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1.
In hindsight, the first—or really, second—time isn’t that bad.
In the moment, it still feels like Shane’s lungs have a hole punched clean through them. But later, when they can count how many times it’s happened on two hands, he’ll look back and think: That one wasn’t totally terrible.
They’re dressed, for one thing.
Shane’s just crossed the threshold to Ilya’s house and Ilya immediately slams him hard against the wall.
No words pass between them. They’ve spoken so many through texts and hushed phone calls over the past, God, five weeks of long distance.
He used to go even longer without seeing Ilya, but it’s so much harder now. Now that Ilya’s his boyfriend and he’s allowed to have him whenever they can manage it. Now that Ilya’s someone to his parents, that he does puzzles with his dad and talks hockey with his mom.
Okay, no. He’s not thinking about his parents right now. He’s thinking of Ilya flush against him, hot and heavy and his. Fuck.
“Take me to the fucking bedroom,” Shane says against his lips, the first words he’s managed to speak.
He’s too close to see it, but he feels Ilya smile. “This is how you greet your boyfriend? No hello honey, how was work?”
“Hello honey, will you please take me to the fucking bedroom?” Shane asks, because he knows Ilya can’t resist a good please.
Ilya pulls back, tapping his chin as if considering it, then snakes his hands down and hoists Shane up. Shane grins and kisses him again. Over the sloppy sound of their tongues colliding, he hears a beeping noise, followed by Russian.
High, feminine Russian.
“Sveta,” Ilya chokes, his hands fumbling, but ultimately holding firm.
Shane turns his head slowly, looking at a woman who’s all curls and wide eyes. She looks right back and his heart plummets—until she bursts out laughing.
“Shane, Jane,” she says. “Ilyusha, that’s so stupid.”
“Yes,” Ilya says. “I am very dumb, you tell me everyday. What are you doing here? Why are you—”
“Why am I what? Letting myself in like I always do?” She throws her hands in the air, says something in Russian. Her eyes flit to Shane and she adds, “I didn’t know you would have company in the middle of the afternoon.”
Ilya sighs like he’s put out. “Ilya,” Shane whispers. “Put me down.”
Ilya sighs even louder, but relents, setting Shane down clumsily. Usually, he just throws him on a bed, and it seems he doesn’t really know how to let go on solid ground.
“This is Svetlana,” Ilya says. The sound of her name leaving Ilya’s lips skewers his chest, like it always does. “You can bond about how good I am in bed.”
Svetlana rolls her eyes in near sync with Shane. “I’m um. Shane. Hollander.” He puts his hand out. “Ilya’s…”
“Boyfriend,” Ilya says proudly and Shane braces himself. As much as he tries to forget it, he knows their history. Maybe she came here expecting—
“Finally!” Svetlana squeals, lunging forward and wrapping him up in a hug. “It’s so nice to meet you, Jane. We have a lot to talk about.”
2.
At least this time it’s someone he’s already come out to.
Oh who is he kidding? Shane’s grasping at consolations, because this one’s totally his fault.
He brought Ilya back to his hotel room. His hotel room that he shares with Hayden. Hayden, who he only came out to a month ago. He’s been enthusiastically supportive, but that will probably change when he finds out that Shane's not just gay, he's gay for 'the illegitimate love child of Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter' (Hayden's words).
The problem is that Ilya doesn’t live in Boston, not technically. He lives in Newton, in some stupidly large house that’s twenty-five minutes from the rink on a day with no traffic. A day like that doesn’t exist in Boston.
I thought you would be proud, Ilya said once when Shane complained. You have a real estate fetish!
Admittedly, it’s a good investment and he likes that Ilya doesn’t have close neighbors to overhear them. But none of that makes up for the fact that Shane doesn’t have time to drop by before their game.
The hotel is by the rink, so it makes more sense logistically for Ilya to come here. And, in his defense, Hayden’s out with J.J. He said, very explicitly, that he would meet Shane at the rink.
He said that! So yes, Shane is in their shared hotel room getting fucked hard enough to confuse Ilya for God.
He couldn’t muster up enough self-restraint to wait til he can go to Ilya’s after the game. It’s been three weeks since he’s been fucked. Three weeks.
