Archive of Our Own

Shane is aware that his relationship with Melissa is atypical. 

He hadn’t even known her until the start of his third season, when Melissa was hired to fill the registered dietician role for the team’s nutrition department, and he hadn’t expected their meeting at the start of the season to be anything more than putting a face to a name, something to check off of a to-do list so she could say she’d met everyone on the team. It’s what the RD before her had done, after all. Paul had done his job, but that had been where it ended for him. He’d made sure none of Shane’s allergens were in his mealpreps, Shane had eaten what was put in front of him even if some of the textures made him want to gag, and they’d existed in a satisfactory equilibrium. Paul made sure Shane ate enough calories and protein to do his job, and Shane didn’t act like a brat just because eating quinoa involved mostly swallowing it whole so he wouldn’t have to experience the texture of it. Easy. He’d expected it to be the same with Melissa, to sit down, make sure she knew not to put anything on his meal plan that would kill him, and then eat whatever she picked for him. 

Instead, however, she’d taken out a–floral-print, which had thrown him, out of place in the usual sea of corporate rigidity in the admin offices–notebook, uncapped a pen, adjusted her glasses, and said, “Alright, why don’t we start with the things you love to eat?” 

He hadn’t been able to give her an answer, and he’d felt absurdly like he was failing a test, even if it’s a test there’s no way he could have studied for. Food had never been a matter of enjoyment for him, honestly, especially not during the season. He had a few things he liked that his dad has made him over the years, and he’d enjoyed his grandmother’s nabeyaki udon and always requested it for his birthdays when he was young, but for the sake of efficiency, he’d long ago started thinking about food as fuel before anything else. It was just easier. No mourning what he couldn’t have, no bemoaning when other people had delicious things he can’t share, no sense of loss when having to bow out of team dinners or sit at a table eating nothing and nursing a ginger ale because making everyone go to a restaurant that was safe for him and then making everyone sit through him running through his allergies with an increasingly-worried-looking waitress was just more fuss than the whole thing was worth. Easier to be logical and mathematical about it. Calculate how many calories will be spent, calculate how many calories need to go in, make sure none of those calories are deadly, done. Easy. 

Melissa, though, had appeared to make a passion project out of choosing meals he would like, and when he couldn’t offer any–because it hadn’t occurred to him to have any–they’d started their Snapchat system. It had felt ridiculous at first, downloading and learning how to use Snapchat just to tell his dietician if the sauce on his grain bowl tasted better than last week’s or if the texture on the Spanish omelette was still okay for him after microwaving it, but he’d settled into it with time, Melissa making adjustments as they went and never seeming angry or impatient on the weeks when they hit a bad streak of luck and none of the meals were appealing even if they were edible. She’s just always approached it with an eager determination that reminds him of how he feels on the ice, something that’s put him at ease over time. She’d told him once–when he felt the need to make smalltalk while they waited on a protein bar company to call her back with a more detailed allergen list–that she’d gotten into dietetics because she’d struggled with food when she was younger and played varsity sports and wanted to make it not so hard for other people. Shane had felt oddly touched by that, though he still can’t say exactly why. 

And it had also made it even easier to fall into the habit of Snapchatting her his meals during the season, just quick reports of what it is, how he feels about it, and if it’s a mealprep, what he wants adjusted for next time. It also makes food feel safer, somehow, getting Melissa’s approval of what he eats when it isn’t planned, someone telling him he’s made a good choice that won’t impact his performance, someone signing off on the fact that he isn’t fucking up. 

It’s such a habit to send her his meals, in fact, that he doesn’t think about the fact that he’s doing it until he’s already pulled up Snapchat and taken a shot of the tuna melt in front of him until Rozanov asks him what he’s doing. 

“Uh,” he says, looking up from his screen and feeling his ears go hot, realizing for the first time that this habit of his hasn’t actually come up before until this exact moment. 

“What?” Rozanov asks, sounding more amused than anything else. “You are one of the people who does Instagram for food now?” 

“No,” Shane says, stalling between answering and finishing his Snap so he can send it to Melissa, “one sec.” He finishes typing out Tuna melt. Chips. Pickles. It smells really good. Swiss cheese, I think. before he looks back to Rozanov, putting his phone facedown on the coffee table. “Just sending it to someone on the staff. She likes knowing what I’m eating.” He doesn’t know if Melissa likes knowing what he’s eating, per se, but she also seems pleased when he talks about enjoying food for things beyond how many grams of protein it has in it. 

“Ah,” Rozanov says, in a tone Shane can’t quite read. “You always send her your food then, this girl?” 

“Pretty much,” Shane says, picking up one of his tuna melts after Rozanov picks up one of his. It does smell good. He doesn’t like the texture of cheese if it melts and then reheats in the microwave, so Melissa doesn’t put a lot of cheese in his plans, but this cheese seems perfectly melted, and he’d watched the ingredients closely enough to know none of them have any of his allergens. 

By all metrics, a perfect meal. 

He thinks Melissa’s going to be pleased. 

*

Learning that Hollander has a girl he’s close enough to that he sends her what he’s eating even while at Ilya’s house is an unwelcome surprise. 

Part of his plans for today had been finding out about any situations exactly like this, but the confirmation makes him feel…well, makes him feel a way he doesn’t care for, fucking frankly. He’d assumed, honestly, that there wouldn’t be anyone else, or if there was, then they would brief flings, more about scratching an itch than about anything beyond that. He can’t imagine Hollander keeping a girlfriend secret, nor can he imagine Hollander’s mother letting him keep a girlfriend secret, not when it would help sell his wholesome, media-friendly image. He knows by now that Hollander is a private person, but he’d assumed if there was a woman in the picture, she’d have joined the ranks of the other WAGs by now, wearing a #24 jersey and smiling pretty on Hollander’s Instagram posts and waving in the audience at games, wholesome and supportive and exactly the type of person Hollander should be dating. 

Somehow the idea of Hollander having a woman he texts multiple times a day but doesn’t talk about publicly feels even worse. It feels like a threat, almost, a shark beneath the water waiting to launch up and snatch this thing between him and Hollander right up, drag it down down down until it’s gone forever. 

He takes a bite of tuna melt that’s tasteless even as he chews. 

“What is her name?” He asks. “This girl?” 

“Melissa,” Hollander says, covering his full mouth with a hand as he speaks. 

It’s a stupid name, Ilya decides in an instant. Melissa. Too much sibilance, like a snake. 

Like a snake hiding in the grass, undetectable until it’s too late and the bite has already happened. 

“And you text her all of your food?” He asks. “She is interested in this?” It seems irritatingly domestic of her, something an official girlfriend might be interested in, making sure Hollander is fed well, checking in on him, getting his opinions on something as unimportant as what he’s eating every day. 

The fact that it’s immediately something Ilya wants now that the possibility of it has occurred to him is something he doesn’t permit himself to think about. 

“I mean,” Hollander says with a shrug. “Yeah.” He half-laughs, apparently remembering something, and he takes a sip of his ginger ale. 

(Ilya wonders, suddenly and viciously, if Melissa knows that Hollander likes ginger ale, if she would have known what brand to pick out in the store the way Ilya did.)

“I actually, uh,” he shakes his head, like he can’t believe his own memory, and the endearing pinkness of his cheeks makes Ilya want to kiss him. “I even Snapchatted her the whole meal I had with the team after our first cup win when we all went out. I don’t think the video even made any fucking sense, but apparently I said the phrase, ‘Are the fries my friend?’” Hollander makes a face at this, self-deprecating, inviting Ilya in on the punchline. “Now it’s what she always asks me if I send her something new. I’m probably going to get asked if tuna melts are my friend any second now.” 

It’s ridiculous, how jealous it makes him in an instant, the idea of this lunch being included in an inside joke between Hollander and this Melissa person. 

(Knowing it’s ridiculous doesn’t stop him from feeling that way, though.)

“And are they your friend?” Ilya asks, unable to help it. 

“Yeah,” Hollander agrees. “They’re really good.” 

Stupidly, Ilya does feel a little mollified. 

“Will you tell Melissa this?” Ilya asks, pressing at the bruise because he’s a masochist deep down. 

“Yeah, probably,” Hollander says. “She likes knowing when I like something.” 

Well, Ilya definitively does not like this current line of conversation. 

When conversation shifts away from Melissa, Ilya is more than happy to let it. 

*

It’s only after Rozanov has gone to answer a phone call that sounds more than a little frustrating that Melissa’s response comes in. 

Wow, looks good! That looks like the GOOD pickles, too. 

Are you at a new place? 

Shane hesitates, unsure what he’s supposed to say now. He has a list of go-to places in each city–largely thanks to Melissa, who has no problem calling restaurants to ask about allergen safety and getting pushy about it if they try to get vague–and even from a list of multiple options, he still tends to frequent only two or three, preferring the comfort of a place that’s been reliably safe when he doesn’t have the reassurance of Melissa-supervised meal preps or something made in his own kitchen while on the road. Even with only the counter in the background, then, it’s not a surprise that Melissa would notice it’s not a place he usually goes to in Boston. 

But he also doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to explain it. 

I’m at a friend’s house. 

He types it and then hesitates before sending, unsure if more details would make it better or worse. From Hayden’s comment earlier, he gathers that him texting with “Boston Lily” hasn’t gone unnoticed, and he doesn’t know if he should add a she to cover his bases or he to limit how many questions he’s going to get. 

Or if a he would just invite more questions. 

He hits send before he can mindfuck it any further. 

Nice! 

Are you eating dinner with them, too? Do you want me to send along your allergy list? Or did you already tell them? 

Shane makes a face, knowing not saying anything about it earlier was probably a bad call but not wanting to add another element to something that already felt a little uncomfortably new, especially when Rozanov’s question indicated he’d already planned on tuna melts. It would have felt rude, asking to read ingredient lists and potentially telling Rozanov he needed something else. It had ended up fine–Shane had checked on the bread when Rozanov’s back was turned, and the chip brand is familiar–but he knows he’s unlikely to get that lucky a second time. 

…Shane. 

Shane Hollander you tell me right now you let your friend know about your allergies. 

I checked the labels. 

And you told your friend why you were doing that so they don’t accidentally poison you? 

The labels were good. 

S h a n e. 

Shane lets out an annoyed breath. It’s one of the things he’d hesitated about when accepting Rozanov’s invitation to stay, knowing that his allergies would almost certainly have to come up at some point. It just feels like a strangely…personal thing to know, ridiculous as that is when he’s been fucking Rozanov for years now. Rozanov has kept his personal life to himself despite Shane asking now and then, so Shane had assumed he was supposed to operate under the same system. Rozanov has asked a few questions about Christmas cards he’s seen on Shane’s fridge and asked if anything was wrong the time he’d come over and Aunt Sarah Beth had called him six times and refused to stop until he answered. Rozanov had been amused when Shane had reported that she was just very concerned about making sure he knew the time for his dad’s surprise birthday party the next month, but that’s about where talking about themselves has ended. He knows logically that he should probably fess up sooner rather than later. 

But he’d also been hoping that maybe he could still get out of it. 

Shane Hollander, if you ruin my record with an allergic reaction because you didn’t speak up, I am flying down to Boston and kicking your anaphylactic butt. 

Shane rolls his eyes. 

Okay, okay. I’ll tell him. Jesus. 

He realizes only after sending it that he used the pronoun without thinking about it first, but Melissa doesn’t seem bothered in her response, which is reassuring that maybe it isn’t weird for him to be at a friend’s house. He’s not sure that he and Rozanov are friends, technically, but eating together seems like a step in that direction now that he thinks about it. It’s how his friendship with Hayden had started, after all. 

