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They’ve just turned onto I-89 when Svetlana turns to him and asks, “Have you ever thought about Shane?”
Ilya blinks. It’s summer and even though they’d left early, the last remnants of the morning fog are already dissipating with the heat of the sun. Still, it’s too early for music. He lets the silence stretch, the ice in Svetlana’s coffee rattling as he changes lanes. “What about Shane?”
“You know what about,” she says.
She knows him too well sometimes. He keeps his eyes on the road, carving through the New Hampshire mountains. Yellow diamond signs alongside the road warn of falling rocks. He wonders what he’s supposed to do in that situation. If he’ll even see it coming, or if it’ll be too late.
Truthfully he doesn’t remember the first time he thought about Shane like that. He shrugs, takes a sip of his Dunkalatte, avoids Svetlana’s piercing gaze. “Sometimes. Nothing serious.”
Maybe the summer after their first year in high school, Ilya thinks. He remembers Shane standing on a rock in the lake, hair wet and pushed back from his face, arms lean and wiry even at that age from all the strength training that a young hockey prodigy gets pushed into. Ilya had stolen a glance at Shane, shirtless and toweling his hair off next to him, and thought about it later that night in Shane’s room at the cottage. They’d shared a bed for years at this point. They used to fall asleep facing each other, talking late into the night. Shane had drifted off first that night and Ilya couldn’t help but stare, watching the moonlight shift over his freckled cheek.
The year after that when Ilya had dragged his suitcase into Shane’s room he had stared at the mattress on the floor, wedged between Shane’s bed and the wall.
“My parents thought we were probably getting too old to share a bed,” Shane had said. “Too tall.”
“Probably they heard me complain about you kicking me in your sleep,” Ilya had responded, after a beat too long.
“I do not kick in my sleep!” Shane had protested. Ilya had grinned and tackled him to the mattress. Even at fifteen Shane had kept a strict training routine, but Ilya had taken up wrestling that year after quitting hockey.
“No, but you’re kicking now,” Ilya had said, pinning Shane’s wrists down. He’d looked down at Shane, dark eyes blown wide, and gotten up before he did something stupid. “Come on, let’s go swimming.”
Time is syrupy slow at the cottage, the summer heat pressing heavy against his skin. He wakes up early to go on a run, like he always does. The world is blue and gray, morning sky seeping into the stillness of the lake, the rising sun chasing the mist from the trees. When he slips back into their shared room the light is breaking over the mountains, filtering through the cracks of the blinds. Shane looks so much younger when he’s sleeping. His room smells clean and warm; Ilya feels out of place with the salt-sharp tang of sweat on his chapped lips.
“Ilya?” Shane says, voice rough, the way it always is this early. Ilya doesn’t turn around, his back to Shane, tank top pulled half off.
“I went on a run,” he says. He tosses his shirt into the hamper in the corner of the room, grabs a clean one from Shane’s closet. “I will shower fast.”
He looks back when he’s easing the door shut behind him. Shane is sprawled out on the bed, blue-gray sheets pushed off his chest and an arm thrown over his eyes. Ilya knows he’s no stranger to getting up early; Shane has always been serious about training during the season, but Ilya is glad that even after all these years Shane still wakes up slow in the summers. He rolls over to blink at Ilya, shirt riding up with the motion, and Ilya’s eyes catch on a triangle of golden skin before he closes the door.
Ilya swims. Shane fiddles with the controls until he remembers how to start the pontoon, like he does every year, then pilots it out to the middle of the lake and kills the engine. He sits on the edge and lets his feet hang in the water, and Ilya dives under the surface of the lake and pops up right in front of him.
“Hi,” Ilya says, curls pressed wet against his forehead. Shane reaches out to push Ilya’s hair back, lets his fingertips linger on Ilya’s cheek. Ilya circles one of Shane’s ankles with his hand, squeezing gently, and watches Shane swallow.
“Hey,” Shane says. He holds a hand out and Ilya takes it, pulling himself up onto the boat. “You’re getting me wet,” Shane complains, and shuffles back anyway, leaning back on his forearms so Ilya has more space to loom over him.
