Between Floors

 Draft Night, June 2009 | Los Angeles

Shane

The gym had been a mistake.

Shane knew it the second he stepped into the elevator and Rozanov stepped in behind him. Too close. The car was small and mirrored on three sides, and Shane could see him everywhere he looked. The doors closed and the air went thick with the smell of them. Two bodies' worth of sweat in a sealed metal box. Shane breathed through his mouth.

He hit the button for the fourteenth floor. His hand was steady. That was good.

"What floor," he said. Not a question. More like a chore.

"Sixteen."

Shane didn't look at him. He watched the numbers climb above the door. His throat was dry. His shirt was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his chest and stomach. In the mirror to his right, he could see Rozanov's reflection. The damp collar of his shirt. The vein in his neck. The way his chest was still moving from the workout, each breath pulling the fabric tight and releasing it.

Shane watched the numbers.

He could still feel the burn in his quads from the exercise bike. Side by side. Matching cadence. Rozanov pushing the resistance higher and Shane refusing to quit.

They'd both crawled off the bikes at the same time. Collapsed on the gym floor, flat on their backs, breathing like they'd played triple overtime. Shane had turned his head. Rozanov was already looking at him. His shirt had ridden up. A strip of stomach visible above his waistband. Shane had looked at it for exactly one second before looking away.

Then Rozanov had sat up. Taken a long drink from his own water bottle. His throat working with each swallow. Staring at Shane the whole time. And held it out.

Shane had taken it. Their fingers had touched on the plastic.

Shane swallowed.

The elevator lurched.

It wasn't dramatic. Not like in movies, where the lights cut and people scream and grab for the railing. It was just a stutter. A mechanical hiccup. The floor number above the door flickered between 11 and 12 and then went dark.

The car stopped.

Shane waited. Five seconds. Ten. He pressed the button for fourteen again. Nothing happened.

"Great," he said.

Rozanov was leaning against the back wall, arms crossed. He looked down at the panel, then up at Shane, and the corner of his mouth did something Shane chose to ignore.

"Is stuck," Rozanov said.

"Yeah, I got that."

Shane pressed the emergency call button. A tinny speaker crackled to life somewhere inside the panel, hummed for three seconds, then went silent. He pressed it again. Same thing. Static, then nothing.

"Hello?" Shane said into the speaker grille. "We're stuck between eleven and twelve. Can anyone hear us?"

Nothing.

He pressed it a third time. Held it down. The speaker didn't even crackle this time.

"Is broken," Rozanov said, with the calm authority of someone announcing the weather.

"I can see that." Shane patted his shorts. No pockets. No phone. He'd left it in his room. He'd only planned on twenty minutes in the gym. He hadn't wanted to deal with texts from his agent or his parents or the fourteen reporters who'd somehow gotten his number.

He turned around. "Do you have your phone?"

Rozanov shook his head. "Left in room."

Of course. Of course they were both phoneless in a broken elevator in a Los Angeles hotel at two-fifteen in the morning. Shane pressed the call button one more time, then stepped back.

"Someone will notice," he said. "The system will flag it."

Rozanov said nothing. He uncrossed his arms and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, long legs bent in front of him. His shorts rode up on his thighs. His calves were slick with sweat. He looked comfortable. He looked like this was fine. Like being trapped in a six-by-six box with his biggest rival was just another Tuesday.

Shane stayed standing.

Ilya

He was not as calm as he looked.

The elevator was too warm and Hollander was too close. The air smelled like salt and exertion. Like a locker room after a game, except smaller. More concentrated. Ilya could still feel the adrenaline from the gym humming under his skin. Forty-five minutes on side-by-side exercise bikes, and neither of them had said a word. Just the whir of the flywheel and the click of the resistance dial and their breathing getting ragged at the same time.

They'd both given out at once. Crawled off the bikes and collapsed on the gym floor. The rubber mat was cool against Ilya's back through his soaked shirt. Flat on their backs. Panting. The ceiling fan ticking above them. Ilya had turned his head and found Hollander already staring at him. Wide brown eyes. Lips parted. Face flushed. A bead of sweat running down his temple into his hair. His shirt had ridden up on one side. Hip bone visible. Ilya's gaze had caught on it and stayed.