He’s gone longer before, sure. And yeah, he knows that there are people out there who go that long without sex all the time. Maybe. Probably. But those people aren’t getting fucked by Ilya Rozanov.
Ilya’s on top so Shane can see the sheen of sweat on his forehead, feel that chain dangling above him, and he wants this view to last forever, but he also wants...
“Fuck.” Shane licks his lips. “Need to ride you.”
Ilya doesn’t blink before flipping him over. Shane gasps. He’s jacked off a frankly concerning amount of times the past three weeks and every time, he’s pictured this.
He’s just started putting his whole heart and soul (and hips) into riding when he hears a loud, “OH FUCK!” from behind him.
Shane freezes. His brain goes offline, like someone’s ripped a chord from it.
This isn’t happening. It can’t be. He deadbolted the door.
Didn’t he? Except…no, he was going to, but Ilya didn’t waste a second manhandling him to the bed. And Shane, like always, let him.
What should he do now? What can he do? Is there any chance he can convince Hayden that this is a hallucination and he doesn’t currently have Ilya Rozanov’s dick buried inside of him?
Ilya groans. “Go away, Pike.”
“Seriously?” Shane hisses.
“I am like ten seconds from coming!”
“Shane,” Hayden says, which is really the last way he wants to hear his name right now. “Shane, please tell me that’s some other Russian and not Ilya Rozanov.”
Shane finally starts moving, rolling over clumsily. He whines a little at the sensation of Ilya sliding out of him, emptying him. He clears his throat, but if Ilya’s smirk is anything to go by, it’s not a convincing cover.
Shane pulls the sheet up to their chests. He can’t bring himself to look at Hayden and probably never will again. But Hayden has a clear view of Ilya now, if his sharp intake of breath is anything to go by.
“NO!” Hayden shouts. “No, Shane. Shane, no.”
“Please stop saying my name.” Shane squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m sorry you had to find out this way—”
“This is a nightmare,” Hayden says. “This is an actual nightmare. I’m asleep, right? Come pinch me.”
“...do you honestly want me getting up right now?”
“This is…what the fuck?”
“You are so homophobic,” Ilya says.
“I don’t care that he’s gay!” Hayden says. Shane turns finally, locking eyes with Hayden, searching for any truth in that statement. Because there’s a difference between knowing theoretically that you share a locker room with a gay guy and seeing him ride a dick like it’s his life’s purpose. “I don’t. You know that. I just…him?”
“Yes,” Shane says softly. “Him.”
Hayden lets out a guttural groan and leans against the door. “Jesus, man. You couldn’t at least top him?”
“No,” Ilya says. “He really couldn’t.”
Shane nearly smothers him with a pillow.
3.
There’s one that really haunts him.
Like, losing sleep at night, seriously considering therapy three times a week haunts him.
He set a ‘no sex in his childhood home’ rule for a reason, after all. But it’s not an easy rule to follow, having his first ever Christmas with Ilya and not getting to have him.
After weeks apart and such a chaste reunion, his resolve is wearing thin. It doesn’t help that they’re sharing a double bed.
Today, he woke up to discover he’d been humping Ilya like a dog in his sleep. Shane’s half tempted to drive to Montreal in the middle of the night for the sole purpose of getting fucked.
He’s been staying strong though, reminding himself that next Christmas, Ilya will have his own place in Ottawa. Besides, they can still cuddle and hold hands and he’s missed that contact too. It’s fine. It’s enough.
He manages to almost convince himself until the second day of their brief holiday break, when he walks into his bedroom to freshen up before dinner and stops dead in his tracks.
The thing is that they’ve never worn each other’s jerseys. Shane refuses to wear Ilya’s, convinced that it’s bad luck. If he wears it, maybe the Bears will knock them out of the playoffs this season, like the universe is punishing him for being a whore.
Ilya has held out on wearing Shane’s because he thinks it’s unfair that Shane won’t wear his—until now.
Ilya’s facing away, only turning his head back to smirk, so Shane can see the number 24 in clear view. Can see Hollander stretched across his broad shoulders. Ilya hikes the jersey up just long enough for Shane to see that he’s wearing nothing underneath.
