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There's no question about Ilya's summer destination plans once awards season dies down and the second wave of media attention rocks through Boston like a late season snow storm. The news is out: nearly all of Boston's regular players will not be suiting up and walking down the tunnel next season. The only recognizable names are Ilya Rozanov and Cliff Marleau, and Ilya Rozanov just won player of the year again, which he very publicly gave to Cliff Marleau after chirping both Scott Hunter and Shane Hollander and then finding his trainer to give him back his lost son. An awards show like no other. That's what social media and every podcast and news platform is saying.

Cliff Marleau is saying, "You asshole, you didn't even get me Rose Landry's number?" For the tenth time as Ilya packs for the cottage.

"I am not interested in Rose Landry, why would I get her number?!" Ilya holds up his hands. He can't keep having this conversation. He will never stop having this conversation. Rose Landry, who now knows that Ilya and Shane sleep together at the very least. Rose Landry, who is, truly, a very nice girl. A very beautiful girl. A good choice for Cliff, better than Ashley, but god. God. It couldn't have been anyone else?

"Because you just talked to Shane Hollander, and you're about to spend several weeks doing yoga or killing him or whatever, and he has her number, and I want her number!" Cliff shouts back from a different part of the house.

"Be a man!" Ilya yells. "Ask her yourself!" Already, though, he is asking Shane for it. He likes shouting with no real malice at Cliff from different rooms. It reminds him that they are both young men with lots of life. Ilya has never gotten to be loud inside a house like this. Growing up, he made it his mission to be as quiet as possible, and then he moved to America, and then he lived alone. Now, a notification pops up on his phone. He checks it, thinking it's a reply from Shane. Instead, it's a new tweet from Cliff. He frowns and pauses in his packing to open the app.

@MarleyC Rose Landry, wherever you are, I am formally and respectfully asking for your number

"You are insane!" Ilya scrolls through the replies already amassing.

@VincentSS You have lost your mind @MarleyC @Rozanov82 come get your boy don't you live together ??

@HT_L Get in line brother, have you just now realized she exists?

@TomK2 pretty sure @ShaneHollander has her locked down

Ilya types out his own reply.

@Rozanov82 @MarleyC delete this

@MarleyC @Rozanov82 You don't want to see me succeed

@ShaneHollander @MarleyC @Rozanov82 Why are you fighting over Twitter when you live together

@JackieP02 @RoseLandryOfficial Are you seeing this? LOL

Ilya's phone starts ringing in his hand. Yuna Hollander. Fuck. He answers immediately. "Hello?"

"Hi, honey, I just wanted to let you know your contract cleared and I am now officially your agent." The words fall like the sweetest burst of rain. Ilya sits down right there on the floor of his kitchen, forgetting about being on the way to Cliff's room to knock some sense into him. He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Spasibo," He says. "Thank you. Thank you so much. Whatever you want to be paid is fine, I do not care."

"Well, I do care, and that's not how this works. There's a contract to sign, obviously, but I won't make you do work on your break. I'll send it over to you and I really want you to read it, okay? I want you to know what you're entitled to."

"Okay, okay, I promise I will read it." Ilya concedes, knowing it could tell him that he'd be put to death for something and he'd probably still sign it. Yuna Hollander made it so Cliff Marleau stayed in Boston and, more importantly, on Ilya's team. There is very little he wouldn't do for her. All this, in total, is still nothing in the face of the way she so easily calls him honey. Like Ilya is something sticky and sweet and bright. Like Ilya is another thing from the forest, like her own son.

"Good. Now, while I have you on the phone," Yuna begins.

"Dude, I'm literally begging you please can you get me Rose Lan—is that her? Is that Hollander? Tell him—" Cliff rounds the corner and finds Ilya on the ground. He drops into a squat to be at the same level as Ilya to more effectively argue his case. Ilya covers the speaker of his phone.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Cliff, I am talking to my agent,"

  "Oh." Cliff's face shift and he sinks all the way to the floor next to Ilya. "Is it bad?"

  Ilya needs to be by a lake immediately. "No, no, is good thing. Everything is okay, but I am still on the phone." He looks at Cliff, waiting for him to leave. Cliff looks back, clearly intent on staying. Ilya breaths in through his nose and out in a sigh. He puts his phone back to his ear.

  "Okay, Yuna, sorry, my roommate met Rose Landry one time and fell in love. Anyway, you were saying?"

"Yuna? I thought your agent was Phillip Shams," Cliff makes a face. Ilya plants his hand in Cliff's chest and pushes himself back up to standing.

"I have your birthday in your file as June 15th, is that right?" Yuna checks.

"Yes." One month and five days after your son. One month and five days of a world where we belonged only to our mothers and to no one else, not even each other. "But I don't celebrate it much." Ilya leaves it at that, in case the Hollanders are planning some kind of surprise party. Ilya doesn't care to cry in front of the parents of the man he is in love with and still hasn't told.

"Okay, no problem! Well, hopefully we catch you at some point while you're here, I'm sure we'll do dinner or something," Yuna sounds so much like Shane when he's trying to pass off an already planned idea as something casual that it makes Ilya smile involuntarily.

"Okay, I will be there." Ilya hangs up and turns to find Cliff standing with his arms crossed.

"Yuna Hollander?" There's an accusation that hangs heavily in Cliff's voice. Ilya hesitates. Is this the part where Cliff says it's getting weird? Is this the part where Cliff demands that Ilya turns his pockets out clean before him?

"Yes." Ilya braces for an impact that never comes.

"Dude, you are so fucking unbelievable, you're gonna be getting all these fuckass deals now and get even richer. You better give me a Rolex." Cliff drops his arms and rolls his eyes. "And, call Shane and ask him for Rose Landry's number."

