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Ilya narrows his eyes at the block of text staring up at him, the words he’d just read replaying in his head like his very own personal hockey highlights.

Every hockey fan I’ve talked to in my real life has brushed it off because Rozanov is known as such a womanizer, but I genuinely think he’s in some kind of serious long-term relationship.

“Shane,” Ilya calls out, jogging up the stairs, eyes flicking to the screen every couple of seconds as if it’s a bomb counting down to detonate.

He rounds the corner, pushing the bedroom door open, but it’s empty. No Shane in sight. The only evidence is the seven thousand freshly fluffed throw pillows and the neatly pressed sheet corners around the edges of the mattress. Shane’s perfect showhome. It makes him want to mess them up, just to see that little notch form between his boyfriend's eyebrows. But, luckily for Shane, Ilya has something more pressing to figure out first. His newfound Reddit virality.

“Shane,” he tries again, louder as he exits the room, pillows spared for now.

“‘M in here,” a muffled voice floats from the bathroom.

Ilya pushes the door open, and Shane turns toward him, a toothbrush hanging from his mouth, now dressed for the day.

Which Ilya will circle back to. The only reason he’d left the bed in the first place was to search for his phone that had been dropped downstairs somewhere between arriving last night and Shane haphazardly pulling his sweats off. He’d found it by the door, lying face down next to his upside-down shoe like some kind of modern art piece. Once he’d retrieved it, he’d planned to rejoin Shane, but he’d read an email he’d missed, which then turned into checking his texts, and the next thing he knew, he was here, about to break the news that he was famous on Reddit.

He stands in the doorway, raising an eyebrow. “Something terrible has happened.”

Shane turns away, spitting toothpaste into the sink. “What?” he mumbles before resuming brushing, making eye contact with Ilya through the mirror.

Ilya pauses for emphasis and then says, kind of ominously, “They think I am in a relationship.”

Shane half turns from the sink, the mumbled toothpaste voice back as he says, “What? Who?”

“The whole world—”

The toothbrush slips from Shane’s hand, bouncing off the counter and back into the sink, the clatter loud as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ilya—”

“The whole world thinks I am in love with beautiful woman. Committed. Close to marriage.” He holds the phone out until Shane takes it, the semi-viral post still open, all those upvotes—he’d had to Google what that meant—staring back at them.

Shane blinks down at the screen for a few seconds, then up at Ilya, the worry dissolving from his features. “How did you even find this? Were you Googling your name again?”

“Yes.” Ilya nods. “I was checking who has more Google searches between us—”

Shane makes a noise that could be a laugh; it could also be a noise of disapproval as his eyes skim the screen again. After a minute or so of scrolling, he looks back up. “This isn’t viral. My mom gets more likes on her Instagram posts.”

“Upvotes, not likes,” Ilya corrects, holding his hand out for the phone. He needs to continue reading the comments. “Also, Yuna is very famous for birthing hockey superstar.”

“Okay, if my mom had Reddit—” Shane shoots Ilya a pointed look. “—which no one does, by the way, then she’d have more upvotes than—” He hands the phone back. “—this. There are only twelve comments. Also, what the fuck is MLHGossip? Is that a real thing?”

“Yes, they talk about everything on there—”

Shane shakes his head. “Ignore them.”

“—even you.”

Shane pauses, his nose wrinkling as he glances back at Ilya. “I don’t do anything gossip worthy,” he throws out like he’s testing him.

Ilya shrugs. “Yes.”

Another pause, the sound of water surrounding them, and then, “What do they say?”

“I thought you said ignore—”

Shane flicks the faucet off, turning around fully now. He leans forward a little. “Is it bad?”

Ilya hums, pleased that the tables have suddenly turned.

“Good?” Shane asks, his eyebrow raising.

“Can gossip be good?” Ilya asks. “Then it would not be gossip, just a compliment.”

Shane’s eyebrow drops back down. “So, it is bad.”

Ilya huffs a soft laugh. “No, they love you on there. They think you are very handsome.” He traces a finger over the bridge of his own nose. “Very cute freckles.”

Shane rolls his eyes, but Ilya can see the faint blush that paints his cheeks. “Okay, sure. So they think I’m just handsome, but you’re in a happy, committed relationship with five dogs and a beautiful mansion?”

“No dogs, just one kid—”

“What?” Shane sputters, his hand tightening on the edge of the sink.

“And seven sports cars,” Ilya adds for good measure.

Shane shoots him a look. “Sure.”

“Joke. For now.”

“So they what? Just talk about hockey players all day like they know anything?” There’s a bite in his tone now, and Ilya has to tamp back his grin.

“Kind of,” Ilya says. “They also talk about Scott Hunter’s boyfriend.”

“What about him?”

“That he makes smoothies. Gets kissed on the ice. That kind of thing.”

Shane nods like that makes sense. Maybe it does.

“So, I’m not viral,” Ilya concedes before he takes a step forward, raising an eyebrow as he closes the gap. He guesses it was time to circle back on ruining those freshly fluffed pillows.

Shane turns to retrieve his dropped toothbrush, flicking the faucet back on. Once it’s meticulously rinsed and back in its designated spot, he leans against the bathroom counter, facing Ilya as he crosses his arms like he’s the one who now has a bombshell to drop. “Do you really post love songs over pictures of lakes?”

“I thought we were ignoring them. What was it? They do not know anything?” Ilya tries.

“Love songs?” Shane repeats, his mouth tugging into a satisfied smile. “About—”

“No, no. Nobody said that,” Ilya lies, closing the rest of the gap to snake his arms around Shane’s waist, tugging him close as he looks at him seriously, eyebrows raised. “I post beer, cars, team parties, that sort of thing, too exciting for you.” His shoulders lift in a shrug. “Probably.”

Shane’s arms fall to his sides as he huffs a soft laugh, a real one this time. “So this Reddit person is, what, lying?”

“Yes. Big lie. Everyone lies on the internet. Ilya Rozanov is going to marry beautiful woman, Shane Hollander is best hockey player.” He makes a tutting noise, his lips pulling into a tight line. “You cannot believe anything you read.”

“Oh, so that article yesterday—” Shane tilts his head, and it’s so cute that Ilya has to lean forward a little more to press a kiss to his lips. Shane dodges him, pulling back as his smile turns smug. “That article about you being on track to overtake—”

“No.” Ilya shakes his head quickly. “Sometimes it’s true. Rare but possible.”

“Love songs over lakes, huh?” Shane says again, like it’s some kind of achievement. He wraps his arms around Ilya, still smiling.

And okay, Ilya could admit that there might sometimes be a lake, but most of the time, he was so paranoid that someone would connect that one boring yoga segment that Shane did by the cottage lake to what he posts that he zooms so far into the water it looks like a mess of blue pixels. Less romantic and more, why doesn’t this guy spend all of that money on a better phone?

“I do not think they said love songs. Not so romantic. Maybe heavy metal. Rock and roll—”

Shane nods, so close his nose bumps Ilya’s. “Ilya Rozanov, famously known for loving heavy metal.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ilya agrees, sliding his phone onto the counter in favor of cupping Shane’s jaw. His thumb comes out to tip his chin, looking him in the eye seriously. “You would not believe my posts, seven parties a week. Real, what do they call them? Ragers?”

“I might have to follow you,” Shane says, his eyes going soft as they travel Ilya’s face. Ilya can’t imagine the look isn’t reflected on his own face. “You know, to see these wild ragers you’re having.”

“You will have to soon anyway,” Ilya reminds him softly, his fingers running through the hairs at the nape of Shane’s neck.

Shane hums contentedly, tipping his head back into Ilya’s fingers. “We’re about to be Instagram official.”

They’d spent the handful of months since their first visit to the cottage, using all of their free time, and sometimes their not free time, working on things behind the scenes. Their lives had become a whirlwind of hockey, meetings with their agents, meetings with people their agents had put them in touch with, more hockey, and then just for good measure, even more meetings, this time with their agents and the people their agents had put them in touch with. Big words and even bigger sums were regularly thrown around during three-hour calls, and weirdly, it had become their new normal.

Their lives were slowly changing in this unfathomable way, carefully designed over months, years to make room for them to grow together. It was like everything had to be in the exact perfect position, not even an inch out of place, for this to run as smoothly as they’d hoped it would. It was as daunting as it was exciting.

They both knew at some point in the future, they had to let the public in on their so-called ‘friendship’, setting the stage for the launch of the Irina Foundation. It wasn’t something they’d talked about yet. The time would come, and probably soon, but until then, they were happy to live in this in between they’d built for just a little longer. Ilya knows sometime in the future, when they’re both retired—still beating Shane on the backyard ice rink they’d build, but retired—he’d look back on these times sentimentally. Even when some months, the only time he sees Shane is through a screen.

“Whoa,” Ilya says in a low voice, face turning faux serious. “Not so fast, Shane. What next? Marriage? A dog? Shared sports car?”

A faint blush rises to Shane’s cheeks, his head ducking. But then, he shrugs, meeting Ilya’s gaze in something that feels a little like how he looks at him on the ice. “Two dogs, so they’re not lonely. No sports car.”

“Deal,” Ilya murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to his lips as if he’s sealing it.

Shane pulls back, something unreadable glimmering in his eyes. “But I don’t think I can marry a guy who thinks twelve comments is viral.”

Ilya smirks, his hand falling from Shane’s jaw to snake behind him, retrieving his phone from the counter. He walks backward out of the bathroom, narrowly missing the laundry basket as he goes. “My fans wait for me,” he speaks over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

***

It had been mostly a joke at the start. Shane had followed him from the bathroom that day, pushing him back onto the bed, all the while warning him about not messing up the pillows, and any thoughts of the dumb Reddit post had disappeared as if they’d never existed. Shane was right; they should just ignore them. It’s not like they were right—

Well, they were right about the committed relationship part. Ilya was committed to Shane Hollander. So committed they had family dinners with the Hollanders, and regular meetings about starting a charity together. But the rest was segments of the truth, picked out and put back together in the wrong order.

But then, Ilya went back to Boston, and the days passed in a blur of hockey and more three-hour meetings, and in the quiet moments, when Shane was asleep, when he’d sit cursing the long months ahead still left of doing this long distance, his mind would wander back to it.

So, he’d pull it up, just to see, just to scratch that itch of curiosity. Because that’s what it was, curiosity, and maybe a dash of fascination. It was better to be on top of it anyway, in case it spiraled, some of these creepy stalkers discovering something they shouldn’t. It’s what he told himself, anyway, that it was self-preservation because they couldn’t fall at the last hurdle. He and Shane were careful, beyond careful; the only people who knew about them were Shane’s parents and Hayden, but still.

The comments had doubled since the first day, sitting at an impressive twenty four. Twenty four whole people discussing his so-called serious relationship. Well, it wasn’t technically twenty-four different people. It was some of the same people revisiting the thread to post more proof they’d supposedly dug up. Ilya didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. For a second, he’d debated calling his agent to get it removed somehow, but he decided against it in the end. He was too interested in seeing what these people had to say. What do they say? Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Yeah, that. He was a professional at keeping his enemy close.

Their newest evidence was another team outing that he hadn’t attended. He’d had a much more exciting night, Shane’s cute face filling his phone screen as he ranted about the game that night, his hair flopping against his forehead as he cursed a player who’d played dirty. Why would he trade that for Marleau shoving shots in his face and telling him to drink up? It was fucking dumb. These people were fucking dumb. But he still couldn’t stop refreshing, waiting for a new comment to pop up.

“Did you hear what I said?” Shane asks, his face popping back into shot.

Ilya hums absentmindedly. “Yes. I think so.”

“You think you heard me?”

Ilya lifts his head to look at the little Shane in the corner of his screen. “No, I think so to whatever you said.”

Shane’s face scrunches into that exasperated expression Ilya loves so much. “So you do think my goal tonight was better than yours last night?”

And Ilya is about eighty percent sure that isn’t exactly what Shane had said, but he clicks mini Shane, bringing himself back to the FaceTime screen anyway. He hesitates, deciding between his pride and his… Reddit post? “Uh, yes.” He grits out a smile, biting back the retort dancing on his tongue.

“You weren’t listening,” Shane decides, flopping back on his couch with a huff, the phone held above his head.

“Yes, I was,” Ilya tries. “Very good goal.”

“What are you doing?” Shane asks then, pulling the phone close to squint at the screen in accusation.

“Reading,” Ilya tells him, pulling Reddit back up. It wasn’t a lie. Someone with no life had left a lengthy comment since the last time he’d checked, and he’d only gotten halfway through before Shane had called.

There are a few seconds of silence, and when Ilya doesn’t fill it, Shane asks, “Are you on that Reddit post?”

“No,” Ilya lies, the words coming out probably too quickly.

“You are!”

“I am not; I’m reading Shane Hollander Wiki.”

“Asshole—”

“What?” Ilya feigns innocence. “They are saying your speed is very good, but you let yourself down with your boring—”

“Fuck you, read the Reddit stuff.”

Well, Shane didn’t need to tell Ilya twice. He pulls the post back up. “They are dumb, entertaining but dumb.”

Shane hums in agreement, clearly impatiently waiting for Ilya to start.

So, Ilya starts reading. “This person is called hockey gossip lover eighty one,” he prefaces so that Shane can have the whole picture.

The whole picture being they love him, and they love gossip about him. So, this whole thread was like Christmas day to them. Probably the highlight of their life.

“Are you sure that’s not your account?” Shane asks.

“That’s funny, but no, I would choose number sixty nine—”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep reading,” Shane says, cutting him off.

“I think the most suspicious thing is the lack of partying—” Ilya starts.

“You party,” Shane counters immediately, like they’d decided they were going to be grading the accuracy of the claims. He looks at Ilya through the camera. “Sometimes, right?”

“I thought you wanted me to read,” Ilya says flatly.

“I do, but they’re fucking wrong.” There’s a tinge of offense to Shane’s words, like them saying Ilya doesn’t party is an unforgivable crime.

“I’m not at a party right now; I’m talking to you and—” Ilya shakes the phone. “Our new friends.”

Shane makes a noise that might edge close to disapproval. “They’re not our friends— stop shaking the camera.”

“Rozanov loves to party,” Ilya starts again for the third time, righting the phone.

“Hollander disagrees,” Shane mutters under his breath.

Ilya hides his laugh, tilting his head down to continue, “Rozanov would not miss a party if he didn’t have a better option.” He looks back up. “That sounds like an insult.”

Shane shrugs, and Ilya can see him biting back a laugh now. Traitor.

“This whole thing is how I love to party, and it’s weird I am not fucking partying.” He sighs, exiting the app. “They are usually more exciting, like the time I posted my food, and they swear they saw person on the other side. Big day on the thread thing, five whole new comments.”

“Was it me?” Shane asks.

“No. Your dad.”

“Oh,” Shane says. “When?”

“When we ate those hot dogs at the cottage. You and Yuna would not stop watching the game to come and join us,” Ilya tells him. “Someone zoomed in on my mustard and said they could see a reflection. Then they started fighting; they said mustard person was going too far. Invasive. They got blocked from the thread.” He smiles just remembering it. “Very exciting.”

“Mustard person sounds crazy,” Shane huffs, definitely disapprovingly this time, pushing up from the couch, the camera shaking as he walks into the kitchen. Ilya hears the fridge open, and then the crack of a bottle. And then, Shane reappears, chugging from a water bottle.

“I need to tell hockey gossip lover sixty nine about this,” Ilya says, and he can feel the smile tugging at his lips.

Secretly, nights like this were some of his favorites. Phone sex was great, phone sex with Shane was something even better; he’d be the first to tell you that, but resting like this after a game, existing together from two entirely different places, Shane working his way through his nighttime routine, and Ilya teasing him about it. It wasn’t as good as the real thing, not even close, but it was an acceptable consolation prize. One he could stomach for the time being.

Shane pulls the bottle from his mouth. “That wasn’t their name,” he says, sliding his phone back on the counter, leaving Ilya with a great view of the fucking ceiling. Ilya waits, and then a few seconds later, the top of his head pops back into frame. “Tell them what?”

“Hot MLH gossip: Shane Hollander chose boring water bottle over boring ginger ale. Big news, might break the app.”

“Yeah, tell them,” Shane calls from wherever he’s disappeared to now. “You can also tell them my boring is contagious and that you’d rather watch me drink water than go out with your team.”

“Maybe they are right.” Ilya sighs happily, settling back against his headboard.

***

Okay, so, scratch that.

Ilya’s phone had been vibrating, dinging, and ringing for the past ten minutes. It was an attack of notifications so excessive, he’s pretty sure he’s testing the capabilities of his iPhone. He blinks down at the newest text from his agent.

“What does she want?” Shane asks, looking up from his book when the phone vibrates again, for the third time in the last minute. “Is it about the meeting?”

“Not the meeting,” Ilya tells him, typing out a quick response without looking up.

It had only taken approximately twelve hours for Ilya to realize he had been very wrong about Reddit getting bored of him. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“Okay,” Shane says, the word drawn out in suspicion. There’s a pause, filled with more notifications, and then, “Is it about the old lady from the airport?”

Ilya’s eyes flick from his phone to Shane. They’re sitting on the couch, Ilya reading this onslaught of texts and Shane, with his glasses perched on his nose, reading some boring hockey book the size of a brick.

“Sort of,” Ilya says, aiming for casual.

“What do you mean sort of?” Shane replies, immediately placing the bookmark in his page.

“Like yes,” Ilya tries, “but also no—”

Shane closes the book, sliding it onto the couch cushion between them. “Is there an article?”

Ilya lets his head flop back against the couch, holding out his still blowing-up phone. Shane takes it, shooting him a look before he starts reading.

Shane’s eyes snap back to Ilya, raising a judgmental brow. “What is—”

“I said I love you, to you.”

“Who has managed to tie down this lady's man?” Shane reads aloud. “I haven’t tied you down. Also, our conversation was not hours long.”

And that being what Shane is offended by, instead of Ilya being the sudden new face of celebrity blind items, sends a laugh rumbling up his chest. “I am very tied down. No parties, and saying I love you in airport. Lucky you, Shane Hollander.”

Shane’s nose scrunches, his glasses bobbing with the movement. “Fuck you. Lucky you. You wish we were on the phone for hours.”

“I do,” Ilya agrees with a solemn nod. “Longer if you have your glasses on.”

Shane’s face softens, and then, in a mutter, “It still wasn’t hours though.”

“It was forty minutes,” Ilya corrects. They had talked more than usual that day, but he’d missed Shane, and waiting for his flight was the only free time he had. In hindsight, it was probably reckless in an open space like that, even if their conversation was the opposite of scandalous. But it was done now, and he was a tied down man!

“My agent is not worried,” he throws out when Shane starts reading the screen again, a notch forming between his brows. “They probably do not even know it’s me. All hockey players are ladies' men.”

Shane looks up from the phone. “Not me, or Scott Hunter.”

“Scott Hunter is seventy years old; he is dinosaur man.”

Shane shakes his head wryly, sliding the phone next to his book, and then asks, “Did they hear anything else? About the charity?”

A rush of affection floods Ilya’s body. It’s becoming the new normal, his heart clenching in his chest when Shane gets this protective over what they’re building together. He shakes his head. “No, just this.”

“Not your fault,” Shane says, still looking at him as if he thinks Ilya needs to hear that, and maybe deep down, he does. “But you have replaced Hayden as the blind item's new favorite. Congratulations.”

“What do they say about him?” Ilya asks, rolling his head along the back of the couch to meet Shane’s gaze. “He is so boring.” He holds a hand out, counting on his fingers. “Pike plays hockey. Pike is bad at hockey. Pike has his seven thousandth kid.”

“There’s like one a week about him divorcing Jackie,” Shane tells him. “They have an agreement that she gets flowers every time one of them gets published.”

Ilya lifts his head curiously. “Do you want flowers?”

“You’re not divorcing me.”

Ilya points to the book still sitting between them. “Do you want new boring hockey book?”

Shane thinks about it for maybe half a second. “No, I haven’t finished this, but I wouldn’t say no to one of those signed pictures you keep in your pocket—”

“Are you going to frame it?”

“—I could make thousands of dollars,” Shane finishes smugly.

“I am going to sign it from your beloved Ilya, so you cannot sell it.”

Shane smirks. “That would double the profit. I’d be rich.”

Ilya can’t help but laugh because Shane is already so, so rich. “How many flowers does Jackie get?”

“On a bad week? Like three bouquets.” Shane blows out a breath. “You should see the price of some of the stuff Hayden sends.”

“Maybe the rumors are true,” Ilya hums thoughtfully, picking his phone back up when it starts vibrating again.

“It’s not true.”

Ilya holds the phone higher, the blind item still open. “This is.”

“That’s not true, either.” Shane scoffs. “It was not a high-emotion phone call—”

Which is funny, because Ilya had become close friends with Hayden Pike’s rosebush because of Shane’s pacing. “Pike almost cried when you saved the life of his stupid Tamagotchi. It was very intense.”

“Shut up. Were you really sitting there alone?” A little smile spreads over Shane’s mouth, like the thought of Ilya all alone in an airport is endearing to him.

Ilya can’t help but reach out to rest a hand on the back of Shane’s neck, his thumb trailing the edge of his jaw softly, his voice dry when he says, “Apparently not so alone.”

“Do you think it was the old lady?” Shane asks, leaning into the touch with an appreciative hum.

Ilya groans, letting his head drop back against the couch as he blinks up at the ceiling. “Not nice, old lady Sandra. I signed so many pictures for her.”

“And she betrayed you,” Shane says. “She probably sold them online. Made millions.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Ilya insists, but deep down, he knows Shane is probably right. He should’ve flipped her off again when he had the chance.

“She might have,” Shane counters.

“I don’t think she can work a computer. She was very old.”

Shane’s gaze flicks from Ilya to the still vibrating phone resting on his chest. “Is that still your agent?”

“No.” Ilya sighs, his hand falling from Shane’s hair to pick up his phone. “I need to turn off Reddit notifications. Or maybe delete my account.”

