Work Text:
Ilya sits alone on the plane.
He’s taking up the whole row, perched in the window seat with his back against the wall and his feet propped up on the seat beside him. His body language is a glaring warning sign that screams: do not disturb. He’s got his hood up, his earphones in, and his eyes are closed even though there’s no chance he’ll be getting any sleep.
He’s barely slept a wink since Shane walked out of his house on Boxing Day, and never came back.
It wasn’t supposed to end like that, with words yelled in anger that they didn’t even mean. It wasn’t supposed to end at all. Not until they were old and grey, after a life well lived, with Cups and kids and grandkids, and so much love that Ilya had long forgotten how it felt to be a lonely little boy.
He was supposed to have forever with Shane, that was the deal.
After all the years they spent longing for more without being brave enough to ask for it - after all the time they spent hiding the best thing that’s ever happened to them, after knowing how it feels to love someone and have them love you back - they were supposed to get a lifetime together.
Ilya’s not sure how he’s supposed to do this without Shane. He’s been the best part of the last nine years - so intertwined with hockey that Ilya doesn’t remember what it’s like without him - and no Cups or accolades or paycheques could even begin to compare.
None of it means anything without him.
Everything feels sort of…empty. Like Ilya’s world shrunk over night - like the thing that makes his life bright, and warm, and meaningful has vanished.
Now Ilya is left alone with himself, and he’s never been very good at that. It’s when his thoughts start to race, and his mind starts to spin, and that ancient loneliness he got from his mama starts to seep into his bones like a cancer. He’s been dying for the past three weeks, and the only cure doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
Ilya had told Shane to leave because they needed space - they needed some room to catch their breath so they could talk about things properly. So they could say sorry and fix the mess they had made. But one day apart stretched into two, into three, into a week, and suddenly Shane was on the other end of the phone, saying, ”Maybe this isn’t going to work, Ilya.”
At least Ilya is good at that part; he’s an expert in being left behind.
It doesn’t make the pain any less jarring, though. Doesn’t stop Ilya from feeling like he’s being cleaved open, and his insides are being ripped apart. The ache is deep, carving through every layer of skin, and muscle, and sinew, and bone, until it reaches the very core of him, and then burns a hole through that, too. There’s no end to it.
Turns out rock bottom isn’t the lowest you can go; there’s always another layer, another depth to fall to.
“Rozy?” The voice cuts through the music playing in Ilya’s ears.
He opens his eyes to see Bood standing in the aisle, his hands resting on the seats on either side of him. He’s wearing a team issued hoodie and his favourite pair of sweatpants, and his sleep mask is pushed up onto his forehead, all ready for the flight from Minnesota to their next road destination: Montreal.
He’s looking at Ilya like he’s a bomb that no one knows how to defuse.
Ilya takes one of his earphones out so he can hear better, and says, “Yes?”
“Are you, uh, good?”
Ilya loves this team. Despite his reservations when he first signed with Ottawa, it’s the second best decision he’s ever made. They’re more like one giant, mismatched family than a sports team, so Ilya knows they’ve noticed the changes in him lately.
And he wishes he could be better for them - wishes he could put on that mask he’s so used to wearing, and get back to being the captain that they’d run through a brick wall for. He’s trying, he really is. He just…can’t, yet. He hasn’t got it in him.
“Yes. I am fine,” he lies. “Why?”
Bood scratches the back of his neck. “You just, I don’t know - you didn’t seem like yourself tonight.”
“Ah. Yes. Sorry.”
Ilya had racked up four penalties against the Wild during the game this afternoon, including a 5-for-fighting. It’s not his usual style; he’s a menace on the ice, but not much of a fighter unless it’s necessary, and he always plays clean.
But all through the game, the only thing Ilya could think about was the aftermath. How he would be getting onto this plane, flying to Montreal, and instead of spending the night with his boyfriend, he would be spending it in a hotel room alone. And tomorrow, on the second half of a back to back, Ilya will come face to face with the love of his life, and see nothing but regret staring back at him.
“I will do better tomorrow,” he says, though he’s not so confident he can promise that.
“No, I mean. You still played great, Cap. I just wanted to check on you. You’ve seemed-“
“I am okay, thank you, Zane,” Ilya interrupts, because he can’t have this conversation now. He probably can’t have it ever.
