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Shane Hollander always kept a kitten on his keys. Hayden Pike had seen the little plush thing for the first time in late 2017 and there hadn’t been a day since then that the keychain wasn’t with Shane, on his ridiculous red carabiner he kept hooked in his locker or on his coat.
It was a cream colored cat with blue eyes and not a realistic thing in any sense of the word. It had these cartoonish proportions and this stupid black felt smile that reminded Hayden of something oddly specific he couldn’t figure out, and it drove him fucking insane.
He’d asked Shane about it multiple times and all Shane had told him on the subject of where the damn cat had come from was that it was a keepsake from his Boston Lily. Which Hayden assumed meant that Lily had made it for him herself. Which had brought Hayden to the conclusion Lily was not very talented with crafts.
And that was another thing that drove him just as mad as the cat’s mystery resemblance–knowing next to nothing about his best friend’s on-and-off girlfriend of almost ten years. What the fuck did this girl have that would make Shane Hollander, rational and clear-minded Shane Hollander, abandon literally everything else and chase after her for this long? He’d fucking broken up with Rose Landry because he was so hung up on Lily.
Yesterday morning at practice everything had gone just as it always did, including Shane (clearly when he thought nobody was looking) pressing a little gentle kiss to the top of the cat’s head before patting it between the ears and shutting his locker door. It was his pre-practice and pre-game ritual at this point; Hayden had seen him do it almost as long as Shane had had the cat itself.
He found it cute. It certainly couldn’t hurt to have a good luck charm on their side and Hayden (although a bit frustrated by its face) had also come to find a little place in his heart for the cat.
That’s why when Shane trudged in on the morning of their match against Boston sulking a little and clipped his obnoxious carabiner to his locker with only his keys, Hayden immediately noticed.
“What happened to the cat?” He frowned, gesturing to the spot it would normally be in.
Shane bit the inside of his cheek, clearly a bit taken aback that Hayden had noticed it in the first place. He seemed to forget Hayden had asked him about it a handful of times in the past. It was weird, because Shane seemed to think of him as someone who couldn’t take a hint if it slapped him in the face, but Hayden thought of himself as pretty perceptive. So yes, he had noticed the keychain.
“Oh. Uh.” Shane looked down at his feet. “I think I lost it somewhere. I’m not sure.”
Hayden clapped him on the shoulder. “Fuck. I’m sorry, man. Know it meant a lot to you.”
Shane just grumbled in response, sitting and beginning to lace up his skates.
Hayden noticed it while in the designated “snack-room” in the Bell Center. Shane had sent him for a ginger ale and Nutella sticks and he was fetching some apple slices for JJ as well.
Only three other players were there, all Bears. Marleau, Carmichael, and Rozanov. Marleau and Carmichael were leaned against a wall and the Russian bastard Rozanov was manspread on a chair in the corner, chatting away with his buddies, still not changed into his hockey gear despite the unofficial warm-ups beginning in less than five minutes. He wore a pair of dark jeans and that smug smile that only appeared when he knew something someone else didn’t.
The interaction was quick. Hayden’d come up to the table and grabbed what he needed, briefly chirping Marleau, and Rozanov had sneered a responding remark in his face, readjusting his position in his chair.
That was when Hayden had seen it. The stupid smile poking out of Rozanov’s pocket.
As he walked away he tried to reason with himself that surely, he’d been hallucinating somehow. Because why on Earth would Ilya Rozanov have stolen Shane’s keychain? How would he even have known about it?
But maybe it had slipped down the inside of Shane’s coat and Rozanov had seen it drop to the floor and pocketed it for himself. It was a very plausible explanation. Or maybe Rozanov had seen Shane squeeze it to comfort himself once and had taken it when he wasn’t looking.
The last game they’d played, after all, had been a couple days prior. There was a window between the time Hayden had last seen it and now. A window in which the Bears would’ve been in Montreal, because they always came a little early and stayed a little late for the “sights of the city,” as once cited to him.