Ilya holds up his phone. "I already did, asshole, and you are wearing pants that cost two hundred and fifty American dollars, do not talk to me about brand deals. Stop being idiot on social media and let me pack in peace or I am calling Carley to come pick you up and employ you somewhere else." It's an empty threat. The only time Ilya calls Carley is to confirm Heather's shirt size when he and Cliff are in airports and find tshirts with animals on them.

Cliff follows Ilya into his room and drapes his enormous frame diagonally across his bed, head hanging off the other end. "Once I get her number, should I text her or call her?"

Ilya folds a shirt and puts it in his suitcase. "I think you should get her name on your chest. Maybe below this Ashley," Ilya digs his fingers into Cliff's ribs and Cliff squirms away.

"Fuck you, dude." Cliff throws an arm over his face. "I'm worried if you're not here I'm gonna cave if Ashley calls."

"Cliff, block this girl." Ilya advises. He knows Cliff won't. He's contemplated going into Cliff's phone and blocking her himself on many occasions. "You cannot live with yourself for a day before you want to get your dick wet? This is crazy."

"It's not like that, man. You make me sound terrible. I don't like being alone, okay? Jesus."

"Okay. I don't either. You have phone, call me." Ilya takes out his original pants selection and contemplates if he wants to bring both or swap one out for shorts.

"I don't want to talk about me anymore. Don't forget how to check just because you're going to be around Shane Hollander again this summer," Cliff warns, arm still thrown over his face.

"I won't." Ilya decides on another pair of shorts. His phone buzzes.

Jane: Cliff is absolutely insane

Jane: [attachment: Contact Card Rose Landry]

Jane: I'm only sending this because Rose asked me to, which is also insane, by the way

Lily: Yes, I know, but maybe not bad insane

Ilya sends the contact to Cliff with no ceremony and continues packing. He hears Cliff curse a moment later when he realizes what Ilya sent him. "Ilyusha, help me, do I text her? Probably not, huh? I should probably call her. I'll call her,"

"Do not call her. Breath. You have met this girl already. If she wanted to kill you, she would have already done it. She is not someone who takes prisoners alive." Ilya promises, although he sees Cliff holding his phone up to his ear, the tinny sound of the phone ringing. He groans. In little moments like this, the jealousy consumes him. Cliff is outwardly what Ilya feels inside, all the time. He wants to be lying across his brother's bed in Russia, in a different life, telling somebody who shares their mother's chin about this boy that he cannot get enough of.

But there is only this life. And in this life, Ilya doesn't get that brother's love. He has to make his own brother out of clay, like God did with the first man. From dust, Adam came. Ilya has to raise him up over more years than he has fingers on one hand and lie to him, anyway, over and over and over. He gets to dress Shane Hollander in a ridiculously well fitted suit, finally, and cannot tell anyone why, not even the mother of the boy who calls him honey like he is something to be bottled and kept on the kitchen counter with the rest of the family.

  "Miss Landry," Cliff says into the phone, his free hand rubbing at his chest. Something he only does when he is extremely nervous. Ilya used to watch Cliff do this in the locker room before games when they were nineteen and still learning that hockey is the same everywhere, at every level, if you want it to be. Ilya rounds the bed and sits by Cliff's head for moral support. "Well, no I, yes—I was calling...yes, I have been called that before. I understand." Cliff takes his hand off his chest and holds it in the air, fingers splayed and teeth gritted. "I was wondering if I could take you to dinner if—yes, a date. Yes, like a date, is that...?" Cliff trails off, grabbing at air.

  Ilya takes his hand and holds it. He is never letting Cliff live this one down. He also wants to tell him, I know exactly what you're feeling. Desperate for it, for somebody that is so far out of reach that the impossibility doesn't even register. "No, I'm not gay. Oh. Ninety five percent? That sounds really high—okay. Okay. Well, if it helps my case, I have kissed a man sober and it didn't really do much for me." Ilya raises his eyebrows down at Cliff, who has his eyes screwed shut like opening them will make the dream topple. "So, are you free next week? I'd love to—New York? Far? Baby, there is not a distance I would not walk, drive, fly, or swim to prevent me from taking you to dinner. Respectfully, ma'am." Cliff promises. Insane, Ilya thinks. Clinically insane, just like him. Speak to the boy one time, outside a rink, in a language you are still learning, and spend the rest of your adult life finding ways to get back to him now that he's a man.

  When Cliff hangs up, he opens his eyes and breaks his hand free from Ilya's, stretching his arms above his head like he does on ice in a celly. "We are so back!"

  "You kissed a man, sober?" Ilya demands, his heart kick thudding against his ribs. What if I could tell you. What if you would listen.

  Cliff sits up and shrugs, unconcerned. "Sure, why not? You don't know till you know. Don't tell me you're going to be homophobic about this, Ilyusha—"

  Ilya holds up a hand, interrupting him. "—I am not," He says carefully, "Homophobic."

  "Okay." Cliff says.

  "Okay." Ilya says back.

  They look at each other, each daring the other to take charge of the conversation. Cliff breaks first, because Ilya has spent a decade perfecting his own blank faced stare.

  "But don't tell anyone that, okay? It's not like I'm hiding, I'm just saying, you know how the league is and I want to keep my contract." Cliff's smile is a small one, endearing.

  Ilya nods slowly. "Yes, I know how the league is, Cliff. I want to keep my contract too." Sometimes it's easier to repeat an already admitted truth back. Cliff blinks his long, dark eyelashes over his sky blue eyes. Rose Landry, don't let him fuck this up for himself, with you, Ilya thinks.

  "Okay," Cliff's voice is soft. They are two boys telling secrets as the evening draws close. I didn't get to grow up with you. Let me hold your earliest misgivings in my hands anyway to make up for lost time. "I'll take that to my grave, if you want." Casual.

