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May 10, 2017 – Shane’s Birthday

The worst birthday ever. Not that he’d had many glorious or memorable ones, but still this one, in the top-three list, had earned first place.

He had been out of the hospital for only a few days; the pain felt rooted in his bones, and as soon as the effects of the medication faded, the urge to scream grew more and more insistent in his throat. And he hated being under the influence of drugs, because he couldn’t control anything around him, let alone anything inside himself.

Shane had the distinct feeling that he’d made a fool of himself when Ilya Rozanov had come to visit him the morning after the injury, and the worst part was that he had no idea what he’d said or done. All he knew was that the hospital nurse – the saintly woman who had taken care of him day and night – had said goodbye to him in a strange way on the day of his discharge. She’d told him something like: “Say hello to your archrival from Boston for me, I hope he comes to visit you at the cottage” complete with a wink. Luckily, Shane had been alone at that moment: David had gone to get the car, and his mother was filling out the discharge paperwork. Still, for the entire drive to Lanaudière, Shane had done nothing but wonder what happened to him when the painkillers did him the courtesy of dulling the pain a little.

They definitely didn’t take away just that.

That’s how the headaches had started. Sure, those were due to the trauma, but Shane did nothing but brood, and the more he decided he didn’t want to take painkillers, the more he realized that the pain was something unbearable, not even for someone as resilient as he was. So, he accepted the frustration of being forced to take the meds, welcoming it the way one welcomes a stomach flu: terribly. Defeated, he’d end up drugged, irritable, and with unfillable gaps in his memory.

What had he said to Ilya? Maybe he should write to him and ask? Apologize for whatever bullshit had slipped out of his mouth without any kind of… filter??!!

He shuddered every time the question caught him off guard. And before taking those powerful medications, Shane made sure to hide his phone far away from himself, to avoid further mistakes.

His birthday was no different from any of those awful days since he’d been discharged.

His phone kept ringing, with birthday notifications, with press alerts mentioning his name. Shane, stretched out first on the bed and then on the couch, watched the screen light up, commenting only with a sigh of pure annoyance. He felt cut off from the world: a world that, however, wouldn’t stop talking about him.

He was out of the playoffs, and part of him felt guilty because his injury had made that ending easier for his whole team. He was turning a year older. He was forced to live at his parents’ house and redefine his habits. He hadn’t seen Rozanov since that morning at the hospital and had no idea what he’d said or done and Ilya hadn’t reached out since.

Every now and then he dissociated, fantasizing about what might have been if Marleau hadn’t targeted him like a bull in a corrida. He pictured himself still in his apartment in Ottawa, that very evening after the game against Boston, a fully ordered romantic dinner from the best restaurant in the city – according to reviews he’d meticulously examined. They would have joked about one man’s loss and the other’s victory; they would have kissed; Ilya would have come up with yet another nickname besides Mr. Landlord, Mr. Real Estate, or Mr. Businessman… and it all would have ended with Shane asking him not to go back to Russia for the summer, but to spend it at his cottage.

He fantasized so much that not only did Ilya accept enthusiastically, sweeping the fully set table onto the floor and fucking him gracelessly on it, oh no, his mind wandered further and further, imagining himself asking Rozanov to move in with him permanently and live a clandestine relationship because, obviously, in fantasies anything was possible. So Rozanov knelt down and even asked him to marry him. Illusory and impossible, but adding an Ilya-style quip like:“I’m only asking to get the passport” made the whole picture a bit more realistic.

The fantasies repeated themselves at every moment of the day because he was forced to rest, and distracting himself was difficult when he couldn’t engage in anything, not even intellectually, or the headaches would come. The only thing that worked was fantasizing about Ilya Rozanov. Or remembering their moments together. The blood would start flowing downward, far away from his crowded, tangled mind, and… every time he found himself on the bed of his teenage bedroom, he’d relieve himself by touching himself until he reached orgasm with Ilya’s name on his lips.

Then, however, everything returned to the usual routine, and of course he’d start thinking about the last time he’d seen Ilya and how he couldn’t remember anything they’d said. The harder he tried, the blurrier it became. And what if… he’d said something ridiculous? Like: “Ilya, please, I want you to fuck me in every corner of my cottage this summer, please spend the summer with me?”

It could be true, because in short, that was one of his deepest desires. One of the most repressed but drugs have this strange trick of bringing even the unspeakable to the surface… God, it could really have happened.

The real frustration was not remembering Ilya’s reaction either. He remembered the warmth of his hand in his own. And maybe, if he wasn’t deluding himself too much, Ilya had even stroked his cheek, trying to reassure him. But reassure him about what?

WHAT THE FUCK HAD HE SAID TO HIM??

Rose’s notification pulled him out of that spiral. He replied to her, thanking her. Shortly after, Hayden’s came in. He replied to him too. But he suppressed the urge to write to both of them, asking them to come get him and save him from that hell he no longer knew how to escape.

Shane hadn’t expected one from Rozanov. He wasn’t even sure Ilya knew when his birthday was.

That thought had led Shane to sneak into an online biography of Ilya Rozanov to find out when he’d been born. June 15, 1991. Only one month apart from his own. Shane smiled.

Then he snorted again and tossed his phone far away.

His father cooked a wonderful lunch that day, and his mother gave him yet another hockey book.

Sometimes Shane wondered what might happen if one day he grew tired of hockey and decided to quit. Not for himself, but for Yuna. Her life sometimes seemed to revolve wonderfully around the career of her only son. Shane loved hockey far too much to think of abandoning it prematurely, but the idea amused him, just because imagining his mother reinventing herself from scratch because of him was… yes, amusing. At the very least, it distracted him from his constant delusions: now he was worrying about the possibility of becoming addicted to morphine. And how long his body would take to purge itself of it. And whether that addiction, above all, could more or less damage his physical performance. God, he couldn’t wait to get back to playing, training, distracting himself in the one way he did best.

In the evening, Rozanov texted him. Shane’s heart felt lighter, much to his logical dismay. He was relieved because whatever he’d said or done hadn’t been so catastrophic, as he’d convinced himself, as to make Ilya stop writing to him.

L.
I heard you’re out of the hospital. How are you?

J.
You heard? From whom?

L.
You know it’s very rude to answer a question with another question, yes?

J.
Didn’t you just do the same?

L.
I adapt very quickly. So, how are you?

J.
A prisoner.

L.
What?

J.
I’m at my parents’ place.

L.
Oh…

J.
Yeah… so, how did you hear?

L.
The papers won’t stop talking about poor, perfect Shane Hollander… they thought you’d win for the third year in a row…

J.
So you really do read The New Yorker.

L.
Sometimes I need to know what it feels like to be a boring person. What do the doctors say?

J.
That I’m healing well. I just have to get checked for the headaches…

L.
What kind of checks?

J.
I don’t know, if there are complications. My mother says it’s not entirely normal to have so many…

L.
Keep me updated.

J.
Alright.

There had been a ten-minute pause. Shane had watched Ilya hesitate to write him, the typing bubble had appeared and disappeared and no message had come. So, he’d turned off the screen and let the phone rest on his chest, staring into nothing with that same idiotic smile Ilya always managed to draw out of him.

Then, the sound of a new notification. He turned the screen back on. He read and held his breath.

L.
I also heard that today is your birthday. Don’t worry, they don’t explain that the reason you break so easily is due to your aging. Happy birthday, one year less until your early retirement!

Shane let out a very small, very tender, “asshole” and smiled like an idiot at the screen for a good five minutes. Something stirred in his stomach at the realization that Rozanov had actually wished him happy birthday. In his own way, obviously, but the thought counted.

