

“Hollander, I just woke up. What is—”

“I told her I’d be there tomorrow. Me. Not us.”

“You what?”

Shane doesn’t answer right away. He just lies there against Ilya’s chest, breathing with him, as if that could somehow make his decision less real.

Around noon, Ilya pulls them both from the bed and into the shower.

While he washes Shane’s back, he says, “I am coming with you.”

“You can’t.” Shane dips his head under the spray for just a moment, buying himself the space to think. “If it’s not him — if he’s not the Loon — how do we explain that?”

“We are in love, yes? We tell him that.”

“Are you ready for that?”

Ilya’s hand stills on his back. When Shane turns, he knows it’s not water dripping into Ilya’s eyes, and he reaches up to brush the tear from his cheek, only smearing it with his own wet hand.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to—”

“Just not now,” Ilya finishes, nodding once.

“Just not now.” Shane presses his lips to Ilya’s jaw. “There’s so much to consider. And if this is about jealousy, I wouldn’t survive it if something happened to you. If he—”

“And you think I am just going to let you go in there alone?”

The spray of the water pounding against the tile is Shane’s only response as he ducks back under it. Ilya wraps his arms around him, pulling him back against his chest, holding him there until the water runs lukewarm and Shane shivers against him.

Ilya grabs a towel from where two rest atop the shower door and fits it around Shane’s shoulders before reaching for the tap and turning it off. His hands move up and down Shane’s arms over the fabric, their foreheads leaning together.

“I just want a future with you,” Shane says quietly to their feet. “I want more time.”

His stomach growls, low and sudden in the space between them before Ilya can respond.

Ilya huffs something that might be a laugh, might be nothing at all.

“Then you need to eat before you die.” Ilya presses a kiss to Shane’s temple, his hands settling briefly at his hips, steadying him there for a moment longer before he pulls back. Shane doesn’t argue. “Come — I feed you. You want tuna melt?”

***

By the time the light starts to fade, they’re on the couch, something low and forgettable playing on the television as Ilya’s hand weaves slowly through Shane’s hair. Shane sits tucked into Ilya’s side, one leg thrown over his, his hand resting loose on Ilya’s stomach. 

It’s exactly what they would be doing if the threat of tomorrow did not exist. It’s what Ilya would want to do if no tomorrows ever existed again.

Shane shifts after a while, pressing his face into Ilya’s shoulder.

“Loons carry their babies on their backs,” Shane says quietly against him. 

Ilya just scratches his fingers along the nape of Shane’s neck, sensing there’s more just by the way he breathes. 

“When they came here last summer. He was floating in the lake, with his kids piled on top of him. She made a joke about it.”

“You think is her? Or him? Both?”

Shane huffs out a long breath through clenched teeth, then says, “I think I just need to know either way.”

“Then we find out.” 

“You’re still coming,” he says, not quite a question.

Ilya’s hand stills for a moment before it starts moving again.

“Yes.”

Shane nods against him and leaves it at that. Ilya lets himself get lost in the feel of Shane’s hand on his middle, the way the pads of his fingers twitch and press, his thumb moving in absent circles that mirror Ilya’s own behind Shane’s ear.

“Tell me you love me again,” Shane says finally, voice low, like it’s something he’s not sure he can or should ask for.

Ilya doesn’t hesitate.

“I do, Shane. I love you.”

Shane exhales against his chest, his lips pressing loosely over his heart. Ilya wonders, absently, if he can feel the way his pulse raps double-time at the touch, how it triples when Shane says it back. 

“I love you too. So fucking much.”

On any other night, Ilya would crush his mouth to Shane’s, carry him to bed. Instead, his hand stays in Shane’s hair, slower, more absent, his eyes fixed somewhere past the television as the room darkens around them. A devotion of a different kind. 

They don’t move after that.

The television keeps playing. The light fades out completely beyond the lake.