Shane swallows. He knows that it’s a cheap trick to get him to put out. But that’s overshadowed by the primal voice in his head screaming, mine.
He only has enough time to slam the door shut before he’s plummeting to his knees.
Ilya laughs in delight, sitting down on the bed and spreading his legs. “Like what you see?”
“You’re an asshole,” Shane mutters, but it’s undercut by the way that he’s nosing Ilya’s dick like it holds all the secrets to the universe.
“Your asshole,” Ilya says firmly. “Yours.”
Can Shane really be blamed for nearly swallowing Ilya’s dick whole?
Through his lashes, he looks up at Ilya, still in his jersey, mouth parted, breathing shallowly beneath childhood trophies and old Centaurs posters.
It’s healing in a way, doing this here. He used to try really hard to imagine bringing a girl home for Christmas. Hell, he used to try really hard to imagine a girl at all while getting himself off here.
He had sex with his high school girlfriend here once. Or he attempted to, at least. When he couldn’t get hard, he swore to himself and to her that he was just nervous about his parents being nearby.
There should probably be some truth to that now. A few minutes ago, he was insisting that they couldn’t do anything when his parents were in the kitchen.
Now, he’s moaning eagerly, Ilya’s dick muffling the worst of it.
“Fuck, sweetheart, I’m gonna—” Ilya whispers, fast for him but not surprising with how long it’s been. Shane squeezes his leg and soon after, Ilya’s spilling over.
He’s actively swallowing his boyfriend’s cum when the door opens.
“Boys, dinner’s—OH!”
Shane chokes, jerking his head back, and makes direct eye contact with his mom.
His mom. His mom just watched him guzzle down cum like it was Gatorade after a tough shift.
“I’m just gonna. Um.” The door slams.
Shane staggers back, burying his face in his arms, his current and last erection of his life flagging. There’s no way he’ll ever be able to get hard again. His dick had a good run but it’s over now.
“Shane…” Ilya says, dropping to the floor beside him. “Shane, it’s okay. She loves you. You’re okay.”
Shane darts his head up long enough to glare at him. “We are never ever having sex again. We’re never leaving this room again!”
Eventually, they do come out for dinner—after Shane hyperventilates and Ilya gets changed.
His dad’s clearly been informed about what happened, because he and his mom are both avoiding eye contact, heads bent.
It almost looks like his parents are praying. Maybe they are. Please lord, send us another son who isn’t a pathetic dick hungry slut, amen.
The table is silent except for the sound of forks scraping plates. His dad opens his mouth twice, then closes it.
Shane wonders if there’s any way out of this. If there’s any way through this. Six months of his parents knowing he’s gay and loving him anyway and he can feel it all coming undone in a matter of seconds.
He opens his own mouth in search of something to say. Just kidding? That was an elaborate prank? I’m so sorry, I will be wire transferring you all of my money and moving to the middle of the woods now?
Ilya clears his throat. “I am very sorry,” he says. “This is your home and your son…that was disrespectful of me. I understand if you would like me to leave.”
Shane whips his head up. What the fuck? Ilya’s talking like Shane has a dowry or something.
Shane has admittedly been too absorbed in panic to think about how this must feel for Ilya. Yuna’s like a second mother to him and she just saw his orgasm face on full display.
Mortification is to be expected, but there’s something deeper there when he peers at Ilya.
Shame, Shane realizes. It looks awful on him.
“Oh honey no!” his mom says before Shane can grasp for the right words. “I mean, no mother wants to see…that. But you’ve done nothing wrong and you’re not going anywhere. We’re all adults here. We understand you have…needs.”
“Jesus Christ.” Shane drops his forehead to the table.
“Well, you have me beat now,” his dad says lightly. “All I saw was an ass grab!”
“Dad,” Shane hisses while Ilya and his mom both laugh.
Shane takes Ilya’s hand and squeezes, a silent question: You good?
Ilya squeezes back.
4.
The next time is completely preventable.
At least with his parents, Svetlana, Hayden, they were walking into places that were meant to be private.
