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In Shane Hollander’s heart, there was the cottage tucked away, filling in all four chambers of it. It nestled there tight as he got on flights from country to country, from state to state. He kept it safely there especially on the days and nights when the one he loved most in the world wasn’t there by his side. These days, he isn’t wound quite as tightly as he used to be (but the tightness never does leave him), and this lightness is something that is entirely new to him. The feelings he has are still a secret to keep, but it’s not just his to hold so closely to himself any more. Was it a perfect situation? Far from it, but it was working. This wild, seemingly hopeless moonshot plan was actually working.
Shane looked at the man sleeping next to him in their bed.
And that was something that had sneaked up on them throughout the years. At some point the mys had become ours, an us after years of just yous and Is. This was their bed, their cottage, their life, as far as Shane was concerned. Things were still difficult—Shane wished all the time that he could somehow fuse Ilya to his side, mould the both of their bodies into a singular entity, take him with him wherever he went. Sure, they were now only a couple of hours away from each other, but it was still a couple of hours too far. In the safe haven of the cottage, Shane’s thoughts veered into reckless territory. Would it be so bad to come out? If it meant that they could have what they had in the cottage everywhere? But no. There was a plan to follow.
The early morning sun peeked through the green of the trees, the filtered light illuminating the gold of Ilya’s hair. Shane was usually out of bed at this hour, tugging on his sneakers to go for his usual morning run, but he allowed himself to stay in bed today. Ilya’s arm was flung across him, keeping him firmly in place. He lightly brushed the end of a stray golden curl with the tip of his finger, taking care not to make too much movement, lest he wake Ilya up. He counted all the moles he could see—the one on Ilya’s cheek he loved to kiss, the ones by his ear, down the side of his neck, on his arm. On one lazy cottage afternoon, Shane had made it his mission to kiss all of Ilya’s moles. He loved the constellations on the expanse of his back, but his favourite one to discover was the one on his inner thigh.
Ilya was an objectively beautiful man, and Shane took pleasure in the fact that there were things only he knew about him. The unguarded expression of his sleeping face, the softness of the curls at the nape of his neck, the rhythmic rise and fall of his toned chest. All of it, all of him was Shane’s and Shane’s alone. God, how he loved every inch of this beautiful man, even that ridiculous loon tattoo on the apple of his shoulder. Sometimes, he was so full of love for Ilya he didn’t know what to do with all of it. He was convinced that their souls were intertwined together, so knitted together that it was one and the same. His heart beat in the same time as Ilya’s, their lungs filled with the same air.
It was so easy to get lost in the comfort the cottage provided. This was safe, this was home. Sure, Shane’s apartment in Montreal and Ilya’s place in Ottawa was shared space, but the cottage was wholly theirs. Shane was the one who purchased it, that much was true, but Ilya transformed the place into something warm and soft and theirs. From that first precarious summer, the moment Ilya stepped foot in the cottage, Shane knew that it was no longer just his. It was as if there was something not quite finished about the place, and Ilya was that final, missing puzzle piece. Everything had fallen into place so easily after that; the slow mornings, the easy domesticity, the wild, lusty nights, the I-love-yous, the two hearts beating in sync, the hands never letting each other go.
Summer was Shane’s favourite season, to say the absolute least.
He traced a fingertip lightly down the curve of Ilya’s jaw, down the vein of his bicep, down the bones of his forearm, the light-coloured hairs there soft under his touch. He’d keep them here forever if he could, freeze the moment in an endless summer. He’d stop the world on its axis, stop the planet in its orbit, stop the galaxy in its slow spinning if it meant that Ilya would never leave this bed, this moment. What he felt for Ilya—it was too big, too all-consuming to put into words. Because how could you put into words the feeling he got when Ilya was kissing him? When Ilya sat beside him, hand on his, waiting for his anxiety attack to pass? When there were ginger ales always stocked in Ilya’s fridge? When Ilya texted him photos of puzzles he’d completed with Shane’s father and inside jokes he shared with Shane's mother about his hockey? When Ilya smiled his genuine smile—the one that crinkled his sparkling blue eyes and made his mouth stretch from ear to ear?
