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“Ilya.”
The way he said it. Ilya. Ilya. Ilya. Like a prayer. Like a revelation.
Ilya tilted his chin up to bring Shane in for a kiss, finding his cheek instead. He breathed him in, lips pressed softly to warm skin.
He kind of wanted to say it again. Shane. But what he really meant was I love you. I’m in love with you.
He tilted his head again, this time going for his lips…except Shane pulled back.
Heat rapidly left the space that Shane’s body had just been occupying. Ilya frowned as the weight disappeared from his lap, as Shane took two big steps to put him across the room.
Where…?
“I should go,” Shane was frantically looking for his clothes. He grabbed his shirt (Ilya’s shirt. Fuck) from the floor, holding it up to his bare chest like a shield.
“Go?” Ilya asked, still reeling from the rapid switch of emotion.
“I shouldn’t…stay. I can’t. Team meeting in the morning, I forgot. So…”
Ah. Ilya understood. The names were too much – too intimate for Shane. That was ok, Ilya could draw it back. Everything would be fine.
Right?
“Ok,” he nodded, putting on a little smirk, trying to make a joke of it. “You forgot team meeting?”
Shane looked about ready to crawl out of his skin. Or run out of Ilya’s house. Or both and leave a skin suit in Ilya’s living room as the only remnant of his presence. Ilya was trying not to betray how badly he did not want that to happen.
Stay. Please stay.
“Thank you for the tuna melt. Um,” Shane was still fiddling with his t-shirt, he wouldn’t look at Ilya.
It’s ok, Ilya wanted to say – to reach out and pull Shane back into his lap. I’m sorry. It didn’t mean anything.
Lie.
It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Lie.
Please, please just stay.
He just needed Shane to look at him for a second so Ilya could show him that it didn’t matter. This could be casual. He could do casual.
Total fucking lie.
Finally, Shane squared his shoulders and raised his head. Meeting Ilya’s eyes, the Russian could see that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“I’m sorry,” said Shane, totally sincere. “This…I can’t.”
Ilya was desperately trying to tamp down his rising panic. He needed to take it back. They could pretend that it hadn’t happened. He just needed Shane to let him take it back.
Please.
Ilya held out a hand as if to say, Really? You’re overreacting. Everything is fine. “Hollander.”
Please don’t make a big deal out of this. Please, please don’t make a fucking big deal out of this.
“I just…I can’t uh…I can’t do this anymore.”
Fuck. He was making a big deal out of it.
Ilya shook his head, “Hollander.”
Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me.
“I’m sorry,” Shane mumbled. And then he was actually running away, walking to the front door as fast as he could, leaving Ilya alone on the couch.
Whatever tether had been holding him to the cushions was cut the instant Shane was out of his sight. Ilya abruptly stood and followed Shane, long legs eating up the distance between them.
Like he could hear his footsteps coming, Shane sped up.
Fuck this.
“Shane,” Ilya called.
Shane stopped in his tracks. His shoulders hunched, head dropping between them.
“Shane,” Ilya said again. He approached the other man with caution, coming within arm’s reach. He put out a hand, letting it rest on Shane’s shoulder—
Shane flinched, pulling away.
Ilya’s arm hung in the air.
“Shane?”
There was a shaky exhale from the man still refusing to face him.
Ilya tried again, “Please can we just talk?”
Shane whipped around, gaze fierce, “Talk? Now you want to talk?”
Ilya took a step back, not expecting the frustration in Shane’s eyes. “Yes. You said you wanted to—”
“Before. When I got here. Not after this. Not after…”
“What?”
Shane’s voice cracked, “Spending the night.”
Oh.
“Did you…” Ilya wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. He’d tried so hard – he’d wanted everything to be perfect. That maybe this time could’ve been different, that they could do this again, but… “Did you not…like it?”
Shane scoffed, “Fuck you.”
Ilya took another step back. Where was this anger coming from?
“I don’t – I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t come here for this.”
“This?”
Shane waved his arm at Ilya, “This.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
What the fuck?
Ilya frowned, “Then what did you come for?”
“To…” Shane ran a frustrated hand through his hair. The back of it was still sticking up a little from Ilya’s hands but he watched as Shane rerouted all of his work. “To fucking…end it, I don’t know.”
Oh.
“End it?” there was a hollow feeling growing in Ilya’s stomach.
“Yes,” Shane’s jaw clenched as he looked Ilya in the eye. “I can’t…I can’t keep doing this.”
“This?”
“The hookups. The meeting a couple times a year. I can’t keep hanging on to this.”
The floor was coming out from under Ilya’s feet. “Hanging on?”
“There’s nothing to hang on to. We barely talk. We just have sex—"
“That can change—”
“You’re seeing other people. It’s not like we have a relationship or something—"
“If you want, we can—”
“Hell, I can’t even talk about you—”
Ilya’s tone turned pleading, “You could—"
And then Shane hammered it home, “This isn’t real.”
Ilya stopped. Shane was staring at him, skin furrowed between his eyebrows, lips frowning. He was upset – maybe the most upset Ilya had ever seen him. At least in recent years.
He was going to leave. He came here so that he could leave. So that he could end whatever the fuck this was between them in person so he could feel good about it. Because Shane wasn’t an asshole – no, that was Ilya’s job.
Fuck that.
If Shane was going to leave anyway, then Ilya might as well put it all on the table, “It is to me.”
Shane blinked, “What?”
“This is real. To me it is real. It means something…” he blew out a breath.
Now or never, Rozanov.
“You mean something.”
