Work Text:
Ilya had known for years that admitting his feelings for stupid, beautiful, perfect Shane Hollander would probably be the thing that killed him.
So it surprised him when the words finally clawed their way out of him in the tunnel in Moscow that he actually felt a little better. It was still agony, of course. That part was inevitable. But finally giving the feeling a name made it somewhat more manageable.
He didn’t instantly implode. His life went along like normal. Or the new normal of having a dead father and a star-crossed lover. He could never, ever admit it to Shane in English, but he could hold those precious words in his hands. In the darkest part of the night when he couldn’t sleep because of the impossibility of everything, he could pull them out and know that he’d told Shane how much he meant to him.
When he’d first gotten off the phone with Shane, he’d worried that Shane had recorded the call and would translate it. But Shane wouldn’t do that. He hadn’t asked to understand; he’d offered so Ilya could unburden himself. So Shane could carry a bit of the weight without understanding what it was.
It would take a few weeks for Ilya to be able to tell himself “I told you so.”
---
Shane had known for years that he would eventually drive Ilya away. He’d even known it would probably be for something stupid that he couldn’t really see coming.
So it shouldn’t have surprised him that the thing he was sure had finally done it was just mind-numbingly dumb. Like paying a few thousand dollars a year for a subscription service and forgetting about it.
Because that was exactly what he had done. And now it had ruined the best thing in his life besides hockey.
In 2015, his primary contact with Rolex had left, and her replacement had somehow gotten it into his mind that he needed to call Shane directly. During what turned out to be a very important call, Rolex Man would not let Shane off the phone no matter how many times he asked the man to direct his question to Yuna. He just kept saying it was better if they talked “man to man,” so Shane took notes on the conversation, the very first one being
Ask for new Rolex rep
Shane took detailed notes. He let his mom and his agent handle these things, not because he couldn’t but simply because he was busy. And he paid them well for it. But no amount of detail was going to be enough to satisfy Yuna Hollander.
“Did he say you needed to be there at 12:30 or that the event started at 12:30, so you should arrive by 12:15?”
“I don’t know, Mom. He just said 12:30 and you’re going to get me there by 12 anyway, so what does it matter?”
Yuna sighed in fond exasperation.
“It matters, Shane.”
And the conversation went on and on like that.
It took Rolex a while to get him a new person to work with, and Sexist Rolex Man kept calling him, and Shane didn’t have time to keep playing telephone between this man and his mom. So, he found a simple solution—Cloud Auto Call Recorder.
It was a service that automatically recorded all the calls and saved them to a cloud server. For the next two months, Sexist Rolex Man would call him, Shane would get off the phone as quickly as possible, and then send the cloud recording to his mom. Eventually, he got Non-Sexist Rolex Man as a contact, and that guy had no problem calling his mom directly.
He meant to cancel the service. He really did. But right as he got a new rep, someone had gotten a hold of his phone number and was calling him and just breathing into the phone, so he figured keeping a recording of those wasn’t a bad idea in case anything escalated. And then two years passed. He didn’t review the details of his credit card statements. His accountant would flag anything strange over $5,000, so the Cloud Auto Call Recorder payments flew under the radar.
By the time he offered to listen to whatever Ilya had to say in Russian, he had completely forgotten all his calls were being recorded. Still, nothing should’ve come of it. Shane didn’t remember, and even if he did, he wouldn’t listen to the call again.
It truly was the perfect storm of stupidity and “If not for…” that brought that phone call into the cold light of day.
If not for Sexist Rolex Man.
If not for the deep-breathing phone call person.
If not for ending up in the hospital.
If even one of those things had been different, Shane’s life might not be over.
But they weren’t.
So when Shane was in the hospital after Cliff Marleau ran him over like a truck, high on pain medication and asking Ilya to come to his cottage, deep-breathing, phone-call person became deep-breathing, phone-call hacker.
A few weeks later, a cybersecurity expert would explain to Shane that the hacker found a way into his accountant’s network because they hadn’t updated their software recently enough, and, from there, had learned about the call recording service, where the admin password was simply “password1234.”
It was, they would assure him profusely, not his fault. It was a stalker who wanted information about his condition while he was in the hospital and weak cybersecurity. It could happen to literally anyone with a parasocial fanbase.
Most of his calls were not interesting. Sure, there was some information about the Pike kids they would prefer not be public, but nothing major. There was just that one call. It was from Russia, and it was much, much longer than any of his normal phone calls. A siren song to any stalker.
