Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, Original Male Character(s), (ilya and shane's billet rookie), Alexei Rozanov's Daughter

Additional Tags:

Established Relationship, Post-Canon, post-retirement, Epistolary Elements, Texting, and emails etc etc, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dom/sub Undertones, making a life making a future, POV Shane Hollander, Oral Sex, Literal Sleeping Together, Depression, Exhibitionist Shane Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of hwa verse

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-13 Words: 16,476 Chapters: 1/1

the strange idea of continuous living

Summary

Ilya has a particular way of holding himself when he’s listening to Shane like this, when the air is thin and fragile between them. He goes very still, eyes wide open, the perfect absurd bow of his lips the only trembling thing. It isn’t enough, Shane thinks. This little soft-shuffle step towards better, God, it feels like a fucking mockery. It isn’t enough when Ilya is this, this warm-breathing world that Shane loves so completely, this thing that roars through his body like waves on rocks, sending him tumbling.

--

Shane and Ilya are three years out from retirement, on their second billet kid, and they're trying to figure out the future.

Notes

Title from Ada Limon's Instructions on Not Giving Up.

I edited this whilst watching the Canada/Switz game, so blame any typos on MacKinnon.

To: n.walters@ottawa67s.ohl.org 
Cc: marniewalters@gmail.com
From: j.wang@ottawa67s.ohl.org 

Subject: Billet allocation 

Hi Nathan,

Hope you’re very well! My name is Jennifer, and I work in travel and accommodation for the Ottawa 67s. I’d love to take this opportunity to congratulate you on joining the 67s, we’re so pleased to have you and can’t wait to see what this season holds. 

As you will have discussed with Tim, it is standard practice to place any minor OHL players coming from out of town with one of our billet families. We find this really helps players settle in and give them a sense of community and stability as they make this big life change. 

I’m delighted to let you know that your allocated hosts are Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. This will be Shane and Ilya’s third season as billet dads — they previously hosted Brady Corbett during his OHL year, and then continued into his rookie year at the Cens. Brady had a great time with Shane and Ilya, and has made it clear he’ll be coming back for as many mealtimes as he can get away with! Hopefully that presents a great opportunity for you to make a connection with someone who has been in the same boat.

A few things to note: 

• Shane and Ilya have a dog — Nathan, there are no allergies on your medical form, but if this presents any issues please let us know as soon as possible 
• Shane’s parents, David and Yuna Hollander, live around twenty minutes from Shane and Ilya and have previously acted as secondary billet parents on the very rare occasions when both Shane and Ilya have to be absent for business reasons. David and Yuna have both passed all relevant safeguarding checks, but if this is something you are uncomfortable with please let us know as soon as possible
• Shane and Ilya will provide Nathan with: 
• accommodation (double room, en suite bathroom)
• all meals not already provided by the 67s
• all travel to and from school and all other educational commitments 
• all travel to and from any official team activities not already provided by the 67s (Nathan, we don’t have a driving licence on record for you, please let us know if you are in possession of one)
• laundry services 
• use of their home exercise facilities (gym, plastic rink, pool)

In previous years Shane and Ilya have been happy for Brady to use their home to host social activities as long as they are given prior notice. They also encouraged Brady to learn some important life skills (Nathan, I’m sure your mom will be happy to hear that!), and help out with tasks like cooking and walking Anya at times when it didn’t interfere with on-ice performance. 

Nathan, if you or your mother would like to speak to Shane and Ilya ahead of coming across next month they’re very happy to hop on a Zoom. 

Do let me know if you have any questions, and, once again, welcome to the 67s!

Very best,

Jennifer

Jennifer Wong (she/her) 
Travel & Accommodation Assistant Manager
Ottawa 67s | OHL

To: c.walters@ottawa67s.mlh.org; j.wang@ottawa67s.mlh.org 
From: marniewalters@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Billet allocation 

Hi Jennifer,Thanks for your email. I’d love to chat with Shane and Ilya, thanks. Could you send across some dates that might work?

Best,

Marnie 

—

Nate: dude just shoot me now fr 

Max: hahaaaaa lol u get grounded again?

Nate: worse

Nate: got my host family

Nate: hollander and rozy

Max: ahahahAHHAHAHHAAAA

Nate: stfu

Nate: dont be a dick

Nate: im never gonna see the light of day again

Nate: im gonna be in hockey prison

Max: stats bout to go crazy tho

Nate: how am i supposed to look hollander in the eye bro

Max: maybe dont tell him his 2013 cup winning goal got u hard once

Nate: fuck OFF there were other things going on 

Max: well dont tell him that he’ll think his goal wasn’t enough for u lol

Max: or that your a homophobe

Nate: jesus christ

Nate: why couldnt i go to toronto 

Max: coz toronto are mid af 

Max: and id have to kill u for ontarios honor

Nate: im gonna die anyway

Nate: they want me to learn how to cook

Nate: im gonna give hollander food poisoning and then rozy rly will kill me 

Max: they’ll never find your body

Max: hahahaaaa your so fucking cooked bro

—

NOTES FROM ZOOM WITH SHANE HOLLANDER

• happy to stick to nate’s established diet when cooking used to working with restrictions (look up macrobiotic??)
  
• 10pm curfew on school nights if not playing 

• frequent visitors: rose landry (!), shane’s parents, hayden pike (to google) + his family, former cens + their families, current cens (haas + hark + bennet in particular) svettlana vet-something (sp??) who is Ilya’s best friend. overnight visitors v uncommon as most visitors based in Ottawa or Montreal 

• happy for nate to have lock on his door 

• happy for me to visit whenever, they have room for me to stay 

• no other pets 

• small children belonging to players/former players often at house, shane unbothered by nate’s lack of experience (i explained no cousins etc. shane also only child) 

• view themselves as mentors but not there to interfere w coaching unless nate is unhappy/confused w what he is being told

• top priority is nate’s well-being. If there’s stuff happening at team he is unhappy w or uncomfortable w he should feel able to talk to them, ‘we have no loyalty to an org which upholds hazing or bullying’. v serious about this

• try to ensure one of them is always home during the season, when not possible enlist parents or possible for nate to stay w other billet family w teammate (maybe more comfy w this…)

• can recommend off-season coaches, happy also for nate to spend some time during the off-season in ottawa as long as I am happy (am I???) 

• seems nice??? Very calm and well-spoken. Said brady was v anxious about being away from home. I said i am worried about opposite with nate. Shane: ‘don’t worry, we can handle that too’ 

• Ilya back from business trip next week, can zoom him separately then

• Will ask 67s to put us all in direct contact

• Any other qs???

—

Shane’s got his morning routine pretty nailed down in the three weeks that Ilya has been away, out in California helping set up the brand new Western Conference arm of the Game Changers camps. He gets up, he runs Anya over to his parents’ house, he runs back home. He showers, he eats his overnight oats, he answers his emails, he heads over to the practice facility to work with Brady and Jackson on their shot-specific training. He comes home, he works out, he calls Ilya, he jerks off, he goes to bed. It works. He doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t have to think about all the places that Ilya would normally slot into his routine instead. It works so well that it’s only on the run back from his parents’ place, wind whistling in his ears, that Shane realises today is a press day, and that neither Brady or Jackson will be at the training rink. That, in fact, Shane will have to spend the day alone.

Strava tells him he hits his third-best time for two miles on the final stretch home. 

Maybe he can go for a hike, he thinks, as he unlaces his running shoes. Maybe Hayden wants some extra babysitting. He could deep clean the kitchen, or maybe Sveta would let him tag along to one of her meetings, and he might learn something about brand synergy and why the Cens are being sponsored by Absolut this year. Maybe —

“Lyubimyy.”

Shane jerks upright so quickly he almost brains himself on the key hooks. They swing ominously, and only now does he realise Ilya’s bulging keychain (house, cottage, Shane’s parents’, IF offices, two separate pictures of Anya, a horrible little cartoon of Shane, a matryoshka doll in Boston black and yellow; one day it will break and Shane will be there to say I told you so) is sitting right next to his own. 

“Ilya,” he says. “Ilya.” And he turns, and Ilya is there, with his hair still damp against his forehead from the shower, in Shane’s baggy black sweatshorts and a Kermit shirt Shane vaguely thinks Jackie might have worn during pregnancy number three, looking amused, his hands held out, waiting. 

Shane crashes into him, and they both stagger. Ilya steadies them, grabs his face, tilts his head back so they can kiss, although it’s hardly kissing, Ilya’s tongue in his mouth and Shane just breathing and breathing him in, trying to get closer, Ilya, Ilyusha, one hand sliding up Ilya’s shirt, the other tugging impatiently at his shorts, fuck, the heat of him. Shane gives up on everything else entirely, sinks thankfully to his knees to press his mouth, nose, whole face against Ilya’s crotch. Ilya tangles one hand in Shane’s run-sweaty hair, jerks his head back so that he can tease the head of his cock against Shane’s lips, against the wanting tip of his tongue.

“Pretty boy,” he croons. “Pretty boy, so good.” 

Shane feels like he’s underwater. He feels like he’s choking on air, empty, like the only thing that makes any sense is this, is Ilya inside him at last, his hands on the back of Ilya’s strong thighs, thumbs brushing against the wiry hair, tears stinging in his eyes and the ache in his jaw already starting to make itself known. He swallows, hard, feels the way his throat constricts around Ilya, his body moulding itself to him, and he digs his fingernails in hard and tries to pull Ilya even further into his mouth. All of him feels red and alive. Above him, Ilya is moaning, hiccuping sounds as his fingers flex in Shane’s hair, as he runs his thumbs along Shane’s cheeks, along the stretched gape of his mouth. 

He pulls out. 

Shane blinks up at him for a moment, mouth still open around nothing. Tears springing anew. 

“What,” he says, dumbly, and Ilya sinks to his knees, sticks his tongue straight in Shane’s mouth without any preamble, crooks a finger in too, lets Shane suck on those like that could be — like that’s, Shane didn’t get on his knees straight after a run with his fucking brace digging into his hamstring and the velcro gone all skewed and itchy to not get —

“Shhhh,” Ilya says, and he is patting at Shane’s knee until Shane gives it to him, taking off the brace, tossing it aside. “Shhh, shhh, it’s OK. I just didn’t want to come yet. Look, I’m giving you another finger, another two, it’s OK.” The stretch does make it better. Does make everything softer again, slip a little sideways. The itch is gone too, just cool wood under Shane’s knees. Ilya fucks his fingers gently in and out of Shane’s mouth, pressing down on his tongue. “Look at you.” He runs his other hand down Shane’s shoulder, his arm, pinches a little at his waist. Pulls Shane’s shorts down one-handed so he can scrape nails down his thighs, thumb absently at his balls. “Pretty boy,” he says again. “Pretty pretty boy, moy seks kotik, yes? Missed me so much.”

