Work Text:
The One That Was Missing
Ilya was sitting at the Hollander family dining table. Beside him, David was serving generous portions of his now-famous Panko-Crusted Salmon with Curried Yogurt Sauce, along with herb asparagus, a dish that somehow managed the remarkable feat of fitting Shane’s strict diet, satisfying Yuna’s many requirements, and still being genuinely delicious. Across from Ilya, Yuna was talking, punctuating each sentence with wide gestures. Next to her, Shane was listening reverently as he held out her plate to his father.
Outside, the autumn sun lit up the trees in the garden. Inside, the atmosphere was soft and warm, and Ilya still couldn’t quite believe how lucky he was to be sitting there with these three people who had now become his family.
It had been three weeks since he had officially moved to Ottawa. Leaving Boston and the Bears had been harder than he’d expected (Marlow could be such a crybaby) but joining the Centaurs had done him an unexpected amount of good. Ilya had never doubted the team would welcome him warmly. After all, it wasn’t every year that one of the NHL’s most high-profile players decided to join what Ottawa had practically turned into a troupe of dancers. He still remembered the team president’s expression when he’d signed his contract, somewhere between stunned and ecstatic. The reality, though, had gone beyond even his expectations: players and staff alike seemed genuinely happy to have him there, not just as a hockey player, but as a person.
Most of all, he was discovering the joy of being only a two-hour drive from Shane. Since his arrival, they’d managed more or less to see each other every week, a revolution after ten years of a weird long-distance sort of relationship. They were finally learning how to live together differently: inventing their own routines, their own rhythm. Free from the urgency of meetings that had once been too rare, they felt closer and more at ease than ever.
Ilya lived only twenty minutes from Yuna and David’s house, and they often invited him over even when Shane wasn’t there. Ilya loved those visits. He could listen to Yuna talk for long stretches about Shane’s statistics and his own too then exchange amused looks with David, who had been listening to her for decades with the same quiet patience.
Sometimes, on the drive back, Ilya would still feel a faint ache in his chest when he thought about his mother. What would she think if she could see him like this, being so carefully looked after by Shane’s parents? Irina was a jealous woman, and not a very secure one. Ilya knew that. Would she be irritated to see her own son drifting away from his home country in favour of a wealthy Canadian family? Would she be sad at the thought that Yuna might take her place in his heart?
Of course, those questions remained theoretical. Ilya knew she would be happy to know he was surrounded by people who loved him. That was what he told himself to reassure himself as he discreetly wiped at his eyes before turning his attention back to the road.
“How did your appointment go, Ilya?”
Yuna’s voice pulled Ilya out of his thoughts. He looked around and realised that all the curious eyes of the Hollander family were turned towards him.
“Uh, sorry, I was somewhere else. Which appointment?
-The one with Farah. You had that meeting the day before yesterday, didn’t you?”
Farah Jalali was Ilya’s new agent. She was Shane’s agent too and he had warmly recommended her to him.
“Oh right!” Ilya replied enthusiastically, bringing a full forkful of salmon to his mouth. “She told me about two new endorsement deals, my sponsors. We talked about a lot of things, the foundation, upcoming interviews…
-Did you meet her colleague? He’s very professional, but I think he only handles rookie contracts.
-No, we met at restaurant.
-Which one?” David asked, suddenly much more interested in the conversation.
“I can’t remember the name. It was very classy, downtown, in old building. A bank or something like that.
-The Riviera?
-Oh yeah, that one.
-Oh, you must have had an excellent time. Their food is outstanding. Their oysters are incredible. We go there often, don’t we, Yuna?
-Hm. Yes, very good. Did you talk about your invitation to Spittin’ Chiclets?”
The conversation continued at the same easy pace, Ilya answering David in turn about the city’s many restaurants and Yuna about more professional matters. The only one who wasn’t saying a word was Shane, too busy watching Ilya with a soft, fond smile resting on his lips. Seeing Ilya feel comfortable around his parents always made Shane incredibly happy.
Once the meal was over, while the four of them were clearing the table together, Shane positioned himself in the kitchen doorway, hands in the pockets of his jeans, biting his lip, visibly uncomfortable.
“Uh. Ilya, do you want to come to my room? I, um… I’ve got some old stuff of mine to show you.”
Bent over the dishwasher, Ilya straightened up, looked at Shane, and barely managed to hold back a laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Yuna and David exchanging a knowing glance. Shane was lying shamelessly, and the worst part was that he thought he was hiding it. Ilya bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from making a sarcastic remark. He didn’t want to embarrass Shane in front of his parents. Not more than Shane was already doing himself, anyway.
“Yeah, sure. Show me the… old things.”
Whether Yuna and David caught the double meaning in his answer, Ilya didn’t turn around to check. One thing was certain: Shane hadn’t noticed anything at all.
“Come on, then,” Shane muttered, far too eager to leave the kitchen not to look suspicious.
Ilya followed Shane. They crossed the living room, went up the three steps leading to the hallway with the bedrooms and entered the last one at the very end. Barely had Ilya closed the door behind them when Shane rushed at him. With his hands on Ilya’s hips, he pushed him back against the door and crashed his lips against his. Clearly impatient, Shane slid his hands up along Ilya’s body before cupping his face.
“God, I missed you,” he murmured before slipping his tongue between Ilya’s lips.
Resting his hands on Shane’s broad shoulders, Ilya tried to push him towards the bed, but Shane only pressed him more firmly against the door, clearly unwilling to give up control of their embrace. The simple gesture drew a low sound of pleasure from Ilya.
Ilya loved it when Shane made a point of responding to each of his desires, to even the smallest of his requests. He deeply admired his ability to let go of his hesitations, to set aside his instincts and simply allow himself to be guided, to switch off his brain and focus on the pleasure of their bodies tangled together. Shane trusted him deeply.
Ilya trusted Shane too of course but, for his part, was incapable of that kind of letting go. He didn’t mind thought quite the opposite. Where Shane found pleasure in surrender, Ilya often felt that control only intensified his own.
But it wasn’t always about control or letting go. Sometimes, without really meaning to, they found a perfect balance, a kind of natural choreography where each of them followed the other effortlessly.
And then, more rarely, Shane became more assertive. He set the pace, followed his own impulses, and Ilya, intrigued by the shift, never resisted for very long.
“I missed you too,” Ilya sighed, slipping his fingers into Shane’s hair.
Two weeks. Two weeks since they’d last seen each other, Shane having been travelling on the West Coast. He’d come back that morning and gone straight from the airport to meet Ilya at his parents’ house. Pressed against the door, Shane’s weight holding him in place in the very best way, Ilya found himself wondering how he had managed to survive all those years living so far away from Shane Hollander.
Their kiss wasn’t gentle. It was urgent, insistent. Out of breath, they paused just long enough to breathe without really pulling their mouths apart. Shane’s hands were moving over his ribs now, his back, his stomach, over the fabric of his T-shirt. Almost without thinking, Ilya shifted his leg forward slightly until his thigh met Shane’s crotch. Shane immediately began to move against it in an instinctive motion, eyes closed.
