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Boston loses to the Scouts in the first round of the playoffs. Ilya would have liked, obviously, to go further, but Cliff gets injured and so does their goalie and it's all a mess. He wanted to win a second Cup on his way out. He hasn't said anything about going, has his agent stringing the Raiders along about re-signing all season, but everyone suspects. Why hasn't he renewed? The front office gets icier towards him as the season goes on and they begin to suspect that his agent's reasons for delaying are bullshit.

Ilya himself can play it off – oh you know me, I need more money, I have my eye on a specific Ferrari. He can be mysterious and flip and winking and it's fine. But it's big news, his contract renewal, and the press asks and asks and his teammates who care about the Internet see the speculation and he sees them wondering, sees them doubting him, sees them questioning their captain. It does not help their performance in the playoffs.

But now it's late April and he's done. Boston doesn't know it yet but he hung up his skates in the Raiders locker room for the last time. He's still in Boston, killing time in his condo, because the Metros are still in the playoffs, and he doesn't want to go to the cottage without Shane.

He's thought about it all year, about spending months there, not just two weeks. About having Shane Hollander to himself for an entire off-season. It won't really be just the two of them alone all summer – he'll have to sign with Ottawa, and buy a house there, and figure out what to do about his place in Boston. They'll see Shane's parents, and Svetlana is going to come to stay for a week, and maybe Rose if her schedule permits.

Ilya can't wait to show Sveta the cottage. She'll hate it – she's a city girl at heart. It will be so funny to see her play country mouse for a week. He thinks she and Shane will like each other – Svetlana is primed to like Shane, because he's good at hockey and handsome, and he thinks she'll like seeing how much he loves Ilya. Shane, he knows, will take longer to warm up to Sveta, will be intimidated by her familiarity with Ilya, but with time Shane won't be able to resist talking shop with her, will see that while she and Ilya share a past, Shane is Ilya's future. Also, Ilya doesn't mind when Shane is jealous over him, so that's fine.

Surprisingly, he's kind of looking forward to Rose's visit too. He still hasn't met her – their schedules don't align much and he's been so hesitant to share the brief snatches of time he and Shane get together during the season. But they Facetimed once, when Shane was on a road trip out west and ended up with an off day in LA while Rose was there between shoots. Shane and Rose went shopping, and when they called Ilya they were at Rose's condo. Rose insisted Shane do a fashion show for Ilya with his new clothes, and the way she treated him like a Ken doll that she found especially charming did a lot to ease Ilya's worries. Shane was so embarrassed but he dutifully walked across her living room as she held the phone and yelled "work it!" at him while he blushed furiously; she ordered him to twirl and he looked like he hated her and himself and everything, but he did it, and even though Ilya saw in that move the same obedience Shane showed him, he knew it came from a different place.

That night, on their private video call, Ilya made Shane model the new clothes again, and do a dance to remove them. Shane had turned redder than Ilya had ever seen him but Ilya made it a challenge, I bet you can't do a sexy striptease with your fancy new outfit, and of course Shane gave it his all. Like that time in Vegas years ago, when Ilya ordered him to touch himself and Shane shocked him by being insanely, overtly, purposely sexy, Shane stripping in his hotel room for Ilya's benefit was so hot that it swamped Ilya all over again how badly this man wanted to please him. It was humbling beyond words, to know that.

So. He'll meet Rose, and Shane will meet Svetlana, and they'll eat good food with the Hollanders, and they'll wake up every single morning together, in Canada, in the country Ilya hopes to make his forever home.

Shane's out of the playoffs by the end of May, and then it's time to go to the cottage. He's ready to leave Montreal just a couple days later. They discuss having Ilya fly to Montreal and driving there together, but instead Ilya drives himself from Boston so that he'll have a second car for trips to Ottawa. He loves the drive, stretches it out over two days, drives as fast as he feels like, listens to whatever music he wants. Ilya is so eager to see Shane, feels like he'll go out of his mind if he doesn't get to lay his hands on his man, but at the same time, he's relishing this trip, this last piece of time before everything is different. Boston wasn't a bad home for him, he didn't dislike the city or the team. He liked both very much, in fact. He's happy to give it all up, would do it again in a heartbeat, but he's making the most of this transition.