“Are they still ignoring you?” Shane asks, leaning over to take a closer look.

There had been a lot of movement on the thread since Sandra's blind item about him had dropped. Everyone else, in different corners of the internet, seemed to agree that those things were bullshit, but his Reddit friends– enemies? felt vindicated.

Ilya hums. “Sort of. But they are excited again because they think they’re right.”

“They’re arguing about Scott Hunter?” Shane asks, reading over Ilya’s shoulder.

“Yes. Someone is saying what if the blind item was about Hunter, and everyone else is replying saying they are very stupid because of course Scott Hunter loves his boyfriend.”

“He also didn’t win,” Shane points out, settling back on the couch. He picks up his book. “So no one's even sure it was you?”

Ilya shrugs, locking his phone and sliding it back into his pocket. “Maybe they think I was talking to somebody else.”

“Like who?”

“Close friend.”

Shane reopens his book to the marked page. “The close friend you’re starting a charity with?”

Ilya nods, his lips tugging into a smile. “Yes. How did you know?”

“I think they’re starting to get suspicious,” Shane says through the FaceTime call, his service flipping between pixely and slightly less pixely every other sentence.

“Where the fuck are you? Mars?” Ilya asks, squinting at the phone to try to see his boyfriend in the sea of sudden blur.

“Hold on, service is bad around here—”

“Looks good to me,” Ilya deadpans when Shane’s voice turns robotic.

“Okay, how about now?” Shane says a few seconds later, his signal more bearable now that he’s back up the stairwell.

“Better,” Ilya tells him.

“I had to get a package that’s been down there all day; the driver left it at the outside door for some reason,” Shane grumbles.

Ilya bites back his smile as Shane pans the camera to the large box tucked under his arm. He narrows his eyes, playing the oblivious boyfriend. “What did you order?”

“I didn’t,” Shane says absently as he hauls the box up to read the address on the front. “But it’s definitely mine, and from Amazon, so I guess we’ll find out together.”

“Huh?” Ilya says, settling back against his headboard smugly. “Weird.”

“I know.” Shane pushes his door open, finally reunited with his perfect wifi, his face thankfully flicking back to HD before he slides the parcel on the counter. “I do think they are suspicious, though,” he says again.

“Who?” Ilya asks, trying to backtrack on the conversation.

“Our agents.” Shane sighs, sliding onto a stool. He props his phone up, pulling the parcel in front of him, the box obscuring his face. “They were fucking weird this morning.”

“Yes, I think so, probably,” Ilya agrees, thinking back to their meeting from this morning, “like an ambush.”

They’d had a quick catch-up with both of their agents to talk about the hockey camps and how best to make them enticing not just to Boston and Montreal fans, but to hockey fans in general. And Nathalia, Shane’s agent, and Lorina, Ilya’s agent, had had some thoughts. Good thoughts, but thoughts that had made Ilya suspicious of their clear suspicions. Especially when Pride Nights, and all the good they do, came up more than once in the twenty minute call.

Not even just more than once; it seemed to be a running theme. By the third time, Ilya had run out of nods and agreeable hums, so he’d pivoted back to talking about which charities they wanted to raise money for.

It had worked for all of five minutes before Nathalia had listed off several charities, two of which were LGBTQ+ centered. And then asked them if they’d always been friends.

“Right?” Shane says, ripping open the top of the package. “I got an 'if you want to tell us something, we won’t judge you’ vibe, which I guess is nice, but…”

“They are not very subtle,” Ilya huffs, “asking if we have thought about inviting Scott Hunter to the camps.”

“Nathalia telling you not to worry about the blind item.” Shane shakes his head, pulling a face. “She’s my agent, and then Lorina telling me not to worry about it.”

“They are evil geniuses.”

Shane huffs a dry laugh. “Probably.”

“Are you going to open that? Or do I have to watch only half of your face for the rest of the night?” Ilya asks, impatience prickling over his skin when Shane starts tapping his fingers on the box instead of opening it.

“Do you want them to know?” Shane asks as he pulls the package closer again, revealing the rest of his face.

“Better, and they already know.”

“You know what I mean.”

Ilya shrugs, still watching Shane fiddle with the half-open box. “We could tell them.” He pauses, and then, “If you wanted to.”

“It could make things easier,” Shane says, immediately meeting Ilya’s gaze through the screen, and it’s like he’s thinking aloud rather than making a full blown decision. Ilya can see the cogs turning in his brain, all the ways this could make the charity easier for them.

“We can trust them,” Ilya says with sudden certainty. That, he knows. Even if they hadn’t practically thrown them a pride parade this morning, he would know that.

They are kind people, good at their jobs for a multitude of reasons; maybe subtlety was not their strongest suit, but they were definitely good at keeping hockey players' secrets.

Shane nods, a little more confidently this time. “Yeah. I think so, too.”

“Okay. Enough talking. Open the fucking box, Hollander,” Ilya says before Shane can say anything else. Or shred the entire fucking box before he’s even opened it.

Shane glares at him for a second. But then, finally, after the world's longest conversation, he slides a giant book from the box. “What the fuck?”

Ilya grins, proud of his genius idea, as Shane picks up the book. “I picked the most boring one,” he informs him, watching as Shane flicks through the pages. The thousands and thousands of pages.

“This is fucking huge—”

“I’ve heard that before,” Ilya cuts in smugly.

“Gross.” Shane looks down at the book again, and Ilya can see he looks pleased, his lips tipping into a smile. Not that he would ever tell anyone, but maybe Hayden Pike did have good ideas. “I love it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Is better than Hayden’s shitty flowers,” Ilya decides, not wanting to give the man too much credit, even in his head.

“You know this is an every time thing, right?”

Ilya smirks, tipping his chin in a nod. “I promise that if I am in the blind items again, you will get more nerdy hockey books.”

“You do know that you’re promising me a fucking library?” Shane asks, voice full of amusement.

“No, I did not say that—”

“Trust me.” Shane’s mouth tips into a smirk, flicking through the world's biggest hockey book again.

“You flipped off an old lady, Roz.”

“No, the fuck I didn’t,” Ilya says, shoving Marleau out of the way to get on one of the stationary bikes. He turns up the resistance, eyes flicking around the gym quickly.

It’s really only them on this side, which is perfect for what Ilya needs to confess today. Because, apparently, that was another thing that Ilya now did. He went on Reddit, bought hockey books for his boyfriend, and he confessed things to fucking Marleau.

Today is a big step, because for this confession, Marleau is sober, eyes clear as he grins down at his phone, and in that moment, Ilya thinks he preferred him stumbling down a hallway, three seconds away from puking on his shoes. It was less daunting that way.

Marleau steps in front of the bike, pointedly not cooling down as he turns his phone toward Ilya, the paparazzi picture set as his background. “The pictures don’t lie.”

“I was telling you to fuck off. Did you forget what that looks like? Do you need me to show you again?”

Marleau turns the phone back to assess the picture once more for good measure. Just to make sure, he keeps telling Ilya, as if he hasn’t been doing that exact thing all day. “Doesn’t look like it, Roz,” he decides, pocketing his phone to get on the bike next to Ilya.

“Sandra is evil,” Ilya says, also not for the first time today.

Marleau flicks his own resistance up, finally pedaling. “She didn’t send in that blind item.”

“What the fuck are you?” Ilya turns to him. “Sandra fan club?”

Marleau huffs a quick laugh. “I—”

“No,” Ilya says before Marleau can continue, picking up his water bottle to take a swig.

“The fuck?”

“Whatever you are going to ask, it’s no,” Ilya tells him seriously, almost shuddering at the memory of their hotel room detour.

Marleau makes a noise of offense, turning his head to look at Ilya seriously. “I’ll let that slide because I love you so much, Captain.”

“Because you feel bad about the pictures,” Ilya corrects, smirking when Marleau’s mouth snaps shut.

“I was going to say no one listens to those things. It’s exaggerated shit from people with no lives,” Marleau finishes a little smugly.

Ilya nods sarcastically. “Sandra will be devastated that you think this about her—”

“It wasn’t Sandra,” Marleau says again, because apparently he was team fucking Sandra. He flings a hand across the small gap between their bikes. “She wouldn’t do that after making me sign a photo of your dumbass.”

“She did not want your face in her collection.” Ilya pulls his mouth into an exaggerated frown. “Sad but understandable.”

“Fuck you. I take it back then, everyone is listening to that blind item about you being head over heels—”

Ilya huffs a laugh, cutting him off. “Did you see the one about me and you having argument in the airport?”

“Me and you?” Marleau repeats skeptically, like he can’t comprehend the concept of that. “We’re literally biking together, man.”

Ilya nods. “Is vicious. They said you hate my guts.”

He’d tried to argue with Shane that technically, they couldn’t prove that the newest blind item was about him and Marleau. They’d used even vaguer language than the first one, not even referencing them as hockey stars. But Shane had insisted that the title ‘a flipping off feud’ could only be about him and Marleau.

Shane was two hockey books up in a single week, and Ilya was about to be down a best friend.

“Fuck.” Marleau shakes his head. “See, they’re always wrong.” He pauses and then says, “Kind of. You did technically say I love you in an airport like a dumbass.”

“You have supersonic hearing now?”

“No, but you did have that look you get in your eye. All gooey and shit. I could see it across the fucking gate.”

“That look?” Ilya repeats, already knowing the look. He sees it in Shane’s eyes every time he looks at him. “Sounds disgusting,” he deflects expertly, like fitting into an old sweater.

Marleau barks a loud laugh. “Trust me, it was.”

“You should not have been watching,” Ilya says, making a mental note that airport phone calls are off the list, right next to phone calls within a mile radius of Marleau, at least until the charity is public knowledge.

“I fucking trusted Sandra,” Marleau mutters, offence coating his words as he flicks the bike's resistance up a notch. “Do you remember that one about Connors being traded, and yet—” He turns in place, gesturing vaguely to the other side of the gym, “—still fucking here.”

“Yes, exaggerated. Whatever,” Ilya agrees, trying to figure out a way to pivot to his big question.

“So, don’t worry,” Marleau continues.

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “Who said I am worried?”

“Tell your face that then,” Marleau says, leaning over the gap to tap Ilya’s chin.

Ilya pushes him off. “Dickhead.”

Marleau huffs another laugh.

“What are you doing next offseason?” Ilya asks as casually as he can, pedaling instinctively faster, as if he’s trying to outrun the conversation that he started.

“Not a fucking clue,” Marleau replies, “Probably family time, more fucking hockey.” He shrugs. “The usual. Why?”

Ilya glances behind him quickly, but the section they’re in is still mostly empty, most of their team out of earshot. He drops his voice. “You know Shane Hollander?”

“Do I know Shane Hollander?” Marleau throws back like he thinks Ilya is an idiot. “The guy I gave a concussion to?”

“Yes. That one.” Ilya nods.

A flicker of guilt passes over Marleau’s face. “Yeah, obviously.”

“We are starting a charity together,” Ilya blurts before he can back out.

“You’re what?” Marleau says, but there’s no judgment there, just genuine confusion.

“We are…” Ilya hesitates, deciding on, “making sure something good comes out of our rivalry.”

Marleau makes a noise of surprise, but he doesn’t look shocked, or betrayed, or any of the other ten things Ilya had pictured, just intrigued. “What is this charity?”

“Hockey camps, money goes to suicide prevention charity,” Ilya explains efficiently. He gets off the bike, taking hold of his water bottle just for something to do with his hands, vulnerability prickling over his skin as the explanation hangs in the air.

Marleau sits back, his pedaling slowing as his face softens. “For your mom.”

Ilya’s chin tips in a quick nod. “That is one part of it, yes.”

“That’s fucking awesome, Roz,” Marleau says, and there’s so much sincerity in it, it shocks even Ilya.

“You think so?” he asks, a weight lifting from his shoulders at Marleau’s easy acceptance. Not that he thought Marleau would shun him for this particular piece of information, but it’s still nice to tell someone and have their immediate support.

“Fuck yeah.” Marleau nods. “It’s a little weird with Hollander— no, not like that,” he says when he catches Ilya’s gaze. “I just mean it will take some time to get used to. I’m used to seeing you slamming into each other on the ice—”

“I think you are getting confused; that was you,” Ilya says, biting back his smirk as he rounds the bikes.

Marleau huffs, hopping off his bike too. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do,” Ilya confirms. “But that won’t change. This is just something new. Something good to come out of everything.”

Marleau nods again. “I think it’s fucking great, Roz, really.”

“So you would be up for coaching in the offseason?” Ilya asks.

“Fuck yeah, man.” Marleau holds his fist out, and Ilya bumps his against it.

“Are you in an airport?” Shane asks the second he answers the phone.

“Very funny Hollander, but no,” Ilya replies, walking down the hallway toward his hotel room. Exhaustion tugs at his limbs as he presses the phone to his ear, trying to challenge physics and get closer somehow.

“Where are you?” Shane asks, and he sounds pretty far away still. Damn it.

“Standing in the middle of the ice,” Ilya deadpans, tapping his keycard against his door. “You’re on loudspeaker. Say hello.”

Shane huffs. “Funny.”

“I know. Where are you?” Ilya throws back, closing the door behind him before throwing his keycard onto the empty desk with a clatter.

“Visiting my parents,” Shane says. “I’m sitting on the deck.”

Jealousy tugs at Ilya. He wishes he were there with him, sitting on the deck, doing nothing at all. They wouldn’t need to talk; just being with Shane was enough, especially when he felt like this, loneliness closing in around him like a black hole. “Tell them I said hello,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Mom won’t stop talking about Boston’s win last night,” Shane says around a huff of a laugh. “She’s very impressed.”

Ilya smiles into the empty hotel room, warmth blooming in his chest, a torch shining over the loneliness for just a second. “Tell Yuna I say thank you.”

“I will. I miss you,” Shane says, his voice lower now, as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear.

Ilya’s heart clenches, a painful tug that he can’t get used to. “I miss you, too,” he admits softly, blinking back sudden emotion as he stares out of the hotel room window. The rest of the room is dim now that the sun's gone down, the small lamp on the side table casting a pathetic excuse of a glow around him.

“This distance is fucked,” Shane says as if he’d been reading his mind.

Ilya swallows thickly, collecting himself before he says, “I know. It is hard.”

“Too hard?” Shane asks, and there’s a beat of concern in his tone, not so much that anyone else would notice, but Ilya has become fluent in everything Shane Hollander. He sometimes feels like he knows Shane better than he knows himself, like he was put on this earth to know Shane Hollander.

“No,” Ilya says immediately. “Never.” There’s a beat of heavy silence, and it’s as if he can hear the relief traveling through the line. “I love you,” he feels the sudden need to say, hoping it encompasses everything he doesn’t know how to verbalize.

We can do this.

Even if it’s hard.

Because we’re doing it together.

Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov against the world.

“I love you, too,” Shane replies, his voice softer now, as if he’s hoping that his words encompass everything, too. “Everything's just so fucking full on lately.”

“I know,” Ilya agrees, “but we are getting closer. Slowly.”

“It’s still going to be hard,” Shane points out, and Ilya can hear sudden shuffling.

“What is that noise?”

“I’m going to sit by the lake. Should I send you a picture for your Instagram story?” More shuffling, and then a huff. Presumably, Shane situating himself on one of the rocks. “You can put another love song over it.”

Ilya laughs, but nothing about it is funny, really. “I wish I was there with you.”

“Even though the water is ice cold?” Shane asks, and it’s punctuated by a splash as if he’d double-checked his claims.

It makes Ilya want to laugh again, but he bites it back, opting to smile into the empty hotel room instead, a secret only for him. “Yeah, Shane. Even though the water is cold.”

“I wish you were here too. Mom made that spaghetti you like, and I’m pretty sure Dad hates it when I try to help with your puzzle.” Shane huffs. “He literally called it your puzzle.”

“Did you start with the edges?”

“I did three pieces, and then Dad suggested a walk.”

That does make Ilya laugh. “He is very serious about that puzzle.”

“Yeah.” There’s a pause, like they’re both thinking, and then Shane continues, “It’s still going to be hard, but anything has to be easier than this.”

Trying to fit in seeing each other as much as they could, as much as they wanted, when their schedules rarely lined up unless Boston and Montreal were playing against each other, was hard. And then, most of the free time they did manage to schedule around their ever-changing commitments was spent working on the charity. They both knew it was working now for a future later, but sometimes it felt like they were in a never-ending cycle of wanting more.

More time for them, more freedom, more. In some way, it felt like it was getting harder as the finish line drew closer, as if seeing what they wanted so badly in sight was making them impatient.

“Two hours is nothing compared to this,” Ilya insists, letting himself believe it, too.

“True,” Shane agrees, and in the silence that follows, Ilya can hear the relaxing sounds of the cottage. The slow rippling of water that he’d found irritating at first but had unexpectedly dragged him into the best sleep he’d had in months, the crackle of the firepit, the stupid fucking loons.

“Next time we see each other, we do not talk about the charity,” Ilya says suddenly, an idea hitting him.

“But—” Shane tries, but Ilya cuts him off.

“No buts. Just for one night. We can spend it together, no distractions.”

Shane hesitates only for a second. “That does sound nice,” he admits.

“No phones—” Ilya continues, his grand plan taking shape.

“Is that part of the deal?”

“Yes. We can even lock them in your big, fancy safe.”

“Okay,” Shane says, and Ilya can hear the smile in his voice now, feels it in his chest like when the music is turned up loud. “So no phones, which means no Reddit—”

“No Reddit,” Ilya confirms readily. “And no hockey.”

Shane pauses again. “What if it’s a big game?”

“Okay,” Ilya says, “Compromise. If it is big game, it stays on.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It is. And I decide what a big game is—”

“That’s not fair.”

“College hockey is big game to you,” Ilya says drily.

“Fine,” Shane concedes, probably because he knows Ilya’s right.

“So, no phones, no Reddit, no hockey—”

“Unless—” Shane cuts in.

“Unless it’s a big game,” Ilya confirms. “No charity talk. Just us.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “Will your Reddit superfans survive without your Instagram stories for that long?”

“They think I am getting married,” Ilya says casually. “Something about wedding dress company following me.”

“Again? What number wedding is that?”

“Four, I think,” Ilya says, mostly for a reaction.

It works because Shane huffs in irritation and then expertly changes the subject. “How’s Marleau taking the new blind item?”

“Very badly,” Ilya tells him, “it is his first time.”

“Well, his Captain is an expert—”

“It was only two,” Ilya defends, not for the first, or even second time this week.

“So far,” Shane says smugly, and Ilya doesn’t need to see his face to know the look on it. He’s pleased with himself, his lips probably tugging into a self-satisfied smirk. A look that Ilya would kiss off his face if he were there.

“I told Marleau about our charity,” he says then, suddenly remembering the conversation that he hadn’t had time to tell Shane about yesterday.

“How did he take it?”

“He told me to say sorry to you.”

“Is he going to get over that?” Shane asks. “It’s been years.”

“No,” Ilya says, caging his phone between his shoulder and ear as he lies back against the pillows with a yawn, the exhaustion of the week catching up with him again. “He is feeling very guilty. It’s almost sad.”

“It was a fracture,” Shane points out. “What the fuck does he need to feel guilty about when we’ve beat Boston every time since—”

“That’s not true,” Ilya cuts in. “But you are cute when you chirp, even if it is at me and not Marly.”

“Whatever,” Shane huffs.

Ilya laughs. “Could be useful for blackmail when we come out.”

“What?”

“You broke his collarbone; you cannot have problem that I am fucking him,” Ilya parrots in demonstration. “See, good, yes?”

“Fracture,” Shane says, again. “And you said I’m the one blackmailing people?”

“It is why we are such good lovers,” Ilya coos. “Compatible.”

“Dumbass,” Shane mumbles, but it sounds weaker than usual, softness encasing the syllables.

Ilya yawns again. “Now Pike knows, and Marleau knows.”

“And my parents, and our agents,” Shane adds.

Ilya hums. “We are so close.”

“Now we just have to tell the whole world,” Shane says, and the words feel heavy.

“Do you think we should tell Nathalia and Lorina?” Ilya asks, staring up at the ceiling. “About us,” he clarifies in the silence that follows.

There’s another pause; the only thing Ilya can hear is Shane’s steady breathing and the peaceful sloshing of the water, until he says, “Switch to FaceTime.”

“Okay.” Ilya pulls the phone from his ear, quickly switching to FaceTime.

It’s too dark down by the lake to see anything other than the fuzzy outline of Shane’s silhouette. What Ilya can see, though, is the cottage's large windows in the distance, light filtering through. It’s comforting, in a weird way, like a heady mix of homesickness and relief that they get to experience a taste of freedom as they do there.

“Can you see me?” Shane asks, bringing the phone closer, so Ilya can kind of see him.

“Nope,” Ilya says, though, his lips tipping into a smile when Shane huffs, bringing the phone even closer.

Shane grumbles. “Well, I can see you.”

“That is unfair,” Ilya says, shuffling to the edge of the bed so the lamp’s pathetic lightbulb can do its job.

“Do you want to tell them?” Shane asks, giving up and holding the phone still.

Ilya tips his chin. “Yes. Do you?”

“Yeah. I think it would make things easier, and I think they can keep a secret.” He shrugs, and Ilya can tell by the confidence in his voice that he’d thought this over, probably all day.

“Okay,” Ilya agrees easily, Shane’s confidence spilling over onto him, just like his presence, and a couple of windows had diluted some of the loneliness he’d felt tonight.

“This is stupid.”

“It is practice,” Ilya repeats, not for the first time that morning, his eyes flicking to his phone on the couch next to him.

Shane shoots him a scathing look through the webcam. “How is me sitting here and saying I’m gay—”

“That was good,” Ilya says, nodding as he looks back up. “Best yet.”

“Ilya.” Shane groans, dropping his head onto the counter with a huff.

“Close. The next part is, and I am in love with Ilya Rozanov.”