And everyone else found out what Ilya said before he did.
---
Deep breathing, phone call hacker released the recording and a mediocre translation of the call late one evening, three days after Shane was home from the hospital. The notes claimed that they were looking out for his well-being, trying to see if he was really okay after Marleau’s hit, being well cared for, and other completely deluded thoughts.
It took several hours for the Reddit thread to really get noticed. For the first few hours, people mostly thought it was fake. But the person started releasing more and more of Shane’s calls to prove they were legitimate, and, overnight, it exploded.
Even if Shane was allowed to look at his phone, he wouldn’t have seen the story break because he didn’t really monitor his social media. His phone only gave him notifications of phone calls, texts, and selected emails. The rest were turned off or rerouted to the people he paid to do his branding.
That meant he learned about the existence of the leak when he walked down for breakfast. He was happily thinking about the turkey sausage he could smell cooking when he stepped off the stairs to his parents’ pale faces and blank expressions. His mom and dad were huddled around their laptops, eyes tracking back and forth rapidly.
“What’s wrong? Is grandma…?”
His dad startled, flinching backward and slamming the laptop lid shut like he was a teenager caught watching porn, but his mom froze, her face melting into a neutral mask he’d seen her use in difficult contract negotiations or when the Metros didn’t make the playoffs.
“Grandma’s fine, Shane. Why don’t you sit?”
He moved to join them at the table, but she pointed to the couch behind him. He sat slowly, growing more and more confused as she approached him like he was a wild animal that she was afraid of frightening.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
He hadn’t had a headache when he woke up, but he could feel one starting now, growing from the base of his skull and wrapping its way up. He raised his hands to start rubbing his temples.
“You should eat so you can take your medicine.”
“No, tell me first.”
He closed his eyes and felt the couch move underneath him as his mom sat down. He heard the faint huff of air escaping his dad’s favorite recliner. He knew the look they were exchanging right now—the way people who had been married for so long could have an entire conversation in glances.
“We love you, Shane. Okay. Nothing will change that. Whatever you need, your mom and I are here for you.”
Oh god.
Someone had to be dead. Did the Metro’s plane crash? Did something happen to one of the Pike kids?
“Please just tell me.”
“Someone hacked your phone,” his dad said.
Shane opened his eyes. That’s all?
Sure, that sucked, but there was nothing interesting on his phone. His mind flashed to his messages with Lily. But there was absolutely nothing incriminating there. He deleted everything that remotely insinuated Lily was a man or played hockey. People would know he hooked up with someone named Lily. That was incredibly tame by hockey standards. He didn’t have nudes of himself or anyone else. He didn’t have the Metros playbook on his phone. He didn’t even have Candy Crush.
“No, not his phone, David. The call-recording company that you use. They hacked that and leaked your calls.”
His headache had wrapped its way all the way around, coming under his eyebrows and making everything feel too bright. His mind struggled to keep up. His phone calls weren’t interesting either. Mostly just talking to his parents and his agent.
But his body knew something his mind was struggling to piece together. He felt like the floor dropped out from under him. He closed his eyes as the room felt like it was spinning. Or maybe like he was being tossed around by the waves of all the emotions he couldn’t process.
His head was pounding now, like his whole body was trying to shut down and protect him from the truth.
He took a shuddering breath.
“Please,” he whispered, “just tell me what the real problem is.”
More silence. He wondered if it would actually kill him. If the weight of the thing his brain couldn’t conjure would drag him under the waves he was churning in until he finally ran out of air.
“Did Rozanov call you a few weeks ago? From Russia? After his father passed?”
His eyes flew open as everything stopped. He didn’t know if he’d been pulled so deep the water stilled or if he finally broke through to calm waters. But he couldn’t breathe.
The lie rushed out of him on reflex,
“No, we don’t talk. Why would we?”
“Shane,” his dad said.
“No. It’s not. We didn’t.”
He wasn’t sure what he was saying anymore, just that he needed to control it.
“There’s a recording, Shane.”
“It’s fake. It has to be.”
Outside, a bird cried and Shane listed to the side, head dragged down by the pain and anguish until he was curled up on the cushions. This was it for him, maybe. Using the last air in his lungs to deny the secret he’d spent seven years protecting. His mom began running her fingers through his hair, and he felt okay for a split second until the headache slammed back into him in his new equilibrium.
He scrunched his face. He was trying to remember the full content of the conversation. He remembered Ilya had made a sex joke in English, but that could probably be passed off as how hockey bros talked. It might raise a few eyebrows, but it shouldn’t be incriminating.