  Ilya looks away. "No, I do not want, but. I cannot have everything."

  "Your parents," Cliff says, reaching for Ilya. "Russia." Because, once, he beat his sister's abusive husband nearly to death with the kids watching, dragged him all the way through the house and into the driveway in front of the neighbors. Not his proudest moment. Not something he wouldn't do again.

  "Dead, or else dead to me," Ilya sniffs a laugh. "I will not go back there for many reasons. Is too bad. Is beautiful, this time of year. In Moscow, snow is just starting to melt, and it washes the streets clean. All the church bells ring for weddings—is popular time to get married—and sometimes, if all the mothers get tired enough of their children being locked in against the cold, they will open windows too early, and you can hear them singing along to the radio when you walk in the street. And, if you are very terrible boy, you will kiss your coach's son for years, you will be greedy enough to want boys and girls and end up with nothing in your hands but all the men in your family hating you, and the only way to live past eighteen is one way ticket to country you have never been before. I know, bratishka, what the league is like. I have lived it all my life."

  Ilya lets Cliff gather him up against his chest and rock him back and forth, back and forth. Ilya doesn't cry, just makes himself as small as possible and wishes for the sound of wind against a multi story building with cars in the street below. Homesick for the past, only. He knows there was never any future for him there. The knowing doesn't make it any better.
 
  "I wish I'd been a man in your family, then," Cliff says, "Because I wouldn't have hated you. I would have loved a brother like you, and I would have helped you pack. I would have called you every night in a different time zone to make sure America was being nice to you,"

  Ilya laughs and it comes out wet. So maybe he is crying. The silent, choking kind, snot down his face of the kind he always has to clean off Shane's lip immediately before it sends him into another spiral. "You were there," Ilya reminds him, voice rough and creaking against his accent and all the rest left unsaid. "You did not need a different time zone. You were fucking banging down my door to go out and make sure we had every chance to be mean to America."

  "Well, you know," Cliff says this as a throw away phrase. Ilya does know. Ilya knows a lot of things. "I was a very terrible boy too, just in different ways. I'm trying to grow out of it."

  "Loving women does not make you terrible," Ilya disagrees. Not your sister, not Ashley, not Rose Landry, and not anyone in between, before, or after.

  "Loving men doesn't make you terrible, either, Ilyusha. So if you love both, you must be some kind of saint, yeah?"

  Now that Ilya is crying, he cannot stop crying. He cries for all the times he couldn't cry, wouldn't cry, didn't dare to. I'm so fucking sorry, he wants to say to his mother and to himself and to Shane Hollander and to Cliff, who holds him like this is something they do all the time.

  Later, Ilya finishes packing and Cliff does the laundry. They order pizza and watch six episodes of Love Is Blind: Habibi. One of the men goes through, in Ilya's opinion, a very weak explanation to the woman on the other side of the wall as to why he isn't interested in marrying a woman with children. Ilya shakes his head. "Fuck this guy. I want kids so fucking bad, who cares if they are not mine? I would make them mine." He licks the pizza grease from his thumb. All his desires except perhaps the most important one laid bare for Cliff today. Cliff Marleau who doesn't see these admissions as anything to write home about because they are a part of his own lived experience, too.

  Cliff motions at the television. "Seriously. Also, if I were him, I would be more worried about whatever the hell is going on with that leopard print skinny jean number. You think he woke up, put that on, and said: this is it, boys!"

  "You do not like leopard print? You are going to hurt my feelings, one of my favorite shirts is leopard print," Ilya teases.

"That's so different, dude, and you know it. That shirt's a fuck me shirt and, like, seven million dollars or something. Nobody is getting laid in those fifteen dollar pants from Amazon unless the lights are off." Cliff rolls his eyes.

  Ilya pulls out his phone and opens Amazon. "Thirty five dollars, actually. You want? Maybe I get them for you for your Rose Landry I Would Swim an Ocean for You New York Dinner Date, no?"

  "No," Cliff leans on the word. "Shut up."
 
  Ilya buys them in Cliff's size anyway and sets the delivery date for after he will already be in Canada, just to be safe. Cliff drops him off at the airport and they wrestle against each other for who gets to put their arms on top for a hug until Cliff bends his knees and picks Ilya up with a grunt from beneath his arms to set him down on the sidewalk. "Goddamnit you are so heavy," Cliff complains. "Have a safe flight, or else. And pick up the phone when I call you, I'm not going to leave you a stupid voicemail about my date."

  Ilya flips him off over his shoulder before walking into the terminal. At customs, Ilya states his visiting reason as tourism and wonders what it would be like to say, visiting family. Going home to my husband. Stupid thoughts. His passport that he presents to get stamped is still Russian. Ilya checks his phone at baggage claim and realizes he's still in airplane mode, thumbs it off, and finds a missed call from Shane. He calls him back. Shane answers immediately, sounding slightly out of breath.

  "Ilyusha, I'm so sorry, my goddamn transmission is shot so my dad is picking you up," The words tumble out all together.

  "Is fine," Ilya jumps to sooth before he can fully process the sentence. "Reliable car, huh?"

  "Yeah, well," Shane huffs, a rare acknowledgement of his defeat in the face of reality. "Years of ice melt and rock salt finally did it in, I guess. I should have taken better care of it, but it's just one more thing to think about during the season."

  "You could get second car, or third, or fourth," Ilya suggests. He muscles his suitcase off the conveyor belt and walks out, phone against his ear. Somebody calls his name and he does his best not to react, scanning the pickup line.

  "Fuck off. Look for a red car," Shane instructs, but he doesn't need to, because Ilya has already spotted David Hollander behind the wheel of a beautiful cherry red mustang convertible.

