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Ilya had gone to the club for one thing; to forget about Shane Hollander. So when he’d immediately recognized the man at the bar as Shane’s girlfriend’s boyfriend, his heart had almost fallen straight out of his chest. Because he’d known immediately.
Shane was there.
Ilya had briefly considered stopping himself from turning around – of heading straight for the door and going back to the hotel – but he hadn’t had the willpower to stop his wandering eyes. His body had turned like a magnet finding its pair and seen it; Shane’s hands on a woman’s waist. Shane with a beer in his hand.
That’s what really put Ilya out – not Shane with a girl, but Shane letting go. The Russian had only seen the Canadian drunk once – Vegas, when they were rookies. Shane was always too worried about being caught off guard to let lose. It always took Ilya forever to get him to relax. Shane didn’t indulge. Especially during the season.
But there he was, finally letting his fucking hair down with Rose Landry of all people after dating her for what, weeks? His hands were on her waist and hers were on his shoulders and that man was at his fucking back. Ilya could see Mile’s chest pressed to Shane’s shoulders as Rose leant in for a kiss. And Shane didn’t even bat an eye.
Ilya had thought there wouldn’t be anything that made him want to puke more than seeing Rose Landry with ‘Hollander’ printed across her back, seeing her in Shane’s colours at his fucking game. Where the whole would could see. Where the whole world was cheering them on.
But this was worse.
Because this wasn’t for appearances. And it certainly wasn’t for Shane if Ilya knew anything about the man. It was for her.
He was dancing with her, in a club.
In public.
Finding a girl for himself had been easy. Seeing Shane watching him across the dance floor was not. Watching him walk out the door with Rose on his arm had effectively ended Ilya’s night.
Suddenly, the woman dancing on him hadn’t mattered. Her perfume had actually made him feel kind of sick (he definitely wasn’t feeling sick for any other reason). Ilya had shoved her off with a dismissive shake of his head and gone straight to the bar. He’d thrown back two more shots before another woman had approached him. He turned her down too, not in the mood anymore.
He’d gone back to the hotel alone after a third woman had tried to get him to dance. He didn’t want to deal with this shit tonight.
And if he’d thought about Shane watching him on the dance floor while he got off in the shower…well it was a good thing his teammate had picked up and gone somewhere else for the night. Even better that he hadn’t witnessed Ilya returning to the room alone, way too early in the night since he’d been the one to force them to go out in the first place so he could ‘get laid.’
He was lying in bed, scrolling through Instagram, trying (and failing) not to look at the tabloids about Shane and the actress. The public loved her. And even more, they loved her and Shane. Everyone thought they made a great couple. That they looked perfect together.
Ilya put his phone down. He needed to stop doing this to himself. He should probably just go to sleep.
If only he could stop picturing the blatant yearning on Shane’s face at the club – like he wanted to just reach out and touch Ilya. Like he wanted Ilya to touch him.
Fuck. Maybe he should take another shower?
Ilya’s phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID.
Jane
Ilya stared, letting it ring over, and over until it finally went to voicemail. There. He didn’t have to answer. Shane had left him on read for weeks.
It started ringing again.
Jane
He never called twice. He rarely called once. He hadn’t called in ages. Ilya picked it up without a second thought.
“Ilya,” almost a whisper across the line, like he was scared to say it. Ilya’s breath stuck in his throat. His name. Shane was saying his name, the L’s slightly overpronounced in his Canadian accent. His name in the way only Shane could say it.
He’d been ready to yell – ready to fight – but his defenses lowered instantly.
“Ilya,” Shane whispered again, vowels drawn out. Like he was slurring the word. Fuck. Was he drunk? He must be. Why else would he be calling?
“Ilya,” Shane said it on a sigh that cut off at the end, like he was choking it back, trying to stop himself. “A-Are you there?”
A long pause over the line, just their breaths mingling through static.
“Ilya—"
“Shane,” Ilya said back.
It was immediately followed by a sob from Shane’s end of the line.
Ilya sat up in bed, every muscle in his body tensing, “Shane?”
A couple sniffles. A gasping breath like he was trying to choke back the next sob.
“Shane, what is wrong? Did something happen?”
“No,” said very unconvincingly, followed by more sniffling. “Not really.”
“Are you…” Ilya wasn’t sure if he wanted confirmation – if that would make this conversation better or worse. “Are you drunk?”
“No, ’m not,” Shane’s response was immediate, but his words were still slow, like his mouth wasn’t keeping up with his thoughts. “I only had like, half a beer.”
Then why the fuck are you calling me?
“I um,” there was more sniffling over the line. “I’m sorry. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me…”
Ilya let that hang. Let Shane sweat.
“I need to see you,” said Shane.