J.
Are you counting the years I have left because they’re the same ones you’re missing? You’re only a month younger!

L.
Russians are sturdier, harder to break. I’ll last ten years longer than you, Hollander.

Shane rolled his eyes and kept smiling like a complete idiot.

J.
If you say so, Rozanov!

L.
Remind me to give you your gift the next time we see each other 😈

The smiling devil emoji made it clear to Shane what Ilya was alluding to, and that alone was enough to make him tremble as he nibbled on the drawstring of his hoodie.

God, how he wished Rozanov were there at that very moment, giving him what he was promising.

It was absurd how he could no longer restrain or avoid that kind of need. He wanted him with him, always, without excuses anymore. First it had been sex: once he’d tasted it, he wanted more and more. But now… even if the excuse was the idea of a handjob, a blowjob, or simply a kiss from Ilya… he wanted him there with him, even just to chat a little, watching a game on TV, eating tuna melts, or whatever else Ilya might cook for him, and drinking coke and ginger ale.

He wanted him there, in all his days and especially on his birthday. That was the gift he wanted most. And it was terrible even to think it, because he shouldn’t have. Because it could never happen.

He knew what all of it meant, and he knew how wrong it was. He couldn’t want more from himself, from Ilya Rozanov, or from what their relationship currently was.

J.
I won’t forget. Thank you ❤️

And yet Ilya Rozanov had wished him happy birthday. Accidentally or not, he’d found out in time that it was that very day, and Shane could do nothing but slide his twenty-seventh birthday from first to fourth place in his top three worst birthdays.

This. This was what Ilya meant to Shane.

May 2017 – Lanaudière

J.
How are your ribs?

Shane would have liked to make a joke about the Russians’ strong constitution, but his mother had made him worry during the semifinal game, pointing out Ilya’s injury. He’d only remembered it himself when he reread the chat, right after sending the message.

L.
Killing me. How’s your head?

J.
Better.

L.
Good…

J.
Are you bummed?

L.
About the Cup?

J.
Yeah.

L.
What do you think?

J.
My mother thinks the Admirals are going to win.

L.
No way. Scott Hunter is a 100 000 years old.

J.
He’s not that old.

L.
And he’s almost as boring as you are.

J.
At least you’ve a type…

L.
😈

There had been this strange feeling as he watched Rozanov’s team lose to Scott Hunter’s, one he still didn’t want to put a name to. The Metro were out of the playoffs, and it still burned just to think about it. Those long stretches after a loss were never pleasant; every small inconvenience became another excuse to vent anger. But Shane was used to it by now, he recognized the patterns and simply tried to be more patient with himself.

No, that kind of frustration, because that’s what it was, was due to Rozanov’s team losing.

It was easy to explain, but so difficult to admit: he wanted Boston to win the Stanley Cup.

He had no idea, in those nine years of dealing with his Russian archrival, when he’d started feeling that way, but it was simple and fucking complicated and frustrating even to acknowledge it: if his team was out of the playoffs, then he became a Boston fan. And the reason was their captain.

The reason was Ilya.

June 2017

Those weeks of injury for Shane Hollander had been hell or a waking up in a parallel universe where he hadn’t become a professional hockey player, independent since he was nineteen.

Yuna and David had never been bad parents; on the contrary, they’d always been present and understanding, open-minded. They’d never forbidden him from doing this or that, not even when he was a teenage mess of acne and discomfort. But the injury had made them decidedly overprotective. His father had even offered to help him in the shower, and his mother scolded him every time he leaned too much over his phone screen or in front of the TV without his glasses. They were both acting to help him, of course, and Shane complained often about his headaches, so that attention was just a consequence, but it was a real hell: the adolescence he’d never had, the snappy answers, the lies… Shane had become so good at acting like a teenager that he often left both parents speechless.

The point was that he missed his routine, his spaces, the quiet evenings, his light, carb-free lunches and dinners… not to mention that finding himself again in the bedroom where he’d grown up, where he’d had his first intimate experience with a sex toy and a Playboy magazine, often made him feel stuck in the skin of that boy who had always liked men and had never had anyone to tell, not even himself, in order to accept it.

Trapped in a kind of life he’d thankfully never lived.

So, when Hayden texted him saying the team wanted a night out to celebrate, because the mood was very depressed and everyone needed cheering up under the excuse that Boston had been knocked out, he’d been more than happy to accept. Not so much for the celebration itself; mostly they’d drink beer, shout, and make jokes Shane often didn’t even understand. He hated that kind of night, but he truly needed to escape that prison.

His mother had made it a whole issue, of course: too soon for his condition to go out, too far away (considering they’d be celebrating in Ottawa, two hours from the cottage) and too risky given that Shane was still taking pain medication. Luckily, David had put in a good word.

“We didn’t raise a reckless kid, sweetheart… let him distract himself a little, or we’ll see him howling at the moon in a few days.”

Yuna had laughed, and Shane had estimated a 78% chance of actually losing his mind. He’d never loved his father as much as he did in that moment.

Then Yuna countered with the distance.

“I have an apartment in Ottawa, Mom” Shane replied.

“But you’ll be alone!”

“I can manage for one night, and then I can ask Hayden to stay over. I’m sure he’d be very happy to get away from the daycare his house has become.”

“Oh, Shane, that’s not very nice.”

“You raise all those kids yourself, I’m sure you’d say much worse.”

Yuna had mentally replied touché, and Shane read it on her face. After that, his mother said nothing more, and that was a victory for Shane.

He was twenty-seven, and for the first time in his life he discovered what it must feel like to be a teenager with permission to go out after a long grounding.

June 14, 2017 - Ottawa

Hayden arrived at six. His parents adored him, and Shane always found himself excluded from the kinds of conversations they had: mostly about being parents, diapers, ER runs, or sleepless nights because of fevers or colds. It was absolutely embarrassing for Shane, because his parents always had humiliating anecdotes about him as a child.

“Speaking of sleepless nights…” Yuna said. Shane felt his stomach tighten. “Hayden, did you know that Shane was very… sensitive as a child?”

“Mom…” Shane tried to intervene, too late.

“We’re not talking about the classic ‘I’m afraid of the dark, leave the nightlight on’” his mother continued, now fully launched. “No, he outright refused to sleep out of fear. He screamed as if someone were trying to kidnap him.”

Hayden smiled, curious.

“Really?”

“Oh yes” his father said, laughing. “One night he got out of bed in the middle of the night convinced there was a monster in the closet. But not just any monster: one with a cowboy hat.”

Shane closed his eyes.

“He insisted on sleeping with a helmet” his mother added, “to protect himself, he said. And not just that, he also wanted his hockey stick.”

Hayden burst out laughing, trying to restrain himself out of politeness. “A cowboy monster?”

Shane, in a flat, barely audible voice: “I’d seen Toy Story. Those damn toys came to life.”

“God help you if you tried to take the helmet off” his father continued. “Once we slipped it off while he was sleeping and he woke up screaming, swinging the stick at the air. He hit the lamp on the nightstand. It shattered.”

“And the next day” his mother concluded with a satisfied smile, “he went to school wearing the helmet because he refused to part with it. We still have the photos.”

Hayden’s laughter, full, genuine, filled the living room. Shane felt his ears burn. That kind of anecdote was tolerable within the walls of the house, maybe even funny years later, but hearing it told in front of his best friend and teammate, someone who could tell the other twenty-two hockey players in the locker room, was torture. His worst nightmare.

“If that photo really exists” Hayden said, wiping a tear of laughter, “I absolutely need to see it.”

Shane intervened, grabbing Hayden by the arm to drag him away. “That’s enough! Hayden, can we go?”

