Chapter Text
Shane spotted the broad shoulders and unfortunately distinctive buzzcut of the Tampa rookie he had been trying to get alone for the last twelve hours and sprung into action. “Hey, Kuznetsov, wait up!”
Kuznetsov stopped and looked around. His eyes widened as he saw Shane jogging towards him across the hotel lobby. “Ah. Yes? Shane Hollander?”
“Hey,” Shane said, again, when they were close enough to speak at a regular volume. He smiled. He hoped it look normal. “Good night last night?”
“Ah… I did not win.”
“No. I meant. With your fellow rookies.” For obvious reasons – namely the man who was upstairs, snoozing in the giant bed of Shane’s suite – Shane had left the awards as soon as he could so he had no idea if Kuznetsov had taken advantage of the free drinks.
He moved on quickly, as Kuznetsov’s expression began to look faintly worried, no doubt wondering if this was some kind of wind-up. “Your agent is still Matveev, right?”
“Ah. Yes?”
“Cool. Can I get his number from you?”
“You want— my agent’s number?” he asked. He glanced behind Shane, maybe looking for a camera crew or something ready to punk him.
“Yup.”
And Shane waited. He waited patiently, eyebrows raised and with an air of expectation. He used this on the rookies in his team all the time. Because – and this was not a thought he would ever verbalize – he was Shane fucking Hollander.
“Um. Okie,” Kuznetsov said, pulling out his cell phone. He was flushing a little and he glanced up at Shane a couple of times as he thumbed through his contacts. “Why you want?”
“For reasons.” Shane made a ‘gimme’ gesture with his hand – he really didn’t have all the time in the world – and Kuznetsov handed over his phone obediently.
Matveev’s name was written in Cyrillic, but it was at least one of those words that looked vaguely recognizable so he didn’t have to worry that Kuznetsov was palming him off on someone random.
Shane typed the numbers quickly – both the US one and the one with the Russian area code. He handed the phone back. “Thanks, man. See you around.”
“Um. Okie,” Kuznetsov said again, none the wiser from the interaction but clearly glad it was over.
Shane lifted a hand and jogged back to the Starbucks in the lobby and ordered his espresso and the sugary monstrosity Ilya had requested, before heading back upstairs, carrying a secret in his pocket.
*
A story had broken, few weeks back, the kind of gossipy story that Shane usually ignored but now – his ears pricked for the slightest whisper of a rumor about him, and Ilya – he found himself accidentally following along.
The center from Philly had – according to unnamed sources – got a girl pregnant and the story was now circulating in the press. It had caused a real stir, starting off with whispers that grew into a crescendo. Hayden said the WAGs group was up in arms, as said center was married with kids and the ‘girl’ really was a girl. Only just eighteen to his thirty-three. And there were allegedly other young women in the picture. Apparently, the wife’s message to her own team group chat had been forwarded along to all the other WAGs chats – confirming the story and their impending divorce.
He’d mentioned the news to Ilya, off-hand, when he’d been in Boston for the weekend. They’d been meal prepping because Shane liked the idea of leaving Ilya with a freezer of meals they’d cooked together, particularly just before playoffs. Otherwise he suspected Ilya would resort to take-out and wasn’t always particular about the health implications.
And it was cozy, in Ilya’s kitchen, with the lights on low and music faint in the background. Domestic.
Ilya had snorted as he diced onion finely. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet. “His agent should have done his job better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Story should not have got out.” He shrugged and then sniffed, wiped one streaming eye with the back of his hand. “Fuck. Hollander, can you take over?”
Shane’s mouth twitched and they switched. His eyes didn’t water as much but Ilya refused to give in, some stubborn belief that repeated exposure would overcome biology. “I’m not sure what his agent could have done.”
Ilya blew his nose with kitchen towel, washed his hands and then returned to chopping vegetables. “My old agent would have squashed it.”
“Er. What?”
“The girl will have asked for money. Before. Agent should have sorted it.” Ilya waved the knife around. “NDA and so on.”
Shane had an agent. Farah. She was responsible for most of his contract negotiation as well as some stuff to do with his lawyers. But his situation was a little unconventional as his mom managed many of the other responsibilities that might normally sit in an agent’s purview, like his sponsorships and public relations. She’d had her own PR agency, when he’d been a kid, and sold the business when it became clear that Shane was going professional. He trusted her to manage his brand.
A squirmy feeling manifested in his belly. He pushed the onions into the pan, alongside Ilya’s neatly diced carrots and celery. He added some salt. “Have you, ah, ever had any stories squashed before?”
Ilya smirked. “Da.”
“Oh.”
“Not babies, Hollander.” He sidled up behind him and put his arms about Shane’s waist, nuzzling his cheek as Shane stirred the vegetables in the pan. His shoulders relaxed, maybe a millimeter. No devastating secret Ilya babies. Great. “But stupid things. Drunk bar fight. Small car accident.”
The breath Shane sucked in was loud. “A car accident? When was this?”
“Mmm. Rookie year. I wasn’t hurt.” The nuzzle became a kiss to the edge of his jaw. “The car was write-off, though.”
“That doesn’t sound small.” He knew those cars were bad news.
“It was. Do not worry.” He tapped Shane’s hip and stepped away. “We forget garlic.”
Shane chewed his bottom lip, thinking. “So. What. Your agent just – fixed it?”
“Da. Bribes, probably. Maybe sold a better story.” He peeled a couple of garlic gloves. “Oh, once, he got a private investigator to prove I hadn’t been somewhere I should not be.” Ilya smiled. “He was good man. Sometimes I miss him.”
This was a lot of information for Shane to take in. He missed his old agent? Bribes? A private investigator? He didn’t know what to attack first until paranoia got the better of him. “Where were you not supposed to be?”
“This was back in Russia. My coach cited me in his divorce.”
“What?”
Ilya snickered. “It was lie. I am not housebreaker.”
“Homewrecker,” Shane corrected absently. “But you— you would have been a teenager. Wait. Your coach? As in—” Shane’s eyes widened. Surely not the same coach whose son was Ilya’s first… he wasn’t sure what to call it, even in his head. Not boyfriend. Lover? Ugh.
Ilya shook his head quickly and scraped the diced garlic into the pan, the aroma blooming under Shane’s slow-moving spatula. “Different coach.”
“Right,” said Shane. Of course.
*
Shane sent a message to both the US and Russian cell phone numbers. It was simple. Hi, this is Shane Hollander. Kuznetsov gave me your number. Can you give me a call at your earliest convenience, please?
And then he put his cell phone under his pillow and had a little panic attack about it.
*
Getting information out of Ilya about his family was like getting blood from stone. Maybe harder. It had been one of the first things Shane had noticed about him. Any questions about his parents – the kind of typical things Shane’s mom had taught him to ask to make polite conversations – would result in brusque, emotionless answers or, worse, actual anger.
As of yet Shane had found no technique for making this better and so he had to accept the occasional nugget that was thrown his way and roll with it.
The subject of their finances had come up a few times, after they’d firmed up their plans to commit to each other. Shane hadn’t exactly expected Ilya to be bad with money – he owned a couple of properties in Boston and the sports cars were, in their own way, an investment – but he’d been surprised to discover that Ilya had a trust set aside for his niece.
“That’s nice of you.”