Shane’s eyes went so, so sad, “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? Is it not same for you?”
“That’s the problem.”
“Your feelings are a problem?”
“Yes.”
“I am a problem?”
Shane swallowed, “Yes.”
Ilya tried not to show how much that hurt, “Why?”
“Because. We can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
Shane looked around at Ilya’s house – the one he had bought for him, to impress him and to have somewhere just for them. So they could be together.
Shane shrugged, “You can’t tell me that you actually want this?”
“I just did. I told you I want this.”
“Yeah, but this?” he gestured to the house again. “The sneaking around? That’s not really a relationship.”
“Why not? You are private about other things. Why can this not be private too?”
“That’s not the same.”
“Yes, it is.” And because he had been smarting about it since he’d brought it up, Ilya added, “You won’t tell me about girls.”
Shane frowned more, “What girls?”
“The girls you see.”
“I’m not seeing any girls.”
“You are not?” Ilya was confused. He could’ve sworn Shane had said so in their conversation earlier. While he’d been eating food Ilya had made for him.
“No. I don’t see other people.” Shane bit his lip before admitting, “I only see you.”
Fuck. Oh he had messed up.
“Me?”
Shane sighed, dragging a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. He looked tired. Ilya wanted to take him back to bed.
“Look, I get that this is casual for you, and that’s fine – it’s what we signed up for – but I can’t keep doing it. I…I don’t think I’m built for this kind of thing.”
“Kind of thing?”
“Watching you be with other people. Only having you sometimes.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Shane scoffed, “You were literally talking about fucking other girls.”
“Are you jealous?” Ilya said it like he was teasing, not sure if he really meant it as such. He wasn’t expecting Shane’s shouted response.
“Yes!”
Ilya took a step back. Shane had never been so honest before. Sure, Ilya teased him all the time about seeing other people and that their relationship with each other was just casual hook-ups, but he always thought Shane knew he didn’t mean it. Shane had always joked back. He’d never said anything about it truly bothering him.
But right now, he looked like he was about to cry.
“They get to have you. And I can’t.”
“You have me—”
“No, I don’t. Not in the ways that matter. Not in any way that counts. I mean, fuck, we can’t even tell people that we know each other. Can you imagine what would happen if they found out about everything else?”
And yes, Ilya could imagine. That was the whole fucking point of why this was a secret.
“Does that really matter?”
“To me it does.”
“It…” Ilya was trying to tamp down his rapidly building fear. He couldn’t tell what was worse; Shane leaving or people finding out.
He looked at the man standing in his foyer. He imagined him walking out the door and never coming back.
That one. That one was worse.
Buck the fuck up, Rozanov.
“It could matter to me too.”
Schane scoffed, “Sure. How’s that gonna work with all the girls you fuck when I’m not around. Face it Rozanov, I’m just another girl to you. You call me when you want me and then—”
Oh, fuck him.
“I call you?” Ilya scoffed back. “No Hollander, it is not me who decides when we do this.”
Shane drew back, “That’s not—”
“Fair? No, it is not. You don’t get to tell me that I decide. I wait for years for your texts. I wait for you to want me. And now you do not want me anymore so you will throw me away again.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because I can’t have all of you.”
“I would give it to you. If you asked – if you wanted it – I would give you all of me.”
“Not in public though.”
Ilya’s jaw ticked, “No. Not public. I am sorry. I cannot do that.”
“I can’t either,” whispered Shane, like it hurt him just as much to admit it.
Ilya voiced the quiet part out loud, “Why can’t this be enough? Why does public matter? Why does the world have to know?”
“It’s not about the world. I don’t give a shit about that,” Shane was pulling at his hair again. “It’s because I’m hiding from everyone I love. My family. I can’t tell them about the best thing in my life and they’re all looking at me like I’m missing something because they don’t know.”
Ilya’s heart warmed at the admission. Enough for him to offer, “So tell them.”
Shane balked, “What?”
“Tell your family. They can keep secret, yes?”
“I-I mean, yeah but…”
“But?”
“I can’t just tell them.”
“Will they be mad?”
“No. They’re not like that. My parents would never…but I-I can’t just come out.”
“Why not? Is what you want, yes? For them to know? About me.”
And the way Shane looked at him – like he was everything he ever wanted. Like he could see them, as a couple, a real couple, for the first time.
“You would do that for me?” Shane whispered. “You would trust my family?”
Ilya took a tentative step forward. When Shane didn’t back away, he let his hand find his waist. He tilted his head so their foreheads were almost touching. “To have you? Will be worth it.”
Shane’s breath caught, “I mean that much to you?”
“Yes.” Ilya said it without hesitation. He wasn’t going to let Shane end it without a fight.
“I…” Ilya waited for Shane to process. To get the words out. “You mean that much to me too.”
Exactly what he wanted to hear.
Ilya couldn’t help his smile, “So you will stay?”
Shane pulled back to look him in the eye, “This can be real?”
“As real as we can make it.”
“Ok.”
Ilya pulled him in until their lips met. The kiss was sweet, tender, easy. Like breathing.
Ilya’s hands gripped Shane’s waist and Shane’s hands tangled in Ilya’s curls. Ilya took a step back, Shane following as he headed for the bedroom.
Shane’s lips left his to trail down Ilya’s neck before briefly pulling back to mumble, “So no more girls?”
“What girls?” Ilya asked innocently.
Shane bit his neck.
Ilya laughed, “I like you jealous. Maybe I will have to find girls just to—”
Shane bit harder.
Ilya smiled all the way to the bedroom.