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The thing about being great at hockey is that it makes people forgive you for being weird.
Sometimes, Shane wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t been great. If he hadn’t been able to skate faster than the other kids slogging through the youth camps. If he hadn’t figured out he was better at keeping the puck on his stick than the rest of the preteens fighting for playing time in the travel leagues.
But he had been. He’s learned, by now, that means people practically expect him to be odd. Guys who always get their “work ethic” and their “hockey IQ” mentioned in scouting reports are usually at least a little neurotic.
Maybe that’s why Hayden doesn’t seem that surprised, one night in the hotel room after a road game, when his casual hand on Shane’s bare shoulder— “Shower’s all yours—” is met with Shane flinching away so forcefully he nearly falls off his bed altogether.
There’s an awkward moment where Hayden, one towel looped around his waist and the other around his hair, stares at Shane like he’s insane.
Then Hayden’s expression relaxes. He drops his hand and continues on past where Shane’s sitting shirtless on his duvet, toward the pile of clothes on the empty bed wedged into the opposite side of the hotel room. “Sorry,” he says, unwrapping the towel from his hair. “I forgot.”
Shane forces himself to consciously relax his shoulders from where they’ve crept up toward his neck. He’s starting to get better at noticing when he’s doing things like that, after all those media training sessions the team has forced him through. “Forgot what?” he says, turning his gaze back to where the muted TV is glowing against the opposite wall.
“That you don’t like touching,” Hayden says.
Shane looks sharply back over at him. “What do you mean?”
Hayden hesitates, looks at Shane like he’s trying to gauge his mood. “I don’t mean anything bad by it, dude,” he says. “Just— heard it from some of your other roommates, that’s all.”
Shane fixes his eyes back on the television screen. Great to know that was a topic of conversation in the Voyageurs locker room. “It’s fine,” he says, stiffly. “You just startled me, is all.”
“Sure, no big,” says Hayden, and picks up his shirt from his bed before following Shane’s gaze to the TV. “I don’t know how you watch tape right after a game. Especially a loss like that. I can’t even think about it until I’ve had time to decompress.”
“You get more out of it when it’s still fresh in your head,” Shane says, watching himself jump over the boards. He’s going to commit a bad giveaway in about 20 seconds. He’d already marked the timestamp in his head when looking up at the jumbotron while Washington celebrated the goal earlier that night.
“If you say so,” Hayden says, shaking his head. “I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks, huh?”
Shane had missed the giveaway. He’ll have to rewind. “I guess so,” he says, reaching for the remote. He wonders if this is going to be another thing the guys laugh about in the locker room when he’s not around.
*
Shane thinks about that moment, back with Hayden in that hotel room, the next day he sees Ilya Rozanov.
Six months have passed, and Shane’s in Anaheim. The Voyageurs won late last night and aren’t practicing today. The team isn’t flying back east until this afternoon.
Before that flight, like on most of his days off, Shane is scheduled to go stand in front of a camera.
Shane had to wake up early for his morning workout— he’d squinted his way through the three-a.m. start— in order to fit it in before catching the car waiting for him outside the hotel.
In the backseat, Shane leans his cheek against the tinted window, watches the thick trunks of the roadside palm trees scroll past against the pink morning sky.
“You want music?” his driver asks.
An absurd question, given how soothing the sound of the hum of the AC is. “No, thanks,” says Shane.
The trading card company Shane signed a deal with ahead of the season is headquartered just outside Anaheim. Despite the early hour, several bright-eyed people are waiting for him on the sidewalk outside the squat gray building when he climbs out of the car into the warm air.
Shane spends a few moments shaking hands and being introduced to people whose names he instantly forgets. “We’re so happy we were able to work out the timing of this,” says one of his chipper welcomers, leading him toward a glass door already sliding open for them. “We’re expecting this dual card to really drive some fan excitement.”
They lead him through wide, concrete-floored hallways and into a makeup room, inside of which Rozanov is perched in a tall chair, watching himself in the mirror as the woman behind him combs through his curly hair.
Rozanov meets Shane’s eyes in the reflection. The corner of his mouth ticks upward.
Shane looks away, lets his guide point him toward the empty chair beside Rozanov. “Your stylist will be with you in just a second,” she says, and hurries out of the room.
It is quiet, then, except for the hum of the air conditioner in the corner and the muffled chatter of conversation in the hall outside.
Shane meets his own eyes in his mirror. He consciously forces his jaw to relax, his shoulders to sink lower.
