Chapter Text
Shane’s pretty sure it’s a joke, when he checks his mail and finds the card tucked away in between three bills and two pamphlets—one for a cable upgrade and one for a new sushi restaurant downtown that promises big things and zero food poisoning.
Then his phone buzzes in his pocket with an incoming text, a string of question marks from Hayden, followed by a slow-to-load picture of the same envelope, and Shane definitely thinks it’s a joke.
He doesn’t have to look far to find the culprit though: the return address bears his name, carefully written out in block letters. Ilya Rozanov.
Hayden: what kinda psychological warfare is this
Shane: I haven’t opened it yet. Is it a glitter bomb or something?
Hayden: worse
It’s an invitation. Shane tosses the envelope and the rest of the mail onto his kitchen countertops as he stares at the little card. It’s not much, simple black background with golden accents.
He rolls his eyes as he rubs his thumb along the embossed line-art drawing of a roaring bear, pressed against the left corner of the invitation.
Ilya Rozanov
Warmly invites you
To his 25th birthday celebration
June 14, 2016
At the following address:
Shane’s phone buzzes on the counter where he left it to study the letter. Hayden again, this time with a picture attached. It’s the same invitation, bear and all.
Before he can stop himself, he wonders if Hayden’s invite carries a whiff of Rozanov’s cove-and-woodsy-cedar scent too. It’s a funny image, Rozanov spraying Shane’s invitation with a spritz of his cologne, the way all the ladies in the period dramas Shane’s mom likes dab a bit of their perfume onto every letter they send their lover.
Dangerous thoughts lay down that path though. Stupid, addictive, heady, dangerous thoughts.
It has to be a joke. Shane thought that when he first saw the envelope and recognized Ilya’s handwriting. He’s gotten used to seeing it over the past year, since their hook ups have grown more steady, lasted longer. Lasted through the night sometimes, so that when Ilya sneaks out in the morning before Shane wakes up, he leaves a little note.
Shane watches his thumb trail over the words on the invitation. They’re written by hand, too. By Ilya’s hand.
It’s just, like. It’s a lot of work for a joke.
But maybe Ilya’s had nothing but time on his hands lately. Montreal won the Cup a week ago, after all. Even the parties have officially died down now. Honestly, Shane’d sort of assumed he’d be back in Russia already after the Bears’ quiet second round exit, but the address for the party is somewhere in Boston.
Shane carefully and firmly doesn’t think about what he’d have done in a fantasy, dream world where Ilya Rozanov sends him a very serious party invitation to his birthday party in Russia.
In this scenario, of course, the words aren’t delivered in the mail but rather whispered half into Shane’s ear and then bitten into his mouth, and Ilya says all the right things about how he really wants to see Shane there, that if he came, he wouldn’t leave him alone for a second, that he’d—Shane doesn’t know. The scenario’s dissolving in his mind faster than he can put it together, like holding your hands under a running faucet. The water always slips between the cracks in your fingers.
That’s the thing with Ilya Rozanov. He always seems to manage to find the cracks in Shane’s—what, armor. Maybe. Composure. Soul.
It’s a lot of work for a joke, but Ilya’s been known to put in a lot of work for very little return more times than Shane can count. It’s not even enough to call him ambitious, the guy’s a fucking visionary. On the ice, beneath the covers.
Shane taps his fingers along the edge of the counter, chin propped up on his other hand as he stares at the invitation until his eyes start to blur around the edges.
His phone’s still on the counter, open to Hayden’s message, but he swipes out of the conversation without replying.
Shane could find out, is the thing. Rozanov is a text away. He could text him, he could find out. He could know.
There’s a dozen responses already at the tip of his tongue for if it is a joke. He’d say anything then, to try and prove he hadn’t—even for a second—wanted something he couldn’t have so desperately he’d lost time trying to imagine how the jet lag would feel after a long haul flight to Russia.
There’s a dozen excuses already at the tip of his tongue for if it isn’t a joke. If it’s an earnest invitation. If Ilya means it, wants him there.
Obviously, Shane can’t go. He’ll—send a nice present. A floral arrangement. He’ll—buy a nice set of silk scarves or something, suggest via text that maybe Ilya can bring them to their next hook-up and make use of them there.
He can’t go though. To Ilya Rozanov’s birthday party. He doesn’t like parties, he doesn’t really care about birthdays, and he knows very well he shouldn’t like or care about Ilya Rozanov as much as he does. So it’s better, for the best, even. If he keeps his distance.
Thank you, but no.
Thank you, but I’m sorry I’m tired out from partying after the Stanley Cup win. You remember how it is.
Thank you, but that’s not a great idea and you know it.
Thank you, but fuck you for putting me in this position, where you get to offer and I have to say no. Don’t you understand how fucked up that makes my head? Every time? Every time, I walk us back and then you take us forward again, and it’s like—it’s bad enough to miss you when you’re not here, when all I have of you is the clothes you let me steal. Don’t you understand how much I want to be there? To give you an uncomplicated yes? To give you a present and know it’ll be accepted? To have been asked to attend, to have been asked to be among your loved ones, to be counted as a loved one, someone you want across the circle of faces from you as the clock strikes midnight and you turn another year older? Don’t you understand how fucked up it makes me? Reining us both in? Being so bad at it? Trying to convince myself I’m doing what we need instead of what we want and that’s the only option available? Don’t you think I look at you sometimes and want and want and want and want and
Thank you, but unfortunately I have prior commitments with the Voyageurs front office. Many happy returns on this very special day.
The last text between them was a week ago. Ilya’d sent him a congratulations text after the Voyageurs lifted the Cup. Shane’d replied even though he can’t even remember what he’d typed. And then, nothing. Two missed calls, both from Ilya. Late enough in the night that Shane was probably out again with the team or with his family or some combination of the two.
It wouldn’t even really be an excuse, if Shane told Ilya he couldn’t come to his birthday party because he was too tired from the Cup celebrations. He’s feeling too tired, too old. Everything hurts and he’d prefer to sleep for the next several weeks if at all possible.
Jane: dude is this invitation legit?
Shane sends it before he can overthink it, mostly because there are a lot of things bubbling up in his head right now and he has to get one of them out or else he’ll explode.
He sinks into the couch in front of the kitchen counter and goes to hike his knee up before his ribs make their very furious protests known. Brock Lexter of the Utah Beehive had slammed him up against the boards beginning of Game One. Hadn’t mattered in the end, of course. Shane’d come out with the Cup.