The worst part of a secret relationship is that the break-up has to be secret, too. You have to grieve it in silence.
“Okay, well. I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Ilya says.
Bood bumps the side of his twice fist against the seat, then he nods his head and walks back to the front of the plane. He sinks down into the space beside Choui, who’s already sleeping with his mouth open before the plane has even left the ground.
Ilya lets out a breath, then puts the earphone back in and closes his eyes.
The flight is only a few hours once they finally take off, and soon they’ll be in Montreal. Soon, Ilya will be in the city that Shane calls home, and for the first time in a long time, he won’t be welcome there.
He doesn’t sleep. It’s not a surprise.
He’s been surviving off the handful of restless hours he can manage to grab, and more caffeine than any one body can handle.
The playlist he’s listening to ends at some point but he can’t be bothered to choose something else, or even take out his earphones. Ilya just leaves them in, keeps his eyes closed and his face blank, and continues to feign sleep so no one else tries to talk to him.
He hasn’t been much company for the last few weeks, but he knows it’s gonna be even worse these next few days. Between seeing Shane on the ice tomorrow, and then having to pick up the pieces of himself afterwards, he feels like a man on the very edge. It’s better if everyone just keeps their distance for a while - he doesn’t want to take anyone else with him when he finally implodes.
They’re a couple of hours into the flight - close enough to the beginning of their descent that some of the guys are starting to pack up their game of poker - when the plane shudders.
They fly so frequently that no one even bats an eye at first; they’re so accustomed to turbulence that they barely even register it any more. But then the plane jolts again, more violently this time, and heads start to pop up over seats, looking around to check for other people’s reactions.
At the very moment Ilya locks eyes with Hayes, there’s a long, low keening sound coming from the back of the plane.
And then a thunderous explosion shakes the entire cabin-
“What the fuck?” Someone yells.
“What’s happening?”
“Was that a bomb?”
-and then the plane fucking drops.
Ilya screams. He’s not the only one.
The cabin is filled with cries of terror as the plane levels out, only to shudder and drop once again. He grabs the seat in front of him, but not fast enough to stop himself from slamming face first into it. The impact ripples through his bones, and he bites down on his tongue.
Ilya feels like he’s going to throw up - feels like his heart has fallen out of his chest and onto the floor, along with all the bags that have crashed out of the overhead lockers and broken open.
The pilot makes an announcement, something about an engine and an emergency landing, but Ilya can barely hear it over the sound of his blood rushing inside his skull.
Someone else shouts about a fire, but Ilya can’t bring himself to look. He doesn’t want to see it - doesn’t want to know when the end is coming.
The plane is going to crash.
Ilya is going to die.
And - Shane. Ilya is never going to see him again. He’s never going to get a chance to say sorry to him, or fix things, or live the life they had been planning for.
They were supposed to get married, and have children, and be together always. But instead, it’s going to end like this: Ilya falling to his death without telling Shane he loves him one last time.
He reaches frantically for his phone, but he doesn’t know what to do. Shane would still be in the middle of a game right now, and even if he wasn’t - is Ilya allowed to text him? Would it be welcome? It’s a stupid thing to worry about as he plummets to certain death, but he’s already got so many things wrong when it comes to Shane.
Ilya doesn’t want his last act to be something that Shane resents him for.
He can’t go without saying goodbye, though. He can’t let Shane think that what they had wasn’t worth fighting for - can’t leave without telling him just how completely Ilya loves him.
If it was the other way around, Ilya would want to know; he would want Shane’s last words to belong to him, no matter what they were.
There’s no service, so Ilya pulls up Instagram. He navigates his way to a profile that he’s spent so much time looking at, but never once messaged.
Shane, he types. You are-
The plane lurches again, and Ilya watches as his phone tumbles to the floor and shatters. His screen flickers once, and then goes dark.
No! No, it’s not fair.
Shane needs to know. He needs to know that Ilya loves him more than he’s ever loved anything, that he is the best thing that has ever happened to Ilya and he won’t ever regret that. He’s never wanted anyone else, never wanted easier, he’s only ever wanted Shane. Only ever loved Shane. And even if this wasn’t the end for Ilya - even if he lived a thousand more years - he would never love anyone else.
“Brace for impact!” The flight attendants call out in unison.
