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It’s on a three-day break in late March that Shane realizes just how fucking obvious he and Ilya have let themselves become.
He was sprawled out on his parents’ couch, his mother nursing a glass of wine at the other end and his father slouched on the loveseat with his socked feet kicked up on the coffee table. They were all full of dinner and too sleepy to do anything more than watch a replay of the most recent Montreal v. Boston game.
Shane was only half present, thinking instead of the blissful two days he’d just spent with Ilya the previous week, secreted away in his Montreal apartment. His actual apartment, not the sex condo. They’d been beyond that for a while. Ever since the day Shane had stayed the night at Ilya’s place in Boston nearly five months ago, it had felt weird and unfair to keep Ilya away from the apartment where Shane spent all his time, lived his actual life. More than that, he wanted Ilya in that space. It felt right.
If he was honest, Shane wished he were spending his three-day break with Ilya instead of his parents, but the scheduling just hadn’t worked out. Instead, he would have to settle for this: smiling softly as the tiny version of him on the TV bent for another face-off with Ilya.
Ilya had been particularly intent on making Shane laugh that night, and he had mostly succeeded. Every face-off, they grinned at each other and chirped back-and-forth until the linesman cut them off, more than once breaking into inappropriate laughter. On the TV, Ilya said something inaudible that caused Shane to smile and duck his head shyly, shoulders shaking. He could hear and see it all from his own perspective in his mind: the flutter of Ilya’s eyelashes, the pull at the corner of his mouth, that damn crooked smile that Shane couldn’t seem to be normal around. Even now, over a week removed from the game, he could feel the tips of his ears going pink and his face doing something that he should probably put a stop to.
His mother turned to watch him, then looked back at the screen, repeating the motion several times until the puck dropped and play resumed. Through all three periods, every time Shane and Ilya were matched up for a face-off, it happened again and again. Each laugh, each smile, each playful clack of their sticks made the warm feeling in Shane’s chest grow brighter, the heat of it spreading to his cheeks, his smile truly beyond controlling by the third period. When they bent for their final face-off of the night, Shane couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, though he caught the motion of his mother setting down her wine glass from the corner of his eye.
“You and Rozanov seemed to be having a good time that night,” his mother said, her voice light. “I didn’t realize you two had so much to talk about.”
The warm glow.
Shane’s uncontrollable smile.
His eyes locked on Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.
He heard himself say the words from a distance, as if he was standing somewhere on the other side of the room.
“I’ve been sleeping with him since we were nineteen and I think I’m in love with him.”
His father’s feet slipped off the coffee table, nearly taking his mother’s wine with them. His mother made a strange choking sound.
“WHAT?” she half-shouted.
Shane watched himself win the face-off and shoot Ilya a taunting grin. Then his brain caught up with reality and he dropped his face into his hands with a groan. “It’s true. Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said it like that. Oh my god.”
His mother chugged the last of her wine and wordlessly handed the glass to her husband, who stood to refill it. She cleared her throat daintily and leaned back against the corner of the couch, half turned toward Shane.
“So, what, you guys are… dating? Boyfriends?” she asked.
Shane gave a sharp laugh.
“I don’t know. We’re not exactly good at talking about our… anything, really. Feelings or whatever. It was just casual for a really long time but it’s been…different lately?”
“Different how?” his father asked, handing his mother a heavy pour of white wine and cradling a tumbler of vodka for himself.
Shane scrubbed his hands down his face, listening to the crowd roar as on the screen as Ilya made what Shane remembered to be an extremely sexy goal. He couldn’t help himself; he looked over at the TV, catching Ilya’s celly, heart thrumming at the sight of his triumphant, open-mouthed smile.
“We stay the night whenever we can now. We never used to do that,” he said, grimacing at the implication he was admitting to. His parents now knew he had had casual sex and left afterward. Gross. He pressed on, hoping to leave that confession in the dust.
“We find breaks in our schedule to visit instead of waiting for games. I have a drawer in his house now, and he has one at mine. I started using his brand of sensitive skin detergent for my sheets and towels. He keeps ginger ale for me at his house even though he hates it. We talk on the phone when one of us has boring errands to run. We text good morning and good night.” Shane paused, hearing all of it assembled together like a puzzle he didn’t remember buying. “Oh my god, I think we’re dating.”
His mother snorted and shot him an amused look. “Shane, please tell me you are not realizing that for the first time right now.”
Shane flopped backwards and shot her a baleful stare.
“Look, I don’t even know if we’re… exclusive, you know?”
Shane’s dad swirled the vodka and ice in his glass, staring into its depths. “Well, what was the last thing either of you said on the subject?”
