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Shane Hollander is going to murder his agent.
Not figuratively. Not in the “ha ha, I’m so annoyed” way that people usually mean when they say things like that. No, Shane is going to actually, legitimately commit homicide, and he’s going to plead temporary insanity, and any jury in the world will understand once they hear the full story.
The full story being: Shane is currently skating onto the ice at the Bell Centre, wearing a wireless microphone pack taped to his chest beneath his jersey, about to play against the Ottawa Centaurs.
About to play against Ilya.
“Fuck,” Shane mutters under his breath, then remembers the microphone and clamps his mouth shut so hard his teeth click together.
“Looking good out there, Hollander!” The sound guy gives him a thumbs up from the tunnel.
Shane wants to skate directly into the boards at full speed.
This is fine. This is totally fine. He’s a professional athlete. He’s been playing hockey since he could walk. He’s Canada’s golden boy, their beloved captain, the face of the franchise. He can handle one game with a microphone attached to his body.
One game against Ilya Rozanov.
Ilya, who has exactly zero filter on a good day. Ilya, who thinks the concept of “appropriate workplace behavior” is a funny suggestion for other people. Ilya, who has spent the last decade perfecting the art of saying the most unhinged things possible to Shane during games, safe in the knowledge that nobody else can hear him over the crowd noise and the plexiglass.
Ilya, who definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent does not know that Shane is mic’d up tonight.
“Breathe,” Shane tells himself. “Just breathe. Maybe he’ll be chill tonight. Maybe he’ll-”
“HOLLANDER!”
The shout comes from across the ice, loud enough to carry over the warm-up music and the crowd noise. Shane doesn’t need to look to know who it is. He’d recognize that voice anywhere — in his sleep, in a crowded room, in the middle of a goddamn apocalypse.
Ilya is skating toward him with that stupid, cocky grin on his face, the one that makes Shane’s stomach do complicated things that have no business happening in front of eighteen thousand people and a television audience of millions.
“No,” Shane says out loud. “No, no, no-”
“Is good to see you, Hollander!” Ilya crashes into the boards next to Shane with absolutely no regard for the fact that they’re supposed to be mortal enemies. “You look very cute today. Is new haircut?”
Shane’s eye twitches. “Rozanov-”
“I like it. Make you look like — how do you say — like boy from boy band. Very pretty.” Ilya’s grin widens. “I want to mess up later. Pull it while I-”
“I’m mic’d up!” Shane hisses desperately.
But the ref’s whistle blows for the end of warm-ups, and Ilya is already skating away, calling over his shoulder in Russian something that Shane definitely doesn’t need translated.
Shane closes his eyes and prays for a swift death.
The first period starts, and Shane tries to convince himself that everything will be fine.
This optimism lasts approximately forty-five seconds.
The first face-off of the game is, naturally, between Shane and Ilya. Because God hates Shane personally and specifically.
They line up at center ice. The referee holds the puck above the dot. Shane focuses on the puck, only the puck, definitely not on the way Ilya is looking at him like he’s a five-course meal.
“Is too bad we’re not in Ottawa,” Ilya says conversationally, his voice low enough that Shane knows he thinks nobody else can hear. “In Ottawa, I have better bed. Is sturdier. Remember last time? Your bed break. Very embarrassing. I have to fuck you on the floor. Was bad for back.”
Shane’s stick nearly slips out of his hands.
The puck drops. Shane wins the draw on pure muscle memory alone, because his brain has completely evacuated the premises.
Somewhere in the broadcast truck, Shane imagines, a production assistant is having a panic attack.
“Rozanov,” Shane manages to grit out the next time they’re near each other. “I need to tell you-”
“You need to tell me what?” Ilya cuts him off, using his body to shield Shane from the play in a way that looks legal but definitely isn’t. “You need to tell me how much you miss me? Is okay, Hollander. I miss you too. Miss your-”
“MICROPHONE!” Shane practically shouts. “I have a-”
But Ilya is already gone, chasing after the puck, leaving Shane standing there with the slowly dawning horror of someone watching a train wreck in slow motion.