Hayden turned straight back around to catch another glimpse of Rozanov’s jeans, convince himself he was insane and paranoid and making all of this up. But his eyes landed on the blond cat’s face again. Poor thing.
“What the fuck, Rozanov?” he spit.
Rozanov cut his conversation with Marleau short to glare back at Hayden.
“What do you want?” he snapped back.
Hayden pointed straight at his pocket. “That’s Shane’s.”
Rozanov at first only scrunched up his face in protest, but the second he glanced down at where Hayden pointed, his expression froze. Immediately, he stood, and he proceeded to shove the cat down further in his pocket with his hand.
“Mind your own fucking business,” Rozanov said, but his voice was a bit weak. Maybe embarrassed at being caught.
Hayden crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving until you give that to me.”
“How do you even know is Hollander’s, hm?” Rozanov barked, “Maybe I just have one that is the same.”
“His girlfriend made that for him, you dick. I know you don’t know what that’s like, since you’re such a manwhore. But some of us have partners we care about who give us things we’re attached to.” Hayden, nearly shaking with pure, undiluted, hate, felt his face get warmer with every passing statement.
For a moment Hayden thought he’d successfully gotten under Rozanov’s skin. He tensed, visibly, clenching his fists so hard his knuckles turned completely white. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he took a second to breathe. When he finished, he took another breath.
Then his little rant seemed to have the opposite of the desired effect. Rozanov’s face just twisted into a grin he clearly tried to bite down–and when he couldn’t, he simply just covered the bottom half of his face with his hand, swallowing laughter.
“You think this shit’s funny?”
“Is funny that you claim to know these things about me,” Rozanov replied, eyes glinting with amusement like a twelve-year-old boy’s, gesturing into the air with his hands.
“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Hayden yelled, poking his chest with a finger. “Fuck you.”
“Thank you for offer, Pike,” Rozanov sighed, “But unfortunately I must decline. You are not my type.”
Then he simply stepped backwards and through the threshold, Marleau and Carmichael following, leaving Hayden alone with his rage.
He didn’t have time to tell Shane about any of this. Well– of course, he technically could’ve snuck it in sometime when they had a minute or two of downtime during the game, but he figured this wasn’t the kind of thing you drop on someone and then leave him with. He hadn’t even thought of how to tell Shane that his arch-nemesis was holding the very precious, very special keychain his situationship of ten-plus years had made him hostage just for fun.
He’d always known Shane to be a very straight-forward, level-headed, calm person who wasn’t controlled by his emotions and certainly never would be. But something in Hayden told him maybe not to tell Shane about this right before a game where he’d be interacting with Rozanov very closely.
It just wasn’t a good idea. And he didn’t want to needlessly worry/upset Shane because telling him didn’t necessarily mean he’d find a way to get the cat back, and it might just put him in a state of extra distress for no reason.
Which brought him to his plan: find a way to get it back and then pretend he’d just found it lying around, sparing him that distress altogether. Which brought him to what he was doing now.
Usually after a win (Rozanov had immediately turned away and stepped off the ice; that was how upset he’d been) he and Shane and the team hung out at Shane’s, but tonight Shane had told them in the locker room that he had plans and that he’d be away and that he was sorry he couldn’t host them. It worked out rather well for Hayden, because it excused him from having to be there at all, and it allowed him to do what he was doing now.
He walked up to the receptionist at the Hilton twenty minutes from the Bell Center clutching a massive takeout bag that smelled strongly of burger. She was focused in on a program on her computer, so he gently drummed his fingers against the counter and when it prompted her eyes upwards, flashed her a charming smile.
“Hi, uh, I’ve got an UberEats for Ilya Rozanov? Order number 99210,” he said, pretending to be reading the number off his phone screen. He’d made it up based on the number of digits he got when he ordered sometimes.
The woman turned back to her computer and loudly punched in “ROZANOV,” and then squinted and read: “That’s…719.”