“He said…” Shane flushed, then forced himself to repeat the words. “He said, ‘why would I bother with anyone else when I only end up wishing they were you.’”
Shane’s parents exchanged a look.
“Oh, buddy, you’re definitely dating,” his dad said. “Pretty seriously, it sounds like.”
His mother drew her knees up to her chest and balanced her arms on them, half-full wine glass dangling from her hand.
“Sorry, I’m just… still caught up on the Ilya Rozanov part. I have a hard time picturing that guy—” She gestured at the TV, where Ilya was snarking his way through post-game press. “Saying something that sweet.”
Shane let his gaze linger on the screen, taking in Ilya’s sweat-soaked hair and shirtless chest. The asshole loved to give his locker room interviews shirtless at least in part to torture Shane personally. He wrenched his gaze away, his ears warming as he saw his parents sharing an amused look.
“He’s not this all the time,” he said, gesturing to the TV. “Like, don’t get me wrong, he genuinely is a cocky asshole, but Boston also encourages him to play up the big scary Russian Menace thing. But this is the guy who loves to hold babies and coos at every dog on the street and cooks me dinner and takes such good care of me and…”
Shane fumbled for his phone, pulling up the hidden folder in his photo album.
“Look, he sends me pictures every time he gets to hold a teammate’s kid, you have to see this shit,” he said, flipping the phone around to show them a series of photos.
Ilya nose to nose with an adorable chubby baby who couldn’t be more than a year old, broad, bright smile on both their faces.
Ilya with a little girl of about four on his shoulders, laughing with his eyes squeezed shut as she yanked two handfuls of his curls.
Ilya rocking a newborn infant wrapped in a soft green blanket, a quiet smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
Shane stared at each photo before showing his parents, trying to keep his face from going too pathetically soft. Clearly, he failed.
“Shane, honey, are you telling me that Ilya Rozanov of all people gives you baby fever? I’m sorry to tell you this but I don’t think you can get pregnant,” his mom said, though she didn’t look unaffected by the photos either.
Not for lack of trying, Shane thought helplessly, but blessedly managed to keep the thought on the inside. Deeply fucking embarrassed, he put his phone face down on the table and leaned back, hugging his knees to his chest.
“I don’t know what to tell you, mom. It’s just him. It always has been,” he said, his voice going thick and rough. “I tried so hard not to fall in love with him. I tried to like women instead, but I’ve never been able to stay away from him. I’m sorry. I know you’re disappointed.”
“Oh, son, no,” his dad said, leaning forward in his chair to try to catch Shane’s downcast gaze. “We could never be disappointed in you finding love like that.”
His mother set down her wine and scooted over on the couch to wrap her arms around Shane’s shoulders. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. We’re the ones who are sorry. You clearly didn’t feel like you could talk to us about this, for years, and that means we really messed up. Can you forgive us?”
Shane lifted his arms and returned her embrace, eyes squeezed shut against the burning press of tears. “Of course I can. I do.”
His dad stood and came over to wrap him up from the other side, and the three of them sat in silence for a long moment, tears from all three of them soaking into Shane’s hoodie. Finally, they separated, squishing Shane into the middle of the couch while his parents sat on either end beside him.
“Okay, enough,” his mother said. “What are you going to do now?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do? Keep dating him I guess. I can’t seem to do anything else,” he said, then shook his head. “I don’t want anything else.”
“Have you actually told him how you feel?“ his dad asked.
“Not…really,” Shane said with a wince. “Like, we haven’t said ‘I love you’ or anything. You guys are the first ones I’ve told.”
“Does anyone else know about the two of you?” his mom asked.
Shane shook his head. “No one. Hayden knows I have someone in Boston, but he thinks it’s a girl named Lily. That’s the name Ilya is saved under in my phone. I’m Jane for him.”
“You’re breaking my heart, kid. The secrecy must be so hard,” his dad said. “Do you want to tell Ilya you love him? Or better define the relationship?”
Shane shrugged, deeply uncomfortable. “I guess I’d like to know if we’re actually boyfriends. If he’s as… in this as I am. But I absolutely do not want to ask.”
“Oh my God, men in their 20s, I swear,” his mom said, sighing heavily. “Shane, you have to talk to that boy. You have to use actual words. Both of you.”
Shane was already shaking his head. “But if I actually say it then there’s a chance he’ll say no and stop all of this. As long as I don’t say anything we just… keep going.”
“So, what, you’ll just stay in this hellish limbo forever?” she snapped back. “Are you going to trip and accidentally fall into a wedding ring before you ever actually talk about your feelings?
Some kind of weird look must’ve passed over Shane’s face at that, because his mother’s eyes narrowed and she sat back with a disbelieving expression.