Fuck. He shouldn’t’ve picked up the phone.
“I don’t think—”
“Please,” Ilya could hear the way Shane’s lip wobbled on the word. “I’m sorry, please—”
“You cannot do this to me, Hollander,” Ilya tried to keep his own voice steady. “Please, I cannot take it.”
“I-I know. I’m sorry, I just need—” he broke off with a heaving sob.
Ilya sighed. Fuck his fucking life. “Are you ok?”
There was a lot of sniffling before Shane answered, “I don’t know.”
“Are you safe?”
“I…” he paused like he was looking around. “I think so?”
Fuck his fucking life.
“Where are you?”
More sniffling.
“Shane, where are you?”
“I don’t know. Some park. Near downtown I think.”
“Downtown? Did you go to another club?” Did you go to her hotel?
“No, we went home.”
Home. He’d taken her home.
“Then why the fuck are you downtown?”
“I-I had to leave. I couldn’t s-stay.”
What the fuck?
“She kicked you out of your house?”
“No. S-She doesn’t know I left. I-I needed to leave.”
Ilya was struggling to keep up. Why was Shane being so fucking cryptic?
“You left her at home and came downtown?”
“I-I think so. I don’t know. Everything’s a little hazy.”
“Hazy? I thought you say you are not drunk.”
“I’m not. I promise, I’m not. I don’t—” another hiccupped sob. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why I feel like this.”
“This? How do you feel?”
“Like everything’s moving kind of slow. I don’t know.”
Things started to click for Ilya.
“Did you…” Ilya definitely shouldn’t ask but, “Did you fuck her?”
A shaky breath, “Yeah.”
Ilya debated hanging up the phone. He didn’t want to fucking do this.
“Shane, you should go home.”
“I can’t just go back if she’s still there.”
Good fucking grief.
“Why not?”
“She’ll know. She’ll know and no one can know.”
“Know? Know what?”
Shane started hyperventilating, gasping breaths coming in spurts over the line.
“Shane? What can she not know?”
“I can’t. Ilya, I can’t,” he broke off with another gasping sob. “Please. Please I need…”
Fuck his fucking life.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t…I don’t know.”
Ilya was already grabbing his jacket.
“Drop me pin. I will come to you.”
Hopefully he wouldn’t regret this in the morning.
---
The park was close to the hotel the Raiders were staying in so Ilya walked. He didn’t want to order a car and have someone ask questions about why he was going to a dead park in the middle of the night. He could just imagine the tabloid speculation. They’d have a field day with it.
Especially if he was seen with Shane. Fuck. He needed to find him and get them out of here.
“Shane?” Ilya whispered into the dark, walking down the unlit path.
He could just make out a figure slumped on one of the benches.
“Shane?”
Ilya approached cautiously, slowly recognizing the set of those broad shoulders. They were shaking.
Ilya stepped up to the bench, “Shane?”
Shane raised his head to look Ilya in the eye, bright with unshed tears and said, “I think I’m gay.”
And Ilya’s first thought is yeah, no shit except the way Shane said it – like it was breaking him completely to admit it out loud.
Shit.
“I know that things aren’t great between us right now…and I know it’s my fault,” Shane’s voice kept shaking, like he was trying to keep it together but couldn’t hold the tears back. “But I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, and I’m really freaking out.”
He started hyperventilating again and Ilya couldn’t hold himself back. He put his hands on Shane’s shoulders, steadying their shaking, feeling the chill of Shane’s body through his thin jacket. It was too cold for him to be out like this. What was he fucking thinking?
“Ok. Shane, is ok—”
“It’s not.”
“Yes, it is. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
Ilya tried to get him up, glancing around the park for onlookers, but Shane only hunched over farther. Goddamn fucking hockey player body.
“It’s not ok. It’s not ok,” he kept repeating it over and over, rocking slightly back and forth.
“Shane. Shane?” Ilya stared down at the man in front of him. The man he loved. So full of emotional pain that it was physically wracking through his body.
Ilya crouched down in front of him, trying to peel Shane’s hands away from his face, “Shane please, I am here. Please, talk to me.”
Shane finally let Ilya peel his hands away. Ilya cupped them gently in his palms. They were freezing.
Shane’s face was blotchy, eyes red. His voice cracked as he admitted, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.”
“You do not need to fix,” Ilya practically whispered. Words he wasn’t ready to hear himself but needed to say for Shane.
“I do though. I can’t…I thought I could. With – with Rose, I thought I could make it better.”
Better than us?
Ilya shoved the thought down.
“What happened?”
“We…we went back to my house – I took her home,” Shane’s lip wobbled again. “I’m sorry.”
Ilya gripped his hands a little tighter, “Tell me. Please, tell me what happened.”
