Chapter Text
The bell over the door chimed and Shane looked up from the book he was reading. He smiled, ready to greet the customer coming in, even though he was a little put off to be pulled out of Zadie Smith’s complex and dynamic London and thrust back into Ottawa where everything was the same as it always was. The store had been beautifully quiet all afternoon and Shane was content to sit and read at the counter while his dad was out pawing through old books at an estate sale an hour outside of the city.
“Hi, welcome—” But Shane’s words were cut off when he saw the man who had walked through the door. Not their usual mid-afternoon weekday customer. Those were usually older women looking for a book they could only remember having a bird on the cover or parents burdened with toddlers who would camp out on the floor in the kids section and leave Cheerio dust ground into the carpet.
They certainly weren’t insanely muscular men with severe but beautiful bone structure and soft curls piled on their head. Safe to say Hollander Books New & Used & Antique almost never saw someone like this step through the door.
Shane watched the man as he stood just inside the entrance, scanning the store with expressionless eyes that soon enough landed on Shane.
“Um, let me know if you need help finding anything,” Shane offered, his voice squeaking embarrassingly. He cleared his throat quickly and then went back to his book, staring at the page but not reading any of the words. He could sense the man still standing in that same spot. Shane found the store’s quiet suddenly way too loud. He wished there was at least music playing on the speakers, but he hadn’t thought to put any on. He wasn’t big on music. Preferred the sound of a page turning, of the old building ticking around him, of the people walking by outside.
Now, he heard only the creaking of the floorboards as the man moved. Shane focused on his book, tried to read at least one sentence. But then the footsteps stopped.
Shane looked up and found the man standing right in front of the counter where Shane was sitting on his stool, bent over his book.
“You have work,” he said with a heavy Russian accent.
“Oh, um—” Shane started.
The man turned and pointed toward the front of the store. There was a sign in the window saying: SUMMER HELP WANTED. Shane’s mom had put it there weeks ago. So far only a couple of people had even seemed to notice it. A teenager who claimed she could only work “two hours a day, max.” And an elderly man who had fallen asleep during the brief interview with Shane’s mom.
Summer was their busy time. Well, busier time. It was also the time when Shane abandoned the store to coach at a youth hockey day camp for a couple of months. Besides him, it was just his mom and dad. Which was usually fine. Even just his mom and dad were enough really for the summer. They didn’t need to hire another person, but his mom still put up the sign every year. They hadn’t actually hired anyone in years though.
They were a very small family business. Shane’s grandfather had opened the store back in the seventies when he’d retired from his government job. He’d always been a reader and a book collector and so he started selling some of his books. The business had expanded over the following decades until the was selling assorted used and new books as well as his rare and antique books.
When he’d died fifteen years ago, Shane’s dad had taken up running the store. Shane had an aunt but she lived in New York now and wasn’t interested in the store. His dad, on the other hand, had been working there his entire life, had learned to love books from his father. He wasn’t as good at the business side of things, but that was where Shane’s mom came in.
Now, Shane guessed he was following in his dad’s footsteps. Apparently. He certainly loved books. As for the store, as for this life—
“You have work,” the man said again, ducking his head and looking at Shane like he thought Shane might have some comprehension issues. “I need work. I can lift things. I can work nights, weekends.”
“Right,” Shane said, trying to catch up. “Do you have any experience working with books?” He tried to remember the sort of questions his mom would ask potential employees.
“A little,” the man said, sliding his hands into his pockets, some of his confidence starting to wane.
Shane could tell that probably meant he had absolutely zero experience. “You’d mostly be working up front here,” he said, gesturing to the register and the counter and everything else around him. “Are you, um, good with people?”
The man gave him a look, narrowing his eyes. “Are you?” he asked.
Shane blushed for absolutely no reason, turning away from the man’s gaze. He had a strange feeling like he had turned see through. “No,” he answered honestly. “Not really. But it’s my parents’ store so they kind of have to let me work here.”
“Ah, so you are Hollander,” the man said, smiling.
“One of them.”
“I like people,” he went on, answering Shane’s question. “But they do not always like me. Maybe is accent or—” He stopped, shrugged. He seemed defeated and tired. “I don’t know.” He took a hand from one of his pockets and pinched his nose, sniffing. “I need work. I will work hard. I have tried everywhere else around here that is hiring and—”
“Okay,” Shane said.