“Oh my God, Shane. If he asked you to marry him tomorrow you would say yes without ever figuring any of this out, wouldn’t you.”
Shane’s heart leaped into his throat, nearly choking him with the intensity of its surge.
“Probably,” he admitted.
Terrifying. He’d never thought about it explicitly before, but suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ilya on one knee. A ring. A private, secret wedding, just for them, right under the noses of the league. No one would have to know. But they would know.
A sharp clap of hands on thighs startled him out of his head as his mom pushed herself to standing.
“That’s it. I’m giving you a deadline,” she said, pacing the edge of the living room rug. “You need to talk to that boy and either tell him how you feel or define this relationship by the end of the regular season.”
Shane scoffed. “Or what?”
His mother grinned. “Or I’ll bug the shit out of you every day until you do. You know I will. Do you really need that kind of stress during the playoffs?”
And Shane could see in his mother’s eyes that she meant every fucking word.
The clock was ticking.
###
Shane
I told my parents about us today
I didn’t mean to, it just… happened
Is that okay?
Lily
Of course is fine. I’m glad you are out to them now.
They take it okay?
Shane
Yeah, they were great.
I knew they would be, but still
Fucking terrifying
Lily
What brought it up?
Shane
Rewatching our last game.
Truly not sure how the entire world doesn’t know. We were really fucking obvious.
Lily
I’ll have to rewatch
Now I’m curious
Shane
I loved that game though. It was so fun.
Lily
I did too.
3 more weeks.
Shane
3 more weeks. ♥
###
The thing about love confessions and “define the relationship” talks was that they were obviously conversations to be had in person. Did that have a side benefit of letting Shane off the hook for three weeks? Yes, yes it did.
It also gave him three weeks to freak the fuck out about it.
Shane made plans upon plans, wrote script after script in his notes app, trying to find the exact right formula that would somehow make the whole thing less terrifying and/or make absolutely certain that he’d get the result he wanted. In an ideal world, Shane wanted to walk out of that conversation with an official boyfriend who was confirmed in love with him, but he’d been settling for whatever he could get from Ilya for so long he hardly knew how to let himself hope for more.
That, and the logistics of telling someone you love them were overwhelming. When should he do it? Where? Should it be right at the beginning of their time together so they had time to talk, or near the end so Ilya could leave without pressure if things weren’t going well? Did he need to build up to it somehow, or should he just drop the bomb and wait for the fallout?
Rose, as always, had a sixth sense for when he was panicking about his “mystery guy.” They’d only met a few months ago, but after an awkward moment where Shane had clarified that he was sort of maybe seeing someone, they’d quickly clicked into friendship. With the help of two bottles of wine, she’d talked him through figuring out he was fully gay, and that solidified them into best friends who texted about his “mystery guy” constantly. Somewhere in LA, Rose’s Shane radar pinged and she had the whole messy situation out of him in about ten minutes. She was full of infuriating and probably correct advice, too.
Rose
There’ll be a moment where you just FEEL the words bubble up in you
And that’s when you say it
You’ve probably felt it before and just held the words in, right?
Shane
Right
Rose
Well, there you go then!
Don’t overthink it!
Shane
That’s like telling me not to breathe
What if I DON’T drop that on him and just try to figure out what we are instead
Rose
Shane, you two have spent SO LONG in the What Are We phase that you deserve a medal for endurance under duress
I think telling him you love him might actually be the easier option at this point.
Apparently, no matter how hard he searched, there was no way around using direct words to say what he felt and ask for what he wanted.
What a scam.
###
The final Boston @ Montreal game of the regular season had Shane’s skin humming with a potent mix of anxiety and anticipation from the moment he stepped into the locker room at the Bell Centre. He’d managed to distract himself most of the day with morning skate and preparations at his apartment for Ilya’s visit. They were going to have a full night together, assuming all went well, and Shane coped with the stress of his upcoming confession by making sure there were fresh coffee beans in the grinder, meals prepped for dinner and breakfast, fresh sheets on the bed, and Coke stocked in the fridge.
But as Shane stretched on the ice during warmups, his eyes tracking Ilya’s every movement, his usual pregame focus refused to crowd out the entire hive of bees inhabiting his brain and the words already hovering on the tip of his tongue. When he finally squared up for the first face-off with Ilya, though, things clicked right back into place. Ilya smiled, his eyes bright and alive with mischief.
“Well, this should be fun,” he said. “Not as fun as what comes after, of course, but at least I get to look at your pretty face for now.”
Shane flushed, shaking his head. “You’re gonna be looking at my back as you spend this whole game trying to keep up.”