At some point, Shane’s breathing evens out, the tension in his body easing by degrees until it finally lets go entirely.

Again, Ilya doesn’t sleep. He just lies there with him, one hand in his hair, the other holding him close, and dares tomorrow to come.

***

Shane knows the route just as well as if he were driving home, but his hands are unsteady, and Ilya insists. It was a fight — a small one — because Shane could see the sag beneath Ilya’s eyes, the way the night had hollowed him out, but it’s a fight he lost when Ilya poured a large mug of coffee and drank it down in three swallows before grabbing the keys.

“Ilya Rozanov driving a Jeep,” Shane laughs in the passenger seat as Ilya pulls onto what locals would consider a main road. “Maybe this is the day the world ends.”

“Please do not say this,” Ilya says, cutting his eyes over to Shane. “Is not funny.”

Shane sees it then — the sharp angle of Ilya’s shoulders pulled just too high, the drum of his thumb against his thigh near the driver’s side door. He’s nervous, anxious in a way Shane’s never seen before, or at least never noticed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know.”

The drive is long and the conversation is short. Early on, Shane tried to press into it, venture into hypotheticals and scenarios. But Ilya’s thumb only beat faster, his jaw setting tighter. And as the miles grow smaller between them and the inevitable, everything begins to shift into something real — heavy and looming.

“When we get there, I’ll go in alone.”

“You will do no such—”

“I will.” 

Shane fits a hand to Ilya’s knee. 

“And I do what?” 

“You trust me.”

“I don’t trust him, Shane,” Ilya spits, but Shane knows it’s not at him. 

“I know.”

They leave it at that, the time creeping closer to 3:00 pm and the distance closing further, until Ilya takes the last turn and they see the house — set back from the street, cars lining the driveway. Ilya parks down by the street and cuts the engine. 

“If he touches you—”

Shane stops Ilya with a hand on his jaw.

“I’m bigger than he is. And I have something worth fighting for.”

Ilya’s hand comes up over his wrist, then Shane leans in — a fraction at first and then fully, their mouths fitting together right there on the side of a residential street, something Shane’s thought about for ages. He takes his time with it, unhurried — a choice — and Ilya lingers in the same way. 

When he pulls back, he doesn’t say anything. He just reaches for the handle and steps out into the heat.

The air is thick, carrying voices from somewhere behind the house, the low pulse of something that passes for music.

He doesn’t look back.

The gravel crunches under his shoes as he makes his way up the driveway, each step too loud, too deliberate.

His hands curl into fists at his side as the house comes into focus — the open garage, the cluster of shoes near the front door, the movement of bodies just out of sight.

And then Hayden.

He’s set just outside the doorway, one hand resting at the back of Arthur’s head, the other hanging loose at his side. Arthur clings to his leg, half-hidden, peering out from behind him.

“Uncle Shane!” Arthur trills, and Shane’s chest aches at it.

He lifts a hand in a small wave, almost without thinking, before his eyes settle on Hayden — on his wide, easy smile — and his blood runs cold.

“Hey,” Hayden says easily. “I’m glad you could make it.”

Chapter 19

Chapter Notes

June 2017 - Montreal

Shane feels it as Hayden smiles at him — not in a rush, but something slower and far more dangerous, settling in behind his ribs and spreading outward until it fills him completely. He wants, for a split second, to close the distance between them and see what happens when it breaks — when Hayden stops smiling, when the truth finally shows itself. But there are too many eyes, too many variables, and not enough certainty. So he swallows it down, lets it sharpen instead of spill, and meets Hayden where he stands. Because that’s what this is now — not a confrontation, not yet, but a game of chicken. Hayden either says it, admits to it, lets the mask slip. Or Shane does something far worse.

“Hayd,” Shane says — measured, controlled, one hand slipping in to pull him close and the other clapping at Hayden’s back. “Thanks for the invite.”

“I can’t believe you drove in from the lake.”

“I can’t believe you remembered the address.”

