Chapter Text
The first thing Ilya Rozanov felt was a headache the size of Massachusetts.
Seriously, his head was pounding so badly behind his eyes that the moment he tried to sit up in bed, a violent wave of nausea nearly made him throw up. He immediately dropped his head into his hands, elbows braced against his knees while he forced himself to breathe slowly through it.
Jesus Christ.
What the hell did he drink last night?
Only once the nausea settled slightly did he finally look around and immediately realized this was very much not his bedroom.
First of all, there was a Montreal jersey hanging on the wall, which already told him enough. That alone would never happen in his house. He would burn any Montreal jersey that dared cross the doorway.
His eyes drifted away from it as he tried to piece together where the fuck he was. The room felt warm and lived in compared to his house. Thick handmade blankets were piled across the bed in dark earthy colors, green, brown, burnt orange, cream, all of it matching the rest of the room.
Near the window sat a desk covered in neatly arranged study materials. Architecture books were stacked beside notebooks filled with sketches and measurements, pens lined up inside a holder, sticky notes marking different pages in textbooks that had clearly been used often.
And hanging over the back of the chair was a Harvard sweater neatly folded.
Ilya stared at it in disbelief.
Who folded a sweater before putting it over a chair?
The rest of the bedroom followed the same pattern. Hoodies rested over the armchair instead of being thrown across the floor, hockey magazines sat beside skating ones, and books filled the shelves in organized stacks. The faint smell of coffee still lingered in the air strongly enough that somebody had probably made a cup recently.
The whole thing made it obvious somebody actually spent time here instead of treating the room like a place to crash between practices and road trips.
Then his attention landed on the nightstand, where he found two framed pictures.
The first was of a little boy standing between a Japanese woman and a white man, all three smiling brightly into the camera. The woman was beautiful and elegant, while the man had one arm wrapped securely around them both.
The second picture made Ilya pause.
It was of the most handsome man he had ever seen.
He was beautiful in the sort of way that almost hurt to look at. Warm brown eyes, soft dark curls, flushed cheeks, and skin covered in tiny little moles that looked like constellations scattered across his body. The type of beauty that did not need photoshop or filters to captivate people.
He was standing on an Olympic podium wearing a silver medal around his neck beside a pretty short girl grinning brightly at the camera while waving a Canadian flag.
Was he in the bedroom of an Olympic medalist?
This only confused him more until flashes of the previous night finally started clearing through the fog in his brain. The park came back first, then the sunset, then that boy standing in front of him while the last rays of sunlight spilled around him and caught on his dark curls, wrapping him in a golden halo and making him look almost angelic for a second, like he had wings made out of light behind his back.
And his eyes. God, his eyes kept coming back to him more than anything else. They had been so open and honest when they looked at Ilya, so full of care that it completely threw him off balance because nobody looked at him like that anymore.
Maybe nobody ever had.
And wasn't that pathetic? That a stranger — a man he had never met before — had looked at him with more kindness in ten minutes than most people in his life ever had?
Then the rest of reality crashed back into place. The guy was obviously taken. He was a figure skater, he had a female partner, and they lived together on top of that. Which meant Ilya had somehow managed to get himself emotionally invested in a man who was completely unavailable after knowing him for one night.
With a groan, he stood up slowly and made his way out of the bedroom and into the living room.
The first thing he noticed was that this wasn't a house but an apartment. A nice one too. The windows overlooked a gated community with security downstairs, clearly somewhere in Cambridge and, from the looks of it, very close to Harvard University.
So not only was this man an Olympic silver medalist, he was also a Harvard student, which explained a lot. Total workaholic type. Then again, most figure skaters were intense perfectionists anyway.
Still feeling awkward, Ilya reached for his jacket lying on the sofa, ready to leave before this situation became even more awkward.
But then he froze.
Because standing in the kitchen was that same beautiful man making breakfast. And for one dangerous second, Ilya found himself imagining what it would feel like to wake up to something like this every morning.
Coffee brewing somewhere in the background, dishes clinking quietly in the kitchen, all while someone soft and warm made breakfast as sunlight spilled into the apartment.
Could he get even more pathetic than this? Apparently yes, because watching some stranger make scrambled eggs was enough to make Ilya painfully aware of how empty his own life actually felt.
Because eventually he would still have to go back there. Back to the massive house that looked more like something pulled out of a luxury magazine than a place anybody genuinely lived in. Back to eating takeout alone at midnight after practice. Back to silence broken only by the constant buzzing of his phone whenever his brother decided he wanted something from him again.
Twenty thousand dollars.
That was the latest demand, and it was not even phrased like a request anymore. His brother had started talking to him like Ilya's success automatically belonged to the family. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped being treated like a person and started being treated like an ATM.