The thought makes him feel much less unsettled suddenly. That’s probably a contributing factor to Melissa not having questions, after all. She knows he eats at Hayden’s house regularly, having gotten multiple Snaps and greetings from Jackie, who’s run recipes past her before. It’s probably not odd at all to her to hear that he’s eating at someone else’s house. 

He settles back against the couch a little more comfortably, the day feeling a little less new now that he has the context of precedent in mind. 

Good. 

I need you to crush Boston. Nathan from their nutrition department was WAY too cocky at the conference last year. I want him fleeing before me in terror and shame this year. 

Make it happen, Hollander. 

Shane grins. 

If I beat them, can I have taco bowls for mealprep next week? 

With pineapple salsa?

Deal. 

If you lose, though, it’s gruel and water for everyone. 

So, y’know, the stakes are high. 

Shane huffs a laugh, responding with a thumbs up and then setting his phone back down when he hears Rozanov returning. 

His question about Rozanov’s father goes unanswered, but he lets himself be tugged in to rest against him. It feels a little strange, doing what can only be called snuggling in broad daylight, and it does occur to him to nudge things back to more familiar territory, but he decides against it for now. It’s new, cuddling together like this, but it’s not unpleasant. He feels himself slowly going more and more lax as gentle fingers move through his hair, until he’s all but dozing against Rozanov, who doesn’t complain, just shifts slightly to let Shane rest against him better. Shane doesn’t resist. He’ll need to be well-rested to destroy him tomorrow. 

After all, he promised Melissa.

*

It’s only after Ilya’s already fed Hollander once and begun preparing to do it a second time that Hollander decides to let him know there was a possibility Ilya could kill him while doing so. 

If he weren’t so busy banishing allergens to a single cupboard to get them away from anything Hollander-facing, he would be tempted to hit him about it. 

“-fucking tell me you could have died from-” 

“-kay, calm down, I watched what you made and-” 

“-peanuts every meal of the day, Hollander, you do not fucking know-” 

“-would eat peanuts that often? I have literally never seen you eat-” 

“-never seen me eat anything, for all you know-” 

“-would have told you if you’d tried to serve me anything I couldn’t have-” 

“-known you couldn’t have it when you didn’t fucking ask me about anything when-” 

The argument takes them through Ilya finishing banishing all of the immediately deadly things to one area of his kitchen and washing his hands after for good measure. He’s painfully aware now, though, of everything he might have touched, wondering if a stray fingerprint with peanut butter on it might be enough to-

Hollander snorts. 

Ilya looks up at him, raising his eyebrows incredulously. 

“This is funny to you?” He demands, because it certainly isn’t funny to him. 

“You look like you’re about to have a panic attack, dude,” Hollander says, resting his chin on one hand. “Calm down.” 

Ilya gives him a look meant to ask where the fuck he gets off telling someone to calm down given everything about his standard default state. 

“This is why I didn’t want to say anything,” Hollander says, and now there’s a note of complaint in his voice. “Now it has to be a whole fucking thing.” 

“A whole fucking thing to not kill you?” Ilya asks. “Yes, this is a thing. A pretty fucking important thing.” 

Hollander’s lips go a little thinner. 

“Hollander, you have to fucking-” 

“Do you want me to leave?” 

Ilya stops short. 

“What?” 

“Do you want me to leave?” Hollander demands. “Listen, I know it’s fucking annoying, okay? And it’s a pain to have to work around. It’s my fucking life every single day. It has been since I was a kid. I know it’s a lot. I know it’s annoying. If you want me to go, I’ll go, okay? You won’t have to worry about it.” 

The way Hollander is attempting to sound unbothered while very clearly being hurt is obnoxiously making Ilya feel like the asshole here, even when he’s still pretty sure that title belongs to the motherfucker who decided to make Ilya flirt with a manslaughter by peanut charge today. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” Ilya says, because it’s true, because he’s wanted this day to happen for an embarrassing amount of time. 

(And there is also maybe a little extra pressure to make today go well now that he knows there’s someone else who he’s up against when it comes to having a claim to Shane Hollander.) 

“I just don’t want to kill you with fucking…cashews or something,” he says, leaning back against his counter. “I could have hurt you. I don’t like that.” 

Hollander seems to relax slightly. 

“Now you know,” he says with a shrug. 

“Now I know,” Ilya agrees. After a moment, he pushes off of the counter. “And now I know you don’t get to be lazy anymore because you like to keep secrets. Come here.” 

“You come here,” Hollander grumbles, even as he hops off of his barstool and obeys. 

On complete impulse, struck, still, by the pleasure of seeing Hollander in his clothes, he pulls him in for a quick, damningly chaste kiss, turning and opening the fridge before Hollander can fully recover. He tilts his chin forward to make him focus up, as if Ilya didn’t play a part in distracting him. 

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me what you can eat without dying.” 

He sees Hollander roll his eyes, but he still reaches in and starts pulling things out, glancing at labels and putting some things back–which Ilya immediately shoves even farther away, making Hollander snort–and setting other things on the counter. 

And if Ilya doesn’t necessarily need to have a hand at the small of his back while he does so, well. 

Hollander doesn’t complain. 

*

The same way it did with having dinner over at Hayden and Jackie’s house, the day has gotten less gratingly new with time, settling on him better until it’s something almost approaching comfortable. Rozanov’s only concern with his allergies had been with making sure the food would be safe for him, and even him sending a picture to his team’s dietician hadn’t seemed to register as too strange to him, Rozanov even turning his plate slightly for him at dinner so it would be a better shot for Melissa. Shane had protested that he didn’t need to bother, but Rozanov had just shrugged and said he didn’t want anyone to think Shane wasn’t being well-fed. 

Given that Melissa doesn’t even know who’s feeding Shane, this had seemed like a strange thing to be concerned with, but he’d let it pass. 

In exchange, he doesn’t say anything when Rozanov gets a text after dinner that makes him look angry for a moment, typing away furiously and then all but slinging his phone back to the couch cushion beside him, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the television in a way that would suggest he isn’t actually watching the game that’s playing. From context, Shane can make a pretty solid guess about what the text must have been about, but Rozanov hadn’t answered his question before, which makes him hesitant to push now. It feels wrong to just not say anything, though, especially when Rozanov is so clearly upset about it. 

Doubting himself even as he does so, he decides to lean into what Rozanov had seemed to want earlier in this same situation. 

Rozanov glances at him when he shifts close, and Shane pauses, just briefly, not sure if he should pull Rozanov’s arm loose to tuck himself under it or just lay against him or call it off and retreat completely. He’s not sure this is even the right approach at all, not sure this will be welcome, not sure Rozanov won’t just kick him out for-

Rozanov opens the arm facing Shane, and he curls himself up the way he had been pulled earlier, resting his head on Rozanov’s shoulder and this time stretching his legs out along the couch. It puts more of his bodyweight on Rozanov, and he tilts his head up to check if he’s too heavy, finding Rozanov already looking down at him with an expression he can’t read. 

“Okay?” He asks. 

Rozanov nods, wrapping his arm around him and settling, lifting one leg to rest on the couch beside Shane’s. 

Rozanov doesn’t play with his hair this time, just keeps his arm wrapped around him, heavy and strangely pleasant, his hand holding Shane’s loosely, but Shane still feels relaxed in the hold, put at ease by the way Rozanov hadn’t found the offer strange. He’s full and comfortable, and when his phone buzzes on the coffee table, he barely glances at it, nudging Rozanov back when he starts to lean forward to grab it for him. 

“It’s probably just Melissa,” Shane says around a yawn. 

Rozanov pauses for just a second before he settles back slowly. 

“You don’t want to answer?” 

Shane shakes his head. He’d already told her dinner was allergy free and that he liked the way the zucchini was sliced. Any other details can get hashed out tomorrow. 

“It’s not important.” 

Rozanov holds him just a little bit tighter. 

*

Settling down to sleep curled up next to Shane Hollander feels dangerously good, Ilya is learning. 

Especially when he knows now that he has competition for the experience, something he’s still processing. 

He hadn’t imagined that Hollander would have two–it has to be only two, Ilya can’t actually handle the idea that there are even more–arrangements like theirs, that there would be a second person kept on a roster in regular rotation to keep Hollander company. Hollander is always eager in bed, but Ilya knows–and often gets off to the fact–that the tricks Hollander knows are the tricks Ilya has taught him. It probably makes him a bad person, finding it as hot as he does that he’s the one who’s taught Hollander so many ways to feel good, but it’s also felt reassuring in a way, like Ilya has a role in Hollander’s life that no one else does. 

Apparently his fatal flaw, though, was in suspecting that only a man would make Hollander feel good, in getting too comfortable in his assumption that he had exclusive status in his life. 

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” Hollander says, and it’s more pleasing than Ilya knows what to do with, the rumble of Hollander’s chest against his own. He holds him a little tighter. 

“Thank you for staying,” he says, low, quiet, keeping the soft bubble of this room safe. He hesitates, just briefly, on what he wants to say next, on offering up something that could hurt if Hollander chose to make it hurt, but he also needs to know, suddenly, needs a better idea of where he stands now that he knows there’s another person potentially standing in the same place as him. “It was nice, yes? Today?” It’s an effort not to hold his breath. 

“Yeah,” Hollander says, breathing through a yawn, promisingly relaxed and sleepy in Ilya’s hold. “It was nice.” 

Ilya presses his smile to Hollander’s soft hair, feeling just giddy enough to risk pushing just a little further. 

“Would you want to do this more?” He asks, wishing it didn’t make him as nervous as it does to ask it. “Sometimes?” 

“Staying over?” Hollander asks. 

“Yes,” Ilya says, tucking his arm around Hollander’s waist just a little tighter, feeling daring. If Melissa can get multiple daily Snapchats from Hollander, then surely it isn’t too much for Ilya to ask for them to sleep over now and then. He would have been afraid of spooking Hollander before, of pushing too much, but if Hollander is already giving someone the kind of attention Melissa gets…then maybe Ilya is allowed to ask for more, too. “When you are in Boston, you stay with me. When I am in Montreal destroying your team and making you cry-” He half-flinches with a grin when he gets an elbow to the side. “Then I stay with you.” 

“Do you want to do that?” Hollander asks, his tone cautious. 

“Yes,” Ilya answers, because if Melissa gets to ask for multiple Snaps a day no problem, then surely Ilya just wanting to stay over every few weeks when they see each other can’t be too needy in comparison. 

And if Ilya taking up space in Hollander’s bed means Melissa can’t take the spot on those nights, well…

That’s just efficiency. 

“I mean,” Hollander says, turning over to face him, “wouldn’t that be a little…” He makes an expression that Ilya can’t really make out in the dim light of the room, not enough to read it accurately. 

“A little?” He prompts, feeling his stomach go tight. Does Hollander not want him to stay over? He’d thought after today that this test run had proven they could be good together beyond a quick fuck and a little cuddling afterwards, but if Hollander-

“That doesn’t seem very…fuckbuddy,” Hollander says, and despite his own small spiral, Ilya can’t help but smile at the way Hollander’s voice goes quiet on the last word, like he’s scandalized by saying it out loud. 

Like he hasn’t done far, far filthier things with that mouth of his. 

“Maybe we are more buddy than just fucking,” Ilya teases with a shrug, because it seems like the safest way to edge towards getting what he wants without spooking Hollander in the process. 

Or potentially promising more than he can deliver. 

“Oh,” Hollander says, sounding a little amused now. “Is that what we are? Buddies?” 

“The best kind of buddies,” Ilya teases. After hesitating a moment, he reaches out, brushing Hollander’s hair back lightly and then drifting his palm down to rest lightly against his neck, thumb at the hinge of his jaw. “We have known each other a long time, yes?” 