Then he slides his gaze over to Rozanov. The harsh light shining from the bulbs lining his mirror is unfairly flattering against the sharp edge of his freshly-shaven jaw.
Rozanov’s eyes haven’t moved from where they are studying his own reflection, but he speaks to Shane like he can tell Shane’s looked over. “You are excited?”
Shane’s fingers twitch in his lap. “Excited?”
“For Rozanov-Hollander card,” Rozanov says.
“I think they’re calling it a Hollander-Rozanov dual,” Shane says, and watches Rozanov smirk at himself in the mirror. “But, yeah. Super excited.”
Rozanov snorts, flicks his eyes over to his stylist. “You think he sounds excited?” he asks her.
The stylist grins, puts down the comb, rummages through her bag. “I get it,” she says, emerging with a stick of concealer. “It’s an early morning.”
“Ah, but Hollander loves early,” Rozanov says. “He goes to gym at four A.M., like insane person.”
Shane, who had been watching the stylist test out the makeup on her wrist, snaps his gaze back up to stare at Rozanov’s reflection. “What? How did you know that?”
The sliver of Rozanov’s expression he can see in the reflection goes stiff. “Everyone knows. This was in documentary.”
Shane’s stylist is entering the room, then, apologizing for being late, introducing herself. Shane turns to shake her hand, listens to another name he won’t remember.
Then Shane sits straight-backed in his chair, watches her plug in her electric razor, and thinks about Rozanov apparently having watched those player promo videos the Voyageurs put out at the beginning of the season.
Shane’s stylist tugs at the cord, picks up the razor, steps back and behind Shane’s chair.
He’s expecting the buzz of the razor. He isn’t expecting the sudden warm press of the fingers she runs up from the nape of his neck to his scalp.
“You okay?” The stylist’s hand goes still against the back of his skull.
It’s the first time since that night with Hayden, six months ago, that Shane has noticed— at least, before being told— that he’s failing to seem normal.
Shane reminds himself to keep his shoulders relaxed, like that’ll make up for how obviously he just flinched. “Sure,” he says. After the stylist withdraws her hand, he thinks to add, “It’s cold in here.”
From the corner of his eye, he can see Rozanov is staring over at him. He doesn’t look back.
Rozanov is done well before Shane. But by the time Shane’s stylist spins his chair around so he can look himself in the mirror and declare himself satisfied, Rozanov is still in the room, for some reason. His own stylist is long gone. He’s lounged back with one foot up beside him on the makeup chair, tapping idly at his phone.
“I’ll go see if they’re ready for you boys,” Shane’s stylist says, and leaves the two of them alone in the room.
Shane studies his own reflection. He looks older, with his hair pushed back like this. He can’t see his freckles under the foundation she’s brushed over his cheeks.
Then he slides his eyes over to Rozanov, finds Rozanov is staring at him over his phone.
“It is warm,” Rozanov says.
Shane shifts in his chair. “Okay?”
“You say it is cold. It is warm.”
“Kind of depends on your opinion,” Shane mumbles.
“You can have…” Rozanov taps his phone against his knee, like he’s searching for the right word. “Boundary.”
Shane frowns. “What do you mean?”
Rozanov clicks his phone shut, lets his foot slide off his seat and down to the bar at the base of the chair. “If you do not like, you can say.”
“I tell people when I don’t like things.”
“Is lie.”
“It is not.”
Ilya hums. He moves his knees slowly apart. “And when you do like?”
Shane’s eyes drop, helpless, to where Ilya’s pants are pulling tight against the spread of his thighs.
“Alright, then, boys!” Shane’s chipper guide is stepping back into the room. Ilya pulls his phone back up to his face; Shane swivels in his chair to meet his own wide eyes in the mirror. “If you’ll just follow me, we’ve got the shot all set up.”
*
Shane has just stepped onto the sidewalk outside the lobby of the trading card studio when his phone buzzes. The message tells him there’s an accident somewhere on some vital thoroughfare nearby. Traffic is snarled. His pickup is going to be delayed.
He turns, reaches to push his way back through the lobby door. Then he sees the smoke curling out from behind the side of the building.
Shane hesitates. He lets his hand drop from the push-bar.
He rounds the corner to find Rozanov, leaning against a stretch of grey concrete wall with no windows, with two fingers pinched around the cigarette in his mouth. He looks up as Shane approaches. It is warm, even in the shadow of the building. Above them, the sun is making a valiant effort to push through the smog blanketing the sky.
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” Shane says.
Rozanov looks at him through the haze. “You are the one in smoking area,” he says.
