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Shane had always liked silk. He didn’t get to wear it very often—his underlayers were all performance wear, made to wick sweat away from his body during practice—but when he was younger and still living with his parents, he’d noticed the watered silk shirt his mom wore for special occasions.
So when he was waiting at Hayden and Jackie’s house for them to get ready for a team charity event, and Jackie had shown him two shirts, Shane had known which one he was going to choose for her before she even asked the question.
“That one.” The silk was smooth under his fingertips, a deep purple, almost the color of ripe grapes in the summer sun. “It feels so good.”
Jackie’s eyes crinkled. “That explains a lot, actually.”
“What?” Something slithered in the pit of Shane’s stomach. “Don’t you want to wear something that feels good?”
“No, I do,” offered Jackie, voice soft. She draped the shirt over the back of his hand, where he had clutched his knee. “You like that, don’t you?”
Shane shrugged. “Feels nice, that’s all.”
Later that evening, when Shane had been dragged out to dance with Jackie, Hayden wore the kind of expression Shane’s own father had sometimes, as though Shane were a puzzle. Jackie maneuvered them both so that Shane’s hands were resting on the warmth of her silk-covered shoulders.
“I’ll get you one.” Jackie’s mouth was twisted in a wry sort of smile. “You can have your own.”
“No—” Cold sluiced through Shane’s veins. He couldn’t wear something like that. Not in public. He needed dark heavy fabrics in wool for winter and plain rough fabrics in linen for summer. He knew the rules.
Shaking her head, Jackie shushed him like he was one of her own children. “Trust me, Shane. I wouldn’t embarrass you. I know how to do this.”
A month or so later, Shane was helping Jackie clean up after dinner when she picked up a package. “This is for you.”
“Yeah?” Shane felt warmth fizz in his chest. As Montreal’s star center, he rarely received gifts like this, small, thoughtful items from a friend. More often, Shane was asked for donations and to chip in for gifts.
The package was neat and plain, so the item inside came as a surprise. It was a button-up shirt, perfectly plain except for the way it felt under Shane’s fingertips. The cream fabric was a tiny bit thicker than Jackie’s own silk shirt, and it didn’t shimmer in the light quite the same way, but it was still soft and lustrous under the gold light of the overhead fixture.
“Thank you,” said Shane, because he knew what to say when someone gave him a present. “I can’t—”
Jackie slipped under his arm and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I know. But I wanted you to have it anyway. Someday, maybe, you’ll find a use for it.”
***
“Ugh, Hollander.” Ilya yanked the hangars down the rod and the screech of metal on metal dug into Shane’s brain. “All of these are so ugly. Not good-boring. Just ugly.”
They were meant to be having a private dinner with Shane’s parents, Hayden and Jackie sans children, and Rose. Ilya had wanted to introduce them all to Svetlana, but the airline had lost one of his carry-on bags. The text message had said Ilya’s going out clothes would be delivered as soon as they were found, but in the meantime, Ilya was going through Shane’s closet, trying to find something that met his standards.
Shane was losing patience. Shoving past Ilya—and if he bent toward Ilya’s neck and took a long inhale, that was between Shane and the universe—Shane grabbed the hanger with the never-worn silk shirt.
“Here.” Shane waited for the derisive sneer. “Wear this, if nothing else will do.”
Ilya stopped. Looked. Tilted his head. And then slid the pad of a finger over the fabric where it draped over the hanger.
“You do not mind?” Ilya’s eyebrows rose, but he waited for Shane’s answer. “This looks like it’s never been worn.”
“It hasn’t.” Unease stirred like an icy feather down Shane’s spine. “I’m sorry, it’s kind of girly. I just can’t bring myself to get rid of it. It was a present. You don’t have to wear it. I just—”
“Hollander, take a breath.” Strong, warm hands cupped Shane’s jaw and he closed his eyes, leaning into Ilya’s hold. Ilya murmured, “You think I don’t like being pretty, hmm?”
The memory was still crystalline, even years later. “You said you didn’t look pretty in make-up. That I did.”
“Da,” agreed Ilya. “Was true. But not because I did not wish to look pretty. I was like a little boy pulling pigtails, is how Jackie says. Trying to make you see me. Maybe argue, say I was pretty.”
A hot flush spread under Shane’s skin and he opened his eyes to see an uncharacteristically vulnerable Ilya, those beloved eyes darting away even as he held Shane steady. Tipping his head into Ilya’s palm, Shane brought his own hands up and wrapped them around Ilya’s wrists, testing. Holding firm, even as the hook of the hanger was curled around one of his pinky fingers.
“You want to be pretty?” The words dropped like a rock in a still pond, the ripples echoing through Shane’s chest. He squared his shoulders. “Do you want to be pretty for me, Ilya?”