Ilya had sat up. Taken a long drink from his water bottle without breaking eye contact. Let Hollander watch his throat work. Then held it out.

Hollander had taken it. Their fingers had touched on the plastic. Hollander had frozen. Like that brief contact was something obscene instead of just a hand brushing a hand.

It had been very satisfying.

Now Hollander was standing in the middle of the elevator, feet apart, jaw tight. He was staring at the number panel like he could will it back to life. His hair was damp and pushed back from his forehead. His T-shirt was dark with sweat across the chest and under the arms. It clung to his shoulders. To the flat plane of his stomach. Hollander was lean but solid. Built like a player who would last twenty seasons if he wanted to.

Ilya looked at the ceiling instead. The ceiling was safer.

"You can sit," he said. "Will be a while maybe."

"I'm fine."

"Okay." Ilya stretched his legs out. His sneaker almost touched Hollander's foot. He didn't move it.

The silence was heavy. Not the same silence as the gym. That silence had been a contest, like everything else between them. This was just two people trapped in a box with nothing to say to each other.

Or too much to say. Ilya wasn't sure which.

"Big day," he said.

Hollander looked at him. "What?"

"Big day. The draft."

"I know what today was."

Ilya tilted his head. "You are always this friendly?"

"I'm friendly."

"Mm."

Hollander's jaw tightened another degree. Ilya could see the muscle flex. It was a good jaw. Strong. Clean. Ilya catalogued that information and put it somewhere he wouldn't examine too closely.

"So," Ilya said. "Boston and Montreal."

"Yeah."

"Will play against each other a lot."

"I know how divisions work."

Ilya smiled. He let it spread slow. He could see Hollander tracking it in his peripheral vision, the way Hollander tracked everything Ilya did. Like Ilya was a threat. Like Ilya was a problem that needed solving.

"You don't like me," Ilya said.

"I don't know you."

"But you don't like me."

Hollander crossed his arms. Mirrored Ilya's earlier posture. Probably didn't realize he was doing it. "I think you're arrogant."

"Yes," Ilya agreed. "But I am very good."

"So am I."

"Second best."

The words landed like a slap. Ilya watched Hollander's nostrils flare. Watched the color climb his neck and settle along his cheekbones. Watched his chest rise on a sharp inhale. Hollander was beautiful when he was angry. Ilya didn't let himself think the word, but it was there. Sitting in his chest like a stone.

It was more fun than it should have been.

"One draft position," Hollander said. "That's it."

"First is first."

"We'll see how it plays out."

"Yes." Ilya leaned his head back against the mirrored wall. "We will."

Shane

He should sit down. He'd been standing for ten minutes and his legs were tired from the bike and the floor was right there. But sitting meant being on Rozanov's level. Sitting meant being closer. Sitting meant their knees might touch in a space this small. Shane could see Rozanov's bare calves from here. The muscle. The fine dark hair. He could not think of a single thing he wanted less than to be closer to that.

That was a lie. He could think of several things he wanted less. He just couldn't think about them right now.

He sat down.

He chose the opposite wall, directly across from Rozanov, and pulled his knees up. The floor was cold through his shorts. The wall behind him was smooth and cool where his shoulder blades pressed against the mirror. There was about two feet of space between their shoes. Rozanov's sneakers were white and expensive-looking. Shane's were gray New Balances he'd had since junior year.

"So you just go to the gym at two in the morning," Shane said.

"Could not sleep."

"Yeah. Me either."

"Too excited?" The way Rozanov said it made it sound like a taunt. Like excitement was a weakness.

"Restless," Shane corrected.

"Because you are second pick."

"Because it's a big night."

"For me, yes. First overall." Rozanov's grin was lazy and insufferable. "Very big."

Shane pressed his lips together. He would not take the bait. He was Shane Hollander. He'd been media-trained since he was fifteen. He could handle one smug Russian teenager in a broken elevator.

"Must be hard," Rozanov said. Paused. "To be so close."

The sentence came out careful. Like he'd assembled it from parts.

"Close to what?"

"To the best."

Shane let out a breath through his nose. "You know, most people would use this time to, I don't know. Be normal. Make conversation."

