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It’s while Ilya is packing his bags to leave for his flight to Boston that it dawned on Shane again, not for the first time, that in a few months, Ilya will be moving to Ottawa, playing for another team, and they’ll be seeing much, much more of each other.
Ilya had signed with the Centaurs in July, which is the nth or so step in their grand plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Step one, of course, had been inviting Ilya to the cottage in the first place. That’s if Shane’s asked, that is. If it was Ilya determining the timeline and progression of their relationship, he’d be scrunching his nose and saying something like ‘actually, Shane, step one was when I arranged that commercial for us to be in together and then I started jerking my dick in front of you in the showers.’ Shane would never agree with that but, privately, he thinks that if that’s the metric, then step one should be when he first approached Ilya in the back lot of that stadium in Saskatchewan but, well, Ilya would never let Shane win like that.
“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me pack?” Ilya says, snapping Shane out of the spiral of his thoughts. He’s standing at the foot of the bed, hip cocked and eyebrow raised, folding a shirt and then stuffing it inside his duffel. “Where’s my black shirt?”
“You just put it in your bag.”
“Not this one, the other one.”
“All your shirts are black, Ilya,” Shane says as he digs into the hamper to help Ilya look for the stupid shirt anyway. “And don’t say it, I know,” he puts on a poor imitation of Ilya’s accent, “is just easier to style, Shane, of course you wouldn’t know about this because you don’t know what style is, blah blah—ah, here you go.”
When he turns back around to hand the shirt to Ilya, his boyfriend has stopped packing, instead sitting on the bed with a look on his face that Shane can’t quite decipher. “What?” Shane asks, walking towards him and placing the shirt inside the bag himself. He slots his legs in between Ilya’s, placing one hand on top of his shoulder, the other one cupping his cheek. “Hey, what is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me, come on,” he says, tilting Ilya’s head so they’re eye to eye. It reminds Shane, almost, of that night in Florida a year ago, rocking and soothing a crying Ilya back to him. “Hey.”
“It’s just,” Ilya starts, biting the inside of his cheek as he contemplates his words. “This is all real, right? And it’s… you and me?”
“Well, it would be bad if it wasn’t because you already signed that contract with the Centaurs,” Shane tries to joke, though he knows it falls flat. Ilya sighs, then smiles tightly. Shane shakes his head. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It is real, okay? I love you, I want this, and I’m so excited for you to be here in Canada with me,” Shane whispers softly, giving Ilya a soft smile. With that, he feels Ilya melt like putty beneath him, all the tension leaving his shoulders. “Even if we’re gonna be two hours apart most of the time, but two driving hours apart is better than a whole plane ride, right?”
Ilya nods. “Right.”
“And… well, I guess I don’t really want you to leave right now. In the spirit of honesty,” Shane admits, biting the corner of his lip. The vulnerability that comes with being honest would normally grate on his nerves, but he really doesn’t want Ilya to leave. In fact, he never wants to see Ilya leave again. He says so as much, to which Ilya responds by twisting and rolling them over until they’re both laying on the bed with Ilya on top of him, holding his arms firmly against the bed by the wrist.
“I don’t want to leave you either. In the spirit of honesty,” Ilya replies with a lewd smile on his face. He looks down at where they’re connected by the waist, chuckling, then looks back up at Shane again. “Oh, this takes me back.”
“I’m not doing bellboy again for you,” Shane rolls his eyes, though he does loosen up to sink further into the mattress. He tilts his chin up for a kiss, to which Ilya obliges and gives him. He tastes sweet on Shane’s tongue, still faintly tasting like the pineapple-banana concoction he made for breakfast in his ongoing effort to get Ilya into a somewhat similar diet as him. Ilya’s hand moves from his wrists to his neck, then to his ribs. There, he rucks his shirt up, teasing the skin.
“Not even if I say please?” Ilya says once they break apart for air, gasping into each other’s mouths. He bites at Shane’s bottom lip after he utters the words.
“Hmm… No.”
“We didn’t even really do bellboy, you know?”
“Yeah, because you’re a pervert who couldn't keep your hands off me for long enough to make the role play stick,” Shane giggles, then laughs harder when Ilya nips at the skin of his neck in response. “Stop, fuck, we shouldn’t even be doing this. You have a flight to catch and you’re not done packing.”
“I have ten hours before my flight, you’re just a weird freak who likes to be at the airport too early. Besides, I’ll be back in two weeks, yes? It’s okay if I leave something behind.”