The answer is you couldn’t. For all the times he told Ilya he loved him, it never felt like it was enough. Those three words barely covered the surface of the depth of emotion Shane felt for him. It was terrifying, sometimes, the Grand Canyon-sized love he had for him. But it was nothing less than what Ilya deserved. He deserved gentle hands and warm kisses after all his years of grey thunderstorms and raised hackles. God, how Shane loved him.
“You’re staring at me,” Ilya’s raspy voice sounded from between the pillows.
“I’m allowed to,” Shane replied, smiling softly at him.
Ilya creaked his sleepy eyes open, mouth curving into a lazy grin. “Mm, boyfriend privileges.”
That word—boyfriend— still sent a jolt of electricity down Shane’s spine. He pressed a kiss to Ilya’s forehead, tangling his fingers in his curls. They remained there, not making any moves to get up, holding each other, breathing the same air. This was something they could do only in the cottage—the late mornings. The regular season consisted of team meetings, endless practice, meetings with sponsors, photoshoots for said sponsors, endlessly on the go, go, go. Here, they could relax, take a breath, lower their inhibitions, let their heart rates return to normal.
There was another reason Shane’s heart jolted at the word. In an empty tub of organic protein powder—the kind that Ilya wouldn’t touch even if it was the last bit of food on earth—tucked in the very back of his kitchen cupboard back in Montreal, was a small black velvet box. A thrill flared in his heart at the thought of it. Shane had known he and Ilya were it for a very long time now, but this was something that was entirely new. And naturally, given his usual anxious disposition, he was nervous about it.
It wasn’t that he was afraid Ilya would say no—much the opposite, actually. But this was a major step. They’d talked about marriage before, but it was always a ‘one day’ thing. One day, when they’d both retired. One day, when Shane was brave enough to tell the whole world about his all-consuming love. One day, when the world wouldn’t give them shit for what they were. Shane pressed another kiss to Ilya’s forehead. There were so many things in the world he constantly overthought and had anxiety over; Ilya’s love was never one of them. The man was an anchor, a welcoming harbour, an abundant oasis in all the confusion of the world.
“What do you feel like doing today?” Shane murmured into his hair. He smelled like the expensive shampoo and conditioner Shane had gotten him after disgustedly throwing away his 3-in-1 monstrosity.
“Nothing. Just stay in bed the whole day,” Ilya said into his neck.
“You wouldn’t get bored?”
“I can think of a few things we can do to pass the time.” A mischievous glint lit up his eyes as he lifted his head up to look at Shane.
“Oh yeah?” Shane could feel the corners of his eyes crinkling as Ilya rolled himself on top of him.
“Mm, yes.”
Ilya kissed him slowly and lazily as first, hands on either side of Shane’s face. Shane melted into him, as he always did, turning into malleable putty under Ilya’s strong, sure hands. Even after all these years, the sex still managed to make his eyes roll back, his back arch up, his toes curl into the mattress. He still got embarrassingly wet not even a few seconds of Ilya touching him. His moans were still embarrassingly loud as Ilya kissed the spot on his neck right there, kissed his chest, bit the insides of his thighs. His pleas were still embarrassingly needy as Ilya teased him with his fingers, with his mouth, with his tongue. And he still came embarrassingly fast after Ilya pounded into him a few times.
This morning, they took the time they almost never had. Ilya’s face was red, eyes clouded with lust as he thrust at a lazy pace into Shane. Shane’s fingers threaded through his curls (his favourite thing to touch in the world) as he threw his head back. He looked into Ilya’s drunken eyes (knowing his own were probably as gone as his were), traced a thumb from his temple, to that beautiful mole on his cheek, to his plump, parted lips. This beautiful man was his, all his, forever his. Shane brought their lips together, and Ilya readily caught his bottom lip with his teeth. They came together in a haze of pleasure and sweat.