Ilya shrugged, a movement that bobbed Shane’s head up and down as they were lying on the couch looking at Zillow. They – or, rather, Ilya, was going to hire an estate agent when he moved to Ottawa – but it was a fun activity to search online to get an idea of what they liked for when he did buy. After all, Shane was going to visit regularly. Maybe live there, too. Some day. “I can never go back. Was the only way I could ensure she is taken care of. My agent helped. My old one.”
“Her parents don’t make a lot of money?” Shane wasn’t exactly sure what a cop might earn in Russia. Presumably not a lot, like in Canada. “Her mom doesn’t work?”
Something vibrated through Ilya’s body. “Ah, no. I don’t know. I don’t think so? I do not know her well.” He sounded unsettled by this. “And my brother— Alexei is… bad at his job.” Shane tilted his head up to see Ilya’s lip curled with disgust. “I would not be surprised that he does not have it anymore. Only thing keeping him there was my father’s legacy.”
What legacy was that? Shane wondered. “That doesn’t sound great.”
“No. Do we want stables?”
Storytime was over, then. “We do not.”
*
Ilya’s niece… bothered Shane.
Not all the time. After all, a lot of things bothered Shane these days, more than whether he was winning hockey games or not. His life was now a complicated matrix of worries, of planning for so many worst-case scenarios that adding Ilya’s niece to the mix was just one of many small parts to that matrix.
But sometimes Shane would lie awake and be bothered about her. And his mind worked it over and over. Ilya was his now. And whilst Shane had absolutely no emotional connection to Alexei, who was hateful and, he suspected, abusive, he had somehow developed some semblance of connection to Ilya’s niece.
He had no idea how old she was. Or her name.
But somewhere out there was Irina’s granddaughter. The only remaining blood relative that Ilya gave a shit about.
And Ilya could never go back, which was Shane’s fault.
So that bothered him.
*
Matveev called him in the morning, as Shane was walking to his car after morning skate. “Mr. Hollander, what can I do for you?” said an expressive, only lightly-accented voice.
“Ah. Yeah. Thanks for giving me a call. Appreciate it.” Shane wiped his suddenly sweaty palm on his track pants. He’d prepared to have this call, of course, but now the reality was here he was struggling to remember his notes. “You used to be Ilya Rozanov’s agent, right?”
He laughed, “For my sins.”
“He has said lots of positive things about you.”
“He has? To you?”
Shane winced. “One sec. I’m just getting into my car.” And he desperately wanted to be. He wanted to close the doors and seal this conversation in a soundproof environment.
With the door closed behind him, Shane rested his cell on the dash and took a deep breath. “Where was I?”
“You were telling me that you and your long-term rival have discussed me.”
As always, the suggestion that someone knew he and Ilya talked led to a shiver of fear running up Shane’s spine. He had to control the need to deny it. “Yes, yes, we have. And I’m sure you’re well aware that our rivalry is mostly the media and Rozanov’s shit-stirring. We’re actually kind of friendly these days.”
“Friendly?” Matveev barked out a surprised, loud laugh. Then he laughed again, a second wave of amusement. “What can I do for you, Hollander?”
“I want some advice. Non-hockey related advice.”
“Okay?”
“You helped Rozanov set up a trust for his niece, right?”
“You know this?” The laugh in the voice disappeared.
“We were drunk at a party.”
“Ah.” A syllable that said much.
“He said he doesn’t speak to his brother. So he doesn’t know anything about his niece. And I got the feeling that he would like to?” Shane didn’t mean to make it sound like a question but the more he stretched his lie, the less confident he got. He was bad at lying.
“I see.”
It was obvious from the tone that he didn’t see.
Shane sighed. “What I want to ask was is there a way that Rozanov could, like, check up on her? Without anyone knowing that he was? To make sure she’s being looked after. His dad was an asshole—”
“He told you this too.”
He pulled out the big guns. “There was a lot of vodka. I think he was feeling sentimental.”
“I see.”
“It was weird for me too, believe me.” Shane laughed nervously.
“Hmm.”
Slowly, he leaned forward until his head touched the wheel. This had been a mistake. “I just feel bad,” he said quietly, which was not a lie.
“Ilya can be surprisingly disarming, it’s true,” Matveev said thoughtfully.
Disarming. That was a good description for Ilya.
“Well. I can’t say this conversation has gone in any direction that I imagined.” The laughing voice came back. “But the media haven’t exaggerated you, at least. You really are a prince, Hollander.”
Huh?
“I’ll look into it. It’ll cost you, though.”
“I guessed.”
“And I take it this is something you want to remain confidential?”
“Yes. Please.” Maybe he should have started with that. That whatever it was that they were doing here would remain confidential.
“I’ll send you some paperwork. I will have a fee.”
“I’m sure it’ll be reasonable.”
Matveev laughed again, that same sudden bark. “Pleasure doing business with you, Shane Hollander!”
*
Matveev sent him an initial e-invoice with a single line item – an exorbitant consultation fee – and then an attached NDA which he had pre-signed. Shane read everything, comparing it to the one he had with Farah and finding it similar with some key differences, including a longer confidentiality clause survival period and secure communication protocols. With a degree of reckless hysteria that he associated with his entire relationship with Ilya, Shane signed where he was supposed to and sent it back along with the money.
The next document Matveev sent over was a scope of work which required a password to unlock and made Shane’s ears burn.
Fuck. Was he really doing this?
He read, re-read and re-read the scope of work, then looked at the estimate for said scope of work, and then went to have a little lie down.
Ilya’s niece was called Anna. She was not quite eight.
Later that evening, after a rare beer, Shane signed off the scope of work and sent it off to Matveev.
*
Shane actually didn’t think about it after that. Well, he thought about it, and then he shut down thinking about it which was easy to do because he was both very good at that and also very busy.
They spent the off-season at the cottage, mostly off-grid, as the social media reaction from Boston fans after Ilya signing to Ottawa was not good. Though he denied it, he knew this fucked Ilya over a little bit. As much as Ilya got fired up from crowds booing his name on the ice, in Boston he was used to being their most loved celebrity menace and the vitriol forced him to turn off his comments.
Plus, there was all the work for the launch of the foundation which meant many long meetings with his mom, one hand on Ilya’s jiggling knee, and in the back of his mind, Shane knew he had to come out to his team – had to, like it was an itch that he needed to scratch – and he was constantly re-thinking how he might do that. And talking himself out of chickening out.
So, busy.
He returned to Montreal in September for pre-season training, and for the first time it felt like he wasn’t mentally ready. Nor, exactly, thrilled to be back. Ilya was now only two hours away instead of a plane ride but even then, after they had mapped their time together, that still meant there would sometimes be weeks between seeing one another. Almost as if the NHL had purposefully designed their schedules to continuously clash.
When Shane had imagined this plan coming to fruition, seeing each other at least once a month had seemed lifechanging. To even spend the night together had sounded like a dream. But it was astonishing how quickly that paled in comparison to the summer. Now, it might be one or – if they were lucky - two nights every three weeks. And that didn’t take into account that both of them had sponsorships and brand deals to consider as well as all the extra-curricular activities their teams scheduled – visits to children’s wards, community programs. Hell, even obligatory team activities. It seemed as if half the team were getting married this year and they were all fucking destination weddings.
Jesus.
It wasn’t enough. But it had to be.
*
The email arrived a couple of weeks later, just before 10pm, when he was in bed. Shane’s solution to the nagging sense of wrongness about this season had been to throw himself into training, aggressively, and he had just said goodnight to Ilya on Facetime, both of them giggling as each time one yawned, the other would catch it, and the cycle would begin again.
