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Shane goes outside. The air is cold, too cold, a shock to his sweaty skin after the crowded heat of the club. He had a coat, it’s probably still sitting in the booth where he’d left it. He is here in a t-shirt, he is cold, there is a strange pounding behind his eyelids, a hollow space in his ribcage. He thinks maybe he’d feel better if he could throw up, but why would he throw up? He’s had half of a drink, he’s— physically, he’s fine. Physically, there is no excuse for any of this.
But he can’t fucking—
He can’t be in there. He can’t be there and smiling at Rose and dancing with her while she looks up at him like she’s expecting something from him, something she’s so sure he has to give and that he’s terrified he doesn’t know how to provide— he can’t be in there, with Rozanov’s eyes on him, looking at him, a challenge, maybe, a fuck you. Or maybe not either of those things, maybe Rozanov doesn’t give a shit about Shane at all, maybe when Shane closes his eyes and thinks about the last time they were together, he’s making up the part where Rozanov held him close like something precious.
He can’t decide what to wish for. He can’t decide which version of his own reality is more depressing. He wants to want to go back inside to Rose. He wants to want to kiss her again. The best thing about her is that he doesn’t feel at all about her the way he feels about Ilya Rozanov, that out of control, feverish need, ugly and urgent and overwhelming. The best part about Rose is that she is nice and funny and everyone he’s ever met has congratulated him for dating her. It’s how he knows he’s doing the right thing. Or at least it’s supposed to be.
His whole life, since childhood, he’s only ever wanted to play hockey, and be good at it. It has been easy, really, to make every decision he’s ever made with that in mind. To play good hockey he must hone his body into perfect shape. To play good hockey he must keep his head down and focus. To play good hockey he must be the type of man who plays good hockey. And that man, as evidenced by countless instances of locker room talk that Shane has heard and participated in over the years, that man, the man who is a red-blooded athlete, a top-tier performer on the ice, that man who makes his team and his family and his hometown and his country proud, would want nothing more than to go back inside and let a ridiculously beautiful movie star grind up against him on the dance floor. He’d want to put his hands on her tits, her ass, her hips, hold her close so she could feel him through his clothes. He’d be light-headed with the desire to take her somewhere they could be alone. He’d be fantasizing about what she looks like naked, about that soft mouth around his cock, about fucking her and tangling his fingers in her long hair.
That man would hate Ilya Rozanov, not— not the other thing.
“You do not even smoke, so what is excuse for standing around in the cold?”
Shane hadn’t even heard the door open. He freezes, caught out like a wild animal who’s realized it’s already too late to run. Rozanov’s voice is low, husky, and Shane wonders how much he’s had to drink. Wonders if he’s— if he’s turned on, from dancing with that woman, worked up, coming out here for a smoke break before going back in to touch her some more, take her home. He thinks all of these things, wonders them, before he gathers the strength to turn around and look at Rozanov directly.
The look on his face is… kind of blank, maybe wary, Shane’s not sure how to read him in this circumstance. He was here first, but he feels absurdly like he’s intruding, like he should apologize and leave the alley clear for Rozanov.
“I just needed some air,” he says finally. Like it’s a line in a play. Something to say, something he doesn’t feel. “I’ll leave you to your cigarette.”
He turns, and Rozanov makes a sound, maybe a scoff, a little ticking sound in the back of his throat. “What the fuck, Hollander.”
“What?”
“You are so stupid sometimes.”
“Fuck you.”
“I followed you out here.”
“I— what? Why?”
“You are staring at me for a long time in there, and then you turn and walk out of club, not back to girlfriend. I think maybe you have something to say to me.”
Shane blinks, astonished, eyes darting around Rozanov’s face. “I wasn’t, I mean— I don’t.”
Something flickers across Rozanov’s expression. The defiance, annoyance, washes away and leaves something that Shane almost wants to call uncertainty. He can’t be sure. He’s spent a lot of time trying to read Rozanov’s expressions, and sometimes he thinks he’s even worse at it than he is with other people, people he doesn’t care about at all.
“Fine,” Rozanov says. “I was wrong. I will go back inside and leave you to be cold on your own.”