This is going to be a disaster.
This is going to be the end of Shane’s career, his relationship, and quite possibly his will to live.
But mostly, this is going to be a disaster.
By the time the first TV timeout hits, Shane has mentally composed seventeen different resignation letters and is working on his eighteenth.
The problem is that Ilya is playing like he’s possessed. He’s everywhere — checking Shane into the boards, stealing the puck, talking absolute nonsense the entire time.
“Is funny,” Ilya says during one shift, pinning Shane against the glass with his whole body, “how you always smell same. Like — what is that — like pine tree and something else. Something…” He leans in closer, and Shane can feel his breath through both their helmets. “Something that make me want to do very bad things to you, right here on ice.”
“Please stop talking,” Shane begs.
“Why? You don’t like when I talk to you?” Ilya sounds genuinely hurt, which would be touching if Shane wasn’t currently having a mental breakdown. “I think you like it. I think you like it very much. I think-”
“I’M WEARING A MICROPHONE!” Shane finally manages to shout.
But there’s a whistle, and a face-off, and Ilya is giving him a confused look before skating away to the bench.
Shane wants to scream.
“So,” says Hayden during the next line change. He’s trying very hard not to laugh. “That’s … that’s something.”
“Don’t,” Shane warns.
“I’m just saying, Rozanov seems very chatty tonight.”
“I will trade you to Buffalo. I don’t care that I’m not the GM. I’ll find a way.”
Hayden grins. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s kind of-”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
On the ice, Ilya scores a goal — a beautiful, ridiculous top-shelf snipe that Shane would appreciate more if he wasn’t currently experiencing the worst moment of his life.
Ilya celebrates by blowing a kiss in Shane’s direction.
Shane contemplates the merits of professional curling as an alternative career. It’s still on the ice, right?
The second period is somehow worse.
Ilya seems to have decided that since Shane keeps trying to talk to him, this must mean Shane wants more conversation. The logic is absolutely baffling, but then again, this is Ilya. Logic has never been his strong suit.
“You know what I think about yesterday?” Ilya asks, bodychecking Shane into the boards with unnecessary force. “I think about that thing you do. You know the thing.”
Shane does know the thing. Shane really, really knows the thing. Shane is having vivid flashbacks to the thing right now, in the middle of a hockey game, while wearing a microphone.
“The thing where you make that little sound in the back of your throat when I-”
“ILYA.” Shane’s voice cracks. “MICROPHONE. I’M WEARING A MICROPHONE.”
“What?” Ilya looks confused. “Why are you yelling about microphone? Is okay, Hollander, I can hear you fine.”
“No, I’m-” Shane tries, but Ilya is already skating away again.
“-and then after,” Ilya continues on the next shift, picking up the conversation like no time has passed at all, “we can order SkipTheDishes. But not like last time. Last time you order boring salad. This time I order for you. I order-”
“I’M MIC’D UP!” Shane yells, so loudly that several people on both benches turn to look.
Ilya pauses. Blinks. “What?”
“MICROPHONE!” Shane gestures frantically at his chest. “They put a MICROPHONE on me! For the broadcast!”
The referee skates over. “Everything okay here, boys?”
“Yes,” Shane lies.
“Is perfect,” Ilya says, still looking confused. “Shane is just … exercising his lungs. For health.”
The ref gives them both a weird look and skates away.
“Okay, but seriously,” Ilya says the moment he’s gone, “what are you talking about?”
“They. Put. A. Microphone. On. Me.” Shane speaks slowly and clearly, like he’s explaining quantum physics to a golden retriever. “For Hockey Night in Canada. Everything we’re saying is being broadcast on national television.”
Ilya stares at him.
Shane stares back.
“Everything?” Ilya asks.
“EVERYTHING.”
“Even the thing about-”
“YES.”
“And the part where I said-”
“YES.”
“Oh.” Ilya processes this. His face does several interesting things in rapid succession — surprise, understanding, horror, and then something that Shane can only describe as pure, unadulterated chaos.