A full minute passed without Ilya taking his eyes off Shane’s face. His brows were drawn together, focused, almost cut off from the rest of the world. His breathing was uneven. Ilya could feel him hardening through their clothes, and the sensation was just as intoxicating as it had always been, even after all these years.
“Stop… stop, we can’t do this here…” Shane muttered, without actually stopping the movement of his hips as he rested his head against Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya let out a small laugh. With his right hand, he firmly caught Shane’s jaw and forced him to lift his gaze towards him.
“I’m not doing anything, Shane. You’re the one rubbing against me like a horny little dog,” Ilya said with a crooked smile before pressing a quick kiss to Shane’s sulking lips.
“Oh, fuck you. You want it too,” Shane shot back, his warm breath still in Ilya’s mouth.
“Of course I want it. The difference is, I know how to behave,” Ilya replied, raising an amused eyebrow.
Shane closed his eyes again, straightened up, stilled his hips and drew in a long breath before slowly exhaling.
“Yeah, yeah… okay… let’s calm down…” he murmured to himself.
He stepped away from Ilya, stretched his arms while taking a few more deep breaths to let the tension settle and regain his composure. In a few long strides, he reached the small desk he mostly used for homework and sat on top of it.
“So? Did you meet your neighbours at the end of the driveway?” Shane asked in a tone far too casual to be sincere.
Still leaning back against the door, Ilya smiled again. Shane and he already had this conversation on the phone, but who was he to deny him the right to try to distract his dirty mind?
“Yeah, their kid kicked a ball into the yard and they came over to ask if they could get it back,” Ilya replied simply, pushing himself away from the door with his shoulder blades before dropping heavily onto the bed. It was bigger than a child’s bed but not wide enough to comfortably fit two adults. Ilya lay back on his spine, his head resting on his hands against one of the two pillows.
“They nice?” Shane asked, arms crossed over his chest.
“Shane, we already had this conversation.”
Shane let out a small complaining sound. “Yeah, that’s true… Uh… you know Hayden’s planning a trip to Norway next summer?”
“The neighbours are really nice, especially Isabella. Simon’s quieter. The girls are adorable though,” Ilya continued, very uninterested in Pike’s holiday plans.
The conversation carried on quietly before drifting towards the administrative steps Ilya was preparing to take, with the help of their agent, to apply for Canadian citizenship.
“My permanent resident status is already sorted, the NHL handled everything, I didn’t have to do anything.
-So now you just have to wait three years.
-Farah told me it might be shorter.
-How’s that? Citizenship usually only comes after three years of residency.
-I don’t know. Apparently being a pro athlete can help because of all the travel and stuff. I didn’t really understand everything.
-I’ll look into it.”
Silence settled again in the small bedroom. Outside, the wind had picked up and was sending red and yellow leaves swirling close to the window. Ilya looked more closely at Shane, who seemed lost in his administrative concerns. The bulge between his legs seemed to have softened again, his breathing was calmer, and the flush had faded from his cheeks. Now that he’d regained his composure, it was time to have a little fun…
“You’ll have to take the citizenship test too. I looked it up, it’s not that ea…
-You know I’m gonna fuck you hard, yes?” Ilya cut in, pushing himself up onto his forearms and staring at him as he licked his lips.
“Wh… what?” Shane stammered, mouth falling open.
“Once we’re back at home, I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll end up crying and begging me to keep going,” Ilya clarified, exaggerating his slow, languid tone. Playing with Shane was one of his favourite games, sometimes he wondered if he’d ever get tired of it.
“Ilya, what are you doing?” Shane asked, completely serious, still sitting on the desk with his arms crossed over himself.
“What? I’m planning the rest of the day,” Ilya replied as he pushed himself upright and sat with his back against the wall. “It’s always good to be prepared, to plan the future, you know…” he added with a shrug.
Shane snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re such an asshole…” He cleared his throat, uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on the edge of the small desk. “But you’re wasting your time. The mood’s gone. You won’t get anywhere like this.”
Feigning offence, Ilya pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.
“Oh, I don’t want anything! I’m just trying to make sure we agree on the rest of the day,” he said lightly.
“Oh yeah?” Shane murmured, amused now too, fixing his teasing gaze on Ilya’s. “Go on then…” he finally suggested, unable to resist rising to even the stupidest challenges his boyfriend threw at him.
“But before I fuck you, I think that…
-On the dining room table,” Shane cut in firmly.
“What?” Ilya asked, surprised.
“I want you to fuck me on the dining room table.”
Ilya grinned widely. The two men were playing the same game now. The challenge was to hold steady. Too keep his composure. Too hold his nerve.
“Fine. On the dining room table. But first, I want to suck you. I want to taste your dick. It’s been so long since I had it in my mouth I can’t even remember what it tastes like anymore.
-I want you to gag on it.
-Oh, greedy, huh?
-It’s been two weeks Ilya. Okay, and then?
-Then I’ll kiss you.”
Shane raised his eyebrows and let out a small mocking laugh.
“That’s it? I’ve known you filthier than that, Rozanov…
-Let me finish, sweetheart. I’ll kiss you and spit in your mouth so you can taste your precum on your tongue.
-You know I don’t like that.
-But me I like it. And you like when I’m turned on.
-Yeah… maybe. And then?
-Then I know you’re going to want to go to the bathroom.
-Mmh. Yeah. I’ll go get ready with…
-I could come watch y…
-Still a no-go, Ilya.”
Ilya let out a small sigh of frustration. For months now he’d been regularly suggesting to Shane that he join him during his sacred pre-anal prep, something he almost never skipped, but every single time he got the same refusal. Shane Hollander could be such a killjoy sometimes…
“I’ll go get ready and I’ll take the lube to start stretching for you.
-Oh yeah?”
Shane’s face was completely serious now, his eyes fixed on Ilya’s.
“Yeah. Then I’ll come back out naked. I’ll go straight into the living room and I want you to take me from behind, against the table.
-No fingers?
-I’ll have taken care of that already. And I’ll want to feel you inside me, still a little too tight, so it hurts a bit, so I can feel you better inside me. Just… just your cock, lubed.”
Ilya bit his lower lip. If only the whole world knew how filthy and naughty Shane Hollander could be… He knew. He had the privilege of seeing him exactly as he was. Horny as fuck.
“No condom?
-No. No, I…”
Embarrassment? Shane’s silence only sharpened Ilya’s already keen curiosity.
“You what?
-I want…” Shane closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled through his nose. “I want to feel your cum running down my thigh.
-Oh fuck, Shane…” His boyfriend’s dirty mind never seemed to stop surprising him.
“I want to feel your cock inside me, as deep as possible. I want to feel you all the way in my stomach. I want you to go hard. I want…” Suddenly Shane seemed almost electrified. He opened his eyes abruptly and clapped his hands as he stood up. “We need to get out of this fucking house.”