And the worst part was that Ilya always gave in eventually. Every single time. No matter how angry he got, no matter how badly he wanted to ignore the messages, he still sent the money in the end because they were all he had left, and some part of him still could not cut that cord no matter how rotten it was.
Even if part of him hated himself for folding so easily.
A bigger part of himself hated his father for what growing up in Moscow had done to all of them. Everything revolved around his moods. One wrong comment could ruin an entire night, and after enough years everybody just learned how to keep their mouths shut around him.
And even that was not enough.
His mother spent most of Ilya's childhood trying to keep the peace until eventually she stopped trying at all. Toward the end, she mostly just stood there and took it while his father yelled at her.
And his brother watched all of it happen, which was what made it hurt so much worse in the end. If it had only been their father, Ilya could have dealt with that. He could have survived one terrible parent. Even after their mother died, part of him still thought he at least had his brother, because nobody else understood what growing up in a broken home had been like the way they did.
But drugs turned his brother into the exact thing they used to hate together. Somewhere along the line, the person Ilya grew up with disappeared, and in his place was somebody who sounded more and more like their father every year.
Now his brother called him selfish whenever Ilya ignored his messages too long despite the fact that Ilya had been paying his bills for years already, all while his father treated every achievement like something he was owed credit for. And somehow, despite all of it, Ilya still wanted their approval anyway.
That was probably the most humiliating part.
No contract extension, trophy, or headline about him being the future of hockey ever changed anything. Part of Ilya kept hoping that maybe this time they would finally be proud of him, but nothing was ever enough for them.
Which meant he should probably leave now before he got attached to something that did not belong to him and never would. Because eventually this morning would end, and he would still have to go back home to his empty house and his miserable family and the life waiting for him there.
Ilya was so deep in his own thoughts that he barely noticed the man turning around with two plates in his hands. Then the skater looked at him and smiled. It wasn't a teasing smile or flirtatious, and it caught Ilya off guard again.
God, even his smile looked kind.
Ilya stayed near the entrance to the living room while the skater crossed the apartment and set the plates carefully onto the table beside two mugs of coffee.
"Sorry," he said, sounding a little nervous now that Ilya was actually paying attention. "I didn't know how you liked your eggs. Or if you even liked eggs." He gave a small awkward shrug before adding, "But, uh, they're scrambled. And there's cream and sugar if you want some for the coffee."
Ilya just stared at him for a second because the whole situation felt bizarre.
Not the waking-up-in-a-stranger's-apartment part. That had happened before. NHL fame and money made that sort of thing dangerously easy. No, the strange part was this. The domesticity of it. The fact that the skater looked genuinely worried about whether he liked his breakfast. The fact that there was no weird tension underneath the kindness either. No obvious flirting, nor careful maneuvering for attention or money or status.
Who even was this guy?
"So…" The words slipped out before Ilya could stop himself. "Who are you?"
The question came out blunter than he meant it to, but the skater didn't seem bothered by it. Normally, Ilya would already be gone by now—if he'd even stayed the night in the first place. That only happened when he was drunk enough to fall asleep after fucking, and even then he never brought anyone back home with him.
That was how these situations usually worked.
He woke up, got dressed, ignored whatever awkward attempt at conversation the other person made, then left before anything could turn personal. Names were unnecessary because names meant attachment, and attachment came with emotions, expectations, and complications Ilya had no interest in dealing with.
So why the fuck was he still standing here?
Worse, why was his brain suddenly trying to imagine what this man would look like waking up beside him every morning?
The thought surfaced so naturally that it took Ilya a second to even realize where his mind had gone, and once he did, he immediately recoiled from it internally.
Absolutely not.
That sounded like a terrible fucking idea.
Meanwhile the skater was blushing again, soft pink spreading across his cheeks while he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "Shane Hollander," he introduced himself quietly.
The name immediately sounded familiar, though it took Ilya a few seconds to place why. Then his mind drifted briefly toward the framed Olympic photo he had seen in the bedroom earlier, and suddenly he remembered one of the Raiders' WAGs talking nonstop during a team dinner a few months ago about some Canadian ice dance pair she was obsessed with.
"Right… the Canadian figure skater," he said after a beat. "Didn't your silver medal cause a whole controversy at the Winter Olympics?"
Shane looked surprised for a moment before giving a small embarrassed nod. "Yeah. That's me."
"I heard about you from one of the WAGs of the team," Ilya admitted while finally walking closer to the table. Shane blinked once at the acronym, and Ilya immediately found himself clarifying automatically. "WAGs are—"
"Wives and girlfriends of hockey players," Shane cut in quickly, then immediately seemed to regret speaking over him, another faint flush rising as he added, "Sorry. Sorry for interrupting."
The apology came out rushed and awkward enough that Ilya actually had to bite back a smile.
God, he was cute.
Embarrassingly cute too, though not in the seductive way people usually acted around professional athletes. Shane's reactions felt completely genuine right down to the awkward way he kept pushing his curls back from his face. And for some deeply concerning reason, that immediately sent dangerous thoughts straight into Ilya's head.