“I’m sorry if I—” Shane starts the sentence, and then is horrified to find he must finish it. He swallows, waiting, and Rozanov tilts his head, his body leaning in just slightly like he’s debating taking a step closer. “—fucked everything up,” he finishes. “I’m not good when things change, I’m, I feel like an asshole for running off like that.”
Rozanov blinks at him. This time, Shane is pretty sure he’s guessing right when he thinks the expression on his face is one of surprise. “You are apologizing.”
“I think maybe I hurt you?” Shane offers, awkward. “I didn’t want to do that. So yeah. I am sorry.”
Rozanov looks away. The light is dim, but Shane can still see the bunch of muscle at his jaw, a tic of the skin stretched over it as he grinds his teeth. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does!” Shane says. He says it too loud, and they look at each other, frozen in the moment before something. Shane doesn’t know what the something is. “I’m just sorry, okay? I’m a mess, you don’t— you don’t know how bad it is. I never know what the fuck I’m doing.”
To his absolute horror, he can feel a pricking at the corners of his eyes, a tightening in his chest. His skin is clammy, not from the cold but from his own sweat, anxiety roiling through his guts, into his lungs, making each breath a painful effort. Inside the club, with all the noise and the flashing lights and Ilya Rozanov sucking on somebody else’s tongue right the fuck in front of him, he’d felt like throwing up. He’d come out here so he’d stop feeling like that, and even after the shock of the cool evening air, it’s occurring to him that it hasn’t really worked. He wants to curl into a little ball on the ground and black out and wake up somewhere very far away. He wants someone to hold him and take care of him.
He hates himself for wanting that.
He can hear the sound of his own breathing, weird and uneven and way too loud. His muscles are all locked up, he can’t figure out what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t know what to do.
He doesn’t know what to do which means he can’t do it which means he’s already failed which means he can’t fix it, whatever it is, the broken thing, he can’t see it and he can’t understand it and he can’t fix it, and nothing’s even happening, nothing’s even wrong, why is he upset, why is he like this, why doesn’t he just know what to do? If he knew what to do he’d do it. He’d do anything.
“Hey, hey.” Rozanov’s voice is closer, and Shane realizes he’s closed his eyes only in the act of opening them, blinking to find Rozanov there, close enough to touch, reaching a hand out to put on his shoulder.
“This is humiliating,” Shane says dully, as he feels a warm tear roll down the icy skin of his cheek. “Oh my god.” He lets his neck droop, his forehead pressing against Rozanov’s shoulder. He can hear a small hitch of breath, and then Rozanov’s arms are up around him, pulling him in. He takes a step back and Shane follows him limply, feet dragging against the ground until they’re wedged up against the wall at the back of the club, a shadowy little corner that feels more private than it really is. “I’m pathetic.”
“No,” Rozanov says. Like he’s in charge of this. Like he would know better than Shane. “No, no.” He keeps standing there, his arms loosely around Shane’s waist, pressing them both into the wall so Shane is caged between the flat hard surface behind him and the warm weight of a familiar body in front.
It’s so nice.
It’s so fucking nice.
Shane wants to stand here safe with Ilya Rozanov until the world starts making sense again. He wants Rozanov to know exactly the things he should do to make it all better.
“You will tell me what is wrong?” It’s phrased with the lilt of a question, but there’s an undercurrent to it, an order. Instructions. Shane grasps onto it with relief, even though telling Ilya what’s wrong seems like a tall order, like an impossibility, like the breaking of every carefully held boundary he’s maintained around himself his entire life.
Maybe if he just says it. Maybe if he just tells him the full truth, just the one time, it will easier to move forward from there. He swallows, keeps his head down; whatever else he might be gearing up to do, the thought of meeting Rozanov’s eyes while he says it is far too much to handle.
“I think I was just surprised, seeing you like that. With that woman. Kissing her. It’s stupid, I just— I know you do this kind of thing. I don’t, though, I’m not— I’ve just never had to see it in person before and it threw me.”
There is a long moment of silence during which Shane allows himself to drown in the humiliation, and in the comfort of Rozanov’s touch. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so embarrassed and so safe all at the same time, until he’d met Ilya. He hates being put on the back foot, he hates being confused and unsure of the right way to behave. He’s always hated those things, since early childhood, and yet somehow with this man in particular…
Well. Maybe Shane shouldn’t be surprised that this is something that’s different with Rozanov. Everything, really, is different with Rozanov. Hockey and sex and conversation and life.