Leaving the house was fairly hilarious, not for Shane, because his parents promised Hayden they’d look for the photo to show him next time. Hayden was thrilled and reminded them they had his phone number, and Shane yelled, already halfway to the car, that he would disown his father, his mother, and his best friend if they dared to circulate that photo without his consent.

The two-hour drive passed without a single real stretch of silence. Hayden was the kind of person who introduced topic after topic just for the sake of it or, as Shane claimed, because he was incapable of staying quiet. That was also why he was his best friend, so complementary to him that it was impossible not to love him. Sometimes he called him several times a day just to tell him about any experience he’d had, and the following calls were merely necessary elaborations.

For Shane, Hayden had often been useful in understanding the people around him who made him feel different. Studying Hayden’s behavior helped him make himself more like his teammates, to feel accepted if he spoke like Hayden did, if he tried to be funny, light, and sometimes a complete idiot just like him.

He owed a lot to Hayden, and he’d never told him. But there was no need.

The night started around ten. Before that, Hayden had taken him to a pub for dinner, and Shane had made a point of telling him that he wouldn’t drink as much as the others, wouldn’t get drunk, because mixing alcohol with medication could be a serious mistake and fixing it while drunk would be downright impossible.

“Seriously, man, you don’t even need to say it!” Hayden reassured him. “The important thing is that you’re with us. These weeks must’ve been hell for you.”

Shane felt reassured and understood. He had dinner with a bottle of beer for that reason. After all, he didn’t have to feel pressured because, unlike everyone else his age, he wouldn’t be able to have fun the way people expected… He had the perfect excuse. And that made him feel at ease.

For the same reason, he toasted with the others when they started the first round of shots. Everything was under control. The first round, along with that beer he’d sipped two hours earlier, he could allow himself. He wouldn’t lose control of himself and still felt lucid enough. He hesitated when he found himself laughing at a joke he wasn’t sure he’d understood, but that was fine, he told himself. He was with his team; he was used to shitty jokes, to pretending to laugh so he wouldn’t feel excluded. There was cheerfulness that night or maybe everyone just needed it, given the terrible season results.

Shane needed it more than ever at that moment. To not think about the hell of living with his parents, to not think about whether after that injury he’d still be good at hockey, and to not think about whether he’d completely ruined his relationship with Ilya for reasons morphine wouldn’t let him remember.

Yes, more than anything, Shane needed that night and to drink so he wouldn’t think. About Ilya Rozanov and their fucked-up situation. He thought about it constantly. But the more alcohol he poured down, the easier it was to push the thought away.

Two more rounds of shots followed. Shane didn’t refuse any of them, and Hayden asked: “Hey, man, are you sure? You feeling okay?”

Shane patted him on the shoulder and winked.

“Everything’s fine” he exclaimed, unable to control his tone of voice. It came out a few pitches higher than usual. But he didn’t care.

They did two more rounds, and Shane didn’t hold back but he was drunk. Very drunk: the place had started to spin around him, moving to the rhythm of the music.

But Shane Hollander felt so light. So good. He didn’t even feel pain anymore.

It happened, however, that his team brought his Russian archrival back to mind. They were talking about how Boston had been defeated in the semifinals and about Ilya’s rib injury. Some were laughing, others were making awful sexual jokes. Because it was always like that when it came to Rozanov: there always had to be jokes that crossed the line, that went beyond the typical insults you could throw at a rival player. As much as Shane had never liked them, at first he’d laughed along, indulging the others with locker-room behavior, simply because he felt it was the easiest way not to draw attention and to avoid letting something slip that might raise suspicion that he and Ilya had a relationship; not the one they actually had, but still, people thought they hated each other, they’d built an empire on their rivalry, so it would have seemed odd, if not completely absurd, that there could be even just a friendly relationship between the two of them. But over the years, it wasn’t only Shane’s feelings toward Rozanov that had changed. No, above all, his tolerance for those fucking jokes had changed. He had none left.

“What day is it today?” Kolya slurred at one point. Shane turned toward him, silently thanking him for interrupting that sequence of shitty jokes about Ilya.

He was the one who answered: “Wednesday.” Kolya raised yet another shot with a tipsy smile.

“Thanks, cap! Today’s Wednesday…” he mumbled. Hayden chimed in, “Why do you ask? It’s the 14th, Wednesday, June 14! Why?”

Kolya started counting on his fingers.

“Oh, well… because then there are only three days left until the final! Do you think Scott Hunter will really win?”

Shane didn’t follow the discussion that erupted from that question. Not because the volume of their voices rose incredibly and annoyingly, but because he had just realized – just like Kolya – that it was the 14th.

His mind, dulled by medication and now by all the alcohol he’d consumed, seemed to wake up after a long sleep: in a little less than an hour it would be midnight, and it would be June 15.

Ilya’s birthday.

He started wondering whether he should write him a birthday message. After all, Ilya had written to him to wish him happy birthday. If Shane chose not to reciprocate, Rozanov might think that… he might think Shane wasn’t really interested enough to remember his birthday? Was that a thought that could genuinely cross that Russian’s mind?

Regardless, Shane was going to wish him happy birthday. Because he remembered it now, and because there was really no reason to pretend he didn’t know. Suddenly, the idea that he’d hear from him again made his fingers itch and his stomach gurgle. It always happened when he thought about seeing Ilya, and ever since they’d started calling each other and doing video calls, it happened even when they were in two different states.

To distract himself from that sudden excitement, he began stacking up a list of possible messages he could send, but his teammates kept trying to get his attention and distracting him. Annoyed, a little later he got up with the excuse of going to the bathroom; he realized he was swaying from wall to wall, but with some care he managed to reach his destination. Only there did he bother to pull out his phone and check the time.

It was almost midnight.

Should he write the message now? A sober Shane would have pondered it all day long the day before the birthday and he cursed himself for having completely forgotten about it. It wouldn’t be an ideal, perfect message, one that would hit and amuse Ilya… he knew it, he’d write a boring message that Rozanov would make fun of him for.

The truth was that he’d write a boring message even if he’d had a week to prepare. Because that’s what Shane was to Ilya. Boring.

Shane Hollander was boring, but the truly absurd thing was that Shane had started, God only knew when, to love the idea that Ilya found him boring, because he seemed to express it affectionately. He always smiled at him in that way that lit something up in his stomach…

Okay, sure, there’d been that time at the Olympics in Russia when he hadn’t been kind or affectionate at all in telling him that no, he hadn’t replied to his boring messages but then… yes, then it had become a way of letting him know that he liked Shane exactly the way he was. Ilya had this ability to make pleasant everything about Shane that Shane himself had always found difficult to make others like. This, probably, was one of the reasons he’d pushed himself so far with his rival…

Yes, certainly this was one of the reasons why Ilya had taken that place in his life. He made him feel seen, accepted without having to pretend to be something he wasn’t.

He snapped back to himself, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His eyes were glassy and dreamy; he blamed the alcohol. He tried to wipe at an eyelash, then his fingers slid over his upper lip. He weighed his options, cursing himself for getting lost in his thoughts again without having found any solution to the current problem.

Which was writing a perfect message. And he didn’t have time, because if he stayed in the bathroom any longer, Hayden would surely get worried enough to come looking for him.

So, after a discouraged sigh, he thought maybe he could call him directly the next day. And wish him happy birthday in a special way… Video calls had become a stupid pretext to do what, for all those years, they’d only managed to do after long months of waiting, when their teams met to play against each other.

He thought he’d wear his glasses to read. Ilya had liked them a lot… God only knew why.