“So much,” Shane slurs around Ilya’s fingers. “Skoo— skoochat.”

“OK, we work on that one later.” Ilya kisses Shane, tongue flicking between his own fingers, teeth scraping along Shane’s lower lip. Shane shivers, fingers flexing on Ilya’s waist. “Fuck. Fuck, you need it so bad, huh? No good on the phone. “

Shane shakes his head. It is no good. It’s better than nothing, but it’s no good, not when it leaves him alone in the bed, not when his fingers can’t reach the places Ilya’s can, not when the rough timbre of his voice comes without the warm press of his body. 

“Touch yourself for me, sweetheart, let me see, huh. No — no moving anything else, like this, just your hand, look at me.”

Shane’s hand feels like it’s hardly attached to him. Feels like nothing, like nerve endings doing a job, it’s Ilya, Ilya holding him there, holding him in place, sticky feeling of his own spit running down his chin and Ilya’s flushed pink face and the way his eyes dart between Shane’s mouth and Shane’s eyes and Shane’s hand on his own dick. He feels full. Not full enough, not full enough, but fuller than he has been in weeks. 

Ilya licks his lips when Shane comes. Shane doesn’t know when he first noticed it, but he watches for it every time now. He licks his lips, and he bites at the inside of his cheeks a little, and he makes a low, satisfied noise and replaces his fingers with Shane’s own, licks into Shane’s mouth again whilst it’s still full; trying to speak, to breathe, to do everything all at once, Shane’s idiot hurricane. 

“Your glasses,” Ilya says, panting, hand tight around his own dick, thumb pressing bruisingly into Shane’s cheek. “Your silly running glasses, where are they, put them on. Was thinking about them.”

It takes Shane a second to remember — by the keys, back at the front door — and another second to stand up on wobbling legs. To step out of his running shorts, to pull off his shirt — Ilya groaning behind me fuck, fuck you are trying to kill me before I even get to come, to put on his running sunglasses. He gets back on his knees. He tilts his head up, and drops open his mouth. Sometimes, like this, he thinks of how scared he used to be of everything that was crawling around inside him, all the sneaking little tendrils of desire he’d spent so long snipping off, and now — now he feels almost fierce with it. Fuck that, fuck them, fuck everything except Ilya’s scrunching, lovely face, his body bent forward with the force of his want, his hand pincer-tight on Shane’s jaw as Shane sticks out his tongue and takes what Ilya wants to give him. 

Ilya pulls the sunglasses off to kiss Shane, at least. Drags them both to the couch, hauls Shane on top of him, pats him gently all over as they kiss. Shane is still getting used to the way his body is without hockey. Still strong, still capable, but muscle in different places, softness in others. It sits better on Ilya, he thinks, that shift, the sturdy heft of him. But like this his body feels right; under Ilya’s hands he is only ever exactly what he is supposed to be. 

“Missed you so much,” he says, kissing up Ilya’s neck, resting his mouth against the live pulse-point of him. “Need to shower, then can we fuck?”

“Wow, OK, very demanding, yes. If it’s a long shower, I am old now.”

“It will be, I didn’t think you were coming back til tomorrow.” Shane nudges his nose into Ilya’s cheek. “Did you miss me too much? Or did they just get sick of you in California?”

“Too sexy for the Sharks, they got jealous, sent me packing.” Ilya’s steady check of Shane’s body has reached his ass, and he smacks at Shane’s cheeks a little, testing. “Not sore anymore?”

“Not really.” Shane thinks there might still be some very faint bruising, right where Ilya left the deepest bitemarks, but even the places where it scabbed have flaked and healed now. “The first week it was pretty noticeable, but after that... Weak bite, Rozanov. No wonder the Sharks got sick of you.”

“Mm.” Ilya kisses the side of Shane’s head. Face buried against Ilya’s shoulder, Shane frowns. Mm? Just mm? “I’ll give you better bites next time.” He wraps his arms around Shane, squeezes hard. Shane’s frown deepens. He wriggles, manages to get loose enough to look down at Ilya, at his closed eyes, his tired face. 

“Baby,” Shane says softly. He presses the tip of one finger to the creases by Ilya’s eye. “You OK? Long trip?”

“No, like I said on the phone. Trip was good. Missed you a lot, but trip was good. Just — bad dreams, last couple of nights.”

“About Russia? Your family?” Ilya shakes his head no. “About me?” No, again. “About —”

“Agh, you are worse than the FSB, Hollander. About Brady, about the new one, Nathan. About his anxious mother, left all alone, whilst we try and keep him good at hockey and bad at partying. About my little niece, who Sveta tells me is hanging out with bad girls at — agh. I don’t know the word. Whatever, at the place they hang out after school.”

“Is she. You know, is she in trouble?”

“I don’t know. You know she won’t talk to me, only Sveta. And only Sveta so much.”

Shane strokes Ilya’s hair. He kisses his forehead, gently. Sometimes with Ilya, it is no good going looking for additional pieces, you have to make sense of the picture with what you do have. “Do you wanna go shower?”

“You will let me come shower with you? Whilst you do…”

“No, not. Not in the shower, Ilya, don’t be — you can sit. Like. In the bathroom, if you want. We can talk.”

“Can I watch for the bit when you are pretending it is prep but really you are just fingering yourself?”

Shane sighs heavily, tries to pretend he can’t feel himself blushing, tries to pretend it doesn’t make him liquid to think about Ilya knowing that, wanting to see it. 

“I’ll tell you when you can turn around.” They untangle, stand, reach for each others’ hands. The cushions are a disaster. Shane is gonna have to put all the covers in the laundry later. “We’ll be OK with Nate. We’ll drive him back to see his mom, as much as we can.”

“She’s close.”

“Pretty close, yeah.”

Shane pulls Ilya close, rocks him. He doesn’t need to ask, not about this. He knows Ilya thinks of an unreachable grave, of a city he may never see again. Of his niece, smoking (or worse? God, Shane needs to call Sveta) in a grimy underpass somewhere, refusing to text her uncle back. 

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he whispers, and when Ilya doesn’t reply, when Ilya tugs them impatiently into the bathroom and sits on the floor whilst Shane preps and complains at length about the six separate meetings he went to where he was served nothing but California rolls, Shane is mostly just relieved. Ilya fucks him in their bed, his hand between Shane’s shoulder blades and Shane’s face shoved suffocatingly into the pillow, and Shane finally as full as he has longed to be for weeks, finally all the way the way he is supposed to be, Ilya’s hips snapping hard and relentless. 

Ilya stays in him for a long time after they’ve come. Their bodies tucked close, Ilya mumbling unintelligible Russian into Shane’s armpit.

“It’s alright,” Shane says, hand cupping Ilya’s knee. “We’ll figure it out.”

—

Ilya zooms Nate’s mom, Marnie, whilst Shane is finishing up at the rink. It’s only the second summer Shane’s done this kind of training, and it’s been — it’s been good, he thinks. It had made sense, given he was sort of helping Brady out anyway during the season, trying to fix that fucking catastrophe of a wristshot, and Jackson’s a good kid, a little over-eager, doesn’t give himself enough time to map out his options on the assists, but he’s getting better. If Shane doesn’t think too hard about all the time he spent on this rink, in this gym, it’s OK. If Shane doesn’t bump into anybody he used to work with, if he stays in the practice facility and keeps his head down in the parking lot, it’s fine. Sometimes, when he’s skating backwards, watching Brady’s stick-handling with narrowed eyes, thinking about the ways he could slam him sideways, steal it, break through, it even feels good to be out there again. Watching the kids get better, watching the incremental improvements that Shane tracks on his spreadsheets, makes video compilations of to show them at the end of the summer. That’s good. That’s Shane doing something, making a difference.

He’s always tired when he gets home. That’s fine, too. He knows tiredness. 

Ilya is sprawled on the couch with Anya when Shane walks in. He lifts Anya’s paw to wave at Shane, but turns his head away when Shane sits on the arm of the couch and bends down to look at him. His heart clenches in his chest when he sees him, the pressed-tight line of his mouth, his heavy brow. 

“You’re crying. You’ve been crying.” Shane touches one knuckle to Ilya’s lashes. They’re clumped together, wet.

“No,” Ilya says reflexively. There’s enough of a pout to it that Shane can relax a little, unwind some of the barbed wire from around his heart. Not closed off, not away from him, not yet. 

“What do you mean, ‘no’, I’m the one looking at your face.” 

“Maybe I’m developing allergies.”

“Ilya.” Shane licks his knuckle without really thinking about it. Salt. “Was it, uh, Marnie? Did she say something to you?”

“No. Nothing bad.” Anya wriggles in Ilya’s arms, and Ilya sighs, lets her go. “You must have your freedom, pelmeni,” he tells her mournfully, and holds his arms out for Shane instead. Shane lets himself breathe. “Nothing bad”, Ilya says again. “Only she is so worried about him.”

Shane settles himself on top of Ilya.. “I said we were always gonna back him up, if there was ever anything going on that shouldn’t be.”

“Yes, I said this too. Or I said we would burn down Ottawa Sports Organisation offices if we found out they were turning a blind eye to hazing still, but. Same difference. She laughed, I think.”

“You think she’s worried about us?”

“That we are too, uh. Involved with hockey. Yes. Yes, maybe. She doesn’t like hockey, you know.”

“She said she wasn’t really, like, a fan. She didn’t know who Hayden was.”

“Psh. Lots of people don’t know who Hayden is, very understandable.” Ilya dodges Shane’s attempt to bite him, pulls Shane’s head down against the scratchy plastic surface of Kermit’s face. “Ah, no, oops, come back here.” He kisses his nose, mollifying, settles Shane back against skin and soft cotton. “His dad is the fan. Named him Nathan, very hockey name. Took him to the rink. Tried to make him an Oilers fan.”

“She said he’s not really in the picture.”

“I think very much not in the picture.”

“Like… he’s dead?”

Ilya laughs. “No. Like. Maybe she a bit wishes he was. She said she’s told the team he’s not allowed to practices. That if he comes here we shouldn’t let Nate see him. I said, Nate is eighteen in six months, what then, she says if Nate sees him he’ll break his jaw. I said, OK. Got it. I have a brother a bit like that.”

“Ilya.” Shane kisses the hinge of Ilya’s jaw. “Did Sveta say anything else, when you called her?”

“No. Masha is not picking up her calls. She goes to Moscow next month, for her father’s birthday. She is going to try and speak to her then.” Ilya’s mouth twists. “She does too much.”

“She loves you.” 

“I love her.” 

Easy to hear that, now. The old sting of jealousy feels so far away, lost beneath Ilya’s big hand on Shane’s head, his steady pressure. Shane closes his eyes, breathes soft against Ilya’s throat. 

“You’re not worried about Nate?” Ilya asks.