He was feeling pretty relaxed, so he clicked on the unfamiliar name in his inbox without thinking too much about it.
Dear Mr Hollander,
Hope this email finds you well.
Attached is the requested report.
Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.
Regards
Ivan
On first read, he thought it might be some sophisticated spam but he double checked the email address and saw it had come from Matveev’s agency. He’d forgotten. “Oh fuck.”
There was a PDF attachment. He tapped on it and was immediately asked for a password. He then had to rifle through his notes app to find where he’d written it down. Tapping out the letters and numbers, the document finally opened.
The first page was entitled ‘Anna Rosanova’ followed by ‘Executive Summary’. There were a few paragraphs and Shane skimmed over this, noting that whomever had written it wasn’t a native English speaker. But the gist was that this initial report captured the detailed findings surrounding Anna Rosanova, including her daily activities (weekday and weekends), her family and relationships with her family, her friends, her education and her hobbies.
The document was twenty-five pages.
Twenty-five pages.
He hovered over the close button. Now, with time passing, Shane was beginning to think – to know – that this was a Very Bad Idea. Like. If Ilya knew what he had done he would be seriously pissed.
Not an unreasonable reaction, either.
But maybe he could just take a quick look? After all the damage was done. And maybe everything was just fine and great with his niece. Maybe his brother had got a promotion. Maybe they were happy and Ilya didn’t need to be worried. Not that he was worried. Mostly it was Shane that worried.
Shane clicked on.
On the next page he was greeted with a photo of Ilya’s niece, something like a posed school photo.
By this point, Shane had not seen a single photograph of Ilya as a child but he had imagined it – the blonde hair blonder, the sharp cheekbones more rounded – but Anna Rosanova did not look anything like Ilya. Her hair was long and dark, her face narrow. Her eyes were brown. She had a serious little nose dotted with a few freckles and a heart-shaped mouth.
She looked, Shane thought, a little sad. Something about the eyes. Sometimes Ilya looked a little sad.
The next page was a copy of her birth certificate. Which felt… weird. It was all in Russian so Shane couldn’t really understand anything and he moved on, not sure about the legality of having a copy of someone’s birth certificate. Particularly a kid’s.
The next page was a table of basic info, this time in English. Anna’s full name – her middle name was Alekseyevna which Shane knew was a Russian naming convention. Her age, date of birth, where she had been born. The names of her parents, her grandparents (deceased on both sides). Ilya was listed as an uncle with estranged in brackets but her mother - Sofya Volkova – had no siblings. Neither did Anna.
Clicking on, Shane found himself immersed in details about Anna’s parents which he hadn’t expected. Like Anna, there were photos. Alexei in some uniform. One looked official. The rest were candid shots, clearly taken out and about during the workday. He smoked. He liked a drink after work. He did not have Ilya’s looks. There was a small biography. According to this report, he had been born four months after his parents were married. Irina had been seventeen, Grigori thirty-six which was, frankly, a bit gross. Alexei was a little shit at school. Lots of fights. He’d got sent to some expensive military boarding school when he was thirteen and left at eighteen with – as the investigator put it – ‘little honors’.
Whilst this was fascinating – obviously Ilya had told him none of this – the sense that this was very wrong washed over him once more. He felt as if he was dipping into Ilya’s past without his permission. Which he was.
He flicked quickly forward in the document, past the pages about Alexei’s employment history, past the pages about Anna’s mother, and skimmed over a typical day for Anna. What school she went to, her lessons, her friends. There were a few more photos, all clearly taken from a distance – which was super creepy – and then there were pages of drawings and blocks of handwriting. Was this… was this copies of her schoolwork? Holy shit, he’d been sent Anna’s actual schoolwork. And then a report card. “How the hell…”
Grimacing, he clicked on, quickly, to the final pages. Which included what looked like bank statements. Credit card bills. Other financial documents that were in Russian but all had big minus numbers on them. There were some bills with a stamp that even without the language Shane could tell were unpaid and urgent.
Helpfully, there was a summary of the key points at the end, with a traffic light system.
Amber: the Rosanovs financial circumstances are tight. They live beyond their means. They plan to sell their apartment – the apartment Ilya Rosanov had gifted his brother – to pay off their debts. Should they do so, and downsize appropriately, they will be in a better financial position.
Shane had forgotten that Ilya had given up his apartment. He wondered if he would be pissed to find out his brother was selling it.
Green: Anna is healthy, attends school every day, and is doing well – 5s across the board. Her favorite subject is music and she plays the flute extremely well, taking additional lessons to master the art.
Shane sighed. Okay. He clicked on to the final page entitled ‘Next steps’. The investigator apparently wanted to know if Shane (‘the client’) would prefer quarterly, bi-monthly, or monthly updates on Anna Rosanova.
The client hadn’t thought about this. The client was kind of creeped out by the whole thing, actually, and regretting his life choices.
Slumped on his side, Shane typed a variety of responses to Ivan.
Quarterly is fine. Also – can you ask them not to take the photos. And I don’t want copies of her school work.
I just want to know if she’s safe.
This wasn’t working. Shane sat up properly.
Hi Ivan
Thanks. This is very comprehensive.
The objective of this exercise is a light-touch well-being check.
Going forward I think a short summary of the family finances and anything that impacts Anna’s home and school life will be sufficient. I liked the traffic light system. Photographs of Anna and copies of her homework are not necessary.
Quarterly updates are preferred – unless there is a significant change (e.g. health related) in which case I would like to be informed.
Thanks
Shane
The response whooshed off. And Shane archived the original email and deployed his well-honed ability to repress guilty thoughts with the intention of not thinking about this ever again. Or least for another three months.
Fuck.
*
Coming out to his team went about as well as he had expected it to.
His mom had tried to tell him he might be surprised - because her love for the Metros apparently could conquer even her deeply strategic and cynical brain - and, God, how Shane wanted to have that kind of hope. Wanted to believe that it was possible the team he had loved for all his adult life loved him enough to put aside any opinions they might have about his sexuality. That something that was so fundamentally irrelevant to their actual jobs could be compartmentalized if not ignored.
He did it after practice, a couple of days after a strong win. Everyone was in a good mood that, naturally, evaporated after Shane cleared his throat, asked for their attention, and announced that he liked men.
He could feel Hayden and JJ vibrating at his side, protectively. Both of them had been let into the secret early, a deliberate strategy on Shane’s part because they were popular with the younger members of the team, so could lead by example, and he knew they would have his back with the vets.
And yes, theoretically they were two of his closest friends. Two friends who had no idea Shane was fucking Ilya fucking Rozanov, was in love with Ilya fucking Rozanov.
It was the vets who were going to be the problem. Shane knew his people well, which was why he met Comeau’s eyes face on.
“This isn’t a joke? You’re a fucking queer?” Comeau could not have looked more repulsed and at his side, his jersey now clutched to his bare chest, Drapeau’s mouth was open. The epitome of gobsmacked.
“Yup,” Shane said.
Hayden put his hand on Shane’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thanks for telling us, Shane.”
JJ nodded, frantically. “Yes, mon ami. It is good you told us. We are your team.”
“What the fuck,” said O’Conner, blurting it out like he couldn’t help it. Maybe it wasn’t aggressive but out of the corner of his eye Shane saw JJ flinch.
