Bonus Story #2
Hayden looked pleadingly at Shane. “Seriously? This guy? I’ve got no problem with you being gay—”
“What a hero,” Ilya said flatly.
Hayden turned to Ilya. “Shane can date all the men he wants! But you are a relentless douchebag and I’ve never liked you.”
“Jesus, Hayden,” Jackie mumbled.
Ilya raised an eyebrow. “You should save some of that for our wedding.”
“Fuck, don’t even—” Hayden shook his head, then went back to pushing mushrooms around his bowl.
There was a tense minute where no one said anything, and then Jackie asked, with a noticeable amount of forced cheerfulness, “So, Ilya. Did you get back to Russia over the summer at all?”
Jesus, this was a nightmare. “No,” Ilya said. He couldn’t think of anything to add, so he didn’t.
“He was at my cottage, mostly,” Shane explained. “And then dealing with moving to Ottawa.”
“Right,” Jackie said. “How are you liking Ottawa?”
“Fine,” Ilya said. “Team sucks, but the city is not bad.”
“I don’t understand why you’d leave a contender like Boston to play for Ottawa,” Hayden said.
“I am sure you don’t understand a lot of things.”
“Ilya,” Shane said wearily.
“What happens when you guys break up, Rozanov?” Hayden continued, jabbing a fork between Shane and Ilya. “You gonna sign with Anaheim or something?”
Shane must have sensed Ilya was about to say something that almost certainly would have made Hayden smash the wine bottle on the table and come for Ilya’s face with it, because he put a hand on Ilya’s forearm and said, “Could you guys give it a rest? Please?”
“Yes, Hayden. Grow the hell up,” Jackie said. “And besides...” She leaned in, hands cupped around her wineglass and eyes glinting. “I want to hear how you two met.”
Ilya snorted. He couldn’t help it.
“I mean,” Jackie said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “not how you met. We all know that, obviously. But when was the first time you...felt sparks?”
“I’ll bet Shane was drunk as hell,” Hayden grumbled.
“We don’t all need alcohol to make people sleep with us,” Ilya said. Hayden flushed, possibly realizing that Shane had told Ilya all about how he and Jackie had met at a nightclub years ago.
“I wasn’t drunk,” Shane said quietly. “I wasn’t even old enough to drink legally.”
“Wait,” Hayden said. “Back the fuck up. You told me it had been going on for a while. I thought you meant a season or two. Not—how fucking young were you when you first—I mean. When you first...fuck, I can’t. You know what I mean.”
“Nineteen,” Ilya said at the same time Shane said, “Eighteen.”
Ilya shot him a curious look. “We were nineteen the first time we—”
“Oh,” Shane said. “I thought the question was the first time we felt, um, sparks.” His ears were bright red and Ilya wanted to bite them.
“Yes,” Ilya said. His voice had gone soft, but he didn’t care. “Eighteen, then. That’s right.”
The look that Shane gave him in response was so heated and adoring that Ilya wondered how rude it would be to shove Hayden and his lovely wife out the door right now.
“So, where were you?” Jackie asked, breaking the moment. “When you were both eighteen?”
“It was, um...” Shane started, but then appeared to be overcome with embarrassment at the memory.
“A hotel gym,” Ilya finished for him. “The night we were both drafted.”
“A public gym?” Hayden looked like he was going to faint. “Before you were even rookies? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nothing happened!” Shane explained quickly. “It wasn’t like that. I just...felt something.”
“Lust,” Ilya supplied.
“No. Maybe. Shut up.” Shane sighed. “Can we stop talking about this?”
“Absolutely,” Hayden said.
The four of them stopped talking altogether. They ate in silence for another several uncomfortable minutes before Hayden rested his spoon beside his bowl of mushrooms and said, “You go back to Ottawa tomorrow, Rozanov?”
“Yes. But don’t worry. I will be back in two weeks.”
This visit, like he suspected most of them would be during this first season of living a couple of hours apart, was a short one.
He’d had a day off, so he’d driven to Montreal immediately following his game in Ottawa last night.
He’d arrived after midnight, and despite Shane having to get up early for practice, they’d kept each other awake for hours.
Tomorrow afternoon Ilya was flying to Vancouver and wouldn’t be back in Ottawa for a week.
He had a day off when he got back, but unfortunately Shane would be on the road then.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was definitely better than it had been before.
Last season had been agony. Ilya had still been playing for Boston, and knowing that Shane was in love with him had made keeping their secret so much harder.