Ilya never used to listen to the safety demo before flights, he never saw the point in it. He only started paying attention that one year Ryan Price was with the Bears. He was a nervous flyer, so whenever they sat beside each other Ilya would pay close attention to the flight attendant’s demonstration just to ease his worries a little.
He’s never been so glad of that in his life.
He folds his body over, tucking his head between his knees and curling his hands over the top of it.
“Shane, Shane, Shane,” Ilya whispers under his breath. “I love you.”
He needed to say it one last time, even though Shane couldn’t hear him. Even though he won’t ever know.
Ilya refuses to die without Shane’s name on his lips.
Ilya thinks of his mother - about the fact that he’s spent his whole life dreaming of the moment he gets to see her again, only now he finds himself watching her cross swing from his neck, praying to whatever God might exist that that moment doesn’t come today. He’s not ready to leave yet. He still has so much he wants to do.
He still has somebody to love.
The plane tilts to one side, and then the other, and then a moment later the wheels touch down.
It’s a brutal landing. More bags fall to the floor, and someone lets out a shriek, and Ilya’s seatbelt will probably leave a bruise across his hips. But the wheels are on the ground, and his friends are safe, and Ilya is alive.
He will live to see another sunrise over Montreal.
They’re not allowed to deboard the plane straight away.
They’re met on the runway by a swarm of fire engines, and police cars, and ambulances that - thankfully - no one requires. Coach Wiebe has got a sprained wrist, and Dykstra has a graze on the side of his leg, but that’s the extent of the damage they’ve sustained.
Terry - the team doctor - sits beside Ilya for a while, with his med bag open on his lap as he cleans a cut on Ilya’s face, and places a strip of butterfly bandages over the top of it. As soon as he’s happy the bruising around is eye is just that, and there are no signs of a concussion, he moves around the cabin checking on everyone else.
Ilya follows suit, walking up and down the aisles and between all the rows.
He checks on his team - ruffles Luca’s hair, hugs Harris tight, presses a kiss to Hayes’ forehead. He even wipes the tears from Ellie - their physio’s - face. Ilya loves them so fucking much that tears spring to his own eyes each time he sets his sights on the next person, and sees that they’re unharmed.
Once the engine fire is finally out - over an hour later - the team slowly disembarks onto the runway, where they file onto the bus waiting to take them all to their hotel.
“Hey, Cap,” Bood says as he sinks into the empty seat beside Ilya.
“Hello, Zane,” he replies. “You’re okay?”
“I mean, I’m not hurt.”
“That is not the same thing,” Ilya points out.
Bood chuckles. “No, it’s not. But it’s about as good as I’ve got right now.”
And, yeah. Ilya understands. His hands haven’t stopped shaking, and his cheek throbs every time he speaks, and his body hasn’t quite realised that it’s no longer falling - that it is safe.
Ilya doubts that anyone is even close to okay right now.
“Are you you okay?” Bood asks. “That face looks nasty.”
Ilya scoffs. “I am very handsome.”
Bood lists to the side, bumping their shoulders together gently. “Y’know, we see you, Ilya,” Bood says softly. “You don’t always have to put on a show for us.”
Ilya’s breath catches in his throat. He wants to cry, or hug him, or crack open his chest and keep his entire team safe behind his ribs.
Instead, Ilya just offers Bood the most genuine smile he can muster up.
“Thank you,” he says.
Bood doesn’t pull his shoulder away, and Ilya doesn’t either. And as the bus carries them away from the airport, he allows himself this one small kindness.
They’re all shuffled into one giant conference room when they finally make it to the hotel.
News of the emergency landing has already gone public, so there are official statements to be made and all kinds of people who need to be contacted, and it’s apparently easier to have everyone in one place while all of it is happening.
Most of the guys are huddled around in small groups, recounting the event like it might ease their panic if they talk about it, or on the phone to their wives and kids and people that they love.
Ilya sits alone, watching it all happen as if he’s looking in through a window.
“Hey, Roz, do you want to borrow my phone?” Troy offers, holding it out to him. “Bood said yours broke on the plane.”
Ilya considers it. He thinks about taking Troy’s phone and dialling the number he’s had memorised since 2011, just to hear Shane’s voice. To prove to himself that this is real, they landed, they are safe. But-
Ilya shakes his head. “No, thank you.”
