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Really Ilya could claim his hands slipped. He hadn’t meant to send Shane five dozen roses, because that was exactly the kind of thing they didn't do. In the moments he hadn’t been buying them he also hadn’t debated adding a single lily, but that would have given him away. Better for him to believe the roses had come from Rose, Shane’s actual partner, and not Ilya, Shane’s not really friend who he sometimes slept with.
But it didn't matter because Ilya hadn’t sent the roses. He hadn’t counted out the days since he had last seen Shane, and scared him away with a gesture far less grand than this. Really who freaked out over a first name and a sandwich. Ilya called most people by their first names, or nicknames! Even more personal. It was honestly weird that he didn’t call Shane by his first name.
And since they didn’t talk or eat together or call each other by first names, they certainly didn’t do romantic gestures. So Ilya would let Shane assume they were from his perfect girlfriend. He would never know it was Ilya’s apology for wanting more, for needing more, for feeling more, when that hadn’t been the arrangement.
He pressed the purchase button and then flung his phone away from himself. He needed to get his mind off of these things. Off of Shane.
“Thank you Rose.” Shane says, being the dutiful boyfriend, he had called her right after the game.
“Awww no problem, but um… What are you thanking me for?” She laughed.
“Oh you know, for the roses.” She was so busy, it had probably slipped her mind, he certainly hadn't realized it was their two month anniversary, or close to it, until he had opened up his locker and seen the flowers.
“I didn't get you any roses.” She paused, “Honestly it would feel a bit garish if I sent someone I was seeing Roses.”
“Oh well. I wonder who…” Shane trailed off. Ilya jumped to the front of his mind as a possibility, but no, they didn't do things like this. It was too close to saying the unspoken.
“Was there a note attached?”
“No,” there hadn't been anything to identify the source of the flowers, but it had seemed so obvious to Shane that Rose had given him roses.
“It was probably one of the guys pranking you, Shane, don't worry too much about it. Anyways, I wanna hear about your game!”
They talked for a bit longer before Shane hung up. He shrugged off the incident as much as he could and proceeded with his day. After a bit he forgot that the incident had ever happened, until years later.
Shane grabbed the mail off the floor in the foyer of his and Ilya’s home. It tended to stack up when they were away for games. So whenever they were home, he made sure to clean it up as quickly as possible. Maybe he should just look into getting a PO box. Or a mail box for their house.
He flipped through the mail carelessly, it was almost always junk. Bill, ad, random magazine that got their address from something one of them had bought online and so on. He was about to place all the junk into a bag for recycling when his brain paused. He knew the company name of one of the magazines. Where had he seen it before?
“The roses!” He flipped the flower magazine over to see Ilya Rozanov written on the back. It was forwarded from his Boston address, meaning whenever he had bought something from them he had been living in Boston.
Ilya poked his head out of the kitchen, “what is this about Rose? Is she in town?”
“No. I mean the flower.” Shane looked up from the magazine and squinted at Ilya, “Ilya did you ever buy any of your girls flowers?”
“Huh?” Ilya approached Shane, “no, I was never in a relationship like that with any of them except Svetlana, and she would have preferred basically anything else.”
Shane looked at him, he knew when his husband was trying to cover something up, and this behavior was suspiciously close to it.
“Did you ever buy one of your guys roses?”
Ilya reached up to rub his nose, refusing to meet Shane's eyes, "I've only bought one person flowers.”
“Ilya. Did you buy me five dozen roses before we were dating?”
Ilya threw his hands up, “Maybe?! Yes! OK Ok, you caught me. Before we were dating I was madly infatuated with this stupid hockey player and his stupid freckles. And I may have freaked him out one day with a sandwich and sent him flowers as an apology.”
Shane stared at him in silence for a moment.
“And because I was secretly madly in love with him.” Ilya continued after a moment, abashed.
“Are you embarrassed?” Shane laughed, reaching out to rub Ilya’s face.
“No never! Embarrass is stupid emotion. I do not feel this, I regret no choices.”
“Ilya we are literally married. You can admit you bought me flowers.” Ilya nuzzled Shane’s hand before planting a kiss on the inside of his wrist. His blue eyes met Shane's with a twinkle of mirth.
“Ok ok, you win. I bought flowers.”
Shane laughed and leaned in to kiss his husband. Those days right before they had become official had been some of the most painful for both of them, but there was some joy in those memories.
“I wish I had saved one. No one else has ever gotten me flowers.”
Ilya plucked the forgotten magazine out of Shane’s hand, “well that is a tragedy, let us fix this. What kind of flowers would you like, Золотце?”
“I think five dozen lilies would be perfect.” Shane murmured as he pressed his lips to Ilya’s again. Oh this sweet kind man. Shane was going to fight the next person who called him a dick, well maybe not Hayden. Ilya did tend to enjoy bullying him. Ilya wrapped Shane up in his arms, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.
“Well then. Lilies it is.”