Thoughts about keeping him around longer than he should. Spoiling him. Buying him expensive things just because he wanted to see that shy smile appear again.
The possessiveness of it startled him badly enough that he forced himself to look away for a second. Getting attached was dangerous for him in a way that had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with being seen with a man. One wrong photo, one headline taken the wrong way, and it would not matter what he had achieved on the ice.
The speculation alone would be enough—his sponsors, his place on the team, his carefully built image could fall apart. Ilya knew he was panicking over nothing. Legally the NHL cannot fire him for being queer, but that does not mean they welcome it with open arms. Normally, Ilya would not care about the slurs, he gets enough heat for being Russian.
But the idea of his sexuality being public knowledge and one day being forced to return to his home country… it scared him. Because being queer in Russia could put him into real danger.
Trying to distract himself before his own thoughts spiraled any further, Ilya made a sarcastic comment. "I saw the Montreal jersey," he said. "You live in Boston and still cheer for Voyagers? Terrible taste."
Shane laughed softly and sat down across from him, the sound warm and easy enough that Ilya immediately found himself paying far too much attention to it. There was something unfair about how naturally likable this man was. Even his laugh was gentle.
"Well, I'm Canadian," Shane replied with a small shrug. "Montreal kind of comes with the territory when you grow up around hockey."
"That sounds like a tragic childhood."
Shane laughed again, ducking his head slightly this time, and Ilya had the deeply concerning realization that he was already starting to enjoy making him flustered.
"But I've been thinking about switching teams lately anyway," Shane admitted after a moment.
Ilya raised an eyebrow while reaching for his coffee.
"Oh?"
"Yeah." Shane rubbed awkwardly at the sleeve of his hoodie before continuing. "I don't feel comfortable with the new coaching staff and some of the new players. Rose keeps ranting about them whenever we watch games together."
"She is correct," Ilya informed him confidently. "Montreal is currently a disaster."
Shane kept on smiling as he looked down at his plate for a second before speaking again, and there was something shy in the way he made the following admission. "I've gone to a few Raiders games this season too," he said. "At first it was mostly because Rose found tickets online and dragged me there, but your team's actually really fun to watch."
Shane sounded more relaxed than before, and Ilya found himself smiling back before he even realized it. But then Shane grimaced slightly.
"And your coach seems significantly less awful, which definitely helps."
Ilya hummed into his coffee.
Right.
From what he remembered from the WAG rant, Shane was openly gay. It was also an open secret what the Montreal's new coach thought about the LGBTQ community. He had made his views clear over the last few months, through small comments and little digs. The organization kept trying to smooth it over publicly, but they could only do so much.
"Yeah," Ilya admitted. "He is an asshole."
"Very much."
Then Ilya replayed Shane's earlier sentence in his head.
I've gone to a few Raiders games this season too.
For some reason, that tidbit of information pleased him immensely.
"You watch our games?" he asked, and this time the smile pulling at his mouth felt far more genuine than the arrogant little smirk he usually wore for cameras and interviews.
Shane laughed quietly under his breath again, still looking a little embarrassed for some reason.
"Well, yeah," he admitted while rubbing the back of his neck again. "Hockey was actually my first favorite sport growing up before figure skating completely took over my life. My parents are obsessed with the NHL, so I kind of inherited it."
The nervousness in his voice was ridiculously endearing, mostly because Shane clearly seemed to expect Ilya to laugh at him for being excited about hockey in the first place. Instead, Ilya found himself leaning back slightly in his chair while watching him with growing amusement.
"The Raiders are just…" Shane hesitated briefly. "You guys play like complete maniacs sometimes. Half the time it feels like somebody's about to either score a goal or start a fight."
"We usually try doing both."
"I noticed."
"Careful," he teased. "Keep talking like that and I'll get you season tickets."
Shane blinked at him, clearly unsure whether he was joking.
"I'm serious," Ilya continued, already enjoying the way Shane started blushing again. "Good seats too. Maybe I'll even replace that ugly Montreal jersey with something better. Number eighty-one looks much nicer."
The blush spread all the way down Shane's neck this time, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt, and Ilya's eyes followed the flush hungrily before he could stop itself.
Jesus Christ.
How many more of those tiny little freckles does he have hidden under there?
The thought appeared so suddenly and vividly that Ilya nearly choked on his own coffee. For one deeply alarming moment, he found himself wondering what it would feel like to press his mouth against them one by one, tracing them slowly down Shane's throat and across his skin while Shane made those soft nervous breaths again every time Ilya teased him.
He forced himself out of the thought before his own brain embarrassed him any further.
Meanwhile Shane was still blushing across the table, completely unaware of the crisis currently happening inside Ilya's head.