So he went back to his teammates; the return trip was almost as slow as the one there. His head continued to feel both light and heavy at the same time, as if it were full of air but squeezed in an invisible vise, and every so often the room spun around him as if someone had flicked a globe with a sharp tap of their finger. Lights, voices, laughter: everything arrived with a half-second delay.

The team’s table was a glorious mess. Empty glasses, others half-full, bottles stacked like improvised trophies. JJ was laughing for no clear reason, Drapeau was pounding his fist on the table to the rhythm of a song that wasn’t the one playing over the speakers, Comeau was talking to Kolya from ten centimeters away, as if that were the only way to communicate. They were, without a doubt, completely drunk.

As soon as Shane entered their field of vision, Hayden lit up as if he’d just seen a divine apparition. Glassy eyes, crooked smile, a pointing finger struggling to keep a steady direction.

“Oh! There he is!” he announced far too loudly. “Our captain! Look at him! He’s the one with the longest relationship… after me, obviously!”

Shane stopped halfway, his brow instinctively furrowing.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, already suspicious.

The table, strangely enough, fell silent. Not a serious silence, more like a pause charged with expectation. Someone giggled without really knowing why, pure drunken rowdiness. Hayden swayed slightly on his chair but didn’t lower his finger.

“Lily from Boston, right?” he insisted, slurring. “You text all the time, and every time we’re in town you meet up! I mean…” He paused theatrically, searching for air. “It’s the longest relationship I’ve ever seen you have, after Jennifer.”

“Jessica” Shane corrected automatically. Thankfully, he thought, he had an impeccable memory for all the lies he’d told over the years. It was a matter of survival.

“Yeah, whatever! Who cares!” Hayden waved a hand. “Lily from Boston, right? Do you love her?”

The words hit him like a slap. Shane crossed his arms over his chest, and suddenly his head stopped spinning. The world wasn’t rotating anymore: it had simply collapsed beneath his feet.

“Why these questions?” he asked, looking at each of his teammates in turn. “What were you talking about?”

It was JJ who answered, with a wide grin and a tone of grand revelation.

“We were betting that no one here would ever have the guts to get married and start a family if we won the Stanley Cup for the third year in a row!”

What a stupid thing, Shane thought. He forced a smile and shook his head.

“You’re idiots.”

Hayden, of course, wasn’t discouraged. He pointed at him again, eyes half-closed.

“And here you come!” he proclaimed. “And Lily from Boston! So? Are you ever going to introduce her to us?”

Shane opened his mouth, and out came a tangle of words with no logical thread. He denied, contradicted himself, sighed.

“Lily and I… we’re nothing serious” he finally said. “She’s just a friend.”

The group’s response was laughter, suggestive shrugs, and knowing looks. Shane didn’t notice them, too immersed in the spiral of anxiety and panic that the topic had stirred up.

“Yeah, sure” someone commented. “We know what kind of friend.”

Hayden smiled even wider, satisfied. “Come on, Shane. After all these years…”

They kept poking at him, throwing jokes and insinuations, until the group’s attention slid onto another designated victim. Shane, convinced the worst was over, made the mistake of pulling out his phone to check the time.

Twelve fifteen.

His stomach clenched. It was officially Ilya’s birthday.

A mix of nervousness and irritation from the conversation twisted in his chest. He didn’t even have time to react before Hayden snatched the phone out of his hand.

“Hey!” Shane reached out. “Hayden, what are you doing?”

“What you should be doing, buddy: getting engaged!” he declared solemnly. He’d already started a call to the contact saved as “Lily” and placed the phone on the table, speakerphone on.

The first ring echoed in Shane’s ears like a sound that was too loud, too grating. Or maybe it was his heart in his throat that made everything so noisy.

He tried to grab the phone, but Hayden pulled it away, snickering.

“Come on, Shane. I can feel it! Lily’s the right one! And you’ll never have the guts to make a move. I’m helping you.”

Second ring. Third.

“It’s late” Shane protested, his heart pounding too fast. Meanwhile, he prayed. He really prayed. Because if Ilya answered, his birthday gift to his archrival would be their coming out in front of the entire hockey team.

Fourth ring. The call dropped.

Shane didn’t waste time: he grabbed the phone and shoved it into his pocket as if someone might try to steal it again. He jumped to his feet.

“Another round of shots, what do you say?” he announced.

The team exploded into messy cheers, whistles, and applause. They let him go without asking questions.

Shane walked away from the table with his heartbeat still racing, aware of only one thing: he’d just escaped a disaster. For now.

Anchored to the bar as if his knees no longer held him up, Shane didn’t even bother ordering the new round of shots. He stayed there, motionless, head bowed and shoulders stiff, focused solely on trying to slow his heart rate and, along with it, his breathing. Jesus Christ. He still couldn’t believe it, he’d come so close to the point of no return, to that exact moment when everything would have surfaced in front of his team. His secret. The secret he shared with only one person in the world: Ilya Rozanov.

He cast a brief glance at the table behind him. His teammates’ laughter reached him muffled, distorted by alcohol and the noise of the place. That was exactly why he never drank. That was why he hated the effect of morphine. Because he lost control. And when he lost it, the lies began to crumble, one after another, ready to be called by their real names.

“Hey, man, you want to order another round?” the bartender snapped him back to reality.

Shane slowly lifted his head, focused on the face in front of him with some effort, then nodded and muttered a thank you. He turned slightly toward the bar counter, waiting, when he felt his phone start vibrating in the pocket of his jeans.

He did not even need to look at the screen to know who it was. He had just begun to calm down when the light of the display hit his eyes and the name “Lily” appeared in front of him. His breath caught. His heart twisted painfully in his chest and the club started spinning again like a crazed top. He swallowed dryly, then cast another glance at the team’s table, still submerged in alcoholic chaos, and moved toward a darker area of the club, trying to make himself as invisible as possible. Going outside, in that state, was out of the question. But God, he needed air.

When he answered, Ilya’s voice hit him straight in the pit of the stomach, warm and familiar in a way none of the shots he had downed so far had managed to replicate. He sounded slightly surprised.

“Hollander?” he called.

“Y-yeah… hey. Hi” Shane slurred. “Sorry about the time, I called by accident. Did I wake you up?”

“Mm, no” Ilya replied. “I’m out. With friends.”

“Oh. Right, yeah, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you” Shane went on quickly, unable to control his tone.

There was a brief pause. Long enough for Ilya to realize something was off.

“You’re not at home?” he asked, amused. “Or are you throwing a party with your parents?”

Shane let out a short, misplaced laugh. Another warning bell.

“I’m at a club with Hayden and the others” he admitted, chuckling again. But why could he not stop being so pathetically obvious?

“They needed to celebrate…” he muttered, exasperated.

“Hollander” Ilya cut in. “Are you drunk?”

Shane closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cold wall.

“No, no” he lied immediately. “I just had a couple of… just a couple.”

“You’re still on painkillers, right? A couple is enough to get you drunk” Ilya shot back, his tone tightening.

Shane sighed. “I know. I told Hayden that, but we were celebrating…”

“Celebrating what?”

Boston’s loss. And your injury. The words rose to his throat, but he swallowed them down with effort.

“I don’t know” he said instead. “An engagement, maybe… or any excuse was good enough to get out of my parents’ place.”

Why was he talking so much? Why could he not shut up? He could clearly feel how little it would take, just a little, to say something he would regret. Maybe the same bullshit he had said at the hospital. He bit his lip, nervous.

“Anyway, I need to… uh, hang up” he added quickly. “Before Hayden comes to check on me.”

He turned again toward the table. No one seemed to be paying attention to him. They were all too drunk. And so was he. Completely.

“Okay” Ilya replied. “Book a taxi to get home.”

