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“—and then Ruby threw up on my freshly washed sweater again,” Hayden sighed, setting his coffee cup down. “At that point I told Jackie I didn’t even care anymore and she might as well just throw it in the trash.”
Rose snorted so hard she nearly sprayed cookie crumbs everywhere. “The hard life,” she said. “This is exactly why you stay childfree.”
“Or get a vasectomy,” Troy added. A barista called out his name for his drink and he stood up to retrieve it.
Shane rolled his eyes, smiling a little. “I think it might be a bit late for that.”
Hayden groaned. “But seriously. How is it possible to love something that much and also want to strangle it with your bare hands?”
“That doesn’t sound especially healthy,” Shane pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
Hayden just shook his head. “Wait until you have kids. Then you’ll understand.”
Rose looked like she’d just had some kind of traumatic flashback and shuddered. “Ugh, don’t even talk about it. I went on a date with a guy a couple of weeks ago, and on the first date he told me I had ‘good childbearing hips.’”
Shane nearly choked on his ginger ale. Even Troy, who sat down with his latte in hand, and Hayden looked impressed.
“Jesus. That’s misogyny on a whole new level,” Hayden said. “What did you say?”
Rose shrugged. “I told him he could take the bill and shove it up his ass, since that’s apparently where his head is too, and come back when he’s no longer living in the Middle Ages and expecting a woman’s only purpose to be a hole that either swallows his kids or pushes them out.”
Troy let out a low whistle. “Damn. Tell them, girl.”
Shane had to agree Rose’s comeback had been flawless.
“So, in other words, not much success on the romance front?” Hayden asked.
Rose shook her head. “Went on another date a few weeks ago. He was nice enough, but it turned out he was in an ‘open relationship,’ which I strongly suspect was only open on his end.”
Troy grimaced sympathetically. “The dating pool is absolute hell right now.”
Hayden snorted. “You’ve been seeing the same guy for eight months.”
Troy shrugged, suddenly avoidant. “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
Rose eyed him skeptically. “You’ve met each other’s parents, you went to her brother’s wedding, and you’re ‘just having sex’?”
Troy shrugged again, looking like he desperately wanted to change subject. “Yeah?”
Hayden shook his head. “Sometimes I think maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be woken up at five in the morning by a three-year-old trying to build a mountain out of bath foam.”
The conversation kept flowing, but Shane drifted out of it, his attention dropping to his phone. He had a new message.
Ilya <3
Я скучаю по тебе <3
Shane smiled to himself. He still couldn’t read Russian very well, but this was a phrase Ilya sent often enough that Shane recognized it immediately: I miss you. A little clumsily, typing slowly, Shane wrote back I miss you too in Russian, using Cyrillic letters, and hit send.
It had been almost two months since they’d last seen each other. That wasn’t exactly a record for them; Ilya’s brutal training schedule had pushed them early on into something that looked a lot like a long-distance relationship. Most of the time, they only saw each other when Ilya played in Canada, which wasn’t often. A few times Shane had flown out to see him, but plane tickets were expensive, and lining up more than a day or two off together during the busiest part of hockey season was nearly impossible.
So two months wasn’t that bad. Still, Shane missed him.
Ilya had a game in Montreal in five days. He’d said he probably wouldn’t have time to meet beforehand, but maybe — hopefully — they could steal a few hours afterward. Shane was embarrassingly eager for the week to be over.
He sighed inwardly. Dating a world-famous hockey star wasn’t easy, especially when their relationship was still half-secret. It wasn’t that they’d decided to hide it; both Shane and Ilya were out. It was more that it was… nice, having something low-key. Private. Especially when Shane knew he would inevitably be compared to Ilya.
Shane, Hayden, and Troy played hockey locally, mostly for fun. He was nowhere near the level of Ilya Rozanov, international hockey superstar. The thought of the scrutiny and the media attention that would come with going public made him shudder.
“Shane?”
He blinked and looked up at Rose, who was staring at him expectantly.
“Sorry, what?”
Rose arched an eyebrow. “I asked if you’ve had any hot hookups lately. Of the appropriate gender?”
Shane snorted and rolled his eyes. Rose loved reminding him of that period when they’d tried dating, before Shane had realized that he was — as Ilya had so helpfully put it — super gay. But Rose had also been the one who’d helped Shane figure it out and admit it to himself in the first place, and she’d been an enormous support during his coming-out process. So he supposed she’d earned the right to tease him about it every now and then.