"I am making conversation."

"You're making me want to pry the doors open and take my chances with the elevator shaft."

Rozanov laughed. It was short and surprised and genuine, and Shane hated the way it sounded. Warm. Real. Like Shane had caught him off guard.

"You are funny," Rozanov said. "Did not expect."

"I'm not trying to be funny."

"Even better."

Shane looked at the call button panel. Still dead. He checked his wrist for the time before remembering he'd taken his watch off before he attempted to sleep. "How long has it been?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes."

"Feels longer."

"Mm." Rozanov was watching him. Shane could feel it even when he wasn't looking directly at those pale eyes. There was a weight to Rozanov's attention. A physicality. The elevator was quiet enough that Shane could hear both of them breathing. His own breath was shallow. Rozanov's was slower. Deeper. The sound of it filled the small space.

"What," Shane said.

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

"Not much else for looking at." Rozanov gestured at the mirrored walls. "Only you. Many, many times."

Shane looked. He could see their reflections repeating into infinity on both sides. An endless tunnel of the two of them, facing each other, legs almost touching. It made his stomach do something he refused to name.

"That's unsettling," he said.

"Which part?"

Shane's mouth went dry. He didn't answer. He couldn't answer that honestly. Not in this elevator. Not in any elevator. Not anywhere.

Ilya

Twenty minutes.

Ilya was keeping track by counting his own heartbeats, which was imprecise but gave him something to focus on besides the way Hollander smelled. Sweat and soap and something faintly green, like cut grass or clean laundry. It was a wholesome smell. An annoyingly wholesome smell.

The air in the elevator was getting stale. Not dangerous. Just warm and close and damp with their breathing. Ilya could feel his own skin prickling with heat. His shirt was starting to dry in patches, stiff with dried sweat. The cotton pulled when he moved.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

Hollander frowned. "Of what?"

"Elevators. Small spaces."

"No."

"You look tense."

"I'm stuck in an elevator with you. Tense is appropriate."

Ilya studied him. In the harsh fluorescent light, Hollander's face was all sharp angles. High cheekbones from his mother. Japanese-Canadian, Ilya remembered from the draft coverage. Shane Hollander, the perfect bilingual golden boy with the perfect family and the perfect haircut and the perfect manners.

Except when he was alone with Ilya.

In Russian, Ilya could have said exactly what he meant about that. In English, he didn't have enough words yet. So he filed it away.

"In Russia," Ilya said, "elevators break all the time. Is not a big deal."

"Well, in Canada, we maintain our infrastructure."

"You are in America right now."

Hollander paused. "Fair point."

Ilya grinned. Hollander looked away fast, like the grin was too bright. Like it cost him something to see it.

Something had shifted in the gym. Ilya had felt it happen. It was the water bottle. He'd held his own bottle out to Hollander, who was sweating and had nothing to drink. A simple gesture. Except their fingers had touched when Hollander took it. Ilya's were still warm from gripping the handlebars. Hollander's were slick. Neither of them had pulled back right away. Ilya had let the contact sit. Watched Hollander's throat work as he swallowed. Watched the confusion bloom across his face.

It had been a test. Ilya liked tests.

"You played well at World Juniors," Ilya said.

Hollander blinked. "What?"

"Last year. You played well."

"We lost."

"Yes. But you played well."

Hollander stared at him like he was trying to find the trap. Ilya let him look. There was no trap. Or there was, but it was one Ilya had also walked into, so it didn't count.

"Thanks," Hollander said, slowly. "You too."

"I know."

Hollander's mouth twitched. He fought it. Lost. A small, reluctant smile broke through, and Ilya felt it like a crack in a wall. A fracture in all that careful control.

"You are impossible," Hollander said.

"Yes." Ilya stretched one leg out further. His foot was alongside Hollander's now. Their sneakers were almost touching. The gap between them was less than an inch. Ilya could close it with a shift of his ankle. He could press the side of his shoe against Hollander's and see what happened.

He didn't. But he thought about it.

"What are you going to do in Boston?" Hollander asked.

"Win."

"Besides that."

"What else is there?"

Hollander considered this. "Everything else."

"Like what?"

