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The problem began one evening on an off day, in a karaoke lounge in New York City. Shane didn’t even want to call it a problem, it was all so stupid; it was Ilya’s turn to sing, and so he’d taken the control pad at the center of the private room, eyeing all his other teammates with a bit of glee and a challenge.
“So, what do we think I’m going to sing?” Ilya asked the crowd, as he began typing the code for the next song.
Shane opened his mouth, prepared to say something until he realized he didn’t know the answer. It dawned on him that this was his first time at karaoke with Ilya to begin with, while the others began looking to him, for guidance.
“It’s gotta be Kendrick,” Bood chimed in.
Ilya shook his head. “I cannot disrespect K-Dot like that,” he corrected, voice amplified into the mic. “Ah, well, but maybe DNA would be fun. But still, wrong.”
“Sweet Caroline?” Wyatt guessed next. “Bah-bah-bum?” he sang-sung, already a bit loose from the beer.
“You know I only sing that in Boston.”
“Ra-Ra-Rasputin?” Dykstra suggested.
Ilya’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, just because I am Russian?” And then, with a shrug: “maybe when I am more drunk.”
Only Troy Barrett came forward, shooting up an arm like this was going to count for class participation. “Oh, shit!” he shouted, and Ilya smiled like he knew what answer was coming next. “Torn! By Natasha…Nadine…”
“Natalie Imbruglia!” Ilya completed for him, “but close enough!”
He then gave Troy a high five and a one-armed hug, which Shane noted this with a bit of passing irritation: not at the contact itself but the fact that Shane had not won, much less, competed for the prize.
Shane sat back on the leather plush of the seat, suddenly too aware of his own body, the drink in his hand, and how he had no song in mind aside from the national anthem. And he knew he wouldn’t be ridiculed for the lack of go-to songs, so far his new team had been nothing but kind (even about his lack of sonic preferences), but it bothered him, maybe more than a little, that Troy knew Ilya’s so easily. Shane knew, vaguely, what Ilya liked to listen to while he was cooking, while on the treadmill, and—when the mood struck—while they were having sex, but karaoke was a whole other matter entirely. This was the song that Ilya chose to sing for himself, chose to laugh and get all pink-faced about, in front of everyone, and Shane hadn’t a single clue about any of it.
And Shane was besotted of course, especially watching now, but he couldn’t help but feel like an outsider to this specific Ilya: he was perfect with the lyrics without looking at the screen, and straight faced and off-key but passionate in his delivery. He sang to everyone in the room under these pink and blue lights, everyone except Shane, who didn’t want the attention on himself anyway.
“Come on now, Rozy!” Bood shook his tambourine. “Not going to serenade your own husband?”
All eyes in the room went to Shane, who nearly spit out his drink. Ilya looked at him from over his shoulder during the instrumental break, eyes crinkling in a smile.
“Ah, no,” Ilya said back into the mic. “Torn is sad song, about a terrible relationship that ends badly. I cannot sing that to Shane.”
“So you’re going to sing that to us instead?” Wyatt asked.
“That’s a creative way to say you’re getting traded,” said Troy.
“Yes, yes, goodbye forever,” Ilya announced, rolling his eyes. “Also, I have decided.”
“Decided what?”
“Love songs are better at the end anyway. I will sing to Shane then.”
There were a series of wolf calls, the ow ow ows, and Shane felt like dunking his head in a pitcher of beer.
On instinct, Ilya went for Shane’s hand without looking back at him, which Shane held right back if only to confirm the familiar warmth of his palm. He even half-hoped that Ilya would be too drunk at the end of their time at the lounge, so that those love songs of his would stay a secret, even if Shane wouldn’t get to know them too.
But for now, Torn. Shane let the others receive Ilya’s heartbreak, while he could only observe this love and all its new domains.
It wasn’t completely about the karaoke songs, because these things never really were. The fact of the matter was that there were things Shane didn’t know about Ilya, which couldn’t be helped; they’d only started living together full-time recently, after all, after years of playing on separate teams, which is to say their love was like a thick outline, already so robust, but still ready to be further filled in. Shane had enjoyed discovering new things about Ilya now that they weren’t just living on overlapping schedules, like how he slept-talk in Russian (but only while napping), or how his curls dried in new shapes when he laid on them still wet. And maybe Shane had known about these things already, at least in the periphery, but it was nice to really cement this airiness into something more solid.