“We don’t need to practice; we can just say it,” Shane insists, the words muffled. “In five minutes. Oh god.”

They’d spent the last ten minutes waiting for a text from their agents, the go-ahead they were about to join this emergency call they’d sprung on them, and Ilya wouldn’t say it was going well.

For either of them.

“You keep blushing when you say it,” Ilya says, speaking directly to Shane’s hair.

Shane’s head whips back up. “Fuck you, so do you. You looked me directly in the eye—”

“Camera.”

“You looked me directly in the camera and said I’m fucking Shane Hollander—”

“I did not,” Ilya denies, “watch.” He shifts on the couch, looking directly into the laptop's webcam when he says, “My name is Ilya—”

“They know your name,” Shane cuts in. “It’s not a fucking job interview.”

“I am in love with Shane Hollander.” Ilya points at the computer. “You are still blushing.”

“I’m not blushing,” Shane mumbles, blushing. “This is stupid,” he repeats, “We can just say it, you know, like rip the band-aid off.”

“Okay,” Ilya agrees, “we can—”

His phone vibrates, cutting him off.

“Is that them?” Shane asks.

Any of Ilya’s earlier confidence falls away, replaced by a dizzying jolt of nerves as he looks down at the screen. “It is Lorina—”

“She’s early,” Shane says, his voice strained. “Wait, am I still blushing?”

Ilya looks up quickly. “No, you look like you have never blushed in your life.”

“What did she say?” Shane asks, shuffling his laptop back and then forward, and then back again.

In that moment, Ilya’s pretty sure this call could be powered by their joint nervous energy alone. He’s pretty confident this is the right thing to do, if only for some guidance on how to move forward with the charity while keeping this huge career shaking secret. But it didn’t make it any less scary.

“She said that she and Nathalia are going—.”

“Okay,” Shane says before he can finish his sentence. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Ilya asks, raising an eyebrow. “Are you okay?” he checks, watching Shane’s face for any tell.

But Shane just nods, his eyes fluttering closed for a split second before he says, “We can do this, right?”

Ilya nods back. “We can do this. They are good people.”

“Okay.”

Ilya slides his phone on the coffee table, next to the laptop, eyes flicking back to Shane. “Now we wait.”

Thankfully—because Ilya thinks there’s a strong possibility that they both might have had a meltdown if they were stuck on this call any longer—Lorina and Nathalia join a minute later, as punctual as ever.

Ilya watches Shane shuffle his laptop back once more, and his heart clenches in his chest again. It still doesn’t feel right that they were having such important conversations over a computer. They should be sitting side by side, giving each other comfort, not stuck in a webcam, staring at a bunch of pixels.

“Thank you for, uh, being available at such short notice,” Shane starts, his voice taking on that confident edge, the same one he has when talking to reporters. His eyes flick quickly to Ilya, and Ilya tips his chin in an imperceptible nod, urging him on. “I know the timing isn’t great. We both know how busy you are.”

Nathalia casually waves him off. “I only had to move a handful of meetings. And half of them, I was dreading all week.” Her shoulders come up in a lazy shrug. “I should be thanking you. You know you’re my favorite client.”

And Ilya understands then how Shane gets away with trading overdue photoshoots for visits to come and see Ilya. He was Nathalia’s golden boy.

Ilya huffs a laugh, some of his nerves dissolving. “It will not take long.”

“Is it about the charity?” Lorina asks, picking up the notebook she always carries, sometimes to jot down ideas and sometimes to plan out Ilya’s intensive off-ice schedule, penning in his requests for a free week to unwind every couple of months, no questions asked. “Do you have another idea?”

“Not an idea exactly,” Ilya says, catching Shane’s gaze through the computer again.

“Advice, I think, is probably a better word for it,” Shane cuts in.

“Oh,” Lorina says, “yeah, of course. That’s what we’re here for.”

Nathalia nods in agreement, both of them looking at them expectantly.

“Okay,” Shane says. “It’s…” he trails off.

And Ilya gets it, because as much as he’d teased Shane before the call, now it was happening, Nathalia and Lorina staring them down, he feels a little lost for words, too. They’d never had to say it outright like this. It’s fucking intimidating.

“We need help,” Ilya tries, and it lands awkwardly, like a guilty plea.

“What did you do?” Lorina asks, directing the question at him specifically. “No more paparazzi pictures, please, Ilya. I just got the last ones under control.”

“No.” Ilya shakes his head. “No more paparazzi pictures. And I told you—”

“It wasn’t your fault, I know. And you did a great job of handling it, but between you and Cliff, I’d like to keep that to a minimum.”

Ilya’s eyes catch on Shane, his dear boyfriend, biting back a smirk as he gets lectured.

“So, what is it you need advice on?” Nathalia presses.

“Oh, yes—”

“How would you handle a relationship between two high profile players you were representing?” Shane blurts, immediately dropping his chin to avert his eyes once the words are out of his mouth.

Shane’s words sit there a little awkwardly until Lorina says, very evenly, “What kind of relationship are we talking about?”

“Romantic,” Shane supplies immediately, refusing to look up when he adds, “Long-term.”

More silence, silence so thick that Ilya feels like he’s suffocating from the awkwardness of it all, his eyes flicking between the three boxes on his screen.

“Is this a hypothetical situation?” Nathalia asks in that same professional tone.

“Sure.” Ilya nods, wringing his hands together out of view. He feels like he’s back sitting in the principal's office, awaiting his fate of double detention or not.

“Okay…” Nathalia says, shifting in her seat. Her face is giving nothing away, a mask of complete indifference as her eyes flick from Shane to Ilya.

“If I could just cut in here quickly,” Lorina says, her voice serious as she places her notebook on her lap and crosses her hands over it.

And Ilya didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Lorina always took notes.

“Go ahead,” Nathalia says almost gratefully, gesturing to her through the screen.

“I think that if that situation were to arise, Nathalia and I would do our best to support them in any way that they see fit,” Lorina starts, pointedly looking into the camera.

Nathalia nods. “I second that.”

“So, it would not be a big deal?” Ilya asks slowly.

“To us? Or to the league?” Lorina asks.

“Both,” Shane says, before Ilya can, finally looking up.

“To us, no, not at all. To the league, I think that that would be a bigger conversation to be had,” Lorina says gently. “One that we could work around,” she adds when Shane and Ilya stay silent, identical looks of fear on their faces.

“And if the reason a charity was formed was to—” Nathalia waves her hand through the air, trying to find the words. “Alleviate some of that stress—”

“One of the reasons,” Ilya corrects quickly. “Not the only reason.”

Nathalia’s chin tips in a firm nod. “One of the reasons,” she corrects, “then I think that it’s a great idea, that we could definitely talk more about. To relieve some of the pressure that those players might feel.”

“That sounds good,” Shane says, the professional mask still firmly in place.

“We are in a relationship,” Ilya blurts, ripping that band-aid off, just like Shane had said, relief flooding his body the second the words are out.

There is no awkward silence because Shane jumps in, headfirst, straight after him with some clarifying details. “It’s not, uh, a fling or whatever. It’s serious. Long-term.”

“As your agent,” Lorina starts, reopening her notebook finally. “This is a big deal that we need to talk about at length, for your own sakes.”

Shane and Ilya both nod. It’s probably for the best, not only for the sake of the charity, but for their everyday lives, too. It was getting increasingly harder to carry this burden on their own. Shane’s parents were great, and in a way, so was Hayden, but they weren’t professionals, not like Nathalia and Lorina.

“But as your friend,” she continues, her lips tugging into a smile. “I’m very happy for you both.”

“Is this something you’re planning to tell people?” Nathalia asks curiously.

Shane shrugs. “One day. Hayden already knows, and so does his wife.”

“And Shane’s parents,” Ilya adds. “They are very supportive of us.”

Nathalia smiles. “That’s good.”

“Does Cliff know?” Lorina asks Ilya.

Ilya shakes his head. “He knows about the charity, but no, not this, not yet—”

“You want to tell him, though, right?” Shane adds.

“Yes, I do. Maybe soon,” Ilya agrees.

It wasn’t something he’d thought much about yet, but he did know he felt it weighing on him some days. This big secret lived heavily in his chest, making it hard to think, and he wanted to get it out, if only to Marleau. He was like a shaken soda bottle, and if he just relieved some of the pressure, he might be okay.

“Okay, I think that’s a good idea, but you both know what he’s like.” Lorina shakes her head, an exasperated huff leaving her lips. “I might have to bring him in and give him a crash course on secret keeping before we tackle that.”

Marly isn’t a blabbermouth, but he is Marly, and sometimes words would leave his mouth in a long-winded spiel, with not much thought to what he was saying. Ilya is more than certain he wouldn’t tell anyone, but it is probably a good idea for Lorina to lightly threaten him anyway.

Mostly because it would be entertaining for Ilya. He’d have to convince Lorina to let him sit in on the meeting. “Sounds scary. But would definitely work.”

Lorina makes a quick note. “Exactly.”

“So this is the reason you want to change the narrative on your rivalry?” Nathalia asks.

“We just want more freedom, I guess,” Shane explains. “It’s getting hard to just…” he pauses, shaking his head in a way that makes Ilya’s heart clench, “exist.”

That sits in the air for a few seconds, Nathalia and Lorina’s expressions dropping into ones of sympathy.

“Which is why Ilya wants to transfer,” Lorina says, as if it’s all starting to piece together, painting a picture of the future they’re so desperate to have.

Ilya nods. “I want to be closer. And I know that you will tell me to think it through, but I have. For a long time. Shane is more important to me than Boston.”

Shane’s face softens at the words, and he dips his chin, trying to hide from the camera. Ilya curses the stupid fucking distance for the tenth time today.

“Ilya,” Lorina says, her eyes softening now. “I trust your judgment.”

“Okay.” Ilya swallows thickly. “Thank you.”

Thankfully, Nathalia takes control of the conversation before Ilya and probably Shane start weeping on a work call. “I guess the main goal now is to start easing into a public friendship—” Her eyes flick up, and Shane nods. “We can put a plan in place for you to be seen around before the charity is announced, so nothing comes as too much of a shock to people.”

“Sooner, rather than later,” Lorina adds, making another quick note. “The press will be crazy for a hot second, but they’ll get over it just as quickly. Their attention spans are short; there will be something way more exciting than Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov getting coffee before you know it.”

“Coffee,” Shane says, and he sounds unconvinced. “Or we could just be seen hanging out.”

“At the club?” Ilya suggests.

“No,” Shane says drily.

Nathalia laughs. “Okay, we can workshop the ins and outs as they come. There’s a lot more to talk about, but I think we should leave it there for today. I’m sure that wasn’t an easy thing to tell us.”

“Thank you again. We know it was short notice,” Shane says.

“One last thing,” Lorina adds, looking at them seriously again. “Please be careful if you don’t want this getting out.”

Shane sits up straighter, his brow furrowing. “We are very careful.”

“We have kept it secret for nine years,” Ilya says, brags, really, because it is impressive.

Nathalia and Lorina don’t look as shocked as they probably should at that information, though. The small number of people who had found out about their relationship had assumed it was a recent development, because why wouldn’t they? It made the most sense.

It made more sense than on again, off again, on again, off again, on a loop for almost a decade, at least.

“We’ve been your agents for those ten years,” Nathalia points out gently.

“And?” Shane says, confused.

“Your requests for free weeks match up every time without fail,” Lorina explains, her lips pulling into a flat line like she’s delivering bad news.

Shane says, “What?” at the same time Ilya says, “Oh.”

“We compared your schedules last month to see when we could pen in a charity meeting with the board, and you—” Lorina gestures to Ilya through the screen, “—had canceled a meeting two hours after Shane had canceled a meeting.”

“And then you both went ghost for two days,” Nathalia adds. “I think there’s room for improvement in your discretion.”

Shane blushes, and Ilya can’t help but laugh. “Okay, we will add it to the list.”

Ilya steps into the apartment, warmth blooming in his chest as he reaches for Shane, his hand closing around his bicep, meeting with warm skin as his fingers trail under the sleeve of his t-shirt.

But instead of their usual reunion, the one Ilya has come to look forward to—stumbling into a bone-melting kiss that makes the agonizing time apart feel like it had been worth it in some way—Shane pulls back, leaning around him, so close Ilya can smell his familiar shower gel, to push the door closed.

Then, he steps back, out of Ilya’s reach, crossing his arms as he watches him seriously, assessing him in a way that makes Ilya feel as if he’s forgotten something vital.

Ilya glances down at himself quickly, eyes trailing his sweats and hoodie combo, then back at Shane. “What is it? You are looking at me like I am wearing Hayden Pike’s jersey or something.”

“Gross.” Shane’s nose scrunches. “No. Phone,” he says, uncrossing his arms to hold his hand out expectantly.

And it’s not that Ilya had thought that the promise they’d made that night wasn’t something they’d stick to, but they had made it when they’d both been exhausted, and missing each other had felt like an insurmountable task.

Now, they’re finally together, for the first time in weeks, and instead of touching Shane’s dick, he’s not allowed past the threshold.

It’s almost cruel. Scratch that, it’s definitely cruel.

Ilya looks down at his feet, not even a step into Shane’s apartment, and then up at his bossy boyfriend. “You have never heard of saying hello?”

“Hello,” Shane says drily.

Ilya nods. “That is something two people who love each other very much say. Next is how was your flight?”

“Mine's already in the safe,” Shane cuts in. “And I know how your flight was because I looked it up on Flight Tracker.”

Ilya blinks at him blankly, but he can actually picture it a little too well. Shane’s gaze flicking between a hockey game on the TV and the app open on his phone.

It makes him want to grin, but he bites it back, looking at his boyfriend seriously. “Do you have secret stalker Reddit account now, too?”

“Mom looks up our flights on Flight Tracker every time.”

“Oh, so is genetic,” Ilya teases, but something complicated is happening in his chest, his heart tripping over itself at the thought.

“Guess so,” Shane agrees, holding his hand out again. “Phone.”

Ilya lets his head thunk against the door dramatically, letting out a loud groan. “Not even a kiss—”

And that does the trick. He doesn’t need to tell Shane Hollander the phone warden twice. He closes the already small gap, pressing his lips to Ilya’s with far more fervor than is probably necessary for the doorway of his apartment.

But Ilya won’t be the one to complain, not when it had taken him three whole minutes to get here. He hums appreciatively, slipping his tongue into Shane’s mouth as he pulls him closer.

Shane pulls back after a few seconds, his mouth curling into a smirk as he pats Ilya’s chest. But this time, he doesn’t ask for the phone; he just slowly trails his hand down Ilya’s front.

Until he reaches his pocket, slipping his hand inside to rummage for his phone.

“Shane,” Ilya groans again.

“What?” Shane says innocently, holding up the phone between them. “We agreed.”

“Not that,” Ilya says, blinking himself out of his daze. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Shane asks, the corner of his lip twitching.

“When did you turn evil? You have had too many hits on the ice? It has made you crazy?”

Shane turns on his heel, speaking over his shoulder when he says, “Say your goodbyes.”

“Hollander,” Ilya calls after him, kicking his shoes off to follow him, still working on getting his breathing under control.

His boyfriend may be slow on the ice, but he can make it to his safe with impressive pace. Shane opens the door, his phone already sitting in there. It makes Ilya want to laugh, but he bites it back, watching as his phone joins the party.

Shane shuts the door and types in the code, the safe beeping in confirmation before he turns in place. “It’s not a big game; I already checked.”

Ilya’s eyes flick to the blank TV behind them. “So, no hockey all night?”

Shane tips his chin, a little glint in his eye. “No hockey, no charity, no Reddit.”

“You like this idea?” Ilya asks, unable to stop the smile from spreading over his face at the sweetness of it all. Even if his boyfriend is bossy, and his phone is locked in a safe.

A safe he knows the code to, but still.

“We can just enjoy each other.” Shane reaches forward to tangle their fingers together. “It feels like so long since we’ve been able to do that. The charity is stressful, and we both know it will be worth it—” His eyes flick to Ilya quickly as if he’s double-checking.

“It will be worth it,” Ilya confirms confidently.

“Even when we’re at the cottage, it’s all about the charity.” Shane shrugs as if it’s self-explanatory. “This will be nice.”

“You do not like our meetings,” Ilya murmurs, a sarcastic lilt to his voice, probably so at odds with the stupid, gooey—thanks Marleau—look on his face.

But Shane just shakes his head, leaning forward to chastely kiss him. He pulls back, his voice breathy when he says, “No meetings talk either.”

Ilya nods again, his hands falling to Shane’s waist, toying with the hem of his t-shirt as he looks at him. Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s neck, shivering when Ilya’s fingers trace the sliver of skin peeking out.

“No charity,” Ilya repeats in a low voice, some of Shane’s giddiness rubbing off on him at the prospect of no distractions. “Just us.”

Shane hums happily, pressing a quick kiss to Ilya’s chin. “Yeah. Just us.”

Ilya leans in, reconnecting their lips, slower now, like they have all the time in the world. With how their year is going, non-stop commitments keeping them from each other, two days felt like a lifetime.

And he plans to enjoy every minute of it.

Shane’s fingers curl into Ilya’s hair, gentle tugs that send shivers dancing up Ilya’s arms until he tilts his head, deepening the kiss with a satisfied hum.

He shifts, walking them backward, refusing to break the kiss, no matter how inconvenient it is, too intoxicated by the feeling of Shane’s wandering hands, the warmth of his mouth moving over his, the hums of satisfaction.

His firm hands grip Shane’s hips, guiding him until they hit the couch, tipping backward. Shane falls with him, a breathy laugh escaping his lips as they collapse into a heap, finally pulling apart.

“It is weird,” Ilya says, shuffling to get comfortable.

Shane is still glued to his side, and every time Ilya shifts, Shane shifts with him. He has a feeling that’s how the rest of the weekend is going to go, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

“What is?” Shane asks, the words a little breathy as he looks up at him, his eyes tracing his features in a way that makes Ilya feel warm all over again.

“Fuck, Hollander.” Ilya’s hand falls to his side, keeping him in place as he looks at him right back, just appreciating this feeling coursing through his veins. “It reminds me of our first time at the cottage,” he admits softly, so much love vibrating over his skin he doesn’t know where to put it.

Ilya had seen Shane more this year than ever before, and it felt good, maybe better than anything had ever felt, even when they were both stressed out, exchanging concerned glances during meetings. But it wasn’t this. It wasn’t Shane here, in person, all to himself, being able to kiss him, touch him whenever he wanted.

No business talk. No agents. No discussing budgets and paychecks. No stupid phone calls from stupid people who wanted something from them.

“I love you,” Shane whispers.

Ilya reaches out, his hands landing back on Shane’s hips to guide him to straddle his lap. Shane goes willingly, melting as Ilya begins peppering kisses under his jaw.

“Ilya,” Shane breathes, tilting his chin to give him better access.

“Shane,” Ilya murmurs against his skin, pressing a gentle kiss to his ear. “I love you,” he whispers back, and he can feel the shudder run through Shane.

Shane hums happily, and Ilya can’t help but smile, wrapping his fingers around the back of Shane’s neck to pull him impossibly closer.

“This was very good idea,” he murmurs before he meets his lips again.

They continue like that for a while, unhurried kisses and exploring hands, neither of them in any rush, until Shane pulls back with a huff, looking down at Ilya in question. “What the fuck is that noise?”

“What noise?” Ilya blinks, his senses turning back on one by one.

“It’s like…” Shane pulls back further, glancing to his right. “Squeaking.”

“Squeaking?”

Shane looks around them again as if he’s checking for rodents. “Do I have fucking rats?”

“Rats?” Ilya repeats, but then it slowly dawns on him. The annoying chirps had become like white noise to him over the course of the week. “Oh,” he huffs, shifting to the side.

Shane grips his shoulders to keep himself steady, eyes flicking to where Ilya is rummaging in his pocket, until he pulls out the cause of the noise. He holds it in his palm between them.

Shane looks down at the squeaking device, still breathing heavily as he says, “Is that a fucking Tamagotchi?”

Ilya nods, quickly clicking the feed button to quieten the thing. “Yes.”

Shane blinks, and then blinks a little more before he turns his gaze to Ilya. “Why do you have a Tamagotchi?”

Ilya looks up. “The ant farm was too complicated, lots of steps. I needed a Queen ant.”

Shane lowers himself until he’s sitting on Ilya’s legs, less straddling and more resting. And not that he’s not still sexy, the man of Ilya’s wildest fantasies, but it’s a sudden change of pace.

“What?”

“I am trying to stay off Reddit.” Ilya holds the Tamagotchi up again. “So, I bought this.”

Shane doesn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Did Hayden give you that idea?”

“What?” Ilya scoffs, shaking his head. “No. His ideas are shitty.”

“The hockey book was his idea—”

“No,” Ilya cuts in, “His idea is shitty flowers with shitty pollen that would probably make you sneeze. And then you would be annoyed. My idea was the hockey book.”

Shane hums noncommittally, leaning closer to look at the Tamagotchi again. “Does it work?”

“No.” Ilya holds the now silent Tamagotchi up.

It had been fun for three hours, until he’d been thrown into the haunting realization that this collection of pixels ate more than he did, and also somehow chirped more than he did. And he couldn’t even send it to the penalty box. He’d gotten so stressed when it wouldn’t stop making noises that he’d opened Reddit to decompress.

“But it is cute,” he adds.

Shane narrows his eyes at the pixels. “Where did you get it?”

“Online. Same day delivery,” Ilya tells him.

“They delivered you a Tamagotchi on the same day?”

“No, I added cough syrup too, so they would think it was emergency—”

“Ilya,” Shane scolds, his eyebrows pulling together again.

“What? It was emergency. I couldn’t stop checking Reddit.”

Shane huffs a laugh, yanking the plastic from Ilya’s hand. He looks at it for a second, and then very inhumanely flings it to the floor, the device making another squeaking sound as he tips his chin to meet Ilya’s lips in a heated kiss, his tongue slipping into his mouth with a sense of urgency that hadn’t been there a second ago. Ilya meets him back with the same fervor, his hand trailing down Shane’s front.

