Chapter Thirteen #2
“You head down to Florida after this game?” Rozanov asked, as if he didn’t know the answer.
“Yeah. Couple games down there. Then over to Dallas and up to St. Louis.”
Rozanov nodded. “We are in town here for this week. Then out west for a while. Ginger ale good? Cold enough?”
“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks.”
He looked pleased. Shane watched him carefully distribute the mixture of tuna and mayonnaise and lemon juice on some baguette slices. It was weird, this domestic scene. It wasn’t anything that they had done before.
The melts went into the oven and Rozanov grabbed himself a bottle of Coke out of the fridge. Shane realized that he knew that Coke was Rozanov’s beverage of choice. So maybe they had picked up things about each other over the years, without really trying.
“Ready in ten minutes,” Rozanov said. He left the kitchen and went to sit on the couch in the living room. He turned on the television, which was showing the Buffalo vs. Chicago game.
Shane sat at the opposite end of the couch.
He’d first considered the leather recliner that was next to the couch.
Whatever they were to each other, they weren’t boyfriends.
He knew how to behave around him when they were naked and pressed against each other, and he knew how to play against him on the ice, but just hanging out with their clothes on was uncharted territory.
“Jesus,” Rozanov said as they watched a Buffalo player get hauled to the penalty box. “You know that guy? Ryan Price?”
“I mean, just from playing against him. And, you know, not wanting to fight him.” Price was huge, and tough as hell. “You played with him, right?”
“Yes. For one season only. He was...not what you would think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like...quiet. Doesn’t make friends, really. But not a bad guy. Just...weird. Sort of.”
“Well, he does seem to get traded every season. It would be hard to make friends that way.”
“He is probably hoping he gets traded again. Buffalo is terrible.”
“They definitely are.”
They watched in silence for another minute and then Shane asked, “What’s your favorite city to play in? On the road?”
Rozanov considered it. “I like New York. Because it’s New York. They fucking hate me there.”
“They hate you everywhere.”
“They like me in Florida. Is all Boston fans down there. You?”
“I like Ottawa, because it’s my hometown. Toronto, because of the history between our teams. And, you know, anywhere warm, I guess.”
“L.A. is good. Beautiful women.” Shane noticed Rozanov stealing a glance at him as he said this.
“Sure. Yeah,” Shane said. “There’s beautiful women everywhere, really.”
“When you are rich and famous, yes.”
They were silent a moment. The game went to commercial.
“There was a girl,” Rozanov said. “In New York. I used to see her when I was in town.”
“Used to?”
“She is getting married.”
“Oh.” Shane looked into his ginger ale bottle. “Are you...upset about that?”
“What? No.” Rozanov seemed genuinely surprised, and maybe amused, by his question. “Was not like that. Just...convenient to have a reliable woman to sleep with in New York. With three teams to play against there, we are there a lot.”
“You think she’s the only woman in New York that would be willing to sleep with you?” Shane teased.
Rozanov smirked. “I think I will find someone.”
Another silence fell. Shane wondered if Rozanov was expecting him to share a piece of similar information. He couldn’t, really, so he said, “I find it hard, being so...high profile, you know? It’s hard to just...sleep with someone. Sometimes.”
“Yes. It is good to have reliable person.”
Shane offered him a small smile. “It is.”
Rozanov nodded and got up to go to the kitchen. “Stay,” he said. “I bring it here.”
Shane focused on the television and not on what they had just been talking about. Rozanov returned with two plates that he seemed to put some care into arranging tuna melts, potato chips, and dill pickles on.
“Another drink?” he asked.
“No. I’m good.” Shane kind of couldn’t believe that Rozanov had made them both dinner. He found it, he realized with some horror, adorable.
“Do you like them?” Rozanov asked after a minute of silent eating.
“What? The tuna melts?”
“No. Girls.”
Shane was caught off guard. “Oh. Sure. Yeah. I like them. Of course.” This bit of stammering did not match the answer that first popped into Shane’s head, which was: not really.
“Never hear about you with girls,” Rozanov said plainly.
“Well. It’s private.”
“Right. Private.”
“I keep a lot of things private!” Shane said. He waved a hand between the two of them and added, “Obviously.”
Rozanov didn’t reply for a moment. Then he turned back to the television and said, “I like girls.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“But I also like you.”