“Okay what?” The man looked at him curiously.
“Okay, you can have the job,” Shane said. He had no authority to hire someone, but he didn’t think his parents would mind. Weren’t they always telling him to show initiative? There was something about this man. Shane didn’t feel like he could just turn him away.
The corners of the man’s mouth turned up. “Really?” he asked.
Shane felt the corners of his mouth turning up too. “Really,” he said.
The man held out his hand. “Ilya,” he said. “Rozanov.”
Shane took his hand, feeling warmth spread through him at an alarming rate. “Shane,” he said. “Hollander. But you knew that.”
Ilya looked at Shane, studying him almost, that smile still playing softly on his face, Shane’s hand still caught in his firm grasp. Then he let Shane go.
There was an awkward pause then. Neither of them seemed to know what to do next. Though Shane supposed that was on him. Certainly there was more to this process than just telling Ilya he had the job. There must be some official paperwork he was supposed to have Ilya fill out. But Shane couldn’t seem to think about a single thing right then. He could only stare at Ilya, counting the moles on his face, noticing the way his hair curled over the tops of his ears.
Ilya cleared his throat and it sounded almost like a laugh. “So, when will I start?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” Shane’s mom said. “Where did you find him?”
It was two days later and they were sitting together at the counter, watching Ilya on the other side of the store stocking shelves with some of the old books Shane’s dad had found at that estate sale. He picked each one up and studied its spine carefully before sliding it onto the shelf. He was wearing a dark green t-shirt with the words Hollander Books New & Used & Antique stacked on top of each other on the left side of the chest, the standard employee uniform. Shane had double checked what size he needed, but the shirt was still skintight, the sleeves cutting into Ilya’s biceps as he lifted and stretched, the hem lifting up to expose a bit of his waist as he bent over, the very top of the elastic of his underwear.
“He saw our sign and walked in,” Shane explained again, looking away from Ilya. “And we do need help, don’t we?”
“Does he know anything about books?” his mom asked. She kept her voice in a low whisper so that Ilya wouldn’t hear. “Is he living in Canada legally even? Did you check any references?”
“No,” Shane answered. He busied himself with tidying up the free bookmarks they kept by the register. “I don’t know, Mom. He seemed like he could use a win.”
His mom sighed, pushing her glasses up onto her head and turning to Shane. “You thought he was cute,” she said, folding her arms over her chest but smiling at him.
Shane looked over at Ilya who was holding an old hardcover open in his hands, eyes narrowed at one of the pages, fingers trailing over it. He leaned against the shelf, one ankle crossed over the other. He turned the page. “Well, yeah,” Shane answered. “But it’s not just that.”
His mom clucked her tongue.
“Come on, Mom,” Shane said. “Let’s just give him a chance. It’s not exactly a hard job, is it?”
“Alright,” she said. “We’ll give him a week and see how it goes. But you can’t date him.”
Shane gaped at her. “What?” he said. “Why not? Not that I—Or that he—”
“It’s just my rule, sweetie,” she said. “You can’t date our only employee. It wouldn’t be right.”
Ilya glanced up from the book in his hands, meeting Shane’s eyes from across the room. He smiled. Shane smiled back. Ilya held his smile as he looked back down at the book, snapping it shut and then shelving it.
His mom clucked her tongue again.
“Thank you for stopping by,” Ilya said, smiling brightly at the customer as he handed over her books neatly tucked into a paper bag.
When the bell over the door chimed and the customer was gone, the store empty again, Shane said, “Not bad.”
“What is not bad?” Ilya asked defensively. “That was perfect customer interaction.”
“You asked her if she was really going to read all of them,” Shane said, rolling his eyes.
“She buys six books,” Ilya said, turning to the register and tearing off the receipt the customer hadn’t wanted. He balled it up and tossed it in the trash can under the counter. “Who reads six books?”
“Lots of people,” Shane said. He held up the copy of Gone Girl he’d started that morning and was already almost done with. “This is the third book I’ve read this week, for example.”
Ilya took the book from him. “Yes, well, you are very boring,” Ilya said, looking at the back cover.
Shane scoffed. “And you’re so interesting?”
“I am,” Ilya said, straightening his shoulders and giving the book back to Shane.