Shane took a deep breath and exhaled it. Calm. He was a well of fucking calm. A well of vomit, actually, he wanted to throw up and probably would, later. He hadn’t eaten since last night, just in case. He was a little woozy after training. “I know this might come as a surprise—”
O’Conner waved a hand to get him to stop. “But you dated Rose Landry.”
Because of course, no gay man in history had ever dated a woman. Shane could have laughed. He had a fleeting thought that he would enjoy telling that part of story to the woman herself, later. That maybe they might laugh about it together.
“Yeah, she was pretty much the nail in the, ah, straight coffin for me,” Shane admitted ruefully, letting them all in, a little more. Just sliced himself open for them to watch him bleed.
“Christ.” Drapeau seemed to notice he was still partially undressed. He pulled on a T-shirt, even though he was still damp from the shower and had to struggle to get the cloth over his body.
Shane hadn’t showered yet. He’d thought it best not to. Sweat was clinging to his skin, salt crystalizing. His skin was so sensitive he could almost feel the individual crystals. If he licked his lips, he’d taste it.
One by one, the rest of the team started to move again, fumbling to dress themselves. No one was really speaking but they were certainly all giving each other side-eye, trying to work out what side everyone was falling. Lines had been drawn without words.
“Okay,” Shane nodded, as it appeared that was all he was going to get after, oh, more than a decade of repression. “I’ll see you all for practice tomorrow.”
“Wait, wait.” Hayden said, putting his hand on Shane’s shoulder again. He hadn’t noticed it drop away. “I think, maybe, we should all consider this a private matter. Between brothers. Yeah?”
Shane could have kissed him. But not, obviously. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”
“You’re not— ah, coming out? Then? Publicly?” one of the Rookies – Baz – said nervously.
Shane shook his head. “Not at this time.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Comeau muttered, his back to Shane.
And that was it.
*
Ilya was at the apartment when he got home. He wasn’t supposed to be. This wasn’t one of their together days, highlighted in happy orange on their joint calendar. He couldn’t remember why. Probably he had a game tomorrow.
The relief was immense. He’d been dreading going home to an empty apartment, his hands shaking on the wheel. Calling Ilya – which he’d thought was his only option – wasn’t going to be enough and he’d started to worry if he did, it would only be to ugly cry on Facetime.
But he was here. His beaten-up Nikes were on the shoe rack by the door, a lone wolf amongst all the Reeboks that Shane kept forgetting to wear. His keys were on the bowl on the counter, distinguished by the little loon keyring Shane had given him for Russian Christmas.
And the man himself was standing by the couch, in a rumpled old Raiders T-shirt that he had left here and a pair of Shane’s sweatpants. “Shane,” he said, tenderly.
Shane walked straight into him and practically climbed him like a tree. “Hold me tight,” he instructed as Ilya hoisted him up, hands sure on his thighs.
Ilya walked them to the couch and toppled them over, landing so solidly on top of Shane that his breath left his body in a whoosh.
But it was exactly what he wanted. To be crushed by love.
For a moment he let himself be held tightly, Ilya’s nose pressed into his neck. Shane inhaled deeply. The smell of him. Fuck. It was so fucking good.
Then Shane grabbed fistfuls of Ilya’s hair and tugged so that he could meet his eyes. His own eyes burned. “I love you. So much. But I hate that I’m gay,” he blurted out, though that wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t something he could articulate well. Being gay and being in love with Ilya were so intertwined he couldn’t separate them. He couldn’t conceive of not loving Ilya, ergo he couldn’t truly hate to be gay.
It was a conundrum.
Sympathetically, Ilya kissed him, lightly. “I understand.”
“And I hate that we have to do this.”
“Me too.”
“Today was shit.”
Ilya nodded and propped himself up on an elbow. With the dying light from the floor to ceiling windows behind, his irises looked the stormiest of blues. God. He was so beautiful. Sometimes, often, it really took Shane’s breath away.
“So, they were bad?” Ilya asked. His thumb tenderly traced the high points of Shane’s cheeks.
Shane thought about all the ways it could have gone. He had considered them all. From being screamed at to being punched in the face. From being totally shut out to being fired. Well, that could still come. “It was— bad in a subtextual way.”
Ilya’s eyebrows rose the way they did when Shane used a word that he didn’t totally understand.
He loosened his hold on Ilya’s curls but didn’t quite let go. He petted them instead, pressing his thumbs into Ilya’s scalp in a way that made him push into him like a cat. “Sorry. Subtext is like the words beneath. There were a lot of unpleasant things not said,” was Shane’s better explanation. Ilya nodded. “I think… they didn’t want to think about it.”
But they would think about it. Shane knew there would be repercussions. Right now, there was probably a series of smaller messaging groups, splinters from the eerily silent main group chat. Someone, somewhere, was saying shit about him. Disgusting shit about his proclivities. He had heard enough in the locker room, on the ice, that told him that.
“Who was worst?”
“I’m not telling you. I don’t want you picking fights.” Just what he needed. Ilya inexplicably pounding Cormeau into pulp at their next game.
Ilya’s grin was very toothy. Not entirely friendly. “So boring, Hollander.” His face shifted back to soft-eyed concern. “Did anyone say anything good?”
“No. Well. I mean, Hayden and JJ did.” The corner of his mouth lifted. The one bright spark in all of this, admittedly mired by the secret he was still keeping from them. “They had obviously practiced.” Honestly, he should do something to thank them. Should he send them something? A gift basket? Crate of beer? Thanks for supporting me in my gay crisis, guys!
“And Theriault?”
Shane grimaced. “I went to see him after, in the end. Privately.”
It had been the right, if awful, choice. He’d debated, a little, about going to see him first – out of respect – but he’d worried that if Theriault had asked him not to tell the team, he might have given in. Shane was almost compulsively hierarchical. Ilya said he just liked to do what he was told, and he hadn’t said it in a joking way. “He was shocked.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat. The image of Theriault’s blustering, red face would probably live with him until he retired. “And angry. He wanted to know if I was going public. They don’t want an ‘out’ hockey player on the team, obviously.”
Shane’s plan, discussed at length with Ilya and his parents, was kind of a soft launch approach. He would tell the team and after a while word would spread. He wouldn’t do anything to encourage it but he knew wives and girlfriends would be told. Rumors would swirl, rumors he wouldn’t confirm or deny. Provided he didn’t do anything stupid like kiss a man in public, that would be all they would be, until he and Ilya came out together. He was prepared for no comment to be his most used phrase.
He planned on his team not to want it to be public knowledge that their captain was gay. In a way, he was relying on the intrinsic homophobia at the heart of hockey to keep his secret.
Which was fucked.
Ilya leaned down to kiss him. “You were very brave, solnyshko. I am so proud of you.”
As always, the endearment set off a blooming, warm feeling in Shane’s chest, though he admitted in a small voice, “I don’t feel very sunshine-y.”
“You are always the sun to me,” Ilya whispered, kissing him again.
*
For now, Shane was extra careful at work. Skating around the eggshells. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him all the time and kept walking into conversations that turned abruptly silent, conversations that were clearly about him and no one was really pretending they weren’t by strumming up a fake smile and a ‘hey, Captain’. No one had actually said anything to his face yet but the rumblings were there, a threatening thunderstorm in the distance.