Shane smiled like an idiot. “I will. Thanks, Ilya. Have fun… yeah, enjoy the rest of your night.”

Enjoy the rest of your night. How the fuck did he talk?

He certainly could not tell him: go find someone to fuck and celebrate your birthday properly. One, because he had not even wished him a happy birthday. Should he have? And what if he forgot the next day? And two, because he could not stand the idea of Ilya ending up with someone else. Even if he had no right to feel, let alone express, that desire.

Yes, it was a terrible way to end a call. But, also, the safest way to get out without damage. His head kept boiling.

“Yeah, you too, Shane” Ilya said. “Text me when you’re home.”

His heart jumped back into his throat. That he would not forget.

“Alright” he replied softly, then hung up.

Seconds later, all the embarrassment of what had just happened hit him at once, throwing him into anxiety and complete despair. And he had not wished him happy birthday. He cursed himself with the worst insults he knew.

He went back to the bar counter, the shots were ready.

Shane Hollander should have stopped drinking, but he looked at those small glasses filled with white liquid as the only lifeline to forget all the slimy sensations clinging to him.

June 15, 2017 – Boston, 1:33 a.m.

Ilya had gotten home much earlier than expected.

The premises on which he and Svetlana had decided to go out to celebrate his birthday spoke of coming back at dawn, too many drinks, unfamiliar bodies, and that artificial lightness he sometimes still allowed himself. Instead, it was almost two in the morning and the apartment was immersed in a silence that felt almost accusatory.

He had not picked anyone up. He had not even drunk enough to forget to wear a skin made of flesh, something that in the past had happened to him more than once.

And he had not ended the night by sleeping with Svetlana either, that practical, complication-free kind of ending that happened when they both came back empty-handed and the night needed a jolt.

Since his father had died, he had cut ties with his brother, and Svetlana had wished him the best with her “Jane” their relationship had shifted onto a different level. More stable. More conventional. She was his best friend. And as such, she had immediately noticed that something, that evening, had gone wrong.

By “wrong” she meant the way Ilya kept checking his phone, as if it might vibrate at any moment. The way he had gradually lost interest in everything and everyone.

“What did your Jane want earlier?” she had asked, in a tone carefully crafted to sound casual.

Ilya had scratched his nose and made a vague expression.

“Nothing.”

Svetlana, of course, did not leave it at that.

“It doesn’t look like nothing… it really looks like she made you worried.”

He had looked at her, trying to tell her not to meddle. She had replied with an amused smile, the kind that said I know you too well, and Ilya had looked away, rolling his eyes.

“She was… drunk” he admitted.

Svetlana had smiled softly, nodding, trying to put him at ease.

“At least one of you is having fun.”

Ilya shrugged without looking at her.

“She never drinks…”

“She’ll be fine” she reassured him, without much conviction.

Ilya nodded, because it was easier that way. He certainly could not explain to her that, first of all, it was not a girl, even though he suspected Svetlana had already figured that out. It was Shane Hollander. Shane Hollander who never drank, who never went out partying with his teammates, who was injured and on painkillers. That whole context was gasoline on the fire of his anxiety. And he could not, simply could not, put it into words.

He hated feeling like this over Shane Hollander.

He had spent more than half the years of that absurd situation rejecting anything he felt for his rival. Pushing it away, burying it with competition during games and sex during their secret meetings. And what remained of those years, the last ones, had been a fucking mess. They had started calling each other by their first names. A colossal fuck-up. Because it had led Shane to run away, to get engaged to Rose Landry only to then discover he was gay.

And Ilya… could not be gay. He was not. He was bisexual. But deep down he knew he could not even be that. Not really, not in the open. Not if it meant admitting, even just to himself, that Shane Hollander was not an exception but a problem.

Even if he would probably never set foot in Russia again of his own free will, he simply could not afford it. He could not like Hollander. He could not dream of a life together with him, he could not… love him.

Then his father had died. And Shane had been the only person he had wanted by his side. And Hollander had been there for him. Present. Necessary. Absolutely perfect. With those reading glasses that made him look even more serious, more attentive. With that constantly worried look, with that way of caring without invading, without asking for anything in return. Ilya knew that was the moment he had allowed himself to hope for the first time.

Then, as if that were not enough, came the drop that made the already overflowing vessel of feelings torturing him day and night spill over: Shane’s injury. Right in front of his fucking eyes.

Gospodi, he had really thought he could let him go. And a moment later life had shown him that no, it would never be possible again. That he, Ilya Rozanov, was no longer capable of it.

Shane Hollander had slipped under his skin and decided not to leave. The person whose name, in the newspapers, always accompanied his, followed by words like “rival” and other bullshit good for selling tickets. Shane Hollander who had invited him to spend the summer together, in his cottage. That fucking cottage. He dreamed about it with his eyes open. He wanted to see where Shane ate, where he did yoga, where he slept. He wanted to see Shane in a context not made of ice and pretense. He could not stop thinking about him, and that ruined every other thing in his life.

And now he was there. At home. At two in the morning. On the day of his birthday. It had never been relevant, but Shane Hollander was becoming the protagonist of his twenty-seventh year of life, just as he had become the protagonist of every aspect of his life, and that irritated him.

Oh bozhe, how he hated that boring dickhead lodged in his mind like an obsession.

But how could he not think about him now? Shane was drunk, surrounded by idiots, far away, vulnerable. Fucking Hayden Pike. Why, of all people, had he had to choose that asshole as his best friend?

Ilya ran a hand over his face, exhausted. He wondered if he had made it home. If he was safe. If he had really booked that taxi.

He must have, right? He had promised him.

He let himself fall onto the couch, phone still in hand, the screen dark with no intention of lighting up for a notification or a call. Fucking Hollander.

He realized, with a clarity that almost hurt, that he was losing his mind.

Ilya stayed still on the couch for a few more minutes, then forced himself to get up. He went to the bathroom and turned on the shower without even adjusting the temperature properly. The hot water crashed down on him like a necessary punishment. He rested his forehead against the tiles, letting the steam fog his thoughts, but Shane kept slipping in everywhere. Shane laughing. Shane slurring his words. Shane drunk among his teammates, on painkillers, far away, out of his control.

He soaped himself mechanically, ran his hands through his hair more times than necessary, as if he could wash away that uncomfortable feeling in his chest. It did not work. He stepped out of the shower with the same restlessness as before, just a little more tired. He pulled on a clean T-shirt, soft pants, and ended up in the kitchen.

He prepared something to eat without real hunger. He turned on the television while chewing, letting some random program run, images and voices he did not really follow. Every now and then his gaze returned to the phone resting on the table.

Nothing.

Around two thirty he had had enough. He picked up his phone and typed, deleted, rewrote. In the end, he sent it.

L.
Everything okay?

He stayed staring at the screen as if he could force it to light up. Time passed slowly, cruelly. He thought he would spend a sleepless night because of Shane Hollander, on the day of his birthday, and God would never forgive him for it. He was almost ready to truly accept that absurd idea: two weeks at the cottage. Two weeks to figure out a way to make him stay in that fucking cottage forever.

Then, finally, the phone vibrated.

It was almost a quarter to three.

The name “Jane” on the screen loosened something in his stomach. At least he was alive. Alive enough to manage to call him.

“Shane?” he said at once, answering.

“Mh… yeah…” The voice was slow, thick, decidedly too soft. “Hi…”

Ilya closed his eyes for a moment. “Are you okay?”

“Yeeeeeees” Shane giggled. Then Ilya heard him clear his throat, with extreme difficulty trying to find a voice that made him sound like the everyday Shane. “All, all good” he tried to use a serious tone. With poor results. To Ilya’s ears, he sounded like a kid on the verge of his voice changing during puberty.