Ilya had made it through his first week without any major disasters so Shane’s parents had agreed to let him stay on. He’d spent the first week shelving and working in the back with Shane’s dad, organizing stock and taking deliveries. He’d been good at that. Lifting and moving things was a skill Ilya definitely had. Not that Shane had been watching him closely. Not that Shane noticed the way his muscles moved under his skin or how effortlessly he could lift a sizeable box filled with hardcover books.
For Ilya’s second week he was out front with Shane, learning how to work the register and help customers. And it was going fine. He was just a little slow with the computer system when it came to looking books up for customers. He typed with his index fingers and seemed to look at the keyboard like it was brand new to him every time. And his customer service left something to be desired. He was friendly, for sure, but also too honest. He’d frown at a customer’s choice and say, “Terrible cover.” He’d look at a customer’s stack of cheap paperback thrillers and say, “These are for bathroom, yes?”
But he was trying. Shane could tell.
Anyway, Shane liked having him out there. They were often left alone in the store which gave them time to talk and get to know each other.
Not that Ilya shared much. He was pretty tightlipped about himself and his past. Shane had learned that he was relatively new to Canada, having moved here from Russia back in the winter. He had worked a few odd jobs before this one—delivering takeout, walking dogs, mowing lawns now that it was spring—but none of them had lasted or paid enough. “I liked the dogs,” he said, his voice warmer than Shane had heard it so far.
Shane was also figuring out that Ilya did know something about books. Not much though. And Shane thought he maybe hadn’t ever actually read a single one in his life. But he recognized certain authors and titles. It was like his knowledge of books was something secondhand, something he’d picked up from someone else. Shane was curious about that, but when he tried to ask, Ilya had abruptly changed the subject.
“Okay, what makes you interesting then?” Shane asked now, hoping this would get something new out of Ilya.
“I go out,” he said, grinning. “I have fun. Dancing, drinking.”
Shane shook his head. That wasn’t really what he’d meant. “And that’s fun?” he asked doubtfully.
Ilya nodded. “Yes, you should try sometime,” he said. “Friday night maybe?”
“What? Go out drinking with you on Friday night?” Shane asked, already scrambling to think of an excuse. He hated clubs, hated bars. All those people, all that noise. Not to mention, he didn’t drink much. And he definitely didn’t dance at all.
“Yes, why not?”
“My mom says we can’t date,” Shane blurted out. Which was absolutely not the thing he wanted to say.
Ilya stared at him for a second and then started to laugh. “Hollander,” he said. “Who said anything about dating?”
Shane’s face heated up. Obviously Ilya hadn’t been asking him out. “No, yeah, right,” he said. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“You are allowed to go out with friends, yes?” Ilya said.
“Um, yeah, I guess,” Shane said, still flustered, wishing he could slip beneath the counter and hide there like he used to do when he was little and there were a lot of customers. “I mean, obviously, yeah. I can go out. I’m twenty-two.”
“So, we’ll go out?”
Shane felt himself nodding against his will.
Ilya smiled broadly at him. “Okay.”
Shane buried his face back in his book, hoping he could disappear that way.
“It is shame though,” Ilya said after a brief silence. “That we can’t date. You are very pretty.”
Shane looked up at him, opening his mouth.
The bell over the door rang out. “I’M LOOKING FOR A BOOK ABOUT AIRPLANES,” an older gentleman announced loudly to no one before the door even had the chance to close behind him.
Ilya shot up from his stool. “Ah, yes,” he said, moving from behind the counter to where the man stood. “Airplanes. A great subject for old man like you.”
“So you and Ilya live together?” Shane asked the incredibly gorgeous woman who was sitting next to him in the booth.
Svetlana. Ilya had mentioned that he had a roommate, but Shane had imagined that roommate to be some disgusting dude Ilya had found on Craigslist and barely knew. Not a beautiful woman who Ilya had kissed on the mouth with his big hands on her tiny waist when they greeted each other.
“Yes,” Svetlana said, nodding as she sipped her drink. “We grew up together in Russia until I moved to Canada when I was a teenager. When Ilya needed to get away, I told him to come live with me.”
Shane frowned to himself. “Needed to get away? Why did he—”
Ilya slid back into the booth across from them. He set a glass in front of Shane. “Ginger ale,” Ilya said. “Extra ice.”
Shane smiled. “Thanks.”
