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“Ilya, we need to talk—”
Startled by Shane’s tone, Ilya’s head snapped to the right, his eyes wide and alert. The round of drinks he carried hit the table with an audible thunk.
“—about this summer’s camp,” Shane finished lamely. “Sorry, didn’t mean for that to sound so, erm, alarming.”
“Bit of relationship advice,” Harris called across the table with barely-suppressed laughter. “Never start any sentence with ‘We need to talk.’ Like, ever .”
Next to him, Troy made a noise like a hiss, sucking air through his teeth, and reached for a bottle. “Yeah, that’s worse than ‘Don’t get mad but—’”
“‘Don’t get mad, but’ what?” Scott Hunter asked as he pulled a chair up to the end of the table, half of his attention still focused across the room to where his husband was training a new bartender. Kip looked over to their table long enough to smile and wave. He wasn’t the only one eyeing the group; at least one patron had noticed them and was gawking in their direction.
“Who invited him?” Ilya shot a good-natured glare down the table at Scott. “This table is for winners only.”
“And I thought he was a jackass with a losing record.” Scott heaved a dramatic sigh. “You all come into my house, in my city…”
“‘s not your house, Hunter,” Ilya said around the bottle at his lips. “It is your bar. We are customers.”
“Fine. Into my bar, and you drink my beer.”
“Well, technically ,” Troy argued, raising his glass aloft, “this is Harris’s cider.” The corner of his mouth tugged upward, and he stole a look at his boyfriend. The Kingfisher’s ‘Troy Barrett’ cocktail had a spiced rum and hard cider base (which was, of course, sourced from the Drover family orchards). “Gotta support small businesses.”
As Troy and Scott continued to banter, Harris pulled out his phone and begged their pardon while he checked up on his new social media intern. With the others occupied, Ilya leaned closer to Shane so they could talk more privately. He needed to know why this was so urgent that Shane had blurted it out of nowhere like that.
And it also saved him from telling Scott that the new bartender had been so dazzled by meeting Ilya Rozanov that he’d comped all of their drinks.
“What is wrong?” He rubbed the back of Shane’s hand.
“So. Um.” Hollander bit his lip, looking apprehensive. It was impossible to tell in the dim lights of the Kingfisher, but Ilya was certain he was blushing. If he hadn’t been teetering on the edge of concern, he would have been tempted to kiss every freckle on Shane’s adorable face.
Shane took a deep breath and began again. “I’ve been doing some reading—” The conversation around them hit a lull as soon as he opened his mouth, and the words came out louder than expected. There was a pause as he scowled at his companions, preemptively silencing any jokes at his expense. “I wanted to round out our program. Studies are showing that early sport specialization is detrimental to developing athletes, yet training regimens continue to encourage—”
Troy stopped him there. “ English , Hollander.”
“ Simple English,” Ilya clarified.
Shane rolled his eyes. He seemed to be avoiding Ilya’s face. “The short version is, there’s an instructor here in New York City who specializes in dance training for athletes. Since we were going to be here for a couple of days, I decided to reach out to him…”
“Yes, and? ” Ilya was getting testy now. “What is the big deal?”
Shane blew out a puff of air that ruffled a few stray locks of dark hair that fell around his face. “The ‘big deal,’” he snapped, “is that I set up a meeting for us tomorrow morning and now I find out he’s expecting to lead us through a demonstration of his dance classes!”
Four sets of eyes blinked at him and exchanged glances as all of the men around the table tried not to laugh at Shane’s obvious consternation.
“‘Us’?” Ilya asked, but Harris had stopped whatever he was typing, so his booming voice drowned out Ilya’s muttered question.
“Why not tell him it isn’t convenient and see if you can make other arrangements?”
“Because I’d already agreed to it!” Shane all but wailed.
“Wait. Stop.” Scott leaned forward waving a hand. His amusement at Shane’s distress was plain. “How did you miss that you’d agreed to a dance class? ”
Still no closer to understanding what the whole story was, Ilya’s mouth twisted in growing annoyance. He caught sight of Troy, whose dark eyebrows were drawn together as he watched something over Ilya’s shoulder. They exchanged a brief look before Ilya tuned back into the conversation.
“I didn’t read the email closely enough” – That doesn’t sound like you , Ilya was about to say, his own brow furrowing – “because SOMEBODY couldn’t keep his d—”
Oh. Whoops.
Fortunately, Shane didn’t get to finish that sentence, thanks to an outburst around the table.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy!” Troy cried, at the same time Scott yelled, “Hey, we don’t need to know about that!”