"Like having a life. Friends. Learning the city."

"Will learn city by winning in it."

Hollander shook his head. "That's bleak."

Ilya frowned. "Bleak?"

"Sad. Dark. Depressing."

"Is focused," Ilya corrected. He didn't know the word bleak. He filed it away to look up later.

"It's lonely."

The word landed differently than Ilya expected. Heavier. Hollander said it like he knew something about it. Like he'd been lonely in a crowded room and was bracing to be lonely in a new one.

Ilya didn't have a smart response. He let the silence sit.

The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Somewhere in the shaft, a cable creaked. Hollander picked at a thread on the hem of his shorts and didn't look up. He had good hands. Quick hands. The kind that handled a puck like it was magnetized to the blade.

Ilya stopped noticing Hollander's hands.

The lights went out.

Not a flicker. Not a stutter. The fluorescent tube above them cut to black and the elevator dropped into total darkness. The emergency panel, the number display, the buttons. All dead.

Ilya's chest locked.

He could not see. He could not see the walls or the door or the floor or his own hands. The mirrors that had been showing him infinite reflections now showed him nothing. The dark pressed in from every direction. Close. Getting closer. The smell of sweat and stale air was worse without the distraction of light. Every sound amplified. The hum of the building's bones. His own pulse in his ears.

He grabbed the metal railing along the back wall. The steel was warm from his body heat. He gripped it hard enough to feel the bolts under his fingers.

In Moscow, when he was nine. The apartment building on Tverskaya. The elevator had stopped between the sixth and seventh floors and the lights had gone out and he'd been alone. Seven minutes. His mother had told him later it was only seven minutes. It had not felt like seven minutes.

"Rozanov?"

Hollander's voice. Close. Too close. Ilya opened his mouth and nothing came out.

"Hey. Rozanov. You okay?"

Ilya tried to say yes. The word was in his throat but his throat was not cooperating. His breath was coming too fast. He could hear it bouncing off the mirrored walls. He could hear how bad it sounded.

"I am." He swallowed. "Fine."

"You don't sound fine."

"Is fine." His voice was thin. He hated it. He hated that Hollander could hear it. The first-overall pick, the cockiest player in the draft class, panicking in the dark like a child.

A hand found his arm.

Ilya flinched. The hand stayed. Fingers wrapped around his forearm. Firm. Steady. Not gripping too hard. Just there. Hollander's skin was hot against his. Damp at the palm. Ilya could feel each finger individually. The ridge of a callus at the base of his index finger.

"It's okay," Hollander said. "They'll come back on."

"I know."

"The car didn't move. We're in the same spot."

"I know this."

"Okay." Hollander's thumb shifted on his forearm. Not stroking. Not quite. Just adjusting his grip. "Can you breathe slower?"

Ilya wanted to say something sharp. Something that would rebalance the scales. Put himself back on top where he belonged. But his lungs were too tight and his Russian was bleeding into his English and all he could manage was, "Trying."

"Count with me. In through your nose. One, two, three, four."

"I do not need—"

"One. Two. Three. Four."

Ilya breathed in.

"Hold it. One, two."

He held it.

"Out through your mouth. Slow."

Ilya exhaled. His breath shook. But it came out.

"Again," Hollander said.

They did it three more times. Hollander counted each one. His voice was low and even and completely without judgment. His hand stayed on Ilya's arm. Ilya could feel the calluses on Hollander's palm. Hockey calluses. Stick calluses. The same kind Ilya had on his own hands.

On the fourth breath, the lights flickered back on.

The fluorescent tube sputtered and buzzed and then caught, flooding the car with harsh white light. Ilya blinked. Hollander was right in front of him. Closer than Ilya realized. Close enough that Ilya could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. Close enough to feel his breath. Hollander's lips were parted. His pupils were wide.

Hollander's hand was still on his arm. His thumb resting against the inside of Ilya's wrist. Where his pulse was.

They both looked at it. Neither moved for a full second. Two seconds.

Hollander let go. Stepped back. His cheeks were pink. His hand curled into a fist at his side, like he was trying to hold on to the feeling. Or get rid of it.