I wish you were here.
He’d definitely said that, or something like that. It was still not a smoking gun of anything besides the fact that they were good friends. Sure, that would shock people. Some would even be upset that the rivalry was “fake,” but it shouldn’t be catastrophic.
“Shane, it’s okay. It’s just… do you know what he said to you?”
No.
But everyone else did now. Knew each dark secret Ilya could only admit when he thought that he was safe. That Shane would keep his confidence.
It had taken Shane a while to spot the pattern—the way Ilya would shut down or kick him out whenever Shane tried to ask about Russia. If Ilya could brag about it, he shared it freely. But he guarded what was clearly a wounded part of him with a relentless ferocity. So for Ilya to even call Shane, to admit that he wasn’t okay, was a huge step.
He felt something in him break under the pressure. Tears began forming in his eyes, and he realized they were not really for him, but for Ilya. He’d offered him a safe place to finally, finally express his feelings. After years of keeping everything bottled up. Years of denying there was even anything to bottle.
To be able to be there for Ilya meant everything to him.
And he’d betrayed that trust.
It was a death, after all. He’d killed whatever precious thing had been growing between them. It had taken them so, so long to even acknowledge it was there, and now it was gone. How could Ilya ever forgive him?
“No. That wasn’t why… I don’t know. Shit. He’s never going to talk to me again.”
His mom stopped moving her hand through his hair and held it still. Another pause. He was so fucking tired of these significant pauses from his parents.
“I think he will, honey.”
He cracked open his eyes to see her brown ones searching his face.
“There’s no way. He must hate me, now.”
“What do you think he was saying when you talked?”
He’d wondered about it for the rest of the night after their call. To hear Ilya in so much pain had broken his heart, but Shane knew the shape of it even if he didn’t know the exact words.
“Just complaining about his family. I know things were hard for him there. He didn’t like going home, but I don’t know the details.”
“That’s some of it. But there’s… more. About his feelings for you. It’s been translated a lot. I could read it to you? I think you should know.”
Feelings?
Ilya talked about his feelings for him? Heat coursed through him. Ilya had never told Shane how he really felt about him. In retrospect, he’d tested the waters.
“I like you. Not as a person, of course.”
Or when Shane said he liked him in Tampa. Ilya hadn’t said he didn’t feel the same way—only, “don’t do this, Hollander.”
He wanted to hear it so badly. With everything he had. He wanted to know, but not out of his mom’s mouth. Not written in cold text on a screen. He wanted to hear Ilya say it because he wanted to tell him.
It was all too easy to say no. Ilya had only said those things to him because of the understanding that Shane wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t take that from Ilya without talking to him first. He knew he probably couldn’t avoid it forever. But he could do this last thing for Ilya.
“I need to call him. Get me my phone.”
His mom sighed.
“Talk to us, Shane. We want to help. Were you two—involved for a while?”
He shook his head as gently as he could.
“I just need to talk to him. Where is my phone?”
“Farrah already canceled your number. It had leaked and was being overrun. It’s standard practice. A new SIM should be here in a few hours.”
Fuck. The odds of Ilya picking up a random number right now were probably zero. His number probably also leaked and might be canceled already too.
“You can use mine, son,” his dad said.
His mom got up and had apparently retrieved his now-useless phone. She was scrolling through it—he made a mental note to change his password since his mom apparently knew it.
“I don’t see a contact for Rozanov.”
“It’s under ‘Lily,’” he said.
He heard a soft, small sound from his mom, but she didn’t comment. His dad handed him headphones, and he heard the phone start to ring.
And ring.
And ring.
“Hi, this is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.”
Ring.
And ring.
And ring.
“Hi, this is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.”
He felt hot tears leaking down his face again, soaking into the cushion beneath him.
Ring
And ring.
And ring.
“Hi, this is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.”
The third time he did leave a voicemail in a shakey voice.
“It’s me. Call me back, please. I haven’t listened to it. I want to talk to you.”
He ended the call and held onto the phone like it might vibrate and bring him back to life.
---
Ilya was curled up on the couch with Sveta with the latest Fast & the Furious movie on. That was how he knew she felt sorry for him. She’d categorically refused to watch a single moment of the entire franchise and now was sitting down eating popcorn and drinking vodka with him watching Furious 7.
She’d broken down his door at 8 a.m. and found him in bed with a dent in the wall and his phone with a newly shattered screen below it. He hadn’t seen much of the raging wildfire that was his Twitter and Instagram mentions, but he’d seen enough to piece together what happened.