“Are you home?” he asked immediately. “Are you alone?”

“Mh… I think so” he replied after a pause that sent Ilya’s anxiety skyrocketing. “I mean… I’m… home. Alone? I have no idea…” He laughed again.

“Did you drink more? You sound worse…” A stupid question, but a necessary one.

“Just a bit.” Another little laugh. “Just a little, little.”

Ilya clenched his jaw. “Bozhe moy, Shane. Did you throw up?”

“Nooope” Shane replied, stretching the vowel. “You’re too serious…”

“Hollander” he called him, more softly. “Listen to me. Are you really okay?”

There was a confused noise on the other end, as if Shane were moving, maybe sitting down or lying down. Then a sudden exclamation, completely out of character for him.

“I just wanted to tell you” he took a breath and said it all in one go, without pauses. Ilya did not even manage to interrupt him. “HAPPYHAPPYBIRTHDAYILYYYAAAAA.”

Ilya fell silent, his heart galloping indecently against his ribs. It was the second time he had heard this version of Shane. Unfiltered, uncontrolled, disarming. The first time he had invited him to the cottage. He still remembered the inner chaos he had felt back then, but now it was nothing compared to what he was feeling.

Now Shane Hollander, completely altered by medication and alcohol, had remembered his birthday. He knew that June 15 was his fucking birthday. And he had remembered despite his condition.

It was… sweet. It was… a feeling that warmed him and instantly stripped away all the frustration and anxiety and anguish he had felt up to that point.

“Ogo. Thank you…” was all he managed to say, his voice lower than usual.

“Actually” Shane went on, as if that were not revelation enough, “I wanted to call you tomorrow, yeah, I mean it’s already tomorrow, I wanted to call you… at a decent hour, you know… or do a video call… because I also wanted to give you a present.”

Ilya smiled into the empty room, a slow, mischievous smile. He shifted more comfortably on the couch, leaning back.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “What kind of present?”

He should not have. He knew it. But if Shane Hollander was like this, defenseless, pure, naive, Ilya had every right to take advantage of it a little. It was his personal revenge for having made him worry for hours.

On the other end of the line, Shane giggled again.

“Mh… secret.”

Ilya narrowed his eyes, the smile barely curving the corner of his mouth.

“You know I’m very good at keeping your secrets…”

A slow, deep sigh followed, so close to the microphone that Ilya almost felt the absurd temptation to close his eyes and imagine him pressed against him. He wanted to ask him where he was. If he was really alone. If he was speaking out loud in front of someone, maybe Hayden, maybe someone who should not hear. But he did not have time.

“It’s not a secret to keep” Shane murmured. “But maybe… it would be better if I could give it to you in person.”

Ilya’s heart skipped another beat.

“I don’t remember if I already did” Shane went on, his voice a little more confused, “the painkillers are fucking with my brain. But if I didn’t already say it… or if it’s just in my head… then I can say it again.”

“Shane” Ilya tried to interrupt him, completely unprepared, his heartbeat now out of control, but Shane did not stop.

“Why don’t you come stay with me for a few weeks this summer?” he blurted out all in one breath. “Don’t go back to Russia. We can stay at the cottage. You and me. Alone. Together.”

Ilya closed his eyes, the smile slipping across his face without him being able to stop it.

“I think about it every day” Shane continued, more and more carried away. “It would be beautiful. I’d cook for you. We could swim in the lake, play PlayStation or whatever else… be alone, you and me, for more than an hour… My place would be like your home… when I was at your place I felt so good… you could feel that good too… and we could have so much sex. Everywhere. Without worrying about someone hearing or seeing us. Because it’s really a very private place. I can make up an excuse with my parents, so no one would bother us at all, no one… just you and me… finally together…”

Ilya felt something break and reassemble at the same time. He had thought about it too. Too much. Those weeks had been a constant civil war inside him, the part that knew they had to end it there against the one that could not even conceive the idea of letting Shane Hollander go.

The idea of Shane getting engaged again. Of him having another lover who was not him. It drove him insane. Because he wanted it to be him. Because it had to be him.

“Ilya?” Shane’s voice returned, more uncertain. “Are you still there?”

Ilya let out a long sigh, smiling in the darkness of the living room. “You already asked me. Yes. At the hospital.”

“Fuck” Shane cursed. “So, the morphine really did fuck with my brain…”

Ilya laughed softly. “Not just that…”

“I’ll never drink again…”

“No, no” he contradicted him immediately. “It’s fun listening to you like this.”

Shane giggled. “It’s a nightmare to sober up and not remember all the embarrassing things you said or did…”

“Don’t worry” Ilya replied, with a sweetness that surprised him. “I’ll treasure them jealously and at the perfect moment I’ll throw them back in your face…”

“Fuck you, Rozanov.”

Ilya sighed, without stopping smiling. “Did they get you home?”

From the other end came a confused murmur, as if Shane were trying to move. A rustle. A soft groan.

“Shane?” he called immediately.

“If I move everything spins…”

“Then stay still.”

“Yeah…” he muttered. “I don’t want to throw up. Throwing up sucks…”

“Another reason to add to the list ‘why it’s nice to be sober’.”

Shane giggled again. Ilya’s stomach flipped.

“I think Hayden passed out on my couch” Shane said. “He didn’t want to leave me alone… or maybe go back home to his fourteen kids.”

Ilya turned serious instantly. “That doesn’t make me feel better. Are you sure everything’s okay? Does something hurt? Call someone who is more useful than that idiot Hayden Pike…”

“I’m fine” Shane insisted, with that drunk lightness that convinced him not at all. “I called you…”

Ilya had not overdone it that evening, he felt fairly sober, yet he was drunk. Drunk on Shane’s words. Excessive, unbalanced, making no sense at all, but they were all for him.

“Stay on the phone with me then” Ilya said without thinking.

“Don’t you need to sleep?”

“I’m not sleepy” he replied immediately. “I will sleep when you pass out. And from experience… that will happen very soon.”

On the other end, Shane smiled. Ilya understood it from the way his breathing slowed, grew calmer. And he stayed there, in the dark, with the phone to his ear and his heart beating too fast, knowing he would not want to be anywhere else.

“So?” Ilya asked after a few good seconds of silence, modulating his voice as if he were speaking to someone perfectly lucid. “How did the night with the team go? Did you have fun?”

From the other end of the line came strange, undefined sounds. A noise halfway between a moan and a muffled laugh, followed by a long sigh. Ilya smiled to himself. He was adorable, in that messy and sincere way Shane almost never allowed him to see.

“Yeah…” Shane finally said, dragging out the word. “I had fun… I mean, at first.”

“At first?” Ilya repeated, already knowing what was coming.

“Then they started with the usual fucking jokes about you” Shane continued, his voice growing more tense even through the alcohol. “And I got nervous. That must have been when I started not caring how much I was drinking. I just wanted…” He paused, as if searching for the right term. “…to have the perfect excuse to tell them to go fuck themselves.”

Ilya was left speechless for a moment. Ogo. It was a once in a blue moon event to hear Shane talk like that about his own team. He felt a sudden warmth open in his chest, a new sensation, almost disarming. Ecstatic, yes. He could not find a better word. No one had ever fought like that for him. Not really. No one had ever gone against their own family for him. Over time, Ilya had convinced himself that he was not even someone who deserved such an effort. And now Shane was showing him that he was… worth it?

But why?

He knew perfectly well what kind of jokes circulated in men’s locker rooms. And, truth be told, he had never given a fuck. If anything, he had done worse. He had fueled those speculations, played on the edge, used others’ discomfort as a weapon. But knowing that Shane Hollander did not laugh at those jokes, that they actually made him want to defend him openly, was something completely new. Something dangerously beautiful.