***

Shane stares at the safe as a muffled ringing surrounds them. “What if it’s an emergency?”

“It has only been twelve hours,” Ilya points out, tightening his hold on Shane’s waist as he hooks his chin over his shoulder. “You told your parents you were throwing your phone in safe, yes?”

Shane tilts his head, the angle awkward as he looks at him seriously. “I told them we’d be off the grid.”

“Off the grid,” Ilya huffs amusedly. “Then it is probably not an emergency.”

Shane nibbles his lip, deep in thought, and then, “If it was, yours would be ringing, too, right?”

Ilya nods, holding his wrist out in front of them, his watch notifications free from any calls from Yuna and David. “Nothing. Not even Nathalia or Lorina. It is probably one of your teammates.” He shrugs, jostling them both. “Not important.”

But Shane lets out a weary sigh anyway when the ringing starts back up. “It could be important; what if one of them is injured?”

“You are not the team doctor. Still not important.”

Shane untangles himself from Ilya, quickly punching in the code. He opens the door, the ringing getting louder again, before he picks up his phone, Hayden’s face lighting up his screen.

“I told you,” Ilya says smugly. “Not important.”

Shane’s finger hovers over the answer button anyway. “It could still be important.”

Ilya snakes his arms around Shane’s waist, tugging him until they’re chest to back again. “Do not answer,” he murmurs against his shoulder.

Hayden Pike is not about to ruin his perfect morning. Over his dead fucking body.

“It might be an emergency,” Shane counters weakly.

Ilya’s forehead thunks to Shane’s shoulder miserably, forcing out a loud yawn. “Why didn’t we put Hayden Pike on our list?” he mumbles.

“Don’t be a baby. And anyway, our list was for the night.” He gestures to the large windows, the morning sun filtering in, painting the living room in a golden glow. “It’s morning.”

“Last night was fun,” Ilya drawls, opting for distraction as he presses another kiss to Shane’s shoulder. “We could put our phones back in the safe.”

Shane sighs, his shoulders relaxing under Ilya’s lips as he keeps peppering kisses up to his neck. He shifts, resting his weight against Ilya as he instinctively tilts his head. “Maybe after this call.”

Ilya lifts his head. “He is going to want to talk about boring shit like gas prices.”

Shane’s lips pull into a frown. “Well, they have gone up.”

Ilya looks at him blankly. “We are millionaires. We could buy whole fucking gas station.”

Shane huffs a laugh at that, tilting his head to kiss the side of Ilya’s hair quickly. “Probably not. One second.”

Ilya resigns himself to the horrifying ordeal of hearing Hayden Pike’s voice before midday, collapsing back onto the couch as Shane finally accepts the call.

Hayden’s face fills his screen, a shit ton of concern pinching his features. “Where the fuck have you been?” he asks, the phone propped up on the counter as he moves around his kitchen.

“At home,” Shane says simply. “Where the fuck else?”

Hayden leans closer to the camera, a spatula in his hand. “I called you ten times last night, and you didn’t call me back,” he says, and if Ilya didn’t know better, he might’ve said that this hockey player was about to start pouting down the line because his captain didn’t answer his calls. “I was about to report you missing to Coach.”

“No, you weren’t,” Shane says, his eyebrows drawing together. “Were you?”

Hayden barks a laugh, pointing the spatula at the phone. “Almost. Jackie talked me out of it.”

“Wise woman married a fool,” Ilya mumbles under his breath, dropping his head to the back of the couch so he can stare at the ceiling. It was more interesting than whatever Hayden had to say, at least.

“What did you need?” Shane asks, sitting down on the couch.

“You’re coming out tonight,” Hayden announces with no preamble.

Ilya lifts his head at the same time Shane says, “Uh, no, I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?” Hayden asks, and he sounds genuinely confused. “We don’t have a game tomorrow.”

“I know, I’m doing—” Shane hesitates, landing on, “other stuff.”

“Other stuff?” Hayden repeats slowly, like he’s searching for hidden meaning.

Shane hums, his chin tipping in a firm nod. “Yeah.”

Ilya raises an eyebrow at Shane, also wanting to know what stuff entails, but instead of saying anything else, Shane, being the phone-stealing, rule-breaking traitor he is, turns the camera toward him.

“Oh,” Hayden groans. “That kind of stuff. Gross.”

“No.” Shane shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Are you homophobic, Pike?” Ilya cuts in, biting back a laugh as he watches Hayden’s mouth snap shut, his jaw tightening.

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” he spits. “You know that’s not what I meant. I just don’t want to think of Shane like that. I bet he feels the same about me and Jackie—”

Shane grimaces, halfway to a full-body shiver. “Nope. No.” He clears his throat. “Hay—”

“What?” he says, jerking back to look at them seriously. “I’m happy for you both, and all the stuff you do. I think it’s fucking great—”

“Fucking great,” Ilya repeats slowly. He turns to Shane, raising an eyebrow as he mouths, “Fucking great.”

“Sorry, Hay, not tonight,” Shane interrupts, turning the phone back on himself.

There are a few beats of silence, and then Hayden says, his voice strained like he’s using all of his strength, “You can bring him.” Another pause, and Ilya half expects him to take it back, but instead, through gritted teeth, he adds, “If you want.”

“How generous,” Ilya says flatly. “Maybe is why the blind items love you.”

“Huh?” Shane looks from the phone to Ilya once more, as if he’s checking they’re both where they’re meant to be.

“You know.” Hayden ignores Ilya’s quip, gesturing toward the camera with his spatula instead. “The charity thing…”

“What about it?” Ilya asks.

“You need to be seen together, right?” Hayden says slowly, like they’re both idiots.

“Yeah. Eventually.”

Hayden’s mouth tips into a grin. “Better sooner than later, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Shane says. “We still have a shit ton of meetings to get through.”

“Depends what your stupid plan is,” Ilya throws out.

“It would probably be better to have some sort of buffer,” Hayden explains. “I have a free night, and you guys need a buffer—”

“We don’t need a buffer,” Shane interrupts, but he turns to Ilya anyway, a question in his eyes.

“What’s in it for you?” Ilya asks, shuffling over so he’s back in frame.

“Who said there’s anything in it for me? I didn’t win Metro's best sportsmanship locker room award for nothing,” Hayden throws back, a shit-eating grin spreading over his face again.

“Shane is the one who gave out those made up awards,” Ilya points out. “He could not give you fastest, or most goals, or—”

“Okay,” Shane cuts in, and then in a shocking turn of events, says, “Yeah, I guess we’re in.”

“We are?” Ilya says at the same time, Hayden says, “You are?”

Shane nods, but he doesn’t look entirely convinced himself. “It’s a good place to start. I guess.” He glances at the camera quickly. “And not because we need a buffer.”

“Okay. No buffer,” Hayden agrees easily. “Just a favor for a friend. I know just the place.”

Hayden holds his beer out across the sticky table, a pleased smile spreading across his face. “Cheers, fuckers.”

Shane picks his ginger ale up, tapping it against the waiting bottle quickly before taking a sip, his lip curling as he pulls it away.

But instead of enjoying his beer, as any rational person would do, Hayden Pike—the guy who told them he had just the place— keeps the bottle there, mid-air, pointedly looking at Ilya.

Ilya stares at him for a few seconds, more than ready to wait him out until Shane nudges his foot under the table. He slowly picks up his own bottle, reaching to clink it against Hayden’s halfheartedly.

The sound reverberates around the empty bar, just about the loudest thing Ilya has ever heard. He’s pretty sure the whole three other patrons, bartender included, turn toward their table to see what the racket is.

“Why is it so fucking hot in here?” Shane asks, picking up his can to take another sip, the same look of disgust falling over his face when he swallows.

“They crank the heating up in winter,” Hayden says.

“It’s like a fucking furnace,” Shane says, shifting in his seat.

“It’s fucking great,” Hayden says, glancing around the very empty bar. “We can just be regular guys here.”

“Regular guys who will sweat to death,” Ilya mutters, taking a quick swig of his beer. He might start a running tab, get the bartender to bring beers over in a steady stream. He needs something to get through tonight, or at least until he melts into a puddle.

Hayden had dragged them to a local dive bar, just the place he’d assured them over and over when either of them had asked any questions. He’d sold them a fucking dream. No one would even recognize them, and if they did, they’d keep their lips zipped because that’s what people here did.

He hadn’t exactly lied, a little like he didn’t exactly score goals. Bottom line, he was terrible at both. The reason no one would recognize them was because Hayden had brought them to a fucking ghost bar.

And on top of that, he was already down a point because the two middle-aged men nursing beers in the corner definitely recognized them the second they walked in, immediately turning to each other to talk in hushed voices.

Terrible hushed voices because Ilya had heard one of them say Is that Shane fucking Hollander?

“I thought whole point is to be seen together,” Ilya says, sliding his beer back on the table.

“Well, yeah.” Hayden gestures toward them, sitting on the same side of the booth, a comfortable gap between them. “But this is easing in. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “Explains a lot if this is what they taught you during training.”

Shane glances around and then back at Hayden. “When the fuck does Jackie let you come here?”

“Okay, so I haven’t been here for a while.” Hayden shrugs, holding a hand up to the bar. “Leonard,” he calls across the room.

The man with the long beard working behind the bar looks up, tipping his chin at their table. “‘Nother round?”

“Yeah, if you’ve got time. Put it on the tab.”

Ilya was pretty sure Leonard had time. Five minutes ago, he’d watched one of the men from the corner come up to the bar and serve himself, taking sneaky glances at their table while he poured. But still, Leonard gets to work, sorting their drinks out.

Ilya looks down at his still-full beer. He picks it back up, half because he doesn’t want Leonard’s work to go to waste, and half because if he doesn’t, he thinks he might overheat.

“You’ll never get ginger ale that cheap anywhere else,” Hayden says, tipping his head toward Shane’s abandoned drink.

“Probably because it tastes like piss,” Ilya says, looking at the knock-off can sitting on the table.

“It—” Shane holds the can up, squinting at it, “—tastes like they left ginger in it briefly.”

Ilya snorts. “Beers are okay, at least. Pretty hard to fuck that up.”

“Hay, when’s the last time you came here?” Shane asks, putting the can back down.

Hayden shrugs noncommittally. “My eighteenth birthday, I think.”

Shane’s face drops. “That was like ten years ago.”

“Like seven hundred kids ago,” Ilya adds.

“Yeah,” Hayden hums. “It hasn’t changed.”

And then, to make things worse, because the furnace they were in with shitty ginger ale wasn’t bad enough, Leonard sidles up to their table, pushing a tray of shots on with a quick wink. “On the house. Great game last week.”

Hayden holds his hand out, and they partake in some kind of fist bump, back slap combination before he heads back to the bar.

“One for every goal you have missed this season,” Ilya says, looking down at the sea of glasses.

“One for every minute you spend in the penalty box.” Hayden picks up a shot. “I don’t even give a fuck because where else would you get this service? Free shots.”

“Have you forgotten we are fucking rich?” Ilya asks, thinking back to the gas prices conversation Shane and Hayden had on the ride over. They could buy all these shots a hundred times over if they wanted. He makes a mental note to tip Leonard, even if his ginger ale is shitty.

Hayden waves him off, tipping back his shot with a grimace. He slams the empty glass back on the tray, looking across the booth expectantly. “Who’s next?”

“No,” Shane says, picking his ginger ale back up like a last resort.

Ilya huffs a laugh, sliding his beer across to him. Shane switches happily.

“Not even you?” Hayden directs at Ilya, throwing a hand toward him. “You love to fucking party.”

Ilya ignores that, mostly because no partying would be happening in this bar, no matter how hard Hayden tried. This wasn’t a party bar. This was a drink your woes away bar. “How is Jackie?”

Hayden narrows his eyes. “Good, visiting her mom with the kids. Why?”

Ilya tuts. “This is sad, Pike. Your wife is out of town, so what? You become sad, old man drinking in a bar?”

Hayden pulls a face. “I’m not alone—”

“I did not say you were.” Ilya huffs a laugh. “Sad and a lightweight. Bad combo.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Hayden growls. “When did you get fucking boring?”

“Would you still be up for coaching at the camps?” Shane cuts in.

Hayden turns to look at Shane, the animosity fading from his voice. “Yeah, of course. It sounds really great.”

Ilya can’t help the warmth that fills his chest. It didn’t matter who it was; whenever someone complimented the charity he and Shane had worked tirelessly on, all he could feel was pride, a wave of reassurance that they were doing something worthwhile.

Making the best out of a shitty situation, Nathalia had said in their last meeting. Ilya liked the sound of that.

“It will be.” Ilya clears his throat, biting back the quip on his tongue to say, “And people will love to have you there.”

“Wow, Rozanov,” Hayden says, leaning back against his seat like he’s impressed by his bravery. “Did that hurt that bad?”

Ilya lifts his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Probably more than that time you got a puck to the chest last season. Less than the time Marly broke Shane’s collarbone.”

“I was too high on pain pills to notice,” Shane throws out casually.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Ilya mutters under his breath, remembering the way he’d had to dodge nurses, pulling excuses out of his ass.

And the way it felt like his heart had been crushed open on the ice.

“Don’t start that mushy shit,” Hayden says in a low voice, waving his hand toward them like he’s breaking up a fight.

“Is not our fault that your wife flees you,” Ilya says.

“You’re an asshole,” Hayden deadpans, but there’s none of the earlier malice in his tone now. “How is the charity coming along?” he directs to Shane.

“Really good.” Shane nods. “It’s long, exhausting sometimes, but it’ll be worth it.” His eyes flick to Ilya quickly, and it’s like they have a private conversation in a couple of seconds.

Ilya nods in agreement, tearing his gaze away to look at Hayden before he does something stupid like lean forward and kiss Shane. He’s sure Leonard wouldn’t mind. They could test that theory on everyone in this bar knowing how to keep their lips zipped.

“It will be worth it,” he confirms.

His fingers tighten around the edge of the table, his heart aching in his chest as he fights the urge to reach out and touch his boyfriend. He looks beautiful, the stupid, shitty lighting of the bar painting him in a dim glow, which, for some reason, is really working for Ilya. He settles for kicking his foot out, pushing his shoe against Shane’s.

Shane pushes back, once, twice, three times, before he settles, some of the tension leaving his body.

Hayden lowers his voice, leaning forward. “Are you two playing fucking footsie right now?”

“Jealous?” Ilya throws back, moving his foot to kick at Hayden’s instead.

Hayden kicks back harder, and Ilya huffs a laugh.

Hayden sighs, shaking his head before he stands, picking up his beer. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Shane asks, looking up at him.

“Back to mine. You two are scaring me.”

***

“You tipped how much?” Hayden asks, fumbling clumsily in his pocket for his keys.

“Thousand dollars,” Ilya mumbles around his mouthful of pizza, the box balancing precariously in his other hand as they trudge up the driveway.

Hayden glances over his shoulder, eyes immediately landing on the box. “Don’t drop the fucking—”

Ilya jerks his hand back, the box jostling with the movement. His lips pull into a smirk when Hayden’s face drops. “I have the fucking pizza, Pike. Calm down.”

Shane takes the box from his hand, placing it on top of the stack he’s already carrying. “We have enough pizza to feed half of fucking Montreal.”

“Exactly.” Ilya takes another bite, speaking through his mouthful, “You bought seven pizzas, but I cannot tip Leonard?”

“There was a half-price deal,” Hayden tells them, finally pulling his key out and shoving it into the door. “And anyway I thought you said the ginger ale tasted like piss.”

“It did. And it was like a fucking furnace in there.” Ilya shrugs. “But someone had to pay for all those shots that you did not drink.”

“Hey, I’m sure Neil and Marlon in the corner had a great fucking night with the leftovers.”

“And the Shane Hollander autographs,” Ilya adds, turning to grin at Shane.

Shane had actually been the star of the bar. As they’d left, Neil and Marlon, the two men in the corner, had called them over with enthusiastic smiles. As it turns out, them and Leonard were Shane Hollander superfans. Ilya and Hayden had gotten a sympathy nod as Shane had signed napkins for everyone with an old Sharpie that Leonard had dug up.

“I’m pretty sure the deal was for, like, a party,” Shane says, glancing down at the giant stack of pizza in his hands again. “Not three people.”

Hayden pushes the door open, shooting them a curious look. “Is this not a party?”

Ilya huffs a sarcastic laugh. “This is hostage situation.”

Hayden ignores that, leading them into the house instead, straight through to the kitchen. He immediately pulls open the refrigerator, retrieving two beers and a ginger ale, sliding them across the counter.

“Are you divorcing your wife?” Ilya asks, picking the beer up, looking over the sea of bouquets littering the kitchen sides. Shane had told him how intense it was, but seeing it up close is a different story.

It’s like a fucking florist, the smell prickling his nose almost uncomfortably.

“No, of course not,” Hayden says, offense coating his words as he takes the pizzas from Shane. “Those blind items are stupid. I don’t know where they even get it from.”

“Does Jackie care?” Shane asks.

“Nah,” Hayden says over his shoulder. “I think she just likes being able to tease me about something, calls it emotional compensation.” He huffs a laugh, and it’s filled with a bucket load of fondness. “I have a feeling the flowers aren’t going to cut it for much longer. I’ll have to break out the big guns. She’s been looking at this diamond necklace.”

“Smart lady,” Ilya hums, stepping forward to take a closer look at one of the larger bouquets, a bundle of red roses.

“But your blind item was true? The first one at least,” Hayden asks absentmindedly as he opens and closes pizza boxes.

“Half true. Exaggerated,” Ilya replies. “Second one was bullshit.”

“Yeah, that’s where they get you.” Hayden turns back, looking at Shane seriously. “I’ve given you a free reward bonus with that emotional compensation shit. Get on it.”

Shane huffs a humorless laugh. “I’m not a WAG.”

Ilya turns to Shane, and he can’t help but reach out, planting a gentle hand around his waist. “Hockey books,” he murmurs under his breath, and Shane pushes at his chest.

“Shut up,” Shane mumbles, but relaxes into his side anyway.

They were good here, even if Hayden Pike ranked similarly to getting a tooth pulled on Ilya’s list of least favorite things.

Ilya bumps Shane’s hip, smiling.

Hayden turns back with a stack of plates, groaning when he sees them. “I guess it’s on me being the third wheel tonight.” He hands them two plates, then turns back to slide the pizzas on the island. “We need to do more double dates with Jackie.”

Ilya hums. It wasn’t a bad idea. Probably not right now, at least publicly, but it could be fun to hang out with other couples more often. They were still learning how to do that. It felt like the entire trajectory of their relationship had happened backward; they’d planned a way to have a life together before they’d even said I love you. Now they had to learn how to do the ordinary, boring things. And a double date with Hayden Pike and his wife felt like the most boring.

“Sounds good,” Ilya says truthfully, untangling himself from Shane to serve himself some pizza.

“Yeah, it does,” Shane agrees. “Probably not publicly yet, but—”

“Luckily for you, this house is huge. We could use the movie room,” Hayden suggests, leaning back against the counter, a stacked plate of pizza now in hand. “It has this fancy popcorn maker with like ten settings.”

“Of course it does,” Shane says drily, reaching over where Ilya is picking pineapple off a slice of pizza.

Ilya glances toward him. “That is my first emotional compensation gift when you are in a blind item, Hollander.” He smirks when Shane shoots him a look that screams fuck you. “Popcorn maker with ten settings.”

“Well, unluckily for you, I won’t be in a blind item,” Shane throws back far too confidently.

Hayden barks a loud laugh. “That’s what they all fucking say.”

They fall into conversation about the charity after that, slowly making their way through a pathetic two of the seven pizzas. Ilya had talked a big game, certain he could demolish one himself, but that was before he’d found out Hayden had upgraded them all to extra, extra large.

Apparently, he overdid flowers and pizza.

“Are you seriously taking all that pizza to practice tomorrow?” Shane asks, captain's voice firmly in place.

Hayden lifts his head from where he’s spread out over one of the couches. “Fuck yeah, I am. Morning pizza party.”

“Some dumbass rookie is going to puke on the ice,” Ilya says.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Shane says, leaning back against Ilya with a disapproving shake of his head. “You’re on puke duty, Hayden.”

“Yes, cap,” Hayden mumbles, flopping back on the couch. After a few seconds, he looks up again, gesturing across the gap between the two couches. “What is the long-term plan?”

They’d reconvened to the living room after the pizza, Hayden spread out over one couch, and Shane and Ilya on the other. Shane has his ankle hooked around Ilya’s, his arm pressed into his. It isn’t exactly cuddling, more like a pre-requisite cuddle, the closest they got to PDA, really. But it still felt monumental, the novelty still fresh after so long of nothing.

“Long-term plan?” Shane repeats slowly. “What kind of question is that?”

“You know.” Hayden waves a lazy hand through the air. “You two lovebirds.”

“Lovebirds?”

“Lovebirds!” Ilya nudges Shane’s shoulder. “Cute.”

“I hate to admit it, especially because of—” Hayden glares at Ilya pointedly, “—you know, but you two are fucking adorable, even when I am the third wheel. Which is why I’m asking. What’s the next step?”

Ilya feels like he’s in therapy, which is terrible because he imagines Hayden Pike would be as shitty a therapist as he is a hockey player.

“Marriage?” Hayden presses. “I can be the best man.”

Shane looks at him blankly. “How are we meant to get married if no one knows about us?”

Hayden’s shoulders lift in a lazy shrug as if that major detail isn’t important. “Vegas. Everyone would think it was this whole funny thing, and then you’d be like, surprise, it’s real.”

Ilya mentally adds crisis manager to his list of things Hayden Pike underperforms at.

“Are you our fucking therapist?” Ilya asks.

Hayden’s face lights up. “I could be—”

“We don’t need a therapist,” Shane cuts in skeptically. “Why would we need a therapist?”