And a set of bruised ribs and maybe a few torn ligaments, but. The Cup, too.
His phone vibrates in his hand with an incoming text. Ilya.
Ilya.
Lily: Yes.
Just that.
Just yes.
What the fuck is Shane supposed to do with that? With nothing but a confirmation?
Lily: have you ever gotten a nefarious birthday party invitation before?
Despite himself, Shane has to bite at his lip to stop the smile from spreading across his face, even if no one’s around to see it. He slips the edge of his hoodie string into his mouth and bites at the hard shell of plastic there along the edge anyway.
Jane: You sent one to hayds, man. You didn’t even pack a bunch of glitter into the envelope. What was I supposed to think?
Lily: oh shit, i forgot the glitter. Now what am I supposed to do with all of this gold plastic?
Jane: I don’t know, decorate for your birthday party?
Lily: I am not going to use glitter for my birthday party, Jane, I am turning 25. Not 5.
Shane pauses, sits back on the couch, and looks at the text thread. He thinks they’re getting a little off-topic here. He thinks the thank you, but no is getting a little lost in his head, shoved to the back of his mind.
He should just say it, now that he has the confirmation that this was—maybe not earnestly sent, but at least sincerely sent.
Thank you, but no. Thank you, but I’m sorry. Thank you for thinking of me. Why were you thinking of me? Do you think of me often? Yes/no?
Jane: why did you invite two Montreal players to your birthday party?
Lily: I do not think you have ever asked me so many questions. It is an invitation to a party not an invitation to open an investigation.
Shane frowns and then scowls. That’s just—blatantly not true. He asks Ilya questions all the fucking time. It’s Ilya who never answers them. Much like he’s doing right now, actually. He lets the end of the hoodie drawstring drop from his mouth and carefully texts back his most convincing argument.
Jane: :(
Ilya’s response lags, long enough that Shane flips back to his conversation with Hayden and sends him a picture of his own invitation, just to confirm they’re on the same page.
Lily: maybe I want two Montreal players at my birthday party.
It’s…psychological warfare is fucking right.
Jane: You want Hayden at your birthday party?
Lily: I want you at my birthday party. Pike is a necessary evil.
Jane: ?
Lily: he is like your emotional support dog i think. It will be a big party with many people.
Jane: oh wow you’re so popular. I just googled the address, it’s a hotel? Dude.
Lily: It will be a very big party and very loud.
Shane bites at the skin around his thumb. Ilya isn’t doing a very good job of selling this to him, but then—maybe he knows he doesn’t have to. Maybe he knows Shane wants to come, has wanted to come ever since Ilya texted him that yes. Before that, if he’s being honest. Since he first saw the invitation.
Lily: I invited all of the captains and alternates from East division, so it will not look strange if you are there.
Lily: Scott Hunter said no (((
Which—of course Scott Hunter said no. Probably all the captains will say no, save for maybe the newer ones who want to bask in Ilya’s limelight like it’ll give them some of their own. That’s not a surprise.
What is a surprise is that Shane hasn’t yet.
He goes to type it out, the no, the respectful version of it. Thank you, but no. Surely Ilya will understand. Surely Ilya will not even care that much. Shane isn’t—they’re not—they don’t—you’re supposed to be surrounded by loved ones, on your birthday. You’re not supposed to invite your fuck buddy. Your fuck buddy is not supposed to want to travel across international borders to attend.
Hayden’s reply buzzes through his phone before he can say anything like that to Ilya. It’s a bunch of question marks, and it makes Shane’s heart drop into his fucking stomach and his hands scramble to pick up the invitation. He’d read it, he swears he read it, swears there was nothing there that was incriminating. It was addressed to Shane, not Jane: check. Ilya hadn’t drawn dicks all over the page: check. He hadn’t written his room number as a post script or anything: check.
Shane lets out a shuddering breath and swipes immediately over to his conversation thread with Hayden.
Hayden: ???? WTF
Shane: ? What??
Hayden: you get a WARMLY invites and I get a CORDIALLY invites?
Shane: what the fuck are you talking about?
Hayden: on the fucking invitation, Rozanov hand-wrote this shit.
Hayden: Mine says “Ilya Rozanov cordially invites you” and yours says “warmly invites”??
Shane fucking—can’t. Fuck. He presses a hand up against his heart; it’s still racing. See, this. This is why he can’t come. This is why it’s a bad idea. The more Shane lets Ilya Rozanov into his life, the more he has to live in the shadows and in fear, and he’s—that’d been the sole piece of criticism they’d given him as feedback before the Combine, all the scouts who came to watch him dominate in the O. Risk averse. Strategic, thoughtful, willing to lose a second to identify the best play, but in hockey, the time you have on the ice is measured in seconds. You have to bite the bullet, sometimes. Make a risky play based on a half-assed assessment of the situation.
And Shane’s—Shane’s better at it now, better now that he has seven seasons under his belt in the show, but he’s realizing, staring at the black and gold invitation in his hand, that there’s a canyon slowly being carved into the center of him, between the things he knows how to do on the ice and the things he cannot bring himself to do with his heart, and Ilya Rozanov’s the fucking river.
He swallows, even though his throat is desert dry, and texts out a nothing response to Hayden.
Shane: guess our rivalry’s more heated
Then he switches back to the conversation between him and Rozanov, gets the thank you, but typed out before Ilya sends a follow up text that sort of stops Shane’s thumbs mid-air.
Lily: it is okay, if you cannot. Or do not want to.
Carefully, he deletes everything and starts over, a spark of useless, directionless anger firing off in his stomach. Doesn’t Ilya understand? Doesn’t Ilya know—
Jane: it’s not about what I want, ilya….
The response text comes a moment later, like Ilya knew what he’d say and already had his rebuttal typed out.
Lily: then can it be about what I want? Just for one night.
It’s a terrible thing, trying to deny someone like Ilya. Trying to deny someone Shane just wants to give into. How do people do it, when they build houses right along the beach? Don’t they know the first thing about water and surface tension? How it spreads, how hard it is to hold firm against.
Shane feels a little like the tide’s biting at his ankles, tugging him carefully up and sweeping him along as he watches his thumbs type, without conscious approval from his brain: okay.
Lily: ))
Jane: but i’m going to wear a Voyageurs hoodie and my Stanley Cup Champions hat.
