Chapter Text
Shane always half thinks that people know, that everyone knows. He thinks about it all the time, about being an omega, so surely they can see it on his face. He does nothing that could tip them off. He takes his suppressants; yes, he does shower with the team but no one’s really looking down there, and he’s got a cock to cover the rest. It’s on the smaller side for a beta, he gets Asian jokes about it. It’s whatever. He’s meek for a hockey player but, well, it’s fine, because he’s Shane Hollander. You can be meek if you’re this fast on the ice, this tapped into the game, this good. You can let the sway, tilt, lean, cut of your body do the talking for you. It’s hard enough coming up as a beta in professional sports. He couldn’t do it as an omega.
By the time Shane presented (at thirteen), he already had scouters interested (at nine), so there was really no time to be an omega. There still isn’t, there is only time for hockey, so he’s simply not — not in any way that matters. He takes his suppressants so he doesn’t stink and so he doesn’t go into heat, he hones his game, he doesn’t make time for anything else. But he thinks about being an omega all the time, and worry like that has a scent.
It was manageable before, but he’s in the big leagues now. He just got drafted second by the Metros. His Junior Canadian team was an even split between betas and alphas, but the current Montreal line up is almost all alphas, as is the rest of the MLH.
Protection acts have just passed to shield people from having to disclose their designation — Canadian ID no longer needed it, it’s not on passports, it’s not necessary information for employers. It’s become private information for medical professionals. Laws like that haven’t changed the culture but, well, it helps. It means that if his secondary sex ever gets leaked, someone’s out of a job.
His MLH career officially starts with this: a promo shoot advertising the new season with number one draft pick Ilya Rozanov. There’s resentment there, from Shane, of course. Because there was one guy ahead of him and that guy had to be a boisterous, pigheaded alpha who dismisses him at every turn. Because the League found a faster skater who hit harder than Shane ever could and numbered him one over Shane’s two. And now they’ve been skating around each other all day.
It’s not a big production, but it’s the biggest production Shane’s ever seen, so he’s kind of awed even if he has to wait after Ilya to get his hair and makeup done. It’s lots of spraying shit and patting on his face and weighing down his skin. It all feels like a membrane he needs to claw out of. As he’s tugging on his skates, Ilya says, “You look pretty.”
“You’re wearing makeup too,” Shane bites back.
“But I am not pretty like you,” he replies, which is like a shot to the gut. Which is basically like screaming, I fucking know. Shane didn’t even last it to his first game.
He snarls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ilya seems to take note of that.
This is it, this is Shane’s worse fucking nightmare. He feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, like all the product they’ve heaped on him is going to melt right off in gloops, like — in all honesty — he’s going to die.
They’ve been skating around the rink pseudo-purposefully for a while, ‘getting a feel for being in front of the camera,’ the director had said. Shane’s been filmed in the rink a lot, but he understands now that this is different. He’s the focus, not the puck, not the game, and the camera is his focus. The camera and Ilya, who skids past him at every opportunity like he’s trying to prove something. He has nothing to prove. He was drafted first.
Shane ignores him, and he ignores the pit in his stomach and the strangle panic has on his throat to get lost in the movement of skating. He feels like how a wave feels fringing the shore, how it curves and ruffles. Rozanov becomes just a surfer to him, something he can envelop and crush, a thing to spit out.
They’re thrown a puck and two sticks and told to chase after each other, like kids playing tag. There’s something about how hard Rozanov is trying, and how lax Shane manages to feel as he continues to outpace that sends this needling relief through him, zipping down his spine. They’re told to swap who has possession, and when Shane manages to finagle the puck from him, the cameraman’s delighted at the shot. Fuck it, he whips the thing into the empty net, and they catch that on camera too, Ilya lagging behind with a strange look on his face.
Then, when the director thinks they’re ready for ‘the big shot’, he tells them to start at the far ends of the neutral zone and skate in, crouched low and sticks in front of them like they’re meeting for a face off. Shane’s a bit nervous about Rozanov slamming right into him, but they both brake in time and make the ‘intense, smouldering’ eye contact the producers are looking for. The first two takes, for one reason or another, are busts. And they’re frustrating to reset, because they both have to dawdle back to the blue lines as everyone’s watching and wait for the countdown to skate back in. By the fourth take, Shane thinks his frustration becomes palpable, which is why it’s so unmooring to hear Rozanov say, “Try not to laugh.” It’s the furthest thing from his mind.