“I don’t spare any of them either, Hollander” he said at last, with a half-smile in his voice. “There’s no need for you to defend me.”

“Who wants to defend you, Rozanov?” Shane snapped immediately. “I just wanted to punch those assholes in the face.”

Ilya laughed softly. “In your condition? You would have broken like a Lego.”

“Try telling me that again when we see each other…” Shane muttered, with a hint of challenge that sent something warm sliding down Ilya’s spine.

“Is that another fantasy of us at the cottage?” he teased.

Shane made an indistinct grunt. “Yeah” he admitted. “I often think about wanting to punch you…”

“Ah” Ilya replied, amused. “I was thinking more along the lines of rolling around pretending to know some jujutsu moves…”

“Why do you turn everything into porn?” Shane protested, laughing.

“Admit it” Ilya pressed, lowering his voice slightly. “You got hard just thinking about it…”

From the other end came more whimpers, longer, more embarrassed. Ilya ran a hand over the crotch of his sweatpants with a slow sigh, aware that he was talking more about himself than about Shane.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow” Shane said at a certain point, more serious, even if his voice trembled slightly. “When I’ll really be alone and we can do a video call… here in Ottawa. These weeks at my parents’ place have been frustrating. I felt like I was back to being a fucking teenager, forced to hide in my bedroom.”

“Oh…” Ilya said, genuinely curious. “Tell me. What were you doing at sixteen in your bedroom? Who were you masturbating to?”

“No” Shane protested immediately. “That’s private. And I’m not that drunk-”

“You are exactly that drunk” Ilya interrupted him. “But maybe it’s better you don’t tell me. I might get jealous.”

Shane burst out laughing. “Jealous? Of me?”

“Mh-mh” Ilya confirmed without hesitation.

He was usually good at masking certain emotions with Shane. But in that moment, he felt safe. Safe that Shane would not remember any of that conversation. And part of him wanted to confess how obsessed he was with the idea that he had been in bed with Rose Landry. That his body had been touched by someone else. Shane had even told him there had been another guy, years earlier. But that it had not been… the same. Because that guy had not been Ilya. He still remembered the immediate satisfaction of that realization. And right after, the violent burn in his chest at the idea of Shane with someone else.

No. It was murky territory. Better not explore it.

“Anyway…” Shane said suddenly, his voice lost in who knows what thoughts, “I didn’t accidentally make a call today.”

“Oh no?” Ilya teased him. “You wanted to call me? While you were out partying with your team?”

“N-no… no…” Shane burst out laughing. “Hayden. He… Jesus Christ.”

Ilya stiffened slightly. “Hayden what? What does he have to do with this?”

“He knows about Lily, from Boston…”

Ilya literally stopped breathing.

“He knows there’s someone I’ve been seeing and talking to for years” Shane went on, oblivious. “He wanted us to get engaged tonight…”

Ilya tried to rationalize all that information. Hayden knew about Lily and wanted her, meaning Ilya, to get engaged to Shane?

Chyort!

“Hey, heyyy” Shane said, his voice small and bright. “Are you still there?”

“So, what did he do?” Ilya asked, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Did he make the call?”

Shane sighed. “Yeah. Thank God you didn’t answer…”

“That would have been a problem” Ilya admitted.

“Coming out as a birthday present!” Shane exclaimed, laughing softly.

“So, Hayden wants you to get engaged to… me?” Ilya asked.

“Only because he doesn’t know it’s you.”

“Yes, I think…”

“If he did know” Shane concluded, “I think he’d have a stroke.”

Ilya actually laughed this time. “Oh, how I wish I could tell him right now… why don’t you wake him up?”

“Rozanov…”

Ilya sighed. On the other end, Shane yawned loudly.

“Are you about to fall asleep?” he asked.

“N-no-no…”

“Shane… you are not one of those kids who fights sleep, yes?”

“I’m not a kid!” came the reply, followed by another yawn. Ilya’s cheeks hurt from how wide his smile had stretched because of that adorable drunk.

“Sleep” Ilya said softly. “That way you will forget all the embarrassing things you just told me…”

“Ah… no” Shane muttered. “I hope I don’t forget them.”

“I won’t forget them.”

“You’re such an asshole!”

Ilya chuckled quietly. “Good night, Shane…”

“Will you think about it?”

There was no need to ask what. Ilya knew all too well.

“Ask me again when you are sober” he replied. “So, I can actually take you seriously.”

Shane groaned, desperate. They both knew that would never happen.

“Good night, Ilya.”

“Call me tomorrow…”

Ilya stayed seated in the dark living room long after the call had ended. The phone was still warm in his hand, his eyes fixed on nothing. He didn’t turn on the lights. The silence buzzed in his ears, broken only by the distant noise of the city and the irregular beating of his heart.

Shane had been… open. Vulnerable. So damn real it almost hurt. The alcohol had lowered his defenses, loosened the knots Shane always kept tight, hidden under perfect manners, discipline, control. Ilya knew it: that version of him wasn’t fake. It was just… freer. And Ilya had seen it. Again.

The hospital came back to him like a punch to the gut. The day he had truly believed he was going to lose him. The white corridor, the lights too bright, the smell of disinfectant seeping into his lungs. Hours without news. The night spent glued to the news, refreshing pages, staring at his phone as if he could force it to vibrate. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He had been stretched tight like a rope about to snap.

He still remembered the fierce anguish, and then the almost painful relief of seeing him again. Shane alive. Shane whole… well, more or less. Shane dazed on morphine, shameless in a way he had never been. He had mimicked his voice with ridiculous precision, asked him with those eyes to stay close. Hand in hand. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Ilya hadn’t enjoyed it enough back then. Too scared. Too lucid. Too aware that that moment didn’t really belong to him. And yet he remembered perfectly the instinctive gesture of his fingers brushing Shane’s face, his thumb caressing his freckles. His fucking, wonderful freckles. As if they meant something. As if they were an anchor. As if they were home and he hadn’t lost them forever.

In that moment, he had felt better. Immediately. As if the world had stopped swaying, if only for an instant.

Then there had been the cottage request. The summer. Two weeks. Isolated. Together. He remembered the sudden panic, as if the idea itself were dangerous. Because it was. Because allowing himself that would make everything irreversible. He had spent days convincing himself that letting go wasn’t an option, that maybe distancing himself was the only right thing to do. And he also remembered how much it had destroyed him to realize he would never be able to say it out loud. To put an end to something that had never really had a beginning.

Now, in the darkness of his apartment, he imagined him in bed in Ottawa. Drunk. His clothes, always neat, always impeccable, probably wrinkled. His shirt slightly lifted, just enough to glimpse those perfect abs. His face flushed. His lips damp, swollen, red. His freckles even more evident against the paleness of his skin. His eyes glassy, unfocused.

Fuck. Ilya wanted to be there.

He hated knowing that Hayden Pike was in the same apartment. That guy so blatantly heterosexual he felt like a caricature, one of those who had probably assembled an entire hockey team just with his own kids. He wanted it to be him, next to Shane. Without having to lower his voice. Without having to hide his hands. Without having to scan the room before looking at him in a different, complicit way.

He wanted what others had had. He wanted to be what Rose Landry had been to Shane. He wanted everyone to talk about them. About how perfect they were together. About how Shane was the perfect guy for Ilya. About how it was destiny. Because it was. They were fucking destiny.