Lily: okay
Lily: but I think there are other pieces of clothing in your closet I like you in better ;)
Lily: (mine)
Shane doesn’t show up to the hotel in either Voyageurs-branded merch or Ilya Rozanov’s clothing, but he does consider it right up until it’s time to leave his own hotel room to trek across the city to get to Ilya’s. It’d felt a little silly, booking a hotel room in Boston for the night just to go to some other hotel, but it’d felt too presumptuous to not.
That’s not what they do. There are always emergency exit routes. Shane doesn’t know what going all in would look like for them, and he doesn’t want to try to find out tonight of all nights, the day before Ilya’s birthday when he’ll have a mountain of hosting duties to see to.
Hayden had declined his cordial invitation with relish, and Shane understood that. He did. Of course Hayden’s less inclined to travel a few hours from Montreal to Boston for a birthday party hosted by a guy he doesn’t even like. He wouldn’t even get kisses out of it.
Not that Shane thinks he’s going to get kisses from Ilya Rozanov tonight. If the size of the hotel is any indication, then the ballroom rented out for the party is probably going to be stuffed full of people who all want their little slice of Rozanov. Shane’s not here to demand anything else from him or anything. Shane’s here because—because—
Well, because Ilya asked him to be here.
And he wasn’t doing anything else, and he wasn’t too tired from winning the Stanley Cup, and he’s a multi-millionaire who can afford things like last minute flights and hotel reservations, and Ilya asked him. To be here.
So he is. Here, that is, standing in the hotel lobby and being given directions to the event space by a peppy receptionist in a crisp looking oxford and vest combo that makes Shane feel overly self-conscious of the wrinkles that have gotta be obvious in his own shirt.
The room’s as big and packed as Shane thought it’d be, and he’s immediately calculating how much time he has to spend here before he can duck back out. It’s late already, almost ten. He could make it to midnight.
Or, he could make it an hour. And then—maybe find a rooftop for a little bit, sneak back in at midnight just to say he was there if Rozanov asked later. Then he could leave.
It’s just so fucking loud, the room. Filled to the brim with so many people, mostly strangers. The Boston team is here, obviously. Shane catches sight of Marleau leaning up against the bar with a fruity drink clutched in his hand. And he thinks he sees Andreas Polindor, Captain of the New Jersey Ruckus, entertaining around one of those small standing tables that every event space seems to have.
And there, in the middle of it, is Ilya. Ilya, laughing with his head thrown back at something the woman at his elbow is telling him, champagne flute in one hand and the other stuffed in his pocket. He looks good. It’s been a while since Shane’s seen him in person, more than a few months. He looks good.
Like this, especially. Surrounded by people who want him, looking—radiant with it, dressed to the nines. Poster child of a birthday boy.
Shane lingers for a second at the edges of the room, eyes stuck on Ilya. This is sort of where his understanding of the night—the plan—runs out. He is here because Ilya asked, Ilya asked because he wanted him here. But Ilya wanted everyone else here too, and so everyone else has just as much right to Ilya’s attention as Shane does. More, probably. Some closer bond, an actual connection they can talk about, that can survive being talked about.
It’s just—Shane’s never had to figure out what to do to get Ilya’s attention on him. That’s something he’s always just been given.
“Shane Hollander, my man!” A hand claps him on the back and then an arm wraps around his shoulder, shakes him a little bit. Shane turns towards the speaker, recognizing him from the touch alone as another hockey player. And he is: Tristan Tosco, #11, one of the Toronto Guardians’ alternates.
One hour. He can do this. He puts a smile on his face and claps at Tosco’s shoulder. “Hey, man,” he says. “Surprised you got an invite after what you did to the Bears second round.”
It’s a risk, obviously, talking about playoff hockey so soon after the wound of it. After all, Toronto swept Boston in their series only to go down 5-1 to Montreal in the Eastern Conference finals. But what else is Shane supposed to talk about when faced with a hockey player? Something other than hockey?
Yeah right.
But Tosco laughs and slaps his shoulder again, probably because the Bears are the brunt of the joke, not the Guardians. “Me?” he says, and he’s guiding Shane through the room now, towards the bar. “Man, I’m surprised you got an invite, what with the whole rivals thing you’ve got going on, eh?”
Shane shrugs, doesn’t have to answer because the bartender’s sliding down the bar to ask for his drink order.
When he turns back around to face the room, ginger ale in one hand and Tosco in his ear still talking about what he’s seen so far in Boston, Rozanov is looking at him.
He’s still where he was, front and center and surrounded by people, but his eyes are on Shane’s now. They look—wider, like he’s been caught off guard, which is sort of stupid because he told him he was planning to come. Had said yes, hadn’t even tried to pretend otherwise or be coy about it. Doesn’t even know what playing coy looks like when it comes to Rozanov. If that’s something Shane’s even capable of, when it comes to anyone.
“And I think, you know, I’m liking Pendleton’s coaching style,” Tosco is saying into his ear, and this is something Shane should pay attention to because this is important. This is hockey, this is player relations with a new coach of a rival team, so Shane should be paying attention.
But he can’t look away from Rozanov, not when Rozanov’s already looking at him. That’s been a problem for years now. It’s been a Code Red since—Shane doesn’t know. Since the last time he won the Cup, maybe. Since that time Ilya confronted him about the–clothes thing and then just let him keep doing it anyway.
Ilya’s eyes cut away from his, turn to look at the woman closest to him. She’s beautiful, obviously, dark hair a halo of curls around her face and body slim and a perfect fit beneath the weight of Ilya’s arm. Not that he has his arm around her now, but Shane can see it. Shane can see how it’d work, how they’d work. It makes sense.
It’s been maybe five minutes.
Fifty-five minutes to go.
“He really believes in us, as a team,” Tosco tells him, sounding earnest about it. Tosco’s young, only a few years into the league. Wearing the A because Toronto’s knee-deep in a rebuild that keeps going sideways and he was the best of a bunch of bad options. He should know better than to talk about his coach with the captain of the Voyageurs. He should know hockey doesn’t work like that.
“Right,” Shane says, because he’s not going to be the one to tell him. Maybe he should be, but there’s something thick and sticky like tar expanding in his stomach as he makes himself look away from Rozanov.
He wasn’t expecting anything. It would have been stupid to expect something. In front of all these people. Rozanov’s seen him now. He’ll—Shane will approach him in ten minutes maybe, casually. Just to say hello. Just to pay his respects to the birthday boy.
Yeah.
Sure, yeah. He flew two hours from Montreal to Boston, just to say hello to Ilya Rozanov.