“Alright, try again!” the director calls, and they part. This time, when they skate to each other, Shane looks up to see the twinkle of mischief in Rozanov’s eyes and he can’t keep it in. He giggles. Ilya does too.
“Again!”
The next four times are filled with laughter, and the attempts get sillier the more they go on. Shane tries to remain apologetic, and Ilya apologises too, but neither can stop themselves from laughing. Fed up, the director tells them they’ve got all they need, or can get.
The second Shane’s off the ice, it’s like something unlocks for him, and the weight of his soggy kit must be shed immediately. He shoves off his skates and walks to the showers. Distantly, he’s aware of Rozanov tottering off, no skate guards, to chat with someone in a headset.
Shane needs a shower. He doesn’t care. Showers, no matter how crowded they get, no matter that he’s naked and exposed, are soothing to him. No one looks down there, he’s not visibly anything (except maybe a bit furry), and he gets to be just part of the team. And that’s all he really wants, because whatever ‘the team’ means, it’s certainly has nothing to do with omegas. This shower, tiled to near the ceiling and lined with shower heads, is the same as every other gang shower he’s ever been in.
As he’s being, perhaps, a bit too over indulgent with the water pressure and the steam, the door clunks open and in comes Rozanov with a towel he’s already dropping from his waist. It’s nothing abnormal, so Shane tries to ignore him. He’s mostly facing away anyway, and he barely regards him, and he has the roundest ass Shane has ever seen on a man, and the chiselled back muscles of some type of statue, and, just, a crazy fucking ass.
He throws a look over his shoulder, and Shane rushes to turn away.
Shane’s not, well, sexual, he wouldn’t say. He doesn’t have sex, nor does he particularly want it. How much of that is tied up with being scared of being known as an omega is anyone’s guess, and he’s not one to try and dissect that for himself. He knows when someone is attractive, but he’s never been one to be attracted to people, and all that alpha-macho bullshit only ever icks him out. Ilya Rozanov is like a bright red apple as he rubs himself down. He wants to take a bite. This is all to say, he’s hard enough to tell — to tell a lot. He keeps his back to Rozanov.
Worse than being hard, he’s wet, a kind of rancid stink he hates. He pumps as much of the watery, limpid soap as the dispenser has to give and starts scrubbing himself with a ferocity. If Rozanov has any comments to make, Shane doesn’t keep an ear out for them.
But Ilya’s looking at him, and it’s hard not to look back. The shitty unscented soap does nothing to mask it, the fog of pheromones that waft from Rozanov — thick and rich. It’s oddly floral, which isn’t a note Shane’s ever really associated alphas with. He’s been told his scent is floral too.
“Jasmine,” Ilya says suddenly, apropos to nothing. Except it’s not, it’s— “You smell like jasmine tea.”
“What?” Shane barks over the shower spray, back still to Ilya.
“Like from Chinese restaurant.”
“I’m Japanese.”
“Sorry. Like from Japanese restaurant, then.”
Shane doesn’t really have anything to say to that
“Turn around for me,” Ilya says.
“No, no,” there’s a note of pleading in Shane’s voice that he wishes he could excise entirely.
“Please, Hollander.” No response. “What do I smell like?”
“I don’t care what you smell like.”
“Hollander. Come on.”
He huffs. “I don’t— I can’t name it, I don’t know.”
“But you can smell it, yes? Me?” — Mhm — ”And what does that mean?”
Shane squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t care about what it means, he doesn’t care that Rozanov’s turned on, that he’s turned on, that they’re an alpha and an omega and this is supposed to mean something, that they’re biologically compatible, that Ilya is supposed to fit perfectly into Shane like a two-piece puzzle. Shane doesn’t give a fuck about any of that, it means nothing to him, it’s a fact to forget, because all it means is that Shane is not supposed to be here.
“Fuck off,” is what he says.
“You are sweetest beta I have ever smelled,” Rozanov replies with, and it shocks Shane into turning around and facing him. His cock is hard, big, held at the base by one of Ilya’s hands. “I would have never have guessed you were into alphas.”
“Fuck you, I’m not into alphas,” he bites, but he sees that Ilya is ignoring him completely to stare right down, where he hasn’t flagged at all.
“You are not beta.”
For the first time in Shane’s life, his mind doesn’t fly right to panic. Instead it’s rage, white hot and tense. He wants to lunge at Rozanov and hold him down, to teach him some lesson, maybe to persuade him that he’s wrong. He’s 5’10, he’s over 200 pounds, he knows how to take a man out at the knees and Rozanov is expecting omega placidity, something docile. He could do it. The thought almost makes him harder.