He’d always been careful anyway – keeping his eyes up and averted in the locker room, in the showers – but now he made sure he came in last from the ice, showered after everyone else, or not at all. The back of his neck prickled, like he was being hunted.
He went for a drink with Hayden, after work, and stared down at his untouched beer, rotating the bottle with his fingers. “Have you heard anything?”
Hayden shook his head. “No. One of the rookies – Peterson – asked if I knew before but that was it.”
“What did you say?”
“That you’d told me a couple of weeks ago, and it was really difficult for you, but I didn’t give a fuck that you were gay because it had nothing to do with hockey.” Shane’s mouth twitched at how earnest Hayden was, even though he’d lowered his voice when he’d said the word ‘gay’. Like it was a bad word. “But his sister is gay. A lesbian,” Hayden said with sudden brightness. “So maybe he’s okay about it?”
“Dunno.” To be honest, Shane didn’t really give a shit about what the rookies thought of him, which wasn’t a captain-ly thing to think and wasn’t something he was going to share with Hayden. It was his job to look out for the rookies. Correct their form. Make sure they didn’t do stupid stuff (like, too much drink or drugs, not, like, oh, fucking someone on an opposing team like a fucking idiot). It wasn’t their job to think about Shane’s personal life. “Does he like his sister?”
“He didn’t mention.”
Shane took a sip of his beer and wished he’d ordered a ginger ale. He turned his mind to the game on Thursday. Practice had been… fine. In his more hopeful moments – he did have them – he wondered if the awkwardness was all in his head. Everyone was doing their jobs. They were a dynasty. That Shane loved taking it up the ass was neither here nor there.
He leaned back, thunking his head against the booth. “Fuck.”
“Do you want to come over this weekend? Jackie and the kids would love to see you.”
Shane shook his head. It was an Ilya weekend and he needed Ilya, desperately, right now. “I’m, ah, visiting my parents.”
His best friend’s brow furrowed. “You’re doing that a lot, recently,” he said gently.
“Uh. Yeah. They’re worried about me.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course.” He tilted his bottle towards Shane’s and they clinked, a depressing little noise. “It’ll get better.”
*
It didn’t get better but it didn’t exactly get worse, perhaps because Shane put his head down and put all of his frustration into being the best goddamn captain he could be. He reviewed tape even more excessively, he brainstormed different line combinations with the coaches, he bullied the rookies into extra practices and added extra training to his schedule.
Not surprisingly, or maybe a little surprisingly considering how fundamentally insane he felt, this dedication was paying off. They were having an outstanding start to the season.
“You played like a beast tonight,” Rose told him as he drowsily watched TV in his hotel room, his cell phone resting on his chest. Ilya was going to call him in – he checked – nine minutes so he had nine minutes for Rose to keep him awake.
“You watched?”
“My co-star has a crush on you.”
“You should give her my number,” he joked. “Oh, unless—"
“Yup.”
Shane flushed. Obviously, he knew, theoretically, that there may be men out there who liked the look of him. He had hooked up with a couple of guys, in an entirely anonymous capacity back when he was working out whether he was gay or just gay for Ilya. But that had been sort of mutually meaningless sex. They didn’t know he was Shane Hollander just as he didn’t really remember the color of their eyes.
He reached for the remote and turned the TV off. He had no idea what was on screen anyway. “Any good on-set gossip?”
“My stylist and the A.D. are hooking up but, like, they’re single so it’s hardly life altering.” Shane made an acknowledging noise. In Rose-world, colleagues fucking was fine. Good for them. “Oh. I got another incomprehensible note from my director. This morning he told me to feel the wind in my hair.”
“Um. What does that mean?”
“I have no idea. Particularly since the scene is set in a kitchen. I just sort of… flicked my hair a bit and tried to look whimsical. He seemed satisfied with that.”
Most of Rose’s job sounded crazy to Shane. She seemed to regularly spend sixteen hour days on set and – depending on the type of movie – half of that would be in a chair getting hair and make-up done. That was the worst part, as far as Shane was concerned. He quite liked being directed – told where to stand, how to walk, what expression to pull. But having some stranger touch his face and hair—
He shuddered. “At least the pay is good,” he said. Rose’s agent had negotiated hard.
“Hell yes. I’m thinking of moving, actually…”
Shane let Rose talk for a few more minutes, making a nebulous promise to come visit her in her new place, before signing off so he could wait for Ilya’s phone-call. Ottawa had also played away today but had lost. At least Ilya had scored, though from the highlights Shane had managed to watch, it hadn’t been his technical best. Not that he would say that.
Ilya called when he said he would and something in Shane’s spine melted when he saw his boyfriends face. For a moment, neither of them said anything, just stared at each other with probably equally soppy expressions.
Then Ilya leaned forward so most of his nose and mouth was visible. “Wanna get naked?” he whispered.
And fuck if Shane didn’t suddenly find a burst of energy from somewhere. “Hell, yes.”
*
The first game against Boston was weird as hell. Normally, Shane would have been in a state of almost feverish excitement. He’d have a pre-arranged hook-up scheduled with Ilya, which last year had expanded from being just a post-game thing to a pre-game thing, a post-game-with-dinner thing, then a stay-the-night-thing, and then as much fucking as they could squeeze in before Shane had to fly back.
It was remarkable how deflated he felt, studying the boarding gate as they waited for their flight, knowing that Ilya wouldn’t be at the other end.
Hayden cleared his throat. “I… have a question.”
“Okay.”
Hayden did a comedic look-around but – as was now almost always the case – the rest of the team wasn’t sitting near them. Still, he lowered his voice, “Um. Is… Boston Lily… a guy?”
His brain shut down.
Hayden’s blue eyes bulged urgently. “Because, it’s obviously no big deal if he is. No big deal at all. I was thinking, like if he was, maybe I could… meet him?”
Shane closed his eyes. “Oh my God.”
“It’s no big deal, Shane! Just you have been seeing them,” Hayden whispered carefully, “for, like, a really long time. And if they’re important to you…”
Shane could only repeat himself. Squeezed his eyes tighter. “Can we talk about this later, maybe?” he managed, in no way prepared to have this conversation with Hayden in the airport. Not that he wanted to have this conversation at all.
“Sure, sure, of course, bud.” Hayden patted his arm. He laughed awkwardly. “Though I feel like that was kind of a confirmation.”
Fuck, it probably was.
He messaged Ilya on the plane. They’d both invested in privacy screens but he still instinctively turned his phone away to the window. Hayden has worked out Boston Lily is a guy.
Lily: So he isn’t that stupid, then.
Jane: Not helpful.
Lily: Does he know Boston Lily isn’t in Boston anymore?
Jane: Not yet.
Lily: Are you going to tell him?
Jane: I guess.
Lily: Maybe you could tell him Boston Lily moved to Ottawa and see if he works it out 😆
Jane: Fuck off.
Lily: 😈
*
At least the effort of avoiding talking to Hayden gave Shane something else to think about other than the weirdness of playing Boston without Ilya. The game itself was wasn’t easy. In Shane’s head, Boston was nothing without Ilya, Ilya who met Shane on a level that no one else in the league did, but Boston put up a good fight.
Montreal still won 5-3. When he shook hands with Marlow he thought the man’s forced smile was rather rueful. He and Ilya had not parted ways well, which had also fucked Ilya up a little. No one understood why Ilya had decided to move to a team like Ottawa.