She looked up at him and smiled. No kind of security verification before just giving out someone’s room number? She must be some tired newbie. Yikes.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He winked at her, readjusting the bag in his hands, and she blushed.
Hayden ditched the bag somewhere in the lobby, hoping someone found it and had a field day with the meal in there. The next step, now that he had Rozanov’s room number, was to get inside.
He knew for a fact Rozanov would be out, since he’d overheard his conversation with Marleau and Carmichael earlier and had told them he’d be busy all night and ‘sorry’ that he couldn’t go out drinking. So all he had to do was get in, scour the room, find the cat, and leave.
Was it a bit insane? Yes. But he’d rather this than Shane find out about this whole thing. He knew that if it were the other way around, Rozanov stealing something Jackie made him and not being able to do anything about it, it would put him into cardiac arrest. He’d be ill. He wasn’t about to do that to Shane.
He walked up to the restaurant on the other side of the lobby and decided to gamble a bit when he saw the host, an older man who looked so close to death a sneeze could kill him.
“Hi, do you guys do room service?”
The man nodded, head shaking a bit. Good god. Why was this guy still working?
“Uh, I’m Ilya Rozanov. 719. Could I just get the…”
Hayden’s eyes scanned the menu pinned up to the wall right next to them, trying not to break out into a nervous sweat. He really hoped, prayed, this man didn’t know hockey players.
“Just an order of alfredo pasta. Quick as possible,” he added, slipping a hundred dollar bill in the man’s withered hands.
“Yes. Ten minutes,” was the only reply he got, in a coarse, crumpled voice.
When the cart came by the seventh floor eleven minutes later, Hayden slapped a worried look on his face and began frantically patting his pockets up and down. He stood right next to 719 and he’d already pressed an ear up to it just to verify nobody was there. It was empty.
The bellhop stopped moving, letting his cart rest on the fancy carpet.
“May I help you with anything, sir?”
“Ah, I just–” Hayden tried his best to look tired and distressed, “I went out to get some ice,” he lifted the bucket in his hands, shaking it around so the ice made clattering noises, “And I forgot my key in there. I’m just such an idiot.”
“You’re this room? 719?”
“Yeah,” Hayden sighed theatrically. “I am. I was about to have dinner in there too but I’m sure room service has already come and gone.”
“You ordered the alfredo spaghetti?”
“Ah, you’re here for me!” Hayden smiled. “Yessir.”
The bellhop shifted his weight around the balls of his feet. “Well…I suppose I could…”
“Oh, please,” Hayden pleaded, “I would appreciate it so deeply. I’m exhausted and I really need to piss.”
There was only another moment’s hesitation before the bellhop sighed and pushed his key into the hole, flashing Hayden a sympathetic smile and pushing the cart in.
Hayden had to keep himself from shouting out his triumph and pumping his fists in the air. Instead he just smiled back and stepped inside.
“Ah, you’ve probably had a long night. Don’t worry about making it look nice, I’ll get it. You go on,” Hayden told him as he began to set the meal down at a table next to the entrance.
“Thank you, sir.” He briefly bowed and pushed his cart back out after another thanks from Hayden.
And now, Hayden was alone in the lion’s den. Phase one was complete.
Ilya Rozanov was so messy it made Hayden’s head hurt. Random crap was strewn absolutely fucking everywhere; if there was a flat surface, Rozanov’s things were on it. It was a kind of open, studio floorplan situation with way too many places to lay things on.
Hayden frowned, poking a short stack of books on the dresser by the door. He tilted his head over a bit to read the title of the book on top, written vertically along the left: “Red Rising.” A receipt was haphazardly shoved about a hundred pages in, and the corners of the book were curled up with age and use. It looked like a secondhand copy.
Hadn’t Shane spoken to him about this series some time ago? Shane always rambled on in Hayden’s ear all day about the latest book series he was obsessed with—and the thing about Shane was that he hated being boxed into a single genre, so one morning he’d hear about Shane’s bloody, intense political space opera and another he’d hear about a sappy romcom he’d picked up at a local bookstore.