They lay there in the bed together, limbs tangled, racing heartbeats slowly calming down, sweat cooling on their foreheads. The cottage was an oasis, and this bed was a raft buoying them through choppy waters. Shane allowed himself a few more seconds of laying there before giving in to the inevitable feeling of grossness that crept up on him after the haze of pleasure cleared from his mind. Ilya groaned into Shane’s side as Shane broke away from their warm embrace. His blue puppy dog eyes were so full of want it made Shane almost hesitate to get out of bed. But get out of bed he did, much to Ilya’s chagrin.
“Join me in the bathroom,” Shane whispered into Ilya’s hair.
“Whatever you want, moya lyubov.”
If you'd asked a younger Shane where he saw himself in the future, it would’ve been a very easy, automatic answer: playing hockey and leading the Voyageurs to more Stanley Cups. Love was never part of the equation. He never really gave much thought to love and marriage and all that kind of stuff. It was always something he viewed with a sort of detached disinterest. It was something he thought might happen to him at some point, but the thought had never given him any of that warmth or comfort it was supposed to provide. Now, he knew that it was the idea of marriage to a woman that made him squirm.
But Ilya—Ilya was a whole different story altogether.
They’d known each other for well over a decade at this point, loved each other for a little less than half of those years (or really, probably the whole time, if he was being honest with himself), and Shane could not imagine what a life without him would be like. In daydreams, when he allowed his thoughts to stray away from hockey, Shane sometimes thought about what it would’ve been like if they weren’t professional athletes and if they had normal, regular lives. Would the love have bloomed much quicker in less hostile ground? Would they have a tiny apartment somewhere full of Ikea furniture they built together? Would they go on regular dates, holding hands while walking down the street? This thing they had—this deep, deep love was the most solid, sure thing Shane had in his life, it’s everything else that filled him with crippling anxiety.
Hockey was everything, everything to Shane. It was the only thing he knew how to do. It was the only thing he ever wanted to do. As a child, he’d feel so antsy sitting at his desk in school, his physical body in class, but his mind always on the ice of the rink. For as long as Shane could remember, hockey was the main priority, the beating heart at the centre of everything. Everything he’d done, he’d done in the pursuit of hockey. The books he read, the macrobiotic diet, the sponsorships, the false smiles and stiff handshakes with important white men, and now, the hiding. If there was a way Shane could have both hockey and Ilya the way he wanted them both, he’d take it in a second. But as things stood, he just didn’t see a way he could have both without everything changing drastically.
Don’t get him wrong, Shane loved his Voyageurs; they were his brothers, his family. You don’t become a great team without that sort of trust and chemistry with each other. You don’t win Cups with a team that didn't gel with each other. Which was exactly why coming out with Ilya would inexplicably change everything. Already, he could feel some of his teammates bristling at the fact that he was gay. Coming out with Ilya would completely change the dynamic of the team. Shane would do anything for Ilya, but he also wanted to keep hockey for as long as he possibly could too. He’d given his youth, his body, all his waking hours to this team. He didn’t want to jeopardise everything just yet.
But the summers always weakened his resolve.
As he watched droplets of water glisten in Ilya’s beautiful golden curls, he could feel something unclench in his chest. The anxiety that was his constant companion had this way of melting whenever Ilya was around. Even more so when they were together here in their cottage, their own private oasis. The brief snatches they had with each other during the season were never enough (Shane didn’t think that anything below fusing himself to Ilya could sate the bottomless need he had for him), and being in the cottage was the closest thing Shane had to achieving that impossible balance between his two great loves—hockey and Ilya.
So, for now at least, it was enough for Shane to kiss his beautiful man on his temple, on his cheek, on his lips, on his neck, and to whisper I love you, I love you, I love you into his skin until the words sunk deep down into Ilya’s soul.