“Sorry, I—” Rozanov lets go of his dick quickly, and then moves his hands to his sides resolutely. He gives up on what he’s trying to say and cuts the water off instead. He leaves then, as Shane is left mouth gaping and red in the face.
Rozanov, poking through his bag, isn’t wearing a shirt when Shane finds him, so he grabs him by the base of his throat and slams him against the lockers. His eyes widen in shock.
“Hollander—”
“You’re not going to tell anyone, or I swear to god—”
“Hollander, I wouldn’t,” he says emphatically. “I would not. It is your secret. You hide it well.”
He lets go of Rozanov’s throat then, but he doesn’t back off. They’re so close he can feel his breath again his lips, the towel slung low on his hips brushes against Ilya’s sweatpants, his nose is clogged with the heavy cologne that pours from his scent glands. Rozanov’s eyes are almost pitch black with desire, and Shane has to look away immediately. He finally steps back.
“We can just pretend this never happened.”
“Why? You want me, Hollander,” he retorts, rolling the waistband of his sweats.
“That’s,” Shane scoffs, “decisive.” Ilya tilts his head, confused, like a puppy. “You seem very sure,” he elaborates.
“I am sure.” His eyes follow Shane’s as he goes to sit on the bench. He feels like he’s ceding his advantage; Rozanov looks down on him. “You may not like alphas, that’s okay, but you like me. What is your room number?”
“Who fucking raised you? Did no one tell you to be polite to omegas?” Shane bites.
Ilya shrugs, bending down, digging through his bag for a shirt now. It brings him level with Shane. “You want to be treated like that? Good little omega? Weak?”
“No.”
“Then. Room number.”
Shane sighs. “1410.”
“And if, nine tonight, I come knock?”
He feels his jaw click, staring right ahead. “I might answer.”
Rozanov grabs his gear and struts off.
Giving Rozanov his room number was a supremely stupid idea, maybe the stupidest idea Shane’s ever had. He gets an hour and a half between getting back from dinner with his parents and Ilya’s arrival to ruminate on just how fucking stupid this whole thing really is. He’s what? going to fuck Ilya Rozanov? Let Ilya Rozanov fuck him? Tell this very sexually confident man that he’s an absolute, no experience, nothing, virgin? Sit him down and explain boundaries first? Maybe.
Ilya wasn’t driven to him by some biological alpha need to put an omega in his place, he thought Shane was a beta. He was attracted to Shane as a beta, a kind of delicious, erotic thought that sends a tingle throughout his whole body. Ilya stepped on the breaks when he was corrected, the traditionalist courtesy, but he pivoted when he realised that wasn’t necessary. Shane’s the same guy he was when he assumed he was a beta, a guy he wanted to fuck. It’s an exhilarating notion. Maybe Shane can just want something. Either way, they need to talk. There’s a knock at the door.
Rozanov enters with a kind of swagger that Shane wants to knock right out of him but he can’t. He can’t really do anything, just stare.
“You want to just look at me or…?”
“We need to talk.”
“Talk about what,” Ilya drawls, pulling off his jacket and kicking off his shoes.
“About, about,” Shane stammers, mad. “I don’t know, about it.”
“It,” he enunciates, closing in on Shane, holding him by the jut off his hip over his shirt. “Where did all your bravado go, Hollander? When you slam me against locker…” His voice and his eyelids get low, sultry. “I miss it,” he pouts.
Shane feels himself go beet red, as if, like the drum beat of his heart, Ilya can feel the heat radiating off his cheeks and onto his own face. They are so close, and Ilya’s lips are so inviting — chiseled in a way Shane’s not used to seeing, the defined cupid’s bow something that he’s very curious to feel against the plush of his own. He feels his eyes drop too, getting heavy under his lashes, drawn to Rozanov’s pink, pink mouth. “Kiss me, Hollander,” that mouth says. “See if you like it.”
Shane does and he does.
Kissing, something that Shane has done once or twice — at parties that older brothers bought beer for, mixers where they only had weird shit to drink like nail polish peach moscato and sprite — never really felt like anything. A press of two dry lips to two more. Shane didn’t really think much of that, he started to just assume kissing was the boring preamble before sex for everyone, and he had never had sex before so he didn’t need to worry about that being as good as it gets. There was always the hope that pleasure was just out of his reach. He’s got pleasure by the balls now. He moans into Ilya, Ilya moans back.