“I don’t think it counts as a hot hookup when you’ve been together for almost a year and it’s been weeks since you last saw each other.”
He reached for his can again, took a long sip — and then noticed the way all of them were looking at him. There was a particular kind of silence in their gazes, uncomfortably familiar. It reminded him of the look Rose had worn that night at the restaurant when she’d confronted him about his sexuality.
He lowered the can.
“What?”
Rose, Hayden, and Troy exchanged looks, and now it was obvious — they were thinking something. Something Shane was not going to like.
“Shane,” Hayden said, and yep, that was his you’re not going to like what I’m about to say voice. Shane braced himself mentally for an interrogation on par with the one about his sexuality.
“We weren’t really planning on bringing it up now, but … screw it. Might as well.”
Shane blinked. “Bring up what?”
Rose sighed and bit her lip. “The whole Ilya thing.”
Shane stared at her, confused — and then it clicked. He groaned loudly.
“Please don’t tell me you still don’t believe me.” His friends were among the very few people who knew about his relationship with the famous hockey player.
“It’s not exactly that we don’t believe you,” Hayden said quickly, clearly trying to smooth things over. “It’s more that you’re… well. You.”
Rose winced at him, and he shrugged helplessly. Shane rolled his eyes.
“Wow, thanks, man. Keep the compliments coming, my heart’s fluttering.”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you, Shane,” Rose hurried to say, jumping in to save the situation. “It’s just that you’re pretty introverted and you avoid social situations like the plague. Other than playing hockey, you mostly sit at home reading or watching hockey. The only people you ever see are me and Hayden — I’m honestly surprised Troy came along today — because we’re basically the only friends you have.”
“Wow,” Shane said flatly. “Thanks. That feels less like a discussion about my imaginary boyfriend and more like an attack on my personality, but sure. Go on.”
Rose sighed loudly and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Shane. That was harsh. But we’re saying it because we care.”
“If you cared, you’d believe me,” Shane muttered, staring down at his half-eaten tuna sandwich.
“It’s not — I mean, we don’t think you’re straight-up lying,” Hayden tried. “We just think you might’ve… embellished the truth a little? I mean, Rozanov himself isn’t made up. I can’t open a single hockey news site without seeing his face blown up to fill the screen.” He shuddered slightly.
“And,” Rose added eagerly, as if to back up Hayden’s reasoning, “we all know Rozanov was at that hockey charity event for suicide prevention last year. So it’s not at all unrealistic that you two started talking there.” She hesitated. “Even if I have a hard time picturing you being the one to start that conversation.”
Shane threw his hands up. “What is this, Bully Shane Day?”
“Anyway,” Hayden said quickly, “we just think you might’ve been a bit generous with the details about you and Rozanov… continuing to see each other?”
“Do you need to get laid?” Rose asked bluntly. “Because I still have Miles’ number. If you’re interested, I’m pretty sure he’d be down.”
Shane groaned loudly and buried his face in his hands. “I do not need a pity fuck! The problem is that you don’t believe me!”
“Shane,” Hayden said soothingly, resting a hand on his shoulder. “We believe you… partially.”
Shane glared at him through his fingers.
“But come on,” Hayden continued. “Even you have to admit it sounds a little strange.”
“What part of this is strange?” Shane asked, frustrated.
Rose shrugged. “Well. For starters, Rozanov is, like, one of the most famous people in hockey right now. So famous he’s practically starting to break out beyond hockey circles. He’s known for being flirty and for taking home a new woman every couple of months — which he’s been more than happy to show off in the media.”
“That was a long time ago,” Shane muttered. “And the media plays it up. It wasn’t that many. Some of them were just friends.” Though honestly, Rose wasn’t wrong — Shane himself still sometimes struggled to wrap his head around the fact that he was dating a celebrity, practically a god in the hockey world.
“But he’s never gone public about dating men,” Rose pressed gently. “Not that it’s any of our business, and bisexuality exists, but still. It’s kind of hard to picture the captain of Boston swinging both ways?”
“Given how he looks, I have a hard time picturing him in a relationship at all,” Hayden agreed.
Both Rose and Shane turned to stare at him. Hayden shrugged. “What? I can think the guy’s an arrogant asshole and still admit he’s objectively good-looking. If you swing that way. Which I don’t.”
“On top of that,” Rose continued, “we all know Rozanov, especially as a team captain, has a completely insane schedule. I don’t know anything about hockey, but if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that they train like animals during the season. You’re saying you actually have time to date during that?”
“And long-distance, too,” Troy added. “Considering he lives in the US.”
