Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter

Additional Tags:

Fluff, Dumb Hockey Boys, Fluff without Plot, Established Relationship

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2022-03-25 Updated: 2022-08-31 Words: 15,013 Chapters: 4/6

The Last Boston Year

Summary

“So,” Shane said, after another minute. “Welcome to Montreal.”

Ilya just started laughing, his body shaking against Shane’s.

“Do not tell me you prepare for all your home games this way,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have prepared for any home games this way,” Shane said, glancing at the clock by the bed. He should go, but he couldn’t make himself.

 

There's a year between the ending and the epilogue of Heated Rivalry. This is it.

Notes

I don't know one single thing about hockey, so adjust those expectations accordingly.

Chapter 1: No one is that excited for hotel ice

October, 2017 — Montreal

 

Shane was nervous in a hotel room.

That was nothing new. He’d lost track of how much time he’d spent being nervous in a hotel room, over the years. It was practically his default state at this point.

But usually, he wasn’t nervous in a hotel room at one in the afternoon, on a game day, four floors above the opposing team. Going to their hotel on the way to the arena might have been the dumbest thing he’d ever done, but Shane hadn’t been able to talk himself out of it.

Which was why he was there, leaning against the dresser and trying to look casual, staring at the door he’d propped open with with the bar lock, nerves jangling like pennies in a jar.

He wondered if he should do something sexier, like take off his clothes and get on the bed. Did this hotel have bathrobes? Was lounging on a bed naked except for a bathrobe too Playgirl? Would it be better if he were —

Then the door swung open and Ilya stepped in, grinning like a maniac, and Shane wasn’t nervous anymore.

“You couldn’t wait?” he said, already halfway across the room.

“Well —" was all Shane got out before he was against the wall, the other man’s mouth on his, and the knot he hadn’t realized he was carrying in his chest unfurled.

“You were desperate?” Ilya said, not bothering to take his mouth off Shane’s.

“I’m not the one who ran up four flights of stairs when you got my text.”

Ilya pulled back, both hands still in Shane’s hair, his head tipped back, and looked into Shane’s eyes. Shane felt like the world stopped spinning. He wanted it to, at least.

“I missed you,” Ilya murmured.

“I know,” Shane answered. “I missed you, too.”

Their mouths crashed together again, and now Shane was desperate. He hadn’t seen Ilya in nearly two months, not since they’d left the cottage in August, and all the Skype calls in the world were no substitute for the way Ilya’s thigh was rocking against his incredibly hard dick right now.

“I have maybe fifteen minutes,” Ilya said, moving to the spot just below Shane’s jaw.

“I know. Same,” he gasped.

“Make the most of it, yes?” Ilya said, and before Shane could answer, he sank to his knees.

Shane didn’t have one more thought.

* * *

Eight minutes later, they were tangled on the floor, half-slouched, Ilya leaning haphazardly against Shane’s chest, Shane draped against the side of the dresser. They were both still fully clothed, breathing hard, and Shane wasn’t sure if he’d be able to move in time to make it to the game.

“So,” he said, after another minute. “Welcome to Montreal.”

Ilya just started laughing, his body shaking against Shane’s.

“Do not tell me you prepare for all your home games this way,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have prepared for any home games this way,” Shane said, glancing at the clock by the bed. He should go, but he couldn’t make himself.

Ilya shifted so he was looking up at Shane, and Shane drifted a hand through his hair.

“No. But I am glad you did,” Ilya said, flashing his crooked smile. Shane regretted telling him how much he liked it, because he was pretty sure Ilya had been practicing. “Will be even sweeter when we beat you tonight.”

Shane just snorted. “Sure.”

They went silent again, and Shane closed his eyes. He wanted to memorize everything about this: Ilya’s weight against him, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the feel of his hair sliding through Shane’s fingers. The perfect, golden autumn afternoon.

“I should go,” Ilya said, after a little while. “I told Marlow I was getting ice.”

Shane stared down at Ilya for a long moment.

Then, he started laughing, and Ilya followed suit.

“What?”

“Did you even bring an ice bucket?”

“I can use the one from this room.”

Shane couldn’t stop, giddy with delight and stupidity and the sheer relief of being back together, if only for fifteen minutes.

“So you’ll have two?”

“They’re useful!”

Now Ilya was shaking with laughter, too, and after a moment he sat up and wiped his eyes. Shane leaned into him, knowing he had to leave and wishing for just one more minute.

“It was not a very good excuse,” Ilya admitted, still laughing. “No one is that excited for hotel ice.”

There it was, that spark of warmth that lived inside Shane, burning a little brighter when Ilya said stuff like that. It still caught him off-guard sometimes that this hot, charismatic man was his, because in what universe did that make sense?

But his phone full of sweet good morning and good night texts said it did, and Shane was trying not to question it.

“I have to go,” he said, tilting his head back against the wall. “I parked like seven blocks away so no one would think I was coming here.”

“Very sneaky.”

“Better than saying you’re gonna get ice and not taking the ice bucket,” Shane pointed out and he finally hauled himself from the floor, then offered Ilya his hand.

Ilya took it and Shane pulled him up, then slid his arms around the taller man again.

“Marlow is… not smart,” Ilya said, with a smile and a little shrug. “He has probably already forgotten.”

Shane scrunched his nose, and Ilya kissed his forehead.

“He definitely does not think I was upstairs giving Shane Hollander a blowjob,” Ilya pointed out, and Shane just snorted.

They kissed again, gentle and adoring, the desperate edge off for now.

“Okay,” Shane said, stepping back and glancing at the clock. “Fuck.”

“You go first,” Ilya said.

“Give me a few —”

“How long have we been doing this, Hollander?” Ilya teased, leaning against the wall. Shane wanted to push him against it again, already. “Give me some credit.”

Shane blew out a breath, then offered Ilya a smile.

“Tonight?”

“Of course. After we beat you.”

Shane just rolled his eyes as he opened the door, checking that the hallway was empty.

“Not a chance, Ilya,” he said, and looked back.

On sudden impulse, Shane blew Ilya a kiss, and Ilya caught it as the door closed.

Shane sprinted down the stairs and jogged to his car, but he didn’t think he’d ever forget the way Ilya’s face had lit up.

* * *

When he got to the address Shane had given him, Ilya had a moment of sudden uncertainty. What were you supposed to do the first time you went to your boyfriend’s house? Should he have brought a bottle of wine or something? Some sort of host gift?

Ilya shook it off and texted Shane instead.

 

Ilya: I’m downstairs.

Ilya: Am I allowed in the front door or is there a servants’ entrance somewhere I should use?

 

The door clicked open.

 

Jane: Shut up.

Ilya: No.

Jane: Door’s unlocked. 501.

 

He headed through the lobby, past the mailboxes, to the elevators. It was a nice building. New, with sharp, clean lines, and a bright blue accent wall in the lobby. It could have been anywhere, but it was here, and it was Shane’s building.

Not the whole thing, unless he’d panicked again, but it was where he lived. Where Ilya’d been trying to get an invitation to for years now, one more barrier falling away.

The door was unlocked, as promised, and Ilya let himself in quietly, shrugging off his jacket and leaving his shoes on the rack near the front door. It looked like he was supposed to, and suddenly he cared about doing things right.

“That you?”

Ilya followed the voice into the living room, where Shane was sitting on a couch, his head tilted over the back, fingers laced together on his hair and his feet on the coffee table. He looked relaxed and happy and so fucking good.

“Who else would it be?”

“No one, I hope.”

Ilya walked to the back of the couch and leaned in, hands bracketing Shane’s head. Shane wrapped his hands around Ilya’s wrists and smiled up at him, freckles crinkling, looking so sunny and happy that Ilya thought his heart might explode.

For two months, he’d been thinking too much. In quiet moments, on planes and buses and in hotel rooms, no matter how much he distracted himself, he found himself quietly cataloguing the differences. Counting them like a secret treasure stash, tucked away from the world.

Differences like sappy wish you were here texts. Phone calls while he made breakfast. Pictures of random cute dogs that Shane saw, once he’d realized how much Ilya liked them. The habitual urge to ignore it all and think of something else, push those thoughts into the usual it’s just sex box. The feeling that washed over him, half exhilaration and half terror, when he realized he didn’t have to.

Ilya had never been anyone’s boyfriend before. He really, really wanted to do it right. He was a little afraid of how much he wanted that.

“You want the tour?” Shane asked.

Ilya dipped his head and brushed Shane’s nose with his own, upside-down.

“Of what?”

“My place.”

“Hmm.” Ilya slid the tip of his nose along the bridge of Shane’s just because he could, torturing himself for a moment with the sweet, familiar touch. Shane’s hands tightened on his wrists. “Not of your apartment, no.”

“You’ve been bugging me for years, and now you don’t even want to see the kitchen?”

“Is that why you invited me here, to show me your stove?”

One of Shane’s hands slid up Ilya’s arm, over his shoulder, until it was in his hair. Ilya let him guide his mouth down.

“Maybe later,” Shane said, and pulled him in.

* * *

“I got you something,” Shane said, hours later.

“I need twenty minutes,” Ilya mumbled into his shoulder.

Shane snorted. Twenty minutes was optimistic. Any time before sunrise was optimistic, frankly.

“If you want your present you have to get off me,” he said, but then Ilya was on top of him again, the sheets half-wrapped around both of them, his skin flushed and his hair wild.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A surprise.”

“What kind of surprise?”

Shane looked into Ilya’s eyes, muddy in the low light of the bedroom, and pretended to consider his answer becase he knew it would drive Ilya nuts. For all that he pretended to let everything roll off his back without worry, Ilya couldn’t stand surprises.