"Don't tempt me," Shane admitted with a nervous laugh. "I'd absolutely take those tickets. So would Rose. We're both huge hockey fans."
Ilya finally started eating, mostly because focusing on the eggs seemed safer than continuing to stare at Shane like a complete lunatic. The food itself was simple. Scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. Nothing fancy. Still, it somehow tasted better than most of the overpriced meals Ilya usually ordered for himself after practice.
Maybe because somebody had actually made it for him.
Not because they wanted money from him. Not because they cared about his status or his contract or the fact that his face appeared on billboards all over Boston. Shane had simply woken up early and made breakfast because he wanted to take care of Ilya.
"Rose?" he asked after a moment.
"My skating partner," Shane said immediately. "She's my roommate too. I ended up sleeping in her room last night after I put you in my bed."
Ilya paused mid-bite as something possessive twisted unpleasantly inside him at the image of Shane sleeping in someone else's bed.
Which was insane.
Shane was not his. He had known this man for less than twenty-four hours and was already reacting like some jealous idiot over a roommate situation that meant absolutely nothing. Especially since Shane was gay, so why was Ilya worried about some girl?
Maybe the alcohol still hadn't fully left his system, because otherwise Ilya genuinely had no explanation for his brain being as scrambled as his eggs.
The two of them ate while talking for a while afterward, and to Ilya's surprise, the conversation flowed easily. Shane was still nervous, blushing every few minutes, but once he relaxed the words came out easier, flowing together faster and faster until he stopped overthinking every sentence.
At some point, Ilya found himself asking the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind. "So how does a figure skater end up this obsessed with hockey?" he asked while leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Usually your people hate us."
"My people?" Shane repeated through a laugh.
"Yes. Figure skaters." Ilya waved his fork vaguely in the air. "You all act like hockey players are uncivilized animals."
"That's because half of you are."
"Fair."
Shane smiled into his coffee before shrugging lightly. "My dad actually played hockey," he explained. "Not professionally or anything huge. Just college hockey in Canada. But hockey was always around when I was growing up."
"And your mother?" Ilya asked, tilting his head to the side.
"She used to be a ballet dancer."
"A hockey player and a ballet dancer?" Ilya's eyes widened slightly at the bizarre combination. "That must have been a novel experience growing up."
Shane laughed again, softer this time. Ilya noticed that Shane laughed easily, or maybe that was just Ilya's effect on him. Internally, he really hoped it was the latter.
"Yeah. My childhood was basically my parents driving me from the ice rink to the dance studio whenever I was not in class." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It was exhausting, but I liked both activities." Shane smiled faintly while looking down at his plate for a second. "The problem was mostly everyone else."
Something in his tone shifted slightly there, enough that Ilya noticed it immediately.
"The locker room culture?" he guessed.
Shane nodded with a small frown.
"I was a good hockey player," he admitted, sounding almost reluctant to say it out loud. "Actually, really good. But the toxicity of the sport could be…" He hesitated briefly while searching for the right word. "A lot."
Ilya hummed quietly into his coffee because he understood exactly what Shane meant without needing further explanation.
"Especially as a kid," Shane continued. "Kids repeat whatever they hear from adults, and hockey parents are honestly terrifying sometimes." He laughed awkwardly afterward, though it sounded more self-conscious than amused. "Being half Japanese already made me stand out in some places, and then ballet definitely didn't help."
Ilya frowned slightly at that.
Even now hockey still had a reputation for being overwhelmingly white and aggressively masculine. He could only imagine how much worse it must have been years earlier for a sensitive little kid doing ballet on top of it.
"I loved the sport itself," Shane explained more quietly. "Still do. I love skating. I love the speed and the physicality and the atmosphere during games. I just hated everything around it."
He let out a soft sigh through his nose before continuing. "The locker room culture, all the chirping…" He paused. "Once I realized I was gay, it got harder to imagine myself staying in that environment long-term."
There was no bitterness in his voice when he said it. If anything, Shane sounded like somebody talking about a decision he had already fully made peace with years ago.
"So, you switched to figure skating instead."
"Kind of." Shane smiled a little. "I never actually wanted to become a professional ballet dancer either, even though my mom probably would've loved that." His expression softened briefly at the mention of her. "In ballet classes, I got paired a lot with one of the girls who was taking them for figure skating, and we already worked well together."
"Rose."
"Yeah. We basically just…" He laughed quietly again. "Stayed together."
The fondness in his voice when he talked about her was obvious. This time Ilya did not feal jealous, as he realized that the tone was similar to his whenever he spoke of Cliff or one of the Raiders he was the closest to.
"She moved to Canada from Michigan when we were kids," Shane continued. "Her family and mine got close really fast. Her brothers were obsessed with hockey too, so most weekends turned into all of us screaming at Montreal games together."
"That explains the jersey."
Ilya smiled into his coffee.