“I’m pretty sure this whole place is a no-smoking area,” Shane says. He looks around for a sign. “I think you have to be, like, fifteen feet from the building.”
When Rozanov snorts, grey smoke curls from his nostrils. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, purses his lips as he stares at Shane. “You want something, Hollander?”
Shane rocks back on his heels, shoves his hands into his pockets. “No, I— just came to say goodbye.”
Rozanov doesn’t say anything, just pulls the cigarette back to his mouth.
Shane nods, stiffly, moves to turn away.
“Hollander,” Rozanov says.
Shane hesitates, looks back.
Rozanov finishes his drag, exhales. Looks at Shane through the smoke trickling from the corners of mouth. Holds out one hand.
Shane hesitates. He waves away some of the smoke hanging in front of his face. He reaches out, accepts the handshake.
Rozanov’s fingers close firmly over his. His thumb stretches out, traces slowly over the tender inside of Shane’s wrist.
Shane feels it in the base of his spine, the soles of his feet. He blinks against a sudden rush of dizziness.
The corner of Rozanov’s mouth twitches. “Goodbye,” he says. His thumb drags slowly across Shane’s palm as he pulls his hand away. His eyes dip to Shane’s mouth. And then he drops the cigarette, stamps it with his heel, turns to go.
He does not look back before he’s rounded the corner of the building and stepped out of sight.
Shane lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He glances down at his hand. He could, he realizes, have traced the exact path Rozanov’s thumb had taken over his skin.
Then he looks at the ground, sighs to himself. Maybe they don’t have wildfires in Russia, he thinks. He grinds the tip of his toe into Ilya’s half-crumpled cigarette until the spark is all the way out.
*
The thing about being Shane is that people don’t touch you all that much.
It seems silly, really, when he thinks about it. Shane’s around people all the time. He’s on team planes and team buses. He’s sitting in team workouts and team meetings. He has roommates on the road. He has dinner with his parents, usually at least once a week.
He touches people sometimes, sure. Gives gloved fist bumps to his teammates. Hugs his mom on the sidewalk outside of whatever restaurant she’s chosen that week.
Accepts brief handshakes, a squeeze and release, from grinning people who want him to make them money.
None of that involves much skin-to-skin contact.
None of it, of course, except for when he’s with Rozanov.
*
The guys gather at Hayden’s place to watch Boston and Philadelphia play the last game of the regular season. The winner will head up north to take on lower-seeded Ottawa; the loser will be scheduled to open the first round next week in Montreal.
Shane sits in Hayden’s armchair, beside all the guys piled on the couch, and taps the rim of his ginger ale can against his teeth while he watches Rozanov skate to the penalty box late in the tied third period.
Rozanov is shouting, his face red, hair in disarray from where his helmet had popped off while he’d been grappling with a Philadelphia goon. Rozanov had gotten two minutes; the enforcer is skating free. Rozanov’s still barking when one of his teammates glides by the box to drop off his helmet.
He looks sexy, Shane thinks. Rozanov always looks sexy when he’s been fighting.
Shane realizes he’s biting at the lip of his can. He stops. He takes a careful sip of ginger ale.
Rozanov is no longer talking, by the time the camera cuts to him next. He’s just visibly fuming in the penalty box as Philadelphia celebrates their go-ahead power play goal.
As the final buzzer sounds on the TV and the guys start to get up and stretch and chatter, Shane slumps back in Hayden’s armchair, looks down at his phone, thumbs open his text thread with Lily. See you next week :), he types out.
He looks back up at the TV when he hears Rozanov’s name. The broadcast is showing a replay of Rozanov, right after Philadelphia had scored the game-winner, bashing his stick against the wall of the penalty box until it snaps in half.
Shane hesitates. He deletes the smile. Then he slowly, one letter at a time, deletes the rest of the text.
*
It’s strange, for Montreal to be playing host to Boston— to have Ilya Rozanov here in his city— and for Shane not to be texting him about it.
It’s their first time meeting up in the playoffs, the first time Montreal and Boston have both made in the postseason in seven years. It’s different. It’s the rivalry. There are legacies on the line.
Shane knows that.
He still gives his phone one last glance while he’s in his stall before Game 1, stares briefly at the empty notification bar before putting it away and shrugging on his shoulder pads.
*
By the time the series swings to Boston, Montreal has a 2-0 series lead.
Shane checks his phone again while getting dressed for Game 3 in the visitor’s locker room, but it’s just habit, at this point. He’s not really expecting anything. It’s the playoffs, and Rozanov’s team is down 0-2.