There were drinks in the hotel bar after, because there always were. Pre-drinks for most of the team. Boston was a fun city to go out in, though they had to be pretty choosy about which bars they went to. Montreal was, after all, hated.
To be a good sport about it, Shane usually attended the drinks in the hotel and these days mostly spent it talking to the rookies, who were at least so in awe of his celebrity that it overshadowed the gay thing.
Hayden plonked himself down next to him just as everyone was getting ready to go. “Got a minute, Cap?” he asked, pointedly sliding another ginger beer over to him.
Shane tensed. “Ah. Yeah. Sure.”
JJ came over and slapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Not joining us tonight, mes amis?”
“No,” said Shane, not finding it in himself to make up some excuse.
“Promised I’d call Jackie and kids,” was Hayden’s, delivered with his patented aw-shucks-I’m-just-a-devoted-husband-and-dad smile. Shane was envious of that smile on a level he had never felt before. Maybe one day.
JJ laughed, easy. He slapped their shoulders again. “Have a good one.”
The team left and it was just Shane and Hayden, two best friends, sitting at a too-big table. The TV over the bar was playing highlights of the game and Shane wanted to go to his room to review tape in private. Not… do this.
“So,” Hayden began, painfully.
“Yeah. So.” Shane nudged his glass around. “You’re… right.”
“Wow.”
“But, um. We’re not. Um. Doing that anymore.”
“You broke up?”
“Uh. Kinda.”
Hayden winced sympathetically. “Sorry, bud. You were seeing each other for a long time. When did that happen?”
God. This was excruciating. Hayden was trying so hard and here Shane was, lying to his face some more. He was a shit friend. A shit person.
“Hey, sorry, I can see you’re cut up about it. I did wonder. You didn’t seem that excited about coming to Boston and normally you’re like—” Hayden did some gesture that seemed to suggest Shane might be electrocuted. “And you would definitely have cleared off by now, normally. To go see him.”
Shane nodded. There was nothing else he could really say.
“You want to know something funny?” Hayden said, grinning ruefully. He took a fortifying sip of his drink. “Jackie had this crazy moment over the summer—” He laughed and shook his head. “No, it’s too weird.”
Dread sank in Shane’s stomach. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“Like. You guys have such insane chemistry. She and I had a real laugh over it. Of course, he’s a fucking womanizer and anyway he’s not here now so—”
Hayden stopped abruptly, the smile sliding off his face when he looked over at Shane.
Shane was frozen. He didn’t know what his face was doing, but it was nothing good. His mouth had gone dry as a desert. Say something! his brain screamed. Laugh. Tell him it’s weird!
But it wasn’t weird. It might be crazy but it wasn’t weird.
Hayden’s eyes widened. “Shane…” he whispered, so quietly it was nearly non-verbal.
Oh shit.
*
He called Ilya as soon as he got to his hotel room. Ilya didn’t answer – outrageous – so he called again. Then he sent him a message. And another.
Then – because his clothes were strangling him – Shane took them all off and had a scalding hot shower. He may have spent some quality time crouched on the floor, hot water hammering his head.
His cell phone rang, loud in the tiled bathroom and Shane shut the water off and answered, naked and wet, finger slipping over the screen.
“What is emergency?”
“Where have you been?”
“Woah. I had drinks with team.”
Oh, now Ilya got a social life. Shane knew he rarely socialized with the team. “Hayden knows! About you!”
“You told him Boston Lily moved to Ottawa?”
“No. Jackie— shit, I need a towel.” He was making a puddle on the floor. He put the phone down to grab a towel and to run another over the floor with his foot.
“I’m switching to video,” said Ilya. Shane accepted and got to watch the look of pleasure pass over Ilya’s face at the sight of Shane in a towel. His eyes dipped, up and down, over what he could see of Shane’s face and shoulders. “Maybe you should put your phone slightly further away. So I can see more of you.”
“Stop it.” Shane rubbed his hair with yet another towel and carried Ilya into the bedroom. “Hayden knows it’s you. He knows Boston Lily is you. He’s— well. He had to go lie down.”
“I cannot believe Hayden Pike is this smart.”
“I think it was Jackie, to be honest. Apparently, she thinks we have ‘insane chemistry’.” His mom had said something similar once. Was this just a sixth sense women had? Was this something he had to worry about?
Apparently unbothered by this, Ilya smiled widely, very pleased. “Is true.”
“Take this seriously.”
“Shane,” Ilya said patiently, though he let out one of his heavy sighs. “Okay, so he knows. So what?”
“So what?” Shane blustered and then he ran out of bluster because he hadn’t actually got this far beyond the initial panic. His only instinct had been to call Ilya.
So what? So what?
Ilya narrowed his eyes. “You are ashamed of me.”
“What? I am not ashamed of you.”
“You know he can keep secret. Is only reason you could be this panicky.” Ilya shrugged, as if he didn’t care, but Shane could absolutely tell he did.
“We have an extremely well-publicized decade long rivalry. I have—” Shane swallowed. “Actively participated in that. With the team. It’s just— it’s just a big lie. Bigger than being gay, even. I don’t know. This is very confusing. I am not ashamed of you. I mean, in any other normal circumstances, you would be a massive catch.”
Ilya lit up. His whole face just suffused with joy. His eyes somehow became more blue, as if that was at all a possible thing. “Am I. Tell me more.”
He was so annoying. “Ilya.”
“Tell me how I am catch. Please,” he added and Shane, who was working hard on his PhD of Ilya micro-expressions realized this was not a request to stroke his ego but a genuine moment of vulnerability.
Sometimes Shane forgot that whilst Ilya had nearly all of his firsts, Shane had one of his. Ilya had never had a serious relationship before. He had never been someone’s boyfriend. Never been loved the way Shane loved him.
“Oh, Ilya— you are such a catch. Like. Totally boyfriend goals.” He bit his lip and knew he was blushing like a teenager but prepared to plow through this. Ilya thought he was ashamed of him. It could not be further from the truth. “I mean, you’re kind and funny and smart. So smart. You’re bi-lingual and have a hot accent. You have a great job, you’re an expert in your field. You are… so beautiful. I mean. Stop-and-stare-in-the-street beautiful. You have such a great body. You are so, so, so hot. God.” Shane looked to the ceiling of the hotel room. “Everyone should be jealous of me. Hayden should be jealous of me. Sometimes I’m jealous of me.”
And now Ilya was sniffing and his camera angle was suspiciously off-center so he couldn’t see his face. “You didn’t mention that I am sex god,” he said thickly.
Shane smiled. “I didn’t, that’s right. You are a sex god. A fantastic,” he braced himself, “lover.”
Ilya laughed and his hand shook, briefly bringing into focus the tear tracks on his reddened cheeks. “You said it!”
And he had wanted to die, just a little bit. “Just this once. Just for you.”
*
Hayden let Shane into his room and they sat at the end of the absolutely massive bed that he had. Shane had two twins which was just how the hotel lottery rolled.
Or maybe someone from Ops didn’t want Shane to have an overnight guest which, more fool them, Shane had always liked the two beds because one could be for dirty sex and the other could be for sleeping. Back when their sex life had entirely been hotel-based, it wasn’t as if Shane had been sleeping with Ilya, which now felt fucking insane.
“So. You and Rozanov.”
“Yup.”
“Boston Lily. Boston Ilya,” Hayden said, having to do the math out loud, apparently.
“The names were his idea.”
“You have one too?”
