Summary:

“Let’s make a deal.” The words come out of his mouth without his permission but they make a flicker of a smile appear on Shane’s face, private and fond. He nods, silently urging Ilya to keep going. “In ten years, fifteen,” he starts, gritting his teeth against his own anxiety. “When hockey is done and no one gives a fuck about us anymore and- and I have American citizenship. If- if we are both still single, then we can try.” Shane goes still, hand dropping from Ilya’s face and mouth parting. Ilya has a moment or two to panic that he’s somehow completely miscalculated but then Shane’s expression breaks over an awed sort of smile. “Like those romcom couples, huh?” Ilya blinks. It’s not what he’d expected Shane to say. “What?” Shane’s smile widens into a grin. “You know those movies where like, two best friends make a pact that if they’re both still single when they’re forty then they’ll get married-” “You are proposing, Hollander? Is so sudden-” * In which Shane and Ilya decide to end things in Tampa, make a deal about someday, and end up on the same team together five years later.