"Sorry," Hollander said. "I just—"

"Do not." Ilya held up a hand. His pulse was settling. His vision had steadied. The walls were mirrors again, not a coffin. "Do not say sorry."

"Okay."

"And do not tell anyone."

Hollander's mouth pressed into a flat line. For a second Ilya thought he'd offended him. Then Hollander said, "Who would I tell?"

It was so plainly true that Ilya laughed. A real laugh. Rough and startled and still a little breathless. Hollander looked surprised by the sound.

"When I was small," Ilya said. "Elevator in my building. Stopped for..." He searched for the word. Held up seven fingers instead. "Dark. I was alone. Nine years old."

Hollander's expression shifted. Something behind his eyes went soft. Not pity. Ilya would have hated pity. This was smaller. Quieter. Understanding, maybe.

"That's scary," Hollander said. "For a kid."

"For anyone."

"Yeah." Hollander sat back down against his wall. Pulled his knees up. "For anyone."

Ilya sat down too. His legs were unsteady. He wasn't going to pretend they weren't.

The two feet of space between them felt different now. Smaller. Not because they'd moved but because something had been peeled away. Some layer of performance. Ilya had shown his belly and Hollander had not bitten.

He wasn't sure what to do with that.

Shane

Thirty minutes.

Shane's back ached from the hard floor and the mirrored wall. His legs were stiff. The air was thick and warm. He could taste Rozanov's cologne every time he inhaled. That was a problem he did not have a solution for.

He could still feel the shape of Rozanov's forearm under his hand. The tendon. The heat of his skin. Shane had reached out without thinking. Instinct. The same instinct that made him tap a teammate's shin pads after a bad shift. Except Rozanov was not his teammate. And the dark had turned him into someone else. Someone young and scared and real.

Shane did not want to think about what it meant that he'd reached for Rozanov in the dark.

They'd stopped talking five minutes ago. The silence was different now. Softer. Less combative. Shane wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

He could hear Rozanov breathing. Slow and even. The sound of it was close. Intimate in a way Shane wasn't prepared for. In the gym, their breathing had synced up. Shane had noticed it around the thirty-minute mark. Their exhales falling together. Their chests rising at the same time. He'd tried to break the pattern and couldn't. His body had wanted to match. His body had a lot of opinions about Rozanov that Shane's brain had not approved.

"Can I ask you something?" Shane said.

"You can ask."

"Why did you give me your water?"

Rozanov's expression didn't change. "You had nothing to drink."

"I was fine."

"You were..." He made a gesture at Shane's chest. "Very sweating. No water."

"That doesn't explain why you held on when I took it."

Rozanov didn't answer right away. He tilted his head back against the mirror and let his eyes close. Long lashes. Strong nose. The kind of face that belonged on magazine covers, which it probably would be, starting tomorrow.

"Wanted to see," Rozanov said. "What you do."

Shane's pulse kicked. "That's weird."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"What?"

Rozanov shifted. His knee moved an inch closer. It was almost touching Shane's. Shane could feel the heat of it through the air between them. "When hands touched. What you do?"

Shane remembered exactly what he'd done. He'd been lying on the gym floor, still catching his breath. Rozanov's fingers had been warm and dry against his on the bottle. Shane had held on a beat too long. Then he'd pulled his hand back like the plastic had burned him.

"Nothing," Shane said. "I didn't do anything."

"You pulled away. Fast."

"I took the water. That's all."

Rozanov opened his eyes. They were very pale in the fluorescent light. Almost gray. He looked at Shane with an expression that was stripped of all its usual arrogance. No smirk. No performance. Just attention. Just focus.

"Okay," Rozanov said. "That's all."

Shane's chest was tight. "Yeah."

"Happens to everyone."

"Right."

"Even second-best player in draft."

And just like that, the moment broke. Shane felt his shoulders unknot. He felt the ground come back under him. He could handle Rozanov the rival. Rozanov the asshole. It was this other version that Shane didn't know what to do with. The stripped-down one. The one who looked at him too long and asked questions that peeled back skin.

"You're going to hold that over me forever, aren't you," Shane said.