Ilya burst out laughing. Not a teasing laugh, not mocking or calculated. A genuine, open laugh, full of real amusement.
“You worked yourself up all on your own, Shane. I barely even said anything!
-You’re an evil genius. Okay… we go back to the living room. We don’t leave right away or it’ll be too obvious. We spend a bit more time with my parents and then we go. We play it subtle.”
Ilya smiled even more broadly and stood up as well.
“Subtle like your perfect plan to bring me into your bedroom?” he whispered as he stepped closer to Shane before placing a small, chaste kiss on his cheek.
“What are you talking about?” Shane asked, clearly confused.
“Why do you think your dad turned the music up so loud, baby?” Ilya said with a smile, gently tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.
Shane fell silent and turned his attention to the sounds coming from the living room. Sure enough, until now he hadn’t noticed Neil Diamond’s voice blasting through the entire house.
“They… they think we’re…” Shane stammered, suddenly horrified by what his parents might be imagining.
Ilya said nothing, letting him reach the conclusion on his own, simply raising an amused eyebrow.
“Fuck, that’s embarrassing! Let’s get out of here,” Shane muttered as he flung open the bedroom door, followed by a laughing Ilya.
They took a few steps down the hallway before Shane stopped abruptly and, because of the sudden halt, Ilya bumped straight into him. Surprised, Ilya looked at him and noticed that Shane’s gaze was fixed on what seemed to be an old school book resting on a small wooden console table.
Shane called his mother once, but his voice didn’t manage to carry over the slightly more melodic and much louder voice of Neil Diamond. Looking more closely, Ilya realised that what he had first taken for a notebook was actually one of those binders children use to store Pokémon cards or things like that. On the dark blue cover, a small, slightly worn label had been stuck on. On it, a much younger Shane had carefully written his first name, his last name, his date of birth, and his address.
“Mom!!!” Shane called louder, making Ilya jump slightly and take a step back.
Alerted, Yuna appeared in the hallway, a mug of coffee in her hands.
“What is it, sweetheart?” she asked as she walked towards Shane.
“Why my…
-Wait, I can’t hear anything… David! Turn the music down!”
David’s voice carried from the living room.
“What?! I can’t hear anything over the music!”
Yuna sighed and turned around to head back towards the living room. Ilya smiled. Under what lucky star had he been born to have had the chance to cross paths with this family?
“David, for the love of God, turn the music down!” Yuna called before returning to Shane.
“There was no reason to turn it up that loud in the first place…” Shane muttered.
“What is it, sweetheart?
-What’s my binder doing here?” Shane asked his mother, clearly irritated, picking it up.
“Oh, I showed it to Adam, you know, Bianca’s son. He collects cards too. Did you know they still make them?
-Yes, I knew. Mom, you know I don’t like people touching my binder.
-Shane, he was so happy to see the cards.
-It’s not a toy!” Shane snapped firmly, while Yuna rolled her eyes.
Surprised that a simple binder could trigger such a reaction from Shane, Ilya stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. The young man was tense, holding the binder with extreme care, as if it were an original copy of the New Testament. Ilya shot a questioning glance at Shane, then at Yuna.
“What is it?”
Shane, too busy opening the binder to check that nothing had been damaged, didn’t answer. Yuna, however, gave Ilya a bit of her attention.
“When he was little, around nine or ten…
-Nine,” Shane corrected without looking away from the binder.
“Yes, nine. Shane became completely obsessed with collecting Upper Deck cards. You know, those hockey player trading cards you could find everywhere back then. That collection still means a lot to him, even today.”
Ilya nodded and lowered his gaze to the binder as well.
“No, Mom, when you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous,” Shane replied, closing the binder carefully, apparently reassured that all the cards were still in their places.
“I’m sure you explain it better than I do…” Yuna remarked patiently.
“It’s not just a stupid collection,” Shane began to explain, turning to face Ilya.
He set the binder back down on the console with almost ceremonial care. “It’s my Upper Deck 2000–01. Series 1 and Series 2.” He said it as if that alone were enough to explain the binder’s importance. Ilya, sensing without fully understanding how important the object was, focused on Shane’s words while looking at the binder with quiet respect. Shane opened it and slid his fingers along the first cards, following the left-hand column without touching them, just brushing the plastic sleeves.
“I organised them exactly according to the official checklist. One to 225 for Series 1. Then 226 to 450 for Series 2. Otherwise the set doesn’t make sense.”
Ilya was about to ask a question that wasn’t especially important, but Shane continued. He was speaking quickly, completely absorbed in what he was explaining.
Each booster pack contained eight cards, he explained. Seven base cards and one possible insert slot. The Young Guns appeared statistically about once every four packs. A twenty-four-pack box gave you around six rookies on average, but only on average. He hadn’t bought full boxes. Only single packs. At Canadian Tire. With his birthday or Christmas money.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ilya noticed Yuna leaning against the hallway wall, looking both tired and patient. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time she’d attended one of her son’s lectures.
Shane turned a page. He slowed down.
“Here.” The silver strip at the top of the cards caught the light. Shane placed a finger at the edge of the plastic sleeve without sliding it inside. “These aren’t just rookies. They’re short prints. The official Upper Deck rookie. It’s different.”
Ilya didn’t understand everything. He understood the words, but they passed in front of him like numbers too precise to be meant for anyone but Shane himself. And yet he didn’t interrupt. He didn’t want to.
“That one’s an insert. Lord Stanley’s Heroes. The ratio is one in twelve packs.”
He had that very particular way of speaking when something truly mattered to him. His voice became steadier, clearer. The sentences followed one another without hesitation, as if they already existed somewhere before being spoken. He wasn’t searching for his words. He knew them all.
“At the time I wrote down every pull in a notebook. Number. Player. Team. Condition of the top-right corner. Because the packs opened from the top and the first card always got a little damaged.”
Ilya wasn’t looking at the binder anymore at all, but at Shane’s face. His eyebrows drew slightly closer together when he reached the details that were harder to follow. His whole expression was marked by intense concentration. And sometimes, very briefly, his lips formed the smallest trace of satisfaction when he reached an exact detail, a precise memory, as if he were quietly checking that it was still intact. He turned the pages with almost ceremonial slowness. Then finally, after many explanations, Shane fell silent and closed half the binder.
No clear emotion was visible on his face. Only an extreme attentiveness in the way he let the cover fall slowly back into place, as if he wanted to avoid too sharp a sound.
“The collection isn’t complete. I’m missing three Young Guns from Series 2,” he said, a trace of regret in his voice.
“It drove him crazy for years, and it still bothers him now…” Yuna sighed.
Shane didn’t reply. He stayed still and silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the incomplete page. His fingers rested on the edge of the plastic sleeve as if he were waiting for the right moment to say exactly what was bothering him.
“It’s not just that some cards are missing.”