Harris, who’d returned to his phone screen, was smirking. “I could stand to hear a little more.”
Ilya couldn’t help but grin. He remembered it exactly: Shane in their bedroom, checking his email as they prepared to leave for New York. He’d looked so delectable standing there in the golden morning light, naked but for a pair of briefs, that Ilya couldn’t resist dropping to his knees in front of him, his mouth pressed to Shane’s cock until his erection strained against the fabric. That led to stripping the briefs away altogether, and… well. Now he knew what Shane had been trying to type out on his phone at the time.
“So, you are taking a dance lesson. Is about time you learned.” He leaned back in his chair, giving Shane’s shoulder a squeeze as he spoke. This was not how he’d planned to spend their morning in the city, but from the way Shane was acting, Ilya figured this was where the ‘us’ came into it. “And you want me to come with you, be your partner, yes?” He lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Who knows, maybe it will be fun. It will be funny. For me, at least.”
But Shane was shaking his head, his expression troubled. “It’s–it’s not that kind of dancing. Not, like, together-dancing. It’s, uh, a solo dance thing.”
Inside Ilya’s head, the pieces clicked into place. “You mean ballet.”
Scott and Troy both choked on their drinks, while Harris looked up from his phone with delight. “ Ballet?! ”
“Loads of professional athletes have incorporated ballet into their training.” Defensiveness crept into Shane’s voice. He counted sports off with his fingers: “Football, baseball, boxing. It promotes balance, flexibility, leg and core strength, body awareness, injury prevention. For hockey players alone, learning dance techniques improves footwork and coordination, increases power and stability on the ice, helps with discipline— stop laughing, you shitheads, I’m being serious! ”
Troy and Scott were no longer listening, practically falling off their chairs with laughter. Even Harris seemed to find it hilarious. Only Ilya looked as serious as Shane.
“The secret weapon of Soviet hockey,” he said, “was Russian ballet training.”
Somehow, that got their attention. Ilya so rarely spoke about his Russian upbringing, it must have caught them off-guard. Easy to forget he was born into the death throes of a country which no longer existed. There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment before Shane spoke. “So, you want to include ballet this summer?”
“Oh, no, no. It is a terrible idea.” Ilya took a sip of his beer while Shane spluttered indignantly. “There is a limit to our time at the camps! We should be spending it on the ice, not in dance shoes.”
“But this would—”
Troy, who was fighting back another round of giggles, cut him off before he could launch into another lecture. “How does it even work?” he asked. “You just…” He swung his arms a few times in a series of balletic motions. “...and it makes you better at hockey?” He glanced at Shane and must not have liked what he saw, because he gulped and quickly added, “I’m sorry, I barely get the deal with yoga. I know that’s kind of a thing for you, but…” His voice trailed off as he looked to Ilya for help.
“How would this fit in our schedule? Did you think about the, er…” He waggled his fingers, trying to recall the word. “The logistics?” The more Ilya thought about it, the more irritated he continued to become. Shane should have talked to him before reaching out to this mystery dance teacher. “Where would we have this class, next to the rink? Lined up along the bench?”
“Don’t be an asshole, we have warm-up space!”
“We do not even know this person!”
“That’s what this class is for!” Shane shouted at the ceiling, his fingers clenching.
“Good to see some things never change,” a new voice drawled. Kip paused by their table on his way to the back room, a crate of glassware balancing on his knee as he adjusted his grip. “Marriage hasn’t mellowed the famous rivalry, huh?”
The Hollander-Rozanov husbands grumbled in response. Before either of them could respond, a patron bumped into Kip from behind, knocking him against Scott. The man apologized quickly between furtive glances at the assembled players, then slunk into the crowd. Ilya recognized the dark, narrow features and black hair; it was the man he’d seen earlier at the bar.
Troy lifted his chin, craning his neck as he tracked the man with his wary blue eyes. “That guy was watching me earlier. And not like a fan, you know?” He rubbed his fingers absently over the back of Harris’s neck. Harris, who was practically nose-to-screen, thumbs flying, leaned into the touch. “Kind of unnerving, actually, the way he was staring.”
“At you , huh?” Scott ribbed him. He twirled his half-empty bottle on the table with one hand, the other pulling Kip closer until he was perched on the edge of Scott’s lap. “You sure about that?”
“He sure was paying your table a lot of attention tonight.” Kip steadied the crate and slid his arm around Scott’s shoulder.