  "Bozhe moy, I am leaving you for your father," Ilya says, and then, quickly, before Shane can say, we're not together: "I will see you soon."

  Ilya puts his luggage in the boot and slides into the passenger seat. It's a bench seat, original finishing. He runs his hand over the dashboard and grins. "This is Yuna's car?" He asks.

  David laughs, puts the car in gear. "Careful, I might get offended, you knowing my wife so well."

  They don't speak for the rest of the drive over the sound of the wind. Ilya leans his head back over the head rest and lets the sky race over him. The engine sings along to the rock track. David's hand on the gearshift is a picture of Shane's hand in twenty years' time. They have the same shaped nail beds.

  When they get to the cottage, Ilya has to stop himself from drawing his sunglasses down his nose and wolf whistling at the view. He'd do it as a joke, except it wouldn't be a joke. Shane has his entire upper body beneath the hood and obscured from view. One foot on the ground, the other braced against the front bumper, shorts doing very little to conceal the muscle stacked in his calves, wrapping around his thighs, making up his glutes. Hockey player strength. Ilya knows Shane squats more than him and he is reminded of it in stark detail, now.

  David sighs into a laugh beside Ilya and shakes his head, moving his own sunglasses to the top of his salt and peppered hair. "Don't ask me why that kid still pulls his socks all the way up," Ilya blinks at Shane's white crew socks which are, sure enough, pulled up and out of his sneakers which Ilya would bet money on being double knotted.

  "Is Shane Hollander," Ilya says, so he doesn't say, your son's socks were not at all what I was looking at. They get out of the convertible and Ilya follows David over to Shane in a trance. Surely, those shorts do not look like that on other people. Shane grunts and extracts himself from the car, cotton shirt sticking to him with sweat and grease and a backward baseball cap on his head. Shane puts his leg down and his hands on his hip.

  "Can you help me, Dad? I can't get this thing out, I'm not sure..." Shane trails off and gestures toward the guts of the car.

  "Step aside, my boy," David makes a show of rolling out his neck. Ilya maps the broadness of David's shoulders to Shane's and thinks of his own shoulders, his own father. There's a clink and a creak and then David wrenches out something that looks heavy and complicated with both hands. Shane jumps to grab it and they both lower it to the ground. David puts his hands on Shane's shoulders and gives him a shake. "That's the old man strength, two time Stanley cup champion," He teases.

  Ilya watches the scene and cannot relate to a single part of it. Not Shane's father's hands on his shoulders and no punch following. Not the car in pieces on the driveway. Not the way Shane crouches down like he knows what this thing is that they just put on the ground. "You are mechanic as well?" Ilya raises his eyebrows. Shane tilts his face up, looking at the trees above Ilya's head. His grin is the same as the one in a baby picture that hangs in his parents' living room.

  "No, I just don't want to pay somebody a thousand dollars when I can replace the transmission myself for four hundred."

  "And you know how to do this, how?" Ilya asks.

  "My dad." Shane replies, like this is the most normal thing in the world. Ilya's mother taught him how to swallow other people's heart break. Ilya's brother taught him how to wear a suit the right way, and then how Able must have felt. Ilya's father taught him how to read a vodka label, stand up straight, and that sometimes, no matter what you do, you will fail anyway. Ilya stands over Shane with all of this knowledge and it is Shane who knows how to change a transmission and not Ilya.

  "It's not really something you'd ever need to know," David assured Ilya, clapping him on the shoulder. "It's just something we used to do together that wasn't hockey, dig around in my old truck before it bit the dust. You can go your whole life and never need to know any of this."

  "Okay." Ilya doesn't know what else to say. He takes his suitcase inside while Shane and David inspect the transmission and gets himself a glass of water. The coffee pot perfectly aligned with the bag of grounds makes Ilya smile. This place is Shane Hollander, full stop. Nature's symmetry reflected everywhere by nature's son, himself. Ilya comes back out of the house to see Shane struggling to hoist the metal thing with all its gears off the ground.

  Ilya hands a fresh glass of water to David and taps Shane's hip with two fingers. "Lift with your legs, lyubimyy, is no different from deadlift. You will never get that off the ground by trying to row it."

  Shane sets the thing back on the ground and straightens, swiping at his face with the hem of his shirt. Ilya wants to put his hands on him very badly. He does not. Seven years of restraint all boil down to this moment's success.

  "You could, probably." Shane says. Ilya shrugs.

  "I am not touching that."

  This makes David laugh. Ilya smiles too, and so does Shane, and they are all smiling beneath the summer sun in the best place Ilya has ever been. This could be the best day Ilya will ever have. He tries to memorize all the little details so he can replay it when the days begin to drag and sleep doesn't come and his head starts playing tricks on him.

  Shane sets his stance and lifts from his legs. The weight moves easily. "Oh," Shane glances at Ilya, freckles dark and lovely. "Thanks." Shane gets it in the car and he and David tighten things and slam the hood down. The car turns over on the first try and Shane takes it for a little test drive down the drive way and back. He hangs his upper body out the window, backward baseball cap driving Ilya crazy in ways he never thought possible, and gives a thumbs up to his father before he turns the car off.

  "Hi," Shane pulls Ilya into a side hug, fitting his sweaty body against Ilya's briefly enough to pass as friends, except Ilya knows Shane doesn't really freely hug anyone, not even Rose Landry or Hayden Pike, except for his parents. Ilya puts his hand on top of Shane's ball cap and stiff arms him.

  "You are very sweaty."

  This makes David laugh again. "It's good to have you back in Canada, Ilya. Alright, boys, I'm headed out. Mom will text about dinner sometime this week." Mom like she belongs to both of them, boys like both of them belong to David.