Shane shot him a look that very clearly said Et tu, Brute? He sighed deeply and rubbed his temples.
“Okay, that last part I’ll give you,” he said. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time. It sucks, and it’s definitely a challenge. But we talk. We call and text all the time.”
Which was true. Communication between them had been hard — especially at the beginning, back when they were still stuck in some kind of situationship and Shane wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t hallucinated the moment Ilya Rozanov had cornered him at the charity gala and asked for his number in the bathroom. There had been weeks of sexting and uncertainty, one hook-up when Ilya was back in Montreal for a game, and otherwise a whole lot of ambiguity about what they… were. Shane had spent a long time wondering if he was just another notch on Ilya’s belt — until they’d finally pulled on their big-boy pants and talked it out.
Now they were in an otherwise happy, exclusive relationship, and Shane knew the media was sniffing around like bloodhounds for the woman who’d been leaving hickeys on Rozanov’s neck before games — the mysterious woman who’d apparently made Rozanov stop showing up every other Friday with a new girl on his arm.
“Mmmhm. And do we get to see those conversations?” Rose asked.
Shane thought about the things he and Ilya texted each other and flushed hard. “Absolutely not.” He would rather die than let his friends see what he and Ilya sent back and forth. Just thinking about the message — and the photo — Ilya had sent that morning, the one Shane had woken up to, had him blushing all the way up to his hairline.
“There it is again. A little suspicious, if you ask me,” Rose said.
Shane scoffed. “Sorry for not wanting to show you my private conversations with my boyfriend. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to see them anyway unless you’re in the mood to be traumatized.”
“Photos, then?” Hayden pressed. “Do you have any pictures of the two of you together?”
Shane thought about the gallery on his phone, about the entire folder full of photos of Ilya. Some of them were nice. Innocent. Ilya in the sunlight, standing on the dock at the cottage wearing nothing but swim trunks. Ilya, grumpy and half-awake. Ilya leaning against the kitchen island with a glass of vodka in his hand.
Most of the photos were… significantly less innocent.
“I have pictures, but they’re private.”
Rose threw up her hands. “You can’t say that and then be surprised we don’t believe you.”
Shane groaned loudly. “Excuse me for not wanting to show you my boyfriend’s ass?”
“Don’t you have a single innocent photo?” Troy asked.
Shane hesitated. He opened his gallery, shielded the screen with his hand, and scrolled carefully.
“Here!” he said triumphantly, holding up his phone.
Rose, Troy, and Hayden leaned closer. It was a photo of Ilya sitting at a restaurant, wearing a black shirt, his hair softly curled. He was smiling warmly at Shane — that particular smile that was just for him.
“You’re not in the picture,” Rose pointed out. “How do we know this isn’t just some random photo you grabbed off the internet?”
Shane slapped the phone face-down on the table. “Seriously?”
Hayden shrugged. “And on top of that, Rozanov doesn’t have a single photo on social media that even hints at him being in a relationship.”
Shane was so frustrated he could barely get the words out. “Because — because he’s famous! His accounts are run by his PR manager, and they’re focused on his hockey career. Not pictures of his boyfriend in Montreal.”
Rose bit her lip and shook her head. Shane knew he had lost the fight and deflated.
“I’m sorry, Shane,” she said apologetically, “but all of this just sounds too unbelievable.”
Shane sighed deeply and stared down at his soda can.
Footsteps approached. Jackie appeared, leaning down to press a quick kiss to Hayden’s cheek.
“Hey!” she said, sitting down next to her husband and pulling off her scarf. “What are you guys talking about?”
“We’re discussing Rozanov,” Rose said matter-of-factly.
Jackie nodded in understanding. “Ah. Shane’s imaginary boyfriend?”
Shane threw his hands up so violently he nearly knocked over his drink.
“For the last time, he is not imaginary! He is very real, very normal, and very sweet — even if he is extremely famous. We met at the charity gala, started talking about hockey, kept texting, and now we’re together. I am not having this conversation again.”
He braced himself for pushback — for sighs and sarcastic sure, if you say so’s — but instead Rose, Jackie, Hayden, and Troy were all staring at something behind him.
Shane frowned, taken aback by the sudden change in behaviour “What?”
Rose blinked several times in rapid succession.
“Tell me if I’m wrong,” she said weakly, “but is that Ilya Rozanov walking toward our table?”
“What?”
Shane turned so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. He was sure Rose had to be mistaken — that they were seeing some other tall, muscular guy with curly hair and vaguely Russian features who just happened to be in a cozy café in Montreal at four o’clock on a Tuesday.
