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Valentine’s Day in Shane’s team is a big deal. The WAG’s send presents to the dressing room, flirty texts are received, and his team mates grin at their phones in between practices.
Shane feigns disinterest. He’s never had anything delivered. Hayden asked him quietly if he was seeing Lily on Valentines Day, but Shane pretended not to hear.
He tells himself it’s easier this way, no expectations means no disappointment.
Still, he can’t help noticing how careful some of the guys are with their presents, how they smooth tissue paper and tuck cards back into envelopes gently, like something precious.
Shane hates the word sweetheart. Waitresses say it when they don’t remember his name. Sponsors say it when they want you to be agreeable. And on Valentine’s Day, the word multiplies.
Sweetheart specials. Sweetheart promotions. Sentiments printed across menus and advertisements like a warning.
He once dated someone who called him sweet, as if it were a flaw.
“You’re such a sweetheart, Shane,” she sighed, already halfway out the door before their relationship had inevitably fizzled out.
He didn’t care about breaking-up, but he did care about the implication. Sweetheart meant soft, harmless and in his experience, insignificant.
He has done the required dinners, given the expected roses, smiled for selfies, his arm slung around the woman he had been dating.
He's sat across the table from women on dates and wondered why none of it landed. Shane knew he was good at the choreography, and he even has a bit of game if he got along with the woman. He pays the bill, drives them home, and always accepts a kiss at the door.
Afterward, he would stand alone in his apartment kitchen, feeling…. absence.
Like something essential that had never been installed. Would it always feel this way?
Red - the colour of passion, lust, romance. Also danger, aggression and error. And in February, it’s everywhere. Red jerseys. Red lipstick on glasses. Red roses lining restaurant windows.
He schedules extra ice time if he can. Anything to avoid being out in a world what is made for co-habitation.
He tells himself Valentines is purely marketing, and he’s above it. But sometimes, he scrolls the social media of his team mates and feels a pang of loneliness.
He doesn’t envy the gifts, he envies the certainty. Of having a person.
Valentine’s Day is noise. He pretends he prefers the quiet.
This year, they’re together.
Shane opens the hotel door.
The lamps are low, and the small table is laid for two, silver crockery covering a meal. There’s music humming softly, and, a sight he knew he would never get used to seeing, his boyfriend, standing near the window in a white shirt, sleeves rolled, collar open.
“You thought I forget?” Ilya smirks.
Shane shakes his head. “No. You didn’t have to do this,” he said shyly.
Ilya steps closer. Close enough that Shane feels his body respond.
“But I wanted to.”
Shane can’t do anything except lean into the feeling.
Shane rolls his eyes. “You’re impossible,” as Ilya watches him open the box of heart-shaped chocolates.
“Yes.” Ilya agrees. He selects one chocolate, and presses one to Shane’s mouth. “Open.”
Shane does as he is asked. The chocolate melts sweetly on his tongue.
Ilya’s thumb catches at his lip, slow, deliberate.
“You hide from this day,” Ilya says quietly. “Why?”
Shane shrugs. “No reason.”
Ilya’s gaze sharpens. “Do not lie to me, cолнышко.”
“I just—” Shane stops. Swallows. “I’ve never had a proper Valentine before.”
Ilya goes very still.
“Never?”
Shane nods.
Something dark and protective flickers behind Ilya’s eyes.
The gift is small. Ilya fastens it himself with steady fingers, his knuckles gently grazing Shane’s throat. The slim gold chain rests warm against his skin. A tiny compass hung from the chain.
“You wear this. It will bring you back to me.” Ilya says softly. “You look pretty.”
Shane’s breath catches. “Okay. Thank you, Ilya.”
Ilya tilts his chin up gently with two fingers.
“You think no-one chooses you?” he asks, voice low.
Shane looks away. He has never said that aloud, but Ilya knows.
Ilya pulls Shane close.
“I choose you,” he says. “Every time.”
Shane’s heart aches.
The champagne sits untouched, pale pink in the low light.
“I have had people. I have been in relationships,” Ilya continues. “But never like this. Never where it feels…” He searches. “Inevitable.”
He kisses Shane, softly, so gently.
“I have never loved like this before,” he says simply.
The pink glow softens everything.
“Me either,” Shane murmurs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ilya rests his forehead against his, looking deeply into Shane’s eyes.
“You are not the only one learning,” he murmurs.
Ilya leans in and kisses him again, and Shane forgets what its like to not be loved.
Snow taps against the window. Heat lingers in sheets twisted around their legs.
Shane lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“This is my first one,” he says into the dark.
Ilya lifts onto an elbow. “First what?”
“Valentine’s. Like this.”
“You never told me,” Ilya says softly.
Shane exhales. “I didn’t want you to think I was… weird.”
Ilya’s expression changes, from a soft look to something fierce.
He presses his forehead to Shane’s.
“You are not weird,” he says carefully. “You are mine.”
The word lands deep in Shane’s heart, as he replies,
“And you are mine.”