“We have four therapists already, Shane’s parents and our agents,” Ilya supplies. “They ask all same questions. Don’t need to add shitty hockey player to the list.”

“No shit?” Hayden’s eyebrows raise, the reveal that his and Shane’s agent knows overshadowing the rest of Ilya’s sentence. “Nathalia knows?”

“Yeah. Not for long, but it was easier. It was hard building the charity on a half-lie, I guess.”

Hayden shifts on the couch, so he’s facing them more head on. “I was still the first to know, right?”

“You know you were,” Shane says flatly.

“Technically, was Shane’s parents—” Ilya cuts in.

“Thank fuck. She supportive?” Hayden asks, getting almost impressively good at ignoring Ilya. Ilya would just have to step up his game.

“Yeah,” Shane confirms. "Just told us to be careful.”

“Which you are.” Hayden pauses as if he’s thinking his words over, and then, “probably too careful sometimes.”

“We can’t be too careful,” Shane says firmly. “Everything's on the line.”

“I don’t know,” Hayden hums. “Hockey players are dumb. Too many pucks to the head. I don’t think they’d figure it out.”

“You literally figured it out,” Shane points out.

“Yeah, because I’m fucking perceptive, man.”

“You were joking—”

“But I was still right. How I got there doesn’t matter. My subconscious is smart.”

Ilya’s eyes bounce between them as if he’s watching an intense tennis match.

Shane shoots Hayden an unconvinced look. “You’re a dumbass, is what you are.”

Hayden huffs a laugh. “Fine. How long till you announce the charity?”

“A couple of months, probably. Nathalia and Lorina think we should start being seen in public together soon,” Shane explains.

“So, tonight was a good fucking idea,” Hayden tries again, as persistent as ever.

“I do not think Leonard owns a phone,” Ilya cuts in.

“Word of mouth, Rozanov, word of mouth. He’s going to tell everyone who comes in that bar—”

“He will tell four people, yes. Perfect. What the fuck would we do without you?”

“He told me he’s going to pin the autograph I signed above the bar,” Shane adds.

Hayden reaches his arms out and traces a headline in the air. “Montreal Metros Captain spotted in shitty dive bar, signing autographs all night. It’s great.”

“Oh, so you admit it was shitty?” Shane asks.

“Shitty, furnace bar,” Ilya mutters.

“Charming,” Hayden corrects, dropping his arms. “And anyway, it was practice. Can’t have the big game without the practice; we all know that.”

“Don’t quit the hockey, Hay,” Shane says.

Hayden sighs heavily. “Fine. But it was something, right?”

Ilya thinks back over the night, how even if it hadn’t been a huge spectacle, it had been kind of freeing to be out in the open like that. “It will be something if we post a photo,” he says, the words leaving his mouth before he can second-guess them.

Hayden and Shane both turn to look at him.

Hayden’s brows pull together, jumping in first. “Huh?”

“You said you wanted to be buffer, yes?” Ilya double-checks, eyes flicking to Shane quickly. But Shane is just watching him, curiosity on his face.

“I mean, yeah, whatever you need,” Hayden confirms with a decisive nod.

“We take a photo with the pizzas. Post it on Instagram.” Ilya shrugs, suddenly unsure if this is the best or worst idea he’s ever had. “Easing in or something.”

Hayden hums, and Ilya can tell he’s thinking it over. “So, they think we all hung out.”

“Which we did—” Shane says, jostling Ilya as he shifts to look at him. “I think it’s a good idea.”

“Right,” Hayden says, but he’s still lost in thought. “People will probably be confused. But then, when the charity is announced, it’ll all make sense. I hate to say it, but it’s kind of fucking genius.”

“It is,” Shane agrees.

“Do you want to? We do not have to,” Ilya asks Shane seriously.

There were probably a hundred different ways they could ease into it, some more daunting than others. It’s as simple as going to see a game together or following an intricately thought out plan designed by their agents. But suddenly, Ilya gets this distinct feeling that shitty dive bars with the heating cranked too high, autographs on napkins, and seven pizzas with the pineapple picked off might be the perfect start. The ripping off of a band-aid.

It’s a small step in the grand scheme of things, sure, but it’s still a step into the unknown, and that would always be scary, especially for them.

“I want to,” Shane says, “this is the kind of thing Nathalia and Lorina talked about.”

“Okay.”

“It’s a great fucking idea.” Hayden nods. “And I’m only admitting that because I ate so much pizza I’m pretty sure I’m going to vomit.” He pulls himself from the couch with a groan. “Come on.”

Ilya pulls his phone from his pocket as they follow Hayden back to the florist, disguised as a kitchen. Hayden hops onto one of the stools, picking his discarded beer bottle back up. Shane gets situated next to him, somewhere in the background, and Ilya holds his phone out, snapping a photo.

“They are saying I am best friends with Hayden fucking Pike—”

Shane sputters a laugh, and the sound soothes maybe one percent- scratch that, half a percent of Ilya’s deep wound about this entire situation.

“Is not funny, Shane. What the fuck is ‘he would never be friends with Hollander. We have seen how they play on the ice’?” Ilya reads from the open Reddit thread, glancing at the little image of Shane in the corner of his phone.

“So,” Shane says, shifting on his bed so he’s sitting against the headboard. “They think we were both there chaperoning Hayden?”

“I guess,” Ilya huffs. “Fucking stupid. They think I would be friends with Pike? He plays worse than you.”

“Worse than me?” Shane repeats slowly, his smirk widening.

“Yes—”

“Huh?” A glint appears in Shane’s eyes, and he tilts his head, making his glasses a little lopsided as he looks straight down the camera in challenge. “Didn’t Boston lose a game last week?”

He looks so cute in the dim lighting of his bedroom that for half a second, Ilya contemplates screaming Yes, Boston did lose! But thankfully, he comes to his senses.

“I don’t think so.” He hums, making a show of racking his brain. “Maybe you are thinking of someone else. New York Admirals?”

“That’s not even the same letter—”

“They lose. A lot. Probably confusing for you.”

“Montreal won last night.”

Ilya’s eyes widen. “Did they? I did not know. I was busy.”

“Shut up,” Shane says with a huff. “Busy doing what?”

“Chaperoning Hayden fucking Pike according to these idiots.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Shane.” Ilya groans, more of a cry for help, really. “There are bigger things to focus on, like my mysterious friendship with Hayden Pike.”

Shane holds his gaze through the screen, that same unamused expression on his face. “You not being able to untie your laces after Marleau tied them together last week was more exciting than this. You were at his house. You’re—”

“Not by choice.” Ilya huffs again, scrolling down the thread to his own comment.

“You ate his pizza,” Shane points out.

Ilya’s eyes flick up. “You want me to starve now?”

“Wait,” Shane says, “they’re saying that we couldn’t possibly be friends in any universe, but we are civil because of our mutual friend Hayden Pike?”

“Yes,” Ilya confirms, glad that Shane’s finally seeing how excruciating this is.

“Okay, so they got the…” Shane hesitates, clearly thinking his words over until he lands on, “wrong end of the stick?”

“This is more than wrong end of the stick. This is—” He scrolls down a little, several more comments about Hayden Pike and Ilya Rozanov’s blossoming friendship passing him by. “This is fucking slander. Can Lorina get this thing deleted?”

Shane hums thoughtfully. “Probably. What else are they saying?”

“That I am transferring to the fucking Metros—”

Shane laughs, harder this time, like the traitor he is. Ilya took that shitty ginger ale from him out of the goodness of his heart, and this is how he’s repaid.

Shane expertly tries to deflect, but his words are still full of amusement. “I am glad we posted that selfie, though, even if it didn’t work how we planned.”

Ilya closes Reddit, banishing all the trolls who know nothing back to the abyss. “Does Hayden know?”

“No.”

Ilya shuffles down the bed, watching Shane closely. “You are lying.”

“Okay, yes—” Shane corrects.

Ilya narrows his eyes at him. “That you are lying or that he knows?”

“Both,” Shane admits. “But there was a blind item. Hayden already sent Jackie the flowers.”

Ilya lets his head fall to the hotel room pillow. “Did Leonard sell exciting story to the magazines yet? It can be small mercy.”

“Nope. Not a word. Hayden was right; they know how to keep their mouths shut.”

“Great.” Ilya sighs. “Fucking Pike.”

“We had a fun night, though,” Shane says.

Ilya’s eyes snap back to his phone so fast he gets a little dizzy. He raises a suggestive eyebrow. “We could have more fun—”

“Aren’t you rooming with Marleau?” Shane asks, suspicion dripping from his words.

Ilya glances at the empty bed. Fucking cockblock. “He’s not here. He went to find spoons.”

Shane’s eyebrows draw together. “Spoons for what?”

“Ice cream to celebrate,” Ilya informs him with about as much enthusiasm as he can muster up at these trying times.

Best friends with Hayden Pike, and cockblocked by an empty bed. His life was a joke.

“Celebrate what?” Shane huffs. “Your loss?”

“Ha, funny, Shane Hollander. No, celebrate I still have lover.”

“Oh.” There’s a pause, and then, “You should probably tell him soon. About us.” Another loaded pause, and then, “Or at least you.”

“Probably, yes,” Ilya agrees, his chest suddenly a little tight at the thought. Telling him about the charity had been daunting enough. “Soon.”

“Are you nervous?” Shane asks.

Ilya thinks for a second, really thinks it through. He doesn’t think Marleau is homophobic. And he knows that if Ilya told him anything that meant a lot to him, Marleau would understand on some level because that’s the kind of guy he is.

He took the charity in his stride as if Ilya had just disclosed what he was planning to have for dinner that night, not that he was starting a charity with his arch-rival.

Even if Marly is a fucking dumbass. He’s a kind dumbass.

“Maybe, yes,” Ilya admits. “A little.”

“You should take Lorina up on that offer to scare the shit out of him. It will probably make you feel better.”

Ilya huffs a laugh. “Yes. It is very good idea.”

“Maybe you can—”

The hotel door slams open, and suddenly, with zero warning, Marleau is grinning at Ilya, holding two spoons up like they’re the fucking Olympic gold.

“Do you know how to fucking knock?” Ilya growls.

“Knock at my own room, shithead? No way. I was only gone five minutes—who are you talking to?” Marleau kicks the door shut, throwing the spoons onto his bed before rounding Ilya’s side, trying to get a better look.

What was it Ilya had said about Marleau being kind? He takes it back.

Ilya shuffles across the bed. “None of your fucking business—”

“Is it your girl—” Marleau leans further, almost toppling over as Ilya tries to tilt the phone away. “Oh, it’s fucking Hollander,” he says, raising a hand in greeting.

And honestly, Ilya is kind of surprised that Shane hadn’t hung up the second Marly had barged in. But he guesses they were doing this. Easing in.

In shitty dive bars, Hayden Pike’s flower-filled mansion, and hotel rooms with ice cream to celebrate lovers probably melting in the mini fridge.

Ilya widens his eyes at the camera, thanking every God out there that Shane is sitting against his headboard with a hoodie on. He can think of about ten more compromising positions they’d been in during FaceTime calls in the last two weeks alone.

“Hey,” Shane says, and it’s a little awkward.

“How’s the charity going?” Marleau asks, sinking onto the bed next to Ilya like he’s part of this call now.

And Ilya can’t exactly tell Marleau to go away right now; if anything, it was- what did they call it? Exposure therapy. Yeah. Sure.

Shane shuffles further up his bed somehow, his spine stiff against the headboard. “It’s, uh, yeah. Going good.” He nods, shooting daggers at Ilya. “Right, Rozanov?”

Ilya hums. “Yes. Yeah, Hollander. Very good. Um- almost finished, actually—”

“Hollander,” Marleau cuts back in, like he needs to get whatever he’s about to say off his chest. “I am so fucking sorry about that concussion, man.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. It’s fine.” Shane lifts a hand to his head, briefly rubbing at his temple. “All fixed up. It’s been years, so…”

“Yeah, man.” Marleau nods, guilt still dripping from his features. “Fuck, it was a hard hit, though.”

Shane hums. “Yeah. You can come coach at the hockey camps to make up for it.”

“Fuck yeah.”

Ilya looks between them, these two parts of his world suddenly colliding, and he’s hit with a weird snapshot of their future. In an ideal world, if everything went to plan, conversations like this wouldn’t seem so… absurd.

Probably not completely normal. More like Hayden and Ilya normal.

“Okay, Sh- Hollander,” Ilya manages to get out, sudden emotion burning his throat. “I will talk to you in next meeting, yes?”

“Uh, yeah. Talk to you next week.”

Ilya nods firmly, then quickly ends the call, fighting the urge to blow out a sigh of relief.

“Nice guy,” Marleau says, finally standing from Ilya’s bed.

“Yes,” Ilya agrees, “he is okay.”

“Ice cream?” Marleau asks, picking the spoons back up. “Before you abandon me to text your girl?”

***

Ilya blinks down at his doorstep, and the prickly plant sitting on his welcome mat stares back at him almost menacingly. He glances over his shoulder, eyes darting back down the driveway, but nothing. It’s just him… and this plant. He leans down to pick it up, holding it out suspiciously.

It’s a small cactus in a blue pot, a notecard sticking out of the soil.

He shakes his head, unlocks the door, and heads inside, throwing down his gym bag as he enters the kitchen. He slides the cactus onto the counter, stepping back to look at it a little more.

Is this Shane’s doing? It has to be. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth as he digs his phone out of his sweatpants pocket and taps on his contact, waiting for an answer.

“Shane,” Ilya says, already concerned about how his new cactus will survive while he’s out of town. He’ll have to do some research.

Shane is straddling the weight bench in the cottage gym—where Ilya will join him tomorrow for a blissful weekend— sweat dripping down his forehead. “What? Your flights not cancelled, is it?” he pants out, flopping back against the bench. “It better not be.”

“No, no, my flight is fine. If not, I would take private jet.”

Shane huffs a laugh. “Course you would. You’d be plastered over that gossip Reddit by morning. Ilya Rozanov takes a private jet to a random cottage in the middle of Canada?”

Ilya waves him off, propping his phone up against the pot. “I have good disguise. Expensive sunglasses.”

Shane shakes his head, amused. “What did you call for then?”

“Did you send me a plant?” Ilya asks.

“A plant?” Shane repeats slowly, confusion pinching at his features. “Like a houseplant?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, looking at the plant again. “A cactus.”

Shane hesitates. “Where would I get a cactus?”

Ilya picks the phone back up and flips the camera, pointing it at the plant. “This is not from you?”

Shane sits back up, bringing the phone closer to his face for a better look. “Where did you get that?”

Ilya steps closer. “Doorstep. There’s note, but I thought it was from you.”

“Who the fuck is sending you a cactus?”

Ilya pulls the card out of the soil and unfolds it, revealing a short note.

Srry for the blind item, prick



- Hayden

“Fucking Pike,” he mutters, crumpling the note into a tight ball before throwing it across the kitchen, watching as it bounces off the counter.

“Hayden? What did it say?” Shane asks.

“Sorry for the blind item, prick—”

Shane tries not to laugh, for all of five seconds before his shitty poker face betrays him. “Better than roses,” he says once he’s gotten himself under control.

“It’s going to die when we’re at the cottage,” Ilya insists, pushing the Metro's blue pot away.

***

“Nathalia and Lorina are gonna be mad,” Shane mumbles, his low voice vibrating through Ilya’s chest.

Ilya hums, running gentle fingertips up Shane’s arm, his boyfriend’s body lazily sprawled on top of his, both of them piled into the hammock overlooking the lake. “Don’t care,” he murmurs back.

It had taken a solid ten minutes to come up with a game plan to get two hockey players into a hammock designed for one person, followed by a couple of failed attempts, but they were settled for now. Ilya still wasn’t convinced it was completely stable, so he was lying very stiffly as they watched the sunset, trying not to jostle them too much.

But even if he was fearing for his life because of a hammock, and he’d only been here for a handful of hours, most of which had been spent reacquainting themselves with the various surfaces of the cottage, the tension that sat heavily in his shoulders most days was already dissipating.

It didn’t matter what was going on in their lives; everything seemed okay here. The gentle slosh of the water, the pink streaks painted across the sky like cotton candy, and Shane tipping his chin up for a chaste kiss every couple of minutes.

“Neither,” Shane admits. He looks up, resting his chin on Ilya’s chest. “Even if I did cancel another photoshoot.”

Ilya mock-gasps, jerking back. But the movement makes the hammock rock again, and his retort dies in his throat in favor of holding his breath until they stop swaying. “I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.”

“It is. Sturdy, too. I’ve never fallen out.”

“I have.”

Shane huffs, warm breath tickling Ilya’s skin. “They can survive without us for a few days.”

“Probably,” Ilya agrees.

“Your cactus might not, though,” Shane adds, a smirk pulling at his mouth.

“Good.”

Before Shane can say anything to that, his phone starts ringing, as if it’s trying to prove them wrong, lighting up next to the new hockey book Ilya had bought with him in his carry-on. The same book Shane had told Ilya he was coming out here to read, but had lain in the grass pointedly untouched.

Ilya wraps an arm around Shane, keeping them steady as he carefully leans to the side, the hammock swaying again as he reaches for the phone. “It’s Yuna,” he reads from the screen when they’re back in safe hammock territory.

Shane holds his hand out, and Ilya passes it over. “They know we’re here,” he tells him, accepting the call and putting it on loudspeaker.

If Ilya had to guess, he would say they were about to receive a dinner invitation. Immediately followed by a warning that there were no excuses for not showing up. It was one of many of Ilya’s favorite things about being here.

“Hi, honey,” the familiar voice comes through the line.

“Hi, Mom,” Shane replies.

“Hello, Yuna.”

“Oh, good, you’re both here. Dinner tonight, no excuses.”

Ilya bites back a grin. “I would never make any excuse. I can’t wait to see you and David.”

Shane shoots him a look that screams Stop sucking up. But Ilya doesn’t need to suck up. The Hollanders had welcomed him with open arms, just like their son had. He tips his chin so he’s closer to the phone. “We will bring wine.”

“Red, please, Ilya,” Yuna says.

“Yes, of course. The best.”

“Perfect,” Yuna replies, pleased. “How’s eight sound for you guys?”

Shane looks at Ilya for confirmation, and Ilya nods.

“Eight is perfect, Mom.”

After that, they say their goodbyes, and Shane ends the call. “Do we have red wine?”

For some reason, the we lands in Ilya’s stomach, a warmth blooming in its place. Every day, they were fighting for that we. He can’t bite back the smile when he says, “Yes. In the fridge from last time when we took white wine instead.”

Shane nods, suddenly leaning to the side, the hammock swaying precariously.

“Shane,” Ilya warns, gripping his shoulders to keep him still. “Stop fucking moving–”

“Don’t be a baby. It’s fine,” Shane insists, leaning further to put his phone back. “I do it all the time—”

Ilya doesn’t have time to argue or find his balance; the hammock is already tipping, spilling them both onto the floor in a crumpled heap. Ilya groans loudly, blinking up at the sky before he raises his probably concussed head to look at Shane. Shane is still stuck to his side, but he’s a little wide-eyed now, tipping his chin to look up at the empty hammock like it’s betrayed him. Ilya can’t help the laugh that spills over as he lets his head flop back against the grass.

“What the fuck, Hollander?”

***

“How are things coming along with the charity?” Yuna asks, not for the first, or even the second time that week, as she pours the wine they’d bought over into Ilya’s glass.

Yuna Hollander had added both of them to a group chat before the first charity meeting had even taken place. It was a group chat she used generously, asking for updates almost every day. Ilya kind of loved it.

“It’s going good,” Shane says, smiling a little bashfully as he meets Ilya’s gaze.

Ilya nods in ready agreement. “Really good. Hard work, but worth it as always.”

“Are you guys making sure you’re getting enough rest?” David asks as he walks into the room, a bowl of salad in his hands.

“No, never enough,” Shane huffs, picking his fork back up to dig in. “But it’s what we signed up for.”

“We can rest when it is finished,” Ilya adds, warmth settling in his gut again.

It’s something he’d had to get used to when he’d been accepted into the Hollander family. They looked out for Shane, sometimes maybe a little too much if Shane had anything to say about it, and that extended to Ilya now, too.

Questions about getting enough rest, and if they were eating well, and did they want to come over for dinner, and could Yuna help with anything hockey-wise.

David looks between them as he sets the salad down, almost as if he’d expected them to say that. “And then you’ll be coaching hockey camps in the off-season, when you’re meant to be resting,” he adds pointedly, settling into his chair.

“We will up our cottage visits,” Ilya bargains, picking his glass up to take a sip. He hums appreciatively. It’s good wine.

“I’ll hold you to that,” David says, picking his own glass up.

“We had a meeting this week about logos–” Shane blows out a weary breath, and Ilya’s free hand moves on instinct, falling to rest on his knee. “It’s starting to get real. I mean, it was real before– but to see all our ideas coming to life.” He nods. “It’s good.”

“They want us to decide between cobalt blue and sapphire blue,” Ilya tells them, thinking back to the hour meeting they’d had, most of which was spent admiring different shades of blue.

Different shades of blue that all looked very blue to Shane and Ilya.

“It’s the same blue,” Shane huffs. “They were all the same blue.”

“Cobalt blue is more inviting,” Yuna supplies easily. “Sapphire blue can feel cold.”

“Cobalt blue it is,” Ilya announces, holding his glass out to Shane. “Thank you, Yuna. We don’t know what we would do without you.”

Shane's mouth twitches, and he holds his own glass up to clink it against Ilya’s. “The Irina Foundation is cobalt blue.”

“We can celebrate with dessert,” Yuna says. “Made today especially for your visit.”

Their conversation falls to other things: Yuna’s book club, David’s new puzzle, Shane and Ilya’s plans for the rest of the week, hockey, more hockey, and a little more hockey for good measure. After they’ve finished their dinner, dessert comes out, and eventually, like always, their conversation ends up back where it had started.