Shane doesn’t even try to hide how giddy he feels at the prospect of Ilya coming back, and this time around with nothing tying him back to Boston. Ilya’s dedicated this visit to tying up any and every loose end he might still have in the city before he officially moves to Ottawa over the remaining days of the summer. Specifically, finalizing the sale of his house in Boston. That, and meeting up with Svetlana to, in his words, 'do the shit we never got to do in the city because I was too busy traveling around and playing.'
“What are you smiling so wide for, perv?” Ilya asks, once again dragging Shane back to the present. He grinds his hips against Shane, who can feel him slowly getting hard through the fabric of his pants. Shane snorts at this.
“You’re the one getting hard.”
“How can I not when this beautiful, sexy man is under me?”
Shane lets out a laugh, then, “I’m really gonna miss you,” he blurts, a little bit out of the blue for the mood they’ve found themselves in. Ilya stops his motions, then leans his weight fully against Shane. He lifts one hand up and pushes the hair out of Shane’s forehead, then runs his finger against his cheek, up and down, soothing. “And I can’t wait until you’re back, and I know that you’re never going to leave again."
"In a way."
"In a way," Shane nods. "I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” Ilya replies, pecking Shane’s cheek, and then repeating the words over and over for every single time. “I love you. I love you. I love—”
“Can you say it in Russian?”
“Ha!” Ilya barks out a laugh. “Because that’s what gets you going, yes? Я тебя люблю. Я тебя люблю, Shane, Я тебя люблю.”
Ilya texts him right away, before he could even turn on the AC in his car.
Lily
You know, I just realized you were wearing my sweater.
Give it back.
Jane
Nope, can’t.
They won’t allow me inside the airport.
Also, motivation for you.
To come back to me.
Shane turns his head around after sending that, red in the face. It’s stupid to get flustered, he knows—no one at the airport gives a fuck who Shane Hollander is texting on his phone. He’s not even sure that they can recognize that he is Shane Hollander when his windows are tinted and he’s wearing his shades and he has on a cap that mostly hides his flushed face. But it’s an old habit he’s trying to kill for a new one. He wants to be able to just… love Ilya, he supposes, without feeling guilty about it. Romantic gestures and the whole nine yards. Even if they’re not out to anyone but his parents yet. After all the years of hiding and pretending they weren’t anything at all to each other, Shane wants proof out there that what they have is real.
Lily
Sweater is not motivation.
You are motivation.
I’m coming back for you.
“Ah, fuck,” Shane sighs. He’s sure that he’s grown impossibly redder. As sure as he is of the fact that his heart has grown impossibly larger, too. He hates Ilya so much. So, so, so much. “Okay, fine, asshole. You win this time.”
Lily
Just landed.
Jane
Good!
I miss you already.
I miss you more.
Yes this is a competition.
You're so fucking annoying.
Shane spends the first few days keeping busy, occupying his mind with an overload of stuff to do so he doesn’t spend all of two weeks just counting down the days until he picks Ilya up from the airport again. He does some of Ilya’s shopping for him, which includes buying furniture and bedding and sheets and other household products that Ilya would probably find very boring to do. Half their messages since Ilya left has consisted of Shane texting him photos of plates, kitchen appliances, and curtain samples, all of which Ilya keeps replying to with: I trust your judgment, darling, and followed up by a lewd come on that Shane, because he's a weak man, almost always entertains.
And there’s the preparations for the camp too, which he and his parents have been pouring over for the past couple of months. Timeline permitting, they plan on announcing the camp and the foundation to the public later in the year, right at the start of the new season. They’re all so excited for it; they’ve just received the first emails back from the interest checks they sent out to potential coaches early on in the summer. His mom’s finalizing the foundation side of the things, specifically the charities and organizations they plan to support and partner with. Everything’s coming together exactly how they planned it.
But the problem with things going according to plan, paired with Shane’s single-minded focus whenever he decides that he wants to get said things done immediately, is that one would eventually find themselves with nothing to do. And this is where Shane finds himself now—in his childhood bedroom on a Saturday evening, empty handed, realizing that he’s run out of stuff to worry over, still a week out before seeing Ilya again.
Annoying his mom is out of the question. She’d been, after all, the one who kicked him out of the living room so that she and his dad could do their nightly movie ritual, which Shane could never fully sit through because he either just ends up talking their ears off or staring at his phone and scrolling through Wikipedia. He could always text Rose, or Hayden, or even J.J., but there’s not really much for them to talk about at the moment, and he’ll just feel weird with Hayden and J.J., specifically because he hasn’t told either of them about Ilya yet, and he’d just be spending his whole time talking to them afraid that he’s gonna blurt out '"I've been fucking Ilya Rozanov for close to ten years and I'm currently in a serious relationship with him" without any of the tact that he hopes to have when he finally tells them.