“It was all Jackie. I didn’t even know we were doing this thing until today.” Hayden ruffles Arthur’s hair before he disappears after the other kids around the side of the house. “It’s my Father’s Day present from her. Bunch of us idiots grilling meat and kids running around the yard — that woman knows what I love.”

“So you didn’t invite me?”

“I didn’t invite anyone, bud. I was sitting on the couch with my hand in my pants when J.J. showed up.”

Shane says nothing then, just pulls the envelope from his back pocket and presses it into Hayden’s chest. 

“She did a great job with the invites.”

Shane doesn’t pull his hand away right away, keeping the envelope pressed flat against Hayden’s chest as he watches him. Hayden glances down at it, casual at first, the movement automatic, his fingers coming up to take it. 

For a second, nothing happens, and then — just slightly — his smile shifts, fades at the edges as his eyes move over the back of the envelope a little too quickly.

When he looks back up, it’s all still there — the ease, the familiarity — but something underneath it has gone tight.

“I think we should talk,” Hayden says quietly.

Shane watches as the muscle in his jaw flexes once, then again, the words just sitting between them for a beat.

“We should.”

Shane steps back first, breaking the space between them, already turning toward the driveway before Hayden can say anything else. He doesn’t check to see if he’s following.

***

The angle of the car and the line of trees along the street block most of the driveway, and Ilya doesn’t see them until they’re almost on top of him.

One second there’s nothing — just the whir of the air conditioner and the thrum of his pulse in his ears — and the next it’s Shane and the shape of someone trailing behind him.

Ilya is out of the car before the recognition even fully settles.

He’s motion and fury and all the things hockey has trained into him when something feels like a threat, grabbing Hayden by the collar and shoving him back against the side of the Jeep.

Hayden doesn’t fight it.

His hands don’t come up. He doesn’t pull away.

And there’s nothing in his eyes that looks like confusion.

“Is you,” Ilya spits into his face. “This is fucking you.”

Shane’s hand lands on Ilya’s shoulder, not pulling him back, not stopping him. Just an anchor, a weight. I’m here.

Ilya glances over at him, Hayden still pinned beneath his fist.

“So he told you, yes?” he asks plainly, the same way one asks about the weather, thinking to himself it’s just that obvious.

“No,” Hayden answers for him. “But I want to.”

Ilya watches Shane, his fist pressing harder into Hayden, knuckles grinding against his collarbone. This isn’t something he can do for him — decide how it goes — but he can’t read the hollow of his eyes, the set of his jaw, and so he waits.

“Not near the kids,” Shane says finally, his head bowed. “Let’s take a drive.”

Ilya doesn’t wait for more than that. He lets go just long enough to wrench the back door open and haul Hayden with him, shoving him into the backseat hard enough that the whole car rocks.

“You drive,” he says to Shane, already climbing into the passenger seat, twisting back toward Hayden before the door is even fully shut.

His phone appears in his hand a second later, screen already lit, and he shoves it toward Shane without looking.

“Nearest police station. We talk there,” Ilya says.

“Don’t you think that’s a little—”

“No, and you shut up.” 

The silence builds into something Ilya can almost taste, acrid at the back of his throat. He made a pact to himself he would try to smoke less around Shane, and it’s never been harder than at this moment. He wants to light a cigarette, take one long drag, and then grind the butt out on Hayden’s cheek. He’s halfway to reaching for the lighter in his pocket when Shane pulls into the parking lot of the SPVM, parks at the far corner, and cuts the engine.

“We talk here. In car.” Ilya sniffs once, then again. “If we need to go inside, we go inside.”

“We don’t need to go inside,” Hayden says, thin around a long sigh.

“Then start talking,” Shane says sharply.

Ilya looks over at him across the armrest, where he’s turned to face Hayden in his seat. He’s still tense in all the ways that make Ilya want to climb into the backseat and pummel the reason why, but he doesn’t reach for either of them.