“Why shouldn’t he? We are all handsome men.” Ilya considered this for a second. “Well, four handsome men and Scott Hunter.” That drew some chuckles from around the table—including a forced laugh from Scott, who was far and away the most conventionally attractive of all of them. “I saw him also. I would bet he was checking me out.”
Seeing an opening, Shane pounced on it. “Oh, you’d bet , would you?” he said, his voice a pitch higher than normal as he failed at keeping his tone light and casual. “What are you willing to put on that?”
It was a joke, Ilya wanted to argue. It’s just an expression . An expression Shane used all the time , which would explain why it rolled so easily out of his mouth. He was about to point this out when he got a look at Shane’s pursed, determined expression and knew it was hopeless. Ilya could never say no to that stupid, stubborn face.
And he could never back down from a challenge, either. Especially once Hunter chimed in from his end of the table. “Yeah, Rozanov. Care to make it interesting?”
Ilya gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Alright, I will take your ridiculous bet. We will find this man, and when he agrees I am the hottest—”
“No fucking way, Roz.” Troy jabbed a finger in his direction. “I told you, dude couldn’t take his eyes off me!”
“Sounds like my cue to get back to work,” Kip snorted and got to his feet, his rolling eyes showing exactly what he thought of their hockey player hijinks. He stole a quick kiss from Scott before leaving.
“Anyway.” Scott turned back to the group, looking smug. “I get a lot of attention around here myself. Comes with the territory. But if you think our growing clientele of gay New York hockey fans are happy to see you in here after that last game…?” This time, his laugh was genuine. “I’m in. What are we wagering?”
“One private dance lesson!” Shane cried triumphantly. “If it’s Ilya, I go alone. If not, you all have to come with me.”
No one said anything for a moment. Scott glanced around at the others. “Uhhhh,” he managed.
“That’s dumb,” said Troy. “When I win—which I will —I’d like to be rewarded with something that isn’t a free ballet class.”
Shane let out a growl of frustration. “Okay, fine! Whoever he was eyeing up is off the hook. If it’s me—it’s possible, Ilya! —then you all attend with me.”
Ilya stared, wondering when his husband had lost his mind. “ Hollander .” He held back another incredulous snicker, knowing Shane would misinterpret his laughter. “Why? Why are you so obsessed?”
“Because you were supposed to be with me on this! I expected them to laugh. I thought you would back me up!”
“Then maybe you should have told me about it before now!”
Shane glared at him with an intensity that might have frightened a lesser man. “Is that why you shot my plan down so quickly? Just because I didn’t run it past you first?”
Ilya swept an arm across the table, gesturing at the others. “It is four against one! No one thinks this is a good idea.”
“ Finally. ” With a stab of his finger, Harris hit ‘send’ on his email and slapped the phone on the table. “Since you mention it, I happen to think it’s a terrific idea. It would be fun for the kids. Oooh, like an icebreaker!” he squealed, tapping his fingertips together. “An icebreaker that’s, y’know, free from fragile masculinity and breaks down stereotypes about what activities athletes enjoy.” He smiled beatifically at the hockey players seated around him.
Several long seconds went by. “ Fuck ,” muttered Scott. “When you put it that way…”
Troy sighed, then kissed Harris’s shoulder and ran a hand over his back. “Damn it, you’re hot when you’re making a point.”
“Yes, fine, a good point,” Ilya conceded. He met Shane’s eyes, studying him for a moment before adding, “I still think you should have talked to me first.”
A muscle in Shane’s jaw tightened as his temper flared, his mouth scrunched up like an angry bulldog. He looked as though he was about to argue.
…and then the tension went out of him with a sigh. “You’re right. I should have said something. I’m—” Shane swallowed hard, as if his pride was difficult to choke down. “I’m sorry.”
Ilya’s jaw dropped with a little gasp. “Look at us! We communicated!” He gestured back and forth between them. “See, it is not so hard,” he laughed. Red-faced, Shane grimaced, then chuckled awkwardly and squeezed Ilya’s hand under the table.
“Awwwww.” Scott leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. “I think they call this ‘growth.’”
“C’mon, guys, knock it off with that grown-up shit! You’re making us look bad over here.” Troy wadded up a wet drink napkin and threw it in their direction.
Grinning, Harris wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s neck. “It’s okay, babe. We can be immature indefinitely.” He pressed his lips to Troy’s cheek, giving him a loud, smacking kiss.
At that moment, a voice called out, “H-Harris?” Five heads turned to see their mystery admirer approaching their table. “I thought that was you. How have you been?”