Shane knows that look. That’s Ilya’s “I’m about to make a decision that will haunt everyone around me” look.
“Ilya,” Shane warns. “Don’t you dare-”
“IS OKAY!” Ilya announces, loudly enough that several players from both teams turn to stare. “We were going to come out eventually anyway!”
Shane’s brain short-circuits. “WHAT.”
“This is better than boring social media statement you would write,” Ilya continues, warming to his theme. “You would write something like-” He puts on a ridiculous deep voice that sounds nothing like Shane. “‘Hello, I am Shane Hollander, and I am very boring, and I have announcement that is very boring-’”
“I do not sound like that!”
“-and instead, now everyone know that I am very much in love with you, and you are very much in love with me, and we have very good sex-”
“ILYA!”
“-is much more interesting! Is like movie! Like The Proposal! You know this movie? With Sandra Bullock?”
“This is nothing like The Proposal!”
“Sure it is. We are both very attractive people who love each other very much and have excellent chemistry.” Ilya grins. “Also, I am like Sandra Bullock because I am immigrant and everyone love me.”
“Nobody loves you! You’re a menace!”
“You love me.”
“That’s—that’s not-” Shane sputters. “You can’t just out us on NATIONAL TELEVISION!”
“Why not?” Ilya looks genuinely baffled. “Is 2020. Nobody with brain care anymore. Well-” He reconsiders. “Your agent maybe care. She already think I am bad influence.”
“You are a bad influence!”
“Yes, but is part of my charm.” Ilya winks. “Admit it. You like that I am bad influence.”
Shane opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He’s having an out-of-body experience. This cannot be his life. This cannot be real.
“Anyway,” Ilya says cheerfully, like he hasn’t just nuked Shane’s entire carefully constructed public persona from orbit, “now that is out in open, I can say what I really think.”
“Please don’t.”
“I think-” Ilya leans in close, his voice dropping to that low, rough register that makes Shane’s knees weak. “-that you look very, very good in your home jersey. The blue is doing things for me.”
“Ilya-”
“I think about taking it off you. Slowly. Very slowly. Maybe with my teeth.”
“There are children watching this broadcast!”
“Is after watershed! Is fine!” Ilya dismisses this with a wave of his glove. “And anyway, I think about how you looked this morning, because I am romantic. You had my shirt on. Was too big for you. Was very cute.”
Despite everything — the microphone, the national television audience, the complete implosion of his public image — Shane feels his face heat up. “That’s not—we shouldn’t-”
“And I think,” Ilya continues, clearly on a roll now, “about how you make me laugh. Even when I am grumpy. You tell bad joke and I laugh anyway because is you telling it.”
Shane’s chest does something complicated.
“And I think about how you pretend you don’t like my sweaters but then you wear them when you think I’m not looking.”
“I do not-”
“And how you learn Russian for me. You think I don’t notice, but I notice. You say things wrong, but you try, and is-” Ilya makes a gesture that encompasses his entire chest. “-is very nice.”
“Rozanov-”
“And I think about how you are best player I ever play against. Best player in world, maybe. Except me. I am still better.”
“You’re not better!”
“See? This is what I love. You always argue with me. Keep me sharp.” Ilya grins. “Also you are very good kisser. And you have very nice-”
“OKAY!” Shane practically tackles him. “Okay, that’s enough, thank you, we’re done here!”
They end up in a heap on the ice, and the referee skates over with a long-suffering expression.
“Two minutes for roughing,” he announces. “Both of you.”
“Worth it,” Ilya says cheerfully.
Shane wants to die.
The penalty box is small at the best of times. With both of them crammed into their respective boxes, separated only by the plexiglass divider, it feels even smaller.
Ilya presses his face against the glass. “Shane. Shane, look at me.”
“No.”
“Shane.”
“I’m never looking at you again. I’m going to become a hermit. I’m going to move to a cave in the mountains where there’s no television, no internet, and no Russian hockey players who destroy my life.”
“You would be so bored in cave.” Ilya sounds completely confident about this. “You would miss me. You would miss my face.”
“I would not miss your face.”