One morning in Columbus, Troy threw Ilya a green apple from a bowl of fruit at the breakfast bar. It was an exchange that barely lasted five seconds, a sleepy Ilya forgetting that he wanted one alongside his waffles, so he had called out into the ether, for either Shane or Troy or anyone to toss him one. Shane was about to pick Ilya the red kind, when it dawned on him that he didn’t know what kind of apple Ilya even preferred; in truth, he couldn’t even tell you his mother’s preference of apple, but it bothered him that Troy then asked Ilya, “you like green, right?” like he knew. And it turned out, he did know, because Ilya had nodded upon catching the apple, thanking him with little more than a grunt and a nod of the head.
“How did you know he liked green?” Shane asked, as he filed this away in his usual Facts About Ilya folder.
Troy shrugged. “You know how it goes. Happens when you’re on the road a lot. Anytime someone tried to hand him a red one, he’d be all, ew, red delicious. More like red disgusting.”
“Oh, okay,” Shane said, forcing a smile if only to tamp down his irritation. Troy didn’t say anything after that, and only lit up again once he saw Harris approaching, coming down to have breakfast.
It wasn’t like Shane disliked Troy or anything. He was practical in the way Shane was practical, and worked hard in the way Shane did, too. They both liked grilled salmon, and conversed, more than once, about the best brand for compression socks. In a way, they were cut from a similar enough cloth, especially now that Troy had let his reputation from Toronto fall away; Troy was a respectable teammate, a perfectly agreeable friend for Ilya, and certainly not a threat.
In the end, Shane felt it wasn’t jealousy, or not in some killing way, at least. By now he knew he had Ilya by the soul. It was just annoying that Troy may have had some context surrounding Ilya that Shane didn’t, as if some crack in his knowledge could amount to a gulf he hadn’t crossed yet.
Shane sat down next to Ilya at a four-seater table just for the two of them. They’d been annoying like that lately, preferring not to sit across from each other so Ilya could hold Shane’s hand more easily, or have their legs press against each other. Shane flushed even when their knees knocked, because there was a constant thrill in being newlyweds; every touch felt especially like innuendo, and it was almost enough for him to forget his annoyance.
The key word being almost. Shane could feel Ilya studying him, even though he was trying to focus on his boiled eggs.
“You are bothered about something,” Ilya said, as he just had to skim his teeth on the green apple.
“No?” Shane said. “What makes you think that?”
Ilya stared pointedly at this before tracing his gaze up, pressing a thumb to the space between Shane’s eyebrows.
“It is too early in the morning to frown so much.”
“I just haven’t had my coffee yet,” which was a lie considering Shane had already finished half of it.
Ilya looked straight into the barrel of Shane’s cup, his blinks slow and teasing, as to acknowledge that he was fully aware of any misdirection.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong!” Shane insisted, though he couldn’t resist watching how Ilya still held that green apple in his hands, hovering around biting it.
Shane took the liberty of apprehending said apple, placing it on a spread out napkin. He took out his annoyance on the skin, cutting into it with a measly plastic knife that’d somehow held up against the hardness.
“I can eat the apple whole,” Ilya said.
“You could, but you just had dental work done,” Shane said, because Ilya had needed an incisor replaced recently, after a particularly bad socking to the jaw. Mostly though, Shane did it in some half attempt at distraction, and half because it felt good, bottom line, to care for Ilya. It calmed him enough to make one clean slice, and then another, as if Shane could sharpen a blade solely out of his own earnest, loving effort.
He stuck the knife into a slice like this, holding it up for Ilya to eat. This seemed to deflate Ilya into relaxing, but only just enough that he could still study Shane with a bit of a stare. Still, he seemed to let it go for now; Ilya leaned over, though he was never too far to begin with, and took a long, luxurious bite.
“I do like it when you feed me,” Ilya said.
“I know,” Shane said, with a small pride the size of a beating heart.