“A boring one, probably,” he said with a little shrug. “You’re right, maybe I shouldn’t even —"

“I did not say that,” Ilya huffed as he rolled off and onto his back. He had one leg tangled in the sheets and over his hip, his head between the pillows they’d somehow pushed apart, the blue comforter completely off the foot of the bed.

Shane didn’t bother with clothes as he walked out of the bedroom and to the small package on a bookshelf in the living room. The curtains were closed and it was past two in the morning — hours past Ilya’s curfew — and it was his apartment, dammit.

He picked up the surprise, small and heavy, still in the paper bag the hardware store had put them in, and suddenly he wondered if this was a stupid way to give a gift. Should he find a box? A bow?

He didn’t have either, and besides, a box was a bit much, right? A box this size with a bow would look like — well, something else entirely, and that might make things really weird given that they’d technically been dating for three months even if the actual timeline was a little more compli—

“Hollander! Are you lost?”

Shane grabbed the bag and headed back to the bedroom, rolling his eyes.

“Would it kill you to wait a minute?”

“I do enough waiting for you.”

Ilya had arranged himself so he was half-propped on some pillows, the sheets more or less straightened over him, lazy and smirking and sated. Shane wanted to take a picture, knew he couldn’t. He wanted to shut the bedroom door and never open it again.

“Here,” he said, snuggling in next to Ilya, who looked like it was Christmas morning as he reached into the bag and pulled out…

…three keys, attached to a keyring with a duck on it.

“I couldn’t find a loon,” Shane explained, when Ilya didn’t say anything. He was just staring at them, in the palm of his hand. “Um, this one is the front door downstairs, and this one is to the actual apartment.”

Each key had a rubber ring around it in a different color. Ilya’s fingertips drifted over the two Shane had pointed out, then held up the third key, outlined in blue.

“That’s to the cottage,” Shane said, softly, running a hand through his hair. He was oddly nervous, as if giving his boyfriend a key to his place was somehow more a dangerous admission than I love you or please fuck me or I want to still be with you in another seven years. “I mean, you probably don’t need it but just in case you ever, like, need a place to get away to and I’m not around, it’s yours.”

Then Ilya was looking down at him with that crooked grin.

“Yes,” he teased. “Very boring. So boring that maybe you will come home and find me naked in your bed.”

It was pure fantasy and they both knew it.

“That would be terrible,” Shane said seriously. “I’d hate it.”

“Mmm. What else would you hate?” Ilya teased, and then they were kissing again, Ilya pulling Shane into his lap, sheets tangling. They made out for a few minutes without urgency, only soft, deep, sleepy kisses until they pulled apart, Shane swirling his fingers through Ilya’s hair. The clock on his bedside table said it was closer to three than two.

“I wish you could stay,” he said.

“Yes. Same.”

No one said anything for a moment. They just looked at each other, Shane’s fingers in Ilya’s hair, Ilya stroking Shane’s cheekbone with one thumb. It was ridiculous and sappy and maudlin, and Shane wished this stupid moment would last forever.

“Three weeks,” Ilya finally said, his accent softly tripping over the words. “Is not that long.”

“No?”

Ilya tried the grin again, but it didn’t quite work.

“Is fucking forever,” he admitted. “Especially when someone will not Skype on the road.”

“I room with Hayden!”

“You could go somewhere else.”

“I’m not getting my dick out in a hotel stairwell,” Shane said, and now Ilya was grinning.

“You could.”

“No.”

“I think you would like it.”

Shane rolled his eyes and flopped back onto the bed, off of Ilya’s lap.

“Don’t you have to go?”

Ilya sighed, his head back, eyes closed. He had the key ring looped over one finger, the keys cradled in his palm, the tendons in his neck standing out. Shane looked away before he put his mouth on them and made Ilya even more ridiculously late than he already was.

“Yes,” he said, like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to admit.

Fifteen minutes later they were by Shane’s front door, the cab downstairs, and Shane couldn’t stop giving Ilya desperate, needy kisses.

“I have to leave.”

“Then go.”

Ilya just made a noise and locked his mouth to Shane’s one more time before pulling back and opening the door.

“Three weeks,” he said.

Shane nodded, dazed and tired, wondering if he looked as freshly-fucked as Ilya did. At this rate, everyone was going to know by Christmas.

“Three weeks,” he said, and with one last, quick kiss, Ilya was gone.

Chapter 2: French toast is beloved by people of all nations

November 2017 — Boston

 

Ilya was watching Shane sleep.

It was, he knew, probably creepy. He also knew that he didn’t really care, because right now Shane was face down in one of the new pillows Ilya had gotten just for this occasion, completely passed out after a nighttime flight to Boston and late-night activities in Ilya’s apartment.

And he looked… peaceful. Relaxed, with the comforter pulled up to his neck and his hair splayed over the pillow, like his boyfriend wasn’t the last person on earth he should be with. Ilya considered about twenty ways to wake him up, but couldn’t bring himself to do any of them.

Eventually, Shane opened his visible eye and blinked.

“What?”

He was sleepy, confused, and adorable.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Ilya said, grinning. “Sleep well?”

“Whatimeissit?” Shane slurred, half his face still obscured by the pillow.

At the cottage, Ilya had discovered that Shane considered himself a morning person, because of course he did. He also discovered that this assessment was dead wrong.

“Almost eight.”

“Hmmnnggggggh.”

“You don’t say.”

That earned Ilya a scrunched-up glare, but it was worth it because then Shane scooted over and burrowed into him, draping an arm over his chest and flopping a leg across Ilya’s knees.

“Shut up,” he mumbled into Ilya’s chest, and promptly fell back asleep.

Ilya closed his eyes and ran his fingers along Shane’s warm spine. It was pouring outside, the cold gray chill of late autumn in New England, and he couldn’t think of a single place better than his bed.

“I missed this,” he murmured, and Shane sighed in his sleep.

 

***

 

Shane was, Ilya was pretty sure, methodically cataloguing the contents of his entire kitchen. What had started as an innocuous conversation about breakfast now seemed to be some sort of full-bore nutrition quest, with Shane standing on his toes and peering into a high cabinet while Ilya leaned against the counter, drank coffee, and enjoyed the view.

“There are different flavors of Froot Loops?” Shane was saying.

“Tropical Berry Blast was not very good.”

Shane grabbed a box from the shelf and narrowed his eyes.

“Do you know this expired a year and a half ago?”

Ilya snorted.

“Cereal never really expires. Is cereal.”

“You know things rot, right? Bugs exist? I’m throwing this away,” Shane said, putting the Froot Loops on the counter and turning his attention to a box of Cocoa Puffs.

“Is this why you came over here? To clean out my kitchen?” Ilya teased. The truth was, he was thoroughly enjoying himself, watching Shane in full type-A bossy mode. It was kind of hot.

“I came over to save you from yourself, apparently.”

“Aww, sweet.”

Shane rolled his eyes and flipped Ilya off, but he was smiling as he continued his kitchen rampage and Ilya happily stayed out of the way. He probably should have thrown that cereal out himself, anyway.

Besides, there was something satisfying about watching Shane slot himself into Ilya’s life like this. For a couple of hours this morning, they could pretend that what they were doing wasn’t basically impossible. They could pretend they were a regular couple who got to have lazy Saturdays, who knew each other’s lives and apartments like it was second nature.

Ilya didn’t even know if Shane would spend the night here again. It looked like there was a game in March that might work out, but that was four months away and Ilya tried not to pin too many hopes on specific airplane arrival and departure times.

So yes, Shane could do whatever he wanted to Ilya’s kitchen. He could rearrange and reconfigure whatever he wanted and Ilya would keep it that way forever because it was evidence that this had happened, once. That for one brief, rainy morning, they’d gotten to have the easy, normal domesticity that everyone else took for granted.

“Do you know about French toast?” Shane asked a while later, crouching in front of Ilya’s fridge.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s a fair question!”

“How is asking whether I know about French toast fair?”

“Because the other night you claimed you’d never heard of poutine?”

Shane grabbed eggs out of the fridge and gave Ilya a look over his shoulder.

“Poutine is weird local specialty,” he said, because he knew it would annoy Shane. “French toast is beloved by people of all nations.”

“You’ve been to Canada, like, a million times,” Shane pointed out.

Ilya grinned at him and crossed the kitchen, grabbing his empty coffee mug.

“Does not make it okay to put gravy on French fries.”

He poured them both more coffee, then put Shane’s mug in front of him as the other man stood in front of the counter, surveying the food he’d just put there, drumming his fingers like he was thinking.

“I know when you’re just trying to annoy me,” Shane said, freckles crinkling slightly.

“Yes,” Ilya agreed, and kissed the tip of his nose. Just because he could. “Terrible that it works anyway. Tell me what to do for your toast.”

 

***

 

Shane stood in front of Ilya’s couch as Ilya snorted, then typed on his phone, sprawled the full length of the sofa.

“Scoot over,” he said, nudging his arm with a knee.

“No,” Ilya said, dropping the phone on his stomach and somehow sprawling even further.

“Come on.”

“Is my couch!”

It was exactly what Shane had expected, obnoxious grin and all, so he didn’t feel bad about flopping directly on top of Ilya.

“Ow! What the fuck!”

“I said scoot over.”

“And I said — Jesus, Hollander, how many elbows do you have?”

Shane dug one into his ribs just for asking, and Ilya yelped.

“Is no fair pushing me off —”

“Then make room!”

“Make what room?”

Shane wriggled until he was between the back of the couch and Ilya, who wasn’t fighting him. Just complaining.

“There,” Shane finally said. He’d gotten one arm under Ilya’s neck and his face half-buried in Ilya’s hair, the other arm slung over his chest, Ilya pressed against him on this couch that was obviously too small.