His voice was calm, but slower than before. As if this time he were trying to explain something difficult to translate rather than something technical.
“It’s that the page isn’t finished.” He slid his index finger to the empty space. “Look.”
Sensing the importance of the moment, Ilya immediately leaned closer.
“This row marks the end of the Young Guns group for Series 2. They go together. They’re supposed to be together.” Shane traced the row with his finger without touching the cards. “They’re not interchangeable. It’s these three specific cards.” He lifted his shoulders slightly, almost imperceptibly. “When I was a kid, the collection had a clear shape in my head. Each page was a complete unit. Each row had a function. Each number had a place.”
He paused, as if searching for the words that would best translate what he was feeling for Ilya, who very obviously didn’t think in the same way he did.
“Here, the shape stops before the end.” He finally turned the next page, very slowly. “And that means the collection isn’t stable.” The word seemed important.
He placed his hand flat on the following sheet, as if checking that it stayed properly in place.
“It exists. But it doesn’t fully hold together.”
His fingers curled slightly over the edge of the binder. He didn’t look truly frustrated, not sad either, but something in between. His gaze lingered a little too long on the empty spaces, and his mouth was drawn into a thin line. It wasn’t an easy expression for Ilya to read, even though he had become something of an expert at reading Shane.
Suddenly, almost abruptly, Yuna’s down-to-earth voice pulled Shane back into the present moment.
“With his salary he could buy those cards ten times over online, but he stubbornly refuses.
-You know it doesn’t work like that, Mom!” Shane replied sharply. “Those cards are traded or found. You can buy them, but from shops… not from people trying to make too much money off them. That’s not how it works. I could do it, but it wouldn’t fit in the collection. It wouldn’t be logical. It wouldn’t be right.”
Yuna shrugged.
“Can I take a look?” Ilya asked, stepping closer to the binder.
Shane didn’t move aside to make room for him. On the contrary, he planted his feet and looked at Ilya with concern.
“Oh, come on, I’ll be careful!” Ilya protested, slightly offended to notice his own boyfriend’s distrust. Seeing that Shane still wasn’t moving, Ilya fixed him with a more serious look. “Shane,” he said firmly.
“Okay, okay… but be careful, alright?”
Ilya picked up the binder more carefully than he would have thought necessary, simply because he could feel how important it was to Shane. He turned the pages one by one, attentively, under Shane’s silent gaze. Very quickly, something came back to him. He’d had a few cards like these too when he was a kid. Three or four at most. In Russia they were expensive because they came from the United States. Not many kids had them. His had been given to him by a teammate after practice. Ilya had never stored them in a binder. He kept them in a pencil case with his spare laces and a backup mouthguard. He’d even pinned one to the wall near his bed. Shane would have been horrified if he’d seen the state of his cards back then. As the pages turned, Ilya had the strange impression of recognising the collection. The design matched. The era too. He even stopped on a Henrik Sedin card he recognised immediately. He was almost certain he’d had the same one. It felt strange to think that at the very same time, thousands of kilometres apart, two little boys might have been looking at the same cards, learning the same names, studying the same photos of players without knowing they would meet one day. It made these pages feel even more familiar somehow.
“No! Mom! Not with the mug!” Shane suddenly snapped, complaining as his mother leaned closer to the binder, her coffee cup still in her hands.
Once again, Yuna rolled her eyes.
“Well then, do you boys want a coffee?” she asked as she headed back towards the living room.
“I’ll have one, thanks, Yuna,” Ilya replied, still flipping through the binder for a little longer.
“You know I don’t drink…” Shane began to say.
“I know, sweetheart, you don’t drink coffee. I was just being polite.”
Half an hour later, Ilya was sitting on the sofa with Yuna, helping her decide whether “Frosted White” or “Moonlight White” would look better for the new outdoor kitchen. Shane, meanwhile, had gone outside to walk around the garden with his father so he could show him which trees he was planning to prune next.
“’Moonlight White’ is really very… white. Too white. It’s vulgar,” Ilya said as he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and sent Shane a message.
Lily: I still want to fuck you. Hard.
As he sent it, he glanced through the glass doors towards Shane and his father, who were standing beside a gigantic tree whose name Ilya had absolutely no idea of. He watched, amused, as Shane pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at the message, then immediately shoved it back away with a sharp movement. The young man shot him a disapproving look. Satisfied, Ilya gave him a slightly provocative wink.
“I don’t know… maybe the ‘Cream’ then, but I’m worried the sun will make it turn yellow very quickly…” Yuna observed.
“Anything but ‘Paper.’ You’d have to be crazy to choose that one.” Answered Ilya.
A few minutes later, Shane and his father came back into the living room.
“Well… I think we should get going, right, Ilya?” Shane said carefully avoiding everyone’s gaze.
“Yeah,” Ilya replied as he stood up from the sofa and headed towards the entrance to put his shoes back on.
“You don’t want to stay for the afternoon? There’s going to be a replay of the Scouts vs the Admirals game,” Yuna suggested as she stood up as well.
“Yeah, uh, no, I mean…” Shane began to stammer, clearly unprepared to justify their decision.
Noticing his boyfriend’s distress, Ilya stepped in. “Thank you, Yuna, but I think I really need a good nap. I woke up with cock today.”
A heavy silence fell over the small group. Ilya watched Yuna raise an inquisitive eyebrow and David lower his eyes awkwardly. Beside him, Shane slowly turned towards him, looking horrified, a silent ‘what the fuck’ forming on his lips.
“The animal, the big bird. The cock and the hens, they wake up early. You don’t say that in English?”
David and Yuna burst out laughing.
“Oh my God…” Shane muttered. “You woke up with the sun, Ilya! Not… anyway.
-Oh. Right, sorry.
-And also say rooster, not… you know.
-Cock,” Yuna finished, looking far too amused by the situation for Shane’s liking.
“Mom! Okay, we’re leaving!”
The following Wednesday, Ilya was behind the wheel of his Porsche 718 Cayman. After practice, he’d followed Bood, Hayes and Dykstra, who had dragged him along to Monk’s for a beer. It was now close to 8 p.m., and Ilya was driving home. Distracted, only one thought kept circling in his mind: Daniel fucking Heatley. Ilya had owned the player’s card when he was younger. He remembered it perfectly. He’d kept it for a long time at the bottom of his school bag, had dropped it in the snow several times, and had eventually pinned it to the wall of his bedroom. If he focused hard, he could still see Heatley’s heartbreaker look, his slightly gapped teeth, his red Nike jersey, and the curly hair that had always reminded him of his own. He remembered the line printed at the bottom of the card “CANADA left wing” as well as the 00–01 season printed along the side. But that wasn’t the most persistent detail. He had flipped through Shane’s precious binder, and he hadn’t seen that card there.