“You would miss my other things too.”
Shane makes a strangled noise.
“Okay, okay, I stop.” Ilya grins. “For now.”
They sit in silence for approximately five seconds.
“So,” Ilya says. “This is cozy, yes?”
“No.”
“We should get penalty together more often. Is like date.”
“This is the worst date.”
“I don’t know. Remember that time we try to go to movies and you spill soda all over yourself in first five minutes?”
“That was your fault! You grabbed my arm!”
“Was dark! How was I supposed to know was your soda?”
“It was in my hand!”
“Details.” Ilya waves this away. “Point is, this is not worst date. Is maybe top five worst dates.”
“That’s not the compliment you think it is.”
“Is fine. All our dates are disasters anyway. Remember Valentine’s Day?”
Shane groans. “Don’t remind me.”
“You try to cook. Was very sweet. Very romantic. Very… on fire.”
“It was one time!”
“Smoke alarm go off for twenty minutes! Neighbors call fire department!”
“I was trying to be nice!”
“You ARE nice.” Ilya’s voice softens. “You are nicest person I know. Is why I love you.”
And just like that, Shane’s anger evaporates. Because damn it, Ilya can do that. He can be the most infuriating, chaotic, ridiculous person on the planet, and then he says something like that and Shane just … melts.
“I love you too,” Shane mutters. “Even though you just ruined my life.”
“I did not ruin your life. I make it more interesting.” Ilya considers. “Okay, maybe I ruin it little bit. But is fine. We are still very hot and very good at hockey. People will get over it.”
“My agent is going to kill me.”
“Farah is going to be fine. She will probably write book deal. Make millions. She should thank me.”
“Thank you?”
“Yes! I just give her best story ever. Is like romantic comedy but with more hockey and better-looking people.”
Despite himself, Shane laughs. It’s either laugh or cry, and he’s not giving Ilya the satisfaction of tears.
“You’re impossible,” Shane says.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees cheerfully. “But I am your impossible.”
The penalty time expires. They both skate back onto the ice, and Shane can feel the eyes of everyone in the arena on them.
His phone is definitely going to explode after this game. Farah is probably already composing strongly worded emails. His mother is absolutely going to call him with that tone in her voice that means he’s in trouble even though he’s a twenty-nine-year-old professional athlete.
But right now, skating down the ice with Ilya grinning at him from across the face-off circle, Shane thinks that maybe it might be worth it.
The third period is when things get really out of hand.
Because Ilya, freed from the constraints of secrecy, has apparently decided that this is his moment to shine.
“You know what I love about you?” Ilya asks during the next shift. He’s not even pretending to focus on the puck anymore. “I love how you get that little line between your eyebrows when you’re concentrating. Is very cute. Make me want to-”
“Family show!” Shane yelps. “FAMILY SHOW!”
“-kiss it,” Ilya finishes innocently. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t trust anything you say anymore.”
“This is hurtful. I am very trustworthy person.”
“You once convinced me that ‘fuck, you’re a cunt’ was Russian for ‘nice to meet you’ and I said it to Svetlana!”
“And she thought it was very funny! She still laugh about it!”
They’re supposed to be playing hockey. There’s a game happening around them. Shane’s team is down by one, and he should be focused on tying it up, but instead he’s having a domestic dispute at center ice while wearing a hot mic.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
“Okay, but real talk,” Ilya says, managing to steal the puck from Shane through sheer audacity. “I am nervous.”
Shane nearly trips over his own skates. “What?”
“About coming out. On television. In front of everyone.” Ilya doesn’t look at him, keeping his eyes on the play. “Is big deal, yes?”
And suddenly Shane remembers that under all the bravado and chaos, Ilya is just a person. A person who grew up in a country where being openly gay was dangerous. A person who’s spent years hiding who he is. A person who just made a split-second decision that’s going to change both their lives forever.
“Hey,” Shane says softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” Shane means it. “We’re in this together, right?”
“Together,” Ilya echoes. He finally looks at Shane, and there’s something vulnerable in his eyes. “Even though I just blow up your whole life?”