“I thought we were friends,” is as far as Hayden gets before Shane cuts in.

“Yeah, fucking same, Hayden. So what the fuck?”

Hayden exhales hard through his nose, one hand dragging down his face before it drops uselessly into his lap.

“You two should be more careful,” he says, not looking at either of them at first, and Ilya prickles at the words — the terror he felt standing in his own home burning like a memory at the back of his neck. “If I could see it, so could anyone. And you weren’t exactly subtle.”

His eyes flick up to Shane then, something sharper cutting through.

“But you didn’t tell me. You didn’t fucking tell me.”

The words land harder than anything he’s said so far, like that’s the part that matters — not what he’s done to them.

“You hid it like it was something dirty. Like I’d — what? Like I’d use it against you?”

A short, humorless laugh.

“Shane, I’m an idiot — you know me — and even I figured it out. The way you look at him, the way you—” he cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I thought you just didn’t trust me. Or that you’d brush it off as me hating him.”

His mouth tightens.

“I don’t. You two are—” he huffs once, almost embarrassed. “You’re fucking cute together.”

That lands softer, but it doesn’t ease anything in Ilya — the set of Shane’s jaw says the same.

“I was worried about you,” he says finally, quieter now. “That’s it. You think I’m the only one who could see it? You think no one else would put it together?”

He looks between them, something frantic under the surface now.

“I was trying to make you understand that. To fucking warn you. To help.” Tears roll fatly from Hayden’s eyes then. “I thought we were friends.”

For a while, no one says anything and the car fills with the sound of Hayden sniffling in the backseat, head hung low. Ilya takes a beat to shift his attention to Shane, who can’t seem to look anywhere else but into the middle distance, at the headrest right beyond Ilya’s face as his own eyes fill with tears. 

“You could’ve just talked to me, Hayd,” he says finally. 

“I felt like I couldn’t. Because you weren’t talking to me.” 

Ilya closes his eyes and punches the roof, one and then again. 

“Enough. This is fucking stupid.” 

He spills from the car and Shane follows him. 

“You believe him?” Ilya asks as they meet around the front of the vehicle, voice low, a glance through the windshield at Hayden’s unmoving form. “He cannot be fucking serious with this. He is this stupid?”

“I mean, I kind of believe it.” Shane moves a hand between himself and the cage the car makes for Hayden. “We shared so many hotel rooms — he could’ve attacked me at any time and he didn’t. I don’t think he wanted to hurt us.”

“Well, I want to hurt him.” Ilya’s fingers curl to a fist at his side. “He could have just used his words. I know way less words and can do better than this.”

“Go smoke,” Shane says instead of anything Ilya expects.

Ilya frowns, sharp, immediate. “What? Who are you?”

“Go smoke a cigarette, Ilya.”

Ilya stares at him for a second, something in him still braced to fight, to argue, to keep going — but the words don’t come.

“Please,” Shane adds, quieter. “I need to talk to him and I know you need it.”

Ilya exhales hard through his nose, jaw tight, and turns away before he can change his mind. The lighter sparks on the first try, the drag sharp and immediate as he pulls it in.

***

The door opens and closes again, quieter this time.

Shane settles into the driver’s seat and doesn’t start the car. His hands rest on the wheel for a moment, steadying there, before he turns, looking back at Hayden.

For a second, neither of them speaks.

Hayden looks smaller from here, like his children did on the way home from the aquarium after a long day. Folded in on himself in the backseat, eyes red, hands loose in his lap like he’s already spent whatever fight he had left.

“I thought we were friends,” Hayden says again, softer this time, like the words might have changed and could land differently, matter more now that he looks this broken.

Shane just studies him. Not the words — he’s already heard those — but the shape of him, the way he’s now both the person he’s known and trusted and someone he doesn’t know at all. He flushes with anger and an ache at the sight of him.

“You got into his house,” Shane says. Not a question.

Hayden hesitates.