Shane could also call Ilya, of course. That’s always an option. It's an infinitely better option, but there’s a tiny part of him that doesn’t want to be too clingy. All his recent efforts at romance aside. There’s a line between adorably lovable and obnoxious and Shane doesn’t want to cross that line this early on in their relationship. Besides, Ilya had been talking about going out with Svetlana earlier, when they had their actual, scheduled FaceTime call while Shane was cooking lunch with his parents. And if there’s anything else other than hockey that Ilya was great at, it’s clubbing with Svetlana until the sun rises and neither of them could properly remember the way back to their hotel. His words, not Shane's.
He’s spared the indignity of rechecking the foundation’s emails for the hundredth time when his phone rings, displaying Ilya’s name and face. “Hey,” he breathes out immediately after accepting the call, only slightly embarrassed by the barely hidden giddiness in his voice. “Ilya, hi.”
“Hello, Shane. Ah, no, Sveta—Да, это Шейн, ты можешь заткн—sorry, Shane, just a minute—Нет, я не расскажу ему про чела в клубе, ты ахуела? Wait, I’ll just—”
Shane hears the distinct sound of cloth covering the phone’s receiver, then hears a few more mumbling in Russian that goes on for a good while before he finally hears Ilya again, slightly breathless, like he’s had to outrun Svetlana just so she wouldn’t take his phone. Knowing what little he knows about the two of them, he probably did. “Hey, Shane,” Ilya tries again.
“Hi Ilya. If you’re busy…”
“No, no. I just, uh… we were walking back to the hotel, and I saw the time, and I thought maybe you were going to sleep, so I had to call to say goodnight.”
Fuck. “Cute.”
“Sorry?”
“Nothing, just… I’m sleepy, but I wasn't sleeping yet. I was planning on going through emails, stuff like that.”
Ilya hums on the other side. “Ah… and Yuna has, what? Grown bored of you?”
“A little,” Shane laughs. “She’s mostly annoyed that I can’t sit still while watching.”
“Because you’re thinking of me?” Ilya teases. Which, okay, it’s not exactly that far off from the truth. Shane snorts.
“Kind of. I miss you, sue me.”
A slight pause. Then, Ilya sighs. “Fuck. Yeah, I miss you too. So much. I wish you were here with me.”
“I’m sorry I’m not,” Shane replies, and that, too, is the truth. He turns his head so he can look at his window, staring at the moon hidden by the clouds. “Anyway, I thought you guys were going clubbing? It’s still pretty early, why are you heading back to your hotel already?” As he says this, he tucks his free hand under his pillow, curling in on himself and closing his eyes, letting Ilya's voice lull him into the depths of sleep.
Lily
Svetlana’s neighbor has a dog.
And it gave birth to puppies.
When I get to Ottawa, I’m getting us a dog.
Jane
Or a cat. Also an option.
Good morning, by the way.
How do you even know this? Did you see the puppies?
Good morning ☺️☀️
I did!!!!!!!!!!!
Her neighbor showed them to us.
Very cute dogs 🐶
You are cuter, of course.
Not that I asked, but thank you anyway.
So what’s the plan for today?
Sveta has this museum she wants to go to.
BORING! But I’ve also never been.
Realizing this week that I haven’t been to many places here, actually.
I need to experience the tourist traps.
Again, the museum is boring but also she may never see me again because I am never going back to Boston.
So whatever.
Shane frowns at that. He types in a few words, then deletes them. Then he types some other words instead, which he stares at for a while until they no longer make sense to him, and so he deletes that too. What he sends is something much safer. Much closer to a joke than anything.
Rude!!! You can still visit her!
Boston isn’t that far. And I’m not keeping you hostage here 😡
I won’t mind if you do 😉
And you probably like that anyway, pervert.
Poor and defenseless Ilya all stuck in your hidden cottage in the woods.
No one around to hear me scream…
You have got to stop calling me that 😣
See how you didn’t deny your bad plans for me?
Fuck off.
Why is it poor and defenseless Ilya stuck in the cottage?
What if it’s the other way around?
You’d like that.
Bye pervert, gotta go. Sveta has threatened to throw my phone out.
Love you. I will call you later.
I love you.
🙄
I love you too. ♥️
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
His mom startles from where she’s sat on the other end of the couch, reading her book, likely surprised that Shane’s addressing her at all when he’s spent most of the day glued to his phone and texting back and forth with Ilya. “Sorry, what?”
“Do you think Ilya moving here is a good idea? Leaving Boston, playing for Ottawa, all that.”