They end up timing it perfectly, Shane arriving at the cottage barely twenty minutes before Ilya does. When Ilya parks his car behind Shane's SUV, Shane is walking back to the car, getting another load of stuff out of the back.

Until he catches sight of Ilya. Shane is wearing khaki shorts, old tennis shoes, a faded Metros T-shirt, and sunglasses, and Ilya loves him more than breathing. In the gentle May sun his dark hair shines and his freckles scrunch up when he smiles and Ilya still doesn't know how this happened, how this man became his.

Shane starts jogging towards Ilya's car, and Ilya throws himself out the driver door to greet him. They don't finish unpacking the bags for hours.

Summer at the cottage: they make dinner together most nights. They argue over the playlist for making dinner. Yuna gives Ilya a sourdough starter after he compliments her bread and he is so careful about it for a whole week before he forgets. Shane buys a bunch of beets and they try to make borscht, only it turns out neither of them knows how to use an immersion blender and Shane has a panic attack scrubbing beet juice off every surface in the kitchen.

Ilya buys pool floats – a unicorn for himself, a duck for Shane – and they float on them in the lake, tangling their feet together so they don't drift apart. They don't take photos of each other, really ever, but oh, Ilya wants a picture of Shane, tipping his face back to catch the sun, shirtless, sitting on a yellow duck floaty. It physically hurts, sometimes, how perfect he is, how much space inside Ilya he takes up. One afternoon, sun drunk and giddy, Ilya climbs onto Shane's lap on the duck, thinking maybe this can be an interesting experiment, to make out on a flotation device, but the pool toy isn't able to take the weight of two grown men and that's the end of the duck, and they both end up soaked and laughing, lake water streaming off their hair as they kiss.

They play video games regularly, and then they start playing strip video games, and they haven't managed to actually finish a game yet. Every time they end up messing around on the couch, partially unclothed. Ilya gives Shane a blowjob while Shane wears one sock and a tank top, pushing the tank top up his chest so Ilya can wrap a hand around his waist, squeeze his pecs, brush his thumb over Shane's nipple. Shane uses his hands when Ilya has on only a backwards cap and his shorts, pushed down to midthigh, and Shane says "I love you" and "I want to make you come" over and over in Russian. Ilya sees stars for a minute during that orgasm, overcome with lust and also something so huge, so much love and affection and wonder that Shane Hollander – Shane Hollander, hockey's golden boy, this polite Canadian weirdo who shouldn't make sense to Ilya at all but is the only thing besides hockey that's ever made sense in his life – would learn his language and talk dirty to him in it.

They find an ancient copy of the board game Clue in a cabinet, and Ilya delights in solving the murders. He keeps telling Shane he's going to murder him with a lead pipe in the bedroom (Get it, Hollander? Want to see my lead pipe?) until Shane hits him with a pillow.

They go for runs along the trail, mornings spent loping among the trees, not talking, just breathing and matching strides.

David and Yuna come over for dinner, or they go to them, and they tell Ilya all about Shane's childhood and Yuna embarrasses Shane by bringing out the photo albums. It does something funny to Ilya's heart, to see Shane be so profoundly cherished by a woman healthy enough to stay. He aches for what he can't have but he would never want Shane to have anything less.

Yuna and David work so hard to make Ilya feel welcome too – they ask about his favorite foods, they start keeping Cokes on hand for him. They are so fucking Canadian about it, so consciously welcoming, Ilya can't tell if he wants to laugh or cry. A chair in the living room he sits on twice in a row is declared Ilya's chair, kept special for him. He doesn't care about that chair more than any other – it's fine – but their impression that it matters, that moves him.

They hike, even, which Ilya finds sort of adorable. He's lived in Moscow and Boston his whole life: the idea of going for a… walk, just in the woods, just to see, was never part of his world. But Shane loves to explore the woods, and to tell Ilya the names of trees and flowers and birds they see, and Ilya keeps it all close to his heart, the way Shane knows the difference between a red cedar and a white cedar. It's a tree, who the fuck cares, is Ilya's first thought, but Shane cares, and that makes Ilya care too.