  As soon as the door shuts behind them, Ilya is pushing Shane toward the couch. "Do you have any idea how sexy you are?"

  "What are you talking about?" Shane's laugh rings over both of them. Church bells through Moscow streets. Women in white dresses. "I'm just wearing clothes,"

  "Yes, they need to be off you—no, keep the hat on," Ilya mouths up the column of Shane's throat. Shane puts their foreheads together, hands on Ilya's waist.

  "What," He breaths. "The fuck. Is going on."

  "You are clean?" Ila asks, sliding a hand down Shane's criminal shorts and running it over his ass. Shane's chest rises and falls in short bursts. "Hmm?" Ilya prompts.

  "Yes, yeah, I—well, I knew you were coming so." Shane hides his face beneath Ilya's jaw. Ilya lets him.

  "Okay, so take your clothes off and keep the hat on and I will show you what the fuck is going on," Ilya detaches himself from Shane to pull his own shirt over his head and shuck his shorts and underwear off. He watches Shane take his hat off to take his shirt off and then the easy way he puts it back on, by the bill. Things like this about Shane are a marvel to Ilya. Maybe he cannot talk his way out of things, maybe his own language betrays him often, but Shane is very good at the language of masculinity. He passes so well because he is a man, because he is a good hockey player, because he knows how to change the transmission on his car. Is that why your father taught you? To protect you? Is that what fathers are supposed to do?

  Shane throws his clothes on top of Ilya's. "They'll go in the wash right after, so it's not bad," He says aloud. Ilya sits on the couch and pulls Shane to him and into his lap.

  "I believe you," Ilya tells him. "I want you to ride me just like this, and then I will do whatever you want,"

  "Whatever I want?" Shane pretends to contemplate. Ilya knows he has him because Shane's eyes are taking him apart piece by piece, on his hairline, at his ears, scanning his collar bone. "You'll fold the laundry the whole time you're here?"

  "I will do that, anyway, stupid. You can think about it later, I don't need answer right now," Ilya pats Shane's thigh. "Go get me lube," He kisses up into Shane's mouth because he's losing his resolve very quickly. "Please."

  Shane leaves and comes back in record time. Ilya isn't sure why he's never thought of this before, Shane in his lap like this. He likes the view of Shane Hollander over him, but it's a tricky thing, because Shane is skittish, wild. Too much open sky and he'll take flight. Sitting, Ilya can put Shane's chest to his, can move him and let Shane move at the same time. And, when Shane is above him, sometimes he'll look Ilya in the eye, which is the greatest surprise of all.

  Ilya slides a finger into Shane to his second knuckle and Shane looks down into his eyes with that goddamn backward baseball cap. "How do I...?" Shane trails off, unsure, big hands tentatively spanning over the tops of Ilya's shoulders.

  "However you like," Ilya holds his gaze and kisses over Shane's peck. He rolls the bud of Shane's nipple between his teeth and Shane's eyes shutter closed. Ilya gets another finger in. Shane sinks down and moans. Ilya feels the vibrations in his chest through his lips. Yes, yes, yes, you great big wild thing. Scratch at my door and I'll let you in with the fox.

  It's filthily slow, the way Ilya opens Shane up and Shane rolls his own hips down, caged in by Ilya's free arm over his back, keeping him in close. Shane is sweating again, beads of it rolling down his chest that Ilya tastes in little licks. Salt of the earth.

  Shane ducks his head to kiss Ilya and opens his eyes afterward. Ilya always gets the shade of brown wrong in his memories. It's not a brown like fresh soil, it is the brown of fresh soil, and the freckles over Shane's face are the dark spots of rain when it first falls. "I want more," Shane murmurs. "And I know what I want after this,"

  "I am in the business of giving, as they say," Ilya pulls his fingers out and grabs the condom Shane brought with the lube. He keeps one hand on Shane's thigh and tears the little packet open with his teeth.

  Shane rests his fingers on Ilya's wrist. "How many people have you slept with this year?" Shane asks. The brown of coffee beans. Good leather shoes.

  "Just you, but the year is young."

  "Don't be like that, what about last year?"

  "One," Ilya says, "You."

  "Me, too," Shane admits, which is not as out of the ordinary as it should be for Ilya, but Ilya hasn't fucked anybody but Shane for the past three years, truthfully. Kissed a few girls, gave a half hearted blow job, but not a one of them were Shane Hollander and Ilya couldn't justify the potential for a disappointing fuck when he could wait the following week to play Montreal. 

  "I'm clean, are you?" Ilya understands that Shane is not just saying he's clean enough for sex, but what Shane is really proposing, all at once. He can't look Shane in the eyes anymore, buries his face in Shane's chest. Shane winds a hand through Ilya's hair and pulls his head back, gently. "Ilyusha, are you?"

  "Yes, but I..." Ilya shakes his head. "I cannot—blyat, lyubimyy, it means something, I—"

  Shane looks at him incredulously. "Oh, and taking my virginity didn't?" Voice in a monotone that Ilya wants to record and play back on slow mornings. Ilya purses his lips, tries to sort the Russian out in his head so he can translate it over. He comes up with nothing.

  "Yes, I guess I did do that," Ilya admits. Shane smooths his hair back and presses a kiss on top of Ilya's head.

  "Guess so. Guess we've done a lot of stupid things. What's one more, eh?" Canadian through and through. Ilya almost says something about this except Shane has one hand on Ilya's cock and the other braced against Ilya's shoulder, chin to his chest to figure out what he's doing.