“About what? I mean, sure. The dad stuff sounds hard, and first OHL year is always tricky…”

“No, about. Fighting, partying, whatever.”

“Oh. No. I played professional hockey for, like, two decades, Ilya. And you were, you know.”

“Bad boy?”

“Trouble, yeah.” Shane kisses him, something sharp and bittersweet rising in his chest at the thought of that seventeen-year-old he’d met all those years ago. “Big trouble. And the best person I know. So.”

“Agh.” Ilya throws an arm over his face. “Agh, don’t. I cannot cry any more.”

“OK. OK, only practical questions then.” Shane laughs at the face Ilya makes. “Is there anything coming up for the Foundation I don’t know about? Or for brand deals? Stuff that’s gonna take you away from home?”

“No. Just press schedule for the West Conference launch, but I already pre-filmed most of it, and the rest is mostly Zoom, can do from here. Brands, not much, maybe small trip when the season starts, but Adidas is up this year and I don’t think they’ll renew, they were approaching Luca and Archie about something together, so — no, don’t make that face. It’s OK. Luca will definitely still give me free clothes. Uh. No, no, shh, let me think. No, everything else is Ottawa. Maybe — oh, maybe charity match for Boston but that won’t be ‘til much later, after Christmas.”

Shane runs through the shape of that in his head, what small trip might actually mean, whether Adidas might not want to do something with Ilya and Luca and Archie, whether they might be persuaded that they do. “Do I need to do any of the press stuff? Other than the actual announcement? Mom said talk to you about how we want to split it.”

Ilya purses his lips. “Maybe joint interview with ESPN? But otherwise — do you want to?”

“I can do it.”

“So, no. I’ll do it, I don’t mind, I have fun. They want us to do a joint thing for All Stars, did your mom say? I think we should do that. It’s back in Florida this year so it’ll be romantic, yes? Lots of memories. They will play us all the clips of our goals, and of us kissing our helmets.”

“We can do that. Hey, will it be at the same hotel? We can try and get the same room, maybe. From 2017.” The giddy feeling of playing with Ilya for the first time. How it had felt to kiss him, in that dim blank room, and think, maybe maybe maybe.

“OK. Yes, good idea. I will look surprised this time, when you tell me you are gay.”

“Fuck off.”

Ilya catches Shane’s hand, brings it to his lips, kisses it. “Can I tell you something? Maybe a bit. I don’t know. Weird, heavy, to say it.”

Shane frowns at him. “We’re married, Ilya.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “I know, Shane.” He nips lightly at Shane’s fingertips, leaves Shane’s hand half-resting on his mouth as he speaks. “I saw, uh. I still don’t know his name. The d-man who hurt you, in the Cup Final. For Vegas, plays for Kings now.”

“Punzet?”

“Maybe.” Ilya grins, sharp, his teeth slick against Shane’s fingers. “You can see where Cherny broke his nose, first season back. Made up for us not being able to properly defend your honor, that game.”

“I mean, Luca did knock one of Kent’s teeth out. And I’m pretty sure someone gave him a black eye.”

“Not good enough.”

Shane taps Ilya’s nose. “OK, so, you saw him.”

“Yes. I just did GQ interview, ten things I cannot live without…” Ilya cackles when he sees Shane blanch. “Yuna was there, it’s OK, I was very polite. I didn’t say Shane’s hole, Shane’s freckles, Shane’s mouth, Shane’s —”

“Alright. That’s enough.”

“I just said Shane. And Anya. And the new jetski at the cottage.”

“And seven other things, I assume.”

“Eh, not important. Those are top three.” Shane shakes his head. Ilya’s eyes are still a little red and puffy from crying, one hand still tightly fisted in Shane’s shirt, but he is smiling so brightly up at Shane, so stupidly pleased with himself. “Anyway, I came out of the offices, I saw him. He saw me, and Yuna, he went very pale, mouth dropped open. Looked very stupid, it was amazing. He said, uh, hello Rozanov, I said, oh I’m so sorry I don’t think we’ve met?”

“Oh my God, Ilya.”

“Obviously he did not want to be like, well, yes, last time I saw you I checked your husband and ruined his Stanley Cup Final, just before I got my ass kicked so badly they sent me to be back-up back-up on the Kings. So he just said, oh, you know, we’ve played against each other, and I shrugged and looked at Yuna like, oh, you know this man? And she shook her head.”

“Jesus. You’re a terrible influence on her, you know that?”

“She’s a terrible influence on me. Anyway I said OK nice to meet you, he was very red, scuttled away. Great moment. Not as good as punching him in the face would have been, but still pretty good.”

“It was a clean hit.”

“Maybe. He will never win a Stanley Cup. Kings are shit, and he was holding his right arm at a very awkward angle. Like a puppet. So.”

“Ilya.” Shane wishes this wasn’t getting him hot, wishes he felt any way but the way he feels now, lying on top of Ilya and hearing about him chirping some fucking nothing guy who ruined Shane’s life a little earlier than it was supposed to be ruined. “You see what I mean about not being worried about trouble? You’re the biggest fucking trouble in the league, and you’re not even in it anymore.”

Ilya smiles with all his teeth, snaps them at Shane, catches the very tips of his fingers between them. Shane shudders, something loosening in the small of his back, head falling forwards like his tendons have been cut. “Some things are forever, solnyshko.”

—

Sveta: can you call me

Sveta: i just saw mashenka 

Ilyusha: [Incoming call: 56:45]

—

[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: AUTO-GENERATED] 

[RUSTLING]

MALE VOICE: yooo bro OK I’m here, I just got here like an hour or something ago, mom just left, so this is my room, welcome to my crib or whatever, ha, god, OK. OK, so this is like — this is the room, pretty standard, pretty nice, lots of cushions. Big bed, big times. Ha. Um. Yeah, I don’t know, wardrobe, drawers, there’s this nice view, uh, I don’t know if you can, fucking focus Jesus piece of shit, you can see there’s a garden and then kind of the park, it’s nice, lots of green like back home. Anyway. Uh. Yeah here’s, wait wait, here’s the bathroom, en suite, pretty sick. Pretty sick. This thing, the mirror lights up, like an influencer mirror or something. Big shower. They have, I haven’t unpacked yet, but they left me all this stuff. Looks pretty fancy.

[LONG PAUSE]

Yeah so pretty nice, they seem chill, I don’t know. My mom was kinda freaking out, like, about actually leaving me here, but they were chill. The dog is cool, she’s super cute, it’ll be cool to have a dog. Uh. So I have, like, two days to hang out and then I’m starting practice, so. That’ll be sick, and gonna meet Brady, like, Brady Corbett? Tomorrow? So yeah that’s, wow, that’ll be, uh. Yeah that’ll be good. 

[PAUSE]

Anyway yeah that’s the crib, that’s my room! Uh. Call me when you have a minute yeah bro, and, yeah, Rozy, uh, Ilya and Shane, they said, you know, I want friends up that’s cool as long as I let them know, so. If you wanna see, the the bright lights of Ottawa ha, or we could drive to Montreal, gonna work on my licence and bet I could totally get us into some clubs, OHL hotshot or whatever, just kidding but yeah, gonna, we could totally do that. Clubbing in Montreal, let’s do it. OK. Yeah. Cool. Cool, just let me know, I’m gonna —

[VIDEO ENDS]

—

Shane talks to Ilya’s mom, sometimes. He always feels a bit stupid doing it; he’s not really sure that he believes in an afterlife or anything other than just death really, but. Still. Sometimes. He pieces together the bits of her that Ilya and Sveta have given him, and he pictures her face the way it is in the old photographs, when Ilya was all golden curls and chubby cheeks. She sounds kind, in the stories, kind and slightly acerbic, and overwhelmed by how hard life had turned out to be. Shane thinks they might have gotten along.

“Hey, Irina,” he says. The dishwasher is clunking along, loud enough that if he speaks quietly he can’t really hear himself. 

Outside, Ilya is on the phone with Sveta again, pacing, hand in the air. Sveta drove Maria to the clinic today. Andrei doesn’t know anything still, Maria’s mom is — quiet, maybe, is the kindest way that Shane can think to describe her, through the fog of Ilya’s vitriol and Sveta’s disdain. One daughter watchful on her lap, the other glaring at her across from the kitchen. Maria not talking to Sveta in the car, arms folded right the way through, right until afterwards. 

Ilya is eating himself alive for not being there. Sveta is. Shane’s not sure what Sveta is. It’s harder to read her than Ilya. Tired, he guesses. Tired of flitting between cities, tired of her in-between life and her in-between job, and of anything else feeling like a trap. She cried in front of Shane for the first time ever, last month. He hadn’t known what to do. He’d called Rose afterwards, in a panic, and she’d said do you wanna maybe just give her a hug, tired tired tired too, on a plane somewhere to somewhere. 

Ilya has driven Svetlana to an abortion clinic. Years ago, before Shane even knew her name.

“Hey,” he says again. “Ilya misses you. We wish you were here. You’d be really proud of him.” Absurdly, Shane feels his voice catch, his throat thick and painful. “I’m really proud of him. I’m sorry we can’t come see you.” 

Outside, Ilya has picked up one of Nate’s shoulder pads, and is gesturing with that instead. Nate’s not — he’s not a bad kid. Three weeks in, and mostly what Shane knows is that he’s not a bad kid. That he cares about hockey, doesn’t need waking up for practice, leaves his gear everywhere but otherwise takes care of it like someone who knows exactly how much it cost. Gets on with the boys on the team. Ilya says he relaxes more when he’s in a big group of them, bumping shoulders, one voice amongst many. He brought a couple of them round, once, and they played video games on the couch and yelled cheerfully at each other, and were generally fine. Shane thinks there might have been a blowjob gesture at one point, when Ilya slipped an arm around Shane in the kitchen and kissed his cheek, but then there was a squawk, and an elbow to the ribs, so. Whatever. They’ll settle down and get over it, or they won’t. There was a friend he mentioned a couple of times when he first got here, but when Shane asked about him, about whether he maybe wanted to get tickets for him for the first game of the season, Nate had shrugged and gone quiet, and so Shane hasn’t asked again.

He calls his mom once or twice a week. He always seems kinda annoyed about it, but he does it. He puts the dishes in the dishwasher, mostly. He leaves his socks everywhere, but so does Ilya. He loves Anya. He stacks the weights in the gym in the wrong order, and he chews with his mouth full, and he’s gained enough confidence in the last couple of weeks to argue with Shane about whatever the hell is going on with the Leaf’s defence. 

“I wish I’d known him then,” Shane tells Irina. “Properly. Not just a few times a year.” 

The dishwasher beeps, the whirring ebbs, silence. Just Ilya’s muted voice through the glass. Shane’s hitched breath.

Brady told Shane he’s been watching the video compilation Shane put together, so that’s good. It’s a different thing in the game, though. They’ll see how it plays out. 