It was strangely easy listening to him talk.
Shane had this way of speaking where every emotion showed in his eyes, even when his face remained composed, aside from the occasional laugh. Nervousness, embarrassment, amusement, affection. Ilya was so used to people carefully managing every expression around him that watching Shane stumble over his words every few minutes felt weirdly refreshing.
"And honestly," Shane continued while absentmindedly tearing apart a piece of toast between his fingers, "figure skating suited me better anyway."
"How?"
"I don't do great with huge groups of people all the time." Shane shrugged awkwardly. "I can handle events and interviews and stuff because competing kind of forces you to learn, but socially?" He laughed quietly at himself. "I'm actually pretty awkward."
"You seem fine to me."
The words slipped out before Ilya really thought about them, and Shane immediately turned pink again.
"Well," Shane mumbled while staring very hard at his coffee mug, "you're currently trapped in my apartment while hungover, so your judgment's probably compromised."
Ilya snorted into his coffee hard enough that he nearly choked, but Shane kept going after a second, still visibly embarrassed.
"I always liked hanging around smaller groups of people better. Figure skating worked because it was mostly just me and Rose training together every day instead of dealing with twenty guys trying to kill each other in one locker room."
"That is fair," Ilya admitted. "Hockey players are terrible."
"You said that. Not me."
"You were thinking it."
Shane laughed again, softer this time, and Ilya caught himself staring for a second too long afterward.
God.
Everything about this man was ridiculously endearing.
The nervous little laughs. The way he stumbled over words whenever he caught Ilya staring. The constant blushing. Even the awkward habit he had of hiding part of his face behind his coffee mug whenever he got embarrassed.
Ilya found himself thinking that he would actually like seeing this more often.
Maybe they could exchange numbers before he left. Maybe they could talk again sometime outside of this bizarre drunken first meeting. It would be nice, he realized, having someone outside the team to talk to for once. Especially someone who looked at him like a person before looking at him like Ilya Rozanov.
The two of them kept eating for a little while after that, the conversation slowing naturally between bites of food and small comments about hockey, Harvard, and Boston winters. Ilya caught himself talking more and more with his hands, in a way that didn't quite fit the playboy image he had built since moving to Boston. But for once, he did not care.
Then Shane broke the fragile peace they had created.
"Don't worry, by the way," he said while looking down into his coffee. "No one really saw you come here or anything like that. I made sure there wouldn't be some huge scandal about drunk Ilya Rozanov showing up everywhere."
Ilya rolled his eyes hard.
It would hardly have been the first time pictures surfaced of him drunk somewhere. Half the league partied, but people paid more attention when Ilya did it because he was young, talented, reckless, and unfortunately entertaining enough for tabloids to obsess over him.
Still, something about Shane's tone made him glance back up properly.
Shane looked genuinely concerned.
There was no pity in Shane's expression, which should have helped, but somehow only made everything more uncomfortable. Shane was watching him carefully, almost cautiously, like he was trying to avoid pushing too hard. As if he was made of glass.
Ilya hated that immediately.
"What?" he asked more sharply than he intended.
Shane blinked, clearly startled by the tone, and guilt hit Ilya almost instantly afterward. For one awful second, all he could hear was his father speaking to his mother in that same cutting voice whenever she said something he disliked. The comparison made him sick in the stomach.
Jesus Christ.
He sounded exactly like him.
But Shane did not get defensive. He just straightened slightly in his chair and tried again more carefully. "Do you… remember what happened last night?"
Something tight settled uncomfortably in Ilya's throat.
"I was drunk," he muttered. "You drove me here. That's it."
Shane hesitated for a second before speaking carefully. "Ilya," he said slowly, "you kind of had an emotional breakdown."
Ilya stared at him blankly.
"What?"
"Or… crashed out?" Shane corrected awkwardly before immediately grimacing at himself. "I don't know. Sorry. That sounded stupid. I'm not a psychologist." He laughed nervously under his breath, though the sound faded quickly once he realized Ilya was still staring at him silently. "But you talked a lot," Shane continued more quietly. "About your mom mostly. And your family back in Russia."
Everything inside Ilya went completely still.
His fingers tightened unconsciously around the coffee mug while cold dread spread through his chest.
What the fuck?
Had he seriously sat there drunk out of his mind telling a complete stranger everything?
Then another memory surfaced through the haze in his head.
Angel.
Oh God.
That was right.
He had thought Shane was some kind of angel his mother sent for him.
Then another memory surfaced slowly through the haze in his head, fragmented pieces finally connecting properly.
The park.
The bench.
The feeling of being so drunk and exhausted that even breathing had felt difficult.
He remembered sitting there alone while Boston slowly darkened around him, his phone full of messages from his brother demanding money again, every notification making his chest feel tighter and tighter until it genuinely felt like he was suffocating.
And then Shane had appeared.