The silence ticks over, one second too long, and then Rozanov shifts, like he’s resettling his balance on the balls of his feet in preparation to run. “You know what, Hollander?”
“Hmm.”
“You are not a very nice person sometimes.”
“I— what?” Shane peels his forehead away from the warmth of Rozanov’s neck, blinking at him in the dim light.
“People are always saying you are very nice but they are not right, not really.” Jesus. Rozanov actually looks serious. He actually looks angry.
“What did I do—”
“You are sad out here in alleyway because I dance with some girl? That is what you are saying?”
“I mean—”
“You are feeling sorry for yourself, and is my fault? I did this to you? No. Bullshit. You know it's bullshit. This is your own fault, I did not do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t say you did, I—”
“No, but I am bad guy still, in your mind, bad guy for going to club and finding someone who wants to dance with me, because Shane Hollander doesn’t want to share, or—”
“That’s not—”
“It is, yes? It is what it is. You will not dance with me, will you?”
“Obviously we can’t—”
“So nobody is allowed. I can’t have you but I can’t have anybody else either? You see this is crazy, yes?”
“I’m not fucking crazy.”
“Fine, then you are just an asshole, this is what I am trying to say!” Rozanov takes a step away, turning his head and scrubbing a hand angrily across his mouth. Shane feels the distance, feels the sharp coldness of the night air in a way he hadn’t a moment ago. He holds on to the wisps of confusion and anger, grips them tight and tries to find the right words.
“I’m allowed to be—” he breaks off, clears his throat. “You can’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel!”
“Look at you, this is so stupid! You do not get to have— puppy eyes with me when you are actually bad guy here.”
“Puppy-dog eyes,” Shane corrects automatically, and then winces when Rozanov’s glare sharpens even further. “And how am I the bad guy?”
Stupid question, probably. Rozanov looks at him like he’s an idiot and Shane feels about two feet tall.
“You make me watch you kiss her, I am not only person kissing woman in club, Hollander. Did you forget this? You think you have right to be upset with me, I am the one who had to stand there, seeing you with Rose fucking Landry, do you understand what—”
“You were grinding up on someone too, you were—”
“But that doesn’t matter!”
“How the fuck does it not—”
“Because for me is nothing, for me just some fun, just— trying to get out of my head. You don’t do this. You don’t kiss people unless you mean it.”
“How would you know that?”
Rozanov doesn’t dignify that with a response. Shane can’t blame him. He’s even further away now, his body tensed and turned partially away. Shane can’t seem to straighten his spine enough to step away from the wall. He’s afraid he’ll collapse if he tries.
“So I’m not allowed to—” he pauses, scrubs an angry hand over his face. His eyes are swollen and tender, his body is trembling just slightly from a mixture of cold and anxiety. “It’s not allowed to upset me, seeing you groping some random woman in a club?”
“No. It’s not allowed to upset you. You said no, you said you didn’t want me, I can have whoever will take me now.”
“When did I ever say I didn’t want you?”
Rozanov throws his hands up in the air, a squawk of disbelief pushing its way out of his throat. “What is it I am supposed to be thinking, you run away from me, then nothing, no text, now you have girlfriend. Sends pretty clear message, Hollander.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No, is simple. Is very simple from where I am standing. I am going back inside now.”
“Wait, please,” Shane says. He doesn’t know why he says it. He doesn’t know why he reaches out and grabs Rozanov’s arm, yanking him around so they’re face to face again. He does those things because— he wants to do them. Because if he doesn’t do them Rozanov will disappear back into the club and then they won’t be talking to each other anymore. He can’t have that. He can’t stand it. “Just— I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“You’re right, I’m being unfair. I don’t have any right to care about who you sleep with, it’s not like we were ever— we weren’t ever anything.”
“Fucking ouch, Shane.”
Shane’s heart does something weird in his chest, the sound of his name sliding out of Rozanov’s mouth like it’s easy, like he does it every day. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
“It’s not whatever,” Shane says, and he can hear how he sounds, petulant and childish. But Ilya lets out a deep breath and when Shane looks back at his face, he sees a hint of softening at the corner of his mouth.