He’s splitting his time between listening to Tosco talk about his summer training program and trying to come up with another time he’s used his money in such a stupid way, when a third person enters their conversation.
She’s so smooth about it that it almost feels natural, the way she bullies her way in between them to order a drink from the bartender before turning around and sweeping her eyes over the both of them. Like, Shane probably wouldn’t even think anything about it, if Tosco didn’t immediately choke on his tongue looking at her and if she weren’t the same woman he’d seen beside Ilya just a few minutes ago.
She blinks back at Shane like she knows something he doesn’t, full lips quirking up into a smile that’s beautiful but not friendly in the slightest.
“Svetlana Vetrova,” she introduces herself, offering her hand first to Shane and then to Tosco. “I am one of Ilyusha’s friends.”
“Nice to meet you,” Shane says, entirely on autopilot as he shakes her hand. He’s seen her before, he thinks, now that he’s looking at her from up close. He recognizes her. He thinks—she’s been papped with Ilya before, a couple of times over the years.
He tries not to hold it against her, but he doesn’t try that hard either.
“Likewise, Shane Hollander,” she tells him, and it’s paired with a different kind of smile now, something soft enough to slip into her eyes. She turns to look at Tosco then back to Shane. The bartender deposits a martini glass next to her hand and she takes a sip of it. “It is good that you are both here,” she says, perfectly plucked eyebrow arching high over her face as she stares them down. “Toronto and Montreal both have a goalie problem. Let’s talk about it.”
It takes about an hour and a half and moving through six different casual conversations for Shane to realize Svetlana’s standing next to him like some sort of chaperone or, more accurately, a prison warden.
Which—that doesn’t really make any sense, because it’s a party and Shane shouldn’t feel trapped here, except really, he sort of does. Svetlana’s constant presence near him doesn’t help all that much either.
Or, it does, in that she turns out to be really fucking good at all the small talk things that Shane can fake his way through pretty passably but never for too long. And she’s actually funny and clever, knows a bunch of stuff about hockey but a bunch more stuff about the world outside of hockey, things Shane’s heard of but never quite knew existed.
And she’s beautiful, obviously. And Russian. Maybe every time Rozanov kisses her, it’s like a little taste of home. Shane’s been trying not to think about it. He’s not very good at it though, not when there’s a 50/50 chance that every time he finds Rozanov in the crowd, Rozanov’s already looking back at him. At them, Shane corrects himself in his mind. At Shane and at Svetlana.
Twenty minutes to midnight, Svetlana rests a hand on his elbow and excuses them both from the conversation. “Cigarette break,” she says when Shane shoots her a confused look.
“I don’t smoke,” Shane tells her, but he lets her drag him out of the room all the same, to the elevator and then up to the rooftop of the hotel where Boston glitters below them in the summer heat.
She takes a drag from her cigarette and then offers it to him. “I still don’t smoke,” he tells her, in case she thinks he’s changed his stance from this new vantage point.
“Hm,” is all she says, before putting it back up to her lips.
Shane looks at her and then looks away, back down at the city. It’s nice from up here. It’s nice to be away from the noise of the party for a few seconds. Maybe Shane can leave now. Maybe he doesn’t have to go back at all. He hasn’t managed to find a time to say anything to Ilya, but maybe that doesn’t matter. He was here, wasn’t he? All Ilya’d said was that he wanted him here. He’d said nothing about talking to him. Why would he? There are so many other people for Ilya to talk to. There is Svetlana, there are his teammates. Who is Shane, compared to—
“I’m feeling sick, I think,” Svetlana says, leaning up against the railing and blowing out smoke.
That makes two of us, Shane thinks but doesn’t say. “Oh, that sucks,” he does say, which sounds sort of weak and definitely not exactly winning any awards for sincere compassion or anything.
“It does suck,” Svetlana replies, repeating the word like it deeply amuses her. That’s the kind of tone she’s had for about half the things Shane’s said this entire night, and it’s really—Shane’s really about to—he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t like jokes he can’t understand, and she’s not even spoken this one out loud but she’s still laughing at the punchline. It’s just rude, is all.
“Maybe don’t smoke,” he suggests, which is something he’s told Ilya enough times that he knows he’ll be ignored.
She laughs, tilting her head back as she does it. It jolts something in the center of Shane; it takes him a few seconds to realize what. She laughs the same way Ilya does. It sounds different, obviously, different vocal chords, different breathing patterns. But she moves her body the way Ilya does when he laughs, like they learned it from each other, how to laugh.
“Actually, I’m feeling sort of sick, too,” he says, and it’s true. The sensation of the tar is back, sitting heavy in his stomach, gumming up his insides and making it sort of hard to breathe.
Svetlana shoots him a considering look over her shoulder. “This is too bad,” she says. “I had a birthday present planned out for Ilyusha.”
“Oh?” Shane says, mostly on autopilot. He doesn’t really want to hear about whatever Svetlana has decided to give Ilyusha for his birthday. He sort of wishes Hayden had decided to come to the party with him. He’d never have let him go up here alone with Ilya Rozanov’s terrifyingly pretty Russian childhood friend.
“Yes,” Svetlana says, and makes a very big show of sighing, looking despondently out over the city. “It was a sex thing,” she adds bluntly.
“Cool,” Shane replies, because it’s better than saying I am going to vomit off the edge of this hotel.
“He would have liked it,” she says, oblivious, maybe, to the thrashing in Shane’s gut. “I went by his house before coming here, you see, and took his jersey from your first International Prospects Cup. He had it hanging up on his wall, it is very adorable. Do you remember that Cup, Hollander? It is the one where he beat you for the gold medal.”
“I remember, thanks,” Shane says.
Svetlana has a key to Ilya Rozanov’s house, which makes sense because they’re probably like—in love. Or something. Childhood friends who have grown closer with time and age. Svetlana felt comfortable enough to take one of Ilya Rozanov’s most prized possessions, a game-worn jersey, right out of his house. Shane’s never been to his house. Shane—every time Shane takes a piece of Rozanov’s clothing, it is like—he feels like he is getting away with something. He wears them, sometimes, the hoodies, just around his house, and it feels like the police are going to knock down his door. Like he has gone too far, indulged too much and lost himself along the way.
“He likes it when I wear one of his jerseys while we fuck,” Svetlana tells him, like they are talking about the weather. The cigarette is burning down between her fingers. She is looking at Shane. “This is a hockey player thing, no? Have you ever done this?”
“Have I ever—what?”