Immediately, because this is all so new and Ilya feels so good against him, Shane wants to get to more of his body. There’s a wrestle where, Ilya trying to rid Shane of his shirt, pulls Shane’s hands off the fly of his jeans, and when his torso is free Shane dives back in to get his pants off. Ilya takes his own shirt off too and presses Shane, belly to belly, against the wall by the door, where he’s sure his sweat slick back is steaming up the mirror. The cold makes him judder, but then Ilya’s hands begin roving over his shoulders, the back of his head, the nape of his neck, all the way down to his pecs and his stomach, and up again to his face. His jeans start sagging, Shane tugging to get them lower, and Ilya steers them, arms wrapped around Shane’s torso, wrists locked behind his back, kissing him incessantly and swivelling them around, to lay flat on the bed. He’s a heavy weight on Shane’s body.
He pulls his hands back to tackle Shane’s sweatpants, dismounting to slide them all the way off, and then they’re both in their underwear, looking at each other, panting. Ilya standing and Shane lying below him. He feels hunted. He feels hungry.
“Get back on me,” Shane says.
Ilya crawls back over him, but he perches himself on his elbows. He leans down for a kiss but Shane still ends up chasing him, mouth just out of reach as he darts back and says, “You like me, the feel of my body.”
“Yes,” Shane says, exasperated. “I like kissing you.”
“And more?” is where things get complicated. When he hesitates, Ilya rolls off him, and they lie beside each other, calves dangling off the bed, staring at the ceiling. “You have done this before?”
Shane bites his lip.
“No? Not with a man? Not with an alpha?”
He shoves his shoulder. “Fuck off with this alpha shit, stop reminding me.”
“Hm,” Ilya hums, folding his hands on his stomach. “You are virgin.”
“What does it matter?”
“Matters some,” he says, curling on his side, looking him over in a dusting. “Matters what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want,” Shane lies. “I’m a virgin, how am I supposed to know?” Ilya seems amused by this. “When did you lose your virginity?”
Ilya takes a moment to think, lips pursing. “I was fifteen,” he says, to Shane’s ew. He ignores it. “She sucked me off. I didn’t last thirty seconds.”
“Wow.”
“Was not best performance, I will admit,” he replies, hand skirting over Shane’s torso again. “But, I am fast learner.” His fingers dip lower then, rubbing Shane’s belly and finding themselves flirting with the waistband of his boxers. “I can teach, too.”
Shane loves the way his mouth moves, he wants to feel it against his own. He grabs the back of Ilya’s neck and pulls him in for a kiss at the same time his underwear is breached, and Ilya’s got a grip around the base of his cock. Shane pulls his own boxers down, trying to kick out of them, and then he hauls Ilya back over him.
“Oh?”
“Fuck off, you know what I want,” Shane says, shoving Ilya down, pushing his palms against his shoulders and plush chest.
“Yes, show you how it’s done.”
Ilya brushes idly against the shaft of Shane’s cock, seemingly not done with conversation. The whole affair sends zinging sensations throughout Shane’s whole body, strangling him. “Have you been hard since the showers?” he asks.
Shane laughs, startling even himself. “What? No, it’s been hours.”
Ilya frowns then. “I thought omegas are hard for hours, not satisfied, must be satisfied multiple times, yes?”
Shane rolls his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, I don’t know many omegas.”
“Stop bringing it up.”
“Da.”
Ilya bows down then, putting proper pressure on Shane’s cock. He presses his palm up from the base and slides down til he’s eye level, licking at the head trapped against Shane’s belly and between his fingers.
“Fuck,” Shane breathes, letting his head fall back. His hips are too trapped to squirm.
“Up, up,” Ilya urges, and Shane sits up, only to see Ilya actually wants him to scoot against the headboard, giving him space to lay on the bed between Shane’s legs. “You taste very sweet.”
Shane nudges him in the ass with the heel of his foot. “I’m close.”
“But you will come again, yes?”
“I could.”
“You will.”
Shane comes the first time in Ilya’s fist, a kind of shuddering release that rejigs his whole body. He feels it in the knocking of the vertebrae up his spine and the flush down to his toes. “Fuck,” he lets out like a death rattle.
“Da,” laving his hand over his softening cock and the cum on his belly, “Good boy,” Ilya coos.
“Fuck off.”