Of course it was too small. That was, like, the point.

“You are done?” Ilya asked after a moment.

“With what?”

“Displacing me from my own furniture.”

Just for that, Shane wriggled around more, until their phones both buzzed at the same time. Shane pulled his phone from his pocket, expecting it to be the group chat they had with his parents — weird? but good? but still weird? — only to see that it was Hayden requesting proof of life.

Shane sighed against the back of Ilya’s head.

“You don’t have a newspaper, do you?”

“Why would I have a newspaper?”

“To be a well-informed citizen of the world.”

Ilya turned until he was looking up at Shane, which was a weird angle. Shane kinda liked it.

“Do not tell me you get a newspaper. You read it every morning over coffee?”

“I’m not home enough to get a newspaper.”

Ilya waved one hand in the air.

“Well then.”

 

Shane: I’ll be back in plenty of time

Hayden: Are you sure? Have you been kidnapped?

Shane: I’m fine! I’ll be back!

Hayden: Are you ever gonna tell me where you are?

Hayden: If you’re in trouble just work the word giraffe into the conversation.

Shane: I’m visiting a friend, okay?

 

“Seriously?” asked Ilya, who was blatantly reading Shane’s texts. Probably because they were in front of his face, pretty much.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Anything would be better. Tell him you were kidnapped by bank robbers.”

“Then he’d definitely know I was lying.”

“Yes. At least make it interesting.”

Hayden would likely freak out less if Shane had been kidnapped by bank robbers than with the truth that he was currently Ilya Rozanov’s big spoon.

“He probably thinks I’m dating someone famous and have to keep it a secret,” Shane said, putting his phone back into his pocket.

“He is not wrong.”

“A famous woman.”

That got another look from Ilya, up through his eyelashes. Shane really needed to be the big spoon more often.

“Your best friend does not know you are gay?”

“What, so he can try to set me up with his wife’s personal trainer instead of her yoga teacher?”

“Still.”

“After this season,” Shane said.

He hated it as soon as it came out of his mouth. Everything was after this season. Ilya moving to Ottawa, probably. Hopefully. Them working together at the Irina Foundation. Them having, like, a real friendship that people knew about.

It was just so fucking far away. Ilya didn’t say anything, but what was there to say?

So he snuggled back in and buried his face in Ilya’s hair, which still smelled like shampoo.

“Did you just sniff me?” Ilya teased.

“No.”

Shane sniffed him again.

“You are a terrible liar.”

“I’m obviously not that bad.”

Ilya’s phone lit up again, and he looked at it.

“Keeping a secret is not the same as lying well,” he said, flicking open a text that Shane couldn’t read without his glasses on. Shit, were his eyes that bad?

No. It was in Russian.

“Your brother?” Shane asked as Ilya typed an answer. Ilya hadn’t mentioned talking to his brother again, but he probably didn’t tell Shane everything.

“Svetlana,” Ilya said absently.

Shane felt himself go still. Ilya stopped typing.

“Cool,” Shane lied. It earned him another through-the-eyelashes look from Ilya.

“Is just about hockey,” he said.

“How is she?” Shane asked, very calmly. Ilya just narrowed his eyes.

“You are jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

That stupid half-smile tugged at Ilya’s lips, and Shane tried not to frown at it. He was pretty sure he failed.

“Why would I be jealous of your ex who you threatened to marry?” he grumbled, wriggling until his face was buried in Ilya’s neck.

Ilya just snorted.

“I did not threaten.”

“Twice.”

“And she is not my ex!”

Shane just grumbled into Ilya’s neck. He wasn’t jealous jealous of Svetlana, but he did feel a little complicated about it.

Besides, Ilya gave him shit about Rose constantly and they’d barely dated for, like, a month.

“Was just fun, casual thing,” Ilya went on, a little defensively. “Now we text about hockey and sometimes traffic.”

“And not about getting married?”

Ilya didn’t answer right away, and when Shane looked up, he was… blushing?

Holy shit. Shane was never letting this go.

“Was for citizenship!” Ilya said. He rolled so he was on his back, looking up at Shane, half falling off the couch.

“Mmm.”

“I did not want to marry Svetlana,” he went on, rolling his eyes. “Was just… when you say bad ideas out loud so you have more ideas?”

“Talking?”

Ilya sighed.

“No. Is weather word?”

Shane blinked. He was getting pretty good at guessing what English word Ilya was going for, but…

“Brainstorming?”

“Yes! Was brainstorming.”

“Twice.”

Ilya huffed and looked away, the faint blush still along his cheekbones, and Shane could barely contain his glee that he’d actually gotten to Ilya about something. Normally he let everything roll off his back like it didn’t matter, but this was perfect payback for. Well. Everything.

“I told her I am seeing someone,” Ilya admitted after a moment.

“You told her?”

“I did not tell her it was you,” Ilya said, offering half a crooked smile. “Just that it was serious.”

Shane’s heart fluttered stupidly.

“Maybe someday,” he said, and there it was again: later, someday, after. Fuck. “She probably hates me, if she’s a Boston fan.”

That got the full crooked smile, and Ilya snuck an arm under Shane, wrapping it around his waist.

“She thinks you are good at hockey,” he said. “And cute.”

“So you agreed on something.”

“Yes. You are very cute.”

Shane just poked Ilya in the ribs again. Ilya yelped, and then they were wrestling on the couch, and then they were wrestling and kissing with hot, needy, open-mouthed kisses and then Shane got a knee in between Ilya’s legs and Ilya was on his back with Shane on top of him, Shane’s hand around his wrist, and Shane didn’t even remember doing that.

Shane leaned in and licked the hollow of his throat and Ilya tilted his head back, the tendons in his wrist flexing under Shane’s hand, and… fuck, that was good. Shane worked his way up Ilya’s neck and listened to the noises Ilya made, breathy and guttural all at once, until he ended on his lips.

“Mine,” he murmured, and squeezed Ilya’s wrist a little harder.

“Yours,” rasped Ilya, then said something in Russian.

“Hey,” Shane growled, dipping his mouth to Ilya’s ear. “No fair.”

Ilya made another noise and shifted on the couch, and then his legs were around Shane’s hips, Shane braced over him, their erections rubbing together through the pajama pants they were both still wearing.

And when Ilya looked up at him, hazel eyes lust-drunk, cheeks flushed, hair askew, lips kiss-swollen and parted, Shane felt like a god.

“Yours only,” Ilya finally translated, one corner of his mouth tugging up in a smile. “Sweetheart.”

There was nothing to do except kiss him again. Kiss him and shove clothes out of the way. Reduce Ilya to incoherent Russian. Make a mess of the couch and then lie there, sated and unmoving, until Shane really really had to leave.

“You have the keys, yes?” Ilya asked, still rumpled and in pajamas, as Shane put his shoes on. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. Oh well.

Shane just held up his keyring, now adorned with two extra keys.

“See you soon,” he said, one hand on the doorknob.

“Yes,” Ilya said, and gave him a goodbye kiss that probably took too long.

It wasn’t until Shane was back at his hotel, trying to figure out what to say to Hayden, that he realized they hadn’t even talked shit about the game tonight.

Chapter 3: What happens in Dallas-Fort Worth stays in Dallas-Fort Worth

January 2018 — Dallas

Shane’s plan was going pretty well.

Actually, Shane’s plan was going too well, because Carter Vaughan was currently making his way back to the table in the hotel bar somehow carrying eight — nine? — tequila shots.

Also, he was shouting, “Shots, baby!” at a volume that would’ve gotten them kicked out of most places, but apparently not the Dallas Four Seasons on Sunday night after the All-Star game. One found itself in front of Shane, who hesitated for a second too long.

“You two know how to do a shot, yes?”

Standing at the bar table next to Shane, Scott Hunter straightened a little and frowned at Ilya, who was across the table from them and grinning like the shithead he was.

“Of course I do,” Hunter said. “The question is whether I want to do the shot, or—"

“You are right. I think there is a Murder, She Wrote marathon on AMC right now, if you hurry.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” said another voice. “Angela Lansbury’s a legend.”

“I have an early flight,” Hunter protested, because of course he did.

“Is very easy,” Ilya said. “Step one, you pick up the glass. Like this.”

Shane didn’t even know how he made the act of picking up a fucking shot glass that obnoxious, but he did. Shane wanted to kick him under the table for being a dick and he also kind of wanted to laugh at how much he was pissing off Hunter.

“I’ve done shots bef—"

“You know you can just ignore him, right?” Shane interrupted. He’d already had two beers, so just for fun he also flipped Ilya off. Hunter’s frown deepened.

Across the table, Ilya snorted.

“How are you doing at that, Hollander?” he asked. Shane didn’t even look over.

“His bark’s way worse than his bite,” he told Hunter, exactly loud enough for Ilya to hear. “He’s basically harmless.”

“You are the expert in harmless.”

“See? And then you don’t even respond,” Shane told Hunter, who was looking increasingly concerned. “Cheers!”

He clinked his shot glass against Hunter’s, which was still sitting on the table, and then tossed it back. Somehow, the tequila got all the way down without making Shane cough, which was probably a miracle since the last time he’d had hard liquor was the summer before, at the cabin, where Ilya had busted out the good vodka on one of their last nights there and—

“YEAH!” half the table shouted and oh, God, now people were cheering Shane for doing a shot. Jesus, was he really so boring that Carter Vaughan and Matti Jalo and a bunch of other people were that excited because he’d had a drink?