“Well, lucky me,” Shane grumbled.
“Not as a person, of course,” Rozanov teased. “But you have a good mouth.” He took a suggestive bite of his dill pickle.
At that moment, Rozanov’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and muttered something in Russian. “I have to take this. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Shane said, because of course it was.
Rozanov stood and walked out of the room, speaking to whoever was calling in Russian. Shane was left alone on the couch with his mind reeling.
The truth was that he hadn’t ever had what he would consider to be a successful relationship with a woman.
He’d had a decent amount of experience with them, but he couldn’t think of any sexual encounters with women that had actually been great.
He wasn’t sure how any of the girls felt about it.
Maybe they had just been excited to get into bed with a hockey star, and that was enough to distract them from how halfhearted his efforts had been.
He didn’t like being the one doing the fucking all that much; he loved being fucked.
Shane had always been too embarrassed to ask the women he’d been with to use a dildo on him, so he more or less forced himself to endure the act of fucking women.
Once he was aroused enough he could kind of get into it.
It was a means to an end—the same end he was seeking no matter who he was with or what they were doing with him.
He was obviously very athletic, which the women seemed to appreciate, and that probably covered the fact that he wanted it to be over as quickly as possible.
At least, he hoped so; he would hate for a woman to feel unappreciated.
If he didn’t think they were getting something pleasurable out of being with him, he would stop altogether.
He preferred blow jobs. When a woman was sucking his dick it was easy enough to close his eyes and imagine.
..anyone...with their lips wrapped around him.
The problem was that he wasn’t so keen on reciprocating.
He would, because he wasn’t an asshole, but he had to really psych himself up for it, and he was almost certainly terrible at it.
He’d heard teammates talk about eating pussy like it was the closest thing to heaven on earth. Shane had never gotten it.
But maybe he hadn’t met the right girl yet.
That was what he kept telling himself. It made complete sense to him; just because he hadn’t really had his mind blown in the bedroom by a woman yet didn’t mean it was impossible.
There must be a girl out there somewhere who could make him feel like he did when he was with—
“Sorry,” Rozanov said again when he sat back on the couch. “My father.”
“Oh.” And Shane knew he should ask whether or not everything was okay at home or something, but he was now consumed by one thought:
No one makes me feel like Ilya Rozanov does.
And because the terror Shane was feeling was probably all over his face, Rozanov was the one who asked, “Is everything okay?”
“What? Yeah. Of course. Um...is your dad all right?”
“Yes,” Rozanov said, a little too quickly and dismissively. “Fine.”
“Is he—?”
“You’re not eating,” Rozanov said, gesturing toward the mostly untouched plate of food on the coffee table in front of Shane.
“Sorry. It’s good. I was just, um...distracted by the game.”
Rozanov nodded. They went back to watching the game and this time Shane made sure to eat his food. He kept stealing glances at Rozanov while he ate, as if seeing him for the first time.
Oh god. What the fuck?
The game ended, and the feed switched to a Western Conference game that was in progress.
Rozanov cleared their dishes away and, when he came back, wedged himself between Shane and the arm of the couch.
He turned slightly and wrapped an arm around Shane, guiding him back to rest against his own chest. Shane was surprised, but he went willingly. Very willingly.
Resting against Rozanov like this, in his home, watching hockey, full of the food he had just made him...this was exactly what they weren’t supposed to be doing. This was what couples did.
But Rozanov’s chest was so warm and solid, and Shane could hear his heart beating where his ear was pressed against it. Rozanov’s fingers were idly playing with his hair, making Shane sleepy and unreasonably happy.
Eventually, Rozanov moved his other hand to slide up Shane’s thigh and cup him through his jeans.
He massaged him with one big, skilled hand, and Shane’s cock quickly responded.
When the bulge threatened to rip through the denim, Rozanov flicked open the button on his fly and carefully pulled down the zipper.
Shane hadn’t bothered putting his briefs on again, so his cock popped out, and Rozanov started lazily stroking it at a frustrating pace.
Shane squirmed against Rozanov, even thrusting his hips a bit to try to get him to pick up the pace.
He rubbed his back against the bulge he could feel in Rozanov’s sweatpants, hoping it would inspire a little more urgency in the other man.
Rozanov didn’t take the bait. He was maddeningly gentle and patient, and had even started to press light kisses to Shane’s hair.