Shane reads aloud to him sometimes. A book about the Russian Five; Hatchet, which he tells Ilya was his favorite book when he was twelve; a famous Canadian story about a hockey sweater. Ilya pays attention to the stories, mostly, but sometimes he just gets swept away in listening to Shane's voice; in watching Shane, wearing his glasses, studying the page so intently; in thinking, again and again, about all the things that led him here, to this cottage on this lake in this country with this man, across the world from his childhood home.

One morning, Ilya comes in from a workout and sees Shane doing a crossword puzzle. Crosswords are beyond Ilya's English comfort level, but he enjoys watching Shane work on it, sitting at the table frowning a little, twirling his pen as he thinks. Ilya leans against the kitchen counter drinking water (it is very good water, Shane was not wrong, though Ilya won't tell him that), watching. Shane's handwriting is neat and tidy and blocky and it makes Ilya feel indescribably tender to see it. Neither of them handwrites anything very often, for any reason, so those rare moments Ilya gets to see something Shane wrote by hand feel precious and vulnerable. Ilya's own English handwriting is chickenscratch, hardly legible, which Shane has given him shit for.

(Ilya's never told Shane this either, but years ago he stole a piece of paper from Shane's desk in a hotel. Shane had used the hotel pad of paper to take some notes, probably during a call with his agent or his mother, just some dates of upcoming ads. When Shane was in the shower Ilya tore it off the pad and put it in his pocket, unable at the time to explain to himself why he did that, or why he kept it, or why, every few months, he'd look at it again, run his fingers over the letters, feel the way the ink indented the page, feeling silly but unable to help himself. Ilya understands, now, why he did it, but it still feels so personal and stupid to tell Shane about, to tell him how desperate Ilya was for any tangible evidence of him, to be able to hold something Shane created with his hands; to imagine, holding the paper in his own hands, that they were touching.)

They fuck in every room of the house, just like Ilya promised they would on his first visit. He bends Shane over the kitchen counter one morning, Shane propping himself on his elbows, Ilya holding onto his hips as he thrusts frantically into him, murmuring in Russian about how good Shane is, how good he feels and how good he looks and how good he makes Ilya feel. There are shower blowjobs, of course, and breaking in the beds in every guest room. Shane is too nervous for sex in a canoe ("we'll tip over," he insists) but they kiss for ages in one, sun sparkling on the water. They fuck on the couch on the porch, Shane in Ilya's lap, outlined in the firelight, and Ilya struggles to breathe, he's so gorgeous. One night under a full moon they lay blankets on the dock and Ilya fucks Shane slowly, driving both of them mad with his pace, kissing him and kissing him and kissing him.

Sometimes things seem so hard for Shane, basic things. Shane is smart – crazy smart, actually – and hockey doesn't make him nervous because he's too good at it. But talking to people can make him antsy, strangers or friends. Any interaction where he doesn't feel confident he knows what's expected of him. Shane acts like he can lose a conversation, which Ilya would think is crazy except – Shane can be so weird he does lose a conversation, he can make that happen.

Shane isn't nervous about his body functionally – his life is about the training and maintenance of his body for its intended purpose, which is hockey – but Ilya notices that, outside of hockey and sex, Shane basically never knows what to do with his hands. Shane is famous for his concentration on the ice, for seeing the big picture of the whole rink at once, and he applies that to every other situation too. He's never said it but Ilya thinks he must be exhausted all the time because it sure seems like a fucking exhausting way to live.

Sometimes it exhausts Ilya, trying to navigate a way through Shane's walls to find a way to get him to do the thing he wanted to do anyway. Not always – lots of the time it's fun, a sexy puzzle to unlock him – and overall it bugs him less than it used to because his tenderness for the man has eclipsed his annoyance. The tenderness did that years ago, long before Ilya was willing to admit to himself that this boring Canadian had his whole heart, that helping Shane relax was one of his proudest accomplishments and greatest joys.

Falling in love with Shane, being his boyfriend – Ilya is signing up for this, he knows. He's signing up for neuroticism, for panic attacks. He's signing up for Shane's incredible brain, which thinks up hockey plays no one else ever would and also finds problems where none exist. Shane makes things complicated where Ilya is simple. But here in the cottage, with so many nights to watch Shane sleep, seeing his face smooth out and relax, Ilya feels certain this is the work he was meant to do. More than playing hockey, more than anything else, he is supposed to be for Shane.