The pontoon deck is rough against Ilya’s palms, arms bracketing Shane’s body. Ilya watches a bead of water drip from a stray curl onto Shane’s cheek. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Ilya says lowly, waiting for it to register before he pulls back and gets to his feet. Below him, Shane flushes, red heat creeping down his neck, his chest, traveling the paths Ilya knows by touch.
The thing about them is that the lines had blurred years ago, washed away with familiarity, waves lapping at the shore of the lake. Ilya’s head is pillowed on Svetlana’s lap, toes tucked under Shane’s thigh. Rose leans her head on Svetlana’s shoulder and plays idly with Ilya’s hair. A movie they’ve all seen a million times is playing on the old TV that’s been here since Shane’s parents bought the cottage, screen fuzzy with static. They always end up here, limbs so tangled nobody knows where they end and the others begin.
Ilya’s focus narrows down to a singular point of sharp heat. Shane’s fingertips drum mindlessly on Ilya’s knee, and it’s not crossing any lines, but sometimes Ilya wishes it was. Wishes that he could know exactly where they stood.
Instead, he keeps his eyes fixed on the screen, laughs at all the right times, and tucks the feeling of Shane’s hand warm on his knee somewhere between his ribs, close to his hummingbird-quick heart, like a hundred other fleeting moments over the years.
Later, in the darkness of their room, Ilya thinks this must mean something. Knows that this is a line he would not cross with Rose, that this is a line he has crossed with Svetlana but is something they’ve talked about, at least. Shane, categorically, does not talk about it.
Ilya wants to ask, sometimes. Instead he pulls his shirt off, folding it neatly and placing it on his mattress on the floor, and sits on the edge of Shane’s bed. Shane is hovering by the doorway, gaze dragging a path across Ilya’s body. He glances at the shirt Ilya’s just taken off. “That’s mine,” he says. It’s black and has McGill emblazoned across the chest in red text. He’d watched Ilya grab it from his closet that morning.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees easily. For Shane, this is as much talking about it as Ilya is going to get. He remembers the first time, that year the extra mattress had appeared in Shane’s room. They hadn’t said anything then, just breath and heat and fumbling hands in the dark. “Are you going to come here or what?”
Shane goes, as he always does. He swings a leg over Ilya’s thighs, runs his hands down Ilya’s back. Ilya noses against Shane’s jawline, mouthing down his neck, and they don’t talk about it.
There’s a sweet spot partway through every cottage trip where Ilya stops counting hours and starts dividing days by time in the lake and time not in the lake. Now is time in the lake. He’d been out here since sunrise, taken one of the paddleboards and rowed out, out, until the cottage was a blur of brown on the shoreline. The sun had risen slow, pink and orange on the horizon, reflected in the quicksilver-stillness of the lake.
“I was looking for you,” Shane says from somewhere behind him, voice carrying across the water.
“Found me,” Ilya says, and reaches for the paddle balanced across his knees. He dips it in the water, watches the ripples travel out until they splash against Shane’s paddleboard, maneuvering closer to Shane until he can get a hand on the nose of his board to pull him close.
In the lake, anything is fair game. When they were kids their favorite game had been chicken fight, Rose on Shane’s shoulders, Svetlana on Ilya’s. Technically the rule was that the person on the bottom couldn’t use their hands, but Ilya and Shane had agreed long ago that they could fight dirty as long as it was never above water.
Ilya slips into the water and pulls Shane with him. Shane goes with a splash, sending the paddleboards drifting off. Underwater, Ilya keeps his eyes open. He’s practiced in pushing through the burn. Shane gets a hand on his shoulders and shoves down; he hooks an ankle around Shane’s and kicks. Ilya dives forward, palms dragging down Shane’s chest. When they surface for air Shane is bright red and spitting water. Ilya watches it run down his chin and feels a little lightheaded.
“Fuck you,” Shane says, but he’s laughing. “Go get the paddleboards, at least.”
“Maybe if you are good and ask nicely,” Ilya says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out like that but he can’t seem to help himself.
Shane blinks at him, swims closer. His hand grazes Ilya’s side, just for a second. The water ripples and doesn’t give much else away. “Please go get the paddleboards, Ilya.”
Ilya swallows. His skin stings just under his waistband, where Shane had dipped his fingers in, letting the elastic snap back against his skin. “Yeah. Okay, yeah.”