  "Bozhe moy, not like that, like this," Ilya replaces Shane's hand with his own because Shane is not gentle. Shane would rather stuff himself full and deny them both a sensation of firsts because he's not wired that way, to savor, even if he likes it. Ilya knows what Shane does, and he also knows what Shane likes, and he knows that those things are not always mutually exclusive. "Slowly, slowly,"

  Ilya loses his vision at the same time Shane says, "Oh my god," and has to blink twenty times to regain it. When he does, Shane is looking right at him, pupils blown and lips parted. Fuck. Shane rolls his hips and Ilya can't hold his head up anymore, lets it rest against the back of the couch. Shane's hands are all over him, and he's moving like Ilya has been trying to show him all the other times before: take me, take what feels good to you, take yourself apart over me you beautiful, stubborn man. Ilya tells him all these things in Russian, English no longer an option.

  "I want to take you to dinner," Shane nips at Ilya's throat. "That's what I want, for this, please. Please."

  Ilya throws an arm over Shane's shoulders and presses him down as he drives his hips up. Shane shouts at the sensation, arches into it, begs for it again and again and again and thank God Ilya does hip thrusts with several plates because otherwise this would never work. Shane forces Ilya's back flush with the couch again and licks into his mouth. Ilya begs in his own way, hands at Shane's hips, running down his thighs. Please. I need you so badly. The hens have flown the coup. The fox opened the door and let them out and now Ilya's house of a heart is empty and aching, waiting for their return, waiting for Shane to sink back down and take him whole. The drag of his skin on Shane's insides is too much to even know. I have touched you deep inside where no one else has. Ilya groans his own want into Shane's skin and sinks his teeth into the meat of his shoulder.

Shane comes untouched between them and continues to rock in shallow rolls that make him flinch. Ilya runs the flats of his hands over Shane's sides and Shane curls into his chest. Ilya raises his head to make room for Shane beneath his chin and presses his hand to Shane's lower back. "Stop," Ilya runs his other hand over Shane's head, takes off his baseball cap and scratches dull nails along his scalp.

"What about you?"

"I am exactly where I want to be, Shane. I can wait." Ilya promises. He wants to promise other things too. Things he knows he can't follow through with. I'll fold your laundry for the rest of you life. I'll find a team we can play together on, and I'll be your wing and never miss a pass, I'll put Hayden Pike on your other wing so you don't have to miss him and pretend you don't. I'll be wherever you look for me, always. Instead, he keeps tracing lines through Shane's hair.

"That feels really good. Really good. Just give me a second, I—sorry. It's like the first time, again, sorry," Ilya lets Shane apologize for nothing against his chest and combs through his hair. Eventually, Shane's pulse stops jumping at his neck and Ilya can feel the rigid line running through his posture loosen. Ilya lowers Shane's back to the couch.

"Did you know that whales have burial grounds that they come back to in the sea?" Shane asks. Ilya looks down at him. Shane's eyes skate off his face to his cross, dangling down.

"I did not know that," Ilya answers honestly. Shane slides his fingers through Ilya's curls and tugs. Ilya sighs into a moan, finding the curve of Shane's neck the way migratory animals always know true north.

"Elephants do the same on land," Shane says softly into Ilya's ear and Ilya takes and takes and takes and takes to a narration of burial rites in the animal kingdom, the gentlest Shane has ever been.

Shane picks Ilya's head up in his hands directly afterward, even though Ilya knows Shane can feel his cock twitching inside of him with the aftershocks. Surely, he can. "If I ever lose you, I'll come back to the last spot you were, over and over again."

"Don't say that," Ilya's eyes sting, and it's not fair, not fair for Shane to say something like that when Ilya is still inside of him and coming back to himself. "Do not say that to me."

"You'll hate what I'm going to say next," Shane predicts.

"Shane, please. Poschadi, lyubimyy. Solnyshko. Not right now." Ilya shows his belly. Rolls over for it. Mercy.

  "I can't very well say it to anyone else, Ilyusha, and I want to say it to you. The truth can exist between us even if it can't outside of us—"

  "—Give me that shirt, please," Ilya interrupts nodding toward one of their crumpled shirts on the ground near Shane's head. He can feel himself softening and beginning to slide out and knows that the mess is going to be unforgivable to Shane. Shane reaches for the shirt and hands it to Ilya. Ilya puts it beneath Shane's hips and pulls out as gently as he can. A muscle ticks in Shane's jaw anyway. Warm cum follows and Shane makes a terrible face at the sensation. "I know," Ilya kisses his stomach, where smudges of Shane's own cum are drying. "I know, I will clean it all, let's shower, okay? Yes?" Ilya reaches down to jiggle Shane's ankle and does a double take at the texture beneath his fingers. "Why are your socks on?"

  Shane sits up and looks at his feet for himself. "Oh. I don't know."

  "You did not take them off? They did not bother you?"

  Shake shakes his head, shrugs. "I like socks." Ilya laughs and drags Shane up by his forearms. Shane makes another face and more cum trickles out of him. "I really don't like that,"

  "I know, maybe condom is better, next time." Ilya sends Shane toward the shower in nothing but his socks and gathers the shirt he used to protect the couch and then their clothes from the floor.

  When Ilya joins Shane in the shower, he's standing with his face to the spray, moving his head back and forth beneath it, water collecting in his smile lines before it runs down his chin. Ilya's heart backpedals to when they were nineteen and he saw Shane in the showers doing the same thing. Intriguing. Curious. There is something more to you than an unbeatable face off and wandering eyes.

  Six years later and Ilya has some answers, but not all of them. The more he learns about Shane Hollander, the more he realizes he doesn't know, cannot know, will never know. They name each other's truths. Shane names one now, back to Ilya and face under the water. "I love you." The thing Ilya cannot look at head on takes shape immediately, a flood of nebulous concepts solidifying. Shane's face, Shane's hands, Shane's laugh, Shane's voice. On the rink, off the rink, playing with and against each other, falling into bed. Things that are Shane without being him, physically. Sunlight through Ilya's cracked curtain. Ilya's toothbrush on the left side of the sink.