“Well it’s kinda too late to ask my opinion about things considering all the work we’ve done for him to move here,” she says, putting her book down. “What’s this about?”
Well, Ilya made a joke and I know it’s a joke but I’m spiraling anyway because that’s what I do best, and because jokes are always half-meant and what if I’m seriously taking him away from his life and he’s just going along with it because he loves me too much to say no to me. And also because before he left I had to affirm again that what we have is real and that I love him and I want him here with me, he thinks. But all of that sounds insane even if it’s only in his head, so he just says: “I mean, you’re the one who said before, right? That it’s important to have loyalty to the team that drafted him, or something.”
It’s such a lame reason. He knows, and he knows his mom knows, if the way she’s staring at him suspiciously is any indication. But it’s a good thing that she loves him and lets most things pass, because she just shrugs and says, “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what he thinks, and what you think, of course. He seems happy enough. You should just be happy too. I mean, you’re kinda lucky he’s moving to Ottawa. I moved from Vancouver for your dad.”
Which doesn’t really make Shane feel better, but she’s already gone back to her book, ignoring him and his woes.
Lily
Do you want any of my Boston jerseys?
Or, compromise, do you want me to buy you a shirt that says I heart Boston.
I ♥️Boston. Like that.
Jane
Why would I ever want a shirt like that?
So, yes to the jersey?
Duh. Save two.
😜
Shane
I have a question. Where’s Jackie from?
Like did she move to Montreal for you or???
Hayden
Hello to you too, good friend.
Nope. Born and raised.
Well, you’re no help.
Thanks anyway.
??????????
Lily
Are you alone right now or?
Jane
If it’s a dick pic please save it.
You are no fun at all.
But not dick pic, no.
You want to see a photo of me in the gym?
So you can have something to jerk off to tonight.
For your Ilya folder, which I know you have hidden in your phone somewhere.
I do not have an Ilya folder, thank you very much.
You are so gross.
So that’s a no to the gym pic? It’s good. I’m shirtless.
Well, I didn’t say all that.
Send it to me.
There’s my pervert.
Shane
If a guy you’re dating asks you to move from LA to Canada, would you?
And if you really, really loved him and want to spend the rest of your life with him. And get married and have his babies.
Hey by the way, sorry. Congrats on the movie.
Rose
I’d rather die than move to Canada, no offense.
Is this your subtle way of asking to get back together with me?
I don’t want to be your beard wife. We’ve tried it. I love you, Shane, but it didn’t work.
I don’t know what I was thinking texting you.
Bye 🙄
NO WAIT DON’T LEAVE ME I’M SO BORED
SHANE???
Lily
I miss you so fucking much.
When I see you again we’re not seeing the outside world for a week straight.
You’ll be leaving the cottage limping.
Jane
Ilya.
I know you’re hard right now so don’t even try to deny it.
I wasn’t gonna.
Good. I have so much more dirty thoughts to tell you.
Fuck, I miss you so much.
I know. I miss you too.
Now tell me all the things you plan on doing to me when you get back.
😘😘😘
Despite the distraction of Ilya’s sexually loaded texts, his unhelpful acquaintances, and having to complete half of a 1000-piece puzzle with his dad, Shane has been unsuccessful in leaving his downward spiral.
He keeps replaying the memory of it in his head, that night in the cottage. Shane had been too rattled by the idea of Ilya marrying Svetlana for a green card, even if it wouldn’t be for love, that he’d spent a good portion of the night ruminating on a plausible plan for them both that would get them what they both want: Ilya a home and security in North America, and Shane, well, Ilya. In the dark of their room, he’d gone over how good the plan he ended up with was. How smart he was for thinking about it. Had been so giddy that he’d woken Ilya up from his deep slumber and explained it all to him immediately, teetering over the edge of mania in his mind even as he kept his voice even to hide how strongly he felt about the whole thing: I have another idea. What if you played in Ottawa? Super close by, and Ottawa needs a star center and they could definitely afford you. And then maybe we can start to change the narrative up a bit. We’re not rookies anymore. There are younger guys coming in, frothing at the mouth. Let them hate each other. You play for Ottawa, I play for Montreal. We’re only two hours apart, and we start a charity. We still play hard against each other on the ice. And if people saw us in public, it wouldn’t be so fucking crazy. You can apply for citizenship here in Canada and maybe, one day, when we both retire, we can be together. For real.