“Nathalia and Lorina want us to be seen together soon,” Ilya says as he pushes his dessert bowl away, the fudge cake the perfect way to end his meal. “That was delicious, by the way.”

Yuna smiles. “You can take some home with you.”

Ilya nods in agreement.

“Being seen together is a big step,” David says. “Are you both ready?”

“Yes,” Ilya says without missing a beat. Truthfully, the more time that passes, the more sure he gets. “We are ready.”

Shane straightens in his chair. “More than ready. It feels like this is what we’ve wanted for so long. Just a little bit of freedom.”

“We’re so proud of you both,” David says.

“What if I got you a joint brand deal?” Yuna cuts in, her eyes glinting with a new idea. It’s a look that Ilya is becoming familiar with. She continues when Shane and Ilya both turn to look at her with matching expressions of horror. “Something lowkey–”

“No, Mom.” Shane shakes his head firmly. “Thank you, but no. We need to do this on our own.”

Ilya didn’t think a joint photoshoot for Reebok would be the most appropriate way to launch their friendship. But maybe Yuna could be in charge of something for their eventual relationship reveal. A tasteful photoshoot?

Ilya shakes the thought off and picks his wine back up.

***

“She would have been proud of you, you know,” Yuna says suddenly.

Ilya drags his gaze away from the flowers as the slow trickle of Yuna’s watering can spills over them. He must look caught off guard, because she continues, her voice softer now.

“I don’t mean to overstep, Ilya.”

Ilya immediately shakes his head. “You’re not. You couldn’t.”

“Your mother,” she clarifies, and Ilya’s gut twists like it always does at the mention of his mother, even after all these years. “She would have been proud of you.”

Ilya swallows thickly, the sudden emotion burning his throat almost painfully. “I hope so,” he manages to get out, letting his gaze wander back to the flowers, the explosion of vibrant colors a welcome distraction.

“I’ve always been so proud of Shane; what mother wouldn’t be proud– he’s amazing,” she says.

“He is,” Ilya agrees. “Better than me, I think.”

Yuna makes a tutting noise in her throat. “It doesn’t get much better than draft picks one and two.”

“That’s true.”

“This charity, Ilya, what you two are both doing for yourselves, it’s wonderful.” She clears her throat, and Ilya looks back up to find her looking like she’s fighting back sudden emotion too. “It’s brave.”

Ilya tips his chin in a nod, hoping he’s discreet when he blinks back the tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Yuna. It means a lot.” It’s his turn to clear his throat, trying to keep his voice even when he says, “Your son is wonderful. You raised a good man.”

Yuna smiles, and it’s a little watery. “So are you.”

“Hey,” Shane calls out of the back door suddenly, his voice traveling to where they’re standing on the patio. “Are you coming back inside? Admirals are down two.”

Yuna wipes a quick hand across her face before she turns back to call up. “Be there in a second, honey.”

Shane disappears back into the house, and Yuna turns back to Ilya, reaching out to cup his cheek as she looks at him seriously. “We are so lucky to have you in our lives.”

Ilya doesn’t think he’s ever felt so fragile, so much emotion flooding through his body that he feels like an open wound. “I am lucky that you welcomed me here.”

Yuna smiles, a little stronger this time as she picks her watering can back up. “Shane told me about your cactus. And here’s one thing I expect of you, Ilya. I don’t care who bought it for you.” She looks at him pointedly, and Ilya’s eyes flick to the beautiful garden she tends. “If you’re part of this family, you will bring that cactus back to life. I doubt it’s too dehydrated after a couple of days. Sunlight and careful watering, and it’ll be good as new. I can text you details.”

Ilya can’t help the smile that stretches over his face. “I watered it before I left, but don’t tell Shane.”

Yuna laughs, shaking her head. “Of course you did.”

***

Ilya’s phone starts ringing, and he lifts his head from where he’d been resting on Shane’s lap, watching the fire crackle. They’d abandoned the hammock for now, opting for the safety of the outside couch instead.

“Ignore it,” Ilya mumbles.

Shane looks at him seriously. “What if it’s important?”

“Last time you said this, we were in sauna bar twelve hours later. Don’t do it—”

Shane ignores Ilya’s protests, leaning over him to root around for the still-ringing device. After a few seconds, he holds it up in victory, reading from the screen. “It’s Lorina.”

Ilya groans loudly, flopping back down to watch the fire some more. Maybe if he just focused on the fire and made no sudden movements—

“Hi, Lorina,” Shane says, holding the phone out over Ilya’s head. His face suddenly drops, and Ilya has to bury his face in Shane’s leg to muffle the laugh. “Oh, hi Nathalia—”

As funny as it is, it can’t be good. They are being teamed up against. Ilya shifts, laying his head back to watch Shane properly, the fire forgotten in favor of whatever is about to unfold. It seemed much more interesting.

“You’re not my client.” Ilya’s agent's smooth voice comes through the line.

“No, I’m not,” Shane agrees. “Have your, uh, offices always been in the same building?”

“No,” Nathalia cuts in. “New development. You two were keeping us too busy, and there’s strength in numbers.” She picks up her mug, taking a perfectly timed sip.

“Oh, sure, yeah, you know what they say.” Shane clears his throat. “Divide and conquer.”

Ilya huffs another laugh, pushing up to join the conversation. He gets a glance at himself in the screen and sees his hair sticking up in all directions from where Shane had been absentmindedly running his fingers through it. “Uh, hello everyone.”

Lorina blinks at him through the camera, and she doesn’t exactly look pleased to see him. “You’re my client.”

“Yes.” Ilya nods confidently. “I am.”

“Where are you guys?” Nathalia asks, leaning closer to the screen, unfazed by Ilya’s sudden appearance.

It was dark out here, the crackling fire the only thing giving them any light. They’d arrived back from Yuna and David’s an hour or so ago, stocked up with dessert to last them all weekend, and immediately headed back outside to relax before bed.

Shane extends his arm, revealing the lit-up cottage behind them.

Nathalia nods. “You’re on vacation again.”

“Again?” Ilya repeats, punctuated by a yawn he badly tries to hide behind his hand.

“What do you mean again?” Shane asks.

“This is the third in three months,” Nathalia reads from Lorina’s notebook in front of her.

Shane shifts in the seat, his voice turning serious, “We’re working hard, right? You tell us that all the time.”

“My client,” Lorina starts, “who looks like he just got electrocuted, may I so lovingly add—”

Shane tilts the camera away so he can huff a quick laugh, and Ilya takes the opportunity to try to smooth his hair down. “You look lovely today, Lorina,” he says when he’s finished, pulling Shane’s arm back out.

“And you canceled another photoshoot,” she throws back.

“It was only for tiny magazine,” Ilya defends. “No one has even heard of it.”

“It doesn’t matter what it's for. It’s rescheduled for next week.”

“Okay,” Ilya concedes, knowing it’s a battle he won’t win. “Thank you.”

“We’ve never missed anything important,” Shane points out, his golden hockey boy voice firmly back in place.

“We would never miss practice,” Ilya adds. “Or a game.”

But that one really went without saying. Everyone around them knew they’d both play through the stomach flu or a broken bone if they could.

“We need to schedule another meeting about the logo,” Nathalia says.

Shane pulls a face. “We had hours of meetings about shades of blue last week.”

“Which you still haven’t decided—”

“Yes, we have,” Ilya says, a little smugly. “Cobalt.”

Yuna Hollander to the rescue once again. The cactus, and now this. What couldn’t she do?

Nathalia makes a quick note. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“Are we off the hook?” Shane asks.

“For now.”

Lorina points her pen at the phone. “While we have you, because I assume you’re going to go ghost the second you hang up the phone.”

“We won’t,” Ilya insists, even though he knows it’s probably a lie. They did tend to go off the grid, as Shane liked to call it.

“Do you want us to plan an outing for you?” Lorina finishes.

“You can go and see a game together,” Nathalia suggests.

Shane hums, but Ilya can tell he hates that idea. Going to a game together wasn’t ripping the band-aid off; it was bleeding out. It was too much all at once, for both of them.

“Or,” Lorina says, “we could organize a joint brand deal.”

“No. I have it under control,” Ilya says suddenly before he’s even thought it through himself, and all three of them look at him blankly.

Shane’s brow furrows. “You do?”

Ilya nods, biting back a smirk. “Yes.”

Lorina blows out a breath. “I’m not even going to ask.”

***

Ilya jogs down the patio stairs bright and early the next morning, trying not to make any loud noises as he rolls out the yoga mat he’d found under the bed next to Shane’s setup on the grass.

They hadn’t even eaten breakfast, and the sun was barely up, but Ilya had an idea. He didn’t know if Shane or Nathalia and Lorina, for that matter, would particularly love his idea, but they had to start somewhere.

And that somewhere they were starting was early morning yoga.

“What are you doing?” Shane asks a couple of minutes later when he finally appears, his headphones already around his neck, and a bottle of water in hand, ready to tackle his- their morning yoga session. “When did you get out of bed?”

Ilya looks up from his cross-legged position. It had been a high-stakes mission. He’d pretended to sleep through Shane’s alarm, almost caving and pulling him back into bed when Shane had leant across the mattress to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. But he’d stayed strong and waited painstakingly, almost torturously, for Shane to leave the bedroom before he’d found his own yoga mat.

“We’re doing yoga,” Ilya announces.

Shane pauses, then walks slowly onto the grass as if he’s approaching a wild animal. “You don’t do yoga.”

Ilya pointedly glances down at his mat. He’d even dressed for the occasion, a tank top and shorts on. He looked like a man more than ready for yoga. Yoga with an objective, but still.

Shane rolls out his own mat, putting the rest of his stuff next to it, glancing over at Ilya every few seconds. “Where did you even find that old mat?”

“Not important. You are not a very good teacher. Are we supposed to be this far apart?” Ilya stretches his arm across the unfairly big gap, trying to reach Shane to no avail.

Shane huffs, sitting down on his own mat now. “If you actually want to spend your morning doing yoga. Then yeah, this is a good distance.”

“I do.” Ilya nods solemnly. “What do they call it? Downward doggy.”

Shane turns back to his pile of belongings. “That’s not what it's called.”

Ilya picks up his own bottle; see, he’s prepared, hiding his laugh behind a sip of water. But it doesn’t last long; he coughs, the water trickling down his throat unexpectedly when relaxing spa music starts playing loudly around them.

“Is this what you use?” he asks, biting back the smile. He can’t help it; it’s so ridiculous, and so Shane.

Shane tips his chin. “Yeah. Do you want to copy me?”

Ilya nods back, throwing his bottle to the side as he stretches his legs out in front of him, just like Shane.

“We’ll start easy,” Shane tells him before he gets into a cross-legged position, exactly what Ilya had been doing before Shane had come outside.

Ilya copies him, tucking his legs back in. “Like this?”

Shane nods. “Normally, I meditate now. But–” He shrugs, resting his hands on his knees, the music surrounding them.

Ilya’s shoulders lift in a lazy shrug, just like Shane’s had.

Shane glares at him. Ilya glares back.

“Stupid,” Shane murmurs, facing forward again, letting his eyes flutter closed.

“Stupid,” Ilya repeats, in a pretty perfect Canadian accent, mostly to get a reaction.

It works because Shane opens his eyes again, this time torturously slowly tracing Ilya’s features, gaze landing on his lips in a way that suddenly makes him a little warm all over. But just as Ilya is about to tell him that dirty plays weren’t prohibited, Shane says, “Montreal played better than Boston this season.”

Ilya huffs a quick laugh. “No fucking chance, Hollander.”

Shane ignores him, getting into his next position, still cross-legged, but bending at the waist, putting his head down toward the mat. “Quick.”

“Why quick?” Ilya asks, quickly getting into the pose anyway.

Shane ignores him again, taking a couple of deep breaths. Ilya copies that, too, letting the water rippling and the birds chirping wash over him. But all he could really notice was his stomach rumbling.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asks conversationally.

“Whatever you want,” Shane murmurs, too deep in the yoga zone to notice Ilya starving to death beside him. “Where did you find that yoga mat?” he asks again as he straightens back up.

Ilya tilts his head toward him. “Under our bed.”

“Huh, okay,” Shane says, leaning forward again. This time it’s some kind of hamstring stretch looking thing. It’s pretty similar to the stretches they do on the ice. Shane holds it until Ilya reluctantly copies him.

“Do you feel relaxed?” Shane asks after a few more seconds of nothing but birds.

Ilya turns his head to look out over the lake, then back at Shane, wobbling a little with the movement. He hums noncommittally, leaning a little further to the right, mostly for a better look at Shane from behind.

After a minute or so, Shane straightens back up, closing his eyes against the morning sun, basking like a sunflower.

“I could be blowing you right now,” Ilya says after a couple more seconds of quiet.

Shane slowly opens one eye. “Are you forgetting that you’re the one who came out here?”

“Blowjobs are relaxing.”

“I’d argue they’re the opposite,” Shane says as he picks his water up for a quick sip, watching Ilya across the gigantic gap.

“What next?” Ilya asks, flopping back against the yoga mat with a sigh.

“That was just the warm-up,” Shane tells him, a glint in his eye now as he pushes his water away and settles back on his mat.

“Shane,” Ilya groans a few minutes later, watching Shane bend his back in a way that accentuates… well… everything.

“What?” Shane asks, holding the pose, his mouth tugging into a satisfied smirk. “Go on.”

Ilya gets into position, taking another few deep breaths.

“Okay,” Shane says, “downward dog—”

Ilya looks up. “Doggy?”

“No.”

Ilya watches intently as Shane pushes up into the position. “I know that one,” he says smugly.

“Downward Dog,” Shane corrects, twisting his head to look at Ilya, eyes travelling his form. “Go.”

Ilya’s smirk just grows at the dazed look on Shane’s face. “Ahh, doggy later. I see.”

“This isn’t the Kama Sutra, Ilya; it’s yoga,” Shane tries, but his voice is strained.

Ilya finally pushes up, copying the pose. “Same thing, I think,” he mumbles, all the blood rushing to his head.

“Stretch your leg more,” Shane instructs, five positions and a handful more fucking jokes shared later.

“You want me to break my fucking leg?” Ilya asks, trying to copy Shane’s position. Shane’s very impossible position. Ilya doesn’t think legs are meant to bend that way.

Shane watches Ilya try to stretch his leg, unimpressed. “I’ve seen you in a more impressive position when you fuck me.”

That gets Ilya moving, stretching his leg out further. “I thought it wasn’t the Kama Sutra,” he grits out.

“Better,” Shane says at the exact moment Ilya thinks his fibula cracks in half.

“I’m never going to be able to skate again,” Ilya huffs.

“Lie on your back,” Shane instructs what feels like three hours later.

Ilya flops back on the mat. “Then what?”

Suddenly, Shane’s straddling Ilya’s waist, looking down at him, his eyes darkening.

“What yoga pose is this?” Ilya murmurs lowly.

Shane shrugs, lowering himself until his nose brushes Ilya’s. “Heated rivalry.”

Ilya tips his chin, crashing their lips together. Shane doesn’t waste any time, licking up into his mouth with a pleased groan. Ilya’s brain short-circuits and then turns back on all in a handful of seconds, and he yanks Shane down further, scrambling with the waistband of his shorts.

“Inside,” Shane murmurs against Ilya’s lips before jumping back up and running up the stairs.

Ilya doesn’t wait a beat; his limbs are like jelly as he races after him, abandoning the yoga mats and spa music.

“This is your idea of having it under control?”

And Shane, the love of Ilya Rozanov’s life, had so many great traits, but this one- the one where he stands in front of the TV like he doesn’t even realise it’s there is up there with his love for cereal with no flavor and not wearing his glasses even half as much as Ilya would like.

Awful. Unbearable. Bad for Ilya’s health, probably.

Ilya leans to the side, the controller still in his hand as he tries to continue his game, a fake hockey audience cheering around them as the other team scores. “Do you like it- fuck-”

Shane glances over his shoulder as if he’s just realised Ilya is busy. “You play hockey every day, and you still want to play it right now?”

Ilya picks the game up from the coffee table, holding it up, Shane’s face staring back at him from the cover and from in front of the TV. “This is your fucking game.”

The other team wins on screen, a symphony of boos coming through the speakers, and Shane takes the opportunity to hold the phone out again.

On his screen is the Instagram story Ilya had posted a few hours earlier, a great graphic he’d found of beginner yoga poses. Truthfully, they’d discovered some even more exciting yoga poses against the kitchen counter after their early morning session, but there wasn’t a graphic for those. The graphic would be too graphic, he guessed. So, Ilya had to settle.

Shane turns the phone back, narrowing his eyes at the screen like it’s personally affronted him. “We didn’t even do any of these positions. We did beginners, beginner yoga.” He looks up at Ilya again. “It was hardly even yoga.”

Ilya restarts the game, ready to win this time. “Your positions were too boring. They don’t get a graphic.”

“You’re boring,” Shane throws back as he flops onto the couch, letting his phone fall to the cushion between them. “So, this is your big idea to tell the world we’re friends?”

“Yes, I’m dropping hints,” Ilya says, Shane’s presence more distracting than he’d like to admit.

Real hockey against Shane Hollander was a piece of cake; he could do it in his sleep. But video game hockey with Shane Hollander an arm's length away, that was difficult.

“Hints?”

Ilya hums. “Yes.”

“Is it working?” Shane asks, his words dripping with skepticism. Ilya can’t blame him because he wouldn’t exactly say it was working.

It wasn’t not working, but no one had questioned anything. Not one single person in his message requests had brought up Shane Hollander and his love for yoga. The most exciting thing in there had been an elderly yoga instructor from Delaware inviting him to her studio if he was ever around.

And then on top of that, he’d been accused of being a troll on Reddit.

Ilya hesitates before he lands on “sort of, yes.”

“That means no,” Shane says, leaning forward to pick the other controller up.

“You play hockey every day, and you still want to play this game,” Ilya parrots Shane’s earlier words, switching to a two-player game.

“Fuck off,” Shane mumbles.

They play a couple of rounds before Shane brings it back up, as if Ilya’s yoga idea was haunting him now, too.

“No one said anything?”

“So because you are losing, now you want to talk?” Ilya asks.

Shane’s eyebrows pull together, offence dripping from his features. “I fucking won.”

“Game glitched. It’s shitty version,” Ilya says simply, sliding the controller back on the table and flinging his feet into Shane’s lap.

“Shut up,” Shane says, but he makes no move to push Ilya off. “You’re as bad at that game as you are at hinting.”

“Not one person said a fucking thing,” Ilya continues, still in disbelief about the whole thing himself. “But I did get invited to yoga studio in Delaware.”

“Great.” Shane groans. “Maybe we need to get more, you know–” He waves a hand through the air, searching for the word.

“More what?”

“I don’t know. Obvious, I guess,” Shane settles on, but he doesn’t sound entirely sure.

“The stupid selfie with Pike was pretty fucking obvious,” Ilya points out.

Shane hums thoughtfully, and then, “Does Reddit still think you’re best friends?”

“Yes. Is terrible.”

Shane huffs a soft laugh, his fingers absentmindedly toying with the hem of one of Ilya’s sweatpants legs as he thinks. “Where did you even find that graphic? I thought it was one of the yoga instructors I follow when it came up.”

Ilya narrows his eyes. “I thought you do not follow me on Instagram?”

Shane averts his gaze, suddenly interested in the hockey game home screen still pulled up, his own face like a billboard looking back at him. “I don’t,” he murmurs, and it’s probably the least convincing thing Ilya has ever heard.

Ilya sits up straighter. “Shane–”

“What?” Shane says, still in a one-way conversation with the TV.

“Do you stalk me on Instagram?”

“What are you talking about?” Shane says, but his cheeks are suspiciously flushed suddenly.

“Oh my god–” Ilya laughs, leaning forward to grab Shane when he tries to stand up.

“I don’t,” Shane protests weakly, flopping back down, admitting defeat.

“Shane Hollander–”

“Ilya–”

“Shane. So what is it? You check every day in case I have posted on my story?”

“It’s not every day,” Shane defends, tries to defend weakly.

“Every other?” Ilya says, not even waiting a second for him to explain his way out of it.

“Shut up. No. Just–” Shane shrugs, “sometimes. Mostly since that time you told me you post love songs over lakes.”

Ilya should probably feel some level of embarrassment about that, but truthfully, he doesn’t. Maybe he’ll even post another before they leave. But, still, he says, “I did not tell you that.”

“Fine,” Shane concedes, halfway to an eyeroll. “Reddit then.”

That day in the bathroom, the day Ilya had discovered Reddit- what feels like years ago, but is only a handful of months comes back to him. The teasing about Instagram follows.

“It is easier, you know–” Ilya starts, and for some reason he’s nervous.

He hadn’t been that nervous about a whole lot over the past year, even when he probably should have been a shell of himself. He had been apprehensive, excited, frustrated, and on top of that he’d probably created a whole new emotion when he missed Shane as fiercely as he did.

But even when he felt it, he was so confident in their decisions, a burning coal in his chest reminding him what they were doing this for. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was because he wanted this so much, with every fibre of his being. Or maybe because he loved Shane so deeply, loved him in a way that made fear seem so out of reach.

They’d seamlessly fallen into this new version of themselves. From probably reckless rookies, to convincing themselves it was just sex, just some fun to blow off steam, to denying themselves how good it could be, to now. He doesn’t know how, because if he thinks about it, he would’ve guessed going from secret meetings in hotel rooms to domestic bliss should have been a harder transition.

But it hadn’t. It had been pretty fucking perfect, like this was where they were meant to end up.

“It is easier if you follow someone,” Ilya tries again, and he suddenly sounds like a fucking Instagram ad. “So you do not have to keep checking if they have posted shirtless selfie.”

Shane hums thoughtfully, finally turning his head to look at him, his cheeks still a little pink. “Is that so?”

Ilya’s chin tips in a nod. “Yes. Friends do that—”

“Hayden checks for your shirtless selfies?” Shane cuts in before Ilya can finish his sentence.