But no.
It was Ilya.
He was walking straight toward them, wearing a simple, stylish jacket and jeans. He spotted Shane, lifted an eyebrow — and smiled.
Shane could barely find words as Ilya sat down beside him and shrugged out of his jacket, completely unfazed by the fact that everyone at the table — Shane included — was staring at him like he’d just materialized out of thin air.
“Hi!” he said cheerfully, with that cocky, crooked grin of his. “My name is Ilya Rozanov. You are Shane’s friends, yes?”
They were still gaping at him like he was a three-meter-tall giant who’d dropped out of the sky. Ilya reached out and shook each of their hands in turn. It said a lot about how stunned Shane’s friends were — they shook his hand back on pure autopilot, not even offering their names.
“And last,” Ilya said, turning to Shane, “my own beautiful boyfriend. Hi.”
He pressed a kiss to Shane’s cheek and wrapped an arm around him. Shane was struggling to process what was happening. Ilya wasn’t supposed to be here. Ilya was supposed to be in the US and wouldn’t be in Montreal for several more days.
And yet here he was — devastatingly attractive in a tight white T-shirt, grinning like he knew he’d just rebooted Shane’s brain and his friends’.
“Wh — what…” Shane stammered, still speechless. “What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be here for a few more days!”
Ilya shrugged. “Yes, but I am captain. I said I needed to come two days early to take care of things. Not big problem.”
Shane frowned, struggling to process. “They believed you?”
Ilya shrugged again. “Probably not.”
He reached for Shane’s ginger ale, took a sip, and grimaced. “Fuck, I don’t understand how you drink this shit.”
“It’s good,” Shane said automatically, “and good for a —”
“— balanced diet,” Ilya cut in. “Yes, I know, moya lyubov. That’s why you also eat tuna sandwich that looks like shit compared to my tuna melts.”
He grinned, and Shane felt the paralysis finally fade. He couldn’t stop the wide smile spreading across his face.
“You’re here.”
“I am here,” Ilya confirmed, leaning back against the couch.
“And you don’t have practice for another three days.”
“When the rest of the team arrives,” Ilya agreed. “So we have three days together. I hope you have space in your apartment, because I didn’t book a hotel for these nights.”
Shane blinked. “You came straight here?”
Ilya shrugged. “Directly from airport. Sent my bag to hotel. Wanted to surprise you.”
A sudden warmth bloomed in Shane’s chest. Fuck. His boyfriend was the best.
“So that text you sent was just a decoy?”
“Yes. Wanted to see your face when you thought I was in US but I am here.”
Shane fought a grin that threatened to split his face in half.
“You’re the best, you know that?” he asked.
Ilya shrugged. “You can say it more times.”
Shane groaned and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “God, I forgot how massive your ego is.”
“It’s not the only thing that’s big,” Ilya replied, raising his eyebrows.
A small gasp from Rose reminded Shane that they weren’t alone. Reluctantly, he turned back to his friends. Thankfully, their mouths were closed now, though they were still staring at Ilya with eyes like saucers.
“Right. Ilya, these are my friends. Uh, this is Hayden. He plays on the local hockey team, like I do.”
Hayden just blinked at Ilya. Shane kicked him under the table.
“Say something!” he hissed. “You never shut up otherwise.”
Hayden cleared his throat and managed to recover a little.
“So, Ilya,” he said hoarsely. “You… are real. Really good, I mean. Your day. Is good. Are you having a good day?”
Shane buried his face in his hands. This was a disaster.
Luckily, Ilya just chuckled and wrapped an arm around him. “I get to see Shane today, so it is very good day.”
Fuck. Shane tried not to melt in front of his friends. It was extremely difficult.
“Stop,” he muttered, trying to hide his blush.
Ilya made a little clicking sound with his tongue. “What? It is true. I thought we wouldn’t see each other for five more days. Now we have almost three full days together. That is good.”
He glanced at Shane’s friends. “Your friends can come with us, if they want.”
“No!” Shane said quickly, then cleared his throat. He didn’t actually mind Ilya meeting his friends, especially since Shane could finally rub it in their faces that yes, he really was dating Ilya Rozanov and no, he wasn’t delusional or an incel. But he was also selfish. And he wanted Ilya to himself for the little time he had before training started.
“Maybe another time,” he added. “But you can get to know them now. This is Troy — he mostly tags along when we need extra numbers in the group.”