Hayden hunched over to read the spines of the books underneath the first one, and found two more titles, one of which shook him a bit. The first was simply a thick, very weathered English-Russian dictionary whose spine had more creases than an accordion. The second was a book titled “Red, White, & Royal Blue.”
Immediately, the conclusion he jumped to was that his memory was faulty. Because he’d seen a movie with that title with Jackie a long while ago, and it definitely wasn’t the kind of thing Rozanov would be into. It was this romcom about a fictional prince of England and a fictional United States first son secretly falling in love against all odds and expectations after years of promoting a very public, very fervent hatred of each other. He’d liked it fine enough; it had ranked the same as any other mindless romcom he’d seen with Jackie over the course of their marriage.
The point was: Rozanov was a thousand percent the homophobic type. What, a blue-eyed, blond European with a nasty attitude and a penchant for being an asshole and a manwhore? There wasn’t any question about it. So either Hayden was misremembering the title of the movie, or this was a completely separate, unrelated book that happened to share the same title.
He didn’t want to move anything he didn’t have to. And the keychain certainly wasn’t in between a stack of books, so he left it alone and told himself he’d Google the title of the movie he’d seen later.
He spent another ten minutes scanning desktops and tabletops and countertops and dressertops (was that a word? Hayden didn’t care) and quickly rifling through drawers. The rest of Rozanov’s things (of the ones he could currently see) weren’t nearly as intriguing. A box of condoms, a cluster of ballpoint pens, empty takeout boxes and water bottles, clothes…a lot of clothes. Some of them deeply confusing to him.
He inched toward an article of clothing thrown over the back of a chair. Red, white, and blue. It looked a lot like what his own Voyageurs jersey looked like when he did that to it. Furrowing his brow, Hayden picked it up and let it unfold in his hands, and froze at the details printed on it.
This was definitely a Voyageurs jersey. This was a HOLLANDER 24 jersey. And–Hayden rubbed the material between his hands– it felt heavy. Expensive. It felt like how his own, actual jersey felt.
Now, why the fuck would Rozanov have one of Shane’s real jerseys?
He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden metal scuffle of a key in the doorway. Hayden’s hands released the jersey almost reflexively and his eyes went wide.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What had happened to Rozanov’s plans? His ‘all-night’ plans?
Fast as a fucking bullet and just as the door was pushed open, he jumped into the closet. It was cramped but at the very least it wasn’t completely dark, because the doors were slatted. And at least the lights in the main room were on, because they’d been on when Hayden had arrived.
The first thing he did was immediately silence the phone in his pocket and turn down the brightness. It would be horribly embarrassing to get caught in Ilya Rozanov’s hotel room’s closet because his wife texted to stop by Publix and grab the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.
His head cleared and he focused on the sounds around him. Rozanov had come back, and he was dragging someone Hayden couldn’t see to the ‘living-room’ area of the suite. Most of what he was saying was too low to hear, but Hayden caught something in Russian he recognized.
Jackie was the most beautiful, most talented, most fascinating woman on the planet. And Jackie had this thing where she rotated between obsessions, things that she did as ‘side-passions’ that she became scarily invested in. One of those ‘side-passions’ over the past couple years had been learning as many different nicknames and such in as many languages as she could, to ‘expand [their] horizons.’
Most of them he forgot almost instantly after being taught. Hayden was not by any means a languages guy. But there’d been one he remembered.
“Ah, well I love you too, moy lyubimyy,” Hayden replied, trying his best to copy Jackie’s nearly flawless pronunciation and completely failing. He chuckled, landing a kiss behind Jackie’s ear.
She broke out in laughter so loud he was sure the people all the way down in South America could hear it. He stared as she clutched her stomach, waiting innocently for an explanation.