“It’s not whatever,” he agrees gently. “But I need to know. Did you leave my house that day because you— because you like me for sex, but you don’t like me… otherwise?”
Oh, god.
“Jesus Christ,” Shane says, shaking his head and looking straight into Rozanov’s eyes. It’s painful, but he has no choice. “Ilya. No, fuck, of course not. I left because I’m— I was scared, okay? I like you, otherwise. I like you otherwise, a— a lot. But I can’t, we can’t, we can’t—”
Ilya’s head falls forward, almost a gesture of defeat, except he tilts at the same time so that his forehead lands on Shane’s shoulder, exactly the same place Shane had been resting against Rozanov just minutes earlier. He takes a breath, slow, and loud enough that Shane can hear it, the inhale and then the exhale puffing warm against the skin of his neck. “Shane.”
It’s just a word. It’s just his name.
Shane’s hands tighten on Rozanov’s arms. He has fucking unbelievable arms; Shane has missed them. Shane is shaking with the wrongness of seeing these arms around another person’s body, the nearness of flesh pressed against flesh. He doesn’t even like dancing, he doesn’t like going to clubs, and yet in that moment all he’d wanted was to stride forward and pull Ilya to him, show off for him, turn him on until he’d forgotten every dance he’d ever shared with every woman he’d ever known.
The crazy thing is, he thinks Ilya would choose him over the woman he’d been dancing with earlier. He thinks Ilya might choose him over anyone, which means all Shane would have to do, would be to tell Ilya he’s open to being chosen.
Shane moves his head, nudging his chin against Ilya’s cheekbone, guiding him up. He does it like he’s done it before, like they are people who have little rituals, little ways of poking and prodding at one another’s bodies that can be understood without words. They’ve never needed to say much, to be exactly the right thing for each other, at least in this one way. From the very beginning. Maybe Shane should have realized sooner what a fucking miracle that is. What a rarity.
“Hey. I’m sorry, okay?” Shane says. He says it right into Rozanov’s eyes, holding the contact for a long second. He can’t even really say if he’s the one who tips forward or if Rozanov is the one who does it. Maybe they move at the same time, so slow but also inevitable, no possible power on earth strong enough to prevent it.
Rozanov’s mouth is soft and warm, gentle and assertive, all the things, everything, and Shane feels something unlock throughout all the vertebrae of his spine, a molten, gentle heat rolling through his body, easing the tension of weeks. Months.
Shane kisses him harder. He can’t not. It does not feel like a choice he is making, it feels like… the way breathing works, not something you have to make your body do on purpose. His lips part, his body melts into the easy solid strength of Ilya’s embrace, and Ilya tilts his head, deepening it. One of them makes a sound, a little rumbling groan, pushed into the point of contact. He doesn’t know if it was him or Ilya; he doesn’t want to know.
It goes on for a long moment. Shane’s dick twitches in his pants, but he doesn’t push in closer, doesn’t plaster himself up against Rozanov the way his body wants him to. He just kisses him, and lets himself be kissed. Ilya is the one to disconnect; there’s a wet sound, a clicking of their lips coming apart, and Shane’s stomach flips.
“I don’t know what you want,” Shane says, right up close, noses brushing together. His voice sounds distorted to his own ears, whiny and yet also muted, under water. “I don’t understand. I can’t— I can’t—”
“Okay, okay,” Rozanov says, and he kisses Shane again, kisses the panic right off from his lips, steals the words and replaces them with comfort. How does he do that? Shane hates him for it, and never wants him to stop.
The kiss gets away from them for a bit, swelling breaths and gasps and bodies pressed close, and Shane thinks about saying take me home, thinks about Rozanov pulling him down onto the bed, kissing him and touching him as much as he can stand. He’s been cold without him, cold and waiting for something, missing him in a way that makes no sense. They’ve never seen each other regularly enough, frequently enough, for the difference now to cause such pain. It’s irrational. Rozanov is hard too, Shane can feel it when he shifts his hips. Why is it only this part that’s easy? Why can’t the rest of his life be this clear, this straightforward?
Eventually he has to pull back, breaking the kiss. His head slumps forward, too heavy for his neck, resting back into the warm comfort of Rozanov’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I want either,” he mumbles.
“Yes, you do,” Rozanov says. His voice is breathless, despairing. “Fuck you, you know exactly want you want.”