  "Lyubimyy."

  Shane turns and wipes the water from his eyes down his face with one hand like he's getting out of a pool. "Don't call me stupid, I know what I'm saying, I know what I'm talking about, Ilyusha,"

  "Stupid? I am not calling you stupid."

  "Yes, you are, you've called me that for years. Lyubimyy. Isn't that what that means? Stupid word for stupid boy with stupid heart?" Shane argues. He says this like he's quoting Ilya, and Ilya wouldn't be surprised if he's doing it verbatim. It sounds like something he would say, but he doesn't memorize dialogue like Shane does.

"That is not what that means," Ilya shakes his head. "There is no English translation."

"How convenient." Shane whips back. He still hands Ilya the soap when Ilya reaches for it.

"Listen, I am trying to explain. Is like precious. Like...favorite. Best-loved. Darling. You understand?" Ilya needs Shane to understand. I cannot love you out loud because I will never stop saying it and I will ruin everything we've built for ourselves, individually and together. "Lyubimyy. Ya tebya lyublyu. It is not in me to do things by half measures. If you let me love you, I will never stop. Don't do that to yourself."

"Come here," Shane pulls Ilya under the water by his wrist and grabs the soap from his hand, scrubbing at the dried cum over his abs. He's pressing a little too hard, scrubbing a little too hard. Ilya lets him. Martyr.

"Do you know how alone I've felt my entire life? I don't look like everyone else. I don't act like everyone else. And it's not a badge of pride, it's ugly, other-than. I want to be like other people, Ilyusha. I don't want to stand out. I have a few good friends, but they don't really know me, and it's not their fault," Shane starts aggressively working shampoo into Ilya's hair, standing on his toes to reach. Ilya automatically puts a hand to his waist to steady him.

"I think, maybe, the only way to know me is if you fuck me like a maniac and stick around after, and so far, the only person that's ever done that is you. The only time I understand myself is when I'm playing hockey, and you're the same thing as hockey. I think about you when I think about hockey, I think about hockey when I think about you. I don't fit in anywhere except for the space you make for me," Shane dunks Ilya's head under the shower head.

"I understand how dangerous this is for both of us, for you. I understand you can't go back to Russia and your visa depends on hockey and hockey depends on the league never knowing about us. I get that. But if you let me plan this out, I think there's a way we can make this work. Rose Landry knows and nothing bad happened. You can tell Cliff. I'd like to tell Hayden, my parents, after I come out to them. There is a way, Ilyusha, and if there isn't one, then I will make one. I've been making my own path in this sport for over twenty goddamn years, and I know you've been doing the same, but you have to let us be in love. I've never half assed anything in my life, and I'm not starting now." Shane promises, pulling Ilya out from under the water. Ilya coughs.

"You are water boarding me. Is against Geneva conventions," Ilya protests. If he can't make light of this situation somehow, he's going to collapse in, a supernova in its death throes.

"You don't even know what those are. Did you hear a single thing I said?" Shane turns off the water. Ilya wipes his eyes clear.

"Yes," He says. "All of it."

"Good. I'm taking you to dinner. I'm not asking anymore."

"Shane." Ilya says, gently, gently. Little bird in my hands. I've loved you in every iteration. "I am not someone you take to dinner."

"You're going to be," Shane insists, looking pointedly at Ilya's left eyebrow. "When we get in my car and I take you to dinner."

"I want to put clothes on and I want to talk to you before that." Ilya lays out his own terms. "Or else, I am not going."

"We just talked," Shane grabs a towel and hands it to Ilya, steps out of the shower to find his own. Ilya follows him, toweling off his hair.

"No, you just talked. You are very go, go, go when you have idea. Hurry up, Ilyusha, let's go, Ilyusha," Ilya flattens his voice and rounds the vowels, mimicking Shane's accent. "You know I am not like this, so let me take my time."

Shane puts on pants and stares at his closet like it's going to give him answers. Ilya takes pity on him and flips through some hangars before picking one and pressing it to Shane's chest. When they're dressed, Ilya pats the edge of the bed. "Okay, lyubimyy, come sit here with me." Shane sits.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No," Ilya frowns. "Why would I be mad with you?"

Shane shrugs, ducks his head. "I don't know." Ilya leaves it alone for the time being.

"I have to tell you something, so we can be responsible. You are talking about long term plans, things in the future. My mother killed herself." No matter how many times Ilya says these words, they never get easier. He used to practice alone in his room, my mother killed herself, my mother killed herself, my mother killed herself. It didn't help. The only thing that helps is the passing of time, and even then, time feels very thin in some turns of the year.

"I know. I'm really sorry."

Ilya clears his throat. "It was very bad, for me. Sometimes, bad for me still. I want to tell you I will still be here for your plans and your future, but I don't know." Ilya realizes he has his hand on Shane's thigh, rubbing little circles with his thumb, before he can stop himself.

"Ilyusha, I don't think...suicide isn't usually something that just happens to people, right? I don't think you need to be afraid of that. Are you?" Ilya can feel Shane studying his face in profile. He takes a deep breath.

"I think that..." Ilya stops, clears his throat again. "I think that I would like to stay alive, if I can help it. But I am afraid of a day where I cannot help it."

"Okay," Shane puts his hand over Ilya's hand on his leg. "Can you talk to a doctor or a therapist or somebody about this, or is it too hard?" Ilya knows what Shane is doing. Process of elimination. Distill the problem down to its root and then build a plan from there. He lets him do it anyway.

"I can talk about it. But I cannot play hockey and talk about it, and without hockey, no visa. And, I like hockey very much. So, right now, Cliff Marleau lives in my house. Is not something to worry about right now, because I think I am okay right now. But I want you to know for the future. Just in case." Ilya squeezes Shane's fingers.