“Since we were teenagers,” Hollander says, pausing briefly to yawn, grinning when it makes Ilya yawn, too. “Damn, I haven’t thought about that before.” 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees, “since this very lame virgin walked up to me in parking lot to tell me to stop smoking like-” He laughs when Hollander kicks his shin. 

“Apparently you were into it,” Hollander says, sounding teasingly smug. “Or remind me who started jacking off at who in the showers later?” 

“I had to do something,” Ilya teases, “or you would have just stood around giving me sad puppy eyes forever. It’s called being pro-active, Hollander.” 

*

It’s not actually something Shane’s thought about before, exactly how much of his life has had Rozanov in it, in one way or another, the way he’d probably still just be satisfying himself with a dildo and his imagination if Rozanov hadn’t done something more than a little fucking insane and pushed him over the edge of curiosity and into actually taking action. It makes him feel absurdly emotional about it, suddenly, in a way that would probably have him packing up and bolting if he wasn’t comfortably curled up in a bed that he’s not eager to leave now that he’s settled and more than a little sleepy. Years, he thinks, I’ve known this man for years, in a way I’ve never known anyone else. 

It’s as terrifying as it is reassuring, having someone like that. 

“What, Rozanov, you planning on getting emotional about how long we’ve been fucking?” He goads, to take them back to something more comfortable. 

“What, are you?” Rozanov shoots back. “I am seeing tears, I think.” 

“Asshole,” Shane says with a grin, glad to be back to steadier ground. Still, he can’t shake it, the knowledge of how long they’ve been in each other’s lives. He’s known Rozanov even longer than he’s known Hayden, he thinks suddenly, something that seems almost impossible with how much of his life Hayden is. “So what, we’ve unlocked sleepovers now? We hit the total on our punchcard?” 

“How long have you known Melissa?” Rozanov asks. “She gets Snapchats every single day.” It’s a strange left field thing to bring up, throwing his dietician into the conversation out of nowhere, but maybe Rozanov was just feeling a similar level of unsteady and just tossed in the first thing he could think of. 

The idea of Rozanov feeling as unsure as him in this new thing they’re trying is oddly reassuring, as is the warm weight of Rozanov’s palm still against his neck. He’s good at that, Shane thinks, at making him feel safe, comfortable. Even today, he’d taken Shane’s allergies in stride like it wasn’t a problem at all, like it wasn’t the pain to work around that Shane knows it is. It feels like acceptance, being treated like that. 

It feels like something that feels dangerously good. 

It feels like something he wants more of. 

“What?” Shane asks, teasing back, feeling well-fucked and well-fed and maybe a little reckless. “Jealous?” 

“Just curious,” Rozanov says. “We have known each other so long, but I do not get pictures of everything you eat all day.” 

Shane snorts. 

“Well it’s not your job for one thing,” he says, amused, but even in the faint light he catches a little flicker of something across Rozanov’s face, there and gone again too fast for Shane to catch in the dim lighting, but a reaction of some kind to what he said. 

He just doesn’t know what. 

*

It stings, Hollander’s words, the reminder that Ilya’s place in his life is limited to what happens in a bedroom, in the few stolen hours they manage every few weeks during the season, the hurt even keener when Ilya sometimes feels like he’s stuck in a waiting room between their meetings, like his life exists only to stretch between his few stolen hours with Hollander. The implication that it’s Melissa’s job to care about him, not Ilya’s, hurts in a way that makes him feel a little reckless in response, enough to tempt him into being a little more direct than he might otherwise be. Maybe he wants it to be his job, a little bit, to be more of Hollander’s life than just a fuck now and then. He knows what they have isn’t something that can ever be public, but if Hollander can hide this Melissa person well enough that Ilya’s gone years without hearing even a whisper about her even though she and Hollander apparently talk constantly during the day…

Then maybe Ilya can risk wanting more of Hollander, too. 

He pulls him into a kiss that Hollander relaxes into easily, always so quick to oblige, so sweet when he melts into Ilya’s touch. It’s addicting, that kind of surrender, that kind of trust, the way Hollander offers himself up on an open palm with the faith that Ilya will hold him gently. The things they get up to together often get rough, and yet Hollander still trusts him, always, trusts him not to go too far, to read what he wants, to give him what he wants, to bring him up and then ease him back down, to touch him firm and gentle when he’s still shivering his way back into his body, to kiss and coax when they’re trying out something new. 

“Maybe I want my own job,” he says when he finally releases Hollander from the kiss. Hollander blinks, a little owlish, endearing enough that Ilya has to kiss him again, just briefly, unable to resist. 

“What job?” Hollander asks, half a beat too late. “What, you want to hear what I’m eating all day, too?” 

Ilya wouldn’t be opposed, really, if it would mean that he and Melissa are evenly matched in Hollander’s roster, but just tying has never been satisfying. 

He wants something of his own, something Melissa doesn’t have. 

“Is like I said earlier,” he says, keeping his tone casual, careful not to come off intense, to ease Hollander into the idea the way he has plenty of things in a bed before, “we have known each other a long time. We are friends, yes?” 

“...yes?” Hollander says, a question rather than an answer, but Ilya will take it. 

“Then maybe we do more things like friends,” Ilya concludes. 

“Like what?” Hollander asks, and really, if Ilya had known tap dancing his way around “I didn’t know you had someone else who might be like me in your life, and I don’t like it for reasons I can’t think about, but now I need to make sure someone else isn’t beating me” was going to take so long, he would have started earlier. 

“We stay over at each other’s houses,” he says. “And we talk more, maybe. Say good morning, good night, tell each other all of our team strategies before we play against each other and you go first doing that. Very casual.” 

“Very casual,” Hollander repeats, sounding amused. “And you want that? More texting?” 

Ilya hesitates, for just a second, words on his tongue that he has to think about before he sets them loose, knowing how dangerous they are. 

But deciding to say them anyway. 

“I want more of you,” he says. 

*

Shane would be lying if he said the words weren’t enough to almost have him up out of the bed as a kneejerk response. Even said teasingly like he knows they must have been, it’s a big step forward from “we fuck each other when we happen to be in the same place.” 

But it’s not as if he hasn’t also thought from time to time that he wants more of Rozanov, too. He’s just always told himself firmly that it’s stupid, that he’s reading things that aren’t there, that he’s getting greedy in wanting more than what Rozanov gives him. It was his big mistake after the first time they had sex, after all, trying to snuggle and kiss when the sex was already over. He’d assumed Rozanov ghosting him after that was a lesson in what they’re supposed to be, a reminder that casual fuckbuddies don’t do forehead kisses and laying together in bed longer than it takes for both parties to catch their breath. He’s flirted around the edges of stealing more over the years, of course, pretending to be out of it just a little longer than he is, using the excuse of being tired to tuck his face into a pillow for just a few minutes, stealing a few more precious moments of warm, familiar skin against his, of the kind of satisfaction he only feels with Rozanov, of savoring getting to drop everything for a little while and pretend there’s nothing beyond hands and mouths and cocks and pleasure, nothing beyond Rozanov’s voice in his ear and getting to let go and trust that someone else will take over the wheel for a while. He’s assumed all this time that he’s been alone in this, that the lingering want for more was his own stupid weakness, but if Rozanov wants it, too, if things might have changed over the years for him, if Shane isn’t the only one who wants to pump a little more air into their bubble of together, then maybe he doesn’t have to feel so stupid about it. 

“I want more of you, too,” he says back, immediately feeling regret after he’s said it, afraid he’s misread a joke, afraid he’ll spook Rozanov off once more, afraid that-

Rozanov pulls him into another kiss, deep and lingering and dizzying. When Shane finally pulls back for air, Rozanov just shifts him closer, tugging him until Shane’s head is pressed to his chest. 

“Maybe,” Rozanov says, fingers playing with Shane’s hair in a way that makes it very hard to not just immediately go boneless and melt-y, “we also use names, yes? Like friends?” 

“What,” Shane asks, badly swallowing a yawn, “you mean our first names?” 

“Yes,” Rozanov says. “Is what friends do, yes?” 

He’s not wrong, really. In the arena and the locker room and around cameras, he gets called Hollander and Hollzy, but if they’re agreeing to be friends, it’s not wild that they would use first names. It’s what he does with JJ and Hayden, after all, and he’s known Rozanov even longer than he’s known them. 

He’s known Ilya even longer than he’s known them. 

“Remind me what yours is, again?” Shane says, feigning innocent confusion. “Was it Ivan or-” He flinches and laughs when the joke gets him a pinch to his stomach. 

“We cannot all have boring names, Shawn,” Rozanov says, and Shane huffs a laugh, settling against him again. 

“It’s a good name, Ian.” 

“Eh, I have heard much better, Seamus.” 

“Like what, Isaac?” 

“Many names, Sebastian.” 

“So name some, Isaiah-” 

Shane has exhausted every name starting with I that he had been subjected to listening to someone read out of a book at the baby shower he’d been pushed into attending for his cousin a couple of years ago by the time he’s yawning enough that the game keeps getting disrupted. 

“Can we go to sleep now, Ilya,” he says, conceding the game, “or is this part of a new strategy for making me too tired to kick your ass tomorrow?” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, sounding amused. “Wow wow, you do need to go to sleep. You are clearly delusional.” 

Shane grumbles wordlessly but doesn’t bother moving, adjusting his cheek to lay more comfortably against Ilya’s shoulder after nudging him over to lay on his back.  

“Goodnight, Shane,” Ilya says softly. 

“Goodnight,” he echoes, yawning through his nose. 

He’s still smiling when he falls asleep. 

*

(If Ilya perhaps puts a little extra effort into breakfast the next day to make sure the picture Shane takes of it will be pretty, Shane doesn’t appear to notice, too busy texting game day reminders to his team.) 

(And if this also means Ilya managing to get his hand in frame when the picture for Shane’s private Snapchat to Melissa is taken–not enough to be identifiable, not enough to cause trouble if Shane notices it, just enough to make it clear that there was someone else involved in today’s breakfast, just enough to maybe put a little doubt into Melissa’s head–well.) 

(Winning is always more satisfying against an enemy who’s had fair warning to prepare for the fight.) 

*

Shane is maybe more nervous than he should be when it’s his turn to host the first time, but it goes almost suspiciously smoothly. He’d gotten a pizza recipe from Melissa, and he and Ilya had made pizzas and watched movies and fucked on Shane’s couch when he’d let Ilya convince him of it despite insisting it was a bad idea, and when Ilya had returned to the couch afterwards with one of the protein brownies from Shane’s freezer–Melissa has bullied him into what she calls the “sweet treat every day lifestyle” and giving in has been easier than resisting–microwaved and topped with some vanilla ice cream he’d forgotten he even had, he hadn’t even protested sharing a spoon to eat it, the indulgence feeling even more forbidden and thus more enticing by the fact that they’d still been naked, Shane putting a brief pause on his “no bare asses on my couch” principles for the sake of following Ilya’s lead. 

It’s worked out well for him thus far, after all. 

By the time they’ve reached this, a weekend Ilya’s flown up because of a holiday weekend giving him Friday off of practice and games, the only thing Shane feels is anticipation, smiling when he gets home from a brand meeting to find shoes that aren’t his neatly lined up by the door and a hoodie that is his but ever-so-mysteriously disappeared during Ilya’s last visit up here hanging up on a hook. Shane rolls his eyes as he hangs his jacket up next to it. 

But he also pauses just long enough to press his nose to the fabric, inhaling the scent of Ilya’s cologne in the material and wondering if he can manage to steal it back if he distracts Ilya well enough. 

He thinks it’s probably worth trying. 