His first thought is that she is asking him if he has ever worn one of Rozanov’s jerseys while they fucked. Which, no. He hasn’t. That’s never been something they’ve done. That’s never even been something Shane’s thought of, and apparently Rozanov’s thought of it and has been doing it. With someone else, which is totally cool.
“Have you ever fucked someone while they wear your jersey?” Svetlana asks, point-blank, eyebrow raised up.
Shane doesn’t think he’s ever been more red in his life. He can feel the heat radiating from his face. “Uh,” he says. “No.”
He’s heard about it before, obviously. Guys bragging about the different girls they’ve fucked after games, the ones wearing their jerseys, how it’d made them feel like a god to run their hands over the nameplate on the back of the sweater, see their number on a girl they’re fucking. He’s never understood it. Hockey is hockey. The jerseys and stuff—that’s for hockey.
Anyone he wants to sleep with, not that there are many people in that category in the first place anyway—they exist separate from hockey. Totally, completely separate. He can’t imagine a version of himself that…likes mixing the two together, that wants it. And it feels pretty…egotistical, to want to see your name and number on someone else, like the sex is all about you or something.
“Oh,” Svetlana says. “Hm, well. Is very fun. You should try it. Ilyusha likes it a lot. It is the name, I think,” she takes a drag of the cigarette, exhales. “Or maybe it is just the person who wears the name, I don’t know.”
Shane can feel the way his jaw clenches. His teeth ache from it. “That’s great,” he says, then wonders if that’s the correct response to some woman he’s just met telling him she’s planning to wear a hockey player’s jersey to his bed tonight.
And the hockey player’s this guy that Shane’s been in lo—that Shane’s been thinking about—that Shane’s come down from Montreal to—
The hockey player’s Ilya Rozanov.
Would Ilya like it if Shane wore his jersey? They’ve never talked about stuff like that. The sex between them is good, is amazing, is like, ten-car pile up kind of sex: life-ruining, destructive, feels like it happens in a moment and then you spend the next few hours trying to untangle your body from the twisted wreck you’ve let yourself become.
They don’t have—have props. This isn’t a high school fucking musical. They just have each other. They just—touch each other, and it’s so good every time that Shane’s never even fucking considered anything else.
But now he’s considering it. Now he can’t fucking stop considering it, mostly because he can’t stop picturing Svetlana wrapped up in Ilya’s jersey, wrapped up in Ilya’s arms. They’d look good together. She’s so slim, so willowy. And he’s so tall, so broad. His jersey would hang off of her frame. She’d drown in it.
Shane is going to be sick. Jealousy, fierce and unreasonable, wells up in his stomach and he has to look out over the city just to try and stop the ugly swell of his thoughts from overwhelming him.
He likes Svetlana. He thinks she’s funny and witty, charming. He has no reason to be jealous; he isn’t—he isn’t a jealous person. He isn’t. And—and Ilya isn’t someone he could be jealous over, anyway, if he were. Which he isn’t.
“But it is such a shame,” Svetlana sings, slipping her hand into the small clutch she has tied to her wrist and pulling out slim wallet. “I am now feeling too sick for this. I will have to get him something else instead.”
“Uh, yeah,” Shane says. He doesn’t like that the very first thing he thinks is good. He doesn’t like the kind of person that makes him feel like. He doesn’t like that he means it, either, that he’d rather have Svetlana feeling sick than anywhere near Ilya, prancing around in one of his jerseys and putting her arms around his neck and slipping into his lap and letting him put his fingers all over the 81 on the sleeves, across her back.
“I think it is best if I go home right now,” Svetlana says very slowly. Her cigarette is mostly done. She places it between her lips for a second and fumbles into her wallet, extracts a smooth, hard card. A hotel keycard. She holds it out to Shane, and he takes it automatically. “Would you give this to Ilyusha when you see him next? It is the key to his room here. I borrowed it to put his jersey in the room for later.”
“Oh,” Shane says. He looks at the key. It has the room number written at the bottom of it in silver type. 524. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll…yeah. I’ll give this to him.”
“Wonderful,” Svetlana says. “It was very good to meet you, Shane Hollander. I have heard so much about you.”
Shane blinks. “You…you have?”
“Oh yes,” Svetlana smiles. She looks like she is laughing again. She looks like she’s laughing at him again. “You are always in the media. It drives Ilyusha crazy.”
And—oh. Of course. Shane’s stupid. Of course she’s heard about him because of hockey, not because—not because Ilya talks to her about him. He smiles, but he doesn’t know what it comes out looking like. “Right, I guess it must if they’re talking about me more than him.”
Svetlana rolls her eyes, flicks the end of her cigarette and then presses it out against the cool metal railing. “I think it drives him crazy because they get you wrong. And he has spent so long trying to figure you out that it makes him upset that others can be so wrong but so loud about it.”
And Shane doesn’t know what to do with that. Thankfully, apparently, he isn’t expected to do anything at all with it, because Svetlana turns around and pats him on the cheek once before she starts walking towards the doors leading back into the hotel.
“Have a good night, Hollander,” she calls over her shoulder, and Shane runs his fingers over the edge of the keycard.
It’s, like, crazy-level stupid. To do this. And it might honestly be a crime or at least something that could get him in an involuntary psychiatric hold or something. Probably. Shane isn’t sure, but that’s how he feels. Crazy and wild and like he’s doing something illicit.
Like—this is definitely at least technically breaking and entering, right? Using someone else’s keycard to get into their hotel room without their permission? Using someone else’s keycard, that was acquired by a third party, to gain access into their hotel room without their permission?
If nothing else, it has to be considered at least really fucking weird.
And it’s even weirder to be wearing the jersey. But of fucking course he’s wearing the jersey. He’d held onto the thought that maybe he wouldn’t, right up until he’d slipped into the shadowy hotel room and seen it resting on the couch in the small living area between the door and the bed.
And then it was like he was possessed or something, because between one blink and the next he’s wearing the jersey.
It looks stupid as fuck, which makes this whole thing even more stupid and weird, because it’s not even, like. Hot or anything. Like if it were hot, then maybe it’d be worth it. But it just feels scratchy on his skin, and it smells faintly of sweat, and it’s big, obviously, because all hockey sweaters are made big enough to fit protective gear beneath them and still have fabric left over, but it’s not—it’s not as big as it’d be on someone else. On a girl like Svetlana.