It takes Shane just five minutes into Game 3 to assist on the power play. He throws his arms around the necks of his teammates, pants into the sweaty huddle, feels the boos from Boston crowd reverberating through the arena.
*
Shane knows six minutes into Game 4 the Voyageurs are going to sweep the series.
That’s when Montreal opens scoring. And even as Shane shouts and jumps up from the bench and throws his arms over the shoulders of the teammates closest to him, he can feel the Boston crowd piled into the stands above them start to deflate, like they know it’s already over.
By the time the Voyageurs stretch their lead to four goals with an empty-netter late in the third period, the crowd’s disappointment has escalated past booing. When Shane jumps over the boards for one of his final shifts, he has to cut sharply to the side avoid a full beer can that bursts onto the ice in front of him.
Later, as the buzzer sounds, some fan tosses their jersey over the glass. It comes fluttering down in front of the Montreal bench.
Shane, who had been halfway onto the ice, pauses with one leg still slung over the boards. He looks down to see Rozanov’s No. 81 crumpled on the rink.
And then there are arms around his neck, and the game is over, the series is over. He’s being dragged into a celebratory hug, and Montreal is on to the second round.
Shane can’t stop grinning as he queues up for the handshake line, even as the crowd continues to boo, even as security guards in the stands above shout and wave their hands and shepherd Boston fans away from the glass.
Shane skims the glove from his hand, grabs the hand of the Boston player at the front of the line. “Good game,” he says. There are tears of relief prickling at his eyes. The Voyageurs have made it to the second round. They hadn’t drafted him for nothing. It’s easier to make it through all this touching if he’s doesn’t really look into the eyes of guys who hate his guts, so he starts talking to their noses instead. “Good game. Good game.”
The next hand that grabs at his squeezes so hard it hurts.
Shane snaps his eyes up to meet Rozanov’s gaze.
Rozanov’s grip is strong. His pointer finger, hidden beneath Shane’s sleeve, is gentle as it strokes once over the inside of Shane’s wrist.
Shane’s toes curl inside his skates.
“Maybe you actually score, in next round,” Rozanov says, and releases Shane.
Shane is so thrown off he forgets to even pretend to look at the next two Boston players whose hands end up in his sweaty grip.
*
The team goes out to dinner that night, dines in some reserved back room of a Boston restaurant, behind curtains pulled shut so no disgruntled fans can see just how happy their home team’s failure has made Montreal.
There’s champagne, but the party is nothing crazy. Shane endures more than one veteran player pulling him aside and waxing poetic about the playoffs being a marathon and not a sprint. “Start focusing on the next one,” they keep telling him. “It takes sixteen wins, not four.”
But the younger guys, the guys who haven’t been here before, are thrilled. They keep mimicking Shane dodging the beer can. They’re passing around a clip someone posted on Twitter of themselves setting fire to a Rozanov jersey. “I’d say we won that draft,” Hayden shouts, and presses another glass of champagne into Shane’s hand.
Shane takes one sip, then another. He can’t remember when he’d decided to start drinking, or how much he’s had, but he feels pleasantly floaty already. He sets it down on the table, claps Hayden on the shoulder. “Going to take a piss,” he says into Hayden’s ear.
The bathroom door claps shut behind him, cuts off the music from outside. Shane stumbles on his way to the sink. He grips at the counter, leans forward, and looks at his flushed face in the mirror.
God, he hadn’t meant to get drunk.
Shane’s phone buzzes. It’s probably his mom, he thinks, calling to tell him that it takes sixteen wins and not four, like maybe he’d at some point lost count. He fumbles in his pocket, draws it out.
It’s a text from Lily.
Come over, it reads.
Shane blinks. He reads the text again.
He flips the phone shut, puts it in his pocket. Then he draws it back out, unlocks it, reads the text a third time.
He shouldn’t, really. Shane’s team just swept Ilya’s. It was Boston’s first trip to the playoffs in years and it ended in misery, and fans are so frustrated they’re burning five-hundred-dollar Rozanov jerseys in their backyards.
That’s not to mention Shane’s currently in a bar with his entire team, and that he’s meant to share a hotel room with Hayden tonight.
Shane is thinking all of this, even as he’s opening up the app to call a car.
*
Ilya is shirtless, when he opens the door to his apartment. He doesn’t say anything, just steps aside to let Shane in.
Shane can smell the vodka on Ilya’s breath as he slides past.
It’s dark, past the lamp on the table in the hallway. There are no lights on in the kitchen, where a half-full vodka bottle is sitting next to a glass full of melting ice.