Hunter sighed, looked at the shot glass like he was steeling himself, and then also knocked it back. Shane was relieved when he got an even bigger cheer, and then the table faded back into raucous conversation and another shot showed up in front of Shane, and when he took this one he clinked his glass against Ilya’s, who shouted what was presumably cheers in Russian before they both drank.

* * *

The original plan hadn’t included shots. When he’d come up with the original plan, while he was in his apartment in Montreal and on the phone with Ilya in Chicago, it had been to have a drink together. In public. After two years on the same All-Star team and seven and a half years in the same conference, two very good reasons they might be expected to have struck up an acquaintance.

Perfectly reasonable, even if it started a low-level alarm in the back of his mind that somehow, it would be too obvious.

But it worked. They grabbed beers and hung out at a table in the hotel bar, and okay, yes, Ilya was giving Shane the blow-by-blow of the board game he’d played with Shane’s parents when he had dinner with them a few weeks previous when Boston played in Ottawa, but no one could hear them so it didn’t matter, and God, it felt good. Just admitting, in public, that he knew Ilya felt… giddy.

So they had another beer as they laughed and Shane tried to explain a story J.J. had told him involving an electric scooter and a Pomeranian, and then Scott Hunter showed up to say hello. And then Vaughan came by, and Jalo, and a bunch more people and before Shane knew it he was in the middle of a party and he wasn’t quite sure how it had happened.

He was also drunk, though he was very sure how that had happened.

“You know,” said Hunter a little while later, clearly tipsy and trying to hide it because he was Scott Fucking Hunter, Upstanding Gay Hockey Citizen, “He’s actually not that bad.”

He gave Shane a significant look and tilted his head toward the other side of the table, where Ilya was grinning and cheerfully bothering someone.

“Il — Rozanov?” Shane said, super smoothly.

“Yeah,” Hunter went on, oblivious, thank fuck. He leaned in, like he was about to impart some great wisdom upon Shane. “After the NHL awards last year, when I came out, I invited everyone out to a gay club in Vegas and he’s the only guy not from my team who showed up.”

Shane stared at Hunter for a long moment, mostly because the only response he could think of was I already know this information because he told me last summer and said it was boring despite the hot men there. Also he’s secretly my boyfriend and clearly, that was not a winner.

So he finally went with, “Oh yeah? Cool.”

Hunter just shrugged, then lowered his voice.

“It was nice of him,” he said. “You sent me that email, I thought you might be interested.”

And then Shane was glad that the alcohol was already making him flush, because he’d have turned red if it wasn’t.

“Interested?” he echoed.

“That he’s not a complete asshole one hundred percent of the time,” Hunter shrugged. “You know. About everything.”

Hunter gave him another significant Patron Saint Of Gay Hockey look, and Shane decided to deal later with the fact that apparently his email hadn’t been that subtle.

“Just about most things, then?” he said, and that got a smile out of Hunter.

“Right,” he agreed.

* * *

Ilya finally got his keycard to work on the fifth try, shoved the door open, walked to the bed, flopped face-down onto the hotel comforter, and waited.

“Shit,” he told the bed. He wasn’t exactly sure how many shots he’d done after they’d shown up at the table, but it was definitely more than he’d had to drink in, like, a million years. Thank God his flight tomorrow wasn’t early.

After a few minutes, there were the unmistakable sounds of someone else drunkenly fucking up the keycard, and Ilya grinned into the mattress.

“Your door’s broken,” Shane grumbled when he walked in. Ilya didn’t move, just watched him walk across the room until he flopped on the mattress, inches away.

“Maybe you are just bad at locks.”

“Maybe you’re bad at…”

Shane narrowed his eyes, half his face smashed into the mattress.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“Finish your insult. I am very excited to hear it.”

“You’re such a dick to me,” Shane grumbled, but his face scrunched like he was trying not to laugh.

“Of course,” Ilya said, still grinning. “Is why you like me.”

“Is not.”

“You would hate if I were nice to you all the time.”

“I wouldn’t know, you’ve never tried it.”

“Fine,” Ilya said, and put on his most serious face. “You hockeyed well today, and you are very cute.”

“Still kinda dickish,” Shane said, even though he looked pleased.

“That was nice!”

Shane just made an ambivalent noise.

“You are much more fun than Scott Hunter,” Ilya said.

“There are rocks that are more fun than Scott Hunter.”

“Now who is not nice?”

Shane just narrowed his eyes, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Ilya recognized his Up To Something face. Then he stared at Shane through a tequila haze, wondering what he was up to, until seemingly out of nowhere a finger tapped his nose.

“Boop.”

And then Shane was grinning like an idiot, freckles crinkling, hair flopped sideways, and Ilya wished he could freeze that moment and delete everything: the hotel, the other NHL players, the All-Star weekend, the very idea of hockey, and just have this happy, carefree, drunk Shane and nothing else.

But he couldn’t so instead he closed the distance and kissed him, faces still half-smashed on the comforter, sloppy and drunk and open-mouthed and Shane wouldn’t stop laughing, but Ilya didn’t care. He wanted to kiss Shane every way in the world.

“That was fun,” Shane said, a few minutes later. They still hadn’t moved, except at some point their hands had tangled together on the mattress between them.

“A drunk make out?”

“Having a conversation in public,” Shane answered, suddenly serious. His fingers wiggled against Ilya’s, burrowing deeper into his hand. “The make out too.”

“Yes,” Ilya agreed softly.

Before they’d come to Dallas, they’d decided to sleep in their own hotel rooms. They’d talked on the phone and over FaceTime and told each other endless reasons why they had to keep their distance over the weekend, why they couldn’t be caught sneaking out of each other’s rooms in the morning, why they had to be cautious and careful and discreet.

But then Friday night Shane had gotten in two hours after Ilya, knocked on his door, and shoved him onto the bed. He’d come with Ilya’s hand clamped over his mouth and Ilya’s teeth in his shoulder, both of them trying and failing not to shout.

And afterward, when Shane had pulled Ilya against him and started playing with his hair, Shane hadn’t left. There were a thousand reasons he shouldn’t have stayed, but he had.

It was that night, falling asleep tangled and sprawled together, that Ilya had known their plan wouldn’t work. He wasn’t sure they could keep the secret for one more year, let alone until they retired. Not when the simple need to fall asleep together outweighed every disaster that could happen.

“We could do it again,” Ilya said, and Shane sighed. He scooted until he was on his side, facing Ilya, one arm under his head, face flushed light pink.

“When?” he asked. “When we play in —”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?’ Shane echoed, dumbly. “Where? It’s almost eleven, is anything even —”

“I take it back. You are less fun than Scott Hunter,” Ilya teased.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Dallas has bars, yes?” Ilya said, rolled onto his back, and pulled out his phone. Shane huffed but moved over, tilting his head against Ilya’s shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Shane said. “What if someone sees us?”

“Then we are buddies getting a beer,” Ilya said, scrolling Yelp. “As long as you can manage not to make out with me.”

“That’s not as hard as you think,” Shane grumbled.

* * *

Shane stood on a corner five blocks away from their hotel, watched a stoplight turn green, and wondered if he’d lost his mind. He was, at the very least, sure that he was going to regret this tomorrow morning and maybe for the rest of his life, but after some convincing by Ilya and also some more fortification from the minibar, he’d given in.

A breeze blew and he put his hands into the pockets of his coat, but it was more out of habit than anything. Dallas wasn’t cold cold. He didn’t even think it was below —

“Is there a secret password so I know it is really you?”

Ilya walked up in his own coat, plus a green knit beanie with his hair curling out the bottom and a plaid scarf, all courtesy of Shane. He was, annoyingly, still hot.

“Did anyone see you?”

“Probably. Should I not have told them I was going to meet my secret boyfriend Shane Hollander?”

Shane sighed, his breath visible in the air, and ignored the funny way his chest felt at boyfriend. He wobbled a little on his feet but he was pretty sure it was because he was wearing his glasses, not because he’d had…a lot…to drink.

“I’m just trying to keep you from getting deported,” Shane said. “You’re welcome.”

It was, maybe, a little dramatic. Ilya just grinned.

“Very sweet,” he said. “Fucking relax, is one drink. No one will know we also kiss.”

Shane scrunched his nose and watched the spotlight turn green again. He knew Ilya had a point, but he didn’t trust himself. Shane felt like it must be obvious to everyone that he was in love, like Ilya’s name was written on his skin and all people had to do was look.

His phone buzzed in his pocket with the information that their ride was getting close. Shane looked at it. Frowned. Put his phone back in his pocket. Blinked around. Adjusted his glasses and felt weird that he was wearing them outside. Looked over at Ilya, who was watching him with definite amusement.

“That’s us,” he said, nodding at a white SUV a block away. “I think.”

Ilya stepped up to him and bumped his shoulder, both his hands in his pockets.

“We are not famous here,” he said, for at least the fourth time since he’d suggested this outing. “No one in Texas watches hockey. Only football and… the cow sport.”

Shane looked over at him, blinking, and wondered what the hell the cow sport was. He looked long enough that Ilya cracked a self-conscious smile.

“You know,” he said.

“You mean the Cowboys? The football team?” As far as Shane could tell, that was pretty much the only sport Dallas cared much about, even if they did technically have an NHL team, and possibly also basketball.

“Yes. Cowboys but not football? The one where men ride cows. With ropes.”

The SUV put its flashers on and pulled toward them.

"Okay," Shane said, adjusting his glasses and pulling his jacket up and generally squirming in every possible way. "Pretend you don't know anything about hockey and try to be in—incon —”

"You're doing great."

"Fuck you. Inconspicuous. There."

Ilya just laughed and walked to the other side of the SUV.