"One draft position. That's it." Rozanov threw Shane's own words back at him with a grin.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

The words hit the stale air and stayed there. Shane felt his face get hot. Felt his stomach drop. Felt something low and sharp tighten behind his navel. Rozanov's grin shifted into something less certain. His eyes dropped to Shane's mouth for half a second. Then back up. Like he'd said it on reflex and then heard it. Like the shape of it surprised him too.

Neither of them spoke.

Shane could hear the building's ventilation system humming somewhere far away. He could hear his own heartbeat. He could hear Rozanov swallow.

The mirrored walls caught everything. Shane could see the back of his own head reflected behind Rozanov. He could see Rozanov's reflection looking at his reflection. Eyes meeting in glass instead of in air.

He thought about October. About standing on opposite sides of a face-off circle in a sold-out arena. Doing this for fifteen years. Same room. Same air. Trying not to look.

He was already trying not to look.

The draft had been twelve hours ago. Ilya Rozanov had existed in Shane's life for a total of maybe six hours across two events. World Juniors and the draft. That was nothing. A footnote. There was no reason for any of this to feel like something.

"I think," Shane said carefully, "that we should try the emergency button again."

"Yes," Rozanov said. "Good idea."

They both stood up at the same time. The elevator was small and they were both tall and their chests were suddenly very close. Shane could feel the heat coming off Rozanov's body. Could smell salt and skin and something sharper underneath. Shane could see the sweat on Rozanov's collarbone. He could count his eyelashes if he wanted to.

He did not want to.

Shane turned to the panel. He pressed the button. This time the speaker crackled to life and a voice came through, groggy and irritated.

"Hello? Is someone in the elevator?"

"Yes," Shane said. Too fast. Too relieved. "We're stuck between eleven and twelve. Two people."

"Okay, sir, we're aware of the issue. Maintenance is on the way. Should be about ten more minutes."

"Thank you." Shane leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the panel and closed his eyes. The steel felt good against his flushed skin. He could feel his own sweat cooling on his neck.

Behind him, Rozanov let out a long breath. The exhale was warm enough that Shane felt it move across his shoulder. Across the back of his neck. His skin prickled. He kept his eyes closed. He couldn't tell if it was relief.

Ilya

The last ten minutes were the worst.

Knowing rescue was coming should have eased the pressure. It did the opposite. The countdown made everything sharper. Every sound. Every shift of weight. Every time Hollander's elbow brushed the wall near Ilya's shoulder.

They were both standing now. The elevator smelled like them. Like sweat drying on cotton and warm skin and the fading trace of cologne. There was nowhere to look that wasn't Hollander or a reflection of Hollander. Ilya chose the floor.

"When do you fly back?" Hollander asked. Normal question. Normal voice. Like the last forty minutes hadn't happened.

"Tomorrow afternoon. You?"

"Morning."

"Early?"

"Seven."

Ilya did the math. It was almost three a.m. "You will not sleep."

"Probably not."

"Because of this?" Ilya gestured at the elevator.

"Because of everything."

Ilya understood that. The draft. The future. The way the world had rearranged itself in a single day. Yesterday he was a prospect. Today he was first overall. Tomorrow he'd be in Boston. Today Hollander was a prospect. Tomorrow Hollander would be in Montreal. Two cities connected by a rivalry that existed before either of them was born.

And now this. Whatever this was. This heat in a broken elevator that had nothing to do with the ventilation.

"I am not sorry," Ilya said.

Hollander looked at him. "For what?"

"For going first."

"I didn't ask you to be sorry."

"I know. But you want. A little."

Hollander's jaw flexed. "Maybe a little."

"I am not."

"I know."

They looked at each other. Ilya felt the seconds ticking down. Ten minutes. Maybe less. Soon the doors would open. Soon there would be a maintenance worker and fluorescent hallway light and the polite distance of strangers. Soon they would go to their separate floors and their separate futures and become the rivals everyone expected them to be.

Ilya didn't want the doors to open.

He recognized the feeling. He didn't like it.

"Hollander," he said.

"What?"

He didn't know what. He didn't have a sentence ready. He'd just wanted to say the name. To put it in his mouth and feel the shape of it. Hollander was standing close enough that Ilya could see the sweat drying at his temple. Could see the pulse in his throat.

"Never mind," Ilya said.