Shane is too broad for that. He’s too tall. He’s built like a hockey player, is a hockey player. Probably touched this jersey when Ilya wore it on the ice all those years ago. Maybe even got his own sweat on it, mixed up with Ilya’s, which is—
Anyway, the point is. Shane doesn’t know how to wear a hockey jersey in a way that doesn’t look like a hockey player just wearing a hockey jersey. He takes his slacks and underwear off, but that looks even worse, so he slides the underwear back up his legs.
It doesn’t help that Ilya’d been—what, seventeen? Eighteen? When they first met at the Prospects Cup in Saskatchewan. He’d already been tall and broad, but he’d been young, smaller than he is now. Seven years later, Shane’s outgrown him, and it’s not that the jersey’s tight, it’s just that you can tell. It’s not meant for a twenty-six year old hockey player.
“Fuck,” Shane mutters, looking at his reflection. The sweater’s long enough that it covers most of his thighs, only an inch of underwear peeking out beneath the hem. It could look worse, he thinks. The colors are nice. The white and the red look good against his skin, and he’s always thought the gold used for the lettering across the front and on the back was pretty.
He traces it now, the Cyrillic that runs diagonal over the front of the jersey. He likes it, he can admit that to himself. Likes that of all the jerseys Svetlana could have stolen to surprise Ilya, she’d taken this one. This very first one. What a stroke of luck, for her to choose this one instead of one of his Bears jerseys or one of his other Russian jerseys.
He’d looked so—intimidating, that day. When they first met. But Shane hadn’t been able to stay away. Hadn’t wanted to try. He’d been walking into the training rink with his mom when he’d seen him smoking by himself out near the loading dock, and maybe that should’ve been Shane’s first warning sign, that he could recognize Ilya Rozanov even bundled up against the cold and from so far away.
He’d looked beautiful on the ice. Well, he’d looked beautiful in the parking lot too, all cold eyes and stiff lips, pale skin and pale hair against the pale winter sky. But it was like he came alive on the ice.
When Shane thinks about meeting Ilya, that’s the moment he thinks about. Not the parking lot, but the training rink. Watching him run drills with his team. Going head to head against him a week later. That was when he saw all of him, every fiery, competitive, hungry inch of him.
Shane puts his nose up against the edge of the jersey. Arguably the weirdest thing yet, but no one’s around to see him do it. He hasn’t even told Ilya he’s here. He still has time to put his clothes back on, pussy out, go back downstairs and leave the hotel completely. It’s already a few minutes past midnight. If they sang to Rozanov, he missed it. Shane wonders if Rozanov missed him, but then figures—probably not.
He steps back from the mirror and bends down to grab his slacks from the chair where he’d put them. Too weird, too stupid. Thankfully, no one has to know how much Shane wanted. Even for a second.
He almost drops the pants from fright when the door to the room is flung open so hard that it bangs loudly against the wall. “Jesus fucking Christ!” He snaps or shrieks. The line between the two feels very thin.
Ilya is standing in the doorway, eyes glued on Shane’s face like he’s drinking him in. The door to the room falls shut behind him and then suddenly they’re alone. For the first time tonight. They’re alone.
“I thought maybe you left,” Ilya tells him, very slowly and carefully, like it costs him to say.
Shane frowns and fights the urge to fidget with the hem of the jersey. He tightens and loosens his grip on his pants. “Happy birthday,” he says. Then, “but I’m not gonna fucking sing it to you.”
Ilya blinks at him and then smiles. It’s a really rare kind of smile, one Shane can’t remember seeing more than once or twice. It’s made up of teeth, splits his face in two, creases up his eyes, makes him look ten years younger. “What is this?” he asks, and he takes a step into the bedroom. It’s a very small step. His eyes finally, finally leave Shane’s face to drag down the length of him and then back up. They catch and hold on his chest, where the golden C sits. “Where did you get that, solnyshko?”
Shane swallows. “A friend,” he says, even though he wouldn’t necessarily call Svetlana and him friends. She’s Ilya’s friend though, so maybe he isn’t lying. He got it from one of Ilya’s friends. Okay.
Ilya hums and he takes another step forward. The distance between them is still just—untenable, really. Too much, too far. Shane has been waiting all night for this. He has been waiting for ages, for months.
“That is mine,” Ilya tells him, like they both don’t know it. His voice is low and his eyes look wild around the edges, like he’s being slow and careful only because the other option is quick and rough. “It is mine?” he checks a second later, and Shane knows what he’s asking. Hopes he doesn’t have any follow-up questions to Shane admitting that, yes, this is actually the Russian team’s Prospect Cup jersey that apparently has been hanging up in Ilya’s house for the last several years at least.
“Yeah,” Shane whispers, and his mouth feels dry so he licks his lips. “It’s yours. It’s—from the game.”
The game where you won. The first game where you beat me and I couldn’t look away.
“Fuck,” Ilya murmurs, and he stretches the word out, clicks his tongue and drags his eyes back up to Shane’s face. It’s too much, the heat in them, the desire. Shane looks away, down to the floor, lets his pants slip from his hands.
“Look, I—”
That’s as far as he gets because a second later, Ilya’s kissing him. There’s no hesitation in it, nothing but passion and force and this kind of—Shane doesn’t know, can’t name it but can feel it. Feels it, too. This—it’s like anger, what Ilya kisses him with. And desperation. Like, where have you been? I’ve been needing you.
Shane gets it; Shane kisses him back the same way, and then suddenly he’s in Ilya’s arms, pressed up against the chest of drawers. Ilya’s hand is big and rough along the back of Shane’s thigh as he grabs at the muscle, encourages him to jump up, put his weight on Ilya.
Shane does, because of course he does. The angle’s better like this, wrapped up in Ilya’s arms and held above him by just a few inches. Ilya has to tilt his head up to keep their lips connected and his hands are busy holding Shane up, so Shane gets to grab onto Ilya’s jaw and throat, control the kiss for once.
Ilya kisses him like it’s been ages. It’s been ages. Kisses from Ilya after a few months with no kisses always feel the same, like they are catching up with each other. Re-exploring, re-affirming, re-charting territory they’ve already conquered. Ilya tastes the backs of Shane’s teeth and Shane licks the ghost of champagne straight off Ilya’s tongue.
It’s gross, but it’s fucking—everything. It’s always everything, kissing Ilya. That’s what makes it so dangerous. Addictive, also.
Ilya must get tired of either holding Shane up or not being able to get his hands on him, because he turns and walks him over to the bed, dropping him down onto it and standing back so he can undo his belt. “I did not think…” he mutters, mostly to himself, and Shane blinks up at him when he trails off.