"Thanks," Shane squeezes Ilya's hand back. "But I'm planning for you to live."

Ilya laughs once, abbreviated. "That is the goal, yes. The next thing I want to talk about before we go to dinner is, there are things that hurt you and things that hurt me that we don't have named to each other. Is okay, maybe, for fuck buddies, but I want to know, specifically, the things you don't like. If we are going to have a separate little life, when I go to that life, I don't want anything in there that doesn't need to be. If you tell me you only like little forks, then there will be no big forks at all. Things like this."

Shane nods. He squeezes Ilya's hand again. "Okay. Can we go to dinner?"

"Yes." Ilya relents.

It's a small place right down the road. Family owned, Ilya guesses, by the way the girl at the reception desk asks how Shane's mom is. "Great," Shane assures her. "This is my friend Ilya, he's visited a few times but we haven't gotten the chance to swing by,"

"Oh," The girl is all smiles and braces when she sticks out her hand toward Ilya. Ilya shakes it, halfway charmed. "Do you play with Shane?"

Shane laughs and so does Ilya. Real laughs for the both of them. "Sometimes," Ilya says, quietly thrilled at not being immediately recognized by his long record in the penalty box on television. "We play for different teams, but there are exhibition games where we can play together."

"Cool," The girl hops down from her stool behind the desk and doesn't lose much of her height. She is tall, Ilya thinks, for a girl her age. "How long are you here for?"

"A month or so," Shane answers for Ilya. "Just until the season starts. Oh, before I forget, because my Mom will kill me if I don't ask, can we get a table for four on Friday evening?"

The girl fans their two menus out over a table on the deck outside. "Sure! I'll go put it in. I'll be right back for drinks."

Ilya sits and takes in the view. Over the wooden railing, the lake stretches placidly beneath the sunset. Little lights and bunting flags hang from the ceiling, fluttering in the lazy breeze of the ceiling fans. There are a few other people here. A woman with her dog. An older couple. Four teenaged girls huddled on the same side of their table on a bench seat pointing and giggling at one phone.

"It gets packed on Fridays," Shane tells Ilya. "They've got all kinds of deals, then. The food here is really good, all the fish is fresh from the lake. They'll cook fish you catch too, if you bring it in. Lottie's—Charlotte, that's the youngest daughter—dad and my dad played hockey together so I grew up around their family. They have eight kids."

Ilya raises his eyebrows. "Wow. Like Hayden Pike." Shane kicks at him beneath the table.

"Hayden only has three. Anyway, my dad used to bring the fish we caught over here and we'd eat it at the high top in the bar."

Ilya looks over the menu. "I have never caught a fish, but I like to eat them."

"I'll show you how. We can do it off the dock." Shane promises. Lottie comes back to take their orders. Ilya listens to Shane tell him things like he's reading off a list of all the things he's been wanting to tell him in person. There's a brand deal that's good money but Shane personally hates the way the clothes fit, so he's not sure he's going to do it. Does Cliff Marleau know that Rose Landry is going to eat him alive? Shane's Coach keeps telling him that he can't bring Jade to family skate, even though he's her god father, which is totally stupid and also none of his business.

"How does he say it, that you can't bring Jade?" Ilya asks, because Shane is right. That is stupid.

"He says, you can't bring just Jade to family skate Hollander—"

"—Okay, so this is different. You don't bring the other ones? What about Ruby? You are god father to all Pike children." Ilya points out. He knows this because he read a sickeningly sweet magazine spread about Hayden Pike, family man, that mentioned this.

"Well, yeah, but Jade is a better skater," Shane replies. Ilya looks at the slope of Shane's eyebrows and sees that he's serious. He laughs, puts his elbows on the table.

"Lyubimyy, they are what, five, six? Who cares? Let them slip all over the ice. You cannot play favorites this way."

Lottie takes their orders and leaves them with water and ginger ale and coke. Ilya puts a straw in his coke and lets the sugar sit on his tongue. His brother used to buy two of them, one for Ilya and one for himself, when they still walked home from school together. Later, Alexei developed a taste for a different kind of coke, but Ilya still drinks Coca-Cola. "You really do not bring Ruby to family skate? You just bring Jade?"

"She told me she doesn't like skating. I asked her and she said her dad makes her go and she doesn't like it. I'm not a monster. I went to her recorder concerts last year, do you know how terrible those are?"

Ilya shakes his head because he doesn't know what a recorder even is. Shane plays the first five seconds of a badly framed video and Ilya makes him turn it off. "School should be fined for that."

"Yeah, I know! Hayd and I...we kind of switched off going every other because they're so bad, and I know that's probably not the right way to do things, but last year was rough for the school concerts." Shane confesses.

Their food arrives. Some kind of smoked fish for the both of them on Shane's recommendation, Ilya's over rice and Shane's over salad. It really is very good. "If we had kid," Ilya points his fork at Shane. "I will pull them out of school if I hear the word recorder." A little part of him shrinks when he reflects on the words that just left his mouth. Stupid. Seven years to admit you love each other and you're jumping to children.

Shane shakes his head, takes a drink of his ginger ale. "No, I think it's only fair you attend all the recitals, so we're even."

It is so easy, deceivingly so, to eat dinner in this little town and talk about real life things. All threads lead back to hockey, to each other. Easy for Shane to settle the check at the front, for Lottie to say, "See you Friday!", for Ilya to nod his head because yes, they'll be back Friday.

Easy, easy, easy. It makes Ilya want more. This is the danger of it, of him loving Shane and both of them knowing: now that Ilya has it, he's going to want it all the time, and it's going to kill him. The knowing used to be the worst part. Now, it will be the longing.