He was almost certain of it. Ilya found the idea unbelievable. Shane, the obsessive one, who in Canada had done everything he could to complete his collection and Ilya, completely careless on the other side of the planet, who had one of the cards he was missing. What were the chances of that happening? The odds were practically nonexistent. That was why, over the past few days, Ilya had kept forcing himself to push the thought aside. It was ridiculous to spend so much time thinking about something that had almost no chance of turning out to be true. And yet… the thought kept coming back to him over and over again. It was exhausting.
When he got home, as he usually did when he was alone, he took something out of the freezer (a three-cheese pizza tonight), put it quickly into the oven, and started eating it in front of an episode of Chernobyl, a series Harris had recommended to him the day before.
Around 9:30 p.m., his phone, resting on the coffee table, made a small sound and lit up to indicate he had received a text message. He expected it to be Shane sending him one last message before going to bed, but instead of Shane’s name, it was Svetlana’s that appeared on the screen.
Sveta: Ready to face Detroit on Saturday?
Ilya: More than ever! Are you coming to watch us lose? It’s been a while since we last saw each other 😘
Sveta: Can’t. I’m in Moscow for another week.
Reading that last message, Ilya sat up properly again, paused Netflix, and started thinking at full speed. The card. He had never thrown it away. He was almost sure of that. His father had sold the family apartment shortly after Irina’s death. Back then, Ilya had packed away his toys and the things he cared about most into a box. A box he had never bothered to unpack when they moved into the new flat. It had stayed in a corner of the basement with some of his other belongings until his father died as well. After that, not wanting to burden Polina, his stepmother, he had the box and the rest of his things transferred to a small storage unit he still paid for every month without really knowing what to do with it. Svetlana was in Moscow. Maybe she could go look through the box for him? It would probably lead nowhere, but there was no harm in trying…
After a moment of intense reflection and poorly contained excitement, Ilya called Svetlana.
“Hey, Ilyusha!
-Hey. You’re in Moscow.
-Yes. I told you last month I had to go there to see my parents, but clearly you were only half listening.
-Mm, sorry. Hey, would you do me a favour?
-And here I thought you were calling to ask how I was…
-How are you?
-I’m fine.
-Good. Will you do me a favour?”
Svetlana let out a small laugh. “What can I do for you?
-I’ve got some stuff in a storage unit in Khoroshovsky. I need you to go pick something up for me.”
Svetlana went so quiet that Ilya thought the line had dropped.
“Allo? Sveta?
-I don’t know, Ilya… if this has anything to do with your brother’s shady business, I’m not getting involved…
-No, no, don’t worry. It’s got nothing to do with that.
-What’s in the unit?
-Old stuff. Toys.
-Toys?
-Yeah. I’ll explain later. So, will you go?
-You’re lucky I like you. I can’t go today or tomorrow, but I’ll try to stop by on Friday.
-Thank you so much!
-Where is it again?
-Between Khodynsky Park and Grizodubovoy Street, under one of the apartment blocks, near a Thai massage place. I’ll send you the exact address and I’ll call the manager so he can open the unit for you.
-You really know how to sell it, Ilyusha… Alright, I have to go. I’ll call you on Friday.
-Thanks again, Sveta. Say hi to your parents for me.”
The following Friday, Ilya went straight home after practice. Pacing back and forth in his living room, he struggled to contain his impatience. When Svetlana finally called him on FaceTime, he grabbed his phone in less than a second. Seeing her in that outer neighbourhood, far from the luxury she was used to, was an unusual sight. He had only been to that place once in his life, the very day of his father’s funeral. His memories of it were a little blurred, but he still managed to guide Svetlana. Once inside the storage unit, far too large for what it contained, namely two boxes and three plastic bags filled with old caps, hats and gloves, she spent several minutes trying to balance her phone on a shelf that was both empty and unstable so Ilya could watch the archaeological dig.
Once the phone was steady, she sat down cross-legged on the floor and began unpacking the first box. It contained nothing but old notebooks and hockey and football magazines. Seeing those relics brought back made something tighten in Ilya’s chest. It had been years since he had seen objects that connected him to his childhood. Here, in Canada, he had nothing that tied him to Russia except a small passport photo of his mother, worn and damaged, which he kept carefully tucked inside a book of Tsvetaeva’s poetry stored in a drawer of the dining room coffee table. A book Ilya had never bothered to read: the photo it held was far more precious than any of the words printed on its pages. Pulling himself back from his thoughts, Ilya told her the card he was looking for wasn’t in that box and asked her to open the second one. She did, after first carefully putting the notebooks and magazines back in place, understanding how precious those objects might be to him. Focused on the task, Svetlana pulled out a whole string of improbable old toys from the second box. To his own surprise, the rediscovery brought tears to Ilya’s eyes, and he clung to his phone like a lifeline.
First came his old Cheburashka plush, whose ears Ilya had loved to suck on as a little child, a box of small metal toy cars faded and worn with time, a ball that no longer really bounced and a simple plastic bottle cap tied to a string that formed a chainsaw. Ilya had built it in class with a friend and had spent the whole day running the cap along his classmates’ arms, pretending to cut them off. Svetlana then pulled out his pellet gun, without pellets, as well as his Transformer robot Blitzwing. When he saw the robot, Ilya smiled broadly, visibly moved. He had loved that robot and had been very proud of it. He’d received it for his nineth birthday from an elderly aunt. He still remembered the hours spent with his brother on the living room carpet organising epic Transformer battles. Next came two Ninja Turtles figures, followed by a remote-controlled submarine that had already not worked very well even when he was a child. Ilya remembered diving into the freezing pond in the little park near his home one October to retrieve the submarine after it had sunk into the muddy water. When his mother saw him come back soaked through, she had scolded him fiercely, swearing by all the gods that one day that child would be the death of her. Ilya shivered.
Finally, Svetlana pulled two small cards out of the box. Seeing them, Ilya immediately asked her, excitedly, to show them to him more closely so he could examine them. Svetlana stood up with a grace that contrasted sharply with the bleakness of the place and brought the first card closer to the camera. Ilya’s smile faded slightly when he realised it wasn’t the one he had been thinking of. Besides, the date printed along the side didn’t match the one from Shane’s binder. Impatient now, Ilya asked Svetlana to show him the second card. This time his smile disappeared completely. That one didn’t match either. It wasn’t even an Upper Deck.
Maybe he had imagined the card’s existence altogether? Or maybe it had simply disappeared? It was stupid, Ilya knew that, but he couldn’t stop a deep feeling of sadness from taking hold of him. They were only toys. Shane had lived perfectly well all these years with an incomplete collection. Why had this stupid story taken up so much space in Ilya’s life in less than a week?