Before they’d admitted their feelings to one another, Ilya had always enjoyed the sneaking around.
He’d liked Shane Hollander being his sexy secret.
But the past fifteen months hadn’t been much fun at all.
It was why Ilya had been unenthusiastic when Shane had suggested having Hayden and Jackie over for dinner. Their nights together were so few and far between that Ilya didn’t want to share a single one with anyone else. Especially not Hayden stupid Pike.
Hayden had inadvertently stumbled on the truth a week ago by joking that Shane was secretly dating Ilya.
Shane, who Ilya knew had been trying to figure out the right moment to tell his best friend that he was in love with Ilya Rozanov, had seized the opportunity and come clean.
Hayden had been, understandably, dumbfounded.
This dinner was important to Shane, and Ilya knew the purpose of this evening was to make Jackie, and especially Hayden, understand what Shane saw in him.
As far as Ilya was concerned, it wasn’t anyone’s business why Shane loved him.
Ilya certainly didn’t need to convince anyone that he was worth Shane’s affection.
Fuck them. It wasn’t his job, or Shane’s, to explain their relationship to anyone.
After dinner they retired to the living room.
Other than the occasional comment on a piece of furniture or question about Shane’s parents (both from Jackie), the room was silent.
Ilya decided to put on some background music so it didn’t feel like they were in a hospital waiting area.
After another fifteen minutes of stiff conversation to a backdrop of Post Malone, he went to the kitchen to get more wine.
He briefly considered the vodka, but decided it would not be the best choice given his early morning the next day. Or the fact that he would prefer a cuddly Shane later to a horribly ill Shane.
When Ilya returned, Shane and Jackie were standing near the hallway that led to the stairs. “I’m going to show Jackie the house,” Shane said. Ilya could very clearly read the unspoken message in Shane’s words, Stay here and bond with Hayden.
Fuck. Ilya should have grabbed the vodka.
He refilled Hayden’s wineglass, then his own, and then sat at the opposite end of the couch from Hayden.
“So,” Ilya said.
“What are you doing with him?” Hayden asked abruptly. “What’s your game here?”
“Game?”
Hayden stood up, and loomed over Ilya in what was probably supposed to be a threatening manner. “Is this a joke to you? Or do you just get off on fucking with him?”
“I do get off on fucking him. Yes.”
Hayden’s hands curled into fists. “That’s not what I mean and you know it! Shane is, like, forbidden. Is that the appeal?”
Ilya’s eyebrows shot up. “You do not think much of your best friend.”
“I don’t think much of you.”
Ilya sighed and nonchalantly crossed his legs. “And who should Shane be with?”
“A nice guy! Someone who... I don’t know!” Hayden threw up his hands. “Someone who fucking cares about him?”
All right. That was quite enough. Ilya stood, which gave him a good seven inches of height on Hayden. In the tight space between the sofa and the coffee table, Hayden had to look straight up at him. “You think you know what is best for him?”
“Yeah. I’ve known him since we were rookies.”
Ilya’s lips quirked up. “Maybe you were not listening at dinner, but so have I.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it! He never fucking mentioned you.”
“Funny. He didn’t talk much about you either.”
“I’m his best friend.”
“I am his boyfriend.”
“You’ve also slept with like a thousand women!”
Ilya scrunched his nose. “Is probably not a thousand.”
He began doing some rough calculations in his head, but was interrupted when Hayden said, “Who do you think you are kidding here? You obviously aren’t, y’know, gay.”
“You have not heard of bisexuals?”
Hayden narrowed his eyes. “Bisexual, huh?”
Ilya switched to an overly animated, educational tone. “Some people like apples. Some people like oranges. Some people like apples and oran—”
“Oh fuck you. I know what it means.”
“Then you know I can sleep with a million women and still fall in love with your best buddy Shane.”
Hayden shook his head, looking more frustrated than ever. “Do you have any idea of what it will do to him if this secret gets out?”
Ilya huffed. “Yes. I have thought about it a bit.”
“I won’t let you hurt him.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.” And then Hayden shoved Ilya’s chest with both hands.
“Are you guys fucking kidding me?” Both men whipped their heads around to see Shane standing in the entranceway. “Like, are you guys serious right now?”
“He started it,” Ilya said. It sounded stupid even to his own ears.
Shane pointed at Ilya. “Do you know how long I have been wanting to do this? To introduce you to my friends as my boyfriend? Hayden and Jackie are my best friends and you are being an asshole.”
“Fucking right,” Hayden said smugly.