“Someone had to do it eventually. Might as well be you.” Shane grins. “Besides, you were right. My social media statement would have been boring as hell.”
“See? I do you favor!”
“Let’s not go that far.”
“I do you huge favor. I am hero.”
“You’re a disaster.”
“Yes, but I am your disaster.” Ilya steals the line Shane was about to say, and his grin is so bright it could power the entire arena.
The puck comes their way. They both go for it. Shane gets there first, but Ilya hooks him — illegally, obviously — and they both go crashing into the boards in a tangle of limbs and equipment.
“Ow,” Shane says.
“Sorry.” Ilya doesn’t sound sorry at all. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I make it better later. I give you massage. Full body massage. Very thorough. I am expert.”
“The mic is STILL ON!”
“I know!” Ilya looks delighted. “Is great! Is like therapy, but I don’t have to pay therapist!”
“That’s not how therapy works!”
“Sure it is. I talk about my feelings. People listen. Is very cathartic.”
Shane is going to have an aneurysm. He’s going to have an aneurysm right here on the ice, and it’s going to be all Ilya’s fault.
But then Ilya does something completely unexpected. He reaches out — carefully, so the refs won’t see — and squeezes Shane’s hand. Just for a second. Just long enough to communicate I’m here. We’re okay. I’ve got you.
Shane squeezes back.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. No more hiding.”
“No more hiding,” Ilya agrees.
“But also no more talking about my-” Shane lowers his voice. “-my body parts on national television.”
“Just your body parts specifically? Because I have some body parts too, and I think they are very nice body parts, and if I want to talk about MY body parts-”
“ILYA!”
“-is free country! I have freedom of speech!”
“That’s not what freedom of speech means!”
“You know what your problem is?” Ilya asks, skating backward while maintaining eye contact in a move that should be illegal. “You are too uptight. You need to relax. Let loose. Be more like me.”
“If I was more like you, the world would end.”
“Yes, but what a way to go!”
Despite everything, Shane is smiling. He can’t help it. This is the most mortifying experience of his life, and he’s smiling like an idiot because Ilya is being Ilya, and Shane is helpless against it.
“I love you,” Shane says, right there on the ice, into the microphone, for millions of people to hear. “You’re a complete nightmare, but I love you.”
Ilya’s face does something complicated. For a moment, he looks genuinely shocked. Then his expression softens into something so tender that Shane’s chest aches.
“I love you too,” Ilya says quietly. “My golden boy.”
They have a moment. A real, genuine moment in the middle of a hockey game, surrounded by eighteen thousand people and countless television cameras.
Then Hayden skates by and yells, “GET A ROOM!”
The moment breaks. Ilya flips him off. Shane laughs so hard he almost falls over.
With five minutes left in the third period, Shane scores the tying goal.
It’s not even a particularly good goal — a lucky bounce off Evan Dykstra’s skate that puts it past Wyatt Hayes — but Shane doesn’t care. He celebrates like he just won the Stanley Cup, and when his teammates pile on him, he’s grinning so hard his face hurts.
“THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND!” Ilya shouts from across the ice. “THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND! HE SCORE GOAL!”
“Oh my god,” Shane says into his glove.
“VERY PROUD!” Ilya continues. “LOVE YOU, SHANE!”
The Montreal crowd doesn’t know how to react. Some people are cheering. Some people are laughing. Some people look like they’re having a crisis.
Shane relates to that last group.
“Okay,” says J.J., still laughing. “I’ll admit it. This is actually kind of cute.”
“Nothing about this is cute,” Shane insists.
“Hollsy, he just called you his boyfriend on television. That’s adorable.”
“I’m going to trade you to Arizona.”
“You can’t trade me. You love me. I’m your favorite defenseman.”
“You’re also the only defenseman about to be sent to the Western Conference.”
“Give them time. The period isn’t over yet.”
The game continues. Shane and Ilya keep chirping each other, but now there’s a different quality to it. It’s lighter somehow. More honest. Like a weight has been lifted that Shane didn’t even know he was carrying.