Svetlana does, in fact, kind of hate the cottage. She can't believe how long it takes to get there from the airport – and the airport was already in Ottawa, and that isn't cosmopolitan enough for her either – and she can't believe the activities are things like "walk in the woods," "kayak," "sit and look at the fire." And Shane, at first, is so stiff with her, so obviously jealous of their ease, and Ilya can see the cogs turning in his brain as he looks at her and thinks My Boyfriend Has Been Inside Your Body Too >:(. He's thinking it so hard Ilya can basically hear it. Ilya loves him desperately.

Sveta, bless her, tries hard to win him over. She comes prepared with photos of Ilya from his childhood on her phone, with embarrassing stories about him as a cocky pre-teen, she purposely dials back her usual attitude of loving disrespect towards Ilya. She defers to Shane consciously, acknowledging his place in Ilya's life, while still watching him like a hawk, confirming that he is truly good to and for Ilya.

But Ilya was right – shop talk bonds them. They end up watching YouTube videos of classic games, breaking down plays and calls, and Ilya sits on the floor in front of Shane, who's on the couch. He puts Shane's legs over his shoulders and holds onto his calves, as relaxed and loose as he's ever been, hearing his two favorite people talk about the game. Shane scritches his hair periodically, and Sveta thumps his shoulder if there's an especially good play (or he makes an especially silly joke).

Svetlana won't get in a kayak, but she will sun on the dock in a bikini while they paddle. She doesn't really want to sit around the firepit, but she will make a phone call inside so they can get some alone time together outside. She doesn't want to go for a hike, but she will make dinner and make Shane laugh by playing him the bad Russian rap Ilya liked as a teenager. Ilya is truly sorry to see her go at the end of her visit – he misses being alone with Shane, but he knows this move will change their friendship forever, that the gaps of time where they don't see each other in person will probably get longer from here on out.

At the Ottawa airport, standing outside the car with her bags, she hugs Shane and whispers something to him that makes him turn the prettiest shade of pink. Then she hugs Ilya, long and hard, and says to him, in Russian, "Jane is lucky, but oh, so are you."

On the way home Ilya asks what Svetlana told Shane, but he just blushes again and says, "She told me not to tell you, said it'd drive you nuts."

"So you liked her," Ilya says.

"I did," Shane responds, and Ilya can tell he means it. "I'm glad she came. But also, I'm glad to be just us two again. Let's go home."

Ilya grabs Shane's hand and doesn't let go for miles and miles.

It's easy to sign with Ottawa. Ilya wasn't especially concerned, because any team would be lucky to have him and Ottawa especially needs him, but the process is seamless. By the end of the first week of July, he's officially a Centaur. His Russian agent, who's hated this plan every step of the way, tells him all the sports shows and podcasts and websites can't stop talking about it: why would Ilya Rozanov, who likes big cities and flashy cars and loud parties and being an asshole and winning hockey games, go to Ottawa, of all places?

Ilya laughs at that. He does in fact love being an asshole and this, this is an incredible way to do it.

Rose can visit for not quite forty-eight hours, at the end of reshoots in Montreal. She drives herself to the cottage, and Ilya is a little nervous as she pulls into the drive and steps out of her car: even here, she exudes Movie Star. Svetlana is beautiful and she knows it, she's polished and confident and sexy. Rose is all of those things too, but somehow she makes you think you can't believe you're really seeing her in real life. She's smaller than he would have thought, and she's wearing gigantic sunglasses and expensive jeans and she seems not quite human in the same way as other people. Ilya knows a lot of celebrities – he is quite famous himself – but she's on another level.

Ilya really is trying his best not to be an asshole, he really does love Shane enough to do that, but seeing the woman whose relationship with Shane caused Ilya so much pain makes it hard. He understands that Shane is not attracted to women, but when Shane said the sex they had was a disaster, Ilya doesn't fully believe him – how could sex with Shane Hollander be a disaster? Even in the beginning, when he was so inexperienced and so anxious admitting he wanted this, couldn't look his own desires in the eye and skittered away from admitting them – even then he was feral, insatiable, open, trusting. Even then it was the best sex Ilya ever had in his life. How could anyone have a shot at Shane Hollander and not do everything they could to keep it?