“No, honey. You’d say moya lyubimaya. ‘Moy lyubimyy,’” she inhaled some air in between her laughs, “is the masculine form. So I would say that to you, but you wouldn’t call me that.”
He grinned, amused by his own stupidity like he was sometimes. “Noted. Doesn’t that work for Italian too?”
“Not the one I taught you,” she shrugged.
He was sure he’d misheard Rozanov. After all, he was speaking so fast and so low that Hayden couldn’t be sure he’d caught “moy lyubimyy.”
He checked the time on his phone. It was only about eight. Rozanov’s plans really were cancelled then.
Hayden could hear his voice getting louder as he approached, squinting and peeking through the slats to also see Rozanov peel off his jacket and throw it on the couch not too far from Hayden’s closet.
“–and that was completely illegal. Ref was idiot.”
“You always say the ref’s an idiot,” a second voice replied, affectionately. It sighed, in the same tone. “Ilya, I won. Give it a rest.”
Rozanov continued to ramble on about whatever crap he was spewing at the moment; Hayden didn’t care and couldn’t focus. He would recognize his best friend over ten years’ voice anywhere in the world. The tone, the cadence, the pitch–the inflection on certain vowels. Shane Hollander was his ride or die.
Shane Hollander was also in Ilya Rozanov’s hotel room, and he was currently flopping down on his couch. Now that Rozanov had moved a bit, Hayden could very well see the shape of Shane on the sofa right next to the shape of Rozanov that had just sat down. They sat in a position almost perpendicular to the doors of the closet, Hayden watching them from the side.
It was weird to say the least. Rozanov was a strange person to debrief about the game with, but, Hayden reasoned, he supposed it wasn’t totally irrational to have a civil conversation with the opposing team’s captain about it. They were surely alone in this room because some Voyageurs and some Bears would take this the wrong way–but Hayden wouldn’t. It was perfectly reasonable. Nothing about it was at all bizarre, actually.
He did not reserve the right to judge Shane for talking to this dick. It was that simple. Shane had always been the best on the whole team about legal stuff and PR and technical/social relationships. He should just let Shane deal with it however he wished.
“–Comeau banked left. I found no issue with it.”
Rozanov, who was sitting farthest from where Hayden was, shrugged with his shoulders.
“Is not technically illegal, but still shitty.”
Shane frowned. “You do a lot of things that are shitty and not technically illegal.”
“Like when?” Rozanov prompted.
They spoke to each other in a very familiar, practiced way, like they were two childhood friends who FaceTimed everyday to update each other about their lives now and talked for hours on end about absolutely nothing at all until one of them fell asleep. Rozanov was very comfortable physically–in the sense that he moved in a way that implied he was a hundred percent at peace, but that wasn’t abnormal. The man was known for manspreading like a conceited prick. What was a bit abnormal was Shane seeming to be in the same position; muscles relaxed, face not a blank, neutral slate, body draped over the cushions like they were his. They leaned towards each other.
It was rare to see Shane this relaxed. And as much as Hayden hated the man he was relaxed with, he was glad Shane was able to rest a bit after a whole day of being on alert.
Rozanov looked at Shane while he spoke. He had a pensive, tortured look in his eyes Hayden couldn’t entirely decipher.
“–that was very shitty of you, Ilya. And then there was also just the other day when you–hmphh!” The end of Shane’s sentence was muffled by Rozanov’s mouth on his.
He took Shane’s waist in his arms and pulled him close, kissing and nipping while Shane’s hands came to rest on his chest.
“That is enough,” Rozanov let out in between kisses, “talk about hockey for today. I do not want to talk about hockey.”
“I hate you,” Shane managed breathily. It barely even came out as a coherent sentence.
Rozanov kissed him again. “I love it when your voice does that, moy lyubimyy.”
Hayden felt a shock of understanding surge through his bones. It was weird that he’d be so stupid and ignorant before this moment–clearly he wasn’t the type to be brave enough to actually carry out an insane plan like this. This was some sort of strange, lucid dream.