“Shane?” Ilya calls from the kitchen, and Shane feels a strange, pleasurable little flutter in his stomach at the domesticity of it, stupid as he knows it is when this is just them being friends who happen to also fuck each other. It’s just nice, Ilya in his space, being able to come home to someone. It’s nice in a way that tempts Shane to think very, very stupid things, which he rigorously refuses to let himself do. 

(As much as he can, anyway.) 

“If not,” he calls back. “You’re kind of fucked.” 

He swings around the wall to the kitchen to find Ilya closing the fridge and putting a ginger ale on the kitchen island that he slides over to him before turning back to a pot on the stove. 

“I would figure something out,” Ilya says without concern. 

“Like what?” Shane asks, opening his ginger ale and taking a sip before leaning against the kitchen island. He likes this, he’s learned, watching Ilya move around in his kitchen, knowing that Ilya has been here often enough to know where things are without having to ask. He’s not sure it’s normal to enjoy watching a friend with benefits just know where he keeps his forks, but so long as he doesn’t think about it too long, he thinks it’s probably fine. 

“Mm,” Ilya hums thoughtfully as he ladles out soup into bowls. “I have seduced you, maybe.” 

“You’re in my house making me food,” Shane points out. “I think I might have seduced you in that story.” 

“No, no,” Ilya says, shaking his head like Shane is being ridiculous. “This is all part of my master plan, yes?” He moves to the fridge and pulls out a container of sour cream that Shane bought specifically because Ilya is a sour cream fiend and puts it in things regardless of whether Shane thinks they need it or not. He’s been informed that making fun of this habit means he’s making fun of Ilya’s Russian heritage and is thus an asshole move, but Shane still maintains his suspicions that Ilya is just a sour cream addict on his own. 

Still, if it gets him coming home to a house that smells as good as his does currently, he’ll let it pass. 

“Everyone knows you are the best paid hockey player in the world, yes?” Ilya doesn’t wait for a response. “So is simple. I seduce you, lure you in with good food, and then I poke hole in condom and trap you with a baby. Voila. My retirement is set.” 

Shane partially inhales his sip of ginger ale, coughing until Ilya moves over to pound him on the back until he waves him off. 

“Jesus, dude,” Shane says, but he’s smiling even as he gets his breath back. “There’s easier ways to set up a 401k.” 

“Mm, no,” Ilya says, passing Shane’s bowl to him and stirring a spoonful of sour cream through his own before putting the container back in the fridge. “This is easier. More fun, too.” 

“Yeah,” Shane agrees, collecting his own bowl and letting Ilya lead him to his own couch. “Kind of a problem with the plan, though.” 

“Oh?” Ilya asks, sitting down and reaching for the remote only to hand it to Shane, his right as the winner of the last game they played against each other. “And what is that?” 

“Don’t think it’s possible for me to get you pregnant,” Shane says dryly. “Or you to get me pregnant, so that’s out, too.” 

“Hm,” Ilya hums thoughtfully, taking a bite of his soup. “Still, is worth trying, yes? Maybe we should practice tonight.” 

“Ew,” Shane says. 

Still, he eats his soup maybe a little quicker than he has to, strictly speaking. 

After all, it’s only polite to oblige a request from a guest. 

*

“Pastels or jewel tones?” 

Ilya looks up at the question from Svetlana, who is laying on the couch across from him, feet tucked between his thigh and the cushion because she has icicles for toes and he’s yet to make good on his threat to change the locks if she doesn’t knock this exact behavior off. 

“What?” He asks, valiantly not glancing down at his phone when it vibrates with what he knows is a text from Jane because he and Shane have been busily dissecting the performance of Dallas’s new starting center. 

(Shane is unimpressed and vicious about it, and Ilya has been goading him on while threatening to send screenshots to TMZ and ruin his polite golden boy reputation.) 

(He has largely been told to fuck himself and that it’s not slander if it’s true and that Shane will go on the news and say it if the kid doesn’t learn how handle a fucking stick already because at a certain point it’s just painful to watch.) 

(Ilya is so fond of him that he doesn’t know what to do with it all.) 

“Pastels or jewel tones, do you think?” Svetlana asks thoughtfully. “You look good in both, but I am thinking pastels if we are doing a summer wedding so it won’t interfere with the season.” 

“We are getting married now?” Ilya asks, amused. “What, you are lonely being the only one with American citizenship?” 

“Well, it is annoying waiting for you to go through customs,” Svetlana teases, nudging him with her toes. “But no, I am wondering if you and Jane have decided on a scheme for the wedding yet.” 

“Have I forgotten I asked a question?” Ilya asks, raising his eyebrows. “Do you remember a ring shopping trip I don’t?” 

“I am just thinking ahead,” Svetlana says with a shrug, stretching in an arch only to settle more firmly. “You have texted each other for years, and now you barely look away from your phone. You are not even any fun to fuck anymore,” she ignores a noise of protest from him at this insulting accusation, “which is how I know it’s really dire.” 

“Remind me, then,” Ilya says dryly, “who went down on you and made you come twice last week before we even fucked.” 

“And then immediately rolled over and checked your phone,” Svetlana says, just as dryly. “Even though I know I have raised you with better manners.” 

Ilya rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, well if you don’t know the colors for the wedding, when do I get to meet her at least?” Svetlana asks, nudging him with her toes again. “Years and years, and you are hiding her from me? You think I will not approve?” 

“You are imagining things,” Ilya scoffs. 

The look Svetlana gives him would probably kill someone who wasn’t immune to it only from growing up with her. 

“What? You want to meet all of my hook-ups?” Ilya asks. “You want to have a threesome again?” 

“Hm,” Svetlana says. “You won’t even let me meet this girl. I doubt you will let me fuck her.” She grins, giving him a wicked little look. “Probably a good call. I will make her feel too good and then she will want me instead.” 

Ilya would like to give her a pointed reminder that he had to be the one to make sure she was included in their last threesome when the guy ended up more interested in him than her, but even as a joke, it pokes around tender things.

Like the fact that he still hasn’t had a single day with Shane that hasn’t been haunted by fucking Melissa. 

“I am just kidding,” Svetlana ventures, studying him closely, seeming a little thrown that he didn’t rise to the goading. “I wouldn’t do that. You know I wouldn’t do that.” 

“I know,” Ilya says, reaching down and squeezing her ankle affectionately. “Besides, you are terrified of commitment. Jane would look at you with ‘date me’ eyes and you would never be seen again.” 

Svetlana–of four refused proposals fame–doesn’t bother to dispute the accusation, just smiling serenely as if enjoying the reminder. 

“So you have fallen victim to these ‘date me’ eyes?” Svetlana asks, arching an eyebrow. “This is why you are so boring to go out with now?” 

“I said we could go out tonight,” he defends, even though he hadn’t wanted to and wouldn’t have enjoyed it, not when he could have been home texting Shane in the hoodie he stole from him when his first theft was reclaimed. “You said you were cramping and didn’t want to.” 

“I am cramping,” Svetlana says. “So be nice to me and tell me about this Jane. It will distract me from how much I hate you for not sharing my pain.” 

“There is nothing to tell,” Ilya says, because really there’s too fucking much to tell, and none of it is anything he wants to tell, even to Svetlana. 

“This is not what your team says,” Svetlana observes. “They said Montreal Jane doesn’t even let you go out for a beer with them anymore. They said she calls and you come running.” 

“They are all stupid and do not know what they are talking about,” Ilya says. He’s already heard the teasing, of course, but he hadn’t thought they were loud enough about it that it would have gotten back to Svetlana. “You know they are. They are jealous they cannot pull like me, and they have to tell lies to make themselves feel better.” 

“Lies like the fact you have told your team’s nutrition department that you need allergy-friendly mealpreps now?” Svetlana asks. “Because you have a girlfriend who is allergic?” 

Ilya feels his face go a little warm in a way he is praying doesn’t show up on his skin. 

“It is just an easy excuse,” Ilya says with a shrug. “The food is better when they have to be more careful with it.” 

The real answer is that in his research for cooking for someone with allergies he had come across the fact that allergens can be transmitted in cum if someone is sensitive enough, and he had then had multiple nights of nightmares of killing Shane via blowjob. 

Better to just invent a girlfriend and remove the possibility of having to find out if he can indeed use Shane’s Auvi-Q after watching videos about it. He’d rather not have to stab Shane with a needle ever if he can avoid it, and he certainly would like to avoid trying to use it under those circumstances. 

He just hadn’t realized until now that his fictional girlfriend had become common enough gossip for it to get back to Svetlana on one of the nights she goes out with him when he has teammates in tow. 

“Ow!” He complains, jerking his leg back when Svetlana moves suddenly and gets her fingers around a patch of skin at his ankle, pinching hard. 

“You can lie to other people, Ilya Rozanov,” Svetlana says, not gentle or teasing now, “but you do not lie to me. You are not good at it, and it is insulting for you to try.” 

Ilya looks away. 

Shane is the first lie he’s ever told Svetlana, something he tries not to think about. He’s never been shy about his hookups, not with her, but Shane from the start had been private in a way other people haven’t. 

And now it’s become complicated in a way things with other people haven’t. 

“Things are complicated,” he tells the edge of the throw blanket on the back of his couch, a present from Shane who complained about his lack of one weeks ago and then showed up with this one on his next visit. “I-there are too many things involved.” 

“Do you love her?” Svetlana asks. 

Ilya opens his mouth to respond and then pauses. Given a direct order from Svetlana not to lie, he finds it hard to disobey. 

Even when he’s been trying to lie to himself about it, too. 

“I can’t love Jane,” he says instead. “It…” He shakes his head, swallows. “It’s too complicated for me to love Jane.” 

“That’s not a no,” Svetlana says softly. 

“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.” 

They’re quiet for a moment before Svetlana leans forward. Instead of pinching him this time, though, she just sits up enough to pull him back with her, settling his head on her lap. He nudges her to turn until he can lay with his face buried against her stomach, hiding his eyes in the safe darkness there. He feels her fingers in his hair, gentle. He doesn’t talk. She doesn’t make him. 

They sit that way for a long, long time. 

*

“-and Cara actually called me, you know,” Melissa says as she flips through the binder of player dietary information on her desk. Really, he could probably handle this all through email, but he likes stopping by Melissa’s office, likes her cheerful wall art and her desk lamp shaped like a flower and her salt lamp in the corner and the instrumental music she usually has playing in the background. He’s always admired how unapologetically she occupies her office, how clearly it’s decorated to her taste, just because she likes it this way. He’s heard guys on the team make jokes about it before, about “Malibu Barbie’s Dream Office,” but for his own part, he likes being in here, likes sitting in a little bubble of someone’s personality, presented without shame or apology. It’s something he’d like to be brave enough to do himself one day. “She asked if they had done something wrong because they haven’t seen you in so long.” 

“I’ll go next time,” Shane says, a little embarrassed, honestly, that his absence would be so noteworthy. “It’s just usually easier, you know, eating somewhere with an actual kitchen when I’m in Boston.” And it is, really. It’s novel, still, to walk into Ilya’s house and know there will be things in the kitchen for him, to have a place on the road that still feels as safe as his own kitchen. 

“Hey,” Melissa says, setting the binder down flat when she gets to his section, which is notably about three times as thick as anyone else’s and highlighted and sticky noted to hell, “don’t give up a good thing just for Cara’s sake. I think she was just afraid someone on her staff accidentally poisoned you or something.” 

“I should probably still go by there next time,” Shane allows. “They’re always really good about cleaning their blender for me.” 

“Wow,” Melissa says dryly, flipping through pages until she finds what she was looking for, “a place that provides food offers the bare minimum to ensure that someone can eat there safely.” 

“Hey,” Shane defends, “not everywhere is as good about it. I watched that one place in Vegas blend a peanut butter smoothie and barely rinse it out with water before they put mine in, remember?” The place had been blacklisted in Melissa’s files immediately as soon as he’d reported it to her. 