And then, only a little over twenty-four hours later, after the unexpected stress of being caught and coming out to his parents, and when Shane finally had clarity of mind and Ilya was once again snoring away beside him, he’d thought about his proposal to Ilya long and hard and realized two things: first, that it was, for all intents and purposes, a proposal, seeing as he did ask Ilya to spend forever with him. Second, that he just, also for all intents and purposes, told Ilya to uproot his life and whatever else he’s built in Boston to move to Ottawa so he’d be closer to Shane. And so he doesn't have to worry about marrying Svetlana, or anyone else, because Shane would be able and willing to do it all for him.
It had horrified Shane, at first. But in the morning, when he told Ilya about his sudden reservations and explained to him the enormity of what actually comes with going along with Shane’s plan, Ilya had merely shrugged and said that he won't have said yes if he didn't want to do it, and that Shane should have a little more faith in him.
Shane does have faith in Ilya. The issue, however, seems to be recurring. One that’s being rehashed now while they're on their video call, Ilya exasperated and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Shane,” he says, exhausted.
“I know, I know. It’s just… I just keep thinking, what if you regret it? What if you decide that you don't want to move to Ottawa after all? You were doing good in Boston. You won a Cup with Boston. I can’t—maybe we shouldn't—I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We can make it work, we—”
“Okay, Shane, breathe.”
“Ilya, I’m—”
“Shane. Breathe with me, okay?”
Shane does. He takes one breath, then two, and then more until he’s keeping with Ilya’s pace. They stare in silence at each other for a while, long enough that Shane has mostly gotten over his initial panic, and long enough that Ilya finally feels the need to break the silence. “You okay now?”
“Yeah. I am. Thanks. I’m sorry. I don’t—”
“It’s fine. It’s… Shane, I love you, okay?”
“I know. I don’t doubt that, Ilya.”
“Then what brought this on?”
Shane opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again. He looks like a fish, he’s sure. But Shane doesn’t want to tell Ilya because it’s embarrassing to admit that he got himself worked up over Ilya’s earlier comment about how Svetlana would never see him again because he’s never going back to Boston. That he can’t believe there’s so much of the city he still hasn’t seen and that he still hasn’t been to. That, and his mom telling him about how lucky Shane was that it was Ilya who’s moving to Canada for him when she’s the one who moved from Vancouver to Ottawa for her husband.
But, again, in the spirit of honesty: “I just don’t want you thinking that you’re giving up something for me.”
“I’m not.”
“I know that, conceptually. But—”
Ilya groans. “There is no ‘but’, Shane. I—Shane, I was the one who wanted out, remember? When we were playing football—”
“Soccer.”
“Not the point,” Ilya rolls his eyes, but the quip breaks the tension a little. He sees Ilya exhale from the screen, his posture slouching as he relaxes. “But, yes. I told you, I didn’t want to sign with Boston again, and I was thinking of playing in a Canadian team. And you said not Montreal which is stupid because what if Montreal wanted me to play for them—”
“Oh, here we go.” It’s Shane’s turn to roll his eyes. But the grin on his face is fond. He doesn’t dispute it much. It would be a lie to say that he hasn’t fantasized about what it would be like to play in the Metros with Ilya. To have them both in the same team, not worrying about the logistics of spending time with each other and wondering what people are thinking about when they see them standing side by side.
“There’s nothing for me here,” Ilya says after a while. Shane sees him fiddle with the strings of his hoodie, winding and unwinding one end around his fingers. Shane wishes he could jump through the screen and reach out to him. “And I’ll miss the city, sure. Boston was home for a little while. And, fuck, I will definitely miss my old team. But players leave their teams all the time. Part of the job.”
“Part of the job,” Shane echoes, agreeing with him.
“And I love you, so there’s that,” Ilya adds. “And I want to be with you in any way I can. I want to be closer to you. You’re right. We’ll only be two hours apart for an entire year. That’s better than being plane rides away. Whenever I have free time I could just drive up to Montreal. Or you could drive to Ottawa. Or we could both drive to the cottage.”
“We’d be there all summer, and you won’t have to leave early.”
Ilya nods. “And you can have your way with me for as much and as long as you want.”
“Okay, of course this is where the conversation is going. I’m going to end the call.”
“No, wait. Stop,” Ilya laughs, face filled with mirth at Shane’s playful annoyance. “Okay, okay. But seriously. Too many pros, yes? I don’t see any negatives at all. Except maybe that Ottawa is boring but all of Canada is boring, I think. All Canadians are boring too.”
“And yet you love me, so what does that say about you?” Shane snarks. There’s no heat to it, however. How could there be when Ilya looks at him with so much adoration as he says the words? If Ilya says it's going to be okay, then Shane will just have to accept hat it is going to be okay. Again, Shane wants to reach out and grab him through the screen. Bridge the last bits of distance that’s separating them both.