At first Ilya had barely even noticed him. He just remembered hearing a soft voice asking if he was okay and looking up to find the most beautiful man he had ever seen standing in front of him.
Dark curls catching the wind.
Warm brown eyes looking at him with open concern.
Soft flushed cheeks from the cold.
And then the sun had started setting behind him.
The last rays of sunlight had spilled around Shane's body so perfectly that, in his drunken state, he had genuinely thought he was hallucinating for a second, the light wrapping around him in gold and outlining his curls and shoulders, like he had a halo around his head and wings made of light spreading behind him.
And Shane had kept looking at him so gently while asking if he needed help, speaking to him with this soft patience nobody had ever really used with Ilya before.
Drunk, miserable, grieving, and barely holding himself together, Ilya had looked at that beautiful stranger glowing under the sunset and genuinely thought for one horrifying moment that his mother had sent him an angel.
Oh God.
The humiliation hit him so violently that his face twisted automatically into a scowl, pure instinct trying to bury the embarrassment before it could completely consume him.
But Shane still did not laugh.
He just kept looking at him with that same unbearable gentleness.
"There's also the fact that your brother texted you a lot," Shane continued carefully after a moment. "I didn't read the messages or anything, but I saw some of the notification previews when I took off your coat and shoes and helped you into bed."
Ilya wanted the ground to open and swallow him whole.
Meanwhile Shane immediately started fidgeting again, visibly nervous now that the conversation had grown serious again.
"I know this probably isn't my place," he admitted quickly. "And I know I'm probably overstepping here, so you can absolutely tell me to shut up if you want, but…" He rubbed one hand awkwardly across the side of his face before continuing more hesitantly. "From the little I understood, your brother and your father don't seem like very good people."
That was one way to put it.
Shane looked down at the table briefly before laughing once under his breath, though it sounded strained with nerves this time. "And now I sound insane," he muttered.
Ilya still could not speak.
Every instinct inside him was screaming to shut this conversation down immediately. Grab his jacket, leave the apartment, and pretend none of this had happened. The problem was that Shane was saying things Ilya had spent years trying very hard to avoid thinking about too directly.
And hearing another person say them out loud felt horrifying.
"I just…" Shane swallowed hard before trying again. "You talked about your mom a lot."
That sentence alone nearly stopped Ilya's heart.
"You sounded really upset," Shane continued softly. "And the way you talked about your family…" He hesitated briefly. "I don't know. It didn't sound healthy."
Ilya almost laughed at that.
Nothing about his family had ever been healthy.
He couldn't find words in English anymore, and Russian failed him as well. Every possible response tangled together in his head until all he could really do was sit there frozen while it felt like his entire life was slowly being pulled apart in front of him piece by piece.
And through all of it, Shane just kept looking at him gently instead of with pity, which only worsened the humiliation Ilya was feeling.
The silence stretched for a few seconds after that. Shane looked like he was thinking hard about something, fingers tapping nervously against the side of his coffee mug before he finally took a deep breath.
"I know someone," he said carefully. "She's a lawyer. Russian too." He hesitated briefly before continuing. "She immigrated here with her girlfriend at the time — wife now — because she wanted a better life than what she could've had back in Russia."
Ilya frowned slightly, still frozen in place, while Shane stood up, went to the counter behind him, and grabbed a small notebook. He tore out a page, scribbled something on it, then returned to the table.
"She helps people with immigration cases," Shane continued while sliding the paper carefully across the table toward him. "Especially people trying to get away from situations back home." His tone became slightly more hesitant after that, like he was worried he had already crossed too many lines. "If you ever wanted to cut ties with Russia completely… she could probably help you with citizenship and legal stuff like that."
Ilya stared down at the paper without touching it.
Meanwhile Shane kept talking, words starting to tumble out faster the more nervous he became.
"And let's be real," he continued quickly, "Boston would personally fight the government before letting you leave anyway. People here are obsessed with the Raiders. You're basically the city's favorite hockey player right now."
That startled the faintest snort out of Ilya despite himself.
Shane immediately pointed at him like that reaction somehow encouraged him.
"See? That was almost a smile." Then he flushed slightly at himself before pushing forward awkwardly. "But seriously. The team would probably help too. I mean, you're kind of their best chance at winning the Stanley Cup."
There it was again. That strange mixture of awkwardness and sincerity that made it impossible for Ilya to predict what Shane was going to say next.
"And her wife is a psychologist," Shane added quickly afterward. "A really good one apparently. Maybe talking to someone would help too? She's very discreet."
The second the words left his mouth, Shane groaned softly and covered part of his face with one hand. "God," he muttered, voice muffled behind his fingers. "I really sound insane right now."
The complaint came out closer to a mortified whine than anything else, and despite the disaster currently unfolding around him, Ilya felt something inside him loosen slightly.
