Chapter Text
Ilya woke up the way he wakes up almost everyday:
Just as tired as he was when he went to sleep.
Naked, with a woman strewn out next to him, also naked.
She was beautiful, yes, but he didn’t want her here.
He wanted to lay in bed and scroll through the news and pretend like he was NOT keeping an eye out for one name, Shane Hollander.
Because he was not.
He does not care what Shane Hollander does with his life.
He does not care that he won the Stanley Cup last season.
He does not care that they haven’t hooked up in three months because of summer break.
And he definitely does not care that this man has more commercials dropping than there are players in the NHL.
The woman makes a noise as she stretches awake.
“Mornin’” Her southern accent is unmistakable, why she is all the way up here in Boston with that accent remains a mystery to sober Ilya.
“Hello,” He grumbles at her, he still can’t see where his phone is, he can’t call her a car without his phone.
“My head is pounding,” She stands up and her sleek skin shines in the morning light and for a moment Ilya considers dragging her back into bed, but he has practice today, second practice of the season, which means he is in charge of today.
“There is Advil in the —“ he points to the bathroom as he cuts himself off because he spots his phone in his pants across the room. He strides quickly, but not quickly enough to alert her, over to the phone and picks it up.
She starts to talk about something, maybe breakfast but Ilya just holds up a finger and furrows his eyebrows.
He has 17 missed calls from Marleau, 100 unread group chat texts with the team and a missed call from coach.
“You have to go,” he says.
“What?” She looks offended and slightly shocked.
“Emergency, sorry, I call a ride,” He starts to run to get dressed while ordering her an uber. The beautiful woman stands naked in shock, not that Ilya could care, but a voice in his head tells him to feel bad for all of two seconds before more texts flow in.
As he watches her get in the uber he calls Marleau back.
“Dude! Where have you been?” Marleau says when he answers. God he does not have time for this, he needs to know why everyone is acting like someone died.
“Why have you called me more than your mother?” Ilya asks.
“Well, I think it would be more fun for you to get to the rink and see for yourself,” He laughs.
“The rink? Practice doesn’t start for—“ he pulls his phone down to see the time. “3 hours,”
“Coach sent out mass email because there has been a—“ he pauses to let out a light laugh. “A major change,”
“What is it?”
“Should’ve answered your phone,” Marley laughs and hangs up.
Fuck.
He’s so fucking irritating.
Fuck.
Ilya runs back into the house and grabs his stuff to get to the rink as fast as he can.
His mind is reeling with the possibilities of “major changes”.
The group chat is a mess and doesn’t help in any way, its mostly everyone saying different versions of what the fuck.
New owners? No way.
New coach? No, Coach wouldn’t have only called me once.
New player? Maybe. But who? No one’s contracts are up.
Oh my god, Am I losing my captaincy? Are they demoting me?
Fuck.
45 minutes to get to the rink.
Ilya finds himself thinking about Shane again.
Shane would know what was going on, he is so wrapped up in the hockey world that it would be an easy answer to pull out of that brain of his.
He would know and he would tell Ilya with an earnest flat expression and then make a snide comment about Ilya being a captain in the NHL and not actually knowing that much about the NHL’s politics.
Shane wouldn’t have to spiral about losing his captaincy because nobody would take that from the golden boy of hockey.
But Ilya, they might.
Then the thoughts of Shane's soft lips that curve into a smile before he would try to climb Ilya like a tree start to creep in and Ilya can relax his shoulders an inch.
They have only had sex a couple of times at this point and this season Ilya had a plan to invite Shane to his house, and have him actually stay, and they can just be, together.
But, now will Shane even want him if he loses his captaincy?
Ilya doesn’t have much time to dwell on this because he pulls into the rink.
“Cap” Marley yells from the door, a few other of the guys standing behind him. He motions for Ilya to come through the double doors. Doors he has walked in and out of since his rookie season. Doors he has entered as a captain countless times.
Fuck.
“Ahh, the beautician is finally here,” One of the guys laughs.
They herd him to the film room where coach is pacing back and forth.
“Be prepared to hate this,” Marley leans into Ilya’s ear and laughs.
“Back off Marley I can feel your hot breath,” he shoves at his shoulder. Marley lets out a small chuckle.
“I am sorry to ruin your Friday morning,” Coach claps his hands together. “Thank you for finally showing up,” He looks directly at Ilya, who keeps his face nonchalant and shrugs. He sprawls across the back of his chair, letting his legs spread.
“Sorry, I got things,” Ilya waves it off.
“Yea two big ones,” One of the guys makes a crude gesture of boobs and Ilya makes a disgusted face at him and shakes his head.
“Anyway,” the coach continues. “There has been some—“ he pauses maybe to think of the word. “New developments with the NHL recently, specifically the Montreal Metros,”
Ilya’s heart sinks to his stomach.
They know.
They know and they are going to ban him from hockey and worse they will ban Shane too and he will blame Ilya and Ilya will never get to hold him, feel him or even look at him again.
“The metros have released one of their players from their contract…” He takes a deep breath. “Well, that’s not my place to say, and management and I have decided to take him on,”
Oh god. No.
If it's Hayden Pike, or worse maybe actually one of their worst players, Ilya will hate him and hate management and hate his coaches.
Fuck.
It's not the worst to happen, but it could still be better.
The coach takes a step to the side.
“Everyone please welcome Shane Hollander, to the Boston Raiders,” He extends his hand and Shane walks through the door, his eyes on the floor.
When he looks up his beautiful brown eyes meet Ilya’s and time stops, everything stops.
Ilya sees blush creep up under his freckles.
His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders are tense and hunched but he still looks so beautiful.
“Hi, everyone,” Shane says in a low, almost embarrassed voice.
And at that Ilya is brought back into his body.
Fuck.
It couldn’t be worse.