“Remember when we dated, Shane?” Rose asks, while she’s dealing out cards. Shane snorts, reaching out to take each one as she places it down, squaring out his pile of cards. His elbows knock against Ilya’s with the motion, crowded around the little circular table. The windows are open behind Ilya; the afternoon sun is warm, sheer curtains fluttering against his back when the breeze comes in. “You used to always let me win.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Shane says, arranging his cards on the table with a practiced ease. Ilya watches his hands, quick and sure.
Shane had been so scared, then. Ilya remembers biking to Rose’s house with him, one arm cradling the bouquet that Yuna had helped Shane arrange, because Shane had been so worried he would drop it that Ilya had offered to just carry it for him. Shane’s hands were shaking when he took it from Ilya, plastic crinkling around delicate flowers. Ilya had wished him luck and pedaled off before he could hear Shane ring the doorbell, the familiar creak of Rose’s door opening, Shane stumbling over the question he’d practiced a million times with Ilya.
The chain on his bike would lock up, sometimes, threatening to deposit him onto the rough asphalt. But he’d just turned twelve and it had been a birthday gift, a hand-me-down from his brother, and Ilya had always been reckless. And at the end of the day Shane had asked if Ilya would come with him, so Ilya did.
“Why did you do that, anyway?” Svetlana asks, leaning over Rose’s shoulder to watch them play. “Let her win?”
Shane doesn’t look up from the cards he’s flipping when he answers. “I don’t know, you try figuring out how you’re supposed to be a good boyfriend when you’re twelve.”
“I would have been,” Ilya says, just to annoy him. Shane’s gaze flickers to his, just for a second. It’s enough for Rose to win the round. Shane lets out a huff of air, waving a hand at Ilya and Svetlana. “Stop distracting me, I need to win this.”
“Need is a little much,” Svetlana says dryly, but drifts off anyway. Ilya turns to peer through the window when he hears the glass doors slide open and sees her arranging herself carefully over an Adirondack chair on the deck, sunglasses on, holding up a book, all long legs and caramel skin.
The truth is that Ilya has never been someone’s boyfriend. Maybe Svetlana was the closest, but they both knew it would never become that. Svetlana had slept in Ilya’s dorm room in Boston most weekends of their first year in college, and he’d given her keys to his apartment when he’d moved off-campus, and neither of them had corrected Cliff when he’d introduced her to their friends as Rozanov’s girl. It would have been easy. He can see himself loving her, wanting to want her. But every summer at the cottage he remembers what the shape of wanting is. It’s warm and solid and pressed up against Ilya’s side, all lean muscles and freckles on cheeks turned pink in the sun, winning a game of cards against Rose.
“Watch your step,” Ilya murmurs, hand on Shane’s wrist.
He stills next to Ilya, then sidesteps the twig lying on the ground in front of him. When they were younger David would take them on birdwatching hikes, armed with his battered copy of Birds of Canada and a set of binoculars. Shane had scared all the birds away, running ahead on the trail. The hockey commentators like to point out Shane’s speed on the ice; Ilya thinks it’s how he’s learned to direct the endless energy he had as a kid.
Shane’s pulse thrums under Ilya’s fingertips. They’d found an injured bluejay on the trail, once. It had been so still they didn’t know if it was alive. Rose had peered over Svetlana’s shoulder and Shane had flipped through David’s bird book looking for a section that would tell them what to do and Ilya had knelt on the ground and scooped the bird into his palm, searching until he found its fluttering pulse under the pad of his thumb.
Ilya hears more than sees Svetlana and Rose ahead of them on the trail, moving deeper into the woods. He watches Shane look up, scanning the area before his gaze settles on Ilya’s hand on his wrist. Ilya knows how to move slowly, deliberately, knows how not to startle a bluejay with a broken wing. He loosens his grip, then slides his hand down, fingers slipping between Shane’s.
“Okay?” Ilya asks, quietly.
Shane swallows, eyes wide. Ilya remembers the way the bluejay had blinked up at him, remembers the feeling of holding something so delicate in his hands. “Yeah,” Shane says, fingers closing over Ilya’s knuckles.
And it’s not quite talking about it, but Ilya doesn’t say more. They’re going birdwatching, anyway, and he doesn’t want to scare the birds off.