Shane can’t say the same of the bathroom at the NHL awards. It’s…he’s not thinking.
He’s pretty sure Ilya has, like, mind melding pheromones or something. The type that make him lose all capacity for reasonable thought as soon as they’re in the same room.
They last a grand total of twenty-six minutes (yes, Shane’s counting). Twenty-six minutes backstage, circling Ilya in a painfully gorgeous tuxedo, his large hand wrapped around a cup of water.
Shane has two options: wait hours until they’re up in their hotel rooms or drag him to the bathroom.
As soon as he pushes the bathroom door open, he gets a strong sense of deja vu. Only this time, he doesn’t have to guess how Ilya’s feeling in a sick little game of Russian roulette.
This time, he gets to kiss Ilya hard. This time, he gets to say, “Get on your knees.”
“What?” Ilya reels back, stunned. Shane bites his lip to stop himself from smiling.
“Go on. You heard me. You made me look like an idiot the last time we were in this bathroom!”
“Oh like you didn’t love it,” Ilya says. “You were hard all night.”
“You’re my boyfriend now,” he says smugly. “Boyfriends get on dirty bathroom floors—”
“So you get on your knees. Because boyfriends get on—”
“No fucking way!” God, it’s stupid in the best way possible. It’s been, what, four years since Shane begged for him here? Since he nearly cried because he wanted Ilya so badly that it was ripping his chest open? “I already begged for it. I’m cashing in.”
“Mmm, I don’t remember. Has been so long,” Ilya says. The same Ilya who remembered that his dad reads the fucking New Yorker from that conversation. Yeah right. “Try again.”
Shane narrows his eyes. There’s a good chance this is a trick, but as previously established, Shane’s always been stupid when it comes to Ilya.
“Please,” Shane says. “Please get on your knees. On this dirty bathroom floor. And suck my dick.”
Ilya drops. Shane lets out a surprised laugh and has a brief second to wonder if this is a terrible idea before Ilya has his cock out and is swiping his tongue along the head.
Shane presses his back against the counter, lets out a shaky breath. Ilya takes him in deeper and Shane’s fingers curl around his hair, and fuck, he loves this man. He can’t believe there was ever a time they denied themselves of this.
He’s letting out a pathetic little whimper when the door opens.
Because it is, of course, not a single stalled bathroom.
That’s where a smart person would get a blowjob from their sworn rival who they’re in a top secret gay relationship with. Shane doesn’t have a middle name, but if he did, it would probably be idiot.
“Oh holy shit—Rozanov?”
Okay. That’s…not the worst case scenario. It’s not like it’s Dallas Kent.
Shane turns slowly to the sound of Scott Hunter’s voice, startling at the sight of a grinning Carter Vaughn beside him. Fuck. How many fucking Admirals are waiting in the wings?
“Uh,” Shane says eloquently. He finally springs into action and pulls back, tucking his dick in his damn pants.
Ilya, fucking Ilya, stands up, wipes his mouth, and says, “Hello boys. Find another bathroom. This one is occupied.”
Shane slaps him lightly on the back of the head. “Stop.”
“What? It is!”
“Oh my God,” Hunter says. “Oh my fucking God. I can’t believe…”
“Yes Hunter,” Ilya says. “I know you think you invented being gay since you were the first of your fellow cavemen—”
“OH MY GOD,” Scott says, though this time he sounds more familiarly murderous. “Are you seriously being a little shit right now? I just caught you with Hollander’s dick in your mouth—”
“Shout it a little louder,” Ilya says. “I’m not sure Crowell heard you.”
Scott winces. He grabs Carter by the wrist and pulls him all the way inside. He closes the bathroom door and uses a trashcan to block it. Gee, Shane thinks, what a good idea.
“We won’t tell anyone,” Hunter says and something tight in Shane’s chest releases. “Right Vaughny?”
“Of course not!” Carter says cheerfully. “This is so exciting. I told you you weren’t the only one. My money was on Price though.”
“What, because Hollander is very gay, Price can’t be?” Ilya says.
“Oh yeah, I guess you could all be gay.” Carter turns his head thoughtfully. “What about Marlow? I mean, I know it’s not good to gossip, but you can’t help but wonder.”