“We were…you know, and I couldn’t stop thinking about…about…”
“What?”
“You,” Shane said it on an exhale, like the word was trying to escape the confines of his chest.
“Me?” Ilya tried to keep the hope from his voice, but this was what he’d been hoping for, right? That Shane would come back to him. That Shane would want him again.
But the way he was still trembling – like wanting Ilya was the worst thing he could think of…
“I’m sorry,” Shane sobbed again. Ilya felt his own heart breaking. “She – we…it wasn’t the same. I wanted it to be the same so badly, but it wasn’t and now I don’t know what to do.”
Ilya didn’t know what to say to that. He asked, “Why does it have to be same?”
“B-Because…How am I supposed to be ok with that for the rest of my life when I know what it’s supposed to feel like?”
And because Ilya was a glutton for punishment he asked, “How is supposed to feel?”
“Good. It’s supposed to feel good. Like I want to be there. Like I’m not scared to be there.”
Ilya pursed his lips before asking quietly, “You are scared to be with me?”
Shane let out a shaky exhale, “I’m fucking terrified.”
“Why? Why does it have to be scary? Why can it not be good?”
“Because it’s not fucking normal. It could ruin everything.”
“We can make sure it doesn’t,” Ilya was pleading now, clutching Shane’s hands tighter. He couldn’t stand seeing Shane like this. He needed to make this better.
Shane kept shaking his head, “We can’t. You can’t guarantee that.”
“I can try—”
“It doesn’t matter. The paranoia will always be there. We’ll always have to hide.”
Ilya blinked, fighting back his own tears, “So what we have is not worth it then?”
Shane pressed his lips together, dropping Ilya’s eyes again, “I don’t know. We don’t – we’ll never be normal. We can’t do all the normal couple stuff. We can’t be out.”
“Not now. But not, not never.”
Shane just shook his head, “It’s not the same.”
Ilya clenched his jaw, “So you will just be unhappy with woman? You will just fuck her to memory of me and be miserable. Make us both miserable.”
“That’s not what I want—”
“It is what you ask for.”
“I don’t want to spend my life looking over my shoulder. I want to be able to have a life with a family.”
“We could. We just have to wait.”
Shane sighed, rubbing his eyes, “I want…I want to have the kind of love like my parents do. Like my teammates do.”
“Why can that not be with me? Why can we not have this?”
“Because this is not enough!”
Ilya reeled back like he’d been struck. Shane’s eyes were wild, full of panic and despair.
“She – we – don’t have to hide. Don’t you get that? I can walk around with her outside and it’s fine. She can come to my games and people are happy about it. I can talk to my friends about her – my teammates. I can tell my parents.”
“Because she can wear your jersey, she is better?” Ilya spat, hurt coming to the surface from the thing he’d been hyper-fixating on for weeks.
Shane swallowed, “You saw that?”
“It was plastered all over news, of course I saw.”
“I’m sorry,” Shane at least had the decency to look like it.
Ilya’s jaw ticked, “Why does that matter so much? Why now? You have not cared for years.”
“Just because I didn’t tell you about it, doesn’t mean I didn’t care.”
“So what? You just decide that this is not enough and run away? You take up with first girl you find because it is easy? I am too hard for you?”
“Don’t act like this is new,” Shane was shaking his head, not looking Ilya in the eyes. “We’ve been back-and-forth for years—”
“You ran away last time—”
“I know!” Shane’s eyes snapped to Ilya’s and he could see the blatant regret there. “I know ok. I’m sorry, but it was too much.”
Ilya scoffed, “Too much? I thought you just said it was too little.”
“Fuck you,” Shane pulled all the way back, eyes flashing angrily. “You know, this isn’t the same for you. You could get with some girl and be happy.”
“You think that will make me happy?”
“I don’t know. But you could.”
“And you cannot?”
“No.”
And that was clearly what was really bothering Shane. That if he finally admitted this thing to himself, then he was giving up all hope for an alternate future. An easier path.
A path without Ilya.
Fuck this. This wasn’t his shit to deal with, not anymore. Shane had seen to that.
Ilya pulled away, backing up from the bench, leaving Shane in the cold. He got about three steps before Shane was chasing after him.
“You don’t get to just walk away!” he practically shouted.
Ilya glanced at the shadows for anyone watching, “Keep your fucking voice down.”
Shane caught up and stuck a finger to Ilya’s chest, “You did this to me.”
Ilya looked down at that single point of contact as Shane drew his hand away, “I did this to you?”
“If I hadn’t met you I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t know. It would be fine if I didn’t know.”
“So what? You live your life not knowing what love is supposed to feel like? Should I feel sorry about that?”