“Jane. Shane.”
“Right.”
They sat there in silence for a full, excruciating minute. Shane stared down at his socks.
“But Rozanov?” Hayden said eventually, in a mystified way. “Like. Rozanov. Of all people.”
And straight off the back of the pep talk he’d given his boyfriend, Shane suddenly had plenty of material, “Have you seen him? He is phenomenally hot.”
Hayden closed his eyes, as if pained. “Shane.”
“And he’s funny and kind and smart and he’s moved to Ottawa for me.”
“Er, what?”
Oh, yeah, Shane probably needed to go back a couple of steps. “Well. It’s serious. We’re, like, in love and everything.” Hayden made a small noise. Shane decided to keep on going because none of the faces Hayden were making were comprehensible. “We want to be together. And it was hard, being so far away, so we made a plan and the first step was him moving to Canada. He needs to become a Canadian citizen because Russia is not great when it comes to gay people. I mean, he’s not all the way gay, like me. He’s bi-sexual—”
“Oh, so the sleeping around was true.”
“Yes,” Shane said, shortly. The less said about that the better. “It was, past tense. Before we were exclusive. I mean, we only saw each other a handful of times a year.”
Hayden’s mouth was a straight line. Very disapproving, as if Ilya’s womanizing remained a mark against him when he could have just stuck being devoted to Shane. “Hmph. How long has it been?”
“Since…?”
“Since you got together.”
Here was the tricky part. “Since we first, ah, hooked up? That was our rookie season.”
“Rookie season?”
“It was just that. Hooking up. For a few years. Not exclusive or anything.” He rubbed his searingly hot earlobe. “Then last year we, ah, realized maybe it was more than that. I mean, before, I was struggling with the whole gay thing and we obviously had to do everything in secret because of, you know. The rivalry. And the gay thing. And because of Russia. Not that we’re not struggling because of those things now. Like, I’m out. But… nothing else has changed.”
Wow. It was really depressing.
Hayden was fast-blinking, trying to process. He sometimes did this when they were reviewing tape. “You’ve been hooking up with Ilya Rozanov the entire time I’ve known you.”
“Ah. Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Who are you, man?” Hayden said and, you know, it almost sounded like he was impressed.
*
Though it had been pretty high up on the most excruciating moment of Shane’s life, there was something of a relief about someone knowing. Someone other than his parents. He thought about that a lot on the drive to Ottawa for his weekend with Ilya and over dinner that night, he posed the question, “Is there someone you would want to tell? About us?”
Ilya considered in a way that suggested he’d already thought about this. “I don’t know. Sveta maybe? I will think about it.”
Shane had mixed feelings about Svetlana, who occupied an incomprehensible best-friend-casual-fuck-buddy role in Ilya’s life for a nebulously long period of time. They still texted a lot, he knew that. Ilya had said she had struggled to understand his move, to the point where when it had been announced she’d flown back from Moscow to see him. Of course, he hadn’t been at his house – he’d been at the cottage – and she had let herself in and triggered the house alarm. They’d had an intense phone call that had lasted well over an hour and Ilya had been moodily silent for the rest of the evening.
Guilt scratched at him. He poked through the healthy poke bowls they had put together. It was one of the meals they could agree on, though Ilya had liberally doused his with Kewpie Mayo and Sriracha. “What about Marlow?”
“What about him?”
“You were friends, I thought.”
But Ilya shook his head quickly. “Marlow would not— is not a good idea.”
“Why? Maybe it would help. Explain why you left Boston.” If anything, it was the one thing that had gained Hayden’s sympathy points.
“Maybe.”
That ‘maybe’ was a ‘no’. Shane was beginning to wonder if there was another Russian word for ‘no’ that translated as ‘maybe’ in English.
He didn’t understand Ilya’s reticence. Ilya had been very closed-mouthed about what did appear to be the end of his relationship with a guy he had been papped with as much as girls. He wanted to understand. “You don’t trust him?”
“No. He wouldn’t tell anyone. But it would not.” Ilya sighed, suddenly looking very tired. “Shane, it would make him very uncomfortable.”
“Oh. He’s homophobic.” That was disappointing.
“I mean, probably, yes. But that is not it.” Ilya was practically squirming. “Look. I think it would give some things a different perspective. For him. Because of things we… used to do.” He gave Shane a hard, imploring look. Like he was trying to get him to understand without having to use words.
Shane put his fork down. There was no way he could eat another mouthful. “Are you telling me you and Marlow used to hook up?”
Ilya winced. “Not exactly.”
“How exactly?”
“Sometimes we would take a girl home.” He used his fork to gesture from side to side. “Together.”
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“Like—” He couldn’t finish.
“Yes. Like that.”
Shane didn’t know what to say. Obviously, he knew Ilya was more sexually experienced than him. And he’d thrown the word ‘threesome’ around a few times – as a joke. Almost certainly a joke. And he guessed that meant Ilya had probably had a threesome in his life. More than one probably. But he’d sort of assumed… well, that it would be two girls and Ilya.
Not Ilya, Cliff Marlow, and a girl.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how that would work before he stopped himself. He didn’t need to know this. He didn’t need to know where they put their hands, and their dicks, and their mouths. Whether it had been the explicit worship of some uber hot girl or if occasionally they had—
His brain became noisy. Too noisy to compute all the sudden thoughts that were assuaging him. Ilya and Marlow. Ilya and Marlow.
Why was this worse? Why did this make him feel worse than all the girls? And he’d already felt pretty bad about the girls! He’d been bombarded with photos of the women Ilya had fucked – not just here in the US, in Canada, but in Moscow, every summer. Social media had been full of them, his feed automatically attuned to Ilya Rozanov like he was Shane’s special interest, not just hockey. Images of Ilya with his tongue in some girl’s mouth, his hands roaming over beautiful bodies. It was part of the reason he avoided social media but even then his teammates would screengrab shit and send it on the group chat. Look at that fucker. Pussy magnet. Leave some for the rest of us, Rozanov.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” Ilya said quietly, mouth turned down unhappily at the corners. “It was a long time ago and we were always very drunk.”
“When was the last time?”
“I don’t remember.”
Not good enough and probably a lie. He may never have had one but he was pretty damn certain a threesome wasn’t something a guy forgot about. “Are you attracted to him?”
Ilya placed his hand flat on the table, very gently. “Shane. Please. It was not like that.”
The buzzing noise in his head became a burning feeling behind his eyes. Shane was going to cry. This was what was happening. He was going to cry and he could tell it was going to be bad. So, like a coward, he slid off the stool and ran away.
*
Shane hid in one of the guest bathrooms and stuffed his sweater sleeve into his mouth just in case he made any noise. Tears ran down his face. He couldn’t get his imagination to stop. Ilya and Marlow, entwined together on a bed, an almost incidental girl with them. Ilya and Marlow kissing. Fucking.
Did they do it in Ilya’s bed back in Boston? Oh God. Shane had been with Ilya in that bed.
Why was this worse?
It took him a long time to calm down, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, through the increasingly damp cotton blend of his sweater. Sweat and salt clung to his face, uncomfortably. His hair felt gross. A shower would be good but none of Ilya’s other bathrooms had towels because he didn’t have any guests.
He splashed water on his face instead and dried it with the hem of his sweater. It was dirty anyway. He’d have to wash it.