Shane stands there, uncertain, until Ilya pads up behind him and flicks on a light. It is discomfiting, to think he had been standing here, drinking in the dark, while Shane had been clinking champagne flutes with his teammates.
Ilya rounds the counter, looks at Shane, taps his fingers against the cap of the vodka bottle. His sweatpants are hanging low over his hips. His hair is damp; he smells like his mint shampoo. “You want some?”
“No, thanks,” Shane says. “I’m good.”
The corner of Ilya’s mouth twitches. “Why? You are drunk already?”
Shane can feel his cheeks go hot. He had done his best to sober up, standing on the sidewalk outside Ilya’s building, jogging in place and slapping at his own cheeks until he’d gotten scared someone might recognize him and hurried inside. “Just don’t like vodka.”
There is a buzzing sound. They both look over to see Ilya’s phone vibrating on the counter. Shane can make out a caller ID lit up with Cyrillic letters.
Ilya makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat, reaches for the phone.
“You can get that, if you need to,” Shane says.
Ilya silences the call. He flips the phone over, face-down. Then he unscrews the top of the vodka, slugs some into his glass. He slaps the cap back, steps away from the counter with glass in hand. “Come,” he says, and leaves the kitchen without looking back.
Shane follows Ilya through the dark hall and into his bedroom, stands there at the foot of the bed and watches Ilya circle the mattress, using the hand that’s not holding his drink to flip on the lamps on both end tables.
Ilya straightens, gestures at the bed. “Sit,” he tells Shane.
Shane hesitates. He walks past Ilya, perches on the side of the bed.
Ilya doesn’t join him. He just stands there, one hand loose at his side, the other curled around his drink. He stares at Shane.
Doesn’t break eye contact, even as he lifts the glass to his mouth for his next sip.
Shane shifts uncomfortably. “Are you okay?”
Ilya lowers the glass and looks down at Shane like’s he’s just said something crazy. “Yes, Hollander.”
They don’t usually talk about the games, but Ilya’s season is over, his hopes of a playoff run are over. He must have wanted it so badly. He must have wanted it more than anything.
It feels wrong not to say anything about it. It feels wrong that he’s the one who’s here with Ilya, on a night like this. “If you need to call back your dad, or whoever, I can wait,” Shane says.
Ilya arches one eyebrow. “Can you.”
Shane’s cheeks feel like they’re getting impossibly hotter. “Yes.”
“Hm,” Ilya says. “Take off your clothes.”
Shane leans down, tugs off his socks, folds them neatly on the comforter by his side. He gets a hand under the collar of his shirt, yanks it free, slides off the edge of the bed to pull off his pants and his underwear.
Then he sets his pile of folded clothes down on the floor, sits naked on the edge of the bed, and looks up at Ilya.
Ilya studies him. He takes another sip of vodka. “On your back,” he says. “Head on pillow. Feet on bed.”
He waits until Shane shuffles into position to set down his glass on one of the bedside tables and nod toward the head of the bed. “Grab,” he says.
Shane looks at him. Reaches up. Slowly curls his fingers around the wooden slats in the headboard.
Ilya draws his eyes down Shane’s body. He nods, like he’s appreciating the scene in an aesthetic sense, like Shane can’t see the bulge in his sweats. “Legs, more wide.”
Shane shuffles his heels farther apart on the mattress.
Ilya’s hands flex by his sides. His nostrils flare slightly. “You have fun,” he says, “celebrating with team?”
Shane shifts uncomfortably against the duvet. “It was fine.”
“They buy you champagne, maybe,” Ilya says. “They buy you shots.”
Shane wishes he could read Ilya’s expression. “Just champagne.”
“They do not touch you,” Ilya says.
Shane goes so still it feels like even his heart stops beating, for a second. “What?”
“You do not like it when people touch you,” Ilya says. Something in the way he stalks around to the other side of the mattress makes Shane think of a big cat, sleek and muscled, pacing in a zoo enclosure.
Ilya climbs up onto the mattress, kneels beside Shane’s feet. He looks at Shane like he knows Shane’s just been comparing him to a leopard. “You do not let them touch. I have seen— ah, ah. Don’t sit up. Lie still and be good.”
Shane fingers twitch around the slats in the headboard. “Rozanov—”
“Maybe you are not used to it,” Ilya says. He reaches his hand out, hovers it— fingers spread wide— over the side of Shane’s left foot. “Maybe that is why you react like this, when I touch.” And he closes his hot fingers over the knob of Shane’s ankle.