They had met too young. And yet they had gone on for years. Despite the rivalry on the ice. Despite the distance. Despite every single, fucking difficulty. But it wasn’t possible. Not for two hockey players. Not in that world. Not like that. It wasn’t even possible to allow themselves two stupid weeks in a cottage, because when the end truly came, remembering would hurt too much. A clean, deep pain, without anesthesia.

It was his birthday. And once again, Ilya felt incredibly alone.

If he had been as drunk as Shane, he probably would have called him too. He would have told him everything. How fucking much he loved him. How fucking much he wanted him. How fucking meaningless his life was without him.

In the end he got up, dragging himself toward the bedroom as if his body weighed twice as much. He slipped under the covers unwillingly, with his phone on the nightstand, the screen facing up.

He fell asleep clinging to a single comforting thought: the next day, in a few hours, Shane would call him again.

He had promised him, yes?

He only hoped Shane would remember. Sober.

June 15, 2017 – Boston

The next morning, Ilya woke with a start. For a few seconds he didn’t understand where he was or what time it was; his brain lagged behind, thick and sluggish. Then a repeated sound reached his ears. The phone on the nightstand was ringing relentlessly, an insistent vibration, almost accusatory, as if scolding him for daring to sleep.

Ilya sat up, muttering something in Russian he wouldn’t have wanted to hear even from himself. He absently scratched his chest, then ran a hand through his hair, which he immediately felt: a messy bush. Well, messier than usual. His eyelids were heavy, as if he had spent the night staring at the ceiling, which, all things considered, wasn’t that far from the truth.

When the phone finally stopped ringing, Ilya grabbed it with a sigh, stretching his legs and scratching his cheek. He felt groggy. And the worst part was that he didn’t even have a good reason to be.

He hadn’t gotten drunk. He hadn’t fucked. He hadn’t gone out.

He had just spent the night worrying about Shane Hollander. And then he had fallen asleep right after talking to him, exhausted, dragged into sleep by that inner battle that seemed to have no intention of ending until there was a winner. Or a victim.

He unlocked the screen and started scrolling absently through the notifications. Mostly birthday wishes. Predictable messages, affectionate, some sincere, others perfunctory. His gaze was lazy, tired, almost bored.

Then: puff. His heart gave a sharp little jump.

One missed call. From “Jane”. Right below, in their chat, two messages.

J.
I just read your message, sorry…

J.
Wait, did we… by any chance… talk on the phone?

Shane didn’t remember a damn thing. Ilya slowly shook his head, an idiotic smile tugging at his lips without his permission. It was fond, amused, and at the same time a little sad. He typed without thinking too much.

L.
Yes.

L.
And you promised me a birthday present.

L.
Can you talk now?

The reply arrived five minutes later. Five exact minutes of waiting during which Ilya stared at the screen as if he could summon him. When he read the message, he laughed softly, immediately recognizing the panic between the lines.

J.
Did I wish you happy birthday? Yes, I can… give me five minutes.

After another five minutes, the screen lit up and the video call started.

Seeing Shane like that, his face slightly puffy, dark circles under his light eyes, his hair messy, his expression wrecked, made his chest tighten. He was beautiful. Irritatingly beautiful. Ilya felt a wave of heat crawl up his spine and, for a moment, he even forgot to breathe.

Fucking Hollander. He always had that effect on him.

“Hey…” Shane said, his voice hoarse.

“Hey…” Ilya replied, smiling without even trying to hide it.

He watched Shane adjust himself better on the bed. He was still in the Ottawa apartment. Ilya grimaced; he must still be in pain. A lot.

“Are you alone? You didn’t go back to your parents’?”

“No… yes… I mean-” Shane ran a hand over his face. “Hayden left early this morning. My parents are coming to get me in a few hours. To take me back to prison.”

Ilya burst out laughing. “Oh. Yard time is over.”

Shane glared at him. As always, he reminded him of an enraged kitten.

“How do you feel?” Ilya asked more softly.

“Like shit.”

“Headache?”

“No… I overdid it a bit last night.”

“Oh, you can say that louder, Hollander.”

Shane’s cheeks immediately turned red. Ilya grinned.

“So…” Shane hesitated. “What exactly did I say?”

“That’s a secret between me and drunk Shane.”

Shane rolled his eyes.

“Fantastic.”

“Drunk Shane also wished me happy birthday” Ilya went on. “And promised me a present.”

“What?” Shane stared at him, suspicious.

Ilya made himself more comfortable on the bed. “A striptease.”

“WHAT?!”

Ilya laughed.

“I’m kidding. But I would really love to see you with your glasses.”

Shane smiled faintly. Then he moved, too much, and winced more visibly.

“Hey, Hollander, no- wait-”

But Shane had already grabbed his glasses and put them on, looking at him with those doe eyes that got him every time.

Ilya froze. Shane Hollander with prescription glasses was… Ogo. He often wondered why it turned him on so much, but all he had to do was look at him to answer that question. Shane was stunning.

“If you’re in pain, take something” he said, forcing himself to snap out of the bliss of that sight, clearing his throat.

Shane clenched his jaw.

“No. No more painkillers. They mess with my head.”

Ilya chuckled softly.

“Okay.”

“So… yeah… even if I apparently already did” Shane said, hesitating, searching for words as if they could hurt him as much as a wrong movement of his arm. “I wanted to wish you happy birthday. I’m realizing I can’t do what I had in mind. If I even try to imagine lifting an arm, I might start screaming, so… we’ll postpone it. Until the next time we see each other…”

Ilya brought a hand to his mouth, more out of instinct than actual need. The smile spreading across his face was one of those dangerous, intimate ones, impossible to control. The kind of smile that appeared only with Shane. Only for Shane.

“Yes… next time, Hollander…” he replied softly, letting those words hang between them.

A few seconds of silence followed. It wasn’t awkward. As if they were both thinking the same thing and neither of them had the courage to say it out loud.

“So…” Shane resumed, clearing his throat slightly. “Will you go home for the summer?”

Ilya’s smile widened almost without him noticing. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it…”

Shane nodded. “Great. Perfect.”

In that instant, Ilya knew Shane wouldn’t ask him again, that the relief he saw was his certainty that he hadn’t let any invitation slip by. He had made it, twice, and Ilya was pleased and amused by it, but he didn’t tease him about it. Because everything was still too complicated.

“Will you watch the final with your parents?” Ilya asked, grasping for something neutral.

“Yes.” Shane smiled. “You?”

“With some friends, yeah…”

“Okay…”

The awkwardness returned, light but persistent. Ilya broke it on impulse.

“Come closer to the screen.”

Shane raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Come closer to the screen.”

“Why?”

“Just do it” Ilya said with a half-smile. “It’s my birthday.”

Shane snorted, amused, but obeyed. He leaned closer to the screen and Ilya lost himself in the sight of those freckles, so familiar they made his chest tighten. He felt his face relax, soften into an expression he never showed anyone else. Shane noticed. And he stayed there, watching him in silence, as if he didn’t want to interrupt that… intimate moment.

“Perfect…” Ilya murmured. “Thank you, Shane.”

“You’re welcome… I guess… Happy birthday, Ilya!”

They ended the video call shortly after.

Ilya was left alone, sitting in the silence of the room. His convictions hadn’t changed from the night before. Some of them, however, were starting to crack. Others had grown stronger, harder to ignore.

He thought he would need a miracle. Just one. To be able to delude himself into thinking that this thing with Shane Hollander could make sense.

He couldn’t help but notice that this would be his first birthday without his father. While fifteen had passed without his mother. Probably the first year in which Alexei wouldn’t call him under the pretext of birthday wishes to ask him for money.

But Shane was there.

Shane had been there for almost ten years. And this… this was the first one in which he had received his wishes.

Ilya only prayed it wouldn’t be the last.