The fire burning online felt like it was raging through him, too. Huge flames licking their way up to the crowns of trees, ash and embers carried on the wind to start new fires ahead of the blaze. It fed on the anger and embarrassment that coursed through him as he skimmed headline after headline, picking apart his family’s shame. And the more he fed it, the hotter it burned. Years of grief from his family fell into it, and the fire burned as if it would never run out of fuel. And maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe he would just lay here, burning up with fury at himself, at Shane, at the whole world. He’d already watched every shred of agency he had incinerated before his very eyes. Why not his body as well? Maybe it would consume him, and they’d bury his cross necklace next to his mom. Or maybe it would burn hot enough to melt that too.
His phone had gotten hot in his hand, like it too was on fire even though it was probably just hot from the notifications that kept pouring in. So he’d thrown it across the room and flung off his blankets, and stared at his ceiling fan.
That was how Sveta had found him, at that point numb to everything, too overwhelmed to effectively be upset anymore. She’d picked up his phone, set it on the charger, and dragged him into the kitchen. She didn’t ask if he was okay or what she could do. They were long past those kinds of bland platitudes.
Instead, she started the kettle and thrust the McGriddles she’d picked up into his hands. He felt the texture of them in his mouth and the lumps sliding down his throat, but he didn’t taste them. The tea was strong enough that it left some impression on his taste buds and hot enough that it burned his tongue.
Staring down into his empty cup, he asked,
«Did you know—about Shane?»
«No, Ilyusha. I would not have talked about Rose like that if I knew.»
He knew that; as much as it hurt when she brought up Rose, he knew at least his secret was safe.
«Hollander didn’t leak it. He was hacked. A stalker or something,» she said.
He had tried to work himself up to be mad at Shane, and it had worked for a few minutes. It just wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t that he loved Shane so much he couldn’t be mad at him or thought he couldn’t do anything wrong. His anger and hurt the day Shane ran off had fueled him for weeks, rolling right into more misery when he started dating Rose Landry. He’d loved him then, too, even if he didn’t let himself admit it. But he knew Shane wouldn’t have offered to let him talk like that if he planned to listen to it.
He knew Shane; he knew if Shane had translated what he had said, he would have acted differently. He wouldn’t be able to hide it. The only person Shane could lie to was himself. So, if he’d listened, then he would’ve panicked and run again, or he’d maybe tell Ilya they could never be together, or, possibly worst of all, he’d say it back and then where would they be?
He’d have to face it all eventually. His agent probably already dropped him and half of the hockey world, and all of Montreal was probably calling for his head. He had practice today and was probably only making things worse by no-call, no-showing. But Sveta being here, taking care of him, somehow felt like it gave him permission to block it all out. Ilya dozed toward the end of the movie. In some kind of suspended animation between sleep and wakefulness, he heard the doorbell ring.
He groaned as Sveta gently lifted his head and put it on a pillow.
«Don’t answer. Tell them to fuck off.»
«I’ll just see who it is. Spray them with a hose if it’s reporters.»
He smiled. She probably would do that to anyone stupid enough to ring his doorbell right now. He heard the door open and tried to drift back to his twilight state.
Before he could accomplish that, Sveta called back to him.
«Ilya, Shane is here. Should I let him in?»
«Oh, go to hell, Svet. I thought you weren’t going to make fun of me for this.»
He heard heavy footfalls coming closer to him, not at all like Sveta’s lithe steps.
«Svetlana Vetrova, if you let someone in my house right now, I will end you.»
«He looks fragile. I didn’t want to hurt him,» came her reply from down the hall. He heard the door close.
“Ilya.”
His eyes flew open. Someone was standing directly in front of him, towering over him, really. His immediate view was of Reebok track pants and white socks—toes curling and unfurling against the floor in an obvious sign of discomfort.
He tilted his head back and found what he expected, shocking as it was: a blue sling resting on a plain white t-shirt—Shane, staring down at him, concern obvious in the downturned corners of his mouth and the pinch to his usually wide eyes.
Ilya sat up quickly and immediately got a head rush. It was late afternoon now. He probably should’ve eaten more than two McGriddles, six handfuls of popcorn, and four shots of vodka. He wasn’t drunk; Sveta had cut him off hours ago. But he maybe wasn’t strictly sober either under the heady cocktail of misery, vodka, and low blood sugar.