“Yes, well,” Melissa says with a shrug. “Food safety should be the rule, not the exception. A place being safe for you to eat should just be the standard.” 

Shane scoffs. 

“You’re biased. You’re a freak who likes coming up with new food ideas for allergies.” 

“Why else do you think I put in all that work for my big fancy degree?” Melissa teases back. “Okay, down to business: how was that new grain bowl we tried out last week?” 

“It was…okay,” Shane says, knowing that Melissa was excited about her ideas for the sauce and the replacements she made to the recipe Shane had sent her. 

Melissa gives him a look over her glasses. 

“Give me an actual adjective, Hollander, or you’re getting nothing but boxes of peanuts next week.” 

Shane grins. 

“I just don’t get parsley,” he offers, making a face without meaning to. “Tastes like…leaves.” 

“Well you like kale, you hypocrite, so I don’t know why you suddenly have a problem with that,” Melissa says dryly, typing a note into the file she has for him. “But okay, no parsley. We’ll give up on parsley. Parsley is not your friend.” 

She smiles at him over the top of her laptop and he rolls his eyes. 

“The fish was okay, though?” She asks. “I know you weren’t sure about barramundi the last time we tried it poached.” 

“Yeah, it was really good,” he says. He remembers something he wanted to ask before. “Can I get the recipe for it?” 

“Oh ho,” Melissa says, sounding delighted. “Wow, big success then?” 

“It-I told a friend about it. He wanted the recipe.” He’s really hoping she doesn’t ask for follow-up about that. The real answer is that he and Ilya had eaten dinner together on Facetime and the barramundi had been good enough to make him make a noise that had immediately made Ilya tell him to ask for the recipe if he was going to be making “sex faces” about it. He’d flipped Ilya off about it. 

But he is now also obeying. 

“Same friend from Boston?” Melissa asks, leaning back in her chair and holding her hand out while she waits for the recipe to print. 

For a second, just the mention of a friend in Boston makes Shane’s heart stop, but Melissa’s casualness reassures him she doesn’t know anything beyond where this “friend” lives. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I told him about the barramundi and he asked for the recipe.” Too late, he wonders if that’s something guy friends actually do, discussing and trading recipes. He’s heard Jackie talking recipes at barbeques before, but he doesn’t know if that’s just something that happens among WAGs or if Melissa now thinks he’s-

“He likes cooking, then?” Melissa asks, handing over the paper. “That’s nice. Easier when you’re in Boston, too, if he doesn’t mind you using his kitchen, even if it’s sad for Cara.” She looks vaguely heavenwards. “Sorry, Cara.”  

Shane wonders if there’s a hint under the words, if Melissa is calling him on something. Is that something friends do? Using each other’s kitchens when they visit each other? Has he said too much? Does she already know? Is she going to tell anyone? Does Melissa now think he-

“Shane?” 

It’s only her saying his name that lets him know he’s paused too long before answering. 

“Um, yeah,” he says. “Sorry, I was thinking about something else. Yeah, he likes cooking.” He thinks he does, at least, or at least enjoys feeding him, which might be a kink or not; Shane still can’t fully tell. 

Melissa considers him for a moment before she goes back to typing, pulling over a notepad with some bullet points she’d taken down earlier and adding them to his file. 

“It’s nice having someone to cook for you, huh?” She asks, looking only at the laptop screen. “Especially with how busy things get for you during the season. Swear to God, I think my girlfriend cooking for me in grad school is the only reason I actually ate at all. Ironic, huh?” 

She glances up at him, then, and there’s a clear message in her eyes. She isn’t calling him on anything, isn’t demanding anything, but she’s sharing it for a reason. 

It doesn’t take a wild guess to know what that reason is. 

An urge that is extremely stupid and reckless comes over him then, to tell Melissa something as true as his hatred for rolled oats but with way bigger consequences than a note in his file and thick cut oats moving forward. There’s no reason for it. It’s not like she needs to know. It’s not her job. 

But then, a lot of the things she does for him aren’t just strictly part of her job. 

“Yeah,” he says, and he can feel his heart beating a little faster with his own daring. “It is nice. Having someone cook for you like that.” That’s all he’s got in him, all he can confess to. It’s not the Yeah, you and I both fuck people of the same sex that he could say–not that he ever would–but it’s still more than he’s ever said out loud before. He braces, waiting for follow-up questions, waiting for accusations, waiting for this to blow up in his face wh-

“Let me know if your friend,” the slightest hint of emphasis on the word, enough that he can almost ignore it, “wants any other recipes, yeah?” 

“I will,” he says. 

He leaves Melissa’s office feeling lighter. 

It’s not the first time he’s experienced this, but it feels important, this time. 

*

He and Shane have settled into a routine in the months they’ve been doing this little dance of theirs. They text good morning, they text throughout the day, and they usually end their days video calling, a nice, steady, reliable routine. When they’re in the same place, they don’t even have to discuss if they’re going to be sharing a bed that night, and Ilya has cleared his house of any allergens to make it a place that’s safe for Shane to be, delighting in it when Shane digs through his cabinets for food, feeling satisfied in creating a place that Shane wants to be, in a place where Shane now has a key and lets himself in and takes a shower and borrows Ilya’s clothes in. It feels right, Shane in his space and him in Shane’s. 

He’d even begun settling into resignation at Melissa remaining a fixture in this unlabelled thing between them, taking some small amount of satisfaction at the idea that the background of his counter at least lets her know that Shane is at his house often enough for it to be a common backdrop. He’s snuck his hand in a few more pictures since his first time, and if Melissa has had any questions about it, about a strange man’s hand showing up in Shane’s pictures now, Shane hasn’t brought it up, and Ilya feels a certain amount of reassurance at the idea of being just as present and annoying to his enemy as she is to him. 

Which has made the arrival of a new enemy even more obnoxious. 

“Mr. Popular,” Ilya observes tonight, when Shane leans up to grab his phone on the bedside table when it vibrates, Rose Landry (X-Squad) clearly visible on the screen before he puts it back down, making Ilya feel at least a little bit better. At least he’s more important than answering a text from Rose Landry. 

He wonders, distantly, exactly when he got so fucking pathetic. 

“It’s just Rose,” Shane says without concern, snuggling back down and resting his head on Ilya’s shoulder, like talking about his other hook-ups by name while still naked in bed with Ilya isn’t almost impressively callous. 

If Ilya wasn’t currently aching from it, he might almost admire Shane’s game. All of these years, and he hadn’t even known about it. 

Not that he can say he’s enjoying knowing about it now. 

“She is wanting to know when it is her turn?” He asks, and it comes out sharper than he meant for it to, not the playful tease he had meant it to be. “I can go-” He starts to stand up, and even he isn’t sure if he’s serious or not. 

Shane, though, stops him, grabbing him around the waist. 

“You want to go?” Shane asks, and it’s not fair, him sounding hurt at the idea like he wasn’t the one talking about the other people on his roster, something that Ilya has never done to him. 

(And if this is because there’s no one else that even compares to what Shane is in his life, well. There’s no reason to think about that too long.) 

“Just wondering if I should make space for Rose Landry,” he says, and even if he doesn’t lay back down, he doesn’t try to get away, either. He’s being ridiculous. He knows it. This is petty and stupid and desperate and pathetic. 

He would almost resent Shane for reducing him to this if he didn’t also lov-

No. That thought ends there. 

“Why would you make space for Rose?” Shane asks, sounding genuinely confused. “Rose and I aren’t having sex.” 

It’s offered so easily, like it doesn’t make Ilya let go of something that’s been winding his stomach into a knot for weeks now. He lays back down and pretends a contributing factor isn’t the overwhelming feeling of relief washing over him. 

“You have a beautiful actress on your arm in pictures and you are not even sleeping with her?” Ilya presses, trying to make it sound teasing. 

He’s not sure he succeeds. 

“I mean, we’re friends,” Shane says, shifting enough to get more comfortable on his pillow, feet tangling with Ilya’s, “but that’s it.” 

“Is possible to be friends and fuck,” Ilya points out, and even under the relief, he feels a little mean about Shane worrying him about there being a second woman up against him. “My friend Svetlana, from Russia, she and I are friends from childhood and we fuck.” 

Shane makes a face like he’s tasted something sour. Ilya finds it more reassuring than he probably should. Hypocritical or not, the jealousy means he feels enough to be jealous, that he wants Ilya enough that he doesn’t want anyone else to have him, at least not for longer than a night. It’s not a fair thing to feel, not when he isn’t affording Ilya the same courtesy. 

But Ilya also knows he’d probably agree to it anyway if he asked it of him. 

God, he’s so fucking pathetic. 

He could point out that he and Shane are friends who fuck just fine, but that feels like picking at potentially dangerous things. 

Especially when the thing he feels for Shane certainly doesn’t seem like friendship if he starts to examine it too closely. 

“Hm,” Shane hums. “But if I fuck Rose, then there’s less time for you to come over, and then who would cook for me?” 

His glance up at him is teasing, playful, steering them back into joking territory, but it still feels good, acknowledgement that Ilya provides something other people can’t. He still doesn’t know if Melissa also cooks for Shane or just gets pictures, but it’s something, at least, Shane acknowledging that Ilya can take care of him in a way other people can’t, that Ilya is unique to him in this way. 

It’s little enough, but it’s something. 

“Hm, yes,” Ilya teases back. “Then you would have only sad, sad things to eat all the time.” 

“God,” Shane complains. “I give you one fucking compliment-” 

“Hm,” Ilya hums, shifting to lay over Shane in a way he knows by now that Shane finds nice. He still hasn’t seen a picture of Melissa, but he’s fairly certain this is something only he can provide to Shane, enough height and muscle to press him deep into the mattress the way Shane has asked for a few times now. Predictably, Shane goes a little slack under him as Ilya settles, inhaling and exhaling in a way that only crushes him into the mattress further. It’s endearing, the way he likes being squished, even though Ilya is fairly certain he would find it uncomfortable. 

For his part in the equation, though, there are few places he’d rather be than on top of Shane Hollander. 

“You are sure you don’t want me to go?” He asks, keeping it teasing and light. “There is no one else you want to call up to be in your bed tonight?” He doesn’t say his enemy’s name, doesn’t want it to pop into Shane’s head any more than it has to. 

“Mm-mm,” Shane says, eyelids already looking heavier. He reaches up just to guide Ilya’s head down, tucking it down against his shoulder, Ilya’s eyes pressed to his jaw. “Just you.” 

It feels like swallowing an entire bottle of champagne, those two little words. 

Just me, he thinks to the universe in general, hoping the sentiment somehow finds its way to Melissa. He wants just me for this. 

If he has to share Shane, he at least still gets this. It’s enough. 

It has to be enough. 

*

Things with Ilya have continued to feel different for the past few months, softer, more intimate, something that feels a hell of a lot different than just being friends. Luckily, though, Shane is very practiced at denial. 

Or he is until Rose decides to guerilla friendship him one night out of nowhere. 

“So do you just really like women with flower names, or is the Lily and Rose thing a coincidence?” 

Shane blinks, glancing up from where he’d been looking at his phone to find Rose watching him from the other end of the couch where she’s been busy hogging the snackplate she’d arranged and made him send to Melissa just to brag. 

(As if he wasn’t going to send it anyway, she’d reminded him when he’d complained.) 

“What?” He asks, because his brain hasn’t quite caught up yet. 

“Well, I’m obviously your best friend in the whole wide world,” she says, matter of fact, just grinning when Shane huffs a disagreeing laugh, “but this Lily person sure seems to text you a lot. Do I have competition for the role of girl bestie? Should I feel threatened?” 