So Ilya doesn't fully trust Rose, initially: either she's lying about not wanting Shane, or she has horrible judgment. But even in her very brief visit, he starts to see that they really are deeply platonic, in a way even he and Svetlana aren't. If it weren't for Shane, he'd likely sleep with Svetlana again sometime, but Shane and Rose aren't fucking again for any reason. Rose really likes Shane, without being especially impressed by his fame or hockey skill. She's patient with his anxieties, managing to explain human interactions in pretty basic ways without ever condescending to him. Ilya can't really do that for him: his English isn't up to the task, and while he is very good at reading a situation, he's not sure he could explain how. Ilya is proud of how good he is at calming Shane down, but he does it as much with his body as with any words he might say.

Shane takes a quick call about an hour before Rose has to head out, leaving Ilya alone with her for the first time. As soon as Shane walks into the bedroom, Rose immediately turns to Ilya and says, "You're really good for him, even more than I imagined. And I think he's good for you too. Thank you for letting me see this in person. What you two have, it's special."

And Ilya is so shocked by her sincere compliment, finds himself so grateful, he couldn't be an asshole to her even if he wanted to.

In late July Ilya goes to Ottawa to house hunt. It drives Shane nuts that he can't come along on house tours without blowing their cover, but he spends hours every day scouring realtor.ca and listing questions Ilya should ask about each house.

He's probably right about all his questions but Ilya just isn't going to put that effort in. He goes with a realtor Yuna recommends and picks the third house he looks at. He wants privacy, an easy commute to the arena, and a big garage. Not hard. Who cares? Is a house. Ilya spends a third of the year away from home, sleeping in chain hotels in cities he won't get to see any of. Home, when you are already an immigrant and your job is mostly travel and your boyfriend lives in another city, home is just a house.

Shane despairs of this approach but does actually approve of the specific house Ilya buys, talking about how it's well designed, with a good flow of rooms and made with quality materials and other shit Ilya doesn't care about but is incredibly turned on by. Shane starts talking about open concept and using words like "travertine" and "crown moulding" and "resale value" and Ilya responds like it's dirty talk. Shane is midway through a sentence that started with a comparison of the square meterage of the bedrooms in the house when Ilya groans and says "Fuck, Hollander" and then he's kissing Shane and wrestling Shane's shirt off and Shane huffs a little and says "I was talking," but Ilya just says "shut up shut up it was too sexy" and then he's on his knees and he's got his mouth on Shane's dick, feeling him get hard against Ilya's tongue as he starts moving and then Shane is still talking but he's mostly muttering "oh fuck Ilya" and it's perfect, it's more than Ilya ever imagined he could have.

Shane is a morning person. He wakes up raring to go, ready to tackle the day.

Ilya is not a morning person. He wakes up slowly, resentfully, insulted by the intrusion of sunlight.

He can't believe he loves someone who really does just hop out of bed, full of energy and thoughts and decision making capabilities. Most of the people Ilya's fucked over the years were fellow night owls, people who liked to go out late and drink and party. People who wanted the same things Ilya wanted, to get off and get home. For a long time that's all Ilya let himself want. This past year, with Shane, getting to be his boyfriend and share his feelings and have Shane share his – Ilya hadn't known anything could feel like this. It fucking sucks, how little time they get to actually spend together, but it still beats every other option. Being Shane's boyfriend is so good he's moving to Ottawa, for fuck's sake.

Shane gets crazy bedhead in the morning and he's wearing his glasses and no shirt and making smoothies and talking about their plans and Ilya isn't really following it – morning English is always harder than post-coffee English and honestly he's not really trying to pay attention, he's just enjoying the view. As Ilya walks past Shane towards the coffee maker, he absentmindedly runs his hand across Shane's stomach. He's not trying to start anything (though he wouldn't mind if they did), he just cannot get enough of touching Shane.

As Ilya sips his coffee, Shane gets a call from Yuna. He answers it as he walks towards the living room, and Ilya hears him say, "Yeah Mom, we're just hanging out at home today."