“That I’m stupid, probably,” Ilya replies, love drunk and dopey and serious at the same time. “That listening to the pretty freckled boy who told me I was smoking in front of a no-smoking sign ten years ago is probably the best decision of my life.”
Lily
Can we go back to this.
Lily has replied to: Or a cat. Also an option.
You don't like dogs?
Jane
Why?
Is that a deal breaker for you?
Don’t break my heart, Hollander.
Shane.
Shane. Really?
Shane reply to me please this is getting scary.
I’m okay with dogs.
Dogs are great!
Cats are great also! They’re quiet, they keep to themselves, they groom.
Cat won’t play fetch with you.
Dog is much better for people with active lifestyles like us.
So much cuter too.
Shane, really. I want us to get a dog.
You can get a dog!
You don’t need my permission 😒
Well no but also yes.
We’ll be together forever. And if I get a dog the dog will be around forever too.
So you have to like the dog.
Ugh, fine.
But you have to be open to the possibility of having a cat too.
Just so it’s fair.
🙄 Fine.
Cats are okay too I guess.
“You guess”
Anyway, what’s your itinerary for today?
You’re leaving the hotel right?
Yup, staying at Sveta’s now.
Won’t be going out. She’s having people over.
Old friends… mostly her friends.
From Russia?
Some. Here and there.
Sveta is a very friendly person.
That’s nice. I can’t wait to meet her.
Soon 😊
What about you? What’s the plan for today?
I don’t really know…
Sit around and miss you?
I’ll be doing that too 😚
But you also have to do something else I think.
Like finishing the other half of the puzzle you are helping David with.
Fuck I forgot about that.
Why did you have to remind me 😢
It’s funny to me that you got the boring from him but don’t like his hobbies.
Doing puzzles is too boring for you?
It’s less boring and more an activity for old men.
Then take a hike or something.
Go on a hike, I mean.
I only like the hiking trail at the cottage.
And I don’t want to without you.
Fuck you are such a sap Hollander
You make it difficult to be away from you
That’s the goal!
Mom’s calling, I have to go.
☹️
Okay, bye bye. I love you.
I love you too. So much. ♥️
Shane spends all of Thursday in the state of a daydream, imagining what it would be like to finally have Ilya within the metaphorical arm's length, fully and without the restraint that he’d reserved for himself when they were much younger and he still wasn’t sure if Ilya even thought about him outside of their irregular hook-ups. He’s in the vegetable aisle at the grocery and thinks about how he and Ilya would definitely bicker over what kinds of food they’d be stocking in the cottage for their summer excursions. He cleans up his childhood closet and thinks about the joint room he and Ilya would have for their trophies when they finally buy their own house. Weekend dinners at his parents, date nights at his favorite restaurants in Ottawa, taking Ilya to skate at the Rideau skateway when it freezes over in the winter. Shane is so lost in his thoughts that when he sees his parents swaying in their kitchen late in the afternoon, all he could think about is him and Ilya in their image, sharing a life. And then he stubs his toe and gets an odd look from his mom for interrupting the moment.
He really has high hopes, is the thing. And Shane can always dream. He’s really good at doing that.
Lily
I love you by the way
Jane
I love you too.
What for?
I can’t just love you?
We were in a taxi and a song was playing and I thought of you.
Ooooh what song?
Tell me tell me tell me.
Calm down I have to ask Sveta.
Okay she says it’s Bubbly by Coby something.
Okay I don’t know what that song is.
I’ll look it up.
So… are you listening to it?
I know you don’t listen to music because you’re boring but I think it was a cute song.
Shut up I do listen to music.
And I like this Ilya thank you. It’s Colbie by the way, the singer's name.
Of course you have to correct that.
But you like it?
It made me think of you. Because you make me smile.
You need to stop doing this 😣
I actually need to function today. Ugh. I fucking hate you.
No you don’t.
You love me.
Yeah.
I really do.
Friday afternoon, his mom stops him in the hallway while Shane is on his way out for a run. “I know I said my opinion doesn’t matter, but I know it matters to you,” she starts, her grip firm around Shane’s wrist. Her lips are quirked up in a smile, eyes crinkling at the corner. “I love you, okay? And I think everything that you guys are doing is a great idea. Just… I’m happy when you’re happy. And you both make each other so happy. You have no idea how he looks at you when you don’t know he’s looking. He loves you, okay? Don’t doubt that he’s happy when he says he is.”
Lily
Did you know there’s a word for when animals have bright colors.
Poisonous animals I mean. So they can warn predators that they’re dangerous.
Like poison dart frogs. Interesting, yes?
Jane
What’s the word?
And what’s up with the sudden fact dump.