On an off-day in Seattle, Shane and Ilya found themselves wandering about in the city, on a double date with Troy and Harris. It was a somewhat muted affair; Ilya’s knee was acting up for the past few days, and they had lost the past two games, so everyone was content to cling to their smoothies and window shop.
“I have an idea,” Troy suddenly said, out of nowhere. He stopped dead on the sidewalk.
“For what?” Ilya asked.
“To put an end to this bad losing streak.”
“Two games is not a bad losing streak,” Harris said, patting his shoulder with some reassurance.
“We are so spoiled now,” Ilya said, skimming Shane’s arm with a pinky, “that losing feels worse than it is.”
Shane reddened, doing his best not to die at the contact. “I don’t know,” he tried. “I’d like to hear Troy’s idea.”
“Thank you,” Troy said, with some sudden determination, like he was about to go and shake Shane’s hand for agreeing with him. “Well, anyway,” he turned to Ilya. “Do you remember the troll?”
“What troll?” Ilya blinked. “The internet kind? I got into a fight with one this morning,” he said, turning to a now-worried Harris. “On secret burner, of course.”
Shane rolled his eyes.
“No. Don’t you remember? The troll,” Troy said with the some gravity, which made Shane regret his endorsement altogether.
With a sudden recollection, Ilya nodded and said, “Ah! Yes, the troll! The one we visited last time, yes?”
“He was very kind, all-knowing,” Troy said.
Ilya grinned. “Solved all my problems that day.”
“He’s a great listener.”
“Doesn’t judge.”
Shane grimaced, lost at the conversation. Troy explained, briefly, about the Fremont Troll, a mixed media statue that made its home underneath a bridge of some sorts. Shane and Harris exchanged looks, but Harris only seemed to be amused by the whole thing, gasping when he said remembered seeing it in a scene from 10 Things I Hate About You, which Shane had never seen before.
Shane felt himself marooned with the feeling again. Of course it was fine that Ilya and Troy hung out alone, but it had amounted to a memory worth remembering, even if Ilya had to claw it back from some edge of forgetting, and Shane suddenly wished he could share in it.
“Let’s go,” Shane found himself saying, as if possessed, because selfishly he wanted Ilya to imagine him at this strange local attraction too, as if he could wedge himself into the remembrance and become the center of it. He even took Ilya by the hand, though he was still somewhat skittish about PDA, and pulled him lightly up the sidewalk though he had no idea where to find this troll. Despite himself, he even found himself glancing back at Harris, and then Troy, maybe lingering a little too long on the latter, if only to gauge if Troy had anything else to say about those potential other things Shane didn’t know about Ilya.
But Troy was already fixated on Harris, seemingly fascinated with his earlobe, and unbothered with anything else about the troll, or their two lost games. Ilya sipped at his smoothie, blinking and watchful towards his husband, before he looked down at his phone, rapidly typing something. This all made Shane feel stranded on the side of his own agitated road; he wanted nothing more than to not feel this way anymore, so he thought about hitching a ride on any kind of distraction at this point, even it wouldn’t get him anywhere in the end; and so he looked up directions to the troll, deciding that a ride share would be the best way to get there. And he could’ve called a bigger van for the four of them, sure, but then he let his finger slip for a smaller sedan and said, “oh, shit, sorry. It might be a tight ride.”
Troy didn’t seem all that fazed anyway, while Harris seemed distracted with his own phone, probably something social media-related.
“Actually,” Harris said, still lingering close to Troy, who was all but nuzzled in his neck at this point, “Troy and I are thinking of going back to the hotel for a little. Hon, isn’t your um…knee is acting up?”
Troy blinked. “Oh. Yeah. It’s a bit little sore, actually.”
“Right,” Ilya said, letting his eyebrows dance. “Maybe get that checked out, then. Shane and I can go alone.”
The ride share arrived, and Ilya and Shane were left alone on the curb. He realized the license plate didn’t match the car he’d called, which was still six minutes away from arriving, and went to apologize to the driver.
“Ah, no,” Ilya cut in. “This one is mine,” he clarified, holding up his phone for confirmation. He then took Shane by the plushest part of the palm, leading him towards the backseat.