Rozanov pulled Shane onto his lap, kissing around his jaw while Shane massaged the nape of his neck.
It was some kind of weird fucking dream. He tried best as he could to look elsewhere and block out the wet sounds of enjoyment coming from deep inside Shane’s chest. In the end, he failed.
He just couldn’t help but gawp at what the fuck was happening.
Shane straightened. “Uhm, Ilya.”
“Yes, sweetheart?” The nickname rolled off his tongue with that accent of his. He cradled Shane’s head with the palm of his hand, stroking and sharing that intense as all hell stare with him. His eyes were so charged it filled Hayden with a sudden, terrifying drop in his stomach.
“Did you order room service?” Shane pointed at the table where the dish of spaghetti lay.
Oh, fuck.
Rozanov froze, gaping a bit at the full plate. “...No.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’ve never stayed at this hotel before, do they have some kind of scheduled time for these things?”
Rozanov shrugged. “How would I know? I have never slept here in my life. When I am in Montreal I stay with you.”
“Really?” Shane looked thoughtful. “Wait, not once?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about 2016? When–”
Whatever had happened in 2016 madly triggered Rozanov. His mood shifted instantly. He angrily pressed another kiss to Shane’s lips and quickly muttered something Hayden couldn’t catch.
2016? Four years ago? They’d been doing this four years? At least four years?
“Ilya,” Shane giggled. Giggled, like a lovestruck schoolboy. “You can’t be jealous of her.”
Rozanov grumbled.
“Ilya, I’m taken, and I’m very gay.”
It finally hit Hayden what had happened four years ago. It hit him like a freight train. And fuck everything–
“Yes, you are. Mine.” Rozanov squeezed him. “Don’t do anything dumb like that again.”
–it kind of made sense. Figuring out Shane Hollander had kind of been like trying to assemble a three-thousand piece puzzle, and someone had just come up behind Hayden and informed him he was trying to do it upside down.
The sudden break-up. The insane claim that Rose just wasn’t Shane’s type. Shane quietly looking down at his phone before a game and smiling his ass off. His disinterest in clubs or bars. All the nights like this one he told Hayden he had plans. The intense look at the television when watching a Bears game. The Ilya Rozanov trading card Shane kept in his wallet that Hayden had written off as Shane getting it in a blind-pack and holding onto it because of what that shit was worth.
There were about a million different pieces that slotted perfectly into place at the exact same time, and it was almost too much for Hayden to process. Shane’s indifference to Julia Roberts. His difficulty in playing fuck, marry, kill. He’d known something was up. What straight man was indifferent to Julia Roberts?
And one more thing.
“I did something dumb,” Shane muttered, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“What? Are you hurt?”
Fuck, Rozanov spoke to him so…gently. He spoke to Shane like how Jackie would speak to a small wounded kitten. It was fucking weird to hear it come from a six-foot-three, two-hundred-twenty-two pound rasping, hulking monster of a man with a thick accented baritone. His rough, calloused hand caressed the side of Shane’s face, and Shane leaned entirely into it.
“I lost Ilya Jr.” Shane squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it happened. He was there and then I went to grab him from my coat and I have no idea where he went. The chain was broken. I’m really sorry. I should’ve kept him at home or something, but you know me, I’m selfish. I wanted him with me and I wanted a little piece of you with me at my games and I– why are you smiling?”
He punched Rozanov lightly on the shoulder. Rozanov, giddy, looked twelve years old. Toothy grin wide, he used the hand that wasn’t on Shane’s face, moved it from his waist, and reached into his pocket to withdraw:
The fuckass cat.
“Oh my god. But where did you–”
He pulled Shane in for another kiss. “You dropped him on the front steps of the Bell Center, moye solnyshko.”
The blond cat with the blue eyes. That had that stupid smile that reminded him of something. Someone. The lopsided grin. It had a name? It was called Ilya Jr.?