With two minutes left, Ilya scores the game-winning goal.
Of course he does. Because the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Ilya skates by Shane, winks, and blows him a kiss. Shane flips him off. Ilya laughs so hard he almost runs into his own goalie.
“I let you have that one,” Shane tells him.
“You let me have nothing. I am just better player.” Ilya’s grin is shit-eating and smug and perfect. “But is okay. I can make it up to you later.”
“How?”
“I have ideas. Many, many ideas. Some of them even appropriate for television.” Ilya pauses. “Most of them not, though.”
“I’m shocked. Truly shocked.”
“I know. Is surprising development.”
The final buzzer sounds. Ottawa wins 4-3. Both teams crowd around center ice, and when Shane reaches Ilya, there’s a moment where neither of them quite knows what to do.
Then Ilya pulls him into a hug.
It’s not a bro hug or a teammate hug. It’s a real hug, the kind where Ilya’s arms wrap all the way around Shane’s waist and Shane’s face ends up pressed against Ilya’s shoulder pads.
The arena goes absolutely silent.
Then someone starts clapping. Then someone else. Then more people, until the entire building is applauding, and Shane feels like his heart might explode right out of his chest.
“See?” Ilya murmurs into his ear. “I told you it would be okay.”
“You’re still a nightmare,” Shane says, but his voice cracks.
“Yes, but I am your nightmare.”
“My nightmare,” Shane agrees.
They pull apart. The cameras are definitely on them. Shane’s phone is definitely going to explode. His mother is definitely going to have Opinions.
But right now, looking at Ilya’s stupid, handsome, smug face, Shane can’t bring himself to care.
The post-game interviews are predictably chaotic.
Shane’s first clue is when the media scrum approaches him with expressions that can only be described as “gleeful hysteria.”
“So, Shane,” the first reporter says, barely suppressing a grin. “Interesting game tonight.”
“Uh. Yes. Very … interesting.”
“Anything you’d like to say about anything that might have happened during the broadcast?”
Shane considers his options. He could deflect. He could give some boring non-answer about hockey and teamwork and giving 110%.
Or he could lean into the chaos.
“Yeah,” Shane says, making a decision that would make Ilya proud. “My boyfriend is a menace to society and I’m accepting applications for a new one. Must be less embarrassing than current model. References required.”
The media scrum loses its collective mind.
“BOYFRIENDS DON’T NEED REFERENCES!” Ilya’s voice carries from across the hallway, where he’s doing his own interview. “IS RELATIONSHIP, NOT JOB APPLICATION!”
“YOU NEED REFERENCES FOR EVERYTHING!” Shane yells back.
“NAME ONE TIME I NEED REFERENCES!”
“WHEN YOU TRIED TO ADOPT THAT STRAY CAT!”
“WAS VERY NICE CAT!”
“IT WAS A RACCOON!”
The reporters are frantically scribbling notes. Shane can already see the headlines: “Hollander and Rozanov: A Love Story Written in Chirps” or “NHL’s Newest Power Couple Can’t Stop Arguing.”
“For the record,” Shane adds, “the raccoon incident was two years ago and I’m still not over it.”
“YOU ARE SO OVER IT!” Ilya shouts.
“I AM NOT!”
“YOU LITERALLY SAID LAST WEEK THAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY!”
“I LIED TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER!”
“THIS IS VERY HURTFUL! I AM HURT!”
“YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT HURT MEANS!”
A reporter tentatively raises their hand. “So … you two are actually together?”
Shane takes a deep breath. This is it. This is the moment where it becomes real.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we’re together. Have been for a while now. And before anyone asks — yes, I know he’s impossible. Yes, I know he’s a chaos gremlin. Yes, I know he once tried to convince me that Russian bears are ‘actually very friendly if you are polite to them.’ I’m aware of all his flaws.”
“HEY!”
“But he’s also-” Shane’s voice softens. “-he’s also the best person I know. He’s kind and funny and he makes me laugh even when I’m having the worst day. He learned how to make my mom’s tori zosui recipe because he knew I missed it. He texts me pictures of dogs he sees on the street. He’s … he’s everything.”