—

Marnie: Hi Shane Nate mentioned he wasn’t able to call tonight as he was going out with some of the team 

Marnie: sorry to ask

Marnie: know I’m being a boring mom about this and don’t want to bug him

Marnie: but do you know what that entails? Are they going to a club?

Shane: Hi Marnie. Nate is going to dinner at Michael Matheson and his wife’s house. There may be drinking, but I’m hoping given it’s not long til pre-season that everyone will be reasonably sensible. We’ll pick Nate up, however late it is.

Marnie: he won’t get into trouble with the org if he drinks?

Marnie: I’m not going to tell you he’s not going to drink 

Shane: he won’t get into trouble

Shane: the org knows this is bonding time

Shane: but he should know he doesn’t have to

Marnie: can I call you for a second?

—

Ilya: shane he is fucked 

Ilya: other rook was sitting with him outside while he threw up in bushes

Ilya: i am going to speak to matheson 

Shane: do you need me to drive the other car over?

Ilya: no

Ilya: matheson says nobody was making him drink

Ilya: says just every time someone else did drink 

Ilya: or shots or whatever then nate also drank

Shane: do you believe him?

Ilya: i think so

Ilya: other rook not fucked so

Shane: does he need to go to hospital?

Shane: should we call his mom?

Ilya: i don’t think hospital

Ilya: i think he has thrown it all up

Ilya: he is drinking gatorade 

Ilya: call mom in morning?? She will be scared if we call her now

Shane: are you ok?

Ilya: i am ok 

Ilya: he is ok

Ilya: he is crying a lot it is pretty bad

Ilya: keeps trying to hide from the team

Shane: Ilya I’m gonna drive over

Ilya: no its ok stay stay

Ilya: we are coming back soon

Ilya: maybe put sick bucket in his room

Ilya: is anechka asleep still

Shane: [image attached: Anya asleep in Shane’s lap]

Ilya: my babies 🥰

Ilya: ok we are coming back

Ilya: with other rook too 

Ilya: he is only little bit drunk but scared billet mom will kill him 

Ilya: maybe pretending i think he is more scared you will kill nate

Shane: what??

Shane: what is nate saying about me to these kids?

Shane: and the other rook is called jason, Ilya

Ilya: that u are scary hockey dad maybe

Ilya: very hot 🥵🥵

Ilya: driving now i love you 

Ilya: can you put on toast for when we get back

—

Shane gets Jason settled in the other spare room. The kid is skittish around him, calls him ‘Mr Hollander’ every other sentence and asks for the wifi password like he thinks Shane might tell him his phone is going to rot his brain or something. His phone is probably going to rot his brain, but that isn’t Shane’s problem. He shuts the door, shushes Anya, spends fifteen minutes standing stock-still under the shower listening to nothing but the drumming rush of water in his ears and inhaling the eucalyptus scent of Ilya’s shower gel. He knows he’s hiding. Safe in the shower, where he can’t hear the soft murmur of Ilya’s conversation with Nate, where all he can do is guess at what it is that Shane has missed. Would miss, again, inevitably, with any child he and Ilya had of their own. Is missing, maybe, even now, with Ilya.

When his fingers start to prune, he gives up and gets out. 

He spends another ten minutes drying himself, moisturising the dry patches of skin on his elbows and knees, inspecting the bruise on the back of his calf. He runs the clippers over his stomach, his crotch, spends another five minutes cleaning the clipper blades. Sits on the bathroom floor with his feet on the cold tile and thinks what the fuck is wrong with you man what the fuck is wrong with you. 

Ilya’s sat up in bed when Shane eases the door open, idly scrolling on his phone, waiting. He smiles when he sees Shane, pulls Shane in close to his side the moment he slides into bed, spiking up Shane’s damp hair with his fingers. 

“He OK?” Shane asks. Ilya must realise that Shane was avoiding Nate, avoiding being there with him, but he only shrugs, eyes soft. 

“We will see in the morning. He is done throwing up anyway, I think. Mostly done crying.”

“Did he say…”

“No. I don’t think it is anything so specific. I asked, is it coach, players, he says mostly everything fine.”

“Mostly?”

“Ask tomorrow. About the hockey, about Charlton, he will tell you, I’m pretty sure.”

“Ilya. He's not going to tell me shit. He’s been telling the team I’m some kind of, fucking, hockey monster. Mrs Trunchbull, or something.”

“Who is that?”

“From — my dad didn’t make you watch Matilda? He fucking loves that movie. She’s a scary teacher, it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh. No, I mean, yes, he tells them that. But he tells them that because it makes him seem cool. Like, oh, Hollander is so mean to me, mean hockey machine, I am going to kick your asses because Hollander is going to make me best skater in the league.”

Shane looks at him. That doesn’t make any fucking sense at all.

“It’s been three weeks. I’ve barely trained with him. I’ve said, like, five fucking words to him.”

“You told him like four things about his edges already. He listens. I listen. I want good Hollander advice too, for the Boston game. No advice on face-off though, we know I win those anyway.” Ilya tugs on Shane’s hair a little, tilting his face up. Ilya smells kinda bad, like sticky party beer sweat, and the astringent dettol he must have sprayed down the car with. Shane leans in anyway, nose in Ilya’s armpit, trying to find the underneath smell of him. 

“But he’s not crying about his edges.”

“No.” Ilya runs his hand up and down Shane’s back. Shane can feel Ilya’s breath easing with the movement, going almost sleep-slow. “I think. He didn’t say, but I think maybe he is very, very homesick.”

“Oh.” Shane was in Ottawa for his OHL years, and then he was in Montreal, and his parents were two hours away, and at every single one of his home games, and his mom was at all his ad shoots and calling him every day, and Shane was working so hard on making Montreal work, on figuring out what kind of Shane Hollander made sense there, that — maybe he was homesick a little, sometimes, when he was especially tired or sick, but not like this. It hadn’t occurred to him to be. “Should we offer to take him home? Next time there’s a gap?”

“Maybe. Yes, it would be nice, in some ways, but I think — I think also maybe it will not help very much. I think it is homesick, realising. I don’t know how to explain it. Like, realising home is only ever for visits now. And if he ever goes home again, it will be because something has gone wrong, he has burned out of OHL too early. So now…”

“Going home would be a failure. But he wants to go home.”

“Yes. Yes, I think so. But also he is a teenage boy, so. He won't say. I am guessing.”

Fuck. Fuck. “Did you get homesick?”

Ilya’s fingers dig into Shane’s skin, just slightly. “Complicated. Yes. No. I was glad to be away, I felt guilty, I missed — things about Moscow, my language, understanding how things worked. Not having headache all the time from stupid English alphabet. I missed Sveta, before she moved. I missed my brother maybe sometimes, and then not, when I remembered how he was, and then yes still anyway. It got easier.”

“You still miss it, though.”

“Of course. But also when I went I started missing here, too. Before I missed you badly, even. Two homes.”

“My mom said her mom was kinda like that. Like, she missed Japan, but when she went back she’d always find herself doing things that were kind of, I don’t know, Canadian or whatever. But Nate can, like. I mean, he can go home. At least.”

“I know. But he is seventeen, so it doesn’t feel like that. And also…”

“Also he kind of can’t. Fuck.” Shane bangs his face against Ilya’s shoulder. “I feel like I’m fucking this up. All of it. Not just — I mean, Brady was kinda easy.”

“For you, yes, because he was a little Hollander. I was very stressed thinking how the hell I could make him chill the fuck out.”

“When did you ever made me chill the fuck out when we were younger? You just wound me up like a fucking clockwork toy or something.”

“Yes, very satisfying.” Ilya smacks a kiss to Shane’s skull before Shane can say anything else. “What do you think you’re fucking up? It’s been three weeks. And Marnie warned us, so we know, you know. Drinking, bit wild, that is not coming out of nowhere. You didn’t make him do that. And now Matheson knows to cut him off, or he will be in trouble with me. So. If anyone is fucking up, it is me.”

“What?” Shane pulls back to look at Ilya properly. But Ilya doesn’t look like he’s joking. His face is set, his gaze still so soft where he looks at Shane. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He’s getting too loud, has to work to bring the volume down, to hiss. “What — Ilya, you’re perfect. He called you, you got him home, you got him to talk a bit. It’s. Is this about Masha? Because there’s nothing else you could have done, and Sveta is going to sort it —” 

Ilya’s face twists. He tries to hide it, tries to smooth his face back to blank placidity, but it is too late. Shane has already caught him, already cupped his head in his hands, thumbs pressed underneath his eyes, ready to catch the first hint of tear. 

“I am shitty friend and I am shitty husband,” Ilya says, like — like that makes any sense at all. What is he saying. 

“What the fuck are you talking about.” Shane almost feels angry. God, maybe he does feel angry. He’s hot, flushed, like the top of his head is too light for the rest of his body. His fingertips are sweaty on Ilya’s skin. “What the fuck do you and Galina even talk about, shitty husband, Ilya what the fuck.”

“Mostly we are talking about how not to kill myself.” Ilya flinches at the same time as Shane does. “Sorry, sorry, baby, I —”

“Don’t fucking apologise. OK. So, don’t kill yourself, good, you better fucking not. You haven’t got ten minutes at the end of a session for her to tell you you’re being —” A horrible, dawning truth occurs to Shane. That’s his job. That’s his job, to tell Ilya that. “I love you. You’re the best husband in the world. If anybody else tried to marry me I’d kill them.”

“After I killed them first, lyubimyy.” Ilya grips Shane’s wrists, looks up at him. “You are sad.”

There is a brief moment where Shane thinks about denying it, before he realises how ridiculous that would be. “About hockey. Not about you.”

“OK.”

“You can’t fix that, Ilyusha. That’s just. Time, or whatever.”

“Time, or whatever.” Ilya tries to smirk, but his heart isn’t in it. He sighs, a big gust of air, and tilts his face up for Shane to kiss it, stubble dragging along Shane's palms. “Sveta is sad.”

“Yeah.” Shane doesn’t have an easy answer for that. “So are you.” 

“Maybe this is what happens when you are getting old. It would explain last four years of Scott Hunter’s career. Very, very sad hockey.”

“Ilya.”

“Moy lyubov, what am I supposed to say? Sveta is sad, she says it’s fine, I cannot fix, I say please when you go to Russia can you fix my family problems instead, she says yes OK but your niece is going to end up in very, very bad place if she keeps going like this. You need to get her out, but you cannot get her out because of politics, and because of family, and because she will not talk to you anyway and she will not leave her baby sister behind, so you just — leave her there, to become my brother, or worse. OK. OK, what can I do? Nothing. You are sad about hockey, I can do nothing, I cannot even punch fucking d-man in the face because off the ice that is the kind of thing that will just get me in prison. Nate is sad for lots of little normal reasons, but also he’s seventeen so all he mostly knows is that he feels bad, and so he gets drunk and cries a lot. I can fix a little, mostly the only thing that will happen is he will grow up, and it will hurt less. Fine. Fine, we can drive him home for now and make him so good at hockey that he can earn a million dollars and fly home whenever he wants. Doesn't make it less shit now.”