Aposomething.
I forgot.
Because there’s this girl here, Svetlana’s friend from college.
All she’s talked about in the past fifteen minutes is animals.
Can we call?
Shane barely has time to read the text before Ilya is calling him. He’s sure Ilya barely has time to prepare for what he wants to say when he answers immediately on the second ring. “Hey, bored already?”
Ilya sniffles on the other end. “No,” he says, voice a little hoarse. “Just missing you.”
“Are you okay? What’s up?”
“I don’t know anyone here, and I think I’m close to drunk. I don’t know. I really miss you. You should have just gone here with me.” Ilya replies, all in one breath. You probably are drunk, Shane thinks, but he doesn’t say it. From the receiver, Shane can also hear the sounds of people talking and the thumping of party music. It makes his heart ache, just a little, right in that part of it that he wishes he was with Ilya too. “Sorry, nevermind me.” Ilya continues after a while, when Shane still hasn’t said a word. “You’re probably planning on sleeping. I know you like your eight hours of sleep.”
“Not so much,” Shane titters, “I always have time for you.”
“What are you doing right now?”
“Nothing, just… I’m standing in my mom’s garden, actually.”
“Why are you outside?”
Shane shuffles on his feet, kicking the clumps of dirt and pebbles around his slippers. “Needed some air.”
“Why? It got too intense at the jigsaw puzzle championship?” Ilya replies, voice slurring around the edges with amusement. “David got too competitive?”
“Haha,” Shane rolls his eyes, even if Ilya can’t see him. “Very funny. One day, that joke will get old.”
“I’ll keep saying it until then.”
They lapse into an easy conversation after, Ilya telling him all about their remaining plans for the week. Shane listens politely, but he’s barely keeping up. Mostly, he really just wants to hear Ilya’s voice. He asks if Ilya’s already booked his flight back, and Ilya pretends to balk at Shane’s audacity to assume that he hasn’t already taken care of that before quietly admitting that he hasn’t even looked at the ticket prices for Ottawa yet because he keeps forgetting. Which leads Shane into giving him a small lecture that Ilya cuts off by saying Shane isn’t perfect either and has once forgotten to book a flight back home for Christmas when he was twenty-four after promising his mom he’d be there the morning of Christmas eve. Which is a funny little anecdote for Ilya to have, and one that he’d be grilling his parents about except he gets distracted by the fullness of the moon against the backdrop of a billion stars, which then reminds Shane that there’s going to be a meteor shower sometime this August, and Shane would so love to watch it with Ilya in that little off-trail meadow in the hiking path near the cottage. They don’t even have to wait for the meteor shower, really. They could just—
“—but I think I may be staying here in Boston after all, because I just fucking love Marly so much, I realized that now—”
Shane blinks. “You’re what?!”
“Ha, I knew you weren’t listening!” Ilya accuses. Shane can hear the smugness in his tone. “You know, if you’re tired, it’s okay. We can end the call.”
“I’m not tired!” Shane half-hisses, half-yells, turning around to make sure he hasn’t alerted his parents who, thankfully, are still arguing over what they’re watching on the TV. “I just… I got distracted. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was thinking about something.”
“What is it?”
Shane is flustered, suddenly. “Nothing.”
“Okay, now I’m really curious,” Ilya replies. “What?”
“No. It’s too… Ugh, it’s too cheesy.”
“Cheesy?”
“Like,” Shane purses his lips. “Overly sweet? Romantic but in an embarrassing way?”
“Tell me anyway,” Ilya begs. “Come on. Please?” Shane imagines him now, if he was here. How he’d be looking at Shane. Fuck.
“Fine. I just,” how the fuck do I say this. “I’m standing outside, right? And I’m staring at the stars and the moon. And I guess if… we’re under the same sky, and you stand outside, just look up at the moon and it’ll be like we’re doing it together, right?”
He’s met with silence on the other end, which is a little humiliating for Shane when he’s bared his heart out but there’s nothing more he could do now. Or he could backtrack, which is honestly much better than just standing around and letting the silence go on longer. “Nevermind, I told you, it’s too—”
“Shut up. I’m looking for my coat.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Shane stands there with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to the shuffling of clothing, followed by Ilya muttering excuses as he, presumably, walks out of the party to go and stand outside. He catches himself smiling before he could stop it. Ridiculous, he thinks. This is stupid. This is so stupid. God I love him so much I’m willing to be this stupid.
“Okay. I’m outside,” Ilya croons into the phone after a while. He heaves out a sigh, then adds, “and I am also staring at the moon now.”
“Good. And you can pretend I’m there.”