But before Ilya can throw back a retort, Shane is scrambling under Ilya’s legs, retrieving his phone from the couch cushion. He doesn’t say a word, just taps around on it until Ilya’s phone vibrates from the table. Ilya looks at him suspiciously and then leans over, picking it up to read the screen.

“Are you gonna follow me back?” Shane asks.

“This might be more romantic than when we told each other we love each other,” Ilya says, the notification on his screen staring back at him.

It’s something small, minuscule in the grand scheme of things—like going to a shitty dive bar with Hayden, or telling Marleau he was seeing someone—but it’s still something they haven’t been allowed until now.

“Fuck off,” Shane mutters, but Ilya can see he’s biting back a smile.

Ilya unlocks his phone and clicks the follow back button.

***

Ilya leans forward, sliding his beer and controller onto the table as he smirks to himself.

Shane is in the kitchen making dinner, and in the silence that followed, Ilya was hit with another idea. In hindsight, the early morning yoga hadn’t exactly been his best play unless he planned to take a vacation to Delaware. But this next idea is probably genius.

Foolproof, even.

He positions his beer next to the controller, the hockey video game still pulled up on the TV in the background. And then, for the final touch, he slides the game case over, placing it half in frame and half out of frame. Just enough to look unintentional.

It’s not the main focus of the shot, but if you looked hard enough, which he knows, thanks to his Reddit friends that people did, Shane Hollander’s very serious face-off face was there for anybody to see.

And why would Ilya Rozanov have that game? Because he and Shane Hollander are friends! See, genius.

Ilya leans back against the couch cushion and snaps the picture, making sure it’s as inconspicuous as possible. The only things you can see are the wood of the table, the game and controller, and Ilya’s beer.

“Are you gonna post that?” Shane asks from the doorway, almost making Ilya jump.

Ilya pulls the picture up for a closer look. It’s more obvious than the yoga, at least. “Maybe.” He meets Shane’s gaze. “If you do not mind.”

Shane shakes his head, but his fingers tighten around the door frame. “I don’t…”

Ilya looks up properly now, eyes landing on Shane’s face, his lips pursing slightly as he looks at Ilya’s setup. “But what?” he presses.

Shane hesitates as if he’s still thinking it through, and then says in one big breath, “I think I’ve got a better idea.”

***

“Move your arm,” Ilya calls from behind the phone, shuffling closer to the edge of the water.

Shane’s head whips up, pointedly looking around the rock he’s sitting on. “Move it where?”

“Up.” Ilya pauses, and then, “No. Down. You are blocking your face.”

“If I move anymore,” Shane huffs, trying to stay balanced. “I’m going to fucking fall in.”

“Would make good picture,” Ilya murmurs, biting back his laugh as Shane wobbles on the rock again.

Who knew this cottage was so dangerous? First the hammock and now a rock.

Shane shuffles backward, lowering his arm away from his face, just enough for his hoodie sleeve not to block a single letter, like Ilya had said.

“Hold the mug to your lips,” Ilya instructs next, watching Shane through the phone camera.

Shane blinks down at the mug, then at Ilya, glaring into his soul. “This was a stupid fucking idea.”

“You suggested it,” Ilya points out, such a big grin plastered to his face, it’s sort of aching his cheeks. It hadn’t left, not even for a split second since Shane’s brilliant, genius idea.

Whatever Ilya’s idea had been in the living room was long forgotten. He couldn’t name it if he tried. In fact, he probably should retire on ideas altogether. Why would he think of anything when his boyfriend was firing on all fronts like this?

Shane brings the Boston Raiders mug closer to his lips, mimicking drinking before he looks back up, his expression sour. “Why did I suggest this?”

As it turns out, Shane’s better idea had been to post a candid photo of himself using a Boston Raiders mug on his Instagram story. He’d explained that he’d spotted the mug when he’d been making dinner, and he thought it would work better than anything Ilya had suggested.

And that was all the go-ahead Ilya needed. They’d paused dinner to come outside and have an impromptu photoshoot. Ilya feels like he’s won ten Cups consecutively. This single picture might be better than any hockey accolade he ever achieves in his lifetime. He might even frame it. Or print multiple copies to send out to their friends and family. Maybe use them as wallpaper in their house someday.

“Higher.” Ilya focuses on the phone again before his boyfriend backs out and drops the mug to the bottom of the lake.

Shane leans forward, liquid sloshing over the sides. “It’s going to spill on my hoodie. I’m going to tip it in the water—”

“No, don’t,” Ilya calls. “I have Boston hoodie you can borrow next.”

That earns Ilya a Shane Hollander glare before he looks down at the mug again. “Why did you pour ginger ale in here?”

“To make it real. Okay, drink again. I will take picture this time,” Ilya promises. Shane doesn’t need to know that he’d been taking pictures from the moment they’d stepped outside.

Shane dramatically sips from the mug, looking out over the lake. He looks good, so good that Ilya debates saying fuck the hinting and getting on the rock with him. He’d seen Titanic; Jack and Rose could have both easily fit on that door. So surely he and Shane could both fit on the rock.

He was willing to test the limits, at least.

A few more seconds pass before Shane, still frozen in place, grits out through the side of his mouth, “Did you get it yet?”

“You need to look more…” Ilya pauses, swiping through the hundreds of photos he’d taken. “Natural,” he finishes, looking back up just in time to watch Shane grimace. “You look like a hostage.”

“Well, it’s kinda hard with this shitty team mug.” Shane holds it up again, more ginger ale spilling down the sides. “Why do we even have this?”

“Yuna bought it the week after she found out about us,” Ilya tells him, the memory warm in his chest.

“Course she did,” Shane mumbles, shuffling back further. “Okay, this is the time. I’m ready.”

“Yes. Like the last three times were the time,” Ilya says, but he holds the camera up anyway. “Look natural, I have seen your magazine shoots. Maybe try sexy Shane Hollander smoulder.”

Shane shoots Ilya another glare before he sips again, staring out over the lake, sexy Shane Hollander smoulder firmly in place despite his protests. In his defence, he does look more natural this time, even with the entire Boston Raiders logo on show.

“Got it,” Ilya says after a few seconds, finally putting him out of his misery.

Shane blows a loud sigh of relief, immediately standing up and hopping back onto the grass, handing the mug over like it’s about to detonate.

Ilya takes the mug happily, holding his phone out between them, the picture he’d just taken pulled up. “This might be the hottest you have ever looked,” he says honestly.

“Send it to me, I’ll post it and then maybe throw my phone in the lake.”

“Let’s cancel more photoshoots,” Ilya mumbles, the steady beat of Shane’s heart under his ear lulling him into that peacefulness that could drag you into a deep sleep if you let it.

“We can’t,” Shane murmurs back, too immersed in his book.

“No one will miss us,” Ilya insists. “We can stay here.”

“Nathalia and Lorina will track us down for starters, and then our coaches. And then probably Hayden. And Marleau. Can you imagine the headlines—”

“Worldwide search party, and they still would not find us because Mr Real Estate built his cottage in middle of forest.”

That finally gets Shane’s attention, his hockey book forgotten in favor of looking at Ilya seriously. “There’s literally a Costco an hour away.”

Ilya lifts his head to meet his gaze. “I know. I am trying to drink through year's supply of Coke in one weekend.”

“Fine,” Shane huffs. “I won’t buy them next time.”

“You will not need to; there are still seven thousand in the refrigerator.” Ilya hides his smirk by pressing a quick kiss to Shane’s chest.

“Everyone will suspect you because of the mug anyway,” Shane says flatly. “You left a paper trail.”

Ilya scoffs. “Or you framed me.”

Shane laughs, the sound vibrating through Ilya’s body, easy and soft in the dim bedroom. “Reddit would love that.”

Their last nights at the cottage were simultaneously Ilya’s favorite and least favorite. It didn’t matter if it was a week or a stolen two days; every time without fail, there was a switch. They became two magnets, glued together as if they were trying to wring out every last drop of their time together.

And for a clingy couple on a regular day, it reached critical levels.

Ilya had cooked dinner with Shane wrapped around him from behind, throwing out commentary about bell peppers and something J.J. had texted him until Ilya had to tackle him out of the kitchen to dish up without the distraction of Shane Hollander’s lips pressing non-dinner-time-appropriate kisses against his neck.

They’d eaten dinner in front of the fire outside, their thighs pressed so closely that if either of them moved an inch their bowls would clink together.

Then while Shane was doing the dishes, Ilya had hopped in the shower. Thirty seconds later, Shane had joined him, mumbling about saving water as Ilya had pressed him against the wall, peppering kisses down his body. They’d traded lazy blowjobs, the slow day they’d shared still living over their skin like a smattering of goosebumps.

And now, Ilya is sprawled on top of Shane, their legs tangled together as he watches the way Shane gets super into a passage of his book, not even realizing he’s silently mouthing the words as he reads.

“They would never find us here,” Ilya says again, like if he just tries a little harder, he might convince Shane it’s the best idea anyone has ever had since the Boston Raiders mug photoshoot on the lake.

Shane looks up from his emotional compensation hockey book again, his eyes soft behind his glasses now. He tips his chin down, kissing Ilya’s nose quickly. “We can try and get away sometime when the foundation launches. To celebrate together.”

Ilya supposes it was as good as he was gonna get. “We could throw a party.”

Shane looks at him a little longer, and it’s so similar to their first time at the cottage that Ilya’s chest flutters. “Who would we invite?”

Ilya shrugs. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. But that’s what people did when they launched foundations, right? “Your mom and dad,” he decides.

Shane huffs a laugh. “So, just dinner?”

“Yes. But with champagne. And maybe little cupcakes with the logo on.”

“Hayden,” Shane supplies.

“Jackie,” Ilya says, “she is the better Pike anyway.”

“Marleau. You just can’t be all over me if you invite him. Strictly business partners.”

Ilya groans. “That can be how he finds out. Surprise.”

Shane’s nose scrunches, but he puts his book down, letting his hands fall to Ilya’s cheeks instead. “Do you think it’s weird—”

“Yes,” Ilya cuts in.

Shane’s mouth falls open. “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

Ilya can’t help the smile that pulls his lips at the affronted look on Shane’s face. “I still know my answer is yes.”

“I was going to say,” Shane continues, tilting Ilya’s face back toward him. “That it’s weird that everything big for us happens at this cottage.” He looks around the bedroom quickly before his steady gaze lands back on Ilya.

“The Irina Foundation was created right here,” Ilya says, a suckerpunch of nostalgia hitting him in the stomach.

What was once a plan formulated on a heady mix of sleep deprivation and feelings neither of them had the bravery to name yet- a way to desperately claw themselves away from the cards they’d been dealt was suddenly this beautiful thing they’d put their whole selves into.

Ilya doesn’t think he could’ve predicted they’d end up here a year ago. He didn’t know anything about creating a charity from the ground up. He didn’t know anything about having a boyfriend.

He can’t help it; he pushes up, crashing his lips against Shane’s, melting into the feeling of him, letting this beautiful man overtake his senses. The only person in the world he’d sit through four-hour meetings about shades of blue and go to shitty dive bars for.

He pulls back, and Shane’s eyes flick from where they’re sprawled in the middle of the bed to his designated side. “Technically, The Irina Foundation was created a little to the left.”

Ilya huffs a laugh, and Shane dips his chin again to press another chaste kiss to his lips. Ilya deepens it for just a second, like he’s drinking his fill while he can, licking up into Shane’s mouth until he pulls back with a contented sigh. See, they were magnets.

“I love you,” Ilya hums softly.

“I love you, too.” Shane smiles. “Another big thing. You told me you loved me here.”

“You followed me on Instagram here,” Ilya throws back just as quickly.

Shane groans again, his smile falling as his head thuds against the headboard. “I thought we weren’t talking about that.”

“Not talking about what?” Ilya says innocently.

Shane lifts his head to glare at him. “The—”

“Oh, your worldwide viral Instagram story?” Ilya smirks. He can’t help it. “One with Boston mug?”

“It’s not viral,” Shane mumbles.

It was kinda viral. On the hockey gossip Reddit at least. There were multiple threads about it, Montreal and Boston fans going back and forth on what it could mean.

Was Shane Hollander trying to get in Ilya Rozanov’s head? Or were they actually just friends? It was the big question on everyone's lips.

They’d abandoned their phones after that, a compromise for not throwing it in the lake. They’d only checked them again when Lorina and Nathalia had blown them up. Thirty minutes later, they’d both been emailed a joint calendar for the next few weeks loaded with foundation stuff, which had felt pointed to say the least.

“It’s good at drumming up interest for the foundation at least,” Shane says. “And then we have to schedule that meeting with whoever we want to coach for the first summer.”

“I want to tell Marleau,” Ilya says suddenly, the words leaving his mouth without much thought. He hadn’t been thinking about it, not really, but now it was out there, sitting in the space between them. “About us,” he pointlessly clarifies.

Shane’s mouth snaps shut, whatever he was about to say next dying on his tongue as he blinks down at Ilya, probably confused at the sudden pivot. “You do?”

Ilya nods, mostly because he doesn’t know how to explain the thoughts swirling round his head. “Yes.”

Shane knew he wanted to eventually tell Marleau about them, about him. But what he didn’t know was that Ilya had been thinking about it for months, ever since that stupid fucking drunken outing at the hotel bar, a low thrum in his mind every time he and Marleau hung out. On the ice, he could switch it off; it was ingrained into him over years of repressing things he didn’t particularly want to think about, but off the ice, it felt wrong.

It felt wrong when Marly dragged him to the bar, non-stop talking about how lucky he was to be locked down, Roz. Or how he always had one eye over his shoulder when he was texting his fucking boyfriend. Or when they were sharing a shitty hotel room with shitty ice cream and Marleau told him the charity was fucking awesome, and Ilya immediately jumped to come up with some cover story about changing the narrative on the rivalry because they were older now, and it seemed stupid to carry it on.

He felt like a fucking fraud, his first instinct to deflect from the truth, or at least parts of it. Arguably, the most important parts, the parts he wanted to talk about the most. He knew he wasn’t a fraud. He knew it was self-preservation; he was accustomed to years of keeping this thing under wraps because it made more sense.

But, now, he doesn’t think it does make more sense. As time passes, and he builds this life he never imagined for himself outside of hockey, everything is starting to make less and less sense.

Why doesn’t everyone in his life know that he loves Shane Hollander? Why should they have to hide at all, but especially from people he called friends? Why is he regularly forced to hang out with Hayden Pike, and most of the time, even though he hid behind jokes, it was a relief for someone to know everything?

He’s thought about it enough, until his head hurt and his teeth ached from clenching his jaw. He wants more than anything to prove that poisonous voice in the back of his head wrong, the one that tells him that this is something he should keep a secret. In the words of Shane Hollander, he needed to pull the band-aid off, consequences be damned.

And if the consequences were terrible, then he had Shane, and he had Yuna and David, and he had the stupid fucking cottage where their biggest moments seemed to happen like some twisted stroke of fate he couldn’t explain.

That was the difference between him and Shane. Shane had people to tell. And even though Ilya knew that Shane painstakingly telling multiple people—the same people who had become Ilya’s people, too—he was gay and dating his rival wasn’t something to be jealous of, he was. As stupid as it sounded, Ilya wanted someone to tell himself, too.

Shane’s face softens, his hands settling gently on Ilya’s jaw. “Okay. If you’re ready.”

“I am,” Ilya confirms. “Next time I see him.”

“Tuesday?” Shane asks.

Ilya nods, his newfound confidence about this carrying him through. “I just want to tell someone. I know it sounds—”

Shane shakes his head, cutting him off. “It doesn’t sound anything.”

Ilya pauses, thinking his words over before he lands on, “Is it awful?”

Shane’s mouth tips into a small, slightly sad smile. “Telling people?”

Ilya hums, and Shane’s expression shifts to pensive, always so thorough in his words when they had conversations like this. “It’s fucking nerve-wracking. Obviously my parents were–” He nearly shudders, going a little wide-eyed at the memory before he looks back at Ilya. “You know.”

Ilya nods again. “Yes, I know. Traumatizing. The reason you triple-check the locks on the doors before we fuck.”

Shane huffs a laugh, then continues, “telling Hayden was…” He hesitates, nibbling his lip. “Fine, I guess. I just blurted it out and swore him to secrecy in the same sentence. I think he was just fucking confused. And then he guessed about you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ilya says, deciding total honesty is the way, and Shane nods in understanding.

“I know. It’s the thought in the back of your head that questions whether they’ll look at you differently. Right?”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “And then once I have said it, it’s out there. I can’t take it back.”

“Do you want it out there?”

“I don’t want to feel like it’s in control of me anymore,” Ilya admits. “So, same thing.”

Shane opens his mouth to say something, but Ilya keeps speaking, needing to get it out. “I want Marly to know that the person he always teases me about is you.” He clears his throat. “I want everyone to know about you because you are the most important person in my life.”

“You’re the most important person in my life, too,” Shane says, his hold tightening as if on instinct.

Ilya reaches up, running a gentle thumb over Shane’s cheek. “I want everybody to know. But Marleau is a good start.”

Shane’s chin tips in a nod. “Okay.”

“I will tell him,” Ilya says. “And then we can make out at our foundation party.”

Shane huffs an amused laugh. “Not happening.”

Ilya steps back, adjusting the cactus on the window ledge a little to the left, right where the sun filters in in the mornings. Yuna had told him that more sunlight was better than not enough, and he had to leave again tonight, so a change of scenery it was for his thriving, prickly friend. It had survived his trip to the cottage with flying colors, and he was planning on continuing the momentum.

Just as he’s sending off a picture to Yuna for approval, his door knocks. He turns in place. He hadn’t been expecting anything, or anyone. He had to leave for the airport in an hour. He slides his phone back into his pocket a little warily and heads to the door, quickly glancing through the window. On his porch stands a delivery guy, a small box clasped in his hands.

He pulls the door open, and the delivery guy hands the box to him, wishing him a good day before he leaves. Ilya looks down at it, eyes trailing the front. It’s addressed to him. Fucking Hayden. Fucking Shane for giving Hayden his address, and subjecting him to this torture. He pushes the door closed again, heading back to the kitchen, shaking the box as he goes.

It doesn’t feel like a plant. Whatever is inside is heavy, hitting the sides of the box with a dull thud.

He slides it on the counter, pulling it open with more force than probably necessary. He’d just accepted becoming a father of one cactus; he didn’t need to add another to the mix yet. He wasn’t ready. His window ledge wasn’t big enough.

But it’s not a cactus. Or any type of plant. On top of the parcel, blocking his view of what's actually inside, is a note. He pulls it out and quickly reads it, already cursing Hayden under his breath.

Sorry for the blind item. Here’s your emotional compensation gift. No popcorn maker, sorry. This is the next best thing.
-Jane

Oh. So, not Hayden. Jane. Shane. He bites back his smile as he tentatively sets the note on the counter and pulls the bubble-wrapped gift out of the box. Shane is much smarter than Hayden. His cactus hadn’t even arrived in a box. It had just appeared ominously on his porch like a bad omen. He starts unwrapping, thankful for the bubble wrap after the shaking incident, until he realises.

It’s a fucking Montreal Metros mug.

He can’t help it. His face splits into a wide grin, a laugh rumbling up his chest, filling the empty kitchen. Fuck whatever dreams he’d had about a fancy popcorn maker with ten settings. This is somehow better. He mentally adds this entire situation to the running list of things he could never have predicted about his life this time last year. Then, he walks across the kitchen, opening the cabinet where he keeps his mugs, and slides it in.

He would never be seen dead with it in public, but here, behind closed doors, he could admit that it was a pretty perfect first emotional compensation gift.

“Why the fuck did Lorina come here?” Marleau asks, not for the first time today, as he pulls his hoodie over his wet hair. He looks at Ilya. “Did she tell you?”

Ilya shakes his head a little too quickly, turning to his bag to rummage around, hoping Marleau hadn’t noticed. “No, nobody tells me anything,” he says to his gym clothes, trying to keep his voice even.

It wasn’t his first lie of the day. Or even his second or third. Every time Marleau had brought up this spontaneous meeting that had appeared on both of their calendars for this afternoon, and he’d brought it up a lot, Ilya had easily agreed.

Yes, Marly, it was weird Lorina was meeting with them both at the same time.

No, I have no idea what it’s about. Hah, yeah. Maybe about the paparazzi pictures again.

No, we are probably not being joint-fired because that’s not a thing.

Yes, it must be important if it’s directly after practice.

Ilya knew why it was after practice. It was because that’s when he’d scheduled it with Lorina. If it went wrong somehow, he had an escape plan. He could bury his head in the sand until they were forced to be in the same room again.

But now, with Marleau standing in front of him in an empty locker room, assessing the calendar on his phone with a furrowed brow, Ilya is pretty sure he’s regretting it. It had been hanging over him all day, like a dark storm cloud he couldn’t shake. He’d been distracted in the gym this morning, miscounting his reps as his thoughts had swirled in ten different directions. Then at practice, half the team had asked him if he was okay. Connors had told him he looked sick.

He was fucking sick, the tight knots in his stomach making him queasy. He’d moved countries alone as a teenager. He’d played insanely anticipated hockey games for all of his adult life. He’d harboured a secret love affair with his arch rival behind closed doors for the better part of the past decade, and yet he’d never felt this uneasy, not even close.

He was single-handedly discovering something deeper than nerves. It had to be a scientific discovery of some kind—

“We have ten minutes, do you wanna head down?” Marleau asks, breaking Ilya out of his stupor as he slides his phone back in his pocket with a grumble.

“Um, yes,” Ilya quickly agrees, a fresh wave of apprehension prickling over his skin. “Marly–” he tries as Marleau turns away.

Marleau glances over his shoulder, hoisting his bag on his shoulder. “What?”

Ilya’s brain short-circuits, everything he was about to say vanishing as Marleau waits expectantly. Not that he knew what exactly he was going to say. Probably some variation of I’m bisexual and that mysterious woman you keep bringing up? Yeah, it’s Shane Hollander. Yep, the one you gave a concussion to. But instead of any of that, he just stands, rooted in place as he stares at his best friend.