Hollander frowned. "What?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

"You can't just say my name and then say never mind."

"I just did."

Hollander stared at him. Ilya stared back. The space between them felt electric. Like the air before a storm, charged and waiting.

A mechanical clunk echoed somewhere above them. The elevator shuddered. The lights flickered once, twice, and then the car began to move. Slowly. Grinding upward.

The number above the door lit up. 12. Then 13. Then 14.

The doors opened.

Fourteenth floor. Hollander's floor. Cool air rushed in from the hallway and hit Ilya's damp skin. The hallway was bright and empty and ordinary. It smelled like carpet cleaner and recycled air. A maintenance worker stood by the elevator bank with a walkie-talkie and an apologetic expression.

"Sorry about that, guys. Mechanical glitch. Should be good now."

"Thank you," Hollander said. Polite. Automatic. The golden boy back in place.

He stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway. Ilya watched him go. The line of his shoulders. The way his damp shirt clung to his back. Ilya stayed. He still had four floors to go.

Hollander turned back. Just for a second. Just long enough for their eyes to meet across the threshold. The doors began to close.

"See you in October," Hollander said.

"Can't wait," Ilya said.

The doors shut.

Ilya rode the last four floors alone. He leaned against the mirrored wall where Hollander had been sitting and pressed his palm flat against the glass. It was still warm. The elevator still smelled like both of them. Sweat and soap and something faintly green that Ilya was already filing away in a place he shouldn't.

The elevator hummed. Smooth now. Fixed. As if the last forty-five minutes had been a glitch in the machinery and nothing more.

Ilya knew better.

He knew what he'd been doing in the gym. He'd known when he held out the water bottle. He'd known when he let their fingers touch. He'd known when he sat down on the elevator floor and stretched his legs into Hollander's space. He knew himself well enough to recognize provocation even when it came from his own hands.

What he hadn't expected was an answer. Not the kind Hollander gave. Not the flush creeping up his neck. Not the way he'd pulled his hand back from the bottle like he'd been shocked. Not the way he'd smiled, just once, like Ilya had picked a lock.

The doors opened on sixteen. Ilya walked to his room. The hallway was silent.

He closed his eyes. He could still smell cut grass and clean laundry.

He was in so much trouble.

Shane

Shane stood in the hallway until the elevator numbers climbed to sixteen. He watched the display. 15. 16. Stop.

Rozanov was on his floor. Rozanov was walking down a hallway just like this one, two stories up, letting himself into a room just like Shane's. Maybe running a hand through his hair. Maybe replaying the last forty-five minutes in his head.

Maybe not. Maybe Rozanov had already forgotten. Maybe the whole thing was nothing. A broken elevator and a bored rival and some light trash talk to pass the time.

Shane let himself into his room. The air conditioning hit him like a wall. Cold and clean after the thick heat of the elevator. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. His phone was on the nightstand, screen dark. He picked it up. No new messages. The world had not noticed that he was gone.

Forty-five minutes. That was all it had been. Less than a period of hockey. Less than a pregame skate.

It had felt like a season.

He lay back on the mattress. The sheets were cool and stiff under his sweaty back. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. His heart was still going too fast. His skin was still too hot. His body was still humming with something that had nothing to do with the bike ride.

He could still hear Rozanov saying make me in that low, careless voice. Could still see Rozanov's eyes dropping to his mouth in the second after. Could still see the way Rozanov's face had changed. The surprise. Like he'd thrown something and watched it land somewhere he hadn't aimed.

Shane rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow over his head.

He was not going to think about it. He was going to go to sleep. He was going to wake up at five-thirty and get on a plane and fly back to his life. He was going to be the player Montreal expected. He was going to work harder than anyone. He was going to prove that first and second were just numbers.

He was not going to think about Rozanov's fingers against his on a water bottle in a dark gym.

He was not going to think about the tendon in Rozanov's forearm under his palm. The way Rozanov's breathing had steadied under his hand.

He was not going to think about the warmth of Rozanov's knee near his in a too-small elevator.

He was not going to think about the way Rozanov had said his name for no reason. Like he just wanted to hear it.

Shane was not going to think about any of it.

He thought about it until his alarm went off at five-thirty.