The room has gone completely silent.
“Also,” Shane adds, because he can’t help himself, “he’s a dirty talker and apparently has no shame.”
The room erupts.
“IS TRUE!” Ilya calls out proudly. “I am very good at sex talk! Is talent!”
“THAT’S NOT A TALENT!”
“IS TALENT! Ask anyone!”
“I’M NOT ASKING ANYONE!”
“Why not? You are embarrassed of my skills?”
“I’M EMBARRASSED OF YOUR EVERYTHING!”
Later, Shane will see the clip on social media. Later, he’ll watch himself and Ilya bickering across a crowded media room, both of them grinning like idiots, and he’ll think Oh. This is what happiness looks like.
But right now, he’s too busy arguing with his boyfriend about whether or not “sex talk” qualifies as a marketable skill.
After the interviews, after the showers, after the locker rooms clear out, Shane and Ilya end up back at Shane’s apartment.
They’re both still in their suits. Shane’s tie is crooked. Ilya’s hair is sticking up in nineteen different directions.
“So,” Shane says. “That happened.”
“That happened,” Ilya agrees.
They stand there for a moment, the reality of what they’ve done finally sinking in.
“Farah called me twelve times,” Shane says.
“My agent call me twenty times. I win.”
“That’s not—that’s not how that works.”
“Sure it is. Whoever agent is more angry win. Is game.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yes, but you love me anyway.” Ilya steps closer. “Right?”
“Right,” Shane confirms. “Even though you just completely destroyed my carefully constructed public image.”
“Your carefully constructed public image was boring.”
“It was SAFE.”
“Safe is boring.” Ilya reaches out, straightening Shane’s tie with careful fingers. “You know what is not boring? Being yourself. Being happy. Being with person you love.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I am always wise. You just don’t listen.”
“I definitely don’t listen.”
“Is okay. I talk enough for both of us.”
Shane laughs. God, he loves this man. This ridiculous, infuriating, perfect man who just upended both their lives on national television and somehow made it work.
“What do we do now?” Shane asks.
“Now?” Ilya grins. “Now we order pizza. And we watch all the clips of me being very sexy on television. And then-” His voice drops. “-then I show you all the things I could not say on TV because there were children watching.”
“There are neighbors in this building.”
“Let them hear. Let everyone hear. Is 2020. We are free now. We can be loud.”
“I’m going to get evicted.”
“Is fine. You come live with me. I have better apartment anyway. And better bed. Remember? Sturdier.”
“You’re never going to let me forget about the broken bed, are you?”
“Never,” Ilya confirms cheerfully. “Is too good. Will tell our grandchildren.”
“Our what?”
“Grandchildren. You know, small children of our children. Is word.”
“We don’t have children!”
“Not yet. But someday maybe. If you want.” Ilya says it casually, but there’s something careful in his eyes. Something vulnerable.
Shane’s heart does that complicated thing again.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Someday. Maybe.”
“Okay.” Ilya’s smile is blinding. “Is good. Is very good.”
They order pizza. They watch the clips — and oh god, the clips are worse than Shane remembered. There are already memes. So many memes. Shane’s face is going to be immortalized as the “internal screaming” expression for the rest of time.
But there are also good things. Messages from friends. Support from teammates. Fans on social media being surprisingly positive. One particularly viral tweet that reads Rozanov really said ‘we’re coming out’ and then proceeded to dirty talk his boyfriend for an entire period. King behavior.
“See?” Ilya says, reading over Shane’s shoulder. “People love me.”
“People are insane.”
“Yes, but is our kind of insane.”
Later, much later, when the pizza is gone and they’re curled up on Shane’s couch together, Ilya says quietly, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not being too angry. About the-” He gestures vaguely. “-the everything.”
“I’m still a little angry,” Shane admits. “But also … I think you might have been right. We couldn’t hide forever. And this way-” He laughs. “-this way is very us.”
“Chaotic and loud and impossible to ignore,” Ilya finishes.