In response, Ilya presses the scent gland on his inner thigh, makes Shane jolt like he’s been shocked. “Sensitive here?”
“Sensitive everywhere,” he mumbles back.
“Sensitive here?” he asks again, fingers brushing across his pussy. Like a dart, Shane pins his elbow down with his foot, not letting him go further.
“No,” he says sternly.
He retracts his hand just as easily and he doesn’t say sorry. Instead, he wraps his fingers around Shane’s thighs. “Knees, up.” He complies, and Ilya seems entranced by what he sees. “You’re so wet here.”
“Ignore it.”
He nods, slipping his head between Shane’s legs and then pushing them back tight around him. Shane tenses, watching the pressure distort Ilya’s lips, his cheeks, and then relaxes. Ilya’s face relaxes with it. “I will suck your cock now.”
“Okay,” he breathes. His cock lays half-chubbed against his stomach, lifting slightly when Ilya runs his tongue up the length. “Okay,” he says again, settling back into the feeling of it.
It feels almost twisting, the pleasure being wrung out of him now — Ilya’s mouth a hot vice that spirals and spirals around the head of his cock. And then he takes all of Shane in, and it’s like getting thrown, or drowned, or something.
“Fucking Christ, Rozanov,” he curses
It’s so overwhelming, like his whole body has been enveloped in something warm and wet and Ilya Rozanov, and fuck, fuck, fuck, it’s the most he’s ever felt but, still riding the high of his last orgasm, he’s not ready to come so soon. The pleasure keeps building, building higher than it’s ever been, and Shane gets restless, trying to get something to make the bubble pop, but this is the most he’s ever had and it’s still not enough. “Please,” he begs, for nothing in particular. “Fuck, god, please.”
He can tell Ilya has about a hundred shit-eating things to say, but his mouth is preoccupied, and Shane’s squeezing his thighs around his head with abandon.
He wishes there was a button, just something he could press to make him come, but it takes time, it takes Ilya’s patient mouth to guide him through this. Together they climb up and up and up until a right step takes them over and Shane feels like his entire body has been squeezed out. He starts tapping on Ilya’s head then, trying to get him off, saying, “Stop, stop. I can’t do another, I can’t do more.”
He accepts this and pulls away, Shane’s thighs going lax, as he makes such a show of swallowing it makes Shane scrunch his nose. “Ew.”
“Fuck, Hollander. You look good,” ignoring that, Ilya mutters, standing back to slip off his boxers. “Stay still.”
Ilya starts stroking himself at an almost alarming pace. It’s borderline off-putting, how animal and unrefined it is. He’s nineteen, he’s virile, he’s hard; if even a drop hits Shane below the waist he’s going to freak out, and just lying here is making him feel useless.
He hooks his ankle behind Ilya’s knee, drawing him in, making him stumble. “Back on me,” he mumbles, as Ilya lets go to catch himself on the bed. Together, mostly Shane tugging, they get Ilya straddling his waist and then, with more tugging, sitting down, knees braced by either side.
“Not too heavy?”
Shane shakes his head. “No, wanna feel you.” He reaches for Ilya cock then, because he wants to feel that too, and it’s solid and warm in his grasp like he imagined it would be. Ilya sighs into the touch, hips rocking. He lowers himself more, until his cock rubs against the planes of Shane’s stomach, nestled between his muscles. Shane uses his palms to trap him there, maximising friction.
“Ngh,” Ilya’s sound of complaint. “Dry.”
“I don’t have— No lube,” he says, which isn’t ideal. His belly is dotted with flaking cum; his hands, he knows, aren’t the supplest either. And they aren’t soft — hockey, lifting, training has given him less than gentle callouses.
“Here,” Ilya says, taking Shane’s hands in his, palms cupping palms. Shane goes willingly, made to seem like he’s offering something, and watches Ilya throat work to spit a globule right on him. He feels the impact like it’s hail, and then he’s directed to pat over Ilya’s cock, wetting it thoroughly, because he starts rocking his hips again in the clutch of his fingers and stomach. He rides there, in the valley between his abs, working and pumping and looking down upon Shane like seeing him is the best part. He feels Ilya’s foreskin brush and slide against his hands as everything gets smoother and slicker and Ilya’s face gets tenser and tenser until suddenly, whole body going lax and with a rough, guttural grunt, he comes.
The come-down is much less erotic. Immediately, the only thing Shane can think of, as Ilya hunches over him, hands braced either side of his head and hips alleviating the weight off of his waist, is that he is really, really sticky. And naked.