From an upright position, he looked more closely at Shane. He looked tense; his broken shoulder was held at an awkward angle, and the other one was shrugged up high, like it was trying to touch his ears. He had puffy bags under his eyes. There was more to the tight expression on his face than concern. He looked pained. His toes were still scrunching furiously against the floor.
“You look like shit,” Ilya said. “What the fuck are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”
Shane snorted.
“You look like shit, too,” he said, but his eyes softened. Ilya knew what he must look like. His skin was greasy, curls frizzed out from Sveta’s hands running through it. His clothes were rumpled, and he hadn’t brushed his teeth.
“Why are you here, Hollander?” He heard his voice break as he said Shane’s name.
It was all too familiar. It felt like the last time he’d been sitting on this stupid fucking couch with Shane standing over him. Just like that day in November when he’d slipped up—said too much. He’d broken their unspoken agreement that they didn’t do first names. They didn’t do feelings. They didn’t stay. They didn’t fucking say they loved each other.
So now Hollander had what? Driven to Boston to break things off for good? He was a very polite person, except for the time he’d run off, leaving Ilya covered in their cooling cum and shame. But that was Ilya’s fault, really.
Because he was just like every member of his goddamned family. Always demanding more.
More, more, more, more, more, more, more.
No amount of Shane would ever be enough.
“I haven’t listened to it, or read it or whatever.”
He felt his eyes open. He didn’t even realize that he had closed them.
“So, what? You came here instead of getting online? Learning what everyone else already knows? How’d you even get here? You can’t drive like that.”
Shane flushed pink under his freckles, and it killed him how fucking cute it was.
“My mom drove me.”
Ilya raised one eyebrow. He wanted to make fun of him for it, but what he really wanted was his own mom to take care of him like that.
“Shut up, asshole.”
Shane was apparently done waiting for Ilya to ask him to sit down because he lowered himself next to Ilya. Not too close, but not as far as he’d sat the first time he was here either, when he’d sat as far as possible on the other end of the massive thing.
“What do you want, Shane?”
He kept his gaze forward on the screen of the streaming service that was slowly rotating its way through suggestions.
“I’m really fucking sorry, Ilya. I forgot I had that stupid thing. I wouldn’t have told you to—or I would’ve deleted it. I know you probably won’t forgive me. I get it. But I wanted to let you tell me what you said, if you want. Like I said, I didn’t listen, so I don’t really know what you said, but my mom said you talked about me. So I just…”
Shane was still talking. He usually loved to see Shane outside his comfort zone—squirming, but forcing himself to keep going because he wanted it. But not like this.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ilya said, cutting him off. “I don’t hate you.”
“But I ruined… everything. Why wouldn’t you?”
The old reflex rose in him; Shane hadn’t ruined anything because there was nothing to ruin. The casual dismissal that kept them both safe. But he’d lost that ability when he’d stripped himself bare and watched that naked confession presented to the world.
“Not ruined. Just complicated.”
He still couldn’t look at Shane.
“It was always complicated.”
They didn’t say anything for a while. Ilya didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t think of anything to say besides the really big thing that was burning him up inside and was too overwhelming to let out again.
“You really don’t hate me?”
“Is that what you want? You want me to hate you, yell at you, tell you ruined my life so you can feel sorry for yourself and find…” Fuck, what was it in English? “прощение.”
He studied Shane’s face. He didn’t look like he knew what he wanted anymore than Ilya knew how to give it to him. He tried again.
“If you feel bad about it, fine. So do I. I embarrassed myself, my family in front of everyone. No one was supposed to know. You didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t do it on purpose. Nothing to say sorry for. Nothing to forgive.”
That was the word. That was what Shane wanted.
Shane looked down at his hand, tightly gripping his thigh. He took a few breaths, and his voice came out evenly despite looking like he felt ill.
“I think it might be easier if you hated me.”
Ilya snorted. Simpler maybe, but not easier.
He didn’t have it in him to hate Shane. He didn’t really know what he had in him, but he knew his skin was starting to thrum, vibrating at the frequency that only Shane could conjure.
No one could make it all better, but Shane had handed him back one ounce of agency. He could tell Shane how he felt. The words were sitting right there, hidden somewhere in his throat that had only managed to scrabble out of him once and look where that had gotten them.
He didn’t think he could do it again. It all had become too much. Instead, he reached out, tugging on Shane’s good arm. He couldn't manhandle him the way they both liked in the state he was in—couldn’t probably do anything very interesting, but Shane followed his pull regardless, gingerly straddling him, slinged arm gently sandwiched between them. Shane’s other hand was on his face, stroking his cheek.