“You fucking ruined me.” There were tears building in Shane’s eyes again, frustrated ones this time. “It’s supposed to be easy. She’s fucking perfect – she’s everything I’m supposed to want.”
“Then have her,” Ilya spat.
“I don’t want her!” the tears spilled over. “I can have everything with her except everything that matters is missing. And now I have to live the rest of my life knowing that.”
Ilya shook his head, “No. You choose to live your life like that, Hollander.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you did not want to hear, then you should not have called.”
Shane just stood there, lip trembling.
Ilya sighed, “Why does this matter to you so much? Why do you need public approval for who you date?”
“It’s not about approval.”
“No? So what, you break us up for other reason? You do not like me?”
“Now is not the time for you to be a fucking asshole.”
“Well, now is not time for you to be so fucking dense.”
“Does it not matter to you? The hiding?”
“I don’t know,” Ilya was trying (and failing) to act like what Shane was saying wasn’t tearing him in two. He was painfully aware of how public Shane could be with Rose – how easy that was. That that might be more worth it to him. That the public stuff being easy would make the love being hard alright. Better.
Ilya shrugged stiffly, “Maybe I think other things are more important.”
Shane was still trembling slightly – probably shivering from the tears as much as the cold. Ilya resisted the urge to take him into his arms.
Instead, he reached out a hand, “Just because we hide out here does not mean we hide in here.” He laid that hand over Shane’s chest, pressing into his skin, right where he could feel his heart thumping rapidly under his ribs. “I do not wish to hide from you.”
Shane sucked in a shaky inhale. Like a damn breaking, he exhaled a broken, “Please.”
Ilya’s arms reached out before his head could question whether it was a good idea. Shane fell into him, head on Ilya’s shoulder, face in his neck, letting out a gut-wrenching sob. Ilya’s hands came up to his hair, his shoulders, his waist, gently pulling Shane closer.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be like this.”
“I know.” Ilya’s fingers pet through Shane’s hair.
“Everything would be so much easier if I liked girls.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t.”
“I know.”
“I only like you.” Shane pulled back to look at Ilya, “I only want you.”
Ilya’s hand found the back of Shane’s neck. He couldn’t keep the hurt out of his own voice, “Even if it is not enough?”
He watched Shane’s throat bob as he swallowed, “I’m sorry I said that…I’m sorry I ran away.”
Ilya tried to brush it off, “Does not matter. You came back.”
“It does though. It does matter. You matter.”
Everything he’d wanted to hear was coming out of Shane’s mouth. A mouth Ilya desperately wanted to kiss. So he did.
Shane leaned into it. Ilya could taste the salt of his tears. He held him closer.
When they pulled back, Shane whispered between them, “You said you loved me?”
Ilya froze, “What?”
“When we were arguing. You implied that you showed me what love is supposed to feel like. Because you love me.”
Ilya’s body went cold, “I did?”
“Yes.”
Ilya went to pull away. If first names had been too much for Shane to handle then love confessions were definitely off the table. Fuck. What if he already fucked this up again?
Shane didn’t let him go, “I love you too.”
Ilya’s heart stopped beating.
“I think I love you a little too much, and it fucking terrifies me. Not because loving you is hard but because it means that things have to be different. And not everyone is going to understand that all the time, but I’m starting to see that what we have is worth it.”
Ilya’s heartbeat picked up again, matching in time with Shane’s pressed to his chest.
“I know I fucked up,” Shane continued. “And I know I said some really stupid shit—”
“Like how you only want me because you finally realized you will never want girls?”
“That’s not what I said…”
Ilya couldn’t help the smirk stretching across his face as Shane realized he was joking.
“Fuck you.”
Ilya pulled him closer, “No? You want me for me? You do not wish I were girl?”
Shane smiled back, “You would make a very pretty girl.”
“Hmm,” Ilya nuzzled Shane’s jaw. “You would also make pretty girl. Maybe we both be girls and then you can still be gay.”
The mention of his sexuality seemed to finally clue Shane into their surroundings. He pulled back from Ilya enough to look around the park, “Keep your fucking voice down about that.”
Ilya nodded, “Yes, ok. We leave then.”
“Together?”
“Of course. I cannot leave you alone like this.” Ilya gestured at the dark park, “Who knows where you might end up.”
“I can’t go home. There’s an actress in my bed, remember?”
Ilya leaned back in to nip his jaw, “Do not remind me. Do not talk about her.”
Shane graciously tilted his head to give him more space since there was no one around and it was the dead of night.
“I’m not taking you home,” Ilya mumbled into his skin.
“You’re not?”
“We’ll go back to hotel.”
“What about your roommate?”
“He is out. I’ll lock door.”
“What if someone sees us?”
Ilya ran an affectionate hand through Shane’s hair, “Then you better be fucking quiet.”