Shane can’t help the way his hips jerk off the bed, just a little. Can’t help the way his toes flex.
Ilya’s smile flashes in the lamplight. He releases Shane’s ankle but doesn’t lift his hand, instead trails his fingers down the side of Shane’s foot, traces them under the arch until Shane is twitching against the bed. “I could touch you anywhere,” he says. “It would still get you hard. Yes?”
Shane swallows, tries not to make it obvious he’s already having difficulty breathing.
“Answer,” Rozanov instructs. He presses the balls of his fingers into the arch of Shane’s foot.
Shane’s hips twitch. He gasps, without quite meaning to do it, “Yes.”
Ilya grins up at him from where he’s kneeling at Shane’s side. “Good boy,” he says. His other hand closes over Shane’s opposite foot. He strokes his fingers up around Shane’s heels, grips at the back of each ankle, slides both hands firmly upwards and over Shane’s calves.
Shane tips his head back and pants up at the ceiling. There are white sparks crowding at the corners of his vision.
He doesn’t think anyone’s touched him like Ilya’s touching him, ever, in his entire life.
Ilya’s hands cup the back of his knees, slide around to press into his inner thighs. Ilya says, “Look at me.”
Helpless, Shane tips his chin down.
Ilya swings a knee over Shane’s shins and crouches there, sweatpants still clinging to his hips, hands pressing white lines into the flesh of Shane’s bare thighs. He doesn’t look as calm, now. There is a hectic red flush at the top of his cheeks. “They would touch, if you let them,” he says. “But you let me, only.”
Shane squirms against Ilya’s grip. How much of this is dirty talk? How much has Ilya guessed about just how many other people have ever touched him like this? “Roz—"
His voice cuts off in a squeak as Ilya leans forward, grabs a handful of Shane’s chest, ducks down to bury his face in the hot space beneath Shane’s arm. Breathes in deep.
God, Shane can feel Ilya’s cock twitch against his thigh.
Ilya resurfaces, his eyes bright. “You are—“ His hands slide up to Shane’s shoulders, knead there for a moment before sliding down his arms. The touch gets lighter as Ilya’s fingers skate over the soft inside of Shane’s wrists in a barely-there brush that has Shane gasping and twisting beneath him like Ilya’s just grabbed his cock. He can feel sweat pooling under his arms and behind his knees. He can feel warmth beneath every patch of skin Ilya’s touched.
Ilya’s expression twists. He sits up, his weight on Shane’s knees, his fingers still stroking Shane’s wrists. “You are hard,” he says. “You like it so much.”
Shane isn’t sure what he can say that will keep Ilya from taking his hands away. He bites his lip and says nothing.
“You are wet,” Ilya says. “You will drip. Watch.”
Shane follows Ilya’s gaze down to where his own cock is bobbing over his belly.
The two of them watch, together, as the bead of liquid pearling on the head of Shane’s cock dribbles down to his navel.
Ilya makes a deep sound, something guttural, something from the very back of his throat. “So sensitive,” he say. “I— I can’t—“ He takes a shaky breath.
Then he’s leaning away from Shane, taking his hands from Shane’s arms, clambering out of Shane’s lap. “One moment,” he says, leaning across the mattress to reach for the bedside table. “One moment— I just need to—“
God, Shane hopes that little whining noise didn’t come from him.
Ilya is already popping the cap from the lube bottle as he twists back in toward Shane. He stares down at Shane as he pours some into his palm, rubs it beneath his fingers.
Shane stares back. His fingers flex around the slats of the headboard. He gets his feet flat on the bed.
Slowly, he lifts both feet, draws his knees up toward his chest.
Ilya spits out something in Russian, a word Shane hasn’t looked up yet. “You are,” he begins. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He just ducks underneath Shane’s legs, gets his shoulders under Shane’s thighs.
Clamps his hands around Shane’s cheeks. Pulls them slowly apart.
Shane doesn’t even have time to feel self-conscious before Ilya is looking up from between his thighs with hot eyes. “You showered,” he says, and then, “You shaved.”
“Yes,” Shane says, and twitches so forcefully he nearly puts his own knee in his eye when Ilya pets a finger over his hole.
“You are so soft,” Ilya says, and strokes at him again. “You like it so much.” And he traces his slick finger in slow circles.
Shane’s mouth opens. He digs his heels into Ilya’s shoulder blades.