* * *

The Boot Scoot was a gay bar. Not just a gay bar, but like, a gay bar, with rainbow flags hanging outside, a rainbow beaded curtain over the entrance, and a vintage-looking sign in the window that said LIVE MEN! with a picture of a shirtless cowboy on it. Even the font on the neon sign was somehow very gay, a thing Ilya hadn’t realized was possible until this moment.

He may have, in retrospect, have missed a couple of context clues when trying to find the bar least likely to have hockey fans in it. How was he supposed to know that a country western line dancing bar was for homosexuals?

“You are nervous,” he said to Shane as they hovered outside the entrance. “We do not have to.”

That earned him a challenging look through Shane’s glasses that was sort of annoyed and also sort of hot. Or maybe it was hot because it was annoyed. Ilya was drunk and feelings were complicated.

“You don’t get to drag me all the way here and then also make fun of me if we leave,” Shane said. “No. Fuck you, we’re doing this. Come on.”

To Ilya’s relief, the bouncer checked their IDs with absolute disinterest, and then they were inside, and he was pretty sure no one was line dancing. Or maybe they were. What the fuck was line dancing, anyway?

But The Boot Scoot was loud, and dark, and thumpy, and there was a dance floor filled with people writhing more or less in time to what Ilya assumed was a dance remix of a country song. A sign on one wall proclaimed that Sundays were 90’s Throwback Night, and a large screen on another showed a video of a man waterskiing in blue jeans.

They got beers, and since there were no tables they stood against a wall, shoulders touching, and watched the dance floor.

“Why can no one understand me?” Ilya said. He had to shout to be heard.

“What?” asked Shane, but he was grinning.

“And you think I am a dick?”

“Because you're drunk and in Texas!” Shane shouted. “Your accent gets thicker when you’re drunk. Everyone’s does.”

"I think you mean everyone's does, eh?"

Shane poked him in the side for that, and Ilya laughed.

He had one foot flat against the wall, his shoulder flat against it, like he still had a little nervous energy but was trying to hide it. When he drank from his beer bottle, Ilya watched his throat move all the way past the first undone button of his henley.

A goddamn henley, sleeves pushed up and everything, like he was starring in a romcom. Shane’s stylist must be trying to get him laid. Either that, or kill Ilya, who hadn’t known until now that he had opinions on shirt types.

“As long as you can understand me,” Ilya said, after staring for a moment.

“Obviously.” Shane tilted his head back against the wall, just enough to look up at Ilya. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Good. Then you can keep getting us drinks.”

“I’m not sure I can keep standing,” Shane said, but punctuated it with another pull from his beer bottle.

Ilya waited until he caught his eyes.

“No?” he murmured.

“Quit it.”

“Quit what?”

“You know what. You agreed.”

“I agreed to nothing.”

Shane was still looking up at him, face pink and eyes a little unfocused. The song changed, melding into something else, colored lights flashing across the dance floor. One wandered across Shane’s face and he blinked at it.

“You know your English is fine, right?”

“Of course it is. How long have I lived here?”

“Seriously,” Shane said. He did, in fact, look serious. “And it’s way better than it used to be. Even when you’re super drunk.”

“I am not that drunk.”

“You’re cute when you lie.”

Ilya snorted, and if he felt himself blush a little, at least the dark hid it.

“I am not cute, I am very hot and sexy.”

“And cute.”

Ridiculous, how that made Ilya feel. Warm and tingly and so fucking pleased, like it was the best thing anyone had ever called him. Which it wasn’t. Probably. Instead of responding, he finished his beer and stood in front of Shane who was still leaning against the wall and looking straight-up hot.

“Come dance with your cute boyfriend,” he said.

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes. Come on.”

* * *

Shane swore to himself, for at least the fifth time that night, that Ilya was never talking him into anything again. Not having a beer. Not doing shots.

Not going to a gay bar in Dallas and grinding on the dance floor.

Even if it felt fucking euphoric. The alcohol and the post-game buzz and the music and the lights and, right, his dick rubbing on Ilya’s thigh all combined into making Shane dizzy and lightheaded and pretty certain he’d never had a better time.

“You were right,” he shouted, somewhere in the vicinity of Ilya’s ear. “We’re not famous.”

And that was Ilya’s hand under his shirt, strong fingers digging into the small of his back.

“I told you,” Ilya said. He hauled Shane in a little harder. Licked his ear, and Shane gasped when he felt teeth on his earlobe. “That is for all bark and no bite.”

“You heard that?”

“Of course I heard it. You meant for me to hear it.”

Shane let his eyes close as Ilya traced his ear with his tongue and tried not to whimper.

“If you ever bite Scott Hunter, I’ll kill you both,” he said.

Ilya just laughed and kept going.

“Why would I bite anyone else when you are so delicious?”

Shane grabbed Ilya’s jaw, then, his other arm slung over one shoulder, Ilya’s stubble rasping under his fingertips, their bodies touching from shoulder to knee and now their foreheads leaning together as he brought Ilya down to meet him. Threaded his fingers through his hair and kept humping him in time to the music, more or less.

He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, how fucking dumb he was. That he should be panicking and sneaking out and sprinting back to the hotel and swearing to never even be near Ilya again in public, but he wasn’t. He felt anonymous, here, just a guy dancing with his boyfriend.

“I wish this were real,” he said, their faces still together.

Ilya’s other hand slid up under his shirt from where it had been cupping Shane’s ass.

“Is real,” he growled.

“I mean,” Shane started, and didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He didn’t know how to say anything. “This.”

“I know.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then Ilya bit his lip, and licked it, and then they were making out in the middle of a dance floor in full view of at least a dozen people, and in that moment, Shane did not give one single fuck.

The truth he couldn’t put words to was that, sometime since the summer, his world had inverted. For years his occasional hookups with Ilya had been bright spots to look forward to, exciting aberrations in the routine of his life.

But then it changed. Maybe it was the power of admission, of putting words to things he’d never even said to himself, but all the in-between time stopped feeling routine and started feeling vaguely wrong, like the world was just a little off-kilter in a way he couldn’t fix.

It only felt right in moments like this, when they were together and honest and he wasn’t hiding most of his heart.

“We should go,” Ilya said a while later, as Shane licked a line of sweat from his neck. “Somewhere else.”

“Another bar?”

Ilya just grabbed Shane’s hips and ground them into his own, pressing their erections together right there in the middle of everything and dragging a groan out of Shane.

“Somewhere private,” Ilya clarified.

“The hotel?”

“Too far.”

That, finally, sent a stab of alarm through Shane, and he was almost relieved to discover he wasn’t completely broken.

“No,” he said, and Ilya didn’t answer, just kissed him hard and deep and dragged his thigh against Shane’s cock until Shane moaned into his mouth.

“Please?” Ilya said, then bent his mouth to Shane’s ear and purred something in Russian.

* * *

“That was so fucking stupid,” Shane whispered, still pressed against the bathroom wall.

“That was so fucking hot,” Ilya answered and kissed Shane, arm braced over his head, hand still around both their cocks.

“God. Fuck.” He was breathing like he’d run a mile. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Tomorrow’s gonna suck.”

“Only for a while. But then we have four days.”

They had the same All-Star break, so they were heading to the cottage, snow be damned.

“Tomorrow morning, at least,” Shane said, looked down, and grimaced.

They had… not been especially careful, so it took a while to clean up with the single-ply toilet paper available. Before they left, Shane grabbed the front of Ilya’s shirt one last time, hauled him in for a kiss.

* * *

“Rodeo,” Shane said, suddenly. He turned so he was facing Ilya, head against the headrest, EDM pulsing softly through the car’s speakers. This driver hadn’t recognized them, either.

“What?”

“The cow sport,” Shane said. “With ropes.”

Ilya just laughed. He’d forgotten all about that, but of course Shane had remembered, had been trying to think of the word all night; of course Shane told other people to just ignore Ilya but here he was, doing anything but.

“You’re too sweet for me,” he said, eyes closed. “If this were a just world, you’d be with someone nice and just as sweet and who you could kiss in public.”

Shane just blinked at him, adoring and uncomprehending, the way he always did when Ilya said something in Russian.

He said, “So I’m glad this world is unjust.”

And Shane said, “Four days,” and then interlaced their fingers on the seat between them.

Chapter 4: Loons are very approachable

(Late) January 2018 — A Lake, Somewhere In Ontario

 

“Hollander,” Ilya said. “If you do not stop looking at your phone I will throw it in the lake.”

“Good luck, the lake’s frozen. It’ll just slide.”

“Then I will bury it in the snow so you cannot find it until the spring.”

Shane sighed, then looked up at his boyfriend, glowering as he leaned over the breakfast bar.

“Sorry,” he said, putting his phone face-down and scrubbing his hands over his face. “There’s still nothing.”

“Of course there is nothing. No one saw us,” Ilya said, that infuriating told-you-so note in his voice.

“Just because they didn’t ask us for autographs doesn’t mean they didn’t sell pictures of us making out to some gossip website,” Shane said, not for the first time that day.

“If someone had pictures of us making out they would be all over the internet already and the picture-taker would be on a yacht in the Maldives,” Ilya said.

Shane spun his phone around on the countertop and didn’t answer for a moment.

“You think those pictures are worth yacht money?” he finally said.

“If they exist they are very hot,” Ilya pointed out. “And shocking.”

Shane stared at his phone, still spinning on the counter, and tried to fight the panic that had been gnawing at him for the past thirty-six hours, the awful, ugly anticipation that at any second his phone would ring and his world would blow up. All because he’d let his guard down one fucking time.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a tiny voice was shouting about how unfair that was. Shane ignored it.

“You think they’re hot?” he said instead, and Ilya grinned.

“Of course they are hot,” he said. “I am very photogenic, and you are not bad.”