“Marlow is probably bi but does not realize it,” Ilya says.
“Oh my God, stop playing gay guess who,” Shane says. “I’m really sorry you had to see…that.”
“It’s fine,” Hunter says. “I mean, I hope I get a concussion that causes memory loss next season, but I’m glad it was us who walked in and not literally anyone else. You guys realize how stupid you’re being, right? You have rooms upstairs.”
“Sorry.” Ilya pouts. “We did not mean to disappoint our elder gays.”
“Jesus. Hollander, whenever you wise up and realize you’re too good for him, you have my number. Kip has plenty of friends who are discreet.”
“Hey!”
“I’m good,” Shane says. “But thanks. I guess.”
Hunter shakes his head and looks heavenward. “Really? This is not what I meant when I said I didn’t want to be the only one.”
Ilya cackles.
5.
Shane’s given up on justifications.
There’s a lot he could say. They haven’t been walked in on in awhile, so his vigilance slipped. It’s been a stressful week.
There are more kids than ever at the Game Changers camps. They’ve taken on two new coaches (Zane Boodram and Cliff Marlow, a current and former teammate of Ilya’s), but Shane still feels outnumbered sometimes.
Not to mention the admin work and cranky parents and having Ilya right there but not being able to touch him.
“You need to relax,” Ilya says, closing the door to their makeshift office. “This is supposed to be fun.”
“Fun for the kids,” he says. “It takes a lot of effort to make that happen.”
“And you are so good at it.” Ilya pushes him hard against the desk. He stands behind Shane, trailing soft lips down his neck. “Let me help you calm down.”
“We shouldn’t…” Shane says, but it’s half-hearted.
He wants this. God, he wants Ilya so bad.
Everyone’s pretty much cleared out after their staff meeting. And, well, maybe Shane gets a tiny rush wondering if there’s a straggler or two.
It shouldn’t be true, but after all this time, he still likes fucking Ilya in bathrooms and offices and literal closets. He likes the idea of someone walking in and seeing how well he takes it, how good he is for Ilya.
When he’s not horny, he’s terrified that the wrong person will see and blow their lives up. But he’s quickly slipping into that subdued space where it’s just fucking hot knowing that if someone walked in right now, they’d see that he belongs to Ilya Rozanov.
So he lets Ilya tug his pants down. He lets Ilya drop to his knees and eat his ass against the desk.
He writhes and moans and forgets about the paperwork he needs to file tonight and the three calls he needs to make. Four? He has no fucking clue and he doesn’t care.
All he cares about is Ilya’s tongue. All he cares about is getting more, more, more. “Fuck. Do we have lube? I need you.”
Shane opens his eyes in search of it, because Ilya must have a bottle stashed somewhere, and finds a very red-faced and vaguely sweaty Cliff Marlow staring at him.
“FUCK!”
“It’s fine. I have some in this drawer—“ Ilya says, rising to his feet. “Ah.”
“Uh, I just wanted to…” Cliff bursts out laughing. “God, I knew it. I fucking knew it!”
Ilya folds his arms over his chest. “You did not.”
“Yes I fucking did. Jane rhymes with Shane and she lives in Montreal,” Cliff says indignantly, like Shane’s ass isn’t half out. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”
“No,” Ilya says, “I know you are that stupid.”
Okay, this isn’t so bad. At least it wasn’t a repeat of—
The door opens for a second time. Just as Shane’s pulling his pants up, he makes eye contact with Ryan Price.
“Seriously? Again?! You guys need a lock. And an HR department.”
6.
Shane wishes it was anybody else, but he did earn this one.
He just won his fourth Stanley Cup. Fourth. With his husband. His husband.
His husband who looks like that and plays like that and is Ilya Fucking Rozanov. Can anyone really blame him?
He doesn’t think twice before dragging a champagne soaked Ilya away from the locker room by the waist. He makes no excuses, he doesn’t fucking need one.
He scored the game winning goal and he deserves to get fucked now, immediately, and for the rest of the night. Hell, for the rest of the summer.
“GET IT, CAP!” Dykstra claps Ilya on the back.