He asked Svetlana if there might be a third card somewhere, but she gave him an apologetic look. In a small voice, she told him she couldn’t see anything that looked like a card. Still, she kept taking the last objects out of the box. The final thing she pulled out was an old transparent container holding about twenty pogs. Ilya, who was now only half watching what she was doing, heard his friend tell him that was the last item in the box. Swallowing back his tears, his throat tight with disappointment, Ilya was about to tell her to put everything back and apologise for making her go there for nothing when something stuck underneath the container of pogs fell onto the floor. Curious, Svetlana bent down, picked up the object, and exclaimed that it was a card. Not wanting to be thrown back onto another emotional rollercoaster, Ilya asked her to show it to him in a voice he hoped sounded more indifferent than broken.
It was as if the scene were unfolding in slow motion. As Svetlana brought the card closer to the phone, Daniel Heatley appeared. The same one he remembered. The hair, the eyes, the smile. The red jersey, the grey background. Ilya couldn’t hold back a sigh of excitement and relief. There it was. The card. It was right there in front of him, and he could hardly believe it. He asked Svetlana not to move at all. For a long moment, eyes fixed on the screen, Ilya studied the card. Now that he could see it properly, not just through the haze of childhood memory, he was certain: the card belonged to the same series as Shane’s binder. The colour coding matched, the year lined up.
Without losing his wide smile, his hands trembling slightly, he asked Svetlana to send him a photo of the card, thanked her with all his heart, and stayed on FaceTime with her until she left the old building. The following day, Ilya invited himself over for dinner at David and Yuna’s, who, as always, were delighted to have him. As soon as he arrived at the family house, Ilya asked Yuna if he could see Shane’s binder. She brought it to him and set it down without much ceremony on the kitchen island, right next to the chopping board where David was busy slicing onions. Ilya smiled. If Shane had seen the scene, he would have killed all three of them, one by one and in atrocious ways. Restless with anticipation, Ilya opened the binder and flipped through it carefully, his phone open beside him to the photo of his old card.
Shane slowed down in the driveway outside Ilya’s house. He pulled into the garage and switched off the engine as soon as he’d parked, exactly in the spot he always used. The house was quiet when he went inside. He closed the door carefully behind him and placed his keys in the small tray near the entrance.
He knew the place. Not just the layout of the furniture. The way the streetlights filtered in at this time of night. The low hum of the fridge. The smell of the cleaning product the housekeeper used on Friday mornings.
He crossed the living room without turning on the main light. In the bedroom, he automatically opened the right-hand side of Ilya’s wardrobe. His own clothes were stored there, folded exactly as he had left them. He took off his hoodie, folded it neatly, then his trousers. He pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and a T-shirt he’d kept there.
Shane went back into the living room. He switched on the two lamps beside the sofa, which settled the room into a soft light. He sat down on the right-hand side of the sofa, adjusted the cushion behind his back, then picked up his glasses from the coffee table.
Tonight the Metros had beaten the Centaurs. It hadn’t been a spectacular win, just a logical one. That kind of game left him with a quiet, steady sense of satisfaction. His shoulders were relaxed. His breathing calm.
Sometimes he felt sorry for Ilya, stuck on one of the worst teams in the league. But it had been his choice, and Ilya seemed to cope well enough with the Centaurs’ disastrous results. It would have crushed Shane, not him. And anyway, it was only a matter of time before him and his team started climbing again. Even then, it would still be the Metros who came out on top in the end.
Shane opened the game highlights on his tablet and rested the device on his knee. He already knew the plays. He’d been part of most of them. Still, he watched them anyway, carefully, frame by frame. Watching the sequences again helped him return to that precise moment when a lane opened, when a line shifted, when a player slowed by half a step. He focused especially on the transitions. Zone entries. Off-puck positioning.
This habit helped him finish the game. Otherwise, he kept replaying it in his head for hours.
Absorbed in analysing the match, Shane had completely lost track of time when he noticed out of the corner of his eye the automatic driveway light switching on, signalling Ilya’s arrival. Shane smiled and stretched. Even after only a few days apart, and more than ten years of an on-and-off relationship, he still couldn’t wait to feel Ilya close to him, to touch him, to kiss him, to breathe him in.
A few seconds later, Ilya appeared in the doorway. He was wearing perfectly fitted jeans and a straight-cut beige wool sweater. He looked so good that Shane had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making a pleased little sound.
Ilya took off his shoes, dropped his heavy sports bag near the kitchen island in the open-plan space and headed towards Shane in long, hurried strides. He had a wide smile on his face.
Ilya handled defeats better than Shane, that was common knowledge. Still… on losing nights, if he wasn’t completely crushed, he could get grumpy, low on energy, or sometimes even a little combative (which usually ended rather well for Shane). But tonight he looked… happy. Simply happy. After such a heavy loss, that was surprising. Maybe it was the Centaurs’ post-game ritual that helped Ilya cope with defeats so well? The Ottawa team had a habit of meeting at a pub after every game, sometimes for a few drinks but mostly to spend time together and enjoy each other’s company. Win or lose, the ritual never failed. It clearly did Ilya good, and Shane was very glad of it.
When he reached the sofa, Ilya leaned down and began scattering a whole flurry of small kisses across Shane’s face. Shane started laughing.
“Oh my G… Ily…” Surprised and overwhelmed by his boyfriend’s kisses, he could only slip his hands into Ilya’s curls and wait for him to stop. His breath was warm, his mouth faintly smelled of beer. After a moment, Ilya pulled back slightly and smiled at him.
“God, Ilya…” Shane murmured with an amused sigh as he removed his glasses, whose lenses Ilya had clearly enjoyed kissing one by one.
“Hi, gorgeous…” Ilya whispered, slipping his fingers under Shane’s chin to tilt his head up before pressing his lips gently against his in a slow, soft kiss. His lips were slightly chapped and his short three-day beard brushed lightly against Shane’s face. Shane loved that sensation. Ilya pulled back again and glanced at the tablet still resting beside him.
“Did you finish your analysis?
-Not quite.
-So? Can you tell me why we lost?
-You want all the reasons?
-Fuck you, Hollander.
-Your defence collapsed too much in front of the net. We had a lot of space in the slot.”
Ilya gave him a cheeky smile. He straightened fully and walked slowly around the sofa.
“Mmh… we’ll work on that then…” Ilya murmured as he took the tablet from Shane’s hands and carefully set it down on the coffee table. His mouth twisted into a small sulky pout.
“I think I need some comfort after that very, very, very heavy loss…” he added softly, his pleading eyes fixed on Shane’s.
Touched, Shane opened his arms wide towards him.
“Oh, I’ll comfort you. Come here.”
Ilya grinned broadly and collapsed onto him, stomach against stomach. Their legs tangled together and Ilya rested his cheek against Shane’s chest. Shane lowered his chin into his hair and wrapped his arms around him.
“I missed you,” Ilya sighed in his deep voice.
His voice, Shane could feel it vibrating through his whole body. Shane loved it when Ilya lay completely on top of him like that, without worrying about his weight. He could feel him everywhere at once: the pressure of his chest against his own, the warmth of his hip resting across his legs, the steady weight of his arm on his shoulder. He didn’t need to adjust his position anymore or keep track of the distance between them. Ilya’s weight anchored him there, here and now.