Ilya was wearing a black tank top that made his arms and shoulders look massive. The gold chain Shane had noticed always tucked into Ilya’s shirts was out now. A type of cross that Shane didn’t recognize right away. Ilya hadn’t struck him as a very religious person, but then there was still so much he didn’t know about him.
“You were talking about me,” Ilya said.
Svetlana tilted her head, curls bouncing as she moved. “Of course, darling,” she said. “What else?”
Ilya held a glass filled with ice and brown liquor. “Hockey, maybe?” He gave them both a look.
Shane looked back at Ilya, startled. Shane knew he hadn’t ever once mentioned hockey to him. He would not have mentioned hockey to him.
Ilya caught his look and lifted his shoulders. “Lucky guess. All boring Canadians love hockey,” he said. “Did she tell you who her father is?”
Shane turned to Svetlana, cautiously interested. “Who’s your father?”
Svetlana sighed, rolling her eyes. “Sergei Vet—”
“Your father is Sergei Vetrov?”
Ilya sat back in the booth, laughing as he took a drink.
“You like hockey then?” Svetlana asked.
The question was simple enough, but Shane froze. He was silent for too long, trying to think of a way to answer. “I do,” he finally said. “I, um, play. A little.” He had a fuzzy feeling in his head as he spoke. Like static trying to cover up something else. “And coach at a summer hockey camp for kids. Your dad’s a legend.”
“So they say,” Svetlana said in a way that made it obvious she’d encountered plenty of men who only wanted to talk to her about her father and hockey. “Ilya plays hockey too, you know.”
Shane turned now to Ilya who was frowning deeply and staring into his glass. He glanced up at Shane with a tight smile. “Used to,” he said. “Not for a long time.”
“Really?” Shane asked.
Svetlana looked at Ilya with a unsettlingly wide smile. “Maybe you two could get on the ice together sometime,” she said. She reached out and poked Ilya in the shoulder. “Wouldn’t that be fun?” Her voice came out through clenched teeth.
A knot formed in Shane’s chest. The static in his head getting louder. “Oh, um. I don’t know,” he said quietly.
Ilya looked back at Svetlana for a long moment before returning her strange smile and turning to Shane. “Yes, maybe we could, Hollander. Might be fun.”
Once Ilya and Svetlana had finished their drinks, they moved onto the dancefloor. Shane stayed where he was and watched them move together to the music. Their bodies fit together perfectly. They both knew exactly what to do with the other. Where to put their hands and their hips. When one of the moved in a certain direction, the other one followed without missing a beat.
Shane couldn’t help but wonder what else their bodies had done together. Couldn’t help but picture the other ways their bodies might have moved in time like this. He watched Ilya’s hands dragging up the exposed bit of Svetlana’s thigh and then reached for Ilya’s nearly empty glass. He drank down what was left of the brown liquor. Those watered down dregs made his throat burn and did nothing to settle the strange feeling in his stomach.
After a few songs, Svetlana came back to the booth, her skin shimmering with sweat. “You won’t dance,” she pouted as she gulped down a glass of water.
“I don’t really—”
“Ilya really wants to dance with you,” she said. “He told me.”
“He does? He did?” Shane asked, wrinkling his nose. Ilya had seemed perfectly happy dancing with Svetlana a few moments ago. Shane would be a poor substitute.
“You’re not actually that clueless, are you?”
“I’m not good at dancing,” Shane said instead of answering that, yes, he was actually that clueless.
“So what,” Svetlana said, throwing her hands up. “Please, Ilya won’t shut up about you and I want to dance with that cute girl over there.”
Her eyes darted to the far side of the room where a pretty brunette was standing and sipping a drink through a straw with her eyes trained on Svetlana.
Shane could not possibly have been more confused about the situation. “You and Ilya aren’t—”
“It’s complicated,” Svetlana answered. “But no. Me and him aren’t.” She reached into the booth and grabbed Shane’s hand. “Now come and dance with him so he’ll stop pouting.”
Shane let Svetlana drag him out to the middle of the dancefloor where Ilya was dancing on his own. He grinned when he saw Shane approaching. “Come, you are not being boring tonight,” he said, taking Shane’s hand from Svetlana and pulling him close.
Shane stumbled and nearly fell right into Ilya but he righted himself at the last second and stood a few inches away from Ilya. “I don’t really know what to do,” he said, voice nearly drowned out by the music.
