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“Ilya, we’re 28, everyone is going to think we’re making fun of Hunter” Shane deadpans, not looking at his boyfriend.
“Shane, we’re 28, everyone is going to think ‘wow they’re so young to know that much love’ especially compared to dinosaur Scott Hunter. It will be very tasteful. Just a photo of us, Farrah and I have already discussed—”
“You and Farrah had a meeting about our coming out without me?”
“Farrah and I had a meeting about whether I can even come out.” Ilya snaps, losing his patience with Shane. “Unless we are married and I get my fucking green card, I can’t. Is all or nothing for me. I’m sorry.”
Shane shuts up, clearly stunned and ashamed that he forgot about the Russia of it all… again. He understood on a basic level that Ilya can’t come out because he’s a Russian citizen, but he regularly forgets that entails maintaining Russian standard of an acceptable public persona. Being bisexual and in a relationship with your gay rival is not on the Russian-government-approved list of public personas. Being a club rat womanizer is, though. It was almost not an act for eight whole years. It was going to kill Ilya, someday. Probably sooner than he’d like. Most days.
“Let’s sit down.” Ilya gestures to the kitchen table, the unofficial official negotiation space in their home.
“What’s going on?” Shane asks.
“I know we talked about maybe both coming out individually, let people get used to gay hockey players before we launch the whole… hole situation publicly, preferably after marriage. I cannot do that.” Ilya explains, sighing bone-deep exhaustion from his lungs.
“Okay, let me think for a minute.” Shane looks to the ceiling and chews a hoodie string, doing some mental calculus that Ilya dreads the solution of.
“Shane, moy lyubimmyy, is fine. We just change plan. I do not come out until we are married and have Canadian passport. I just wait.”
“Okay, so we get married sooner, before retirement. Maybe when we’re 30, you’re more established in Ottawa, I’m more likely to start spending more time there anyways, we have a house halfway between Ottawa and Montreal when we are married. When everyone knows.” Shane rattles off, so much like his mother. Yuna’s furrowed brow appears on her son’s face, to Ilya’s amusement.
“I feel forever about you. I don’t want to wait. Maybe we get married in a courthouse. Very private. Very tasteful. Not the real wedding in any sense but the legal one. I can still propose to you—”
“—Or I propose to you” Shane cuts in
“Over my dead body, Shanya.” Ilya informs Shane seriously. “Anyways we get married, start immigration process, even if something happens, I’d like to not have Russian passport. We both individually come out, two seasons, marriage for real, house in the country between Montreal and Ottawa.”
“And you give me shit for the charity idea?” Shane asks, staring in disbelief over the amount of thought Ilya and Farrah had put into this plan.
“I am not fucking around, Shane. I cannot fuck around,” Ilya reminds solemnly.
Shane feels the need to peel his skin from his body. It was like he didn’t fit into his skin. Like his thoughts needed to be physically wrung from his brain. He would do anything Ilya asked him forever for as long as Ilya would let him. “Fuck it. Let’s get married and come out,” he blurts.
Silence.
Ilya isn’t often rendered speechless. This proposal, however, is not what he was expecting.
Shane stood up and ran to their bedroom, leaving Ilya reeling at the table. Moments later, he returned with an object in his hand.
“Ilya, I have had this ring burning a hole in my sock drawer for over a month. You’re it for me. You are the only person who knows how to make my brain slow down for more than five seconds. I have trusted you deeply since the day you met my parents in a fucking Boston t-shirt, just to take some of the heat off me if it went poorly. You think of me in ways I don’t even think of myself. I am so lucky to know you so deeply and loving you is the only thing that has never been hard for me. Will you marry me?”
Ilya remained speechless. He hadn’t even considered that Shane—his Shane—was ready for forever. Shane was ready for the day where they were it. Shane had been ready for the day for a long time. This is a reality that Ilya couldn’t have even dreamt for—hadn’t dared dream for.
“Yes, but let it be known that you, Shane Hollander, are an asshole for taking this moment from me.” Ilya says, tears starting to fall.
The two men fell into each other. They cried, they hugged, they were a giant pile of messy emotions and overwhelm. It’s impossible to explain the absurdity of two giant hockey players crying in a pile. It’s even more absurd to see two giant hockey players so intertwined with each other to the point you couldn’t tell whose limbs belonged to who. Let it be known that Shane Hollander an Ilya Rozanov would crawl into each other’s skin if it meant they could be physically closer to each other.
“We’re getting married…” Shane whispers after a few minutes.
“When?” Ilya inquires, sniffing.
“Should we go to the courthouse now?”
“No, lyubimmy. There is still time.” Ilya tucks himself back into Shane’s chest “Tonight, I just want to be engaged.”
“Perfect” Shane signs contentedly, rocking them both lightly before adding“Let’s go consummate the engagement, though.”
“Now this suggestion, this suggestion I’m not mad you offered first.” Ilya chirps, standing up and offering his hand to his Fiancé, preparing for the evening ahead. For the first time in either of their lives, there is still time.