“It-no,” he says, tucking his phone deep against the couch cushion and then regretting how defensive it looked when he sees Rose glance down, clearly clocking it. “Lily’s a friend, but not, like…” He shrugs, hoping that’ll be enough of an answer. 

Rose raises an eyebrow as if asking if he really thinks he’s going to get away with that. 

Shane is suddenly having some regrets about agreeing to this movie night. 

“I don’t know, seems kind of like,” Rose says, tone light but her eyes focused. 

“Like what?” Shane asks, as if he isn’t the one who was vague in the first place. 

“Like maybe Lily’s special?” Rose suggests. 

Shane’s kneejerk reaction is to lie, to deflect, to tease Rose about being jealous, but for some ridiculous reason, he doesn’t want to. 

He just also isn’t bold enough to do the opposite of any of those things. 

“Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of women in your life,” Rose says, examining a mini pepper before pulling the top off and shaking the seeds into a little bowl she’d grabbed for this exact purpose. “Lots of guys, though.” 

She doesn’t continue, doesn’t accuse, doesn’t even look up from the way she’s carefully scooping seeds free of the pepper before dipping the end in Greek yogurt ranch and taking a bite. She crunches thoughtfully as she looks to him, waiting patiently. 

“Kind of the nature of hockey,” he hedges. “The NHL at least. Not a lot of overlap with the PWHL.” 

“Still,” Rose says with a shrug, taking another bite of pepper without double-dipping, something Shane appreciates. “Must make dating harder.” 

“I wouldn’t know,” Shane jokes. “Is this your way of trying to ask me on a date after all?” 

Rose smiles but shakes her head. 

“Nah, I’m good just being friends. I don’t have to shave my legs, but you still feed me and I get to steal your hoodies. I think it’s a better deal than dating, honestly.” 

Shane laughs. He’s liked this about Rose since the start, the easy way she moves through the world, her unselfconscious confidence, her comfort in making jokes with him. It makes him more comfortable by proxy, something that doesn’t usually happen with people. If he were going to date a woman, he would date her. 

His lack of interest in doing that, then, has increasingly made some things about himself increasingly hard to ignore. 

Especially when he gets the feeling that Rose is circling around those exact things. 

“If you ever wanted to take this Lily person on a date, though,” Rose says, starting her process of dismemberment on a new bell pepper. “I could help out, if you want.” 

“Help out how?” Shane asks. “I can go on dates on my own, you know. I don’t need a buddy to help me out. I’m not that awkward.” 

The teasingly doubtful glance Rose gives him makes him extend a leg to kick her foot lightly. 

“I’m just saying,” Rose says. “If Lily might be…surprising, to people, for you to go out with, it might make it easier if I tag along.” 

“And why’s that?” Shane asks, throat feeling a little dry, wondering if she’s actually going to come out and say it. 

“I’ve dated guys before who sometimes realized they wanted to date someone else that maybe would get them some side eyes," Rose says, handing him her de-seeded pepper and starting on another. “Not so cool when I’m the last to know, but I don’t mind when I get a heads up, that’s all.” 

“What, you want to third wheel with another girl?” He asks. 

“I could,” Rose says with a shrug. “But I don’t think I would be.” Whatever she reads on his face makes her put her pepper down and sit up a little straighter. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Shane, and if I’m way off base and making an ass out of myself with assumptions here, you can tell me to fuck off. I’m just saying: you’re a really good guy, and you’re a really good guy who does a job where it’s not always easy to date whoever you want if they don’t necessarily fit what other people expect.” 

She pauses, waits for him to argue if he wants to. 

“You think I’m gay,” he says, deciding to rip the bandaid off. 

“I think you’re my friend,” she says, “and I think my friend spends a lot of time texting someone named Lily who somehow never shows up with him anywhere or appears in any pictures on his Instagram or comes up in any conversations despite how often he texts them all day and how happy he looks when he’s texting them.” The choice of neutral pronoun isn’t lost on him. “And I think it makes me sad to think that my friend doesn’t get to take this Lily person places if he wants to because other people might not be cool about the type of person my friend loves.” 

Shane looks only at the uneaten, cored-out pepper still in his hands. 

“It’s complicated,” he says, still looking only at the pepper. “With Lily. It’s not-it’s complicated.” 

“I bet,” Rose says, and Shane feels his eyes sting at the genuine sympathy in her voice. “But sometimes things get less complicated when you talk about them. So now I’ve talked about it. I’m not pushing you on anything, Shane. I just think Lily must be pretty special to you.” 

“He is,” Shane says to the pepper, before he can second-guess himself. 

He hears the click of the plate being put down on the coffee table, and then Rose is at his side. She pulls one of his hands free of the pepper he’s holding and takes it in her own, her small fingers cool against his. 

“I don’t know-it might not be the same. For him.” 

“Have you asked?” Rose says. 

He shakes his head. 

“Then maybe you should,” Rose says softly. After a moment, she kisses him on the cheek and then lets go and bounces back to the other end of the sofa, reclaiming the snack plate. “And then you can tell me all the juicy details when you have hot, passionate getting-together sex.” 

Shane laughs, startled, and Rose grins. 

“What?” She asks. “I should get something out of bearding.” 

As punishment, he steals the bowl of grapes, eating half of them before he returns them to Rose’s custody. 

He ends the night feeling full in a way that has very little to do with a nutritionally balanced snack plate. 

*

Ilya would be lying if he said he wasn’t waiting on one person in particular to show up at the bar, mingling with the other players there for All Stars when they get close but maintaining a seat where he’ll be able to see anyone the moment they arrive. 

When exactly the person he was waiting on spots him, looks clearly pleased, and then beelines right for him, he’s pleased at his diligence paying off. 

“Rozanov,” Shane greets, taking a seat next to him. 

Ilya hides a smile against the lip of his beer. 

“Hollander,” he says in return, getting a faint smile from Shane in response, like they’re in on a joke together by using their last names in front of other people. When Shane orders a beer instead of a ginger ale, he lifts his eyebrows in a silent question that Shane responds to with a shrug. 

“I’m feeling a little wild,” Shane says, as if his idea of wild isn’t staying up past 11 pm or not having a vegetable with dinner. 

A three word phrase pops into Ilya’s head at the warm wave of affection he feels, and he floods it back down with another sip of beer. 

“Should I be worried, captain?” Ilya teases. 

“No,” Shane says with a smile, “I won’t be too brutal. An hour and a half of bag skates, do you think? That sounds reasonable, right?” 

Ilya snorts. 

“You try to make them do an hour of bag skates, and they will kill you.” He gives Shane a look. “And I will help them.” 

“Well now it’s two hours for insubordination,” Shane teases. “If you-” His joke cuts off briefly when his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out. Ilya knows from the way Shane’s expression shifts exactly who the text message he’s gotten is from. 

It makes the next sip of his Corona taste bitter. 

“Melissa?” He asks, managing to keep his tone casual and light. He doesn’t know what it means, him and Shane being more serious now but Melissa remaining an unwanted gnat buzzing around his phone. Has he not been clear enough? Does Shane not want him the same way? Does Shane not trust that Ilya wants him and wants Melissa as back-up? 

“Yeah,” Shane says, smiling slightly at his phone as he types a response. “She’s in Mexico right now for her sister’s bachelorette party. Apparently the resort made a really good fruit salad, and she wanted to know if I want to try dragon fruit when it’s in season again. She thought I’d like the texture.” 

Ilya wants to say something bitchy like also knowing what Shane likes to put in his mouth, but this isn’t the setting for that. 

“You okay?” Shane asks, glancing over at him, and the sweet earnestness in his face just makes Ilya more confused. This isn’t a powerplay against him. It can’t be. That’s not the kind of thing Shane would do. 

And yet he’s fucking doing it. 

“I am surprised Melissa did not come with you,” Ilya says, as casually as he can, taking another sip of his beer. “Since she is always so worried about you eating.”

“Why would she come with me?” Shane asks, seeming genuinely confused as he puts his phone facedown on the bar and takes a sip of his own beer. 

Ilya shrugs. 

“You two are close.” He doesn’t spit afterwards to get the taste of it out of his mouth the way he wants to. “I am just surprised you have never brought her with you.” 

“I mean,” Shane says, tilting his head slightly like he’s confused, “people might get the wrong idea, wouldn’t they?” 

“What wrong idea?” Ilya asks, because he needs Shane to give him something here, some explanation for why he can sleep in Ilya’s arms and kiss him like he’s chasing the oxygen in his lungs and look at him with his beautiful dark eyes and then continue to keep someone else on his roster. 

“They might think we were…dating, or something.” Shane says, making a face. 

The clear distaste in Shane’s expression makes Ilya’s stomach swoop. So serious enough to fuck and text all the time, but not serious enough to want people to think they’re dating. That’s…something, probably. Before he can think of any follow-up questions to better understand the shape of the thing between Shane and Melissa if it isn’t them dating, Shane looks a little nervous himself for a moment, shifting and looking at his beer for a second before looking back to Ilya, shoulders set like he’s decided something, glancing around briefly before he leans in, just slightly. 

“Can I come by your room later?” He asks, voice low. “To talk about something?” 

The question is equally terrifying and hope-sparking, especially following the conversation it just did. 

“You know you’re always welcome,” Ilya says, as playfully as he can, hoping it also might dissuade Shane from a conversation that’s going to end in there not being any more meetings between them. 

Shane smiles, small and a little nervous, before he gets up, passing closer than he needs to as he walks off to mingle. 

Ilya tries to read it as a positive sign, the touching, the comfort stepping into his personal space. 

He orders a third beer. 

*

Shane doesn’t bother trying not to be painfully on time in going to Ilya’s room that night. Having made his mind up, he knows he has to act before he spooks himself out of it. 

Which he’s already done about twenty times at this point, at least fifteen of those times happening on the plane ride down here. 

It’s possible the anticipation also makes him a little less subtle than he intended to be. 

“I think I like you,” he says, practically as soon as the door has shut, Ilya backing him into a wall with a hand at his hip. At the words, he pauses, and Shane’s stomach sinks, wishing he hadn’t ended up forgetting the words he’d rehearsed for this. Ilya doesn’t pull away, which he tries to read as a positive sign. 

“Yes?” Ilya asks, seeming a little confused, eyes intense. “We are friends, yes? We have established this.” 

It sounds damningly like he’s being let down gently, and his stomach clenches. He’d thought Ilya might feel the same way, thought maybe the pushing for more was a sign that he felt it, too, the way this thing between them feels a hell of a lot more than casual or even just friendly. He’d hoped-

“Hey,” Ilya says, nudging at his chin. “Such a face.” 

“It’s-” Shane says, starting to pull away, feeling stupid and embarrassed, blowing up something good because he got greedy, because he’s-

Ilya presses him back against the wall, holding him there, not aggressive, but decisive. 

“I think I like you as-as more than a friend,” Shane says, because he might as fucking well at this point. 

If he’s going to fuck this up, he might as well go for gold. 

*

Ilya feels like he’s swallowed champagne, the way his head is buzzy, his stomach full of flutters, almost dizzy under the relief. 

He’d thought Shane’s opening line had been him preparing to tell Ilya he wanted to break this off, that they could be friends but nothing beyond that, that he’d thought about it and Melissa just made more sense, that maybe they could have one more night together but that’s it. It’s why Ilya had maybe been a little manipulative in his response, trying to corner Shane into tying himself up in not wanting to be the bad guy. He’d thought it would buy him time, maybe, a few more meetings before Shane manages to work up the nerve to try again, a grace period for Ilya to do better. He’d just wanted a little more time, another chance to prove that he could be something worth keeping, that Shane could set the limits and Ilya could keep himself within them, that he would take whatever scraps he could get if it meant not starving for the steady comfort of Shane’s presence. 

