Chapter Text
Ana doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to making decisions. Her head’s been pounding for days, even after she dropped her mother off at the airport, so she takes some aspirin, washes it down with a bottle of sauvignon blanc, and promptly falls asleep on her parents’ couch. She wakes just past four in the morning, feeling almost as bad as she’d felt the day she’d practically set her life on fire, and throatily groans into the silence.
She gets up, has a lukewarm shower, and puts on a pair of dungarees she’s owned since she was fourteen years old. They’ve got a pretty significant hole right in the crotch, but she’s wearing nice underwear, and she’s waxed, and she really doubts Shane will care when she heads over to his later. It’s still just below twenty degrees, so she picks a cashmere sweater, foregoes a bra, and rummages through the kitchen for something to settle her stomach.
Once she doesn’t feel like she’s about to puke anymore, she finishes packing. Her flight isn’t until tomorrow morning, but she knows she won’t feel settled unless everything’s organized. She’s glad Shane’s an early riser as well, and had readily agreed to meet quite early, because otherwise she might feel paralyzed all day.
Ana has to swing by her favourite tailor before, though; it’s run by an old Vietnamese couple who always offer her tea when she’s there to drop off or pick up. They offer her tea this time as well, but she politely declines. She’d have the time, but her usual pre-travel jitters always weaken her bladder, and she doesn’t want to need the bathroom halfway through the fitting.
She parks on the street across from Shane’s building and lets herself in, carefully avoiding the leftover puddles from yesterday’s torrential downpour. Her loafers are brand-spanking new. Ana takes the lift up to the top floor, muffles a yawn into her shoulder, then knocks on Shane’s apartment door. Then, a minute later, she knocks again. And again.
“Oh, Christ,” she mutters under her breath and pulls out her phone. It’s seven fifty-seven. They’d agreed they’d meet at eight. Ana is about to pull up his contact – maybe he had to step out for something – when the front door opens to reveal a bleary-eyed, crease-faced Shane in a tee and sweats. He must’ve just rolled out of bed.
“Jesus, Ana, what –”
She checks her phone again. There’s no way she’s accidentally managed to switch back to LA time. The sun is up. Mrs. Ngyuen offered her tea. “We agreed to eight, right?”
Shane’s eyes go wide. “Is it –”
“I can come back in like, a half hour?” she offers. He’s finished his season, if she remembers correctly, so maybe he’d needed to sleep in, but he’s never not been on time, and Shane has always struck her as the kind of guy who maintains a very strict routine, even if he doesn’t have to. “Grab a coffee down the –”
“No, no, sorry,” he says, and opens the door wider, “I thought I set an alarm, but…” Trailing off, he steps aside to let her in.
Ana toes off her loafers and moves to hang up her jacket when the whole ‘not setting an alarm’ and forgetting the time thing starts to make sense. Because judging by the very lovely leather bomber jacket already hanging on the coat rack, hot boyfriend is definitely here, and considering what he looks like, she doesn’t blame Shane for forgetting literally everything else.
“Can you give me five minutes?” Shane asks once they’re in the living room, looking mildly flustered and scratching the back of his neck. “I’m just gonna jump in the shower and –”
“Take however long you need,” Ana tells him, draping the garment bag over the back of the couch. He’s so apologetic about literally everything. It’s refreshing after working with assholes for years, but technically, he’s her boss. It’s fine if he’s an inconvenience from time to time, considering how well he pays her. “I’m gonna help myself to coffee.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says, already turning towards the staircase. “Sorry again.”
Ana waves him off, and Shane disappears towards his bedroom. The open kitchen shows remnants of what appears to be at least somewhat of a romantic evening. Plates not yet put in the dishwasher, and two long-stemmed wine glasses in the sink. She needs probably a full minute to find the on switch for his fancy espresso machine.
As promised, Shane walks back downstairs just over five minutes later, wearing a white tee and a pair of Thom Browne sweatpants she definitely didn’t buy for him. Although he shouldn’t have bothered, really, since he needs to undress anyway to try on the new suit and shirt she’s gotten for him. Ana only had him fitted for a tux a couple months ago, but athletes, she’s now learning, apparently gain and lose a whole lot of muscle mass throughout the season, and he’s got enough money that it’s not really necessary to keep taking the same tux in, and letting the seam allowance back out again when needed.
So she got him a nice, new Zegna suit, wool and mohair mix. She likes Italian tailoring on him, she thinks as Shane dutifully steps out of the sweats and into the pants. French and British styles tend to favour a skinnier frame. Italian silhouettes are classic, more bold and generous. Much more suitable for a hockey player.
The pants fit perfectly, which isn’t a surprise. “Wanna squat?” she jokes, handing Shane the shirt.
He snorts, almost a laugh, and it’s nice to see the tension from earlier almost gone. She doubts that he’ll ever be fully comfortable with fittings, but Ana is quick, efficient, which he surely appreciates. She drapes the jacket over the crook of her left arm, and works the buttons, fingers moving practiced and much quicker than if Shane would do it himself.