How the fuck did Shane do this? Multiple times. He needed to give him twenty emotional compensation gifts.

Marleau huffs a laugh. “You fuckin’ glitching on me, Roz?”

That gets Ilya moving. He shakes his head. “Ha. Sorry. I was going to ask what room Lorina is meeting us in?”

“The ghost office on the second floor,” Marleau says. He huffs, striding across the locker room, talking over his shoulder when he says, “adds to the fucking weird vibes going on.”

Ilya forces a laugh, praying it sounds at least semi-natural as he follows Marleau out of the locker room.

He should have told Marleau already. At his request, Lorina had penned the meeting in for the end of the week, and he’d felt good about it when it appeared on his calendar. Four days was more than enough time to psych himself up and rip that fucking band-aid off. He would tell Marleau, and then the meeting would happen. Lorina would threaten him lightly and professionally, and everyone would finally be on the same fucking page.

They could all move on, and the boulder that permanently lived on Ilya’s chest, making it hard for him to breathe sometimes, would hopefully lift, even just a little.

Easy. He’d wonder why he was ever worried?

But then, the days passed, and he tried. He tried so hard. But every time he opened his mouth to start, every variation suddenly felt wrong in his mouth. Or there were too many people around. Or Marleau was too busy complaining about the latest love of his life.

Shane had told him that last one was a shitty excuse. And then he’d told him to text Marleau. Or call him.

Ilya did neither.

Which leads them here. Ten minutes out from their meeting, and Marleau didn’t know anything. Not about him, not about Shane, and Ilya still can’t force the words out.

“This shits so weird,” Marleau says again as he pushes the door to the office open, his head on a swivel as he does a quick sweep. But Lorina’s not here yet. They still had nine minutes and twenty seconds. Not that Ilya’s counting.

Ilya hums in more easy fucking agreement, beelining across the room to collapse into the chair. He’s pretty sure if he looked at his watch, his heart rate would be spiking. Which is funny because earlier Varkov had slapped the back of his hand against his forehead and asked if he was gonna fucking puke.

“Why the fuck do you look terrified?” Marleau asks suddenly, his features pinching in concern as he stares at Ilya from the opposite chair.

Ilya hadn’t even realised he’d sat down.

“I fucking don’t,” he defends, and it’s weak even to his own ears.

Marleau leans forward. “You look like you saw a fucking ghost.”

Ilya swallows thickly, eyes flicking to his watch. Eight minutes. Here goes nothing.

“I have something to tell you,” he says carefully, as if he’s double-checking every word as it comes out of his mouth.

Marleau hums, clearly not all that interested in Ilya’s giant revelation as his eyes bounce around the room. “That door freaks me out,” he says, glancing over his shoulder again with a flinch.

“The door?” Ilya repeats slowly.

“Yeah. Closes on its own and shit.” Marleau almost shudders. “Kane said one time he was in that storage closet down the hall looking for extra gloves and the door slammed—”

But instead of explaining the concept of a draft of air, what Ilya does do is blurt, “I’m bisexual.”

The words land awkwardly, Ilya’s blood running cold as Marleau’s mouth snaps shut, his ghost story tapering off until that eerie fucking silence he couldn’t stop talking about surrounds them.

“You’re…” Marleau trails off, his mouth opening and closing once more for good measure. “You…” he tries again.

“Bisexual,” Ilya fills in as he searches Marleau’s face for anything he’d feared he’d see. But Marleau’s face is unreadable, and Ilya doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

Where the fuck is Lorina?

“Is not a bad word,” he adds when the silence stretches.

“Fuck you.” Marleau shakes his head. “I didn’t say it was. You’re–” he waves a hand in the space between their chairs, “–bisexual.”

Ilya nods, a little sarcastically. Probably a defence mechanism of some kind. “That means that I like—”

“I know what it means, dickhead.”

Ilya waits him out, mostly because the look on Marleau’s face is kind of amusing now, his brows pulled together in a confused pinch.

He clears his throat. “I fuck both.”

Marleau glares at him. “Are you a fucking dictionary? I got it.”

“Okay.”

More silence, and then, Marleau finally speaks again, “Okay. Is that it?”

Ilya shifts in his chair, his turn to glance over his shoulder just in case Lorina can save him. But he’s not that lucky. “No.”

Marleau’s eyes widen. “Wait.”

“Whatever you are going to say. It is not—”

“That girl you’re seeing.” Marleau’s eyes go wider, and Ilya can see him putting puzzle pieces together. Probably not the right ones, but still. “That’s the reason you’re so secretive and fucking weird.”

Ilya quickly shakes his head. “No—”

“It’s because it’s not a girl. It’s a guy,” Marleau decides.

Ilya pauses, because technically yes. Him dating a guy is shocking; it would shake the world of hockey, and probably some of his teammates, too. But it’s not the whole picture. Who Shane actually was was so much more complicated than him just being the guy Ilya was seeing. He was also his biggest rival, and Montreal’s fucking Captain. If Shane were just a guy that Ilya was seeing, some boring guy, in a boring job like tech or accounting, then they wouldn’t be in this mess.

They would be in some kind of mess, but not this messy tangle of rivalries and secret hotel rooms.

“It is a guy,” Ilya says carefully.

Marleau’s lips tip into a self-satisfied smirk, clearly proud of his stellar detective work. “I knew it. When can I meet him? He like hockey?”

That boulder in Ilya’s chest lifts, not by much, but enough for relief to course through his body. But then, just as quickly as the relief had flooded in, the second half of that sentence hits him at full pelt. Does he like hockey?

“You have already met him,” Ilya throws out, like if he gives it to Marleau piece by piece, it wouldn’t be so alarming.

Marleau’s brow furrows further, everything he thought he’d just discovered crumbling in front of Ilya’s eyes. But before either of them can speak, Ilya to explain, and Marleau probably to ask another stupid question, the door opens. Lorina walks in, the click of her heels cutting into the loaded silence.

“Hello, my two favorite delinquents,” she says cheerfully, closing the door behind her.

Instead of Marly throwing his usual quip back, he turns to Ilya, his face pinching in confusion.

Lorina, none the wiser because Ilya had told her that he would tell Marleau everything before whatever this was, pulls the desk chair out, settling across from them. She places her trusty notebook on the desk, looking between them expectantly. “Hello?”

“Hello Lorina,” Ilya says back, on behalf of him and Marleau, because Marleau is still a little wide-eyed.

Lorina opens the notebook, flicking through the pages, and Marleau leans closer, his voice hardly above a whisper when he says, “Who the fuck, dude? Is it someone on the team? I thought I had a good gaydar.”

“I can hear you,” Lorina immediately cuts in.

Marleau’s head snaps up. “Oh, shit—”

“She knows,” Ilya supplies, mostly because Marleau looks like he might faint, and he can’t deal with that on top of everything else right now.

Marleau collapses back into his chair, his hand coming to his chest. “Fucking hell, Roz. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I thought I’d- what do they call it? Like, fucking outed you.”

“This is exactly why we needed the meeting,” Lorina mutters, placing her hands over her notebook, looking a little scary all of a sudden.

The woman might only be five foot nothing, but the way she’s staring at them right now had even Ilya a little on edge. And he hadn’t fucking done anything. Apart from falling in love with his rival. He guesses that was kind of a PR nightmare, logistically.

Ilya clears his throat, straightening in his chair. “He does not know the…other thing.”

“Ahh,” Lorina says, gesturing across the desk. “Who wants to do the honors?”

“What the fuck is going on?” Marleau lowers his voice, speaking again.

“What the fuck did you say?” Ilya asks. “Who the fuck is going to hear you? The ghost?”

“Not funny,” Marleau warns, before he lowers his voice again, still quiet but at least at a decibel that Ilya can make out. “Is it someone on the team?”

Ilya stares at him blankly. “Are you asking me if I am dating someone on the team?”

Marleau’s chin tips in a nod, his facial expression screaming that he thinks Ilya is an idiot. “Yes, why else would it need a meeting?”

Lorina raises her hand, and they both pause to turn toward her. “Quick question for you to think over, Cliff. Why would we need you, Cliff Marleau, pain in my ass, in an HR meeting about workplace relationships between him–” she gestures to Ilya, “–and someone who isn’t you?”

Marleau’s jaw drops again. “Is it Varkov?”

“I know Varkov is your buddy, but that’s not exactly what I meant,” Lorina says.

“Varkov has a fucking wife,” Ilya throws back, his brow furrowing. “You were his best man.”

Marleau’s shoulders relax a smidge, blowing out a breath. “Oh, yeah—”

“Why would it be fucking Varkov?”

Marleau shrugs. “He checked your temperature today.” He recreates it, slapping the back of his hand to his own forehead. He looks at Lorina for some kind of backup. “Kind of intimate, right?”

Lorina just silently stares at him, tapping her pen against her open notebook.

“No, dickhead. It’s no one on the fucking team. They are all fucking gross anyway,” Ilya says, firmly shutting that down before it spirals into more nonsense.

“What’s your type then?” Marleau asks conversationally as if they’re not in the middle of a fucking meeting.

“We only have the room booked for the next thirty minutes, so if we could hurry past this game of guess who, that would be ideal,” Lorina cuts in, as polite as ever.

“It’s Hollander,” Ilya says, intently watching the potted plant—much deader than his cactus—in the corner as the words leave his mouth on a single breath.

There are a few seconds of silence, and then Marleau starts laughing, loud in the small office. If anything were going to startle this supposed ghost, it would be him and his big mouth. “Fucking funny, Roz.” He lightly punches his shoulder. “Who actually is it?”

Ilya watches Lorina avert her eyes, apparently weirdly interested in the peeling wallpaper to the right of her. She should try the plant; it was great. He drags his gaze back to Marleau, and he’s still waiting expectantly.

This wasn’t pulling the band-aid off. This was like when they’d made fantasy hockey bets and the losers had to wax their legs, but Cadyn didn’t know what the fuck he was doing so every wax strip had been pulled off in two. Painfully. Torturously slowly. Made him want to scream.

“I’m not fucking lying,” he tries already knowing it’s going to be pointless.

“Yeah,” Marleau says with a sarcastic tip of his chin. “But I know you’re fucking joking.”

Ilya looks at him seriously. “I’m not fucking joking.”

“The charity,” Lorina mumbles helpfully from where her nose is now buried back in her notebook.

Ilya watches something dawn on Marleau then, some kind of real-time realisation happening finally. “Hollander?” he asks again.

“The one you gave concussion to, yes,” Ilya confirms, thinking back to Shane’s texts.

“The charity you’re working on is with Hollander. And it’s…” Marleau trails off, waiting for Ilya to fill in the gaps.

Ilya jumps in, just happy they’ve finally got movement on this conversation. “The charity is real. Everything I told you about is real: the summer camps, suicide prevention charities. It is all true.”

Marleau nods. “And about putting the rivalry to the side because of–” He waves a vague hand through the air.

“Because of us, yes. Also helping us be seen in public without…” he pauses until he lands on, “people losing their minds.”

“That’s kind of fucking genius.”

Ilya can’t help the smile that quickly crosses his face. “It was Shane’s idea.”

Marleau laughs, and then lifts a hand to cover his mouth as if he can take it back. “Sorry. Shane is weird. Like that’s fucking Hollander, you know?”

Marleau had no idea how much Ilya knew about that. “Yes. Hollander. Shane. Whatever is fine. He does not mind.”

Marleau nods again, but he still looks a little bewildered. “So, the airport was…”

“Shane,” Ilya finishes.

“That’s fucking reckless, dude—” Ilya doesn’t have time to protest about Marleau being a fucking eavesdropper because he continues, “and that conversation we had in the hotel that time I forgot my room number?”

“Shane,” Ilya confirms. It was always Shane. It always had been, and always would be.

A smile tugs at Marleau’s lips then, and he repeats his words from all those months ago, amended now, “He’s the one?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, maybe a little too quickly, but he guesses there was no point in evading anything now.

“The hotel room last month, you were on FaceTime with him.” Marleau’s eyes widen again. “I met your fucking boyfriend, dude.”

“You gave my fucking boyfriend a concussion—”

“Jesus Christ,” Marleau mutters. “Why didn’t you knock me out?”

“I wanted to,” Ilya tells him honestly.

“So, you were working on charity stuff when I was looking for spoons to celebrate the fact you still had a girlfriend?”

Ilya shakes his head. They’d actually been talking about Hayden Pike, which was another conversation altogether. “We were not working on charity stuff.”

Marleau lowers his voice again, a smirk blooming on his face. “Phone sex stuff—”

“Okay,” Lorina cuts in, slamming her pen on the desk with a little more force than necessary. “Glad we got that out of the way. Ilya loves Shane, Shane loves Ilya. How beautiful is that? Truly my favorite PR nightmare. Any more questions before we move on?”

Marleau faces forward, his spine ramrod straight as he looks at Lorina, and it makes Ilya want to laugh. But before anyone can move on, Marleau raises his hand.

“Yes, Cliff,” Lorina says with all the enthusiasm as could be expected after that painfully slow revelation.

Marly looks between them once more, shaking his head in disbelief. “What the actual fuck?”

They all laugh, and Ilya feels more of that boulder lift, his chest filling with a lightness he didn’t know was possible.

***

“How the fuck did you do that more than once?” Ilya asks down the phone, a little breathless as he scans the empty hallway, adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

The rest of the meeting had gone as well as could be expected. Lorina had told Marly it was now in his contract that he had to not just second-guess everything he said in a crowd, but third-guess it, too. Marleau had given her a scout's honor, then admitted he’d never actually been in the scouts because he’d been too busy on the ice.

And then Lorina had left, and Marleau had pulled Ilya into a bone-crushing hug in the eerie fucking office, and told him he was a fucking dumbass and he should’ve told him years ago. That he didn’t care, and the Hollander thing was a little weird, but nothing he couldn’t get used to.

And it was so reminiscent of when Ilya had told him about the charity; it made him wonder why he was ever worried.

Ilya kind of feels like he’s dreaming, on the edge of something, a heady mix of adrenaline and relief warring together like the world's best or worst cocktail; he wasn’t entirely sure yet.

Shane huffs a laugh down the phone, and it just adds to Ilya’s warring emotions and his desire to tackle Shane down and just breathe him in to let this entire situation sink in.

“You okay?” Shane checks.

“Yes. I feel…” Ilya pauses, pushing the doors open, letting fresh air finally hit his face. “Fucking amazing, I think,” he admits after a second.

“The relief's weird, right? I felt like I wasn’t real for a solid four hours after we left Mom and Dad's.”

“So fucking weird,” Ilya agrees. “It’s weird that there are no more secrets. With Marleau, at least.”

“How did he take it?”

“He is a fucking dumbass. He asked if I was dating Varkov, told me he had good gaydar—”

Shane snorts. “Clearly fucking not.”

Ilya shakes his head, thinking back over the entire conversation. “Then thought I was joking when I told him it was you.”

“Hayden thought the same,” Shane huffs. “He made me pinky swear.”

“Is it that unbelievable?”

There’s a loaded pause, and then Shane says, “Yeah. Kinda.”

Ilya can’t help but laugh. “Yes, you are probably right.”

“I usually am,” Shane says in that smug tone of voice that Ilya can’t get enough of. It wasn’t helping his whole wishing he was with Shane right this second, maybe for the rest of his life situation he had going on. “Like when I told you it wouldn’t be that bad telling Marleau.”

“Oh, it was fucking bad, Shane,” Ilya corrects. “I imagine it is how you feel when you lose the Cup every year.”

“Shut up, asshole. Did you invite him to the party?”

Ilya smiles. He probably looks crazy, walking through the parking lot, smiling to himself, but he doesn’t think he’s ever cared less about anything. “I thought we weren’t calling it a party?”

Shane hums noncommittally, and Ilya can hear a shuffling sound, something sliding across the counter.

“What is that noise?” he asks.

“Cupcakes,” Shane says simply.

“With Irina Foundation logo on?” Ilya asks, and he’s pretty sure his grin gets impossibly wider. He ducks his head, just a little. In case anyone's around.

“Yeah,” Shane admits softly, and Ilya is certain he can hear the smile in his voice, too. “Cobalt blue. I gave the bakers the hue code thing, so it’s the exact right shade. They look good.”

That warms Ilya’s heart again, and he doesn’t know how much more he can take. Party poppers are going off in his chest, perfect for their party that Shane had refused to call a party just yesterday.

“Send me picture,” Ilya insists. “From every angle. And one of you holding them.”

“I’m not setting my phone on self-timer to take a picture with some cupcakes—”

“Selfie would work,” Ilya cuts in.

“You can have one picture, then you can see them properly at the party,” Shane tells him.

“Okay,” Ilya reluctantly agrees.

Shane waits a beat, and then says, “You aren’t ready for the balloons.”

***

Ilya stands in the doorway, feeling weirdly emotional as he watches the most important people in their lives scattered around the deck, drinks in hand as they mingle.

It turns out Shane had gone overboard, even if he had insisted this morning, as they were trying to figure out where to put a hundred balloons in the colors of the Irina Foundation, that it wasn’t a party. It was a lowkey get together.

Ilya didn’t know if his boyfriend knew what lowkey meant. In every corner of the yard, there were clusters of balloons tied with golden ribbons. Even the hammock had a balloon attached to it, floating ominously. It looked like a smurfs fucking wedding out here.

David is talking to Lorina and Nathalia, his eyes flicking to the cottage every couple of minutes, waiting for Yuna to come back outside. If Ilya had to guess, he would say that Yuna had already pressed Nathalia and Lorina on both his and Shane’s schedules for the entire summer. And now, David was doing some kind of damage control.

In the last few weeks, Yuna had started texting Ilya one-on-one, asking him if he’d be willing to do deals for different brands. At first, he’d been caught off guard. That was a job for his agent, not his future mother-in-law. But then, Shane had peeked over at his phone one night, huffing a laugh before he pressed a soft kiss to Ilya’s cheek, muttering, ‘Don’t fight it. It’s easier that way,’ and Ilya’s chest had filled with that familiar warmth.

So, he stopped fighting it. He let himself be looked after not only with the good ice cream from the grocery store, but with brand deals, too.

But right now, on her relaxing weekend, her schedule free of any hockey deals, Yuna Hollander is inside, assessing Ilya’s brand-new cactus—a gift from Hayden to celebrate the launch of the Foundation. Most people would bring champagne, maybe a cake, or even just a congratulations. But not Hayden Pike.

Hayden Pike, cacti enthusiast, and Marleau are sitting by the unlit fire pit, beers in hand, deep in conversation about who knows what. Maybe hockey, maybe how weird this all was. They seemed to be getting on, though.

When Ilya had invited Marleau, he’d assumed he would say no. It was a lot to jump on a plane to spend one day here, and then turn right back around. But, surprisingly, he’d been enthusiastic, immediately pulling his phone out to book a flight, telling Ilya it was the least he could do to make up for lost time.

He hadn’t brought a cactus, but what he had bought was another apology to Shane for the collarbone and concussion.

A familiar hand wraps around Ilya’s waist. He turns to find Shane, smiling at him while holding up an already opened bottle of champagne. “Want to toast privately first?”

Ilya’s lips tip into a smile. “A private toast. I am so lucky, Shane Hollander.”

Shane hums, a glimmer in his eyes as he lets go of Ilya’s waist to hold up his other hand.

And it’s not champagne flutes, or even regular glasses, but instead the matching Boston Raiders and Montreal Metros mugs.

“Really?” Ilya asks as Shane hands him the Metros one with a smirk.

Shane just ignores him, pouring champagne into the two mugs before leaning to put the champagne bottle on the floor.

Ilya looks down at it, in direct line of pretty much everyone's pathway back into the cottage. “Put it on the table. It will spill.”

“You’re starting to sound like me.” Shane grins wider, holding the Boston mug out, tipping it toward the lake. “For old times' sake?”

Ilya nods, so much love coursing through his veins he kind of feels like a puddle. He doesn’t know what Shane had been talking about that day after the meeting with Marly. This feeling had lasted more than four hours. He was so deliriously happy, he didn’t know where to put it most days. They had so far to go, further than he could even comprehend, but right now, all he could really appreciate was how far they’d come.

“Yes. Old times' sake,” he agrees.

Although something tells Ilya they might be using these mugs for years to come. Maybe they could even use them for their gross herbal tea when they were eighty, and couldn’t stand on the ice anymore, let alone chase a puck.

Ilya clears his throat, turning away from the party to face Shane. “I want to say something first.”

“Okay,” Shane agrees easily.

“This has been the best year of my life,” Ilya starts, and it’s a little wobbly already.

Shane’s mouth tips into a smile, but his eyes are a little watery suddenly. He shakes his head when Ilya stops speaking, looking at him seriously. “Don’t look at me like that because I will cry.”

“Shane.” Ilya groans. “That was only the first sentence.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Shane says, wiping his eyes quickly. He nods, steeling himself as he holds the mug up. “It’s been the best year of my life, too.”

“Impatient,” Ilya tuts, holding his mug up for round two. He clears his throat again, ridding the emotion there. “Even though it has been fucking stressful, I would not be half as happy as I am right now if you did not come up with all of this. There is no one in the world I would want to do this with apart from you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. So much,” Shane says immediately, his voice taking on that soft edge that makes Ilya want to kiss every freckle on his face. “But it wasn’t just me. It was both of us.”

Ilya shakes his head, because he can’t take credit for how this began. At least not the very beginning. “No. You took the first leap for both of us at the cottage. You stayed up all night thinking.”

“I love you,” Shane says again, holding the Boston mug out. “To the Irina Foundation.”

Ilya holds the Montreal mug out, tapping it against Shane’s Boston mug gently. “To the Irina Foundation.”

And then, with the party in front of them—a hundred balloons, cobalt blue cupcakes, and team mugs in the wrong players' hands— Ilya leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to Shane’s lips.