“And so you’re sad too.”

“And because my stupid brain is broken.” Ilya closes his eyes. “Mostly I’m not, Shane. Mostly our life together is very, very good.”

“It’s easier this year,” Shane says. “I don’t know if it feels like it to you, but it is for me. The first year…” 

Shane had known it would be sort of awful, and rehab was always a drag, boring and painful and all the more so when it was pointless, when there was no ice at the end of it. But Shane had always been able to grit his teeth and push through things, and he hadn’t seen why this should be an exception. 

They’d tried to go to the first Cens game of the pre-season. Shane doesn’t remember much. 

He remembers the restroom floor being slightly damp, he remembers scrubbing the feeling violently off himself when he got home. He remembers the smell, he remembers Ilya’s hand on his chest. His feet scrunched in his shoes, a bump swelling on his head. 

He’d tried to watch the remaining ten minutes of the third when they’d got home, and Ilya had screamed at him. He remembers that. He remembers the fear on Ilya’s face. 

They have a rule, now. They don’t even watch the pre-season and they don’t attend anything until four or five games into the regular season. 67s games are a little easier, as are PWHL games. Shane thinks he’ll be able to watch Ilya play beer league OK, when he finally picks a team to play for. It’s not even watching the games, really. Shane can lose himself in a hockey game, in the violent balletic swing of it, in the places where he scribbles notes or leans forwards or scoffs quietly to Ilya and his mom. It’s the in-between, when the stadium goes bubbly with chatter, when the pop music blasts and the little kids or the cheerleaders come out, and the crowd whoops for the team coming back out to the bench and the spell is broken, and Shane is only left with the smell of the ice and mistakes he would not have made and an unsteady strange hatred for the five-year-old skating around collecting pucks in a jersey bought to grow into. 

Brady helped. His mom worried that Brady’s presence made hockey impossible to ignore, but hockey was always going to be impossible to ignore. Even if they’d moved to somewhere that didn’t care about hockey literally at all, somewhere ridiculous and farflung halfway across the world, Shane still would have felt the rhythm of the season in his body. He’d have woken up in the middle of the night and know that now was when he should have been taping his stick, now was when he drank three mouthfuls of blue Gatorade, now was when he tied his right skate, now was when Ilya would be pacing the room, whipping them up into a frenzy. He would have stood in front of an alien beautiful blue ocean and thought about the fact that the Penns defence had really come together this season and that that new Oilers winger had no fucking right having an EVP that high when his stick-handling was messy as fuck. 

At least they’d known, for the second year. Ilya had stood in front of their bedroom door, the night of Brady’s first Cens game, and told him no fucking way. Shane thinks he might have thrown a pillow at him. They’d listened to it on the radio, in the end, like it was the fucking 60s or something, Shane held firmly in Ilya’s arms. Later that year, some time early in the post-season, Ilya had got into a fight with a foundation board member that had nearly torpedoed everything. Shane doesn’t even really remember what it was about; Ilya had hardly seemed to know at the time. Yuna had smoothed it over in the end, without them. At home, they’d laced their shaking hands together and sworn it would be better next year. 

It is. It is better this year. 

“First year was shit,” Ilya confirms. “But I don’t think we know about easier until the season starts.”

“Fine. But training was easier, in the summer.” By which he means he didn’t throw up once, he didn’t have to leave the ice at all. He tries to ease his tone, aims for conciliatory. “Kids did well.”

Ilya has a particular way of holding himself when he’s listening to Shane like this, when the air is thin and fragile between them. He goes very still, eyes wide open, the perfect absurd bow of his lips the only trembling thing. It isn’t enough, Shane thinks. This little soft-shuffle step towards better, God, it feels like a fucking mockery. It isn’t enough when Ilya is this, this warm-breathing world that Shane loves so completely, this thing that roars through his body like waves on rocks, sending him tumbling. 

Maybe Shane could get a visa, get on a plane to Russia, and find Maria and make Ilya’s offer and let her spit in his face and offer it again and again anyway. He would. If it would help, he would. Maybe Shane can drive Nate home every time they have a few days off to see his mom; can really make sure Marnie knows she’s welcome here any time. He can tell Ilya he loves him more. He can start taking Russian classes in town again, get good enough that he can talk to Ilya’s mom in Russian without feeling like she’s gonna start judging his accent through the veil or whatever. He can — fuck. He can just get it the fuck together so that he isn’t yet another thing that Ilya has to fucking worry about.

Ilya flops forwards, faceplanting mid-thigh, his mouth brushing wetly against Shane’s skin. “When I am very happy,” he starts, voice muffled, face invisible, “Or I am feeling — feeling very big, overwhelming emotions, I talk to my mama.”

Shane freezes. His hard thumps hard in his chest, his temples bead with cold sweat. Fuck. Fuck, is he — interrupting, somehow? Intruding on a conversation that is supposed to be Ilya’s and his mom’s alone? Has Ilya figured it out, overheard, fuck is this —

“I want her to know about you, about my family here, all our little nephews and nieces, all of it. Good things. But lately, I. It has been hard to talk to her. I feel like even the good things, I am fucking them up, or I am scared. Even little Arthur, I know not my fault, because he could have been hurt and I was trying to stop him, and Jackie has told me all her best bad mother stories many times, but. I don’t know. I feel like. I am hanging the phone up on her. Like a teenager. But I don’t know how to stop.”

“Ilyushka.” Shane strokes his hair through Ilya’s messy curls. “Baby, she’d understand. Everything you’ve said about her, she’d get it. Like. She found it difficult to talk sometimes too, right? So.”

Ilya nods. He blinks tears onto Shane’s skin, and Shane flattens his palm, holding him there. 

“Is for me, too. I miss talking to her. I just. I —” His voice breaks. “I can’t.”

Shane’s speaking before he’s really thought about what he’s going to say. “I’ve been — fuck. Ilya, I’m so sorry if this is weird, or I’ve messed something up, or. I’ve been talking to your mom. About you, about us. How much I love you, and —”

Ilya sits up, Shane’s hand falling from his head, skating down his back, settling at his waist. Flexing uncertainly there, until Ilya puts his own hand there, clamping it down against his skin. His eyes are fever-bright. “You have been talking to her?”

“Yeah.” Shane shifts. Should he apologise again?

“You —” Ilya reaches for his face, pinches Shane’s chin between his fingers, shakes Shane’s head back and forth. Shane feels dazed, dizzy with guessing. “You have been telling her about me?”

“How proud I am of you.” 

“Fuck.” Ilya’s voice splinters, his hand spreading, thumb against Shane’s cheekbone, pulling him into a kiss. Oh. Shane thinks. Oh. Was that the right thing to do? “Fuck, Shane. I love you so much. Ya lyublyu tebya vsey dushoy. Ya ne mogu zhit' bez tebya, lyubimyy, lyubimyy —”

Shane can only hold him, his hands pressed tight against the thick muscle of Ilya’s back, tilting his neck to be kissed, bitten. 

“Wait, fuck —” he says, sudden cold water, they can’t, they can’t. “Jason, Ilya, we can’t. I can’t be quiet, not like this.” One thing for Nate to overhear them, to roll his eyes and put in his airpods and maybe make a joke to his friends about it, whatever, it makes Shane a little queasy to think about it but he can deal. But Jason — they don’t even know him, they barely know if he’s actually friends with Nate, what if he went back to the team and said, or made jokes or, and Nate having to play along or having to defend them, or even if he just —

“Shh, dorogoy. Is OK. We won’t. I will fuck you once he’s gone home, in the morning, take my time, lick you until you are so dripping and open for me —”

“Ilya,” Shane says weakly, but the vertiginous ring of panic is ebbing, the familiar buzz of irritated arousal taking its place. 

“Need to take another video,” Ilya’s hands are on his shoulders, gently massaging the tense lines of his traps. “One you let me take away with me was so good, your pretty little hole leaking my come, pushing it out for me, so fucking hot, but need one of my cock stretching you open. Need you to see how desperate you are for it, how easy.”

“I’ve seen it before,” Shane grumbles. “You love showing me that shit.” He lets his head fall forwards onto Ilya’s shoulder, lets his mouth open in mindless half-kisses against the chain of Ilya’s necklace. His cock is an obvious line in his shorts, but he really doesn’t want to do anything tonight. Nothing except this, Ilya’s firm hands and the teasing lilt of his voice. Their first best language. 

“Mmm, I think you should see it again. See how you look when I get my thumbs in too, stretch you open. You clench like this,” he tightens his hand against Shane’s shoulder. “And then open up again, it’s so pretty, most beautiful thing.” He laughs slightly, groans. “OK, and now I am hard too.”

“Serves you right.”

Ilya kisses him hard on the top of his head. “We are going to be OK.”

“Yeah?” Shane sits up, blinks at him, wishes his eyes weren’t stinging, wishes he didn’t sound so obviously, pathetically hopeful, a little kid asking if Santa Claus really is going to bring him exactly what he wants for Christmas.

“Yes. You are a miracle. And we love each other. And you are right, this year is kind of shit, but it is still better. And good things to come. Marly’s wife is pregnant, did I tell you? So, another child for us to be favourite uncles of.”

Shane shakes his head. Familiar little churn of guilt, sweating sense of time passing too quickly. “You didn’t say.”

“Here, look”, Ilya reaches for his phone, thumbs through until he can show Shane a still from a pregnancy photoshoot, lots of billowing fabric and Marly beaming as he touches his wife’s stomach. “She looks amazing. I wish I could get pregnant, I think I would look so hot, yes?”

“I mean, I don’t think we’ve really been trying that hard.”

“Do you want to?” Ilya raises his eyebrows, and laughs at whatever is on Shane’s face. “Poor kotik, I would not make you.”

“Fuck you, ‘make me’.” Shane shoves at him, lets Ilya catch his wrists in one hand. “We could finger my come into your ass. See if it takes.”

“Fuck.” Ilya’s eyes roll back a little, his mouth dropping open. “Fuck, Hollander, you cannot say these things to me when you’ve told me we cannot fuck tonight.”

“You’ll just have to store them all up for tomorrow.”

“Oh, you know I will.” 

A beat, Ilya’s mischievous smile lighting up his face, and Shane could leave it, let the moment hang sparking until they go to sleep, but he can’t. Not when the sweat is still prickling at his skin, not tonight.

“I want them still,” he says. “I know the last couple of years we haven’t really, it hasn’t been the right time. But I still want to have children with you.”