Ilya looks at his coffee cup and smiles a little. Shane walks back into the kitchen, and runs his own hand down Ilya's arm as he passes, saying, "Mom, thank you for the invite, but we've had guests and then Ilya had to go to Ottawa and I'm going to need to go to Montreal and we just want to be alone at our house today, thank you. We'll see you in a couple days."

Ilya grabs Shane the second he hangs up, wrapping his arms around him and boosting him onto the counter and kissing him urgently. Shane is pretty late for his morning workout, but he doesn't complain.

Shane goes to Montreal for a few days – he's selling his apartment too, and buying a house. Shane proposed they both switch to houses this year for increased privacy as they visit each other more often. Ilya stays at the cottage without him, his first time alone in Shane's home for longer than the length of Shane's run.

He expects it to feel weird, and it does. Everything smells like Shane, and the spices are alphabetized, and the pillows are plaid. It's all so fucking Shane Hollander.

Ilya tries not to feel like an interloper, like he's broken in, and it mostly works. They text constantly of course, and video chat at night. Ilya has an hours-long phone call with Svetlana, and goes for long runs, and even has dinner with David and Yuna without Shane, his first time. He worries it will be weird, and that to cover up that it's weird he'll say something inappropriate, like that he can make Shane come in under two minutes without his hands, or that the Boston Raiders are a good organization who always treated him well.

It is weird, but not bad, and he doesn't say anything inappropriate after all. They make pasta and Yuna asks probing questions about his endorsement deals that make it clear she thinks he's being taken advantage of ("Yuna, for god's sake, he's a millionaire," David says at one point, "let the man buy a car without trying to work an angle if he wants").

When it's time to head home, and Ilya has had leftovers foisted on him (not that he resisted very hard), David shakes his hand, Yuna pats his cheek and says "Get home safe," and Ilya accidentally makes a face that reveals too much. Yuna looks carefully at him and says, "It's your home too, you know" and Ilya keeps every muscle in face very carefully still.

When he video chats with Shane the next night – their last night apart, Shane will drive back in the morning – Ilya teases him that the house is a huge mess, hoping it will make him turn red and do the little huff thing he does sometimes.

But Shane – reclining in bed in his place in Montreal, a place he's received three offers on already – just smiles. He's in a great mood because it was a good real estate day. His offer on his new house was accepted, he'll sell his condo easily, and tomorrow he'll be back at the cottage. They still have three weeks before they need to report for pre-season training. The plan he cooked up in the middle of the night a year ago is working.

"The house is fine, Rozanov," Shane says. "I know you're fucking with me."

Shane is wearing his glasses while they video chat and of course Ilya's told him he likes the glasses but he doesn't think Shane understands how much he likes the glasses. Ilya can't even explain why, but seeing Shane's freckles under the edges of his glasses sends him into the stratosphere.

"Maybe I am fucking with you," Ilya responds, leaning back in bed in the cottage, one arm propped behind his head. "Maybe I just cannot wait to fuck you."

Shane's mouth involuntarily opens a little. Ilya grins.

"Hey, actually, before we get into that," Shane says, "when I get back, want to help me pick stuff for my new house in Montreal? I don't need much because I'll take all my furniture and shit, but I probably need a new couch, and a few other things. I want your input."

"My input? Mr. Real Estate wants my input?"

Shane rolls his eyes but he's smiling. "Yes, your input. You'll be staying there a lot, and I figure it should work for you too. Same with the cottage – if there's something you want at it, we need to get it. I should have asked earlier."

"More lube, you don't buy enough."

"Fuck off, Rozanov. I'm serious."

"I'm serious too, Hollander. More lube."

"Hey," Shane says gently, in that way he gets when he knows what game Ilya is playing and he's purposely calling it out. "I want your opinion on the house I'm buying, because I want you to be there as often as possible, and be comfortable."

Ilya takes a steadying breath. A year after admitting they loved each other, a year of being in a relationship, and sometimes he's still nervous about whether this can work, in a million different ways.

"I'll be home tomorrow," Shane says. "We're going to live in a few different places, but home is whichever one you're at, really."

Ilya blinks, and then blinks again.

"Now," Shane says, smirking at Ilya and sitting up a little in bed, "I'm going to steal your line: take off your clothes."