Because Shane clearly cared. Genuinely cared, and that was so unfamiliar that Ilya barely knew what to do with it.
He still felt humiliated. He still wanted to crawl out of his own skin knowing how much he apparently revealed while drunk. But Shane's rambling concern also felt painfully sincere in a way Ilya had almost forgotten people could be.
Nobody had ever tried helping him like this before.
Not even when they knew how hard he had it growing up.
Especially not in Russia.
Most people heard things like that and looked away. Or pretended it was normal. Or quietly implied that family was family and therefore deserved forgiveness no matter what they did.
"You told me your house feels cold," Shane took another breath after a moment, visibly trying to organize his thoughts better this time. "And that you hate going back there because it feels empty."
Ilya's fingers tightened slightly around his coffee mug.
"And you said you don't want to be alone," Shane continued carefully. "So maybe that's part of why you're still holding onto your family back in Russia."
He hesitated briefly before looking back up at him.
"But they aren't really acting like family."
The nervousness was still there in Shane's voice, but there was something firmer underneath it now too.
"From the things you told me… and from the psychology classes I've taken…" He rubbed awkwardly at the sleeve of his hoodie again. "That's not how family should treat someone."
Ilya looked away first.
Shane rubbed one hand tiredly across his face before continuing. "I know people from abusive families usually struggle to leave those relationships," he said more quietly. "And I know I probably sound stupid saying all this because we literally just met, but…"
He swallowed hard.
"You told me you thought I was an angel your mama sent to you."
Ilya froze, eyes widening in horror.
Jesus Christ.
Shane's expression softened almost painfully at the reaction.
"And I'm not really religious," he admitted quietly, "but if you believed that even for a second…" He hesitated, searching carefully for the words. "Then maybe part of you already knows your mom would want something better for you."
Ilya felt his heart ache hard enough to hurt.
"To be happy," Shane continued softly. "To be free. To have the kind of life she never got the chance to have herself."
His voice shook slightly toward the end, and suddenly Shane looked emotional too, as if he was getting upset on someone else's behalf. "She wouldn't want you to end up like she did," he whispered. "And you said your father helped drive her to suicide, so maybe leaving them behind would also be for her."
The apartment went painfully quiet after that.
Shane looked away from Ilya for a second before speaking again, softer this time. "Because they clearly never cared about her," he said. "And they clearly don't care about you either."
Then, for the first time since they met, there was actual anger in Shane's voice.
It caught Ilya off guard immediately because Shane had been so soft-spoken the entire morning, fumbling over his words every few sentences and looking nervous every time he caught Ilya staring. Seeing genuine frustration slip through that gentleness felt strange.
"They don't deserve your money," Shane said firmly. "And they definitely don't deserve to make you feel like you're somehow failing them all the time."
He gestured vaguely toward Ilya's phone sitting near the counter.
"Even from the notifications I saw, your brother talks to you like he's trying to drag you down every chance he gets." Shane frowned slightly while thinking back to them. "It sounded as if he wanted you to feel guilty for being successful."
Ilya stayed completely still, his fingers tightening even further around his coffee mug. For a second, he worried he might crack it from how hard he was holding it.
"And that's insane," Shane continued, shaking his head slightly now. "You're twenty years old and already one of the best hockey players in the league. You made it out and built an entire life for yourself." His expression tightened slightly after that. "Instead of being proud of you, he's trying to make you feel small because he's miserable."
The words hit harder than Ilya expected.
People defended his hockey career all the time. His talent. His contracts. His goals. His statistics. But nobody had ever looked directly at the way his family treated him and simply called it cruel without trying to justify their actions afterward.
Usually, people got uncomfortable, they changed the subject or awkwardly insisted that family relationships were complicated.
Shane just looked angry for him.
Then Shane lifted his gaze again, looking directly into Ilya's eyes with a firmness that had been missing from his voice earlier. "And that's pathetic."
Ilya could barely breathe at this point.
Because nobody had ever defended him like this before.
Shane leaned forward slightly without seeming to realize he was doing it, his brows still pulled together in frustration. "Because you're Ilya Rozanov," he continued, and there was something strangely unwavering in his voice now, like he genuinely believed every single word. "You're the rookie of the year. You're twenty years old with a multimillion-dollar contract playing for one of the best teams in America."
Then his expression softened again, though the frustration never fully disappeared from it. "And you still let them talk like you're some burden people barely tolerate."
Ilya looked away immediately after that because his eyes had already started burning badly enough that he knew tears were building there.
"You deserve way more than this," Shane said quietly.
The apartment had gone almost completely silent around them by now. Outside the windows, Boston carried on as usual, traffic passing below the building and sunlight spilling across the kitchen floor, while inside everything felt painfully awkward.
"You deserve a full life," Shane finally said carefully. "A happy one." He smiled a little after that, though sadness lingered around the edges of it. "And one day," he continued slowly, "a really long time from now, when you see your mom again…" He hesitated briefly before finishing more quietly. "You'll have good things to tell her about."