“I missed you too,” Shane replied, letting a few of Ilya’s curls slip between his lips.
The two men stayed like that for a long time, their breathing gradually settling into the same rhythm. Shane could feel sleep slowly creeping over him. He wasn’t thinking about anything anymore; his brain felt almost switched off. Suddenly, the vibration of Ilya’s voice against his chest pulled him out of his drowsiness.
“I’ve got something for you,” Ilya murmured without moving an inch. His voice was low, his accent even thicker than usual. Clearly, he too was slowly drifting into that same haze.
“Mmh?” Shane muttered.
“I have present for you. Well… it’s not really present. More like a trade I want to propose, yes?.”
Despite his tiredness, Shane’s curiosity was piqued.
“What?”
He slipped a hand under Ilya’s sweater and gently ran his short nails along his back. The touch sent a shiver through Ilya’s whole body and he let out a soft sound of pleasure.
“Forget it. It can wait until tomorrow…”
Even without seeing him, Shane could hear the smile in Ilya’s voice. He pulled his hand back from under the sweater and pushed himself up slightly despite Ilya’s weight on top of him.
“No, no, tell me. A present? For what occasion?” Shane asked, his voice full of curiosity.
Ilya sat up as well, still smiling. He settled cross-legged in front of Shane, making space for himself between his legs.
“It’s no special occasion. And anyway it’s not present, it’s trade,” Ilya repeated, fixing his amused eyes on Shane’s.
Shane had absolutely no idea where his boyfriend was going with this.
“What does that mean, Ilya?” he asked, reaching out to Ilya’s hair to remove a tiny bit of lint.
“I’ve got something to trade you. Object I want to… give you in exchange for something.” Ilya clarified, resting one of his hands on Shane’s thigh.
“In exchange for what? I have to give you something in return for this object?” Shane tried to make sense of it, still clearly confused.
“Yes.
-But what? What could I give you?
-Anything. Just pick something,” Ilya replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Shane bit his lip, thinking hard. He looked around him. Ilya wanted to give him a… thing in exchange for another… thing. It didn’t make any sense at all. How was he supposed to choose something if he didn’t even know what he would be getting in return? Was Ilya serious? After a short moment, an idea came to him.
He smiled and gave Ilya a small wink, still sitting right in front of him, only a few centimetres away.
“A blowjob?” Shane suggested in a cheeky voice.
“You’re not a whore,” Ilya replied immediately.
Shane’s smile disappeared at once. He lowered his eyes, suddenly embarrassed by his suggestion, by the way his mind seemed permanently wired in that direction.
Ilya watched him flush with shame and immediately regretted his words. Sometimes he forgot that his very direct, very Russian way of speaking could come across differently to Americans or Canadians, who didn’t express themselves the same way. Shane especially, more than anyone. He lifted his face gently by the chin and apologised, brushing his thumb over the freckles now tinted red with shame.
“I love that idea, but I can get that for free,” he whispered, pressing a light kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth. “You need to find an object. Something I can keep with me. I can’t carry your mouth around my cock everywhere I go, even if I’d really like that…”
“No, yeah… you can’t,” Shane replied, a little relieved.
Ilya smiled again and got up energetically from the couch after giving Shane’s thigh a quick pat.
“Alright, I’m going to get my thing. Use the time to find something to trade me. Anything will do!” he said as he headed towards the room he used as his office.
Shane stood up as well, slightly dazed. He looked around him once again. He was at Ilya’s place. And even if the house was kind of his home too, all the furniture, all the objects around him belonged to Ilya. He couldn’t reasonably trade him something that was already his. That wouldn’t be fair. But what was Ilya’s object? Without knowing its value, it was difficult for Shane to decide what he could offer in return… His eyes fell on the tablet resting on the small table. He couldn’t possibly give him his tablet… Ilya had said he wanted something he could keep with him. If he was serious, that would mean Shane would actually be giving him his tablet. He still needed it. No, that wasn’t possible… His hoodie, the one he’d left in the bedroom? Shane knew Ilya didn’t even like that one very much. And besides, his boyfriend never hesitated to steal his clothes anyway. There was no point officially trading them. Then his eyes moved to the tablet case. Shane bent down, picked it up, and pulled from the main pocket a small pack of natural sugar-free cinnamon chewing gum. He looked at the packet resting in the palm of his hand. It was ridiculous. He couldn’t seriously give Ilya a pack of chewing gum… But then again, Ilya had said anything would do. And besides, it wasn’t a present. It was a trade.
While Shane was still weighing the pros and cons of whether his object was suitable for the exchange, Ilya came back into the living room. He was holding something in his hands, hidden behind his back as he walked towards Shane. Shane mirrored the gesture and hid the chewing gum behind his own back.
Ilya stopped in front of Shane, only a few centimetres away. He looked both very serious and very excited. His eyes were shining. Shane watched him for a moment, frowning slightly. Once again, he didn’t understand anything about what was happening right in front of him.
“Okay,” Ilya said, almost to himself, as if he were trying to steady himself or gather his courage. He seemed nervous. “Me first,” he continued, bringing a small orange fan folder out from behind his back and holding it out towards Shane.
Surprised by the seriousness in his boyfriend’s tone, Shane slipped the pack of chewing gum into the back pocket of his sweatpants and slowly took the fan folder.
“I… I open it?”
Ilya rolled his eyes.
“Well, yeah. Davai!”
The fan folder was more rigid than he expected, slightly bent at one corner, as if it had already been handled many times. He turned it once between his fingers, absent-mindedly studying the orange carton surface, instinctively trying to guess what it might contain without opening it yet.
He briefly looked up at Ilya. His shoulders were straight. His gaze fixed on him with a strange intensity, almost tense. He wasn’t joking anymore.
Shane felt something tighten slightly in his chest without really understanding why.
He slipped his thumb under the flap. He took his time opening it just enough to look inside. At first he could only see a plastic surface. He frowned slightly. It wasn’t paper.
The object slid completely out of the folder and Shane caught it. It was a card. He instinctively adjusted the position of his fingers, his thumb resting along the lower edge, his index finger supporting the opposite corner, carefully avoiding the printed surface the way he used to do as a child. He tilted it slightly towards the light from the living room lamps. The plastic caught the light softly. The top edge was slightly torn, worn down by time. A trace of moisture had warped the cardboard near the left corner. Lower down, an old crease ran discreetly across the card, and a small ink stain darkened part of the grey background. He lifted the card slightly to place it better in the light and immediately recognised the layout. The textured grey background. The vertical white strip along the left side. The cut-out circle at the bottom. The Upper Deck logo in the top right corner. Young Guns.
Shane held his breath without really realising it. He knew this series. He knew this exact series. His gaze dropped instinctively to the lower corner where the numbering was still visible despite the worn cardboard, then slowly moved back towards the centre of the card, following the line of the red jersey before stopping at the player’s face. Dany Heatley. Shane froze, the card suspended between his fingers, unable to take his eyes off the printed face.