“More like get it Holly,” one of the rookies says, grinning. His first Cup has clearly already gone to his head, but whatever. Shane’s too happy to be embarrassed.
“Get what?” Ilya asks innocently. “We just have some things to discuss. Brand deals since we are Cup winners again.”
The cheering quickly makes way for jeering. “Yeah right,” Troy withdraws from Harris long enough to shout.
“Discussions about your dick maybe,” Bood says.
Shane tugs Ilya down the hall to the nearest empty conference room before he can waste time chirping Bood for that objectively awful joke.
Shane doesn’t think about anyone on the other side of the door or the fact that there was one notable person busy with press who missed their exit.
He just thinks about Ilya. He thinks about how… “We won,” he says. “We fucking won. We won together.”
“Yes,” Ilya’s breath is hot against his ear. “My husband is a four time Stanley Cup champion.”
Not for the first time tonight, Shane leaps into his arms. Ilya catches him, carries him over to the table, and lays him down on top of it. “Fuck, say it again.”
“Four time.” Ilya drapes his body atop Shane’s. “Stanley Cup champion.” He sucks the hollow of Shane’s throat, the words vibrating. “Shane Hollander.”
Shane moans as if Ilya just hit his prostate. “Fuuuck.”
Ilya laughs, grinning wildly. “You’re going to come in your pants.”
“Do I have to?” Shane raises his eyebrows. “Or will my two time Stanley Cup winning husband fuck me?”
Ilya tugs Shane’s pants down. He reaches his fingers up and Shane’s mouth falls open in what must be a Pavlovian response. He sucks around them, moaning again—when a voice shouts, “Oh goodness!”
Shane looks up to see Coach Wiebe, accompanied by the assistant GM and GM who are bearing bottles of champagne and twin stunned expressions. Wiebe, for his part, barely looks surprised. “Sorry boys. As you were!”
Shane tries to say his own apology, but Ilya’s fingers are still in his mouth so no coherent words come out.
Just as Shane nudges them away, the door closes softly.
“Well,” he can hear Wiebe laughing through it, “I can’t say I blame them. They have a lot to celebrate!”
“We should probably apolo—“ Ilya swirls a spit drenched finger around his hole, cutting off the end of Shane's sentence and maybe all oxygen to his brain. “Fuck! Ilya, don’t you think we should—“
“I think you should shut up,” Ilya says, “and let me fuck a four time Stanley Cup champion.”
Shane drops his head back to the table. He’ll send out edible arrangements tomorrow.
+1.
Shane’s really trying not to be annoyed.
Halfway. They were halfway home after a long practice and an even longer strategy meeting when Ilya cursed under his breath, realizing that he didn’t have his charger.
Because despite being a multi-millionaire, he only has one that isn’t broken and has been carting it back and forth between the rink and home.
Shane has a million extras, but he has a sponsorship with Samsung. Ilya got the same offer but didn’t accept it on account of ‘not wanting to be an idiot without an iPhone’, so they don’t use the same one.
They walk back to the locker room, Shane huffing and puffing the whole way.
“Relax,” Ilya says, rolling his eyes. “Will only take a second. I told you to wait in the car.”
“I don’t want to wait in the car like a dog, Ilya!” Shane says. “I want to be home taking a bath.”
“Ooh, a bath?” Ilya’s eyes light up.
“Only people who remember their chargers are allowed in my bath.” It’s a lie, obviously. It’s only going to take thirty seconds of pestering for him to cave, if that. But their relationship is founded on Shane pretending to have a strong resolve. Why mix it up now?
Ilya lets out a little whine. “But my back huuuurts and you will be so lonely in there.” He pushes open the locker room door.
It was dead empty when they left, and Shane’s expecting it to still be that way. Obviously. He wouldn’t be openly discussing their bath time if he thought they had company.
So he’s stunned into silence when they walk in on Luca Haas being fucked hard against a wall.
Okay. Wow. Well. Huh.
Luca’s eyes are closed, and the guy doing said fucking hasn’t seemed to notice them. Maybe they can leave quietly, save them the embarrassment that Shane’s experienced so many times—
“NO!” Ilya cries. “NO, MY EYES! MY FATHERLY EYES!”