“Thanks.”

That was the other thing that kept nagging at Shane: he wanted to know what the pictures looked like. He hoped they didn’t exist, but all the same, now that he’d thought about it he was having a hard time getting it out of his mind. What he and Ilya looked like, together, when they thought no one was paying attention. As a couple.

Shane wanted one candid photo of them. Just one. They’d never taken a picture together that wasn’t for hockey.

“It was dark,” Ilya said, finally putting a hand on Shane’s phone, breaking off his train of thought. His voice was gentler, now. “If there is a picture, we will just say it is some other hot people.”

“Right,” Shane said, nodding. He couldn’t quite look at Ilya. “Of course.”

“Is no big deal.”

“I know.”

For a long moment, Shane stared at the dark screen of his phone, trying not to think.

“Hey.” Ilya tapped a finger against the back of Shane’s hand, and finally, Shane made himself look the other man in the eye.

“I hate that,” he blurted out.

“I know. I hate it too.”

“It’s stupid,” Shane said, dropping his face into his hands again. “It’s totally hypothetical, it doesn’t even matter, we obviously can’t come out—”

Ilya’s hand was on the back of his neck, and then Ilya’s head bumped against Shane’s, both of them leaning over the island in the kitchen.

“I would do it to keep this safe,” he said, quietly. “But I would hate lying about being in love with you.”

“I’d hate it too,” Shane said, quietly. They stood there for a moment. Shane itched to look at his phone again but also knew there was a real chance that Ilya would make good on his threat, and then he’d waste a day being pissed off at Ilya, which would be stupid.

“I have an idea,” Ilya said, and before Shane could say anything, he was hoisting himself over the kitchen island and hopping down next to Shane.

“You know you can go around.”

Ilya wrapped one arm around Shane and held his phone up without answering. 

“Say cheese!”

“What—” Shane got out before Ilya snapped a selfie.

“That was terrible,” Ilya said, pulling up the photo. “See?”

He was right. Shane was making a weird face, so he hit the delete button.

“You have to give me warning.”

“What did you think say cheese meant?”

Shane elbowed Ilya in the side as an answer.

“Now are you ready? I am going to count to three and then we will take a picture, yes? One, two—”

This time when Ilya looked at it, he burst into laughter at Shane’s glare.

“That one’s also not great,” Shane said dryly.

“Yes, but it is very accurate.”

Shane just sighed, and Ilya pulled him in tighter and took about fifty more pictures.

* * *

“You know you’re gonna have to delete those,” Shane said, later, as they were sprawled on the couch and going through the pictures Ilya had taken. Ilya’s thumb paused for just a moment as he swiped through.

“I know,” he said, pausing on his favorite so far: Shane, laughing with his head ducked below Ilya’s chin as Ilya kissed Shane’s hair. “This one is cute, though.”

“It is,” Shane said, and Ilya wanted to say what if I kept just one, I would be so careful, but he knew better. Some American quarterback had had his phone broken into two weeks ago, and now the whole world knew he didn’t take his Crocs off when he took dick pics. “Phones get hacked, though.”

“I know.”

“And your password is probably one-two-three-four.”

Ilya rolled his eyes and swiped to the next picture, not quite looking Shane in the eye.

“Fuck off, it is not.”

Shane pulled back, eyes narrowed as he looked at Ilya, and Ilya kept looking at his phone and not blushing, not at all, not even a little.

“Is it?” Shane asked. “Ilya, that’s like making your email password ‘password,’ it’s literally the first thing—”

“My email password is also not ‘password,’” Ilya grumbled, and finally looked over at Shane, who was regarding him with a combination of suspicion and amusement. “Is fourteen ten, okay?”

Whatever Ilya was expecting, it wasn’t for Shane to turn bright red, too.

“Oh,” he said, and Ilya smirked.

“You are that surprised I have a real password on my phone?”

“No,” Shane said. “I just—that’s, like. Cute.”

Ilya huffed and went back to looking at pictures on his phone.

“And I didn’t think you’d remember.”

Now Ilya stared, incredulous. “You thought I would forget?” As if the room number hadn’t burned itself into his brain the moment Shane had said it, all those years ago.

“I don’t know,” Shane said, and inserted himself against Ilya’s side again, burrowing in until he seemed comfortable, knocking a plaid throw pillow off the couch in the process. “I didn’t think you paid that much attention. Back then.”

He’d tried not to. All that time spent telling himself that Shane was just his hookup in Montreal, the same way he had a hookup in New York or Philadelphia or DC. As if, every year, he didn’t know the dates they’d play each other by heart despite himself.

“I did,” he said, simply, and then laughed. “I was so nervous. That first time.”

“That we would get caught?”

“That you would change your mind and not like me once you had time to think about it,” Ilya said, tossing his phone onto the couch cushion beside them.

Shane blinked up at him.

“You were?”

“Yes! I dressed up and combed my hair and everything. Now who does not remember?”

“I remembered that,” Shane said. “I just didn’t realize. Probably too busy being nervous.”

“Probably.”

“Shut up.”

“Was very cute! So innocent.”

“I was not.”

“Sure,” said Ilya and kissed Shane on the top of his head. 

After a moment, Shane reached over Ilya and grabbed his phone. 

“Try the folder labeled ‘porn’ if you are looking for ideas,” Ilya said as Shane flicked his screen open.

“Gross,” Shane muttered, opening Ilya’s texts. There, on top, was one from Jane. Shane opened it, hit edit, and then paused.

“Is it okay if I—”

“Yes.”

He deleted Jane, typed Shane Hollander, hit the save button, and tossed Ilya’s phone back on the couch.

“There,” he said. “I mean, we’re friends now, right? And we already filed the paperwork for the foundation, and it would be weird if we didn’t have each others’—”

Ilya kissed Shane so he’d stop talking. 

* * *

“We should get snowmobiles for the cabin.”

Shane twisted around on the couch, where he’d been reading, to look over at Ilya who’d reappeared from wherever he’d been for the past hour and was standing in front of the huge windows overlooking the frozen lake. It had been snowing for most of the afternoon, and now the last of the sunlight was just barely filtering through the clouds.

“Why?”

“Because I think they would look very pretty in the garage,” Ilya said, folding his arms over his chest. “Maybe we could decorate them for holidays and—"

Shane threw a plaid throw pillow at him and Ilya caught it in front of his face, laughing.

“So we can go snowmobiling, Hollander. Is fun.”

Fine. It had been a dumb question.

“They’re dangerous and I’m never here in the winter,” Shane said.

“You are here now, and you have jet skis.”

“They’re safer,” Shane said, putting his bookmark into the book and tossing it onto his coffee table. “If you fall off, you just go in the water.”

“Where you could get hit by a boat. Or eaten by a shark.”

“You know we’re on a lake, right?”

Ilya just grinned and walked over, perching himself on the arm of an overstuffed leather chair, sticking his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. Shane’s cabin wasn’t really built for winter, so even though they had the heat on, they were both wearing a few layers.

“A lake monster, then,” Ilya said.

“Maybe I should get rid of the jet skis. Apparently they’re not very safe.”

“They are safer than your stupid kayaks.”

Shane grinned, putting his slippered feet on the coffee table, next to his book. The summer before, Ilya had flipped his kayak about thirty seconds after getting in for the first time, then flipped it again about a minute later. He’d been annoyed and wet for the better part of an hour before finally getting the hang of it.

“You love the kayaks,” Shane said. “You spent like four hours in one trying to catch a turtle.”

“I wasn’t—"

“And then you started going after the loons.”

Now Ilya was grinning, too.

“Loons are very approachable!”

“Are they?”

“Next summer,” Ilya said, resolved. “I will touch a loon. Mark my words.”

“Sure.”

“You do not think I can do it?”

Ilya was starting to get that determined glint in his eye that he got whenever someone told him not to do something. It was usually trouble. It was also one of Shane’s favorite things in the whole world.

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just saying, they can swim and fly, and you’re not even—”

The lights went out. 

For a long moment, everything was perfectly silent and nearly dark.

“Fuck,” Shane finally said when the lights didn’t come back on.

“Maybe is just the circuit breaker,” Ilya said hopefully, standing. “Are the lights off everywhere, or...?”

He walked to the stairs and stopped talking when he looked up.

“Fuck,” Shane said again. Now he was also standing, one hand in his hair, panic beginning to unfurl from somewhere deep in his chest. “The generator didn’t come on. It’s supposed to come on if the power goes out. Um. Fuck. I gotta go find the…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, just left the living room, trying to remember where the binder of all the important stuff was. His mom had put it together not long after the cabin had been finished, and he’d added to it, obviously, it was his house after all and he was totally responsible enough to keep track of things like that. He just couldn’t, technically, remember where he’d put it.

“I will get flashlights,” Ilya called after him.

* * *

Shane was outside for a good fifteen minutes, long enough that Ilya was starting to consider a search party, when the door opened again and Shane entered, looking mortified. The lights still weren’t on. Neither was the heat. His cheeks and nose were pink and there were snowflakes melting in his hair as he ran a hand through it.

“Broken?” Ilya called from the fireplace, where he was watching the flames from a paraffin cube lick some kindling.

“Sort of. How much wood do we have inside?”

Some of the kindling caught, and Ilya watched it, as if his attention would make the difference between the fire catching or not.

“Shane. Did you break the generator?”

“No,” Shane grumbled. “Just answer the question.”

“Is plenty,” Ilya said, as one of the larger logs started to catch. “There is a stack right here and if we go through this, there is more right outside the sliding door off the rec room.”

“Thanks,” Shane said, and it was so quiet that from all the way across the room, Ilya could hear him exhale. It was his stressed-out exhale. “You found the candles and stuff, I guess.”