“Fuck you,” Shane says back. He feels like a useless scrap of metal, drawn to the magnet of Ilya’s body. He doesn’t have the strength to resist it on his own; Ilya will have to be the one to stop this if he can. Jesus, Shane is so pathetic. It’ll kill him to walk away from this. He thought he’d already done the hard part.
“Don’t go home with her,” he hears himself say, something possessing his voice before he can swallow it down. “That girl, don’t. Just don’t.” He presses his mouth, warm and open, against Rozanov’s neck, feels it when he swallows hard.
“Is not fair. You will go home with Rose Landry, no?” His hands are gentle, holding Shane close like he might shatter, but the words are edged with a frost of anger all the same.
“Not if you ask me not to.”
Rozanov shifts, brings a hand to tilt Shane’s chin up so they’re looking at each other again. Fuck, he’s got such beautiful, eyes, and his mouth, slightly swollen from Shane’s own touch— he’s a work of art. “I won’t ask you that.”
“Why?” Give me an excuse. Give me a reason not to be with her. Tell me I already belong to someone else.
“I’m not— I can’t,” Rozanov says. “What the fuck do I have to give you? You should go home with pretty movie star girlfriend.”
Shane’s hands tighten, fingers clutching hard against Rozanov’s arm. His mouth is still running without his permission, his head spinning. He’s thinking of the first time in Montreal, how gentle it was, how kind. He’s thinking of tonight, Rozanov calming him with his mere presence, not at all weirded out or, worse, amused at the signs of Shane’s distress. “You’ve given me every— don’t say that, don’t act like this is nothing.”
“I am not the one doing that,” Rozanov says. “I do not run away, that is you, all you.”
He bites back on the protest. They’re going in circles. Rozanov’s right— Shane is the bad guy here.
There’s a shift, a tightening of Rozanov’s body, like he’s about to pull away, about to bolt. Shane looks up at him, wants to pull him close again, but when he sees the direction he’s looking, he spins around to look too, heart suddenly strangling in his throat.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
This has to be a nightmare. Some sort of humiliation and shame ritual cooked up by his sick mind. After all this fucking time, a whole lifetime wishing for something normal and good and safe and permitted, he’d found Rose Landry. She’s standing in the alleyway now, looking at him. She has his coat in her hands.
Shane doesn’t experience the next several minutes with his mind. He feels it instead, rolling through his aching muscles, shivering over his skin, rushing through his blood. His fingertips are numb. They had been warm, curled around Ilya’s arms, and now they are cold, trembling, useless.
The worst part is, he is completely alone. He has nothing with which to defend himself. He doesn’t deserve to defend himself.
Rozanov slips away with a shaky apology, back into the darkness of the club before Shane can even finish processing Rose’s arrival. He’s going to have another panic attack, he knows, he’s merely frozen in the shock that comes before it, a few fleeting moments of rationality before disaster strikes. When it does, this time, Shane will be alone. Ilya won’t be coming back to find him.
He can barely hear himself as he speaks to Rose. He tells her he’s sorry. He tells her he’s a piece of shit. She snaps at him and disappears too, and Shane stares at the door for a long moment, heaving for breath as if he’s been running, before he fumbles for his phone in his pocket, scrambling to open his text thread with Rose.
Shane: You can’t tell anyone
Shane: He’s Russian it’s dangerous
Shane: Please.
Shane: I’m so fucking sorry you can hate me you should hate me but please don’t say anything,
I can’t let him get hurt because of me it’s not his fault
Shane: Please
If his pathetic little panic attack in a cold alleyway is the reason he and Rozanov are both outed to the world, he’ll never forgive himself. He doesn’t think Rose would be that malicious, but what if she vents to a friend about it, and the friend sells the story to the press? Or what if she’s just mad enough, after Shane’s betrayal, to be reckless and vindictive? Rose is so kind and funny and smart, but how well does Shane really know her?
When her reply comes back, it’s cutting, and it’s the truth. You’re in love with him too. You should figure that the fuck out.
He believes her, when she says she won’t say anything, and the fist around his heart eases just enough for him to suck in a lung full of cold air. He stands there, dizzy, gathering up the strength to make it out to the street, call for a cab. He wishes he’d driven here so he could be alone in his car, but maybe it’s for the best he’s not trying to drive in this state, his mind made of slush, his body cold with shock and dread.