Ilya took both of Shane’s hands and placed them on his waist. “Like this,” he said. He draped his own arms over Shane’s shoulders.
Shane nodded, his entire being focused on the way his palms fit into Ilya’s waist, the warmth of Ilya’s body, the rich spicy smell of the cologne he was wearing.
“You have to move, Hollander,” Ilya said, his mouth next to Shane’s ear.
Shane tried to find the rhythm of the song and move accordingly. He pressed his palms more tightly into Ilya’s waist and tried to feel the way he was moving and mimic that. But he felt stiff and awkward and his feet kept bumping into Ilya’s. They were so out of sync that it was almost funny.
In fact, Ilya was laughing, his arms slipping off of Shane’s shoulders as he doubled over.
Shane was embarrassed but also relieved. Now that Ilya had seen how awful he was, he wouldn’t ask him to dance ever again. He turned to leave and go back to sitting and sipping his ginger ale in peace, but Ilya grabbed him by the wrist.
“No, don’t,” he said, still gasping with laughter. “Sorry. Let’s keep trying.”
Ilya pulled Shane back in. This time he put Shane’s arms over his shoulders, his hands on Shane’s waist. The reverse of what they had been doing. Shane felt Ilya’s hands firm on his waist, guiding his movements for him. It was easier now for Shane to follow along with Ilya, to do everything he did. He was still so awkward, but it was better. They were at least moving in time together now.
And with his arms over Ilya’s shoulders, Shane’s fingers could brush the nape of Ilya’s neck, feeling the soft curls there. Even just for a moment.
When the song was over, Ilya said, “Come outside with me.”
“Svetlana is only a friend,” Ilya said as he lit his cigarette.
“You two are close,” Shane said. He was trying to put the pieces together himself since Ilya and Svetlana were both being so cryptic about it.
Ilya didn’t say anything in response to that. He stood on the edge of the curb outside the bar, teetering there in the boots he was wearing. The night had turned chilly and Shane could see the goosebumps spreading out over Ilya’s bare arms.
“You really shouldn’t smoke,” Shane said, watching Ilya take a deep drag on his cigarette, his cheekbones coming into stark relief as he did it.
“You sound like my mother,” Ilya said. His mouth made a strange shape as he said it. Not a smile, not a frown, somehow both at the same time.
“Well, she’s right.”
Ilya stared at him, blinking, and then looked away, tilting his head back and blowing smoke up into the night sky.
“Have you and Svetlana ever…?” Shane tried.
Ilya still had his head pointed up to the sky, cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he gazed at the stars. “Yes,” he said.“Years ago. And sometimes still. But not often. Is not serious. Like I said, we are friends.”
Ilya wasn’t looking at him, but Shane nodded, trying to process that. He remembered something then. “Why did you need to leave Russia?”
Ilya’s head snapped back down. His eyes were cold. “Is that what Svetlana told you?”
“She was just telling me about how you ended up living with her here in Ottawa,” Shane said. “She said said something about you needing to get away.” He’d thought her phrasing of it had been oddly specific. Ilya hadn’t wanted to get away, hadn’t been looking to move. He’d needed to get away.
“If you had ever been to Russia, you would know why I had to get out,” Ilya said, voice tight, turning away from Shane and walking, one foot in front of the other, along the curb, each of his arms stretched out to the side for balance. After several steps, he tipped sideways and let himself fall into the street for a second before stepping back up onto the curb and tossing his cigarette to the ground.
Shane understood that he had asked enough questions for the night. “I think I’m gonna go home,” he said. “I need to be at the store early tomorrow to open.”
“Okay,” Ilya said, taking a few steps toward Shane. His posture changed, his face rearranging, shoulders settling, as if he was resetting himself. He smiled. “You will make good dance partner one day.”
“Doubt it,” Shane said, laughing. “See you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Ilya nodded.
Shane’s car was parked on the street, a few doors down from the bar. When he got in, he glanced up at his rearview mirror and saw Ilya sitting down on the curb. Ilya looked around and then wrapped his arms around his legs, dropping his forehead to his knees. Shane watched for what felt like a very long time, waiting for Ilya to lift his head, to get up, to go back into the bar, but he didn’t. He stayed just where he was.
Shane started his car and pulled away, not sure why he felt like crying.