Troy rolled his eyes. “Fuck you, man.”
Rose gasped. “You can’t say fuck in front of hockey star Ilya Rozanov!”
“You absolutely can,” Shane snapped. “He doesn’t need anyone to blow up his ego even more.”
Ilya shrugged. “I know something else that can get blown…”
“And this is Jackie, Hayden’s wife, as you might remember,” Shane cut in quickly.
“Ah.” Ilya nodded solemnly. “How is Amber?”
Jackie lit up. Shane felt a flicker of guilt when he realized Ilya remembered the name of Hayden’s newborn and he himself didn’t.
“She’s doing great, thank you! All the little monsters are with their grandparents right now. Hayden and I are about to go pick them up.”
Hayden groaned. “Three hours of peace,” he muttered wistfully.
Jackie smacked him on the back of the head. Shane briefly wondered if it was a bad look to seem like you hated your own kids.
“And this is Rose.”
Ilya’s expression darkened slightly. Shane couldn’t help feeling a little smug. Not even a world-famous hockey star — regularly ranked among the best-looking players in the world — was immune to a bit of old-fashioned jealousy. Still, Ilya nodded politely at Rose, even though his grip on Shane’s shoulders tightened just a fraction.
Rose cleared her throat. “So,” she said, her voice still a bit too bright. “You… hockey’s going well?”
Sweet, dear Rose. At least she was trying to sound normal in front of Ilya.
“Yes. I have good feeling about the game this week,” Ilya replied, shrugging. “We will crush Montreal. Sorry, baby.”
Shane shrugged. “It’s not my team, so.” His own low-key local team didn’t inspire enough patriotism for him to lose his mind over a loss to the Boston Bears.
Hayden frowned. “Montreal is a thousand times better than the Boston Bears,” he said. “Your strategy can suck my —”
“Hayden,” Jackie snapped.
Troy snorted. “Man,” he said to Hayden, “you do realize you’re talking to Ilya Rozanov? Captain of the Boston Bears? You can’t say his strategy sucks.”
“Once again,” Shane muttered, “you can say whatever you want. Literally anything. As long as you talk and don’t just stare like zombies.”
Ilya shrugged. “It depends. Not everything that sucks is bad. Sometimes it is good when people… suck.”
Shane thunked his forehead against the table. “Maybe not anything, then.”
“Why haven’t you posted about Shane on social media?” Hayden asked bluntly, and god, the intention was good, but why did he have zero social awareness today?
Luckily, Ilya didn’t seem bothered by the question. “My social media is mostly run by my manager,” he said, shrugging. “And I try to keep work and private life separate. Though I am thinking about going public with our relationship soon.”
Shane blinked, momentarily stunned. “You are?”
Ilya waved a hand dismissively. “Too much speculation. Very annoying. I want to brag about my boyfriend.”
Troy made a strangled noise. Christ. Why were all of Shane’s friends socially inept?
“So,” Rose said quickly, “you must be tired, Ilya, coming straight from the airport.”
Bless Rose. She was very clearly trying to compensate for everyone else’s awkwardness and steer the conversation somewhere survivable. Shane decided he owed her an exceptionally good birthday present.
Ilya stretched. “A little,” he said. “It would be nice to go home and rest a little.”
He looked pointedly at Shane, who took a second too long to reboot.
“Of course! I parked right outside. Come on.”
He stood up — maybe a little too eagerly, but whatever. He was about to be alone with his boyfriend, whom he hadn’t seen in far too long. Sue him.
He downed the last of his drink and looked expectantly at Ilya, who was grinning like he knew exactly what Shane was thinking.
“It was nice to meet you,” Ilya said politely to the others — which was a testament to what an incredible boyfriend he was, because that was a blatant lie. None of this had been nice. Shane’s entire friend group had behaved like this was their first time interacting with another human being.
They all echoed a flat, delayed “you too,” like they still hadn’t fully recovered. Shane gave them a half-hearted wave.
“See you,” he said, adding a pointed warning to this tone, something along the lines of: Naughty friends. Bad behavior. We will be discussing this later.
For now, he took his very real boyfriend’s hand, savoring the simple fact that he could — that his boyfriend was here — and headed for the exit.
As soon as they were a few footsteps away, they heard his friends erupt into furious whispers behind them:
“What the fuck was that?”
“Did I just talk to Ilya Rozanov?”
“He — he looks even better in real life than on TV.”
“I don’t even like men and I swear he could convince me to experiment.”
“I do like men and I’d leave you and our kids for him.”
“Hey!”