Instead, it sounds like he might be getting something he never dared think he could have.  

Apparently finding his feet after having the rug pulled out from under him only to have it shoved right back under has made him pause too long before responding, though, because Shane continues before he finds a response. 

“And if-if you don’t feel the same, that’s fine, okay? I won’t-” 

Ilya doesn’t find out what he won’t. 

He’s too busy getting his tongue in his mouth and a hand down the front of his shorts. 

*

In the aftermath, Shane–sweaty and still breathing a little hard, what feels like one of Ilya’s curls plastered to his forehead with the way their faces are still so close–thinks he has gotten an answer. 

Still. 

He’d also like to have it in words. 

“Was that a ‘Yeah, I feel the same’ fuck, or a ‘Sorry, but here’s a consolation prize’ fuck?” 

Ilya laughs hard enough that it jostles Shane with the movement before he pulls back, looking at him with such open, warm affection that Shane’s impulse is to hide his face in a pillow. 

Except that that would mean not getting to look at Ilya, which isn’t a trade-off he’s willing to make. 

“You cannot tell?” Ilya asks, sounding amused. His hand glides over Shane’s skin, eased by sweat in a way that’s going to be disgusting in probably about five more minutes, the touch firm and possessive in a way that makes Shane’s stomach go fluttery with pleasure in the meantime. 

“So do you?” Shane prompts, because he really just needs to hear it, needs to know he’s not the only one feeling it. He has his suspicions, and he has his hopes, but he needs confirmation, needs to know he isn’t just delusional because he wants it so bad. 

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I do.” 

When Shane pulls him into a kiss, he can’t stop smiling. 

*

Ilya doesn’t want to break the sweetness of the moment, really, but outside of the initial joy of being told that what he’s wanted for months–years, probably, but he refuses to try and make a timeline of his own feelings for his own wellbeing–is his, there if he wants it, the fact that he can’t have it outside of closed doors makes itself known, pushing in on his happiness. 

Pulling him out of the clouds and right back down to earth. 

It’s one thing to want, safe in the fact that he can’t have it and is thus free to just keep wanting it, but to have Shane put it in his hands and say it’s his if he wants it, well…

It means he has to have a conversation he really, really doesn’t fucking want to have. 

“We can’t-” He starts, trying to figure out how to even begin to say it, how to say that he wants Shane more than anything in the world but knows he can’t have him, not beyond this, not beyond words whispered across pillows that can’t ever go beyond the mattresses they share. 

“You…don’t want to?” Shane asks, and the way he’s trying and failing to sound unbothered just makes Ilya’s heart hurt. 

“I want to,” he says, cupping Shane’s beautiful face in one hand. God, does he want to. If it were possible, if it were as easy as giving up his hockey career and being Shane’s WAG, sitting in the stands with a HOLLANDER jersey on and waving and smiling at cameras, then he’d do it, in an instant. If it were just their rivalry that stood in the way of them being together, then he’d find a way to end the rivalry, surrender and go on whatever talk shows he needs to, say he was won over by Shane Hollander, golden boy of hockey, and that he’s won the ultimate prize of a ring on his finger that isn’t just celebrating a Stanley Cup. 

(It’s possible that Ilya’s late night fantasies have gotten slightly out of hand recently.)

“But my family, Russia-” He lets out a frustrated noise, turning on his back so he won’t have to look at Shane’s face as he says what he knows he has to even if he doesn’t want to. This is the part he’s carefully not thought about in all of these months of wanting, the part where Shane wanting him back would mean him having to put a stop to it. 

“Your family wouldn’t be…good about it?” Shane asks hesitantly. “You being with a guy?” 

The laugh Ilya lets out is utterly devoid of humor. 

“My family is old fashioned,” he says, the nicest term he can use, the least ugly option, picked because Shane deserves pretty things, not the fucked up reality that is Ilya’s family. “My father, my brother, they are police. Me being part of their family, it would not change things.” It would probably make them worse, in fact, would make them even more eager to come down mercilessly, to prove their loyalty, to sacrifice him as a stepping stone up. It’s how he knows Alexei only calls him fag as an insult, not an actual accusation. 

He knows without a shadow of a doubt that if he thought turning Ilya in would gain him favor he could use, he’s not sure even the money he sends home would guarantee his safety when he goes home each summer. 

“And my father,” he says, because that’s easier than thinking about the twisted wreck that his relationship with his brother has become over the years, “he is sick.” 

“Sick how?” Shane asks. 

Even knowing he probably shouldn’t, he doesn’t shrug Shane off when he curls up closer, resting an arm lightly across his chest. He just rests his hand over his forearm, rubbing his thumb over strong muscle and tendon. 

“Dementia,” he says, closing his eyes tight when his voice goes rough on the word. “He-” His voice breaks, then, and he turns his face away at once, humiliated by his eyes stinging. Ridiculous, to feel this way, still, when it’s been years since- 

“Hey,” Shane says, tugging his face back towards him. Ilya resists, for a moment, but he’s never been able to help himself from giving Shane Hollander what he wants for very long, finally giving up and letting his head be turned by his chin. Shane’s face is so soft, so sympathetic, that it all but punches the breath out of Ilya. 

When Shane tugs him over to hold him, he doesn’t have it in him to resist. 

“Sorry,” he says anyway, miserable and ashamed, knowing that it’s stupid to act like this, weak, pathetic, but the weight of it settling on him all at once, the things he can’t say to anyone else, the things he keeps locked up tight in his chest, the mingled love-hate he feels for his father, his brother, the bedstones of his life but also the millstones tied to his feet, dragging him under and under and under until it sometimes feels like drowning. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Shane says into his hair, so gently that it feels like it rattles him down to his fucking bones, so gently that Ilya thinks he’s going to shatter completely if Shane doesn’t stop it. “It’s okay.” 

It’s not okay, none of it, and Ilya doesn’t know if it ever can be. 

Still, he doesn’t argue. 

He just lets Shane hold him for a long, long time. 

*

Shane holds Ilya until the trembling stops, not letting go, but gentling his hold just enough to stroke light fingers over his back, getting goosebumps but not a demand to stop. 

“Would you want to?” He asks, when Ilya’s hold on him has gone less desperate, gentling into a hand at his side squeezing and releasing meditatively, like Ilya finds it soothing. 

“We can’t,” Ilya says, voice still sounding a little thick. “I’m sorry.” 

“But if we could,” Shane persists, because he’s never been one to give up when he wants something, no matter how impossible it seems, not when he’s made up his mind about it. It’s how he’s gotten to where he is in life. “If Russia wasn’t a factor,” he doesn’t say ‘your family’ because it would feel too mean, “would you want to be together? If we could be?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I would want that.”

Shane smiles, just slightly, and holds him a little closer. 

“Then we figure it out, okay?” 

“Hollander-” 

He nudges Ilya up just enough to look at his face, stroking his hair back and feeling a wave of affection when the curls just spring back to where they were despite his efforts. 

“I want you, and you want me,” he says, “we can figure the rest out, okay? Somehow.” It seems so simple now, the hardest part already over. He isn’t in this alone. Ilya feels the same way. Ilya wants him the same way Shane wants him. 

Everything else is solvable, somehow. 

He’ll make it be solvable. 

“You are going to change all of Russia’s laws?” Ilya asks dryly. 

“I mean, I have to do something after I retire,” he teases, feeling a little lighter when it makes Ilya exhale a tired-sounding half-laugh. He rests a hand on the side of his face, thumb pressing affectionately against the apple of his cheek, feeling the muscles move when Ilya smiles faintly and leans into his touch, closing his eyes. He waits until he opens them again. “Can we just try?” 

He can’t make Ilya try with him, can’t make him not give up. Ilya has to at least agree to try if they’re going to make this work. 

Shane desperately wants to try and make this work. 

“Okay,” Ilya says at last. 

When Shane pulls him into a kiss, he doesn’t resist. 

*

They don’t talk about it again after that night, don’t make any promises, any plans. They finish out All Stars–and Ilya enjoys it more than he ever has, feeling lighter than he has in years, knowing that at least he isn’t alone in this impossible wanting–and go their separate ways, but there’s an understanding now between them. 

And even more regular video calls. 

“-fuck is it?” Shane is saying now, Ilya enjoying watching him pace back and forth in front of the camera like a personal cooking show that has gone very wrong and thus very funny. “I fucking know I had more.” 

“What?” Ilya goads. “You do not have your protein powder alphabetized by flavor and macros in a designated cabinet?” 

Shane pauses in his next pass by to give him a look that would curdle milk. 

Ilya just grins. 

“Melissa got a PR box from them,” Shane says, looking around and even lifting his cellphone like he’s somehow hiding protein powder under it from himself, “and she gave me the chocolate mint flavor because she thought I would like it. I fucking know it’s here somewhere.” 

At the mention of Melissa, Ilya’s smile drops as Shane puts his phone down and moves out of frame again. 

Despite their talk in Florida, Melissa has remained annoyingly present in Shane’s life. Shane still sends her Snapchats of his food and also texts her, and Ilya knows from glancing at his phone now and then that she’s just as active in responding, sending inane things like, “Looks good!” or “Nice! Eating the rainbow. 😎🌈”, always obnoxiously perky and enthusiastic. Ilya tries to avoid bringing her up as often as possible, and yet she lingers like a splinter in a finger, deep under the skin, lurking and waiting to jab him again at random moments. He wants to ask Shane pointblank what the fuck he’s still talking to her for, but he’s also hesitant of giving Shane anything approaching an ultimatum. 

Especially when Ilya himself can only offer him so much. 

“I found it!” Shane says off camera, sounding triumphant in a way that would make Ilya smile, endeared, if this weren’t a Melissa-adjacent victory. When Shane’s face appears in frame again, clearly triumphant, Ilya finds himself smiling anyway in response to Shane’s. 

And when he manages to tempt Shane away from Melissa and her stupid protein powder with the offer of some phonesex, he tries to tell himself that Melissa can keep her pictures of Shane’s food. 

Ilya is hungry for other things. 

*

It’s deeply unfortunate that his and Ilya’s first time speaking face to face and not over the phone after his return from Russia and his father’s funeral is happening when Shane is on painkillers. 

Or maybe fortunate. 

It’s kind of hard to tell when said painkillers are working so well. 

“I have,” Shane says, trying to focus, “a question. For you. I want to ask a question.” He nods, backing himself up and then having to pause when the gesture makes him a little dizzy. Right. Concussion. Head moving is no good. He makes a mental note. 

(And then immediately forgets about it.)

“What is your question?” Ilya asks, and his smile is so pretty that Shane almost wants to ask him to hand him his phone so he can take a picture of it. He’d like it to be his contact photo. There’s a reason he doesn’t have one of those, probably, but maybe it’s just because he hasn’t thought about it before. Maybe. 

“Question?” He asks, realizing he was asked one only after considering if he can tell Ilya to hold his smile in place long enough for Shane to take a picture of it. 

“You wanted to ask me a question,” Ilya says gently, squeezing his hand in a way that makes Shane feel all butter-melty inside. 

“Me?” He asks, thrown. 

“Maybe you just rest now,” Ilya says, “and you can ask me your question later.” 

That doesn’t sound like a bad plan, but he thinks resting might mean Ilya leaving, and he’d like to delay that as long as possible. 

“They’re making me stay overnight,” Shane complains, making a face. He’d tried to argue that he was very busy and had things to do later, but his mom had told him to shush now, honey, and he’d tried to say he didn’t want to, but by then the doctor had left without Shane getting to argue his case. 

“I know,” Ilya says. “You said.” 

Oh yeah. He did. He’d forgotten about that. 