He watches the look of pity that crosses Troy’s face, and Ilya turns away so he doesn’t have to see it. So he doesn’t have to be confronted by the fact that everyone in this room now knows that Ilya has nobody to call after their plane almost crashed.
Nobody who cares whether he lives or dies.
It’s not true, probably. No matter what happened with their relationship, he’s certain Shane would at least care if he died. He would grieve in his own, silent way. Yuna and David, too. And his dear Svetlana, of course. But she’s in Russia right now, and it’s the middle of the night over there; he won’t disturb her just to say that he almost died.
And Shane, and David and Yuna, will find out through the Centaurs’ PR statement just like everyone else. So. He doesn’t need to call anyone - most of his family are already in this room, anyway.
The door to the conference room keeps swinging open and shut, between hotel staff bringing them food and water, and their coaching staff and PR team dipping in and out. At this point, everyone just wants to crawl to their hotel room and sleep. Ilya doesn’t even bother to open his eyes the next time he hears the door slam open.
Not until a murmur ripples through the team, and he hears, frantically-
“Where is he? Ilya?”
He knows that voice. He loves that voice. He’s missed it so much he can barely breathe without it.
Ilya is standing before he can even process what’s happening, and then…there he is.
Shane.
Standing in the doorway to a room filled with the Centaurs.
His hair is damp and his skin is pale, and his eyes are red like he’s trying desperately not to cry. When his restless gaze finally locks on Ilya - when he sees with his own two eyes that he’s still breathing - Shane’s bottom lip quivers almost imperceptibly. Ilya sees it, though.
Ilya sees everything about Shane.
“Shane,” Ilya whispers, so quiet he knows no one could possibly hear it.
And then he’s moving through the room, shoving past his teammates, rushing to get to him - to the person who makes it all better, the person who makes him feel whole, the person Ilya thought he had already lost.
And yet he’s here anyway, in front of all of Ilya’s teammates, looking like a man who’s barely holding it together.
Ilya wants to crash into him. Wants to wrap his arms around Shane and never let him go. It’s all he has wanted since the moment Shane walked out of the house back in December, and it’s all Ilya has been able to think about since the second the plane started to fall.
He wants it so badly that he has to clench his hands into fists so he doesn’t reach for him - so he doesn’t ruin everything.
“Your face,” Shane whispers mournfully.
“Shane, you are-“
“-I had to see you,” Shane says, his voice trembling. “I had to know…”
His voice cracks, and the tears in his eyes begin to fall, and he takes a clumsy step towards Ilya. He knows in an instant that he has to get them both out of here. This can’t happen in front of everyone; if Ilya lets them see this, Shane won’t ever forgive him.
“Let’s go,” he says, urgently. “We will find somewhere to talk.”
Shane doesn’t look around the room, he doesn’t see anybody but Ilya. But he sucks in a ragged breath and nods his head anyway. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
He lets Ilya put a hand on his shoulder to guide him back out of the conference room, and away from the chatter that instantly picks back up as they leave. It feels like they’re both holding their breath while they walk down the hallway, until they find an empty office. Ilya opens the door and steps inside, but the moment it closes behind them - the moment the handle clicks - Shane is on him.
He throws himself at Ilya, arms around his neck, chest to heaving chest, and he clings to him like Ilya is the only thing keeping him upright.
There’s nothing else for Ilya to do but hug him back.
He winds his arms Shane’s waist, and burrows his face in his neck. Ilya takes a long, deep breath - the first one he has taken in weeks - and all he can smell is Shane. The clean, bright scent of his favourite bodywash clinging to his skin. It’s so familiar that Ilya could recognise it anywhere.
It feels like coming home after far too long away.
Ilya wants to bite - wants to sink his teeth into Shane to make sure that he is real, that he is here. But Ilya settles for squeezing him even tighter, focusing on the way Shane’s heart is thundering against his own, and the way his hands are tangled in Ilya’s hair.
Shane is crying. It’s not loud or dramatic, but Ilya can feel it in the way Shane’s body shudders, and hear it in the soft, little hiccups that are muffled by Ilya’s shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Ilya murmurs uselessly.
“You didn’t answer your phone. I kept calling, but you didn’t answer.”
“It broke, Shane. I am sorry. I did not mean to worry you.”