“I knew where they were.” When he’d been there last summer, Ilya had made a point of going through every room, closet, and cabinet in the cottage and practically memorizing everything. It had been mostly a desire to root himself there, let himself think of the cottage as home, maybe, a little, but a tiny piece of him had been afraid he’d never get the chance to come back because obviously, obviously there was no way this could possibly work, no way Shane could mean what he said once they were back in the real world.

Except he had. At least Ilya knew where the flashlights were.

He heard the thunk of winter boots being kicked off and set in the boot tray and a few moments later, Shane appeared. He was chewing his lip, hands jammed into the pocket of his hoodie, droplets still sparkling in his hair, cozy blue slippers on his feet. When they’d gotten there Monday afternoon, there had been slippers in Ilya’s size waiting for him. He was wearing them now.

They were really nice slippers. He kind of never wanted to take them off.

“The heat doesn’t work when the power’s out,” Shane said. “It’s supposed to be pretty cold tonight, maybe we shouldn’t stay here? But I don’t know what the roads are like, I’ve actually never come out here in the winter before, so I also don’t know when the powerlines are gonna be—”

“Hollander,” Ilya said, once he’d spun out enough. “Is fine. We have a fireplace, we have blankets, I downloaded John Wick onto my iPad, I think we will make it until morning.”

“Which one?”

“Which morning?”

Shane shot him a look, and Ilya grinned because if Shane was annoyed with him, he was starting to relax.

“Which John Wick.”

“Oh. The first one, I think? I have never seen it, only the second.”

Shane just scrunched his face.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

“Why? I thought the second one was good.”

“Do you know what sets him off on his revenge spree?”

Ilya shifted so he was sitting on the floor with his legs out, his back against the stone mantle, the fire going properly now. Orange light flickered across Shane’s face. It made Ilya think of wolves and stars and waterfowl; of terror and trust and love.

“His wife died or something?”

“Worse.”

Ilya raised one eyebrow, and Shane’s face scrunched again.

“Sort of,” he amended. “Look, you’re gonna hate it.”

* * *

“No.”

“I did warn you.”

“Tell me they did not.”

Shane said nothing, just kept playing with Ilya’s hair. It had been soothing up until now.

“Shane. I hate this. What the fuck?”

“Okay, don’t watch this part.”

Ilya turned and buried his face in the front of Shane’s hoodie. They were tangled together on the couch, the fire still going, the iPad propped up on the ottoman, a huge down comforter from one of the spare bedrooms spread over them.

“Is it over?” he asked, voice muffled.

“Almost. I think.”

“Daisy was such a good girl.”

“Well, she gets avenged.”

“They should have killed someone else! Stop laughing.”

“Sorry,” Shane said, and he didn’t stop laughing, but he did plant a kiss on top of Ilya’s head.

* * *

“They still did not need to kill the dog,” Ilya said when the credits were rolling, a few hours later. The power was still out, the fire had gotten low, and his arm was falling asleep, but he was sprawled between Shane and a down blanket and didn’t particularly ever want to move again.

“Mmm,” Shane said, noncommittally.

“I am just saying,” Ilya went on. “There were so many people in this movie. Could have been one of them.”

Shane made another noise. Ilya suspected he wasn’t really listening.

“I don’t think the power’s coming back on tonight,” Shane said. “Shit. The bedroom’s gonna be freezing.”

“If only you had not broken the generator,” Ilya teased.

“I didn’t break it,” Shane muttered.

“Is okay. Everyone is dumb sometimes,” he said, grinning. Shane covered his face with his hands. “What did you do?”

“You’re gonna make fun of me.”

“Probably.”

“I forgot fuel.”

Ilya just started laughing, his face smooshed against Shane’s chest.

“Shut up,” Shane muttered.

“You sent me one thousand checklists—”

“Not a thousand.”

“—there was a fifteen-page document on how to close the blinds when we leave—"

“Also not true.”

“—you gave me a lecture about getting the lint out of the dryer—”

“Okay, it’s a fire hazard and you never—"

“And you did not put gas in the generator.”

Shane sighed, hands still over his face, and Ilya knew he should probably quit harassing his poor boyfriend, but he really had gotten a whole fucking lecture about the dryer—and he knew about the lint trap, he just forgot one time, Jesus Christ—so this was fun.

Shane made a noise behind his hands.

“Is okay. If am going to freeze, may as well be with you.”

“So romantic.”

“We will have to huddle for warmth.”

“Is that the only reason?” Shane took his hands off his face, and one drifted into Ilya’s hair again.

“No,” he said. “You are also very comfy.”

Shane just snorted, lazily winding his fingers through in a casual, mindless way that sent little shocks of bliss over Ilya’s scalp and down his neck. Ilya was nearly asleep in about two minutes flat. Fuck, had it always felt this good to have his hair played with? There was a very real chance he was drooling on Shane, and he couldn’t have cared less.

“We should probably just bring some blankets and pillows down here and sleep in front of the fire,” Shane was saying, his voice vibrating through Ilya. “It’s, like, seriously cold upstairs.”

“Nnnggh.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me, I didn’t brush my teeth yet.”

“Do not need to brush every night,” Ilya mumbled, voice blurred.

“Hm?”

“Is fine.”

“Hey. C’mon.”

Ilya just grunted, and Shane stopped playing with his hair to poke him in the shoulder.

“Ow, what the fuck?”

“Get up.”

“Can’t.”

“Ilyaaaaaa.” More poking. “Up.”

Ilya sighed dramatically, then heaved himself to sitting.

“First the dog gets killed, then you make me get up,” he said, grumpily. “I was very comfortable.”

Shane just grinned at him.

“I’m the worst,” he confirmed, dropping a kiss on Ilya’s cheek before standing. “Come on.”

* * *

The makeshift bed was, maybe, a bit much. It was more a nest than a bed and more a blanket explosion than a nest, but it did look pretty cozy and it was in the warmest spot in the house. In fact, the floor in front of the fireplace was probably warm enough that they didn’t actually need six comforters and four throw blankets and three afghans and one fleece blanket with a wolf on it that Shane was pretty sure he’d never seen before, but they’d found all those things and arranged them into a bed-like shape on the floor and they were probably not going to freeze to death, so.

The fire extinguisher clonked on the stone mantle when he set it down, then double-checked the fire screen.

“There is already one down here,” Ilya pointed out. He was absolutely buried in blankets and pillows—they’d brought about ten down and Shane wasn’t sure why, but it had seemed like a good idea—nothing but his face visible in the firelight.

“Just in case,” Shane said, like that was reasonable.

“Is overkill,” Ilya said. “Now what will we do if the spare bedroom catches on fire?”

Shane pulled his hoodie off and threw it onto Ilya’s face. Ilya squawked in protest.

“You’re on my side,” Shane said.

“You broke the generator, I get the side by the fire,” Ilya said, tossing the hoodie onto the couch. “Is how this works.”

“I didn’t—” Shane stopped, because he wasn’t falling for that, and just sighed. “Just scoot over.”

Ilya didn’t move.

“Come on,” Shane said, poking at the lump in the blankets with one toe.

“You think kicking me will help?”

“Maybe.”

“Hollander. Quit it.”

Shane took a step closer and nudged a different part of the lump.

“Mooove.”

“Just get in bed, who cares which—”

Ilya yelped and broke off, squirming away from Shane’s foot and grabbing his ankle.

“No,” he said, scowling, and Shane grinned.

“No what?”

“No more kicking me,” he said, as Shane wiggled his toes.

“But I was finally getting somewhere.”

“You think that is what was happening?” He slid his hand up to Shane’s calf and tugged. “We are on the floor in front of a fireplace and you think poking me with your foot is the best way to convince me to do what you want?”

Shane gave in and let Ilya pull him down to the blankets on the floor, then swung a leg over his boyfriend to straddle his hips and leaned down until they were nose-to-nose. Ilya’s fingers whispered over the back of Shane’s neck, trailed down his spine, bunching and skipping through the fabric of the t-shirt he was still wearing.

“Ilya,” he said, and his voice was rougher than he meant it to be. “Would you please get the fuck on your own side?”

“How am I supposed to do that with you on top of me?”

“I can get off if you want.”

Ilya’s fingertip found the hem of Shane’s shirt and dragged it up his spine, his skin prickling between the cold air, the warm fire, the slide of fabric against his skin. 

“Not yet,” Ilya said, and kissed him. 

Slow and lazy, with one hand in his hair, like he could memorize Shane’s mouth if he just concentrated hard enough. The only sound was the crackle of the fire and hiss of the fire, and it made Shane feel like the flames were licking his skin, the heat washing over him. He ground his hips down, Ilya’s other hand already wrapped around one thigh, seeking friction—

“Okay, just kidding. You have to get off.” Shane pulled back as Ilya wriggled and pushed at his shoulder. “Is one million degrees and I am going to die of heat stroke.”

Shane snorted and rolled off as Ilya kicked at the blankets. Probably all the comforters had been a bit much.

“You’re the one who brought every single blanket down here.”

“You looked cold and I did not want you to feel bad about breaking the generator.”

Shane rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt off as Ilya selected one comforter.

“Also take your clothes off before—”

“I am.”

Ilya just put his hands behind his head, grinning as he watched, as if annoying Shane was a huge turn-on. It probably was.

“Okay,” Ilya said as Shane slid under the covers and straddled him again. “What were you talking me into?”

When they woke up the next morning, the lights were back on, Ilya’s face was pressed against the back of his shoulder, and Shane had the side of the bed by the fire.