“I’m sorry we can’t sleep together tonight,” he says, and he is. He likes sleeping next to Ilya, likes curling up together. He also likes- “I’m sorry we can’t have sex, too.” 

Ilya laughs, moving a hand to stroke over his cheek. 

“Me, too,” he says, sounding warm in a way that Shane wants to wrap himself up in, warm like sunshine on-oh! 

“My question!” He announces, and Ilya tilts his head slightly to say he’s listening. “Do you want to come to my cottage? This summer? With me?” Ilya doesn’t immediately respond, and Shane decides he should sweeten the deal. “It’s super private. Nobody else. Just us and the cottage and the lake. Just us. Together.” 

“Hollander-” Ilya starts, and using his last name sounds like the start to a no, which is not an acceptable answer because Shane is planning on a yes. He decides Ilya must just be missing some details. 

“It could be for a week or even two,” he says, because he likes having timelines for things, so maybe Ilya just needs that, too. “You could come whenever. I can pick you up at the airport.” 

“Shane-” 

“Please?” He says. “I really want you to come to my cottage. If you want that, too. I really want it.” He hesitates, just a moment, trying to decide how else this can sound like a good idea. “It can be my birthday present,” he decides, because Ilya was asking him just a few weeks ago about what he wanted for his birthday. He wants this more than he wants anything else. 

Ilya considers him for a long, long moment, but finally he sighs, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Shane’s head that he leans into. 

“Okay,” Ilya says. 

“Okay,” Shane repeats, beaming. 

They get interrupted by a nurse with the worst timing in the world, but Shane doesn’t mind too much. 

Not when he has summer to look forward to. 

*

The time at Shane’s cottage seems almost suspiciously comfortable. 

They’re practiced at sharing space with each other by now from their many nights of staying together, but Ilya would be lying if he said he didn’t have any hesitations about multiple days joined together. Two stolen weekends together during the season had served as small test runs of cooking and sleeping and cuddling and being together for more than sex, but two full weeks in a remote cottage had felt risky, and running through possibilities in his head had almost made him cancel at least three times, saved only by the idea of how sad Shane would look if he did it. 

As it turns out, though, he needn’t have worried. 

It’s easy, being with Shane, easy in a way that feels almost like a trick. They fall into a rhythm together without any need to discuss it, and Ilya finds himself wishing that the hours would pass slower, last longer, stretch wider so he can fit more time with Shane inside them. They cook together and swim together and sleep together–in both senses of the word–and Ilya quickly takes advantage of Shane’s dresser instead of wearing his own clothes, feeling a strange kind of delight in it, like Shane’s laid claim to him somehow in allowing it, making one teasing comment about thievery but then letting it go. 

It feels domestic in a way that makes Ilya feel a little crazy, frankly. 

In the most promising sign of all, Shane hasn’t contacted Melissa even once, every meal shared with Ilya and Ilya alone. Her name hasn’t even come up in conversation, and Ilya dares to hope that this invitation to the cottage came with a commitment that Shane hasn’t brought up, cutting anyone else off of the roster to make Ilya’s the only name on the list. 

It gives him the final nudge to offer the three little words he’s kept clamped behind his teeth for months now, late at night, when Shane wakes him up to let him know he’s apparently decided to plan their entire future together, something that’s a little bit insane but also reassuring, cementing that Shane wants this, wants him, wants him enough to put together an entire multi-step plan at three in the fucking morning. 

Wants him enough to say “I love you” right back. 

Get fucked, Melissa, Ilya thinks distantly, as he slips a hand down Shane’s stomach to consummate the moment. 

*

Despite being the one who came up with the idea, Shane still stalls out after the car is parked at his parents’ house. 

Ilya is quiet and patient for an impressively long time as Shane just sits and stares out the windshield. It had been a near-miss with his dad that had made him decide to do this at all, Shane answering the door and leaving Ilya in the bedroom in a way that had made him feel a little guilty. He hadn’t liked it, actively hiding Ilya like that, like he was a secret, something shameful. Ilya hadn’t seemed bothered when Shane had scrambled up and asked him to stay after hearing the doorbell, but he’d felt guilty about it as he found the charger his dad had come looking for and handed it over, knowing that he had essentially just told the person he loves to sit and stay like a dog he’d brought home without permission. 

“Can I bring someone over to meet you and mom later?” had been out of his mouth before he’d known he was going to say it, but he hadn’t taken it back once he had. 

He hadn’t wanted to take it back. 

Sitting here now, though, he kind of a little bit wants to take it back. But also doesn’t. 

It’s all more than a little confusing, really. 

Stupidly, he almost wants to text Melissa about it, foolish as that is, like she can solve introducing his boyfriend to his parents as easily as she can solve other impossible things like substituting peanuts in satay sauce because Ilya had mentioned once that he liked it and Shane had wanted to find a version they could eat together. 

The memory of that actually serves to settle him, one of the first times Ilya and he had cooked together at his house, Ilya teasing him but following the instructions he was given, teasing Shane by “helping” by pressing close to his back while he was at the stove, warm and solid and a little bit in the way but nice, still. He’d been nervous about it, nervous about fucking up something Ilya liked because he had to change it to fit his own weird needs, but Ilya hadn’t complained, had just followed the recipe with him and even taken a picture of it for himself after. It had turned out different, he’d said, but good, still. 

Shane opens his door before he can talk himself out of it. 

When Ilya rounds the car to stand next to him, he takes the extended hand he’s offered. 

*

David apologizes for making lunch a little late–it’s a hazard of cooking with respect to allergies, Ilya has learned by now, sudden changes to labels and warnings that sometimes knock plans for a meal off course–but Ilya has a glass of good vodka in hand and the love of his life at his side. He’s perfectly content to wait. 

He’s a little less content when he notices Shane’s head down and his breathing a little less steady a few minutes into the conversation, though. 

“I’m okay. I’m just freaking out. I’ll be okay in a minute.” 

The panic was probably due at this point, Ilya thinks sympathetically, stroking a hand over Shane’s hair and squeezing his neck gently, feeling the tension of the muscles under his fingertips. The fact that he knows this gesture reliably calms Shane down from the times he’s done it in bed isn’t something worth thinking about, not when it has utility outside of the confines of sex, something he’s only really learned recently. He’s been proud of Shane today, honored by him taking a step he’s nervous about just to introduce Ilya to his parents, to commit to them not being a secret to at least two people. After that, he’s earned having a brief moment of freaking out, though Ilya registers distantly that it’s kind of funny it was prompted by his mother making her own multi-year plan for them, as if Shane didn’t just do that to him two nights ago. Really, Shane makes so much more sense with the added context of officially meeting his mother. 

Honestly, it’s a shame women can’t have juniors. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, keeping his voice calm. He glances at Shane’s parents, checking again if they want to jump into this, but they seem to be sitting back and letting him take point, something that’s both flattering and adds a little bit of pressure to the moment, of proving he’s the best person they could trust with their child. “We’re good here,” he tells Shane, and it’s true. Yuna and David have been wildly accepting of multiple new secrets sprung on them all at once, and so long as Shane is safe and happy, Ilya is perfectly content. “Your family is here. Your boyfriend is here. You’re good here, okay?” He emphasizes the last question with a gentle little shake, helping Shane settle back in his body. 

Shane lifts his head, and Ilya tilts his own a little better so he can read his face more clearly, can see what he needs to adjust in his approach. Instead of looking like he’s still panicking, though, Shane just smiles slightly, like he’s been told something he can’t believe. 

“My boyfriend?” He asks, like he might have misheard. 

Ilya smiles, realizing only now that that isn’t a word they’ve used for the two of them before. It fits, though, and if Shane likes it more than lovers, all the better. It’s nice, to have a label. Even better, to have a label Shane likes. 

“I mean,” he says, teasing just a bit. “I think so, yes. Probably.” 

Shane has a small smile on his lips that Ilya simply has to kiss, so he does, sitting back as an alarm goes off in the kitchen that prompts David to get up, gesturing him back down when he starts to move to offer to help. Ilya obeys, giving his boyfriend one more affectionate squeeze to the back of his neck before he lets go. He releases Shane feeling satisfied and settled and happy. 

Which, of course, is when fucking Melissa ruins it. 

“No extra vegetable on the side,” David says as he brings a large pot of pasta to the table. “Don’t tell Melissa on me.” 

The comment is directed to Shane with a wink, and Ilya is thrown, confused, and irritated in an instant. Shane had told him before that he was the first person he’s ever invited to the cottage, and this meeting with Shane’s parents had made it seem like Ilya was the first person to ever be introduced to them in this way, but if they know Melissa enough to bring her up during the meal, if they even like Melissa the way David’s fond tone implies, if Ilya is now up against Melissa even in the eyes of Shane’s parents, if Melissa is being brought up now to let Ilya know that Shane has options they approve of more than him, then-

“Don’t worry,” Shane says easily, taking the scoop when his mother nudges it towards him. “She still gets summers off from me.” 

Ilya’s inward spiral comes to an abrupt and jarring halt. 

“What?” He asks, a pit opening in his stomach at the idea that he’s misread all of this somehow, that the lack of texting from Melissa is some strange seasonal thing. It doesn’t make sense, not now, not when he and Shane have had the conversations they have, not when Shane had seemed so shyly pleased at the use of the word boyfriend, but if Melissa is still in the picture…

Then where the fuck are they both supposed to fit in Shane’s life? 

“What do you mean what?” Shane asks, sounding amused as he finishes dishing up his own portion of pasta and passes the scoop off to Ilya. 

“You don’t text Melissa in the summer?” Ilya asks, and his hesitance at taking the scoop because he’s too busy trying to solve a fucking mystery seems to make Shane think he’s asking to be served, Shane grabbing his plate and dishing up a portion for him in a way that makes Yuna seem touched when Ilya glances at her and David, trying to figure out if he’s somehow the only one confused about what’s happening here. 

He suddenly wishes he’d asked more questions than “Are you sure?” before he agreed to Shane setting this meeting up. 

“Do you text your team’s dieticians in the summer?” Shane asks, tilting his head slightly in confused amusement as he passes the scoop off to his father, who accepts it easily and grabs Yuna’s plate to start filling it. Ilya doesn’t have a moment to consider the pleasing symmetry of the gesture. 

Not when his entire fucking world is getting abruptly rearranged. 

“Melissa is your team’s dietician?” He demands, and now Shane is looking at him like he’s the one who doesn’t make sense here. 

“Shane hasn’t told you about Melissa?” Yuna asks, sounding teasing. “Shane, you didn’t introduce your two most important people to each other?” 

“Yeah, Shane,” David chimes in. “I would have expected Melissa to get to meet Ilya before we did.” 

“Very funny,” Shane complains to his parents before he turns back to Ilya. “You know about Melissa.” 

“I-” Ilya starts and stops, not even sure what the fuck he’s supposed to say here, when he finds out that a months-long rivalry has existed only in his head, that the nudge that pushed them onto this path came from a phantom hand, from Ilya inventing someone competing for Shane’s love and doing his best to win in a competition that never actually existed. 

He decides, immediately and abruptly, that Shane can never fucking know. 

“Yes,” he says, accepting the cheese when David hands it to him. “I just wasn’t sure you were capable of eating without her.” 

Shane rolls his eyes and takes the cheese when Ilya hands it to him. 

Ilya digs into his pasta, mostly to fill his mouth with carbs before he fills it with words. 

He can unpack everything else later, when they’re back at the cottage and Shane is well-fucked and asleep in his arms, something that Ilya is learning in this moment is a privilege that has been his, only his, never shared with anyone else. 

The knowledge makes his first bite taste even better. 

Sorry Melissa, he thinks, as conversation devolves into teasing Shane about his relationship with his dietician. 

(...but also don’t get any fucking ideas.)