“Pass me a tissue,” Shane mumbles. “Like, ten tissues.”
Rozanov counts out ten tissues, and then ignores Shane’s open hand to wipe down his stomach himself.
“Good as new,” he says, maybe because Shane’s sporting a glossy finish he wasn’t entirely able to buff out.
“You should shower,” he says quietly, as he cleans himself off too. Watching him makes Shane feel perverted, but he doesn’t think to flit his eyes away. “When you come out, I will be gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, like, like, paper in the wind,” he suggests.
“Like paper in the wind,” Shane finds himself scoffing, but good-naturedly, he hopes. “Yeah, okay. Night.”
“Goodnight.”
In the shower, scrubbing his stomach and thighs up and down, then getting out and wrapping himself in a towel, Shane frets about it for just under ten minutes before he realises, yeah, he’s gonna do it anyway. He pulls on his clothes, he tugs on his socks and shoes, and he makes his way down, out the hotel, through the lobby. He needs to get a pregnancy test. He needs to make sure. He’d get a Plan B to make extra sure but you’ve got to fill out a questionnaire to get one and he’s not doing that. He wishes he had a mask or something, but he’s just got his sunglasses and a hoodie drawn tight.
It’s dark, and Shane’s an adult now but he’s not so good at being out late at night alone — he doesn’t have much practice in it. Friends, hanging out, fucking around is for people who haven’t been working the equivalent of a full time job in hockey since they were about twelve. Those things stopped mattering when big men started saying The MLH around him. He’s scuttling through and left of the hotel entryway when he sees, hidden in the alleyway between buildings, Ilya smoking. He, like an idiot, stops to scoff and gawk.
“You come looking for me?” he says past the cigarette clenched in his teeth.
“No,” Shane replies, perhaps too defensively for a person who did not come looking for Rozanov. “No… I… I need to go buy something.”
“Buy what?” he asks, blowing out a big cloud. Shane steps back in disgust, but the smoke gets nowhere near him anyway. The smell permeates though.
“Nothing. Why do you care?”
Ilya shrugs. “Pretty beta out here all by yourself, maybe is not safe for you. I worry.”
“Oh, fuck you. Genuinely. Fuck you.”
Shane watches his face contemplate that. “Maybe we get to that.”
He splutters. “We won’t. We seriously won’t.”
That interests Ilya then. “No? I did bad job?”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then what it’s about?”
“I can’t risk—“ he seethes, cutting himself off to hiss even quieter: “I can’t risk getting pregnant.”
Ilya rolls his eyes. “You know about condoms, yes? They teach you this in fancy Canadian schools?”
“Fuck off.”
“Okay,” he says, and drops his cigarette, puts it out with the toe of his shoe. It’s littering, it makes Shane’s lips curl.
“Pick that up, you animal.”
With a huff, he does and, without a bin to dispose of the butt, just holds it. “Fuck, Hollander, you are bossy. Go, stop bothering me, buy your thingy.”
When Shane’s walking back from the pharmacy down the road, pregnancy test tucked securely in his pocket, someone grabs him by the elbow in a scuffle. It’s Ilya, of course, lying in wait in that alleyway like some predator animal. Shane tries to swat him off.
“How long were you waiting there, asshole? You’re an asshole,” he hisses, but Ilya’s seen what he’s got clenched in his fist. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Hollander, these don’t work for two weeks,” he says, like Shane doesn’t know, like it’s not written on the fucking box.
“I know, I just, I want to be ready.”
“So you carry around this test for two weeks? Not suspicious at all, Mr Beta.” Shane doesn’t say anything, but Ilya seems to acquiesce to something. “Fine. You take test, you share results with me, da?”
“How?”
He clicks his tongue. “Gimme phone. Gimme,” he insists when Shane hesitates. He puts his number in, texting himself, and then he hands it back. Shane has a new contact, Lily.
“Lily?”
“Is like codename. And you can be Jane. Pretty.”
“Jane,” Shane repeats to himself, a bit confused and stupid feeling.
“In two weeks, you pee on stick, you text me. We celebrate when you are definitely not pregnant, because we did not have sex, Hollander. Then, bam.”
“Bam?” he deadpans. “Celebrate how?”
Ilya shrugs, and then he slips past Shane to return to the hotel. “Do not follow me, Shane Hollander. You will look suspicious.”
He waits on the dark street, feeling half stranded, for exactly five minutes before scurrying back to his hotel room.