“I thought - I thought you - Ilya,” Shane stammers, unable to get his words out. “JJ said the plane - and I - I couldn’t-“
“I am okay,” Ilya promises him. “I am right here.”
“I was so scared. I thought - god, Ilya, I thought I was going to lose you.”
Shane burrows in closer to Ilya, tugs on his hair, bites down on Ilya’s shoulder like he sometimes does when he’s overwhelmed. The pain is a devastatingly welcome sensation.
Ilya can feel Shane’s fear rippling off him in waves, and he wants nothing more than to absorb it all - to bear the brunt of this pain so Shane doesn’t have to. So Ilya holds steady, unmoving, and he runs his hands up and down Shane’s back until he starts to pull away, and then Ilya hesitantly rests them on Shane’s hips.
When Ilya finally gets a good look at Shane, he wants to cry all over again.
His face is blotchy and tear-stained, and his brown eyes are filled with flecks of panic. His mouth is turned down into a frown, and a quiet whimper slips from between his lips when he properly takes in the mess that is Ilya’s face.
Shane raises a careful hand, gently brushing the tips of his fingers over the butterfly bandage and black eye.
“Baby,” he whispers, and the endearment makes Ilya want to weep. Makes him want to get on his hands and knees, and beg.
“I am okay,” Ilya tells him again. “Is just a bump, I am fine. I promise.”
“When I heard the news, I felt like I was gonna die.”
Ilya can’t help but chuckle. “Yes, me too.”
“Don’t,” Shane warns. “Please, please don’t joke, Ilya.”
His hand trembles as he trails it along Ilya’s bruised face, then curls it around the back of his neck. Shane’s eyes trace every inch of Ilya, like he’s checking for other injuries - cataloguing all the parts of Ilya that are still there, still working, still unharmed.
“I am sorry,” Ilya whispers. “I can’t believe you are here.”
“You almost…you almost died, Ilya. Where else would I be?”
Anywhere. Anywhere but here. You don’t owe me this anymore. You are not mine, and I do not think you want me to be yours.
“We are, I mean. We are not-“
Shane makes a quiet, panicked sound, and then suddenly he is kissing Ilya. Brief and chaste, but forceful. A message.
“You’re mine,” Shane insists, firm and uncompromising. “You always were, and you always will be. I’m not letting you walk away from me.”
The words are music to Ilya’s ears, but: “You said we were not working? You said-“
Shane’s face collapses into complete devastation.
“No,” he cries. “Oh my god, no, baby.”
And then he is hugging Ilya again, their bodies pressed so tightly together it feels like they might just merge into one being.
Ilya has missed him so desperately that he’s not quite sure how he managed to keep existing without him. For weeks it has felt like something had been stolen from him - a limb, a rib, his heart. And now Shane is here, in his arms again, and Ilya doesn’t quite understand why but he’s almost too afraid to keep questioning it. He doesn’t care how, doesn’t care why, it just matters that Shane is here. That he doesn’t have to learn how to live without him.
Shane pulls back again, but he doesn’t go far. He holds Ilya’s face in his hands, his thumbs sweeping gently over Ilya’s cheeks.
“Did you - Ilya. Did you think I was leaving you?”
“That is what you said. That we-“
“No. Fuck no, Ilya. I didn’t - I meant,” Shane pauses. Takes a breath. “I didn’t call you that night to break up with you.”
Ilya furrows his brows. “You said, ’Maybe this isn’t going to work, Ilya.’ I heard you.”
Shane half laughs, half cries, as he leans forward and rests his forehead on Ilya’s chin. For a moment he just stays there, silent and unmoving, like he’s trying to recharge. Trying to pull together what’s left of his composure. And then he looks at Ilya again, with a sad, almost disbelieving expression on his face.
“I meant the secrecy, the distance. Ten, fifteen more years of it? We wouldn’t survive that. But then you said-“
“I agree. We should end it now.”
Ilya barely remembers saying those words, but his lips remember the shape of them - his tongue remembers the weight. He couldn’t bear to hear Shane give up on him, couldn’t stand to have someone else he loves leave him behind, so Ilya had dealt the killing blow.
He’d been the one to break them, not Shane, and he hadn’t even realised it.
Ilya was so afraid of losing him that he pushed Shane before he had the chance to jump, except - except he wasn’t preparing to jump at all. He was trying desperately to hold on.