Ilya's throat closed completely.
"You'll be able to tell her about the life you built for yourself," Shane said softly. "About the people you loved. The places you saw. Everything you experienced."
His smile wavered slightly.
"You'll be able to tell her you were happy."
That was what finally cracked something open inside Ilya.
His entire life had revolved around surviving. Winning. Escaping. Enduring whatever came next. Happiness had always felt secondary to everything else, something temporary people talked about before reality eventually took it away again.
But Shane was sitting there talking about happiness like it was something Ilya genuinely deserved to have someday.
Ilya could only stare at him while his eyes burned harder and harder, his chest feeling so tight at this point that even breathing felt difficult.
Slowly, almost mechanically, he reached forward and picked up the small piece of paper Shane had slid across the table earlier.
Then he stood up so quickly the chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Shane startled immediately at the sudden movement.
"Ilya—"
But Ilya was already grabbing his jacket.
He could not stay here any longer. Sitting across from Shane while hearing someone speak to him like this felt overwhelming in a way he genuinely did not know how to handle. Every carefully buried thing inside him suddenly felt exposed, dragged into the open by a man who barely knew him but still somehow saw him for who he truly was.
"Ilya?" Shane called again, softer this time, worry immediately returning to his voice.
Ilya still could not answer him.
He shoved the piece of paper into his pocket, avoided looking directly at Shane again because he was dangerously close to crying at this point, and hurried out of the apartment before his composure completely collapsed in front of him.
It took Ilya Rozanov two whole months to make a decision.
During those months, he only went between the rink to train and back home. That was his entire life. He snapped at his teammates, played harder than he ever had before, and became a complete asshole.
Not just the arrogant image he liked to put out for the media.
No.
He was one hundred percent an asshole.
And during all that time, he kept receiving message after message from his brother, demanding money. Complaining about how he had to take care of their father back in Russia, insulting Ilya for becoming some big hockey player with millions who now thought himself above them.
But this time, instead of feeling guilty, Ilya kept thinking about Shane's words.
About how he was Ilya Rozanov.
He was the alternate captain of the Raiders. He was twenty years old. He was rookie of the year. He was a fucking legend in the making in his sport.
He had his sports car. His house. His career.
Meanwhile, his brother was just some pathetic bully living in a tiny apartment, trying to tear him down because he hated the fact that Ilya had escaped.
So why?
Why had he kept sending them money all these years?
Why had he allowed them to bully him? To make him feel small and worthless just because he loved them?
Because that was the thing.
He did love them.
Or maybe he only loved the memory of what family could have been. The memory of his mother.
And he loved his mama far more than he had ever loved either of them.
So, one night, almost without thinking, acting entirely on instinct, it felt as if Shane was suddenly there beside him again, looking at him with those soft brown eyes and gently telling him: It's okay. You can do it.
Shane wasn't really there, of course. Ilya had run away from him, but the courage Shane had somehow placed inside him remained. And with shaking hands, Ilya blocked both his father and his brother. Then he deleted their contacts completely.
Afterward, he nearly collapsed back against the couch because, for the first time in years, he felt free.
Like chains had finally broken around him.
The feeling was terrifying.
And exhilarating.
A few minutes later, he grabbed the small slip of paper Shane had given him and finally called the number written on it.
Tatiana was one hell of a woman.
Honestly, she was probably the best combination of Russian and American possible: sharp, intimidating, brutally intelligent, and entirely impossible to bullshit.
Still, despite how terrifying she could be, it felt strangely comforting speaking Russian again without stumbling over words the way English often forced him to.
Tatiana explained that she would immediately start the process of helping him separate himself legally from Russia and begin working toward citizenship. According to her, things would probably go smoothly for him. He was already living and working in America, already famous, already financially independent, and, most importantly, the Boston Raiders lawyers would likely help once she contacted them.
"With the Raiders backing you," she had said dryly, "things become much easier."
Then Ilya had asked for her wife's contact information.
And Polina…
Polina was sweetness wrapped around the sharp edges that made up Tatiana.
No wonder Shane had recommended them.
They were genuinely good at what they did.
And Polina herself was so open and gentle that talking to her strangely reminded Ilya of Shane. The same softness. The same patience. The same feeling that someone was listening to him instead of simply waiting for him to stop talking.
Which only made him miss Shane more.
Maybe he could see him again.
Talk to him properly this time.
He did technically know where Shane lived, but showing up unannounced at his apartment felt… wrong. Especially after literally running away from him.
Maybe he could go to Harvard University and try to find him there. Then again, Harvard was a massive campus. Tracking down one student would be almost impossible.
But Shane was also a figure skater.
So maybe…
Maybe he could look up which rink Shane trained at.
Yeah.
Maybe he should do that.