Ilya refused to look at him, but a tell-tale blush had pinked his ears. “It is not important.”
“You’re important to me, Ilya.” Ilya was the center of Shane’s life. Ilya had been before Shane had even understood what was happening, before Shane’d had words to put to the way Ilya made him feel. “I like silk under my hands. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No.”
Ilya’s gaze flicked toward Shane, then away again, and Shane understood, then, the humiliation that Ilya feared. So many times, Shane had been the butt of cruel jokes, had felt the hot flush of horror and betrayal and self-hatred for not understanding sooner, for trusting someone else. A hot iron core settled under Shane’s ribs.
“Please, Ilya.” Shane enjoyed begging, when he knew that Ilya would give him whatever he wanted. He squeezed Ilya’s wrists, feeling the bone under his calluses. “Wear it for me? Let me feel it on you?”
A long quiet sigh left Ilya then, and Shane could see the bravado slip, the tiniest bit. “You want me to wear this so you can feel it on me?”
“I do.” Shane let go of Ilya’s wrists, stepped back, and held out the shirt. “Wear this tonight.”
“Okey.” A tiny grin danced in the corner of Ilya’s mouth, like it had since that first day in Saskatchewan. “You might not like this, later.”
When the silk slid across Ilya’s bare shoulders, it highlighted the muscles in his back, rippling under the delicate fabric. Ilya went to button it up, but Shane batted his hands away.
“You want to be pretty, don’t you?” Shane unbuttoned the collar, and then another button. “Let me see you, Ilya.”
Ilya’s blush was back, pink down his neck to his shoulders, and Shane felt a sort of daring joy bubble up. “Sit on the bed.”
“What now, Hollander?”
Ilya groused, but he was obedient, leaning back on his hands so the shirt fell open. Maybe in another color, it wouldn’t have been quite so revealing, but Shane could see Ilya’s nipples through the fabric, a dusky rose on a stiff peak.
“Be patient.” Jackie had left a bag in the guest bathroom, and Shane went to find it and open it. “I’ll be right back.”
When Shane returned, he had his hands full. “You can say, ‘no.’ Anytime.”
“To what?” Ilya shrugged, careless. “I’m wearing the shirt. It’s fine.”
Shane dropped the pile of objects on the blankets and reached for a small, slender cylinder. “What about this?”
“Sasha would laugh so much if he knew.”
Ilya’s answer was cryptic, but not ‘no,’ so Shane crouched in front of Ilya. “Close your eyes. Don’t flinch.”
Almost, Shane had expected Ilya to playfully wrestle him onto the bed. But Ilya’s eyelashes were long, and gold against the pale skin under his eyes. Shane had excellent fine motor skills, and after years of being Uncle Shane, he knew how to slide out the tiny brush and draw it against the inside of the tube before attempting to make a single smooth line across that sensitive curve. He held his breath.
“There. You can open your eyes again.” Shane’s heart was pounding in his ears as though he’d run a five k.
Ilya blinked, lazily, like a giant cat. “You like?”
“I do.” Shane liked the eyeliner a lot. Ilya should wear it all the time “Do you think you can hold still a little bit more? Eyes open this time?”
“Yes, Hollander. I can hold still.” Ilya’s tone was biting, but he tipped his chin up at Shane, waiting.
This was not quite as easy, but the dark brown made Ilya’s eyelashes pop against his pale skin. Every time Ilya blinked, Shane held the wand still, so the mascara darkened each individual eyelash.
Eventually, Shane was satisfied. “One more thing. Well, two more.”
In the small pile on the bed, jewels glittered. Shane picked up two rings, heat pooling deep. “You don’t have to.”
“But you want me to, don’t you?” Amusement danced in Ilya’s eyes, clear and beautiful with all the paint. “It’s OK, Hollander. I don’t mind.”
Shane slid the rings on Ilya’s fingers. They were enormous bulky things, and should have looked foolish on Ilya’s hands. They didn’t. His fingers looked slender and fragile under the weight of them. Under Shane’s cup rings.
Then Shane picked up the last item, a gold bracelet. He’d bought it for himself, rookie year, with no real urge to wear it. Just that he’d had money, finally, more than he knew what to do with, and some of the other guys wore necklaces or bracelets, and he’d wanted to fit in. It’d never felt right around his wrist, the weight of it always distracting.
The gold chain was distracting in a different way now, glinting on Ilya’s wrist as he rotated it in the late afternoon sunshine. “Where did this come from?”
“I bought it for you.” As soon as Shane said it, he knew it was true. “After the CCM shoot.”
“Shane.” Ilya’s face did some complicated thing Shane couldn’t quite read, and then Ilya smiled, soft and tender. “All this time, you wanted me to be pretty?”
“All this time,” agreed Shane. “And now look at you, pretty for me.”