God, what has Ilya done?
Shane must see the heartbreak written all over Ilya’s face, must feel him coming apart between Shane’s unsteady hands.
“So…so you didn’t want to end things,” Shane says.
“And you didn’t, either.”
There’s silence, for a moment. And then, between one heartbeat and the next, both of them are laughing. It’s a delirious, almost manic sort of laughter, fraught with so much fear and loss and heartbreak, but it is the most human Ilya has felt in weeks. The most alive he has been since Shane walked out the door and took Ilya’s heart along with him.
Shane pulls Ilya to him and then kisses him - his mouth, his nose, the cut on his cheek, and the bruise around his eye.
Ilya feels something wet on his skin, and for a moment he worries that the wound is bleeding again. But then he opens his eyes and sees tears warping Shane’s freckles, and feels the dampness leaking from his own eyes. They’re both crying, and laughing, and holding each other, and loving each other.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya says. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t know. I thought - I thought it was too much. That I was-“
“No,” Shane says, silencing him with another kiss. “You’re made for me, baby. You could never be too much.”
And it’s true. There’s no one on this earth who gets Ilya better than Shane does - no one who understands his moods and insecurities, no one who sees him clearer, no one who could ever love him any better. And Ilya is the same for Shane; he sees the parts of him he doesn’t show to anyone else, and Ilya loves Shane not despite them, but because of them.
They are made for each other. They belong to each other.
“But you can’t do that to me again. To us. You can’t just assume you know what I’m thinking. We have to listen to each other. We have to talk.”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “We will. I promise.”
He looks at the man in front of him - the man he thought he had lost - and he truly cannot believe his luck. Ilya almost died today, but it was worth it for this. Every second of fear, every moment of panic, was all worth it to have his love in his arms again.
“I can’t believe you came here.”
“I had to see you.”
“Yes, and my whole team, too.”
Shane laughs bashfully, his cheeks turning the sweetest shade of pink. He hides in Ilya’s neck for a moment, presses a kiss to the flutter of his pulse.
“I don’t care, Ilya. They can know.”
“You are sure?”
Shane nods and hums affirmatively. “That’s why I called you that night. The hiding, the secrets, the lies - it’s killing us. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“You want to…come out?” Ilya asks, not quite believing what he’s hearing. Not quite letting himself dare to hope for it.
“Our teams first,” Shane says. “But then, maybe during the off season, we just - do it? Tell everyone?”
“Sweetheart,” Ilya chokes, his voice thick with emotion.
“I won’t lose you. Everything else, everyone else, I could survive without. But not you, Ilya.”
And what else is there to do but kiss him?
He takes Shane’s face in his hands and claims his mouth like he owns it, like it belongs to him - because it does. Shane is his. Now, and then, and always.
Ilya has come close to losing him too many times, this one the closest of all, and he won’t let it happen again. He refuses to.
Even if it feels like he’s cracking himself open, even if the vulnerability terrifies him, he won’t ever let things get this tangled up again. They’ll talk until they’re blue in the face, until Shane is bored of the sound of Ilya’s voice, if that is what it takes. Ilya will listen, and talk, and then he will listen some more, as long as he never has to go through the agony of losing this man again.
Ilya kisses him slow and deep, sucks Shane’s tongue into his mouth and savours the taste of him. Ilya kisses him until they are both breathless, and boneless, and barely able to stand.
This morning Ilya had woken up with a grief so heavy that it weighed down his bones. Now, it feels like he is walking on air. Like, if Shane let go of him for even a second, he would float up up up into the clouds.
“Come home?” Shane whispers. “Please?”
They’re the sweetest words Ilya has ever heard.
“Always,” he promises. “I will always come home to you.”
He needs to talk to his team - needs to explain why Shane Hollander showed up at their hotel, still damp from the shower, with tears in his eyes and panic etched into every line of his face as he begged to know where Ilya was.
But that’s something that can wait until morning.
Right now, he is going to go home with the love of his life and make up for all the weeks that they have missed together.
“I love you,” Shane says.
“I love you, too. So much.”
“Forever?”
Ilya kisses him again, then promises, “Forever.”
“That’s a really long time, y’know?” Shane teases with a smile.
“No. It is not long enough. No amount of time with you will ever be enough, but…I will take forever as a start.”