“What the hell? I called one already.”
“Well, cancel it,” Ilya said. “I’m taking you somewhere else.”
The car dropped them off on a residential street that had nothing of note. Shane thought that maybe Ilya had made a mistake with the address, or that this was intentional; by the way Ilya was holding Shane’s hand, massaging it with his thumb, they both knew how frenzied Shane was feeling, and that maybe an aimless walk in the middle of nowhere would do him good. He expected this as much as the sky approached dusk, so Shane settled into the cool air and periwinkle all around them, letting Ilya take him wherever he wanted.
Ilya stopped particularly in front of one of the houses, where he then led Shane down what looked like a driveway of sorts.
“Wait, what the fuck?” Shane whispered, practically in a hiss. “We’re on someone’s private property.”
“We’re all good,” Ilya reassured him. “Ex-teammate’s house. I came here once, for party, and he’s away now.”
“Okay, but why are we here?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
Past the line of suburban nondescriptness, came a small shoreline of whittled rock and the lapping waves ahead. Ilya sat down first, patting Shane to join him. He rolled his eyes when Shane remarked on the getting his jeans dirty, but ultimately smiled anyway; they both knew who they married, no matter the mood, and it didn’t matter what detours they were going to take.
“Want to know something?” Ilya began.
“Hm?” Shane was beginning to settle into something resembling peace, even if it felt more like a comedown from his own anxiety. “What?”
“Seattle has lots of secret beaches. One-hundred something, or whatever the fuck. They are mostly public, which is good, but people don’t always know about them. I mean, how could you? There is just so much land.”
Ilya looked all around them: at the sky, at the anxious rippling lake; at the bare space between them, just an iota of a chasm. “But then you have these kinds, too, that aren’t listed anywhere. No maps.”
Shane lifted his eyes to find Ilya’s right on him, knowing, pointed.
“I do not always go with Torn,” Ilya said. “Barrett just got lucky that night, at karaoke. I know so many songs, yes? And I sing them all very well, top score every time.”
At this, Shane relinquished a small laugh.
“And green apples. They are just what I might like right now, but what do they say about taste buds?” He stuck his tongue out for a moment, like a child, leaning in like he was about lick Shane on the cheek. “They die, and then they come back, and then you might like something else tomorrow. Maybe next time, I will want a red one.”
“All right,” Shane said, closing his eyes and inhaling. “I get what you’re saying.”
“No, listen,” Ilya continued anyway, and Shane did as he was told. “And the troll—do not think it was something, like—shit, what’s the word again?” He searched for a moment. “Sacred. It wasn’t. Barrett and I just make fun of it, because we went once and said, oh, is that it? But we prayed to the fucker anyway.”
“Yeah? And what did you pray for?” Shane asked, surrendering fully to the lull of Ilya’s voice.
“Nothing. Everything,” Ilya said, deadpan. “Mostly things in Russian, some in English. Another cup. A nice vacation somewhere after. Good days, more than bad. You.”
“Me?” Shane bumped shoulders with Ilya and lingered this way, suddenly finding any distance unbearable. “You have me.”
“Yeah, but you were still in Montreal at the time.”
“Oh.”
“But, you know…I think the wish came true.”
“How?” Shane asked, now a soft humoring more than anything else.
Ilya tucked his face partially in the mask of his shoulder, leaving nothing but the tender coordinates of his gaze, always on Shane. Even after all these years, with thousands of looks shared between them, Shane always knew how to meet him; that this was some zone no one else had ever breached, and ever would.
“Because I get to take you here, to where no one else knows.”
At this, Shane stilled completely, drinking in some moment that would become a memory. He felt it all around them: the screeching gulls; the salt in the wind; a sky that didn’t know if it wanted the warmth of the sun or the lunar cool of night; it was all beautiful, Shane decided, and not the territory of a dream, but the reality that this was all his, theirs. It belonged to him as much as it belonged to Ilya, and no one else could lay claim to it.
“And what should we call this place?” Shane asked. “If it’s just between us?”
Ilya grinned, shrugging into it. They leaned in for a kiss, unhurried and christening, like that could be a name in itself.