Ilya’s face melts into softness. He kisses Shane’s captured hands, the tip of his tongue dabbing gently between Shane’s knuckles. “I know. I know. It’s OK. We are still very young. In the prime of life.” He drops Shane’s hands with another kiss, reaches behind him for Shane’s back support pillow, fussily straightens it. “We’ll sleep now. And then the morning will arrive quickly, and I can fuck you sooner.”

He waits impatiently for Shane to arrange himself on the pillow, curls into Shane’s side. He does look more settled, Shane thinks. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, because Ilya is always a little more at peace when he’s slipping into sleep next to Shane. But he thinks. He thinks probably Ilya is right. 

—

Hours after Jason’s billet mom — Merc, athleisure, a whispering conspiratorial way of speaking to Shane that makes him feel on-edge for reasons he can’t articulate, these boys, bet you were never like this your rookie year — arrives to pick him up, Nate’s bedroom door is still firmly closed. Ilya and Shane exchange meaningful looks at each other over the kitchen table. If you stand really close to Nate’s door, which Shane has, just once or twice, just to check, you can hear the staccato audio blips of TikTok scrolling. So he’s definitely, like, alive. 

“I’ll go,” Shane says, eventually. His inbox blinks accusingly at him, and he closes his laptop a little harder than he needs to. Ilya raises his eyebrows. “It’s fine. I’m fine, I’ll go. Charlton, right?”

Ilya nods. Shane stands, the chair scrapes under him. He keeps meaning to buy those chair foot pad things so their nice hardwood floors stop getting scratched up, but then between Anya’s paws and Sveta’s heels and the spare skates Shane tripped over just yesterday maybe there’s not much point. 

He knocks on Nate’s door. There’s a vague grunt, which Shane takes as permission enough to ease open the door, close it behind him. Nate is just a shape under the duvet, the hunched suggestion of a body. Shane stands there, just barely past the threshold, hands in his pockets and looking absently around at the room. It looks pretty much the same as when Nate moved in, bar the underwear scattered across the floor, the tangle of wires on the bedside table. No posters, no pictures, nothing to really interrupt the cool blues and neutrals Shane’s designer had picked out. Shane’s not even sure Nate’s all the way unpacked. 

“You know you can, uh. You know, you wanna hang anything up, that’s fine. Or we can help, get some nails in the walls.” He cringes listening to himself. He sounds fifty. 

“Oh.” Nate rolls over, shimmies up a bit, the duvet-lump sprouting arms, a tousled head. “Cool, yeah, thanks.” He grimaces, works his jaw. “Sorry, like. For yesterday.”

“That’s OK,” Shane says, automatic. Is it, is it OK? “We were worried about you.”

“I know. My mom sent me, like, fourteen texts.” He winces. “I’m not — like, I get it. But it’s chill, I just, like, maybe the mix was a bit stronger than I thought.”

Uh huh. Shane rocks back on his heels, scrunching his socked toes against the floor. 

“Ilya said something about Charlton,” he offers. Nate startles.

“Oh. Oh, yeah, no, it’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?” God, Shane is so bad at this. He doesn’t know what Ilya was thinking. “You can tell us anything. We’re on your side, not the org’s.”

“Christ, it’s not — fuck. It’s not, like, bad. Or, you know, not, bad bad. I. Can you sit down, man. You’re making me nervous.”

Oh. The stuffy little armchair in the corner of the room is covered in Nate’s dirty clothes. Shane, very slowly, sits down on the very edge of the bed, legs angled away from Nate, looking down at his own clasped hands. “It’s not bad?”

“Yeah, no, not like — I just think maybe he’s giving me shit advice? He keeps trying to tell me to chase the puck, but like, I don’t actually think that’s my job? I mean, I’ll chase the puck if there’s an opportunity, if it’s getting it out of our end, but. If I’m chasing the puck all the time there are gonna be gaps, and the puck is gonna go through those gaps, and that’s what’s happening, and then he’s like, you should be on the puck, and it’s like. Dude, the puck is gonna fucking move. I gotta be ahead of the puck, I gotta be in the places they’re gonna put the puck, I don’t know what —” He stops, shrugs. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just, like. Miscommunication.”

“Maybe,” Shane says. “Or maybe he’s a shitty defensive coach. What does Matthews say?”

“Matthews says I gotta focus on Barlow’s left side because everyone in the league knows Parks is weaker there.”

“He’s right. And you’re right. You’re not — Charlton is used to coaching a specific kind of defensive player. The 67s already have that kind of player and you aren’t it. That’s not a bad thing. Teams need d-men who are there to cover, who get it back in the neutral zone, who can pull off that transition again and again. Yes, you gotta work on your offensive conversion, I think that’s what he’s getting at, but there’s no point just fuckin’. Chasing the puck. You’re a great fucking skater, you’re dynamic on the ice, once you fix those edges you’re gonna be skating circles around half the league, and you have good instincts, you should be getting assist points consistently. And that’s about finding the space, like you said, that’s about making yourself available. We can work on that. If Charlton and Matthews aren’t working on that with you, we can fix that.” Shane takes a breath. Embarrassed, suddenly about the way that all spilled out. About how much attention he’s been paying without really realising. 

“You’d do that?”

Shane turns to look at Nate. He’s got his arms wrapped round his knees, suddenly looking much younger than he is.

“What?”

“You’d — I mean, I know you said about the edges, and I’ve been working on it, but I’m not, like. Generational.”

Shane blinks at him. “So?”

“So why waste your time?”

“It wouldn’t be a waste of time.” The untouched walls, the half-unpacked suitcase. “Ilya and I were generational players. Nobody we played with until Ottawa even came close. Even then — Luca, probably. That’s it. That doesn’t mean we didn’t play with good fucking hockey players. That doesn’t mean we didn’t need them. You could be a good fucking player, Nate. You’ve got talent, you work hard, you want to learn. That’s all I need to know.”

Nate nods. He isn’t quite looking at Shane, his hair falling in his face. He’s so different to Shane, at this age. Shane who already knew he was great, knew he would be great, felt sick and greedy and desperate with the need to prove it to everybody else. To make it all worth it, everything he and his mom had dreamed of and schemed about, her abandoned career and every early morning and every time they didn’t go on the much-discussed Japan trip because Shane needed new skates or had an important game. To make it worth it, this thing inside him, this thing that needed to win. 

Shane realises with a start that the shape of Nate’s happiness might look quite different to his own. A steady place on a mid-tier team, a couple of shots at the playoffs, a set of boys who love him, twenty years of consistent work, dads who remember to wear his jersey even when the flash new stars come in.  It feels alien to him, to imagine. But maybe it could be good.

“What do you like about hockey?” Shane asks. It’s anodyne, the kind of question you might get asked at a pre-season interview. But he realises he’s never really asked it of anybody else before. Not even Ilya. 

“I like the team,” Nate says, and Shane thinks — yes. Yes, OK. I was right. This is something I can give you. “I like it when a play comes together, all the different pieces. I like how quickly it can change. I like… I don’t know, I like skating. I did speed skating for a bit, but it was. I don’t know. I missed the team.”

“You’re a team player.”

“I guess.”

Shane smiles. Fuck Charlton. All Charlton wants is the next Crosby, the next Hollander, a flashy teenager he can make his name on. That sort of works for kids like Brady, but it’s no good for anybody else. “We can work with that.” He should say something else. Something that isn’t just a lecture about drinking, however much he wants to give it. “Your mom said she’s coming down for your first game.”

“Yeah. Yeah, should be — hopefully it's a good game.” 

She's so proud of you, Shane wants to say, doesn't know how to without it being weird and embarrassing for both of them. She might hate hockey, but she's so proud of you. “I'm sure it'll be a fun night,” he says instead. “Was. Your friend Max, was he gonna come?”

“I — uh. I haven’t really heard from him? For a couple of weeks.”

“Oh. He doing OK?”

Nate looks up, frowns. “Uh. I don’t know.”

Shane frowns back. Maybe ask him? he wants to say, but it’s not like he was any better at Nate’s age. Nate mumbles something anyway, half-reaches for his phone. 

“Alright.” Shane stands. “Take a shower, get some lunch. There’s pasta in the fridge. And I’ll see you on the practice rink at 4.”

Nate gapes a little. Shane tries not to smile. He thinks about the first time Ilya made Hӓrk do bag skates, the betrayed shock on his face as Ilya slapped him on the back and smiled and said OK, again. 

“Problem?” Shane asks. Eyebrows raised, Captain Hollander. Little sweet thrill of the pretence of it. The way he hardly ever was, really, in Montreal, too scared of the everything else. 

“No.” Nate looks down at his phone, turns it over in his hand. “No. I’ll see you there.” He pauses, clearly working himself up to say something else. Shane braces. “Uh. What kind of pasta?”

“Chicken and spinach.” Shane squints at him. “And you should drink some more electrolytes. I don’t want you throwing up on the ice, it’s a fucking pain in the ass to clean.”

—

Nate: hey man u doing ok? 

Nate: if you’ve got a minute i’m gonna call u dont have to pick up tho

Nate: [outgoing call: 23:45]

—

Max: hey man thanks for calling earlier

Max: sorry we got cut off my sister is a fucking pain

Max: but good to talk. Sorry it’s been a minute

Nate: really good to talk bro

Nate: i’m sorry about your parents 

Nate: if u need to get away from it all for a bit or whatever lmk

Nate: but nw if that’s not the vibe

Max: no i really appreciate that dude 

Max: i wanted to come up before but like 

Max: been pretty shit ngl haha

Max: maybe i could come up for your first game?

Nate: yeah that’d be sick

Nate: my mom is coming up so u could come w her?

Nate: if that’s not weird lol 

Max: no that would be cool

Max: proud of u dude

Nate: thanks man

Nate: really appreciate it 

Nate: [image attached: Anya, gnawing on Nate’s trainers, it has been heart-reacted to]

—

Ilya: hello marnie, hope you are very well

Ilya: [image attached: Anya, tongue out, panting at the camera]

Ilya: Anya says hello

Marnie: hi Anya!!

Marnie: is everything ok?

Ilya: Yes all good

Ilya: i wanted to ask you about guests because when you spoke to Shane before the situation was a bit different

Ilya: my best friend svetlana has been in russia looking at a family matter for me

Ilya: it has been quite difficult and i would like her to come stay with us for a little bit, maybe one or two weeks so we can look after her and say thank you

Ilya: she will mostly be in the home office working or with Shane and me but i wanted to check if that’s ok. Otherwise she can maybe stay with shane’s parents but i think it would be harder to convince her to do that. She is very self-reliant.

Marnie: of course that’s OK

Marnie: you boys have been so good to nate

Marnie: I’m so sorry if I’ve made you feel like you can’t have your friends in your own home

Ilya: no!! No

Ilya: you are good mother, we understand

Ilya: but sveta is very good

Ilya: and she knows everything in the world about hockey

Marnie: haha well at least that’ll give her something to talk to nate about

Marnie: would it still be alright for me and max to come up for Nate’s first game?