“I was so scared you’d kill me for losing him.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Rozanov scoffed, “I would just make you another one.”
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Shane protested. “Ilya Jr. was conceived our wedding night.”
There was so much to process in that statement Hayden didn’t even try.
“Then we marry again, lyubimyy. No issue.”
Hayden blinked. He blinked again. Wedding? Marry? No. That was the simplest answer: no.
“No, if we’re already married it would be a vow renewal. If we wanted to get married again, we’d get a divorce first.”
No. No. There was no way. There was just absolutely no way that Shane Hollander was married. To him. It just wasn't possible.
The speed with which Rozanov replied was frightening. “Do not speak that word ever again in my presence unless you refer to Hayden Pike’s divorce.”
Hayden's heart jumped out of his fucking chest so loudly he was sure Shane and Rozanov heard it.
“You're so mean to him,” Shane jabbed Rozanov’s shoulder. “Come on.”
Rozanov made a show of dramatically rolling his eyes before kissing Shane's jaw again.
“Hayden is my best friend. I don't know what this weird beef you have with him is,” Shane whined.
“I am your best friend,” Rozanov corrected. “And I do not have beef with Pike. I just think his wife could do much better.”
“Stop.” Shane jabbed him again.
Something in Hayden's chest released at Shane's quick defense of him. He'd been wound so tight at the discovery of this whole…
“You know what he tried today?” Rozanov groaned, noisily. “He saw him,” he tapped the cat in Shane's hand, “in my pocket and went fucking ballistic on me. ‘Is Shane's cat. Give back to me. Wah wah wah. You are slut who doesn't understand cats. Wah. My toe drag is weak.’”
Shane sighed, a little sadly, “Ilya, baby, how was he supposed to know?”
Rozanov continued, ignoring Shane’s very reasonable interjection.
“And he started saying all these things about how I didn’t understand crafts and relationships–fuck, Shane, do you know how hard it was for me not to rub in his face you are my husband?”
It was like hell had frozen over. Like pigs had grown wings and begun to soar across the sky. It was like Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander were married.
“He didn’t see yours?” Shane prompted.
That was when Rozanov extracted from his other pocket a much smaller cluster of keys than Shane’s, with a small needle-felted tuxedo cat the size of Shane’s. It was made clearly with more skill than Shane’s, more neatly. The understanding hit Hayden harder than he wanted it to.
“I am more discreet with Shane Jr.” Rozanov said simply.
He grabbed the tiny thing with just two fingers and hopped it up Shane’s chest, wiggling it around in the air until it met Shane’s blond cat. Shane smiled and bumped the cats’ noses together like they were kissing.
It was simultaneously the dumbest and the cutest thing Hayden had ever seen in his life. Shane Hollander and Ilya fucking Rozanov were married, and they’d made each other fucking needle-felt cats of each other on their wedding night to use as keychains.
Hayden had three questions pop into his head at the exact same time.
1: How long ago had they even gotten married?
2: Ilya Rozanov hadn’t been fucking on his wedding night?
3: How on Earth was this possible?
“Reunited at last,” Rozanov sighed. Then he pressed another kiss to Shane.
Was the man able to spend a second in private with Shane without touching him? A quiet couple seconds passed before Shane broke the silence.
“You know, my passport’s expiring in a couple months. And uhm, Hayden will probably notice when my new one has your name on it.”
“You want to come out this year?” Rozanov raised his brows.
“I mean, it’s kind of inevitable. And the guilt from not telling Hayden may or may not be killing me on the inside.”
Hayden felt a swell of pride at that but also the desire to hurl. How could Shane have kept something so fucking huge as being married from him?
What was ridiculous was that Shane had always struck Hayden as a very un-romantic person. Oblivious to romantic cues from girls trying to pick him up, unindulgent in romance movies, indifferent to Valentine’s Day, shying away from any kind of conversation about girlfriends or weddings, hating any kind of PDA. So this entire conversation had flipped Hayden’s entire perception of Shane Hollander on its head. He’d always just seen it as a part of who Shane was. Un-romantic, a realist, sometimes even a cynic.