“Exactly.”
They sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Then Ilya shifts, moving so he’s straddling Shane’s lap, his hands coming up to frame Shane’s face.
“You know,” Ilya says, his voice dropping into that register that makes Shane’s stomach flip, “I was very good today. Very restrained.”
“Restrained.” Shane’s laugh is slightly breathless. “You dirty-talked me on national television.”
“Yes, but I could have been much worse.” Ilya’s thumbs trace Shane’s cheekbones. “I could have told them about that thing you do with your tongue. Or about the sounds you make when I-”
“Ilya-”
“Or about how you look first thing in the morning, all messy and soft and mine.” Ilya leans in closer. “Or how you taste right here-” He presses a kiss to Shane’s jaw. “-and here-” Another kiss to his neck. “-and especially here-”
“There’s no microphone now,” Shane points out, his hands coming up to grip Ilya’s hips.
“I know.” Ilya grins against Shane’s skin. “But is good practice, yes? For later, when we are married and doing interviews together and I need to embarrass you in front of everyone.”
“Married?”
“Of course married. You think I do all this-” Ilya gestures expansively, nearly smacking Shane in the face, “-for boyfriend who is not serious? No. I am very serious about you, Shane Hollander. Most serious I have ever been about anything except hockey and medovik.”
“That’s actually really romantic.”
“I know. I am very romantic.” Ilya kisses him properly this time, slow and deep. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark. “Now. You want to hear all the things I was thinking about saying on TV but didn’t?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Too bad. I am telling you anyway.” Ilya’s grin turns wicked. “First, I was thinking about how much I want to take you apart. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Until you forget your own name and only remember mine.”
“That’s-”
“And I was thinking about that spot right below your ear that makes you make that little gasping sound. You know the sound. The one that makes me lose my mind.”
Shane’s breath catches.
“And I was thinking,” Ilya continues, his voice like velvet, “about how beautiful you look when you are under me. Or on top of me. Or, you know what, you are beautiful in all positions. Is problem, really. Very distracting.”
“You’re trying to kill me.”
“No, no. Is opposite. I am trying to make you very, very alive.” Ilya rolls his hips, just a little, and Shane’s grip on him tightens. “And I was thinking about how much I love you. How much I want to keep you forever. How I want to wake up next to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night and argue with you about stupid things like whether raccoons make good pets-”
“They don’t-”
“-and watch you be amazing at hockey and be proud that you are mine. My golden boy. My Shane.”
“Yours,” Shane agrees, pulling him down into another kiss.
“And mostly,” Ilya murmurs against his lips, “I was thinking about getting you into bed and showing you exactly how much I love you. In great detail. Multiple times. Until the neighbors definitely call to complain.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes. But you love me anyway.”
“I really do.”
Ilya stands up, pulling Shane with him, and starts backing toward the bedroom. “Come on. I have many, many things to show you. Will take all night. Maybe into tomorrow. Good thing you don’t have game until Tuesday.”
“I have practice tomorrow.”
“We skip practice. Tell them we are dealing with media fallout from coming out.”
“That’s not-”
“Or tell them truth: that I am making love to my boyfriend and cannot be disturbed. Either way, they understand.”
Shane laughs, letting himself be pulled along. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Yes, but what a way to go,” Ilya says, echoing his words from earlier. Then he pushes Shane onto the bed and crawls on top of him, all heat and promise and absolute certainty. “Now. Where was I? Oh yes. I was going to tell you all the filthy things I want to do to you. Is long list. Very detailed. Hope you are comfortable.”
“I love you,” Shane says, reaching up to pull him down.
“I love you too,” Ilya says. Then his mouth curves into that troublemaker grin that Shane knows so well. “Now stop talking. I have very important work to do.”
And as Ilya proceeds to make good on every single promise, Shane thinks that maybe the hot mic incident wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to him.
In fact, it might have been the best.
After all, he got to keep Ilya. And Ilya gets to keep being a horny, dirty-talking, loving menace.
Forever.
Which, honestly, is exactly how Shane wants it.