“Are you looking forward to your trip?” he asks as she smooths out the front and adjusts the starched collar, not – she suspects – because he doesn’t like drawn-out silence, but because he thinks she doesn’t. He tries, bless him, and she doesn’t have it in her to tell him that it’s absolutely fine if he’s quiet.
She’s not looking forward to her trip, actually, because while she has no family in Canada besides her parents, she has about a hundred cousins in Croatia, and one of them is getting married. So there’ll also be aunts and uncles and old-fashioned grandparents who’ll keep asking why she’s still not married. If it’s even worse than she’s preparing for, a handful of her friends from LA are holidaying in Greece, so she has an escape route.
“Eh,” she replies, non-committal, “it’ll be hot, at least. Plus, I have a really inappropriate dress for the wedding.” It’ll give her family something to talk about other than her lack of husband.
Shane looks surprised. She’d love to look inside his head and see what his idea of inappropriate wedding attire is. Probably not even close to what it means to her.
“Oh, nothing too bad,” she adds. “Just – tits out, you know,” then points to her flat chest. “Not that there is much to be out.” He’s got a much better rack than she does. So does hot boyfriend, if she remembers correctly.
Speaking – or rather thinking – of the devil, heavy steps sound on the stairs just as she hands Shane the jacket. Hot boyfriend is as hot as she remembers, she notices appreciatively when she glances over her shoulder and sees him coming down from Shane’s bedroom, clad in nothing but a pair of scandalously small and tight black boxer briefs.
Even out of the corner of her eye, Ana can tell that Shane is rapidly turning the colour of her freshly manicured nails.
“Good morning,” she says, and gives hot boyfriend a very pointed once-over.
Hot boyfriend pauses, just for a beat, nods at her, then makes his way into the kitchen, bee-lining towards the coffee machine. Not a morning person,then.
“Pants weren’t an option?” Shane says to him, face still aflame.
Honestly, Ana doesn’t blame him. If she were a gay man, she’d probably be on the floor, weeping. Last time, hot boyfriend had been dressed, and she’d been in such a hurry, so she’d mostly just noticed his arms, which are still very noticeable. But so is his very impressive backside.
She turns back to Shane, and pointedly raises one brow. He looks like he wants the ground to swallow him whole. It’s hilarious. “Mazel tov,” she tells him, voice full of glee.
Before he can reply, hot boyfriend comments from his spot in the kitchen, “You took mine!”
The coffee machine whirrs, slightly drowning out Shane’s muttered response of, “Not like we’ve got another two dozen in the closet.”
Ana helps him into the jacket, waits for him to shrug it on before bringing her hands to the lapels. She won’t tell him that there definitely aren’t another two dozen pairs of two-thousand dollar sweatpants in that closet. Shane isn’t stingy, and he gets that quality comes at a price, but she’s pretty sure he’d draw a line at dropping two grand for athleisure. Especially considering he gets most of it for free.
“How’s the fit?” she asks. It looks great, but if he can’t move, she needs to get it back to Mr. Ngyuen before noon for an end-of-day turnaround.
Shane moves his shoulders and lifts his arms a little, eyes flickering to the side where hot boyfriend saunters around the kitchen island, coffee in hand, leans his hip against the marble he might as well be carved out of as well. Ana cannot for the life of her remember his name. It’s possible he didn’t tell her, but it’s just as likely that she simply forgot. She’s terrible with names.
“Fine,” Shane says, clearly distracted, but that is still no excuse.
He’s lucky she just swats at him, and doesn’t pinch his nipples. “Fine? Excuse you!”
“Sorry, it’s good. Great!” he corrects himself quickly, moving his arms demonstratively. He’s still quite red.
“That’s better,” Ana drawls, but Shane is distracted now.
The eye-fucking that’s happening is slightly concerning, given that she’s somehow still practically in the middle of it, but she can’t exactly blame hot boyfriend. Ana’s so good at her job. Shane looks delicious.
It’s probably better if she gets out of here sooner rather than later.
She helps Shane slide off his jacket, puts it on the hanger, then slaps his hands away when he starts undoing the buttons of the shirt. Chastised, he lets his arms drop to his side. Ana doesn’t trust him to properly press the shirt, and he’s just going to crease it pulling at the buttons like that. Her eyes flicker towards hot boyfriend, sipping coffee, entirely unbothered. Locked in on Shane like a hawk.
“Are you going to the dinner thing, too?” She glances at hot boyfriend, who needs a beat to realize she’s talking to him.
He raises one browand tilts his head almost imperceptibly, an expression on his face that Ana can’t really place, and for a moment, she wonders if he hadn’t understood the question. English is clearly not his first language, and while she had the impression his grasp on it was pretty solid, she might’ve been wrong. She’s also been known for talking too fast.
But then he says, “Yes.”
Nothing else. Not a morning person, and maybe not much of a talker, either. To be fair to him, the question was pretty straightforward.
“And? What are you wearing?”
It’s none of her business, and she’s prepared for him to tell her he’s wearing a suit, full stop. But she is just dying to know what the man who wears Thom Browne sweats and vintage Jean Paul Gaultier would choose to wear for a fancy dinner with his probably-still-sort-of-in-the-closet squeeze.