He knew this card. He knew exactly where it belonged. The column. The page. The empty space left between the other Young Guns. His eyes dropped again at once to the lower corner, almost automatically checking the numbering, then moved back to the white vertical strip, to the Upper Deck logo, to the entire layout, as if his brain needed to confirm the information. It was it. The missing card. The one he had never found. The one he had searched for everywhere when he was a child. He felt something tighten suddenly deep in his chest. For years he had known exactly which card was missing from that page. He had turned that sheet dozens of times. And now it was there. In his hand. Old, damaged, warped in places, imperfect but undeniably there. A sudden warmth spread through his stomach and rose into his chest, then into his face. He felt his eyes fill with tears.
Shane slowly lifted his head. Ilya was still watching him, his eyes shining with barely contained pure happiness. His mouth was slightly open and one of his curls brushed against his temple. He looked both proud and a little nervous.
The thought came all at once to Shane’s mind. He had bought it. Of course he had. He had searched for the card online. He had taken the time to find it and must have paid a lot for it.
Shane immediately felt the warmth he had just felt turn into something much heavier, almost sticky. Like a wave of thick mud spreading through his whole body.
That wasn’t how the collection worked. He lowered his eyes to the card between his fingers. It was perfect. Exactly the right series. Exactly the right card. Exactly the one that was missing. And he couldn’t add it to his binder. Not like this. How cruel it was to have it there now, in his hands, and not be able to do anything with it.
“Ilya…”
His voice came out quieter than he had meant it to.
He looked back up at him, already starting to explain before he had even figured out how to begin properly.
“You didn’t have to do that. I mean… it’s perfect. It’s exactly one of the ones I’m missing but… that’s not how it works.” he took a breath, searching for the right words. “I can’t just add it like that. I wasn’t supposed to get it like this. It’s not… I didn’t find it. I didn’t trade for it. You’re not supposed to just… buy one and give it to me. That’s not how the set works.”
He was still gripping the card between his fingers without realising it.
Ilya frowned slightly.
“I’m sorry, I know you must have paid a lot for it and you thought it would make me happy and it does make me happy but I can’t…”
Ilya shook his head, gently.
“I didn’t buy it.”
Shane stopped short. Ilya’s lips curved into a small, almost shy smile. He placed his hands softly on Shane’s forearms. Very gently, carefully, so as not to startle him.
“It’s mine, this card.
-Re… Really? But… how?”
Ilya cleared his throat. He needed to find the right words, the ones that would make sense of this slightly unbelievable situation to Shane, who, caught in the rush of emotion, had clearly lost half his ability to think calmly.
“We had Upper Deck cards in Russia too when I was a kid. I never really collected them but I had a few, including this one. A hockey friend gave it to me. I kept it in my room for a long time so I remembered it well. And when I saw your binder I thought about it again.”
Shane was staring at him with wide eyes. The expression on his face was almost intimidating. Ilya scratched the back of his head. He needed to lower the pressure before Shane overwhelmed himself with it.
“Sveta was in Moscow last week, so I asked her to go through my old things and… well. Here it is.” he finished, shrugging slightly.
Shane didn’t answer straight away. He was still looking at Ilya, motionless, as if the words had taken a few seconds longer than expected to reach their destination.
“Since… since when have you had it?” he asked, his voice rough.
“For ages. Since I was kid, I don’t know, I must’ve been ten or eleven. Something like that.”
Shane slowly lowered his eyes to the card between his fingers and took a slow breath. Something had shifted very deep inside him. As if a part of his mind, slightly out of alignment for as long as he could remember without him ever realising it, had finally slid back into place.
The card hadn’t been missing. It had been in Ilya’s bedroom.
Shane lifted his eyes to him. He felt a small tear slide down his cheek.
“It was in your room,” he said, as if he needed the sentence to exist out loud.
Ilya wrinkled his nose slightly as he saw Shane’s expression change. Without saying a word, he stepped half a pace closer and raised his hand to his face. With the tip of his thumb, gently, he wiped away the tear that had just slipped down his cheek.
“Hey…” he murmured softly.
Shane blinked, as if suddenly returning to the room. He immediately lowered his gaze to the card between his fingers.
Very slowly, with solemn concentration, he shifted slightly to the side to reach the coffee table. He took the time to clear a small space between the tablet and a magazine lying there, carefully pushed an empty glass a few centimetres further away, then placed the card exactly in the centre of the cleared surface. He adjusted its position once more with the tips of his fingers so it lay flat, straight, perfectly aligned with the edge of the table.
Ilya watched him in silence, unable to suppress a small, fond smile. The card, warped, creased, stained with ink and slightly torn, was now resting on his coffee table as if it were one of the Crown Jewels.
Shane checked its position once more and gave the faintest nod, satisfied. Only then did he straighten up. He grabbed Ilya by the collar of his sweater and crushed his lips against his with force.
With a sudden urgency that had nothing deliberate about it. His fingers slipped into his curls and he pulled him closer still with quiet authority. Ilya let out a pleased moan against his mouth and placed his hands at Shane’s waist.
“Thank you,” Shane breathed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Their kiss lasted a few seconds longer before Ilya pulled back slightly, a little reluctantly, his eyes now shining with mischief.
“Yes, well, it’s not yours yet,” he pointed out.
Shane looked at him, not understanding where he was going with this. Ilya returned the look as if Shane were a slightly slow child.
“It’s an exchange. Until you give me what you’re trading for the card, I’m keeping it.”
Shane let out a small laugh. He had quite clearly lost the ability to speak. He looked back at the card. It was even more beautiful from a distance. Without really paying attention to what he was doing, he pulled the packet of chewing gum from his back pocket and held it out absent-mindedly towards Ilya without even taking his eyes off the card.
Ilya took the packet.
“It’s a deal. Heatley card is yours.”
Very quickly, Ilya drew Shane’s attention back to himself. They kissed for a long time before making their way to the bedroom. Their movements were both slow and intense. There was no urgency, only the desire to dissolve into one another. As Ilya moved deep inside him, they promised each other the world and far more besides. Ilya stayed still for a long time, savouring the deep warmth of Shane’s body. Shane, for his part, thought he would never grow tired of that feeling of fullness, of completeness that Ilya’s body created low in his back. Then their bodies heated again, and they both came one after the other, each with the other’s name on their lips.
Later, as they were still slowly finding their way back to themselves, Ilya leaned awkwardly out of bed, grabbed his jeans, pulled out the packet of chewing gum and slipped one into his mouth. Shane watched him fondly and curled closer against him. He felt Ilya’s voice against his chest more than he heard it.
“That gum is fucking disgusting. I think I got the bad end of the trade…” Ilya murmured.
Shane smiled even wider, pushed himself up and kissed his cinnamon-flavoured mouth, stealing the chewing gum from him. Yes, he had definitely won everything tonight.