Shane’s already mostly hard, which would be something to be embarrassed about if it weren’t something he’s used to after so many years hooking up with Ilya in hotel rooms just like this one. His dick has formed an association. He’s lucky it just takes him a few kisses to get there instead of, like, the smell of hotel cleaner or something.
“What?” he asks, when Ilya doesn’t do anything other than just look at him.
Ilya shakes his head, mouth opening and then closing. “I did not think you would come,” he admits, and then pulls his shirt over his head, like he needs something to hide behind.
Shane frowns and props himself up on his elbows. “I told you I would,” he points out, watching as Ilya tugs first one and then the other sock off. It’s probably a terrible sign that even that, the little bounce between feet, is something he finds attractive.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees, and he pauses at the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair and pinning his eyes on Shane. “But I did not think you meant it.”
“Oh,” Shane says, and he feels—a little stupidly hurt by that. Does Ilya not trust him at his word?
Ilya makes a cut-off sound, something brimming with frustration. He crawls up onto the bed, kicking out of his pants until he’s left only in his underwear. He kisses Shane’s left knee and then his right, trailing a line of kisses up his thigh. “Or,” he says, between kisses. “I thought maybe you meant it.”
“I did,” Shane says, tangling his hand into Rozanov’s hair, because—obviously he meant it. Look at where he is.
“But—I did not—it would have been—” Ilya’s mouth is wet and warm against Shane’s inner thigh. The jersey’s hiked up to his stomach now, twisted around him. Fingers run along the waistline of his underwear, dipping beneath it in a soft gentle touch, the kind that makes Shane’s cock jump within the confines of his briefs. “I could not believe it, if I did not know it would be true,” Ilya finally says, hoisting himself up onto his elbows to loom over Shane. His eyes are very dark. They are very beautiful, too. “It would have been not so good.”
The pendant necklace dangles in the air between them, and Shane reaches up and catches it between his fingers. He doesn’t know what possesses him to touch it, and he definitely doesn’t know what possesses him to say, quietly, “Well, that’s faith, baby.”
It’s, like, really fucking stupid. The endearment, spoken in such a soft tone that it can’t be anything but earnest—isn’t anything but earnest. The words themselves, like Shane is telling Ilya to—to have faith in him, when that’s not what they’re—that’s not what they do.
It does get Ilya to kiss him again though, hard and desperate, one hand on his jaw and the other ghosting along his side, running over the fabric of the jersey with the faintest of touches. It makes Shane squirm, try to buck up, get more. He wraps a leg around the back of Ilya’s thighs to drag him down, but Ilya tenses, breaks their kiss to press his nose and lips up against his neck.
“C’mon,” Shane mutters, rolling his hips up into the line of Ilya’s body. He’s getting dizzy with arousal, with having Ilya on top of him, with the idea of wearing Ilya’s jersey and having Ilya touch him in it. If he fucks him while he’s wearing it, then Shane’s sweat will get into the fibers of the sweater too, and that’ll—Shane doesn’t know what that’ll mean, but he wants it. He wants it so much.
But Ilya doesn’t seem to be on the same fucking page because he sits back on his heels and lets his eyes trail up and down his body without fucking touching him. “Where are you hurt?” he asks, rubbing his thumb against the knob of Shane’s knee. It’s gentle. Ilya’s chest is moving rapidly, like he’s just run up and down the hotel, like it’s costing him something, to hold back, but he is. Holding back.
“What?”
“The Voyageurs did not release player injuries after the Final,” Ilya says. “But you have many player injuries. I know from how you skated with the Cup.”
He lets his hand run up to stroke along Shane’s hip and then, further up, along his side. Shane hisses at the contact, and Ilya’s face flickers into a frown. “Ribs,” he says.
“I don’t like this game,” Shane says.
“Is not a game,” Ilya replies. “Take the jersey off. I want to see you.”
“But you’re—” Shane starts to say and then bites at his lip. He thinks it’s a level of needy he isn’t prepared to admit to being, if he says something like, but you’re supposed to want to see me like this.
Svetlana said you love fucking her in your jersey. Why wouldn’t you like it with me? You’re supposed to like it with me more. With me best.
“I want to see where else you are hurt,” Ilya tells him in this no-nonsense kind of tone that—unfortunately—really fucking works on Shane. He doesn’t put up a fight when Ilya carefully lifts the jersey up his chest and carefully over his head.
He pauses with the white material bunched in his hand. “But this? This is good idea. Great idea,” he corrects himself, gesturing with the sweater. “We will save this idea for later.”
“Sorry, bro,” Shane says. “That’s a birthday special.”
“What happened to baby?” Ilya complains, leaning down and pressing a feather light kiss to Shane’s sternum, then another to the left, and then further down. “Give me back baby, please. Thank you. It is my birthday.”
Shane huffs out a laugh that turns breathless when Ilya’s mouth descends further to ghost along the waistline of his briefs. His hands find Ilya’s hair and tangle around his curls again. “I already said happy birthday,” he points out, arching his back into the white-hot press of Ilya’s mouth. He slips his tongue out, mouths across the bulge in Shane’s underwear, and this is torture. This is exquisite, unfair fucking torture.
Ilya hums and pulls back far enough that he can work Shane’s briefs down his thighs and then his legs until Shane can kick them off him completely. “Where are you hurt?” Ilya asks with the kind of laser-focus Shane’s used to seeing from him on the ice.
“What, you gonna kiss it better?” He asks, mostly to be difficult. Ilya bites at the inside of Shane’s thigh in retaliation, which feels a little counter-productive. “Well, that hurt right there,” Shane tells him, even though it didn’t. It felt electric, and he’s sure Ilya could see the way his cock twitched from the sensation.
He’s smirking like he can at least. “I am not going to touch you at all if you do not tell me,” he says, matter of fact, casual. Like it’ll cost him nothing. Maybe it won’t. Maybe Shane’s the only one laying here feeling tender and aching and desperate.
“Ilya,” Shane says; it comes out more like a whine. Ilya rewards him with a kiss along the underside of his cock, just beneath the head. “Fuck, c’mon.”
“Shane,” Ilya replies, raising his eyebrows like an asshole. He punctuates the argument by wrapping his lips around the tip of Shane’s cock and sucking at it gently. It’s not nearly enough. It’s so not enough that it somehow loops back around into being almost too much.