Ilya’s lips pressed into an amused smirk. “Mm, no, I’ll be looking at your back later as I—”
“You guys ready?” the linesman called as he skated up for the puck drop. Ilya and Shane locked eyes and admirably suppressed their laughter, bending for the face-off like the actual professionals they theoretically were.
Then the game was on, and Shane was grateful to have three periods of intensely competitive hockey to sink his bee-filled brain into. He let the glide of his skates on the ice, his rasping breaths, and his solid grip on his stick keep him grounded, even as every free moment brought his eyes right back to Ilya. Whether he was on the ice, on the bench, or, once, in the sin bin, Ilya was a magnet and as usual Shane couldn’t resist.
And throughout the evening, Ilya kept up a steady stream of sweet, ridiculous, and filthy commentary every time they were in proximity.
“So generous of you to share some glory with fifteenth best Metro, I hope Hayden is grateful.”
“That goal definitely deserves a reward. Maybe I eat you out until you cry tonight.”
“I am thinking about those little yoga shorts of yours. Should be illegal. You deserve penalty.”
“You can’t look at me with those eyes, Hollander, stop, you know I can’t resist them.”
“I might get the pattern of your freckles tattooed on me. Where do you think it should go?”
At the start of the third period, Ilya skated up for the face-off, mouth quirked up at the corner and already half-open for whatever new line he’s prepared, and Shane’s chest swelled, tender, bursting—
“I’m so fucking in love with you,” he said.
He said it.
Right there at center ice.
It was the opposite of the moment when he’d confessed to his parents, somehow. Instead of being out-of-body, hearing his own words from a distance, he felt like his entire being lived inside the hot glowing coal aching in his chest. The smile that overtook Ilya’s face was blinding. The linesman approached with the puck, and Ilya’s eyes cut to him quickly before returning to Shane, shining with unshed tears.
“Very rude of you to tell me this now when I cannot kiss you immediately,” he said, his voice rough. And then, quieter: “Я тоже тебя люблю. So fucking much.”
They met again for another face-off in the neutral zone shortly thereafter:
“You know, I had this whole plan for tonight,” Ilya said casually.
“Oh yeah?”
Ilya licked his lips and smiled. “Yes, I was planning to tell my beautiful boyfriend that I am in love with him tonight. But then he rudely beat me to it.”
Shane huffed a laugh and looked away, shaking his head as his ears went red. “How tragic.”
“Yes, very.”
“Boyfriend, huh?”
“Yes, obviously Hollander, keep up.”
Well. That answered that. Shane Hollander had a boyfriend.
And finally, at their last face-off of the night:
“I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have said that in the middle of a game,” Shane said, not actually feeling all that sorry and still riding the high of being a boyfriend who was loved.
Ilya shook his head, amused. “No, I loved it, very us. Maybe I will keep the tradition going and ask you to marry me in the middle of a game one day.”
Shane felt like his chest might actually crack open so his heart could beat straight out of his padding.
“Might be a bit obvious. I think people would catch on.”
Ilya waved a gloved hand. “Please, I could get down on one knee with an actual ring right now and the commentators would be like, wow, this is some very unusual chirping, what a legendary intimidation tactic between rivals.”
Shane snorted. “I guess we would have to kiss after I said yes to really make sure they got it.”
“Yes, I think that is for the best,” Ilya said, his eyes bright with joy. “Wouldn’t want to be misunderstood.”
###
Shane and Ilya reunited once again for post-game press, because the media was never not excited to put them in a room together. They tried and largely failed to keep their faces neutral and avoid each other’s eyes as they took their seats, feet automatically tapping together under the table.
The first several questions were the usual fare: thoughts on a particularly nasty goal Shane had scored in the second, Ilya’s penalty, consistency in defensive coverage. But finally, a man brought things around to the most interesting thing about the game.
“Ilya, Shane, you both looked like you were having a great time out there today,” he said. “Was this a particularly fun game for you?”
Ilya laughed. “Yes, I always have a great time playing against Shane Hollander. Of course, it’s more fun when we win, but even when we lose, he is my favorite person to play against. Always a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, what he said,” Shane added, his lips twitching as he tried not to smile.
The reporter nodded, raising an eyebrow. “Do we get to know what you were talking about during those face-offs that had you both grinning like that?”
Shane and Ilya’s eyes met, and just like that, the smiles were back, even as Shane tried to tamp it down, tried to be less obvious.
They were being so fucking obvious.
“Sorry, everyone, what’s said on the ice stays on the ice,” Shane said.
Below the table, Ilya’s foot pressed against his.
Shane couldn’t wait to go home.
With his boyfriend.
Who he really, truly did love.