Summary:

Shane catches a cold and Ilya makes him a tea. The hotel’s carpet, patterned in a taste Ilya found offensive, carried him toward the end of the hall. With each quiet step, the knot in his chest cinched tighter. Excitement tangled with trepidation, the need to touch Shane pressing harder than the fear that this time, the door would remain closed. Perhaps Hollander had already written off their handful of hurried meetings as a fluke. A mistake. But this was Boston. His hometown. And Ilya had already been lucky once tonight. A five–three win, an additional two goals on his record-breaking season. Midnight had only just passed; maybe the day still owed him one more kindness. When he reached the room number Hollander had reluctantly given him in passing, murmuring in the hallway behind the rink before the game, Ilya paused. He glanced over his shoulder, down the empty corridor, confirming no one would witness him slipping into his competition’s room. Then, with a staccato drum beating beneath his battered ribs, he raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the door. Time slowed to a near halt as he waited, restlessly tapping his foot against the floor for any shuffle behind the door. Nothing came. He knocked again, harder. Most of the Metros were likely out drowning Boston’s nightlife, but Ilya was certain Hollander wasn’t among them. There was a long list of things he still didn’t know about him, but one truth had surfaced early: number twenty-four wasn’t a fan of parties, or drinking, or dancing. Boring, Ilya had declared at the time, unwilling to admit he’d found the abstinence quietly endearing. It was rare, after all, for a man in his early twenties, at the prime of his life, blessed with a generous salary and a face most people recognized, to spend his nights watching juvenile YouTube videos and sipping Ginger Ale alone in a hotel room. He lifted his hand to knock a third time. The soft vibration in his jeans pocket stopped him. Can’t happen tonight. Sorry. Disappointment bloomed bitter on his tongue. He swallowed it down, refusing to give it room to linger. So that was it. Their fling, short-lived, messy, clumsy, infuriatingly fun, was over Even as Ilya tried to accept the truth of it, his hand betrayed him, knocking anyway. At the faint rustle of bedsheets behind the door, he tugged out his phone and typed a quick reply. I know you’re there. Open up, Hollander. Somewhere inside the room, he heard a humorless sound bleed through the silence. Half a laugh, half a breath. Then, a cough. It sounded hollow, dry. Another text. Go away, Rosanov. Ilya’s determination was fierce, an unstoppable force. It was what had carried him this far, onto Boston’s starting line, into the life he’d dreamed of as an eight-year-old with a pair of used skates and only the roughest grasp of English. That same tenacity refused to let him walk away now. He sighed, dragging a hand through his brown curls as he weighed his next move. Someone’s going to see me. It wasn’t dignified, dangling the threat of exposure over Hollander’s head. Rumors would spread fast if he were found loitering outside a competitor’s hotel room in the dead of night, and they’d damn Ilya just as thoroughly as they would Hollander. Still, when it worked, satisfaction curled warm in his chest. The deadbolt slid free, and the sound sparked low in his stomach. “Get in,” Hollander rasped. “Now, you idiot.” “So excited to see me,” Ilya teased, slipping through the narrow opening and pulling the door shut behind him. The television was the room’s only light, its flicker casting long shadows over the rumpled sheets and a small pile of Kleenex on the nightstand. Ilya’s gaze snagged there, drifted to a bottle of NyQuil, then lifted back to Hollander. Red nose. Swollen eyes. Instinctively, he stepped back. “You’re sick.” “You think I was playing like shit for fun?” Hollander snapped, though the bite didn’t land. Whatever fire he’d burned on the ice was gone now. The man in front of him was spent, shirtless and damp with sweat, trousers hanging low and wrinkled on his hips, exhaustion etched into every line. Still, Ilya’s attention lingered. He couldn’t help noticing the shape of his bare arms, remembering the way those fingers had slid up his chest, over his cheek, through his hair. “Not worse than usual,” Ilya shrugged, resisting a smile when Hollander rolled his eyes. “Fuck off,” Hollander muttered. Their usual banter fell flat when every word cost him something, when his limbs dragged as he turned back toward the bed and nearly collapsed onto the edge of the mattress. “You want to get sick too? You’ve got a game tomorrow.” “I am Russian,” Ilya said simply. “Russians do not get sick.”