Ilya: yes of course!! We have lots of space

Ilya: anya is excited to see you again ))))

—

@hollzysslapshot: yesssss first shane and ilya sighting of the season at a pwhl game iktr

|

@hollzysslapshot: with shane’s parents!! And svetlana!!!! 

|

@140725: svetlana wearing a charge jersey SICKOS HAHA YES

|

@supashy: wait guys… guys is she specifically wearing a COLLINS jersey #noticing

|

@hollzysslaphot: yet another win for the gayest city in hockey………………………

@ottwchrgewtch: hockey royalty in the house

[Four images attached:

1) Shane, Ilya, Yuna and Svetlana focused intensely on the action on the ice. David drinking his soda.

2) A jubilant reaction to a goal from all five of them.

3) Ilya leaning over the seats to talk exuberantly to three small children in Ottawa Charge jerseys. 

4) Svetlana whispering in Shane’s ear, Shane mid-furious nod.]

— 

Ilya: )))))))))))))))))))))

Ilya: ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Shane: what

Shane: what have you done

Ilya: [screenshot attached, a text conversation between Ilya and Fabian]

Shane: oh my god

Shane: i told you he could hear us

Ilya: yes I know you were moaning it into my dick 

Ilya: did you not see where he says congratulations

Ilya: congratulations on having very hot sex shane and ilya

Shane: he doesn’t say that

Shane: he just says congratulations

Shane: and that it’s a miracle we never got caught

Shane: which it is

Ilya: it is implied

Ilya: do you not think it is a little bit hot 

Ilya: that fabian salah knows you moan like a whore for my tongue in your ass 

Ilya: and my cock in your mouth

Ilya: and that he wants to congratulate us about it

Shane: ilya

Ilya: wait i am texting him back

Shane: ilya don’t

Ilya: do you think i should tell him only reason we didn’t get caught

Ilya: is because when i was fucking you in team hotel marly thought you were a girl

Ilya: because your face was buried in the pillow and the only sound was skin and sound of your wet pussy

Shane: ilya i’m on a fucking plane

Ilya: )))))))

Shane: wait does marly know that was me now

Ilya: he would if he thought about it

Ilya: but he has not thought about it

Ilya: u want me to remind him

Shane: do not

Shane: im serious do not

Shane: did you text fabian

Ilya: yes

Ilya: send me picture and i’ll tell you what he said 

Shane: Ilya. Plane.

Ilya: Shane. First class.

Shane: [image attached: Shane’s crotch, his dick visibly hard in his pants]

Ilya: good boy

Ilya: no jerking off in airplane bathroom

Ilya: you have to wait for me

Ilya: [image attached: Ilya’s dick, hard against his stomach]

Shane: what did he say

Ilya: nothing to say about my dick???

Ilya: only fabian’s text???

Shane: asshole you said you’d tell me

Ilya: do u deserve it

Shane: fuck ilya i can’t look at pictures of your dick on the plane

Shane: if you won’t even let me jerk off in the fucking bathroom

Ilya: ok

Ilya: but what about

Ilya: [video attached: Ilya’s hand slowly working his cock]

Shane: fick

Ilya: fick 😂

Ilya: ok i’ll tell u

Ilya: i said do u want me to buy you earplugs for next gay trip

Ilya: he said i’m not sure earplugs would help if shane bangs on the wall like that again

Ilya: i said just wake ryan up next time

Ilya: maybe good inspiration for him

Shane: ilya what the fuck

Ilya: he sent laughing emojis 

Ilya: but he did not disagree

Shane: fuck

Shane: how much did he h

Shane: [deleted message]

Ilya: 😂😂😂

Ilya: ok i am reminding him that you are just for me

Ilya: say it

Shane: just for you

Shane: just for you Ilya

Shane: are u coming tot he airport

Ilya: no

Ilya: they are sending car remember 

Ilya: i will see u at the hotel ))

Ilya: be good

Shane: i’m going to fucking kill you

Ilya: 🤣🤥💦

—

@nattywalters76: 

Honored to play my first game for the @ottawa67s on home ice today. Thank you so much to the team for welcoming me in, can’t wait for the rest of the season! 

[Six images: 

1) Nate with the rest of the team before the game 

2) Nate doing his solo debut lap of the ice, grinning, looking behind him at the rest of the team 

3) Nate and Marnie hugging after the game 

4) Nate and Jason cheesing with the OHL 67s mascot 

5) Marnie, Max, Ilya, and Shane wearing their 67s jerseys 

6) Six-year-old Nate in a Canada jersey, standing next to a poster of Shane]

@rozy81 [story post]:

hockey is hard work huh
[Image: a picture of Nate after the game, asleep in the back of Shane and Ilya’s car, head on Marnie’s shoulder] 

—

Дядя Илья, 9 August: 
Дайте знать, если что-то понадобится

Дядя Илья, 6 September: 
ни пуха ни пeра

Дядя Илья, 18 September:
[Image attached: Anya in a pile of early fall leaves, happily making a mess]

Дядя Илья, 6 November: 
[Image attached: Shane’s face upturned towards the snow, scrunching his face as a flake lands on his nose]

Дядя Илья, 17 November: 
[Image attached: Svetlana screaming at the hockey game on the TV]

Дядя Илья, 9 December: 
Хорошо, что всё прошло благополучно. Молодец )))

Дядя Илья, 7 January: 
С Рождеством Христовым! 

Маша, 7 January:
С праздниками Дядя ))
[Image attached: Masha and her younger sister, cold-flushed faces pressed together]

—

To: shane@irinafoundation.org; yuna.hollander@hollandermgmt.com 
Cc: m.davenport@quebecbid.org.ca; n.tiocha@quebecbid.org.ca 
From: j.poulin@quebecbid.org.ca 

Subject: Bienvenue

Bounjour, 

Nous sommes très enthousiastes d'aller de l’avant avec vous. C'est une occasion brillante pour le Québec de consolider son rôle dans le monde plus large des sports d'hiver et nous ne pourrions pas imaginer de meilleures personnes avec qui collaborer.

Vous trouverez ci-joint nos documents d'appel d'offres préliminaires. À ce stade, tout retour est le bienvenu, mais nous recherchons particulièrement la rétroaction des athlètes sur les installations et les lieux. Shane, s'il y a bien quelque chose que vous, en tant qu'athlète, avez trouvé inefficace lors des précédents Jeux Olympiques d'hiver, on serait ravis d'en entendre parler.

S'orientant vers le modèle multiples villes hôtes, le CIO envisage également une collaboration avec l’Ontario. Nous en parlerons séparément avec l'OSO, mais toute réflexion à ce sujet serait grandement appréciée. N'hésitez pas à nous poser des questions. Attachez votre tuque!

Bien à vous, 

Jeanne Poulin 

Laison des athlètes | Comité de candidature olympique du Québec

quebecbid.org.ca

To: shane@irinafoundation.org
From: yuna.hollander@hollandermgmt.com 

Subject: Re: Bienvenue

So exciting!! I’ll have Celeste mark up the paperwork in case there’s anything we need to be across legally but from a brief scan there are no major red flags.

New sports complex plans are pp. 35-47, athlete accommodation is pp. 49-52. if you could take a look at those today we can start formulating a response by end of week. As discussed, obviously they’re keen for you to be a major face of the bid but we want to make it clear from the off that you’ll be a substantial contributor to the process, not just the face, and I think it’s best to be as proactive as poss on that front.

Let’s bring the games home!

—

All Shane’s days feel long, at the moment. It’s good, though. Good to be busy, good to work hard. A different kind of working hard than he got used to, his body still twitchy with unspent energy even as he longs to collapse into bed, but still. Good.

He gets back from a business dinner with his mom and one of the OSO reps late, almost eleven, to find two unfamiliar cars in the driveway. One sleek and yellow, probably Sveta’s latest, the other a nondescript rental. Maybe someone from the team, or one of Sveta’s interchangeable industry friends she likes to drink with. Shane makes himself stand in the cool of the night for a little, counting his breaths, thinking about how good it is that Ilya has friends, has the energy to see people, how he’s happy for him, how Ilya won’t mind if Shane just goes straight to bed. 

But he can hear the laughter before he opens the door, is half-smiling as he slips off his shoes at the sound of Ilya’s voice gone high and strident above the unmistakable sound of Rose’s cackle. They’re in the other reception room, the one Shane’s designer said was for formal occasions and that has been mostly taken over by gaming consoles and the big green sectional Ilya brought with him from Boston. He’s spread the full length of it, head in Sveta’s lap and feet in Rose’s, Ottawa Charge’s Aisha Collins tucked in between Sveta and the arm of the couch, laughing through a mouthful of cookie, Anya in her lap. Music is playing, something poppy and bass-forward that Shane honestly couldn’t tell you if he’s ever heard before. There are three empty pizza boxes on the coffee table, and several empty cans of those pre-made cocktails Rose is obsessed with, and Ilya is gesticulating extravagantly, halfway through defending himself, when he looks up and sees Shane.

“Ah!” he says, delighted. “Shane, tell them!”

“Your poor hard-working husband has no idea what you are talking about,” Sveta says, smiling sweetly at Shane. “Lubchik, tell him he’s an idiot.”

God. Shane hopes he doesn’t make the face Aisha is making right now when Ilya speaks Russian. But he’s pretty sure there’s at least one YouTube compilation somewhere that would prove him wrong. Shane folds himself over the back of the couch, kisses Rose’s hair, touches his knuckles to Ilya’s stomach, where his shirt is rising up. He can feel himself smiling, doesn’t try and stop it. 

“Hey, lyubimyy. What am I supposed to be telling them?” 

“I could learn figure skating. I could do figure skating, perform in half-time show —”

“As a fucking clown, maybe,” Sveta says, rolling her eyes. “Good entertainment for the children.”

“As fucking art,” Ilya says, and then spits something in Russian that Shane’s vocabulary is definitely not advanced enough to understand but that sounds like he may as well have just told Sveta to go die. He’s grinning the whole time though, one foot wiggling in Rose’s lap, and Sveta only tugs hard at his hair, shakes her head. 

“You put up with so much,” she tells Shane, sadly. “Come, join us. Have a terrible marg. Have some pizza.”

“I ate dinner with my mom.” Shane accepts the marg, though. Looks down at Ilya, his indolent sprawl, the lazy grace of him, and, child-spite instinct, leans over to prod at his exposed stomach. Ilya recoils, rolls the whole way off the sofa, lies there with his mouth open like Shane shoved him off himself. A perfect reaction, really. Shane couldn’t have asked for more. Anya yaps a bit, and Shane reaches over to shush her, scratching behind her ears.  

“You did that to yourself, idiot,” he says to Ilya, plopping himself down in the middle of the couch, the cushions warm with Ilya’s body heat. 