Shane’s helpless against the groan that falls from between his clenched teeth, and his hands tug at Ilya’s head in ways that must be considered terrible blow job etiquette.
Ilya must not think so though, or maybe he just doesn’t care, because he lets Shane force him lower, swallows more and more of his cock until his lips are pressed up against Shane’s groin and Shane feels like he’s shaking apart around him.
He doesn’t last for long after that. That’s something he’s mostly gotten over being embarrassed about; Ilya Rozanov’s incredibly talented at sucking cock and Shane is, also, extremely weak to the sight of Ilya Rozanov sucking his cock.
“Fuck,” he gasps as he comes down from his orgasm, hands in Ilya’s hair turning soft and gentle as he pets through it. “Shit, Ilya. I wanted you to fuck me.”
He hesitates, thinks about it. He could probably go again. It’s Ilya’s birthday, and it’s been a few months since the last time they saw each other, which also means it’s been a few months since the last time anyone’s gotten Shane off. He could definitely go again, probably.
“No,” Ilya says, like it’s easy, crawling up the bed and kneeling astride Shane’s hips. His cock’s leaking between his thighs, angry-red at the tip and just as mouth-watering as Shane remembers.
“No?”
“I’m not fucking you when you are hurt and you do not tell me where, solnyshko,” Ilya snaps, like he’s angry about it. Maybe he is. His eyebrows are furrowed as he looks over Shane’s chest before getting caught and held by Shane’s lips “I am not making it worse.”
“I’m fine,” Shane protests, even as he reaches out a hand to at least help jerk Ilya off. It’s his fucking birthday, after all. He shouldn’t have to do all the work here. “Ilya, you’re being—”
“Is my birthday,” Ilya says, “This means I get to be playmaker, yes? I call the shots for once, yes?”
For once? Shane almost scoffs out loud. Ilya’s always fucking calling the shots, if Shane’s keeping score here.
“Good,” Ilya says, like Shane’s agreed or something. His hand speeds up as he gets closer and closer to the edge. The last time he jerked off against Shane, he’d been pressed all along him, like a weighted blanket. Now he’s barely touching him. It’d almost feel—impersonal, maybe, if it weren’t for the way he’s looking at him. Like he couldn’t be paid to look away. Like he doesn’t even want to blink.
Shane doesn’t know what to do with that, so he adjusts his grip, interlaces their fingers together around Ilya’s cock and says, quietly, “Please, Ilya. You can come on me if you want.”
Not his sexiest, probably, and sort of gross to even ask for, but it works. Ilya’s head falls backward with the force of his orgasm and his hips pump uselessly into the air and the tightness of their hands like even his body knows he could have been fucking into Shane if he were just less fucking stubborn.
Ilya takes a few minutes to recover, time spent slumped sideways in the mattress with his nose up against Shane’s neck and his hand resting carefully—so fucking carefully—against his sternum.
Shane stares up at the ceiling. Wonders how much bravery it would require to slip under the covers of the bed. Thinks, maybe next year. Thinks, maybe it is not something Ilya will wait for. But maybe it is not something Shane can give him either. Wonders about all the things Ilya can ask for instead and all the things Shane can give him. Can, as in able. Can, as in willing. Parties and jerseys and plane tickets. Hoodies and shirts and mortifying drunk text messages.
“Ribs,” Shane tells the shadow that the lamp casts on the hotel ceiling. “External intercostal muscles, left side. Uh, elbow got banged up, it hurts when I straighten it out all the way. Broken toe. Well, two broken toes, but they’re the ones right next to each other, the little ones. So that’s mostly one broken toe. And my knee’s been acting up again since Brown took me to the ice Game 7.”
It’s not—done. It’s like Tristan Tosco telling another hockey player about his new coach. You just don’t do that shit. You just don’t tell others about your injuries. Not when they could use it against you on the ice, not when they could figure out where you’re hurting and how that affects your skating. Not when they could target that injury next time you face off, put you out of the game, take you down for the count.
But, he thinks—maybe faith and trust are, if not the same thing, then at least teammates. They wear the same jersey.
Ilya hums, turns his head to press his mouth against the hinge of Shane’s jaw. “Hollander, you are falling apart at the seams,” he says. “And you still wanted me to fuck you? Terrible. I would break you.”
Shane huffs out a laugh, shakes his head. The bare-bones truth is, of course, that he’d let Ilya break all twenty-four of his ribs if it meant that he’d fuck him so well he’d feel the ghost of it through the entirety of the off-season, but that’s—a lot.
So he says instead, “You wouldn’t. You’d never.”
He hesitates. He swallows. Looks away from the ceiling. Looks at the crown of Ilya’s head. “You could probably google sex positions for broken ribs, if you wanted. In the morning.”
Ilya was already lax beside him, but he goes absolutely still all over at this. It’d be pointless to pretend he doesn’t know why. It’s the end of the sentence. It’s the in the morning.
“Okay,” Ilya says finally. There’s too much in his voice to decode. There’s not enough words in his sentence to tease out the meaning. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
“Okay,” Shane whispers and he relaxes back into the mattress. A moment later, Ilya stands with a groan, and Shane’s pushing himself up on his elbow to look at him. “Oh,” he says. “I guess your party is still going on?”
Ilya waves a hand through the air. “Probably,” he says around a yawn as he walks to the bathroom. The faucet switches on, the sound of water running filling the room.
“Do you have to go back down then?” Shane asks, and Ilya pokes his head out from the bathroom just to roll his eyes at him.
“No,” Ilya tells him. “Is my party. I can leave when I want to.”
Something about that tickles the back of Shane’s brain and he frowns at the opposite wall while Ilya fusses with whatever he’s up to in the bathroom. “Hey,” he says. “Why did you leave in the first place? To come here? I didn’t text or anything.”
Finally, the water turns off and Ilya emerges with a small hand towel in his hands. “Sveta said she had a present for me,” Ilya shrugs and wipes Shane’s stomach and chest clean of his come.
Shane should have something to say about that, at least a follow-up question, but the water’s warm because Ilya waited for it to heat up, and the gesture is sweet, and suddenly Shane doesn’t care so much about whatever wild sex Svetlana and Ilya have had while she’s wearing his jersey before.
He sort of wouldn’t trade what they did tonight for anything.
Especially not when Ilya tosses the dirty towel in the direction of the bathroom before he climbs into bed next to Shane and flicks the lamp off. The sheets rustle as he gets under them. Shane holds his breath; then, he follows Ilya beneath the covers.