Ilya mutters a few Russian words. Curse words, probably. Shane has heard some of them enough to be familiar. “You really, really make it so difficult to be away from you.”
Good. Because I don’t ever want you to leave again. “I know,” Shane replies miserably, sniffling. “You said that to me already.”
“I love you.”
“I know. I love you too.”
“I can’t wait to love you forever. And wake up every morning next to you.”
Shane laughs. “That's not even gonna happen yet. Realistically, we still have a few years to go."
"Don't care. I want it."
"Are you proposing to me right now?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Ilya laughs too on the other end. “No. But you’ll know it when I do. I still want to light a billion candles for you.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Shane replies, staring up at the moon, still. The same one Ilya is looking up at. And when he does end up closing his eyes, he just imagines that he’s bridged the impossible distance.
Lily
Can you pick me up at 2 AM from the airport?
It’s the only flight back I could book ☹️
Jane
Of course.
I can’t wait to see you again ☺️
I am counting down the hours.
I love you.
“You seem cheerful,” his dad says in the morning, handing him a steaming cup of coffee. “Got any plans today?”
“Nope, not really,” Shane replies, blowing out the steam. He stares at his dad from over the rim. “Just… stuff.”
“Nothing involving a certain boy you’ve gotta pick up at the airport later?”
Shane matches his dad’s smile. “Not at all.”
Lily
Okay I’ve landed.
Just have to get my bags.
Jane
Bags?
You brought back extra stuff?
Because I’m not going back to Boston anymore, Shane 🙄
And Sveta went a little crazy with her credit card and dragged me along and well….
Okay, I’ll be at the parking.
P13
Shane whiles the time away by scrolling through his phone, clicking through an old New Yorker essay from 1996 his dad sent to their group chat that he’s been meaning to read. He’s just barely over the first half of it when, all of a sudden, he hears a tapping on the window.
“Fuck,” he yelps, clutching his phone against his heart. He huffs when he sees Ilya laughing. “Fuck off,” he tells him, rolling the window down. “Hi. I hate you, by the way.”
“Hey. Open the boot. I need to get my stuff in.”
“Let me help you,” he says, climbing out of the car. He ignores Ilya’s protests and helps him load his stuff inside the cargo space, complaining mildly about the amount of stuff that Ilya’s brought back compared to the duffel plus mid-sized suitcase he took with him to Boston.
It’s only when the boot is shut that Shane could finally take a proper look at Ilya. “Hi,” he says, taking him in. “You look tired.”
“I know, I am. I just want to sleep, I think.” There’s heavy bags under his eyes, a stark contrast against his pale skin. Still, he looks healthy enough that Shane isn’t really worried. Nothing a good and solid ten hours of sleep couldn’t fix. For his part, Shane’s really just stuck on the fact that Ilya is here, finally. Finally. And he never really has to leave again. And he’ll always be just here, beside Shane, a tangible presence.
“I kinda wanna hug you right now,” Shane breathes out. “And I want to kiss you. And—”
Ilya doesn’t give him the time to decide what he wants to do. All Shane could do is stumble as he’s enveloped in the warmth of Ilya’s arms. Before he could help himself, tears spring in his eyes, welling at his waterline. He feels Ilya press a tiny kiss against his neck, the rough stubble on his chin rubbing against the skin, and Shane, as he breathes him in, thinks: we should never be apart again. I don’t think we should ever be apart again. It’s weird, and awful, and it feels both right and not-right but fuck it, he loves Ilya so much he could burst from the feeling right there and then, and whatever life decisions he’s made that has led him to this: standing in a mostly empty parking lot at god knows what o’clock in the morning, he’d do it all over again because everything leads to Ilya. Stupid, terrible, amazing Ilya Rozanov.
“Let’s go home?” Ilya asks when they finally pull away, which makes Shane giggle.
“Well… not home, home. We’re sleeping at my parents’ tonight. But good for you, ‘cause you get to finally see my old bedroom.”
“Really?” Ilya’s eyes light up as he climbs into the passenger seat. “Ah, I can’t wait to snoop around while you’re dead to the world.”
Shane only laughs, sliding into the driver’s seat as he does. For a moment, settling in, neither of them say anything. Then Shane slots the key and turns the engine on. From beside him, Ilya reaches across the console and takes his hand. Shane turns his head, looking at their joined hands first, then at Ilya, grinning sleepily at him. Under the lamplight streaming through the glass, he looks like he’s eighteen and twenty-seven at the same time. He looks like someone Shane could spend the rest of his life with.
The rest of our lives. Yeah, Shane could live with that. Love is only half of the story, anyway. They can fill in the gaps.