Ilya makes a production of picking himself up, plonking himself down into Shane’s lap, arranging himself for maximum comfort. Shane wraps his arms around Ilya, shoves his hands under Ilya’s shirt so that he can spread his fingers along the soft skin of Ilya’s back, feel his pulse beat in his side. He’s still tired, he still does sort of want to go to bed, even with Ilya cracking the can open for him, tipping it against Shane’s mouth until Shane opens up to drink. But this is good, too, Rose looking laughingly at him, and Sveta’s smirk and the way her thumb is moving slowly along Aisha’s collarbone. 

“How come you’re here?” he asks Rose. 

“I got an audition,” Rose says.

“In Ottawa?”

“No. Ha, no, in Toronto. This morning, super last minute. And I don’t have to be back in LA until Monday, and I was like… road trip?”

“Wait, is this the indie thing? The lesbian — the lesbian heist movie?”

“Shane only remembers lesbians,” Ilya tells them all, speaking mostly into Shane’s hair. Shane can’t tell if he’s actually drunk or just pretending to be, giddy with the kind of company who will let him be this. “He is an ally.”

“It is about lesbians, in fairness. But they’re car hijackers, they aren’t doing a heist. It’s super romantic, actually.”

“And the audition went well,” Aisha says. Shane’s met her, like, three times. It’s a little weird that she’s in his house, wearing Sveta’s sweats that used to be Ilya’s, leaving cookie crumbs on his couch. But she seems nice. She has a nice way of listening, lips pursed and focused like she’s waiting for the call on the bench. “Right? So that’s super cool.”

“We’ll see.” Rose does her little self-deprecating shrug, her little oh God no don’t watch my terrible movies face and Shane boos at her. “Ah, OK, whatever. Yeah, I think it was good. I was good. They seemed pretty excited.”

“And you’re excited? You want it?”

Rose has looked wan, the last few times Shane has seen her, but she’s smiling now, pink-gold in the soft light of the laps, tipsy flush in her cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

It only takes another hour or so until Rose is yawning, and Aisha is half-asleep on Sveta’s shoulder. They’re old now, Shane thinks with an odd sense of relief. Mostly it stings, those words, the ways in which his body is slowing and aching, but in some ways — his mom used to call him an old soul. In some ways maybe everything else is just catching up. Ilya staggers a little when they stand, and Shane rolls his eyes, scoops Ilya up in his arms, ignoring the twinging protest in his knee, and carries him to bed like that. Ilya cackles the whole way, and when Shane dumps him in the middle of their bed, he lies there, starfished and starry-eyed, and just looks up at Shane. Shane crawls on top of him, rolls them over so that Ilya is held tight in his arms, face tucked into the crook of Shane’s neck. 

“You think Sveta and Aisha are going to fuck in our guest bed?” Ilya asks, sharp little smile against Shane’s skin. 

“Don’t be gross, Ilya, those are our friends.”

“Am just asking.”

“You’re being — objectifying.”

“Object? What? I don’t know this word.”

“Yes you fucking do.” Shane yawns, his jaw brushing Ilya’s ear. “Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what it means.”

“Mm, only one person I want to objectify.” Ilya gnaws at Shane’s neck a little, brush of teeth and tongue, and Shane feels his legs fall open without any conscious thought, his weight resting heavier against the bed. “Pretty little object in my bed.”

Shane turns his head so that Ilya has better access, tries to arch up against the dead weight of him. Ilya clicks his tongue, sits up.

“No. Clothes off.” 

Ilya widens his eyes when Shane doesn’t move, makes one of those impatient little head-twitches, like a rich asshole at a slow waiter, and Shane is only human, only Ilya’s. He strips his clothes, folds them, sets them on top of the drawers. 

“On the bed. Face down.” The heel of Ilya’s palm presses lazily against his cock. He’s still dressed. “Hold yourself open, want to come on your hole.”

Shane presses his face and shoulders into the mattress. Shane brings his knees up, spreads his legs, holds open his cheeks so that Ilya can see the way his hole clenches and spasms under Ilya’s attention. Methodical, almost, the starting shape of him precise and perfect. He holds in his mind what Ilya looks like when he jerks himself off, his waistband tucked under his balls, the furious attention on his face. He arches a little deeper, makes horrible gulping spit-soaked noises into the wet spread of the mattress, thinks about all the hotel rooms Ilya has jerked off in, jerked off to him, to this, thinks pretty little object little object his as Ilya moans, spits — nothing on Shane, spits on his own hand then, his own cock — speeds up. Shane wants to see, cannot see, it is not for him, this, he is object he is thing for Ilya he is — Ilya’s come on his back, on his hole, his ass, Ilya’s hands at last, his tongue as he licks himself off Shane. 

Flickers of sensation, Shane’s form collapsing, his hips helpless. Impatient hands, turning him, holding him down. Bruises on his hips tomorrow, maybe. Ilya’s mouth on his cock like he is only trying to make Shane come as quickly as possible, the tight clench swallow of his throat, Shane hears his own voice outside his own body begging or thanking maybe and then Ilya crawling back up, spitting Shane’s come into his mouth for him to swallow. 

Ilya smells like sweat and come and spirits, everything does, the sticky streaks on Shane’s own skin, his mouth throat insides and Shane opens up and begs for more. 

Somewhere, across the house, as Ilya kisses Shane and licks the taste of them from his mouth, someone moans. High, broken-off, a hand or a bitten lip or a hasty shhhh maybe, Shane is too far away to tell. 

Ilya draws back. His hand half-over his mouth, hiding his spreading smile, and Shane rolls his eyes, knows Ilya’s collapsing giggles are inevitable before they come.

“I was right,” he says. “You think Rose is taking notes for movie?”

“You’re such an asshole.” Shane lets Ilya mouth absently at his nipples, his shoulders. He still feels heavy, shivery, like he could sink down into the core of the earth. He licks along the back of his teeth, the puffy insides of his cheeks. “I taste kinda weird?”

“A bit. All the business dinners, maybe. It’s OK, still good.” He presses a final biting kiss to Shane’s chest, wet teeth-marks gleaming. “I tasted good.”

“You’ll taste like shit tomorrow, all that junk food.”

Ilya twines his fingers in Shane’s hair, tugs. “You will still beg for it.”

“Yeah.” There’s no point pretending that’s not the case, not when Shane is so sleepy, so densely satisfied.

“Day you don’t beg for my come in your mouth, I will call the doctor. ‘Help, there is something very wrong with my husband, maybe he has been taken by aliens’.” He yawns loudly against Shane’s chest, jaw cracking, wiggling his legs like a puppy. “How was dinner? OK?”

Shane blinks. It takes a moment to process the question, to drag himself back up, but Ilya only strokes patient patterns across Shane’s cheeks.

“Yeah, good,” he says eventually. “Uh. Looks like it is gonna be a dual-city bid. And then obviously there’ll be bits other places, for the skiing or whatever. Some of the plans are pretty cool.” Shane is excited about it, he thinks. There’s so much to think about, to absorb himself in it, and it would be cool. Bringing home the Olympics. Not many people can say that.

“When is the opening ceremony plan?”

Shane frowns, trying to follow Ilya’s leap. “Not for ages, why?”

“Lots of time for me to practice, then.” Oh, ohhh. OK. Shane smoothes his face into warning scepticism. “And you can use all your nice Olympic influence to get me in the opening ceremony doing beautiful ice dancing.”

“Oh, you won’t be good enough to get in without my help?”

Ilya scowls at him, and Shane laughs, pokes his nose.

“You would fucking hate ice skating. I mean, you’d like showing off, but you’d get so bored without anybody to wind up, having to smile all the time. No fighting in ice dancing.”

“No fighting in Olympic ice hockey. Didn’t stop us winning.”

“I remember.” Shane skates his finger down the upturned slope of Ilya’s nose. The memory of that final game singing in his bones, the muted home crowd and the bench exploding and Ilya’s triumphant scream. “That was a fun tournament.” 

“Yes. Especially part where I scored game-winning goal in the final. Very good.”

“Off my assist.”

“Mm, and Colzy’s.” 

“My pass.” Shane winds his fingers through Ilya’s chain, the metal body-warm. He needs to drink some water, he needs to wipe the come and sweat and long day from his skin, he needs to sleep. He doesn’t move.

“It is OK? Talking about hometown Winter Olympics you will not play in?”

“It kinda sucks.” It’s the thing Shane thinks about, over and over again, as they talk about branding and pitching and whether the stands at the Bell Centre would need to be extended or if they’re fine as is. They’ll expect him to be at the games, cheering on Team Canada, the perfect ambassador for this new age of hockey. Shane can’t think that far ahead. Shane can think up to the exact moment of winning the bid, and no further. “But it’s a long time away.”

Another moan from across the hallway, or a hiccuping series of them, and Shane says they’re still going? without really thinking about it. Ilya’s laughter is almost a shout, even as Shane tries to shush him.

“Lesbian sex goes on forever. You do not know this, Shane? You are a terrible ally.”

“I don’t — why would I know about lesbian sex?”

Ilya looks down at him fondly, kisses the bridge of his nose. “You are so gay.”

He looks so good. He looks so fucking good, so pleased with himself, so sure of everything Shane is.

“I love you,” Shane tells him. “I’m so fucking glad we got to win together.”

“Me too. Very sexy goal. I suppose also pretty sexy assist —”

“I scored, like, eleven fucking goals that tournament, Ilya.”

“I know, I remember, I sucked your dick about a lot of them. But not game-winning goal in the final, so…”

“I should push you out of this bed,” Shane says. He frowns at Ilya until Ilya snuggles back down next to him. “Did you have a good day?”

“Not really. New exemption policy is a fucking nightmare, going to make the camps so much more expensive to run unless we can figure out workaround.”

“Fuck.” Shane pauses, thinking. “We have that meeting on Monday, right? About the policy changes?”

“Yes. So, let’s think about it on Monday. Tomorrow — blyat, they really are still going. Tomorrow I will have to fuck you very loudly all morning so that they cannot lie in. Then I want to take Anya to the new dog park.”

“When’s Rose’s flight? Nate's back from his roadie at five on Sunday”

“Sunday morning. Lots of time.” Ilya’s eyes flutter closed; he rubs his cheek against Shane’s shoulder, snuggles closer. 

“I’m sorry your day sucked,” Shane whispers. 

“Yes. But good evening. Good now.”

“Good now.” Shane can feel the beat of Ilya’s heart against his ribs, steady as a clock. 

He won’t get up, in the end. They’ll fall asleep like this, sticky and dry-mouthed, wake up humid and sweat-steeped. Shower, fuck, make breakfast. Dog park, movie, dinner. A babysitting call from Hayden, a long Sunday trawl around the zoo. The softened spectre of Monday, the deep shadows of their gym at sunset, Nate’s pads cluttering up the hallway. 

OK. Shane thinks. OK.