He is expecting to feel the familiar hook at his rim, the intrusion and the sweet stinging stretch. But Ilya seems focused only on touching, just slicking his hands up and down, over Shane’s hole and behind his balls, stroking his wet fingers over the tender skin high on the inside of Shane’s thighs until Shane is panting and twitching and so hard he’s half-convinced he might faint.
And then Ilya ducking out from between his legs, rising up to loom over him. One sticky hand presses on his shoulder. The other is on his knee, pushing Shane’s legs straight, urging Shane to turn onto his side.
Shane goes, twists to keep his hands on the headboard even as he mashes the side of his face into the pillow. Lets Ilya reach down, get a hand on Shane’s hip, clamp Shane’s thighs tightly together.
He feels Ilya fumbling for the waist of his sweatpants, muttering something in Russian as he shoves them down to his knees.
And then Ilya is plastering himself against Shane’s back, one arm looping around Shane’s middle.
They both grunt, too loud, when the base of Ilya’s cock drags over Shane’s hole.
Ilya goes still. For a moment they are locked together like that, shuddering, Shane groaning into the pillow, Ilya’s mouth hot on the back of his neck.
Then Ilya works his cock into the slick space between Shane’s thighs.
Ilya’s grip on Shane’s hip spasms. He pulls his hips back. His cock bumps hotly against Shane’s balls on the next stroke in.
Shane’s grunt is high, desperate. He twists around, turns his face upward, gets his gasping mouth under Ilya’s.
Ilya grips one hand hard against his stomach, reaches the other one to squeeze at his chest. And then Ilya is fucking hard against him, his cock squeezed between Shane’s thighs. His face is contorting. He looks almost like he’s in pain.
“Put it in,” Shane pants.
“No,” Ilya grunts into his face. “You come like this.” He leans down and spits into Shane’s gasping mouth.
Shane’s eyes widen. His thighs spasm into a tighter squeeze against Ilya’s cock.
Ilya bucks against him. He shouts into Shane’s mouth. His cock jerks into the hot space between Shane’s legs.
Wetness splatters the mattress beneath Shane.
“Fuck,” Ilya slurs into the side of Shane’s face. His cock is still twitching against Shane’s balls. He’s reaching over Shane, dragging his hand over the mattress.
Ilya’s fingers are wet with lube and his own come when he gets his almost unbearably tight grip back around Shane’s dick. His other hand is groping Shane’s belly, his chest, squeezing hard, like he’s desperate for a handful. “Fuck, Hollander, I—”
Shane jams his eyes shut, blindly seeks out Ilya’s mouth. Gets Ilya’s tongue, sliding over the tip of Shane’s.
Shane’s entire body jerks. He spasms, shakes, claws at Ilya’s arms. His cock kicks against the grip of Ilya’s come-slick hand.
*
It feels a bit like being hit into the boards from behind. Shane can barely see, afterward. He’s not entirely sure he’s conscious.
He remembers fragments. He remembers Ilya reaching up to uncurl his fingers, one by one, from around the headboard. He remembers tucking his face into Ilya’s shoulder, closing his eyes.
He hopes he’s just imagining the part where Ilya moves to get up from the bed and Shane clings to him, wraps his hands around his shoulders, asks him not to leave.
*
Ilya says, “Shane.”
Shane opens his eyes into darkness. It takes him a moment to realize this is because he still has his face mashed into Ilya’s collarbone.
He must have been half-asleep. For a moment, he had thought he’d heard Ilya use his first name.
Slowly, he raises his head to see Ilya staring down at him with a solemn expression on his face.
“I need bathroom,” he says. “You will be okay?”
“Okay?” Shane sits up, draws away from Ilya. God, it feels cold now that he’s no longer pressed against that warm expanse of skin. He rolls away onto the empty side of the bed, scrubs a hand over his face. Feels obscurely better with his own hand pressed over his eyes. “Of course,” he says into the darkness behind his closed lids. “Go.”
There is a pause. Then Shane can feel the bed shift beside him as Ilya gets up from the mattress.
Shane forces himself to take a deep breath. It shudders through him, just a little, on the way out.
The lamplight seems too bright, when he forces his hands away from his eyes.
Shane’s legs shake as he pushes them over the side of the bed. His hands are clumsy as he bends to pick up his pile of folded clothes. He drops his left sock, twice, before he can manage to get it on.
Surely, it’s too soon, for Shane to already be hungover from that champagne. No discernible reason, really, for the headache burgeoning behind his eyes, for the nausea settling low in his gut.
“Hollander.”
Shane looks up, too quickly, to see Ilya standing naked in the doorway to the bedroom. He’s looking at Shane like he’s crazy.