“Ilya, oh my God, stop.”
The guy scampers away from Luca and it’s then that Shane recognizes him. Pelletier. A defenseman for Montreal.
Luca stammers something that definitely isn’t English, scrambling to pull his pants up. Finally, he says, “Sorry! I’m so sorry. We thought—”
“That’s my bad. I should have known the rumors were true,” Pelletier says, smirking and zipping up his fly. “Of course Hollander sleeps in the rink.”
Ilya audibly gasps. “I do not like you.”
“Heartbreaking. Here I was hoping you’d cheer for me with your nursing home buddies after you retire next season.”
Ilya looks back and forth between Pelletier and Luca. He points a finger at Pelletier that’s probably supposed to be threatening. “You are not allowed to see him ever again.”
Pelletier rolls his eyes. “Oh no, I’m so scared. What are you gonna do, ground me? Put me in time out? Make me move to boring Ottawa and join you in your 8 P.M. bedtime?”
Ilya clutches his chest like he’s been stabbed. “LUCA, WHY? He is so mean!”
“I…” Luca says.
“End it. End it now. Give me your phone, I will delete his number.”
“He’s kidding,” Shane says. “And we’re sorry.”
“Sorry?! He is in my locker room!”
“It’s not your—whatever. We won’t tell anyone.” He levels Luca a stare that he hopes is reassuring. Luca can barely meet it. God, how is it almost worse being on this side of things? How does he help this kid realize that this won’t be his downfall? “We promise. Right, Ilya?”
“Of course. I don’t want anyone to know that you are dating this asshole,” Ilya says.
“We’re not dating,” Pelletier says at the same time that Luca says, “It’s not—”
Something passes between them. A tiny flicker of…hurt, maybe? God, time really is a circle.
“Okay, good.” Ilya claps his hands. “Plenty of nice boys in Ottawa. We will find you one.”
Pelletier flinches. It’s only a second, but if Shane sees it, he’s sure Ilya does.
“Whatever.” Without much ceremony, he heads to the door. “See you when we beat you tomorrow.”
“I will only be seeing your face against the boards,” Ilya shouts back.
“Kinky. Sorry, I’m not into daddies.” The kid winks and disappears.
Ilya sputters, but Shane ignores him, turning back to Luca whose face is dropped and alarmingly red. Literally. It looks like a fire alarm.
“I am very, very sorry,” Luca whispers.
“Hey, no. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Shane’s eyes sweep the locker room. “I mean, yeah, this is technically a shared space, but…”
“But that has never stopped me and Shane,” Ilya says. “He first came onto me in a public shower.”
“Really?” Luca’s eyes widen.
“You came onto me!” Shane argues. It’s not their first time having this back and forth and it usually ends with Ilya making some terrible joke about coming on him, so he nips that in the bud. “It’s really fine. Don’t lose sleep over this, okay?”
“Okay.”
Ilya nods. “Yes. No worries. I am just glad you are getting laid.”
“Thanks?”
“Really though?” Ilya turns his head to the door Pelletier just walked through. “Him?”
Luca shrugs. “I think…maybe. Yes.” A small smile spreads on his face. Shane’s heart squeezes.
Ilya sighs, resigned. “Then we will have you both over for dinner.”
“Talk to him about how you feel first, maybe?” Shane suggests. Luca’s eyes somehow widen even more. Okay, so definitely not there yet.
He tugs Ilya away before they can lay it on any thicker and scare him off. If Luca’s anything like Shane, he’ll need a minute to process…literally everything that just happened.
“Pelletier,” Ilya grumbles as soon as they’re in the car. “I hate that asshole.”
“Oh come on. He doesn’t remind you of anyone?”
“No,” Ilya says sharply. He spends the whole drive home ranting about Pelletier. How he’s terrible at hockey (a lie), plays for a team of assholes (not like he chose where he was drafted to), a douchebag (sort of true), ugly (definitely a lie).
They’re pulling into the driveway when Ilya curses, slamming the steering wheel.
“What?”
He puts the car in park, turning to Shane with a sheepish smile. “I forgot my charger.”