It was as shocking to have this re-evaluated as it would’ve been to find out Shane was not Wasian. Or that he was a messy person. Or that he had an inch of fat on his body. It didn’t slot in with all the other facts he knew about Shane, even a little bit.
Rozanov took Ilya Jr. in his palm with Shane Jr,, still attached to his keys, and twisted himself to lay them on the coffee table right by them.
“Enough talking, hm?” Rozanov prodded at Shane’s shirt. “I want this off.”
Just then, Hayden felt true fear for the first time.
“I want my husband under me on bed and naked,” Rozanov murmured, unfortunately at a volume Hayden could still hear. “Make up for wedding night.”
Shane obeyed, but he grumbled as he slid off his shirt. “I was sick as a dog. It was cold and rainy.”
“Is okay, sweetheart. We had good night regardless. We do not need sex to have good night,” Rozanov reassured him. “But gives excuse to have sex every other night.”
“You’ve been using that excuse since the day after.”
“You love my excuses, moy lyubimyy,” Rozanov said huskily.
More clothes came off, and they both began to stumble to the bed area of the studio-like layout. Hayden’s heartrate must’ve spiked to three hundred as the horror filled every bone in him.
He fumbled for his phone, hands shaking, and immediately opened his chat with Shane, hoping, praying Shane didn’t have his phone silenced.
Hayden: shane
Hayden: SHANE
Hayden: !!! I NEED YOU
To his relief he heard Shane’s phone go off somewhere in the room. But neither Shane nor Rozanov even seemed to hear it.
Hayden: i think im going to DIE
Hayden: you need to come over to my house NOW
Hayden: like NOW
Hayden: HSANE ITS AN EMERGENCY PICK UP YOUR FUKCING PHONE
He typed as fast as humanly possible. Spamming as much as he could.
Hayden: HANE IT IS LIEF OR DEATH I NEED YOU LIKE NOW
Hayden: WEHEREVR YOU ARE STP WHAT YOURE DOING ANDF GET PVER HERE
Rozanov, sweaty and on top of Shane’s nearly naked body, finally grumbled, and lifted himself off of him.
“Go answer your fucking phone. Quick.”
Hayden: SHANE SHANE SHANE SHANE SHANE
“I don’t wanna get up,” Shane whined, arms still around Rozanov’s neck.
Please, listen to Rozanov, Hayden thought in a panic. And then physically recoiled at what a digusting thought he’d just had.
Hayden: GET IN A CAR COME TO MY HOUSE NO QUESTIONS ASKED
Hayden: SERIOUSLT THIS IS NOT A JOKE
Hayden: DROP WHAT YOURE DOING IMMEDIATELY
“We cannot have sex with constant pinging. Is very annoying.”
Shane untangled himself from Rozanov and trudged over to where his coat was hung up near the door, across the open floor plan. He was wearing nothing but boxers, messy hair, a flush on his cheeks, multiple hickeys, and a very severe situation.
Hayden should probably come up with some kind of excuse. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead.
He watched Shane’s eyes widen as he scanned his notifications.
“Oh my god. Ilya, I have to go.”
Hayden nearly passed out from relief.
“What?” He snapped. “What could possibly be so important that it cannot wait?”
“Hayden needs me. I don’t know what it is. But look,” he sprinted over and handed Rozanov his phone, pulling on his pants. Worry creased his forehead.
“Ah.”
What, no snarky comment about him? Holy fucking shit.
“I will drive.”
Shane was already dressed and pulling on his coat when Rozanov was tying his shoes.
And now was probably a good time to start thinking of a real good excuse.
The door slammed behind them.
Safe to say, Hayden was fucked.
But, at least nobody had fucked in front of him. He considered that a win.
Now was also probably the time to process what he’d just witnessed.