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Another pause. A longer one this time. Hayden’s eyes flick up, then away again.

“I followed you that day. I was so sure. I was just going to leave the note at the door, but then you left the door open,” he says finally. “That’s how far gone you were and I was so sure you needed to hear it more than ever. You got there and didn’t even close it behind you. You were too busy with each other.”

Something in Shane’s chest tightens, then settles. He can’t remember it, but it sounds right. He loses himself in Ilya like that even now.

“And the stationery?”

Hayden shrugs, small, like it shouldn’t matter.

“Just stuff Jackie had. We picked it up when we came out to your cottage at that little shop in town. I thought you’d recognize it.” His mouth pulls, something almost defensive creeping back in. “Thought you’d know it was me. I kept waiting for you to get it, to come talk to me.”

Shane lets that sit for a second. Lets all of it just sit — the house, the letters, the watching.

“You didn’t think to just talk to me, though,” he says finally.

Hayden’s head comes up. “I tried—”

“No,” Shane cuts in, not raising his voice, just steady. “You didn’t.”

Hayden flinches, almost imperceptibly, like it’s the only thing Shane’s said that doesn’t fit the version of this he’s been carrying around.

“I thought you’d brush it off,” he says, quieter now. “Or think I was just—”

“Jealous?” Shane offers.

Hayden’s mouth tightens. He doesn’t answer.

Shane exhales, slow, controlled, and looks away for a moment — out through the windshield, at where Ilya hovers nearby in a cloud of smoke.

“You don’t get to decide what I tell you,” he says. “Or how I live my life. Or who I—” He stops himself there, jaw setting, then finishes anyway. “You don’t get to do any of this and call it helping.”

The silence that follows is heavier than anything before it.

Hayden just nods once and says, “Okay.”

It’s thin. It doesn’t fix anything. Time might, but words — Shane doesn’t have any left.

He reaches for the handle and pushes the door open, the air outside cooler now, the edge of late afternoon settling in around them as he steps out and circles the front of the car. He doesn’t look back, just slows enough for Ilya to fall into step beside him, the cigarette in his hand burned down to the filter.

“You done?” Ilya asks, low.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“We’re safe.”

“And our good friend Hayden?”

“He can fucking walk.”

Shane pulls open the back door and steps aside, giving Hayden the space to get out. He hesitates for a second, like he might say something else, like there’s still something left to salvage, but whatever it is, he swallows it down and climbs out instead.

“Shane—”

“I need time, Hayd.”

Shane doesn’t turn, and after a moment Hayden’s footsteps move away, slow at first, then fading out toward the street.

When he’s gone, but not because of it, Shane lets loose a sigh, hand resting against the roof of the car. He stays that way, forehead pressed against the driver’s side window, until Ilya’s palm finds the small of his back. 

He leans into it — not away — right there in the open, yards from a main road in the city where he plays.

And nothing in him flinches.

“What now?” Ilya asks, almost close enough to feel.

“I think we go home and do nothing,” Shane says after a beat, swaying into him. “I would like to relax with you. For once.”

They stay like that a moment longer before he moves, pulling open the driver’s door and sliding back into his seat. Ilya follows, the faint smell of smoke coming with him as the door closes.

Neither of them speaks as Shane starts the engine and pulls back onto the road, the city falling away behind them.

Ilya’s hand folds into his over the gearshift, and nothing else matters.

Chapter End Notes

So, there it is. If you guessed that Hayden is an idiot who was just trying to help: DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER. Homeboy thought he was being empathetic. Everyone else got the creeps.

Moral of the story? Talk to people!

Writing this has felt a little bit like a fever dream. Every comment, every theory along the way — you’ve all been so thoughtful and so kind, and I can’t tell you how much that meant while I was working through this.

I hope the ending landed the way you wanted it to. If it didn’t, you know the deal — come yell at me in the comments. And if it did, tell a friend.

And, as always, thank you for pasta.