His apartment, when he finally carries his heavy feet up the stairs and through the door, seems… grotesquely large, hauntingly empty. He likes living alone, he likes the order and the peace of it, he’s always a little on edge when other people are over, invading his space, but—
God, right now he wishes he lived in a dorm room with a messy and annoying roommate, or with Hayden and Jackie and all the kids, he wishes he was back home with his mom and dad and they were interrupting him trying to watch game tape, checking in and pulling him away from his room down to the dining room for a dinner he’s not even hungry for.
He’s been clutching his phone tight in his fists since sending those messages to Rose and getting her reply. He has the text thread with Lily open, those last messages blinking up at him, arrangements for Shane to come to Rozanov’s house in Boston. So mundane, so similar to so many other texts over the years. A check-in, as their next game against each other is coming up. A time and location. On my way.
And then after, maybe something the next morning. Usually Rozanov, sending some sort of dirty joke, a parting chirp about the game, something so Shane knows that he’s still on Ilya’s mind. If Shane scrolls back, he can see the pattern to it. The way he always responds, but usually not with much, an eye-roll emoji or a we’ll get you next time if Boston had won the game.
Years.
It’s so little, dispersed over the long months between seeing each other. More days than not with no contact between them at all, but always that invisible line, holding them to one another. Always waiting to snap back into place when the opportunity arose.
He can’t bear to leave it like this, the line dangling over the water, waiting for Ilya to bite. He can’t stop thinking about Ilya calling him the bad guy. He’s right.
His fingers have warmed up now that he’s not standing out in the cold, but they’re still clumsy, numb, as he types the message in, sending it before he can talk himself out of it. If nothing else, Rozanov deserves some reassurances that his life isn’t about to be ruined.
Shane: She’s not going to say anything
Shane: She says she won’t say so you don’t have to be worried about that
Shane: I’m so fucking sorry I’m such a piece of shit
That last feels… self-pitying in a way he doesn’t like, as if he’s fishing for a reply, fishing for reassurance that Ilya doesn’t hate him. Rose hates him now. Rose deserves to hate him. He should care about that a lot more than he does. In the morning the guilt will eat him alive, burrow under his skin. In the morning he’ll be itching to talk to her, to grovel at her feet. Not for a second chance, god, there’s no fucking reason to think that would be a good idea for anybody, but just… for something, for forgiveness, for a chance to go back to when a super fun and beautiful and interesting person thought Shane was worthwhile to know.
Shane: You don’t have to answer me obviously but please know that I want to talk to you.
Shane: If you want to talk to me. The door is open.
He’s not even sure what he means by that. He hates himself, but it’s true. He’s been pretending the door was closed this whole time, and it never has been. If Ilya had shoved his way inside, Shane would have been completely fucking powerless to stop him. That’s the bald truth of it.
Ilya doesn’t text him back. It’s not until late, way later than he usually stays up, way later than he should still be awake staring up at the ceiling, that he gets the answer he’s pretending not to wait for.
Lily: what is there to talk about
Shane reads it, tries to internalize it, accept it for the rejection that it is. He’s probably right. What would they talk about? How could they ever fix things, when Shane isn’t even sure what he’d be fixing it for?
And then another text comes in, chasing the first.
Lily: what would you say. if I wanted to listen.
Shane: Things with Rose are done. I was stupid. I was being so stupid.
Shane: It was never right with her
Shane: we could go back to before if you can forgive me
Lily: I don’t want to go back before
Shane’s heart pounds behind his ears, and down in his stomach, all at once, the blood pumping sluggishly through his exhausted, devastated body. He’s wide awake even as the stress of the day tries to pull him under. He stares at the screen of his phone, too fucking bright in the dark room. He doesn’t blink, he keeps looking. Keeps reading the words, until his eyes sting, moisture rising right to the point of overflow. He should say something back. He should apologize again, one more time, and then leave Ilya alone.
But before he can muster the fortitude, the dots appear on the screen again, sign of Ilya typing.
Lily: If I call you tomorrow will you answer?
And Shane doesn’t hesitate at all before answering. He’s not strong enough to keep pretending.
Shane: Yes.