He was so close; Ilya had to go cross-eyed if he wanted to see his freckles, but it only lasted for a moment until Shane leaned forward and kissed him, soft at first until Shane opened his mouth and their tongues collided. Then he pulled back, nose wrinkled. His breath was probably awful, laced with vodka and regret, but then Shane decided he apparently didn’t care and leaned in again and kissed him in a way that quickly left them both aching and panting into each other’s mouths.
When they finally broke apart, the strained expression was back on Shane’s face because the angle of that couldn’t have felt good on his broken collarbone. Ilya lay down and let Shane arrange himself between Ilya and the back of the couch.
“You are okay?” Ilya asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”
His erection was pressed against Ilya’s thigh, and he could still feel it throb, and god, he wanted to feel Shane grind against him, feel him shudder in his release because they’d always been able to say with their bodies what they couldn’t vocalize. This was their true shared language; a fluency they’d built together that for so long had felt like too much but somewhere along the way had become not enough.
The words were still like flames under his skin. Spreading out through him, looking for a weak point to escape from, and he wasn’t even sure why he was holding them back anymore. If he didn’t say it now, then Shane would just leave and hear it from Twitter, and it would probably be so much worse because he’d know that Ilya loved him and was a coward. But he wouldn’t have to see if Shane didn’t say it back. He wouldn’t have to watch him close himself off and run again. They could just fade away into a nothingness that would haunt him forever.
But the words found the gap in his armor, the simple, easy one; Shane pulled his head back, and Ilya looked into his eyes. Bright with heat and shining with devotion, and Ilya knew he would kill anyone else Shane looked at like that with no remorse, and it all leaked out of him, consequences be damned.
“I love you. That’s what I said. I only want you.”
He saw Shane’s eyes grow wider with surprise and maybe something else. Something light and joyful, and he couldn’t breathe anymore, couldn’t think.
“Ilya, I love you, too.”
Fuck.
“I know,” Shane said. Oh damn, he must’ve said that aloud.
They just lay there, letting the words settle over them, finally out in the open, honest in the way that their gentle kisses and tender touches had always been, but their words never were until today.
“What else did you say?”
“That was the only thing that mattered.”
In truth, he didn’t entirely remember everything he’d said to Shane. He knew he’d complained about his family and how they always demanded more than he had to give and offered nothing in return. He knew the internet would delight in reminding him of the exact details of his misery, but for now, he only wanted to think about Shane’s body against him. Ilya turned so his face was nestled into Shane’s soft hair, and they stayed like that for a long time, enjoying how, for the first time maybe ever, they had time.
After a while, Shane began to squirm against him, growing uncomfortable in one position for too long. So they sat up, keeping their sides pressed together. He looked around, and it finally occurred to him to wonder where Sveta went.
“Where’s your mom?”
Shane groaned.
“Fuck. I don’t know. I left her in the car.”
“Wow, so nice of you.”
They both laughed, and it was such a wonderful feeling, light and hopeful after a day that had tried to break him.
“Fuck you. Where’s Svetlana?”
Ilya just shook his head. He got up and walked into the kitchen. Sveta had left her phone. She’d written her passcode on a note and added that she was getting coffee with Yuna and to call when he had his clothes back on.
“Uggggh,” he said.
“What?” Shane called from the couch.
“They’re together.”
“Fuck.”
Shane walked into the kitchen with a rueful smile on his face.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they fixed everything for us. I am not sure who the MLH should be more afraid of.”
It was a nice thought. He only knew Yuna by reputation and that she had raised the man he loved into someone wonderful and formidable. He didn’t know what came next exactly, how all the cards would fall. But he had Shane and Sveta, and Shane had his parents. There were probably a few of each of their teammates who weren’t total pieces of shit. They were too good, too important to the league to be kicked out for good. Weren’t they? Someone would take them even if the Raiders and Metros didn’t. Who wouldn’t want Shane Hollander or Ilya Rozanov? Who wouldn’t want Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov? Fuck, thinking about that almost made him hard again.
“What?” Shane asked, uncertainly. Ilya realized he’d been staring, probably with a hungry look on his face.
“I’m going to shower. Call your mom. Tell her to come meet your boyfriend.”
Shane beamed back at him, and Ilya felt like he was staring into the sun.
“Boyfriend?”
“You don’t think so?”
Shane stepped into his arms, and Ilya wrapped one arm around his uninjured side.
“I think so, Ilya. I love you.”