Shane met his reddened eyes and flushed cheeks in the mirror. He didn’t have enough experience to know if his reaction – embarrassing though it was – was an overreaction or a perfectly normal response to finding out your significant other had sex with someone else you knew.
He thought it was probably normal to feel something about this. To feel not good. He felt very not good.
He firmed the wobble in his bottom lip and pushed his shoulders back. He might not have the experience in navigating everything, but he knew enough that he needed to face Ilya now without being unreasonable. They had not been exclusive. What Ilya had done before they decided to commit to each other was irrelevant. Shane had even done stuff with other people – girls and guys.
The Cliff Marlow thing was an unexpected curve-ball but he would get over it.
He managed a tight smile in his reflection and opened the door and nearly shrieked to find Ilya, clambering up from the floor immediately in front of the bathroom. “Jesus Christ!”
Ilya held out his hands, palms forward, like Shane was some kind of nervous horse. “Shane, I’m so sorry.”
He immediately shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. It’s fine. It just surprised me. It’s all good.”
Ilya’s face crumpled helplessly. “Is not good. Is very bad. Can I hold you? Please?”
Shane’s bottom lip tried to go again and he pressed his lips together. He started to nod – quite literally, right now, all he wanted was to be held – but before he had even completed one head-tilt, Ilya had all but swallowed him with his arms. “It wasn’t like that,” he said breathlessly into Shane’s shoulder, pulling him tight. “It was— drunk, stupid. It was only about the girl. I do not think of Marlow like that. I only— since you. You were the only boy I wanted. From the beginning, I think.”
“Cool,” said Shane, clutching the back of Ilya’s T-shirt, a couple more tears squeezing out. “Um. You too.”
Ilya kissed his neck, once, twice, three times. He pulled back a little and kissed his cheek, the corner of his mouth, the end of his nose. “I am sorry, Shane. Forgive me.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Shane muttered, moving his head so that the kisses Ilya was pressing to his face landed on his lips. He began to push Ilya towards the bed, determined to salvage this evening by staking his claim in a way he understood. “We’re really never having a fucking threesome, though.”
*
His team took the announcement of the foundation almost more poorly than Shane’s being gay.
Gay? Passable. A feature of their captain that they could ignore like they could ignore that he was half-Japanese and didn’t drink.
Forming a charitable foundation with Ilya Rozanov? Punishable offense.
“Guess none of you want to be summer coaches then,” he joked, once.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Of everyone, Drapeau was the most angry. He maybe had good reason. Ilya and he had probably more run-ins on the ice than Ilya and Shane ever had. “He is the fucking enemy.”
“He plays for Ottawa now, guys,” Hayden tried because he was ride or die for Shane and Shane didn’t deserve him. “It’s hardly like he’s relevant anymore.”
Shane wanted desperately to defend Ilya in that moment – to point out that re-building a team didn’t happen overnight and the responsibility for this certainly wasn’t resting all on Ilya’s admittedly brilliant shoulders – but it was absolutely not the time. “Look, guys, this has nothing to do with hockey. Rozanov and I will be just as competitive on the ice as we always have been, I can assure you. That is the end of it.”
He was captain and so the chatter did stop but there was something discernibly wrong during practice. Passes were a touch too slow. No one was making eye contact with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d see the occasional sneer.
Theriault took him aside afterwards and gave him shit. “Any more surprises you’d like to spring on us?” he demanded.
Shane smiled and it was a genuine smile because for an insane, amazing moment he imagined really telling him about Ilya. He thought he’d probably have an aneurism. “Think I’m good for now, coach.”
“Fuckssakes,” the man muttered, storming off.
As usual, Shane did a few more laps of the ice to give the team time to dissipate. It was peaceful. Gave him a chance for his head to clear. His blades glided across the ice, the quiet susurration a balm to his busy brain. He kept reminding himself, as hard as this was, he was doing it for a reason. A reason that was worth it.
*
A week before Christmas, an email arrived in his inbox and a hot and shivery feeling rushed through Shane’s body.
Dear Mr Hollander,
Hope this email finds you well.
Attached is the requested report.
Please let us know if there are areas that require further details and we shall pass this on to the agency.
Regards
Ivan
Ilya was in the shower. Any minute now he’d come out and he’d be doing that scrunching thing he did with his hair to make sure that it dried perfectly curly, standing naked in the doorway and telling Shane whatever random thought he’d had when he was washing, all relaxed and cute, his grammar atrocious, and the least close to the public perception of Ilya Rozanov that there could possibly be.
Meanwhile, Shane was receiving emails from the agency he had hired to spy (oh fuck) on Ilya’s niece.
He slammed his cell phone down on the bed. He needed to tell him. Right now. That was what he had to do.
He clambered off the bed. “Ilya—,” he began, barging into the steamy bathroom and then coming to a total, mind-melted halt.
“Oh. Is good timing, Hollander,” Ilya said, leering at him, his hand on his prominent erection. “I was just thinking about you.”
Okay. Well. Now was not the time, he decided, stripping with practiced efficiency.
*
It wasn’t the time later because they had lunch with his parents. And it wasn’t at home. It was in a restaurant, in public. Him and Ilya and his mom and dad, sitting at a table, with people around them and waiters and passersbys and though Shane’s stomach churned with nervousness, he also couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Under the table, he kept pressing his foot against Ilya’s and Ilya kept pressing back.
Real.
Ilya drove them back in his sensible Mercedes SUV, one hand on Shane’s knee the whole time, a burning hot brand. They were barely through the door when Shane practically threw himself at Ilya – the sheer joy that they were able to do something so normal – and they stumbled up the stairs, shedding clothes as they went, kissing and laughing and acting like the teenagers they had once been.
In bed, it was a battle, the way it sometimes was and today Shane won, not that Ilya really lost, his eyes watching Shane predatorily from beneath him as he stroked himself. Shane knew how to make it a performance, to take pleasure from Ilya’s anticipation as he took pleasure for himself. When he sank down on Ilya’s cock, his boyfriend’s fingers pressed bruises into his hips, his mouth agape with raw hunger.
Real, real, real.
*
It was just before 7am when Shane finally opened the email. He left Ottawa in the pitch black so that he could be back in Montreal in time for practice. He could still feel the creases from Ilya’s sheets on his skin. With very little effort at all, he could summon the sensation of Ilya’s breath on the back of his neck, the little noise of complaint he’d made as Shane’s alarm had gone off and he’d extricated himself from Ilya’s grip.
It would be two weeks before he would be back. A lifetime.
He opened the report. The document was a more manageable five pages now and all Shane had to do was read the first page.
Green: the sale of the apartment has gone through. The Rosanovs financial circumstances were in the black and they are planning to move to a more reasonable apartment, however this means that Anna will need to move schools.
Okay. So that’s not so bad. Nothing really major to worry about there. Finances in the black. And Shane had moved schools when he was a kid, too. A couple of times actually. His mom wanted him to be in the best environment to nurture his hockey skills.
Green: Anna’s final school report praised her attendance and aptitude. She continued to do well - a straight A student. She got a glowing report from her music teacher, who encouraged Anna to continue taking her flute lessons as she has real talent. The school wished Anna luck at her new school.
And that was nice, too. He was pleased to see that Anna was such a good student. Shane had been too. Though his special interest had been hockey rather than music.
A shadow fell over him then, making him jump. But it was just Hayden, waving like a loon. Shane hit the archive button and, smiling, got out of his car to follow his friend into practice.