Everyone’s always looking at Shane like he’s crazy.
Tears sting at the back of Shane’s eyes. He looks quickly down at the floor, blinks them hurriedly away as he concentrates getting his sock on his right foot. “I should get going,” he says. “My team’s probably wondering where I am.”
“Hollander.”
Shane has run out of ways to pretend he’s still pulling his sock on. He looks up to see Ilya has stepped further into the room, is waiting just out of reach.
Ilya looks down at him. “Can I touch?”
Shane mouths the word, can’t find the air to put behind it. “Yes.”
Ilya steps in closer, leans down, curls his hand around the back of Shane’s neck.
Shane’s eyes flutter shut.
“You are not used to touch,” Ilya says.
Shane winces. “I—"
“Lie down with me.” Ilya doesn’t make it into a question. “Is too much, to stop like that, all at once. Okay?”
“Okay,” says Shane. The back of his neck feels cold when Ilya releases it. He shuffles further onto the bed, pulls his socked feet onto the mattress, lies back down. Stares blankly up at the ceiling until he can feel Ilya’s weight depress the mattress at his side.
Ilya shuffles close, makes a disgruntled noise. “Eugh,” he says. “Wet spot.” And then he is pulling Shane up and onto him, fitting Shane’s head into the crook of his neck, placing a heavy arm over Shane’s belly, closing his hand over Shane’s chest.
From this close up, the side of Ilya’s neck is a blurred expanse of skin. Shane stares at it until his eyes start to water.
He can see the muscles in that throat move when Ilya says, “You go clubbing, ever?”
Shane’s mouth is mashed against Ilya’s collarbone. He doesn’t feel like moving it. His voice is muffled when he says, “I hate clubbing.”
Ilya’s throat vibrates with his soft laugh. Warm fingers curl into Shane’s hair. “I know this,” he says. “You go anyway? With team?”
“Not really,” Shane says. “I usually make excuses. Get out of it.”
“Maybe good practice,” Ilya says. “People all around. They want touch. You let them touch. It becomes normal, maybe.”
Shane can feel his eyelashes brushing Ilya’s shoulder when he closes his eyes. “I get it. I’m a freak.”
“Hey.” Ilya tightens his grip in Shane’s hair, gives his head a light shake. “Not freak. But is pain, for you. To have touch, then not have it. Maybe this helps pain.”
Shane thinks, Or, you could just never stop touching me. Out loud, he says, “I’ve always been like this. I don’t think I can change it, at this point. I’m never going to like when people touch me, especially when they don’t warn me about it.”
“Except during sex,” Ilya says.
“Yeah,” Shane says. “Except during sex.” He leaves out the, with you.
His head is getting clearer, now, clear enough to think about hockey. Clear enough to remember the game.
Shane opens his eyes again. “Hey,” he says.
Ilya’s chest rumbles beneath him, maybe in assent.
“That was your dad on the phone earlier, wasn’t it? Did he see the game?”
The heartbeat beneath Shane’s cheek stutters. There is a long pause. Ilya says, “Yes.”
“Is he…” Shane hesitates. “Mad?”
Ilya’s fingers tighten briefly in his hair, go slack just as quickly. “Yes.”
“You played well,” Shane says.
Shane can feel Ilya blow out a breath. The fingers in his hair pull back. And then Shane is being nudged, gently but firmly, away from Ilya’s shoulder.
Shane goes, reluctantly. He sits up to see Ilya looking up at him. His hand is still splayed out over Shane’s belly.
Ilya says, “You know what it is, that I think about?”
Shane says, honestly, “No.”
“I think about Vegas. You remember Vegas?”
Shane swallows. “Yes.”
Ilya’s fingers twitch against his belly. “I did not touch you, not really, in Vegas. Not enough. Did I?”
Shane can feel his cheeks heating up again. “I can’t remember.”
Ilya’s fingers come up, grip at his chin. Turn Shane’s face toward his serious expression. “You remember,” he says.
It is difficult to make himself hold Ilya’s gaze, right now, even with his face being held in place. “Yes,” Shane admits.
“I should have,” says Ilya. “I am sorry.”
Shane isn’t sure he’s ever heard Rozanov apologize before. Not in his interviews. Not even in Russian; he’d looked up the word, once. Certainly not to him, not in any language. He doesn’t know how to answer. He leans in and presses his mouth to Rozanov’s instead.
Rozanov kisses him back. His fingers press firmly down on Shane’s stomach.
It feels, in this moment, like that pressure might be the only thing keeping Shane pinned to earth.