Hot boyfriend continues to look at her, assessing, clearly. Ana isn’t sure what exactly he’s weighing up in his head; she can only tell that there’s definitely something. Thankfully, in the end, he shrugs, and nods towards the hallway coatrack. There’s a black garment bag right there, and Ana can’t believe she didn’t notice it coming in.
“Can I?” she asks, already walking.
He shrugs. “Sure. But, you know, Shane says the dress code is ‘boring', so…”
“What?” Shane squawks, one leg in his pants, one out of them. “I did – my mom told you it was black tie!”
There isn’t too much wriggle room with black tie. It’s not a red carpet. But oh, Ana thinks as she carefully opens the garment bag, it’s not boring. It’s simple, yes, but very sleek, and very sexy. Black Dolce with broad lapels. Black waistcoat, shirt and bowtie. Ana likes him.
She glances at him over her shoulder, and zips the garment bag up again. “All black? Naughty.”
Hot boyfriend winks. Oh, she loves him.
“You know,” she says, turning on her heels and walking back towards the couch, taking the pants Shane just draped over the back to fold them properly along the crease. “Next time, give me a heads up, and I can totally coordinate outfits. Not like Britney and Justin at the AMAs kind of coordinated,” Ana tags on quickly when she sees how Shane instantly blanches, freezing where he’s pulling the two-grand sweats up his legs.
Right, she has to keep reminding herself, still in the closet. “Just something subtle. Complementary. Like…JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.”
God, what a vision, Ana thinks. She’s going to have to start a moodboard for this. Classic, preppy but tasteful for Shane. Sleek and expensive for his blue-eyed beau.
And then, because she absolutely cannot help herself, she throws, “Of course, you’d be the hot blonde,” the boyfriend’s way.
As much as he’s probably annoyed at her presence, and maybe even more at the fact that Shane is now fully dressed again, his brows shoot up in amusement, and Ana guesses he at least appreciates her specific brand of humour. Eastern European queer snark, or something like that, anyway. Hot boyfriend stays quiet though, empties his coffee, and – with a very pointed look at Shane – leaves the kitchen and heads back upstairs.
Shane’s eyes follow him, which is understandable. That ass probably has its own field of gravity. Time for Ana to wrap this up.
“It’s nice, that he’s going to be there,” she still muses out loud as she puts all parts of the suit back in its bag, careful not to crease it anywhere. “What’s the dinner for, again?”
Shane takes a moment to reply, visibly struggling with tearing himself away from the sight of his boyfriend ascending the stairs. “A fundraiser. For a charity we started.” He clears his throat, cheeks still flushed, and rubs his neck, not meeting her eyes. “Hockey camps for kids in the summer, with the proceeds going to some mental health organizations.”
She hums. That sounds like an on-brand thing for an athlete like Shane to do. It’s still commendable, she guesses. A lot of rich people don’t seem to give a shit. And it’s nice that his boyfriend can be involved in some way, even if it’s probably behind the scenes. Hot boyfriend might also just be attending as a wealthy donor, and not Shane’s plus one.
“Is that what he does, then?” she asks, walking down the hallway to put the garment bag next to the one already there.
She turns back, and sees Shane looking at her with a furrowed brow. She thought that question was clear, but perhaps not. “Like, philanthropy?” Given what hot boyfriend wears, he’s got to be making some serious buck. Or he was born into wealth. “My friend James dated a Russian socialite for a couple of months, and she just went to art galleries and threw dinner parties,” Ana elaborates. “Her dad’s an oligarch who,like, defected from the motherland in the late nineties.”
Ana thinks that explains her thoughts. But Shane is still looking at her like he doesn’t quite understand what she’s saying. She doesn’t get what’s not to understand. Shane’s not an idiot. Surely, he knows what an oligarch is, even if the term “socialite” might not be one he’s heard before. Maybe he’s just distracted, though, thinking about what’s waiting for him in his bedroom.
“Oh, uh,” he stutters eventually, “no. Ilya and I are just doing the charity together.”
Ilya, she registers, and now she’s sure he hadn’t introduced himself last time. She thinks she would’ve been able to remember four letters.
“Right,” Ana says, and feels like they’re still talking past each other. But it doesn’t really matter. She’s tired, and Shane is probably eager to get railed six ways to Sunday, and they both deserve a nice, relaxing summer break. His will undoubtedly be more satisfying than hers, but there’s also nothing to do about that now. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be grand. And I hope you two enjoy yourselves.”
“Thanks,” Shane replies earnestly. “I hope you have fun at your cousin’s wedding.”
Ana sighs. “Unlikely, but I appreciate the sentiment.” She grabs her bag and car keys, and gives him a two-fingered salute. “Text me if you have any sartorial emergencies. I’ll see you when I see you.”
With that, she’s out the door, mind already a few steps ahead, wondering if there’s enough food in the house for lunch and a small dinner, or whether she should just get an iced mocha and a family-size serving of Timbits and call it a day. Distracted, she walks out the door and onto the sidewalk, and immediately steps into a puddle so deep she’s got water splashing around her ankles.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
It’s May, and it’s still below twenty, and she’s just soaked through a one-thousand dollar pair of loafers.
She fucking hates Montréal.