* * *

“I can see why Hugh Hefner wore these all the time,” Ilya said as he came into the kitchen Thursday morning, hair still wet from the shower. “Is comfortable, yet freeing.”

“Who?”

“Hugh Hefner,” Ilya said again, pouring himself coffee, looking over his shoulder at Shane, who was already drinking his, hair also wet. “Playboy?”

“Oh,” Shane said. “Right.”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I know what a playboy is.”

Ilya leaned against the counter, took a long drink of coffee, and marveled that of all the people in the world, he’d fallen for this one.

“The magazine, Hollander. Is all naked women, but you have heard of it, yes? With the bunny and the tits?”

“Does this still have something to do with your robe?” Shane asked. He was fighting a blush, probably because Ilya had said tits.

“The guy who founded Playboy wore robes all the time,” Ilya explained patiently. “It was, like, his thing. He had a mansion and a bunch of blonde girlfriends and did not wear clothes, only bathrobes.”

Shane drank more coffee and considered this information.

“Why?” he asked, and Ilya shrugged.

“Comfortable?” he hazarded. “Easy access?”

Shane’s face scrunched as he typed something into his phone, and Ilya drank more coffee and wiggled his toes in his slippers. He probably wasn’t going to adopt an all-robe lifestyle, but the one Shane had gotten him for the cottage was really, really cozy and he couldn’t think of a good reason to get dressed.

Also, easy access.

“Oh, that guy,” Shane finally said, frowning at his phone. “Hayden used to watch reruns of some TV show he was on with his girlfriends. It was weird.”

“How are you a real person?” Ilya asked fondly, and Shane flipped him off.

“Just because I don’t—"

A bell rang. Ilya actually jumped. Shane looked far too entertained.

“You have a doorbell?”

Shane shot him an obviously, dumbass look as he walked out of the kitchen.

“Stay there, I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder.

Ilya, to his credit, did stay there. He stood there and drank his coffee in nothing but a very warm flannel robe and slippers and behaved himself for at least thirty seconds, until he thought he might die of curiosity over who was ringing the doorbell at the cottage at eleven on a Thursday morning.

Then he gave in and followed. He was using his Polite Media Voice, which was very cute, saying something about the best fans and team effort and blah blah blah. More importantly, when Ilya very carefully peeked around the corner from the kitchen, the front door was open. He could see Shane and the pile of boxes next to Shane, but not whoever Shane was talking to.

Ilya did a quick calculation about how much he could actually afford to piss Shane off, then sauntered around the corner and leaned against the wall. Shane didn’t look over, but based on the way his entire body went rigid, he’d seen him.

Well. This was fun. Shane kept nodding, eyes resolutely forward, so Ilya grabbed one end of the belt on his robe and tugged until the bow came loose. He twirled it around, still leaning against the wall. Shane’s ears were bright red and he ran one hand through his hair, still not looking at Ilya.

He slid one hand down his chest, inside the robe, nudging it open a little further. Shane didn’t look. Ilya didn’t make any noise—Shane would actually murder him if he did, he was pretty sure—but he did bite his lip and tilt his head back and let the robe open even more, a little past where the belt was still theoretically holding it together.

Nothing from Shane. Who the hell was he talking to? The guy’s voice was hard to hear, but Ilya thought he was going on about Shane’s greatest hockey achievements. Which was nice of him, but Ilya was more fun, so he turned around, untied the robe, and let it slide slowly off his shoulders and down his back.

Finally, the door shut. Ilya re-tied the robe and had just barely turned around when Shane was stomping toward him, scrunched-up and blushing.

“What is wrong with you?” he hissed, as if the delivery guy could hear through walls.

“You did not like my striptease?”

Shane glared, but Ilya could tell it was only a fifty percent effort.

“Was my first striptease,” he admitted. “I probably need practice. We could put a pole up in the bedroom.”

“How was I going to explain you being half-naked in my kitchen?” Shane said, ignoring Ilya’s very good idea about a stripper pole.

“I was in the area and stopped by?” Ilya said, grinning. Shane was looking less angry by the second. “Maybe I came in through a window when you were not looking. As a prank.”

“That’s a terrible prank.”

“Yes, you would know.”

That got a snort out of Shane, at least, and then he was tilting his head and lightly adjusting Ilya’s robe where it closed over his chest, the backs of his knuckles scraping along Ilya’s bare skin. There was a confidence to the movement that kept Ilya’s mouth shut, and when Shane finally raised his eyes, the look was more than a little predatory.

Ilya didn’t shiver. Well, he didn’t shiver that much. His dick definitely got interested, though.

“You know, I didn’t really see the striptease,” Shane said. “Which kind of defeats the point.”

“True,” Ilya said, Shane’s finger working its way back up his chest, and Ilya was never going to get over the way Shane touched him, sometimes, like this. Possessive, like putting his hands on Ilya was his right. “But you know the rule of stripteases, yes?”

Shane just lifted one eyebrow.

“No touching,” Ilya said.

* * *

“What is in the box?” Ilya asked, lying in bed thirty minutes later, his face pressed into Shane’s side and one leg thrown over both of Shane’s. The sheets were somewhere. They were sticky. They had broken the striptease rule, like, a lot.

“What box,” Shane mumbled, one hand flat on the back of Ilya’s neck.

“The box you got delivered?”

“Photo printer.”

* * *

“Try it again?”

Ilya tapped something on his phone. They both stared at the printer.

Absolutely nothing happened.

“Maybe it takes a minute?” Shane said from where he was sitting on the floor, behind the printer, staring at the cords plugged into the back. “You hit print, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you sent it to—“ 

“We are in the middle of nowhere on a frozen lake! There is only one printer on the network!”

Shane swore under his breath and grabbed the user manual for the printer again, but it was as spectacularly unhelpful as it had been the first thousand times he’d consulted it. Ilya pocketed his phone and started flipping things open and shut on the printer, like that would help.

Two days ago, taking stupid pictures with Ilya that he knew he’d have to delete, impulse-buying a top-of-the-line photo printer had seemed like a great idea. Today, trying to make the damn thing work, Shane was starting to wish he’d gotten something a little more user-friendly.

“Wait,” Ilya said, snapping the cover shut again. “Now the tiny screen says ‘enter password.’”

“It’s a printer!” Shane said, exasperated, as he got to his feet. “How the fuck do I enter a password? There are three buttons!”

“Let me see the manual?”

It took all of Shane’s self-control not to throw it at Ilya, who had, for once, done nothing wrong.

* * *

But the pictures were so, so fucking cute. Shane had also blown way more money than was justified on UV-proof frames and super-fancy photo paper, so now there were three of them on the mantle. Shane wanted to memorize them. He wished he’d thought to print a smaller version of one, wallet-sized or something, so he could keep it in the back of a drawer at home and pull it out when he needed to remind himself that this was real.

“We should go,” he told Ilya, who just tightened his arm across Shane’s chest.

“One more minute,” he said, and they didn’t really have one more minute, not if Ilya wanted to make his flight, but Shane didn’t move. Their bags were in the cars and the blinds were closed and the heat was down, the cottage ready to hibernate again until the summer. 

“Thanks for coming out here,” he said. Like he was hosting a dinner party and Ilya was that coworker he only kind of knew but not really and they were saying their polite goodbyes.

Even though they were facing the same direction, Shane could feel the weird look Ilya gave him.

“Thank you for having me?” he drawled, and Shane laughed, sort of, and leaned his head back against Ilya because he couldn’t quite look at him right now.

“I know you didn’t have you come to a boring frozen lake in the middle of winter,” he said. “I’ve seen the Bears’ group texts.”

They were in the Bahamas somewhere, Shane was pretty sure, and it looked warm and fun and full of very attractive people in tiny bathing suits. Meanwhile, they’d hung out in hoodies and slippers and the power had gone out.

Mostly, it didn’t bother Shane that Ilya had slept with literally hundreds of people. Jealousy didn’t come naturally to him, and if he was being really honest with himself, he was competitive. He liked to win things. Knowing that he was Ilya’s favorite out of a very large selection kind of did it for him, sometimes.

But still, other times, it was hard not to look at what Ilya had given up and wonder if Ilya would ever change his mind back. Shane mostly didn’t think about it.

“Looks fun,” Ilya said, shrugging behind Shane. “Probably not as much fun as coming so many times I think my dick might fall off.”

“Why are you so gross?”

Ilya pulled him a little closer. When he spoke, it was right in Shane’s ear.

“I think you like it,” he said. “We could try one more time just to see—”

“You’re already going to be sprinting through the Ottawa airport,” Shane pointed out.

“I can sprint faster.”

Shane just snorted and didn’t answer.

“You know I would rather be here, right? With you?” Ilya said, after another moment, and Shane’s insides went all warm and gooey, and he pushed his face against Ilya’s neck.

“I know,” he mumbled, and inhaled: coffee and Ilya’s detergent and the shampoo from Shane’s shower, all mixed together, and they had to go right the fuck now but he just wanted another minute, another second—

“You should kiss me goodbye now,” Ilya said. “It is probably not a good idea at the airport.”

Shane pulled back and took Ilya’s face in his hands, thumbs over his cheekbones, and Ilya gave him a small, crooked smile.

“What?”

“Sorry,” he said, and then, “I love you.”

“Why sorry?”

“I don’t know. I’m Canadian.”

Now it was Ilya’s turn to take Shane’s face in one hand, look at him like he was staring into a bottomless pool.

“I love you too,” he said, and they kissed.

* * *

Ilya made his flight with precisely two minutes to spare. There were several cell phone videos of him flat-out sprinting through the Ottawa airport.

When the hockey press asked him why he’d been in Ottawa, the only answer he ever gave was, “Is beautiful in the winter.”