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Shane didn’t know where to look. Everywhere his eyes landed felt too damning:
The red-faced players laughing and yelling and urging him forward.
Ilya’s steady, heated gaze, somehow soft and hard at the same time.
The mistletoe dangling above their heads, looking more like the Sword of Damocles than a piece of foliage.
It was all a joke. But unlike the players smacking his shoulder and gulping down shots between chirps and jeers, Shane wasn’t laughing.
Soon, the toe of his shoe brushed against Ilya’s. Shane felt clumsy with indecision, wanting to disappear and wanting to dive forward. Run away from the haphazard 50% pre-Christmas, 50% post-game, 100% drunken bar gathering he had been thrust into hours ago, but also take the moment for what it was. A chance.
A chance to hide in plain sight.
“Is tradition?” Ilya asked, so soft and low Shane couldn’t tell if it was for anyone’s ears but his own. The question skittered through his mind.
Shane nodded, more of a jerk of his head than anything else.
“Do it, fuckers! C’mon! Fair and square!”
Shane rolled his eyes. Fair and square. Is that what they were calling it? A single, half-assed beer pong loss, a dare, a silly Christmas tradition. A funny collision between supposed arch-rivals. A chance to laugh at someone else’s embarrassment. A gag. A joke.
Shane met the challenge in Ilya’s eyes.
An opportunity.
“Will you disappoint them, Hollander?”
The words dripped into Shane’s ears like honey. Slow, sticky and sweet.
Shane’s eyes dipped down to the only pair of lips he knew better than his own. Heart-shaped and a rose-blush pink. Fuck what Ilya often said, both in bed or chirping on the ice. Ilya was pretty. The prettiest.
Shane gave a final fleeting glance around the room. Most of the players had been drunk out of their minds for a couple hours at least. Two of them had kissed on the cheek and neck to uproarious applause a few minutes before. The group didn’t even know what they were asking — they wouldn’t have understood even if they had been completely sober. Beer and bright lights blurred everyone’s edges. The nauseatingly loud Christmas music blaring from the speakers helped drown out Shane’s heartbeat, currently pounding in his ears. Nobody clustered around them had any idea that Ilya would text him a room number by the end of the night and Shane would say fuck off but inevitably show up outside the door that wore that very same number anyway.
“Whatever. Remember you asked for this!” Shane yelled over the noise, and the men around him laughed, assuming he was talking to them. Shane kept his eyes glued on Ilya and watched his throat bob up and down as he swallowed.
No more thinking. He leaned in with quiet gravity and let himself fall into the moment. Ilya caught him on the way down and their lips met with a familiar, heady rush. Shane’s stomach clenched. He began to count.
One.
Ilya tasted like beer, salt, chapstick, something sour, and something sweet. Shane pressed in harder.
Two.
Fingers grazed Shane’s waist, darlingly rubbing a circle just above his hipbone.
Three.
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart.
Shane clung to the edge of discipline, the very brink of self-preservation. They were pushing it. It was time to disengage.
But the very next day, you gave it away.
Shane pulled away, or at least attempted to. The hand on his waist gripped harder.
“Don’t be chicken, Hollander. They want show, no?”
Before Shane could even begin to formulate a response, Ilya’s mouth met his again. Strong hands moved so fast Shane couldn’t even keep track of them — one moment he was standing, the next he was dipped down to the floor, held up by a firm, muscular arm.
“Shit, they’re going for it.”
“Go big or go home, Rozy!”
Shane’s heart swooped down to his stomach as Ilya stole a moment, then the next, then another to devour him whole, tongue sweeping against his lip before pressing in.
This year, to save me from tears.
Everyone around them laughed and yelled. Someone sloshed beer down to the floor, splashing Shane’s arm. Shane gripped Ilya’s wrist and let himself be pulled under. Maybe later he would blame it on the dare, the stupid game, his pushy co-workers, the joke. The drinks he barely drank. But for how he let the weight of Ilya, his grip and hold and hungry mouth, wash over him.
I’ll give it to someone special.
Ilya ended with the kiss with a large wet smack. Then an obnoxious raspberry in the middle of Shane’s forehead that made Shane twist with protest in his grip.
He leaned away a few centimeters. Shane’s vision was clouded by sweat-drenched curls and a red, glowing face.
“I win!” Ilya grinned maniacally. He pulled Shane pulled back into upright, standing position so fast it gave him whiplash.
Shane's inherent physical strength was the only thing that kept him from plowing into Ilya on the way up, as his weakened will power and fizzling brain currently had the singular desire to claw into Ilya’s chest and hide from the world forever. Shane ignored it. He always tried his best to ignore it.
“It wasn’t a competition, asshole,” he grumbled, wiping beer off his arm.
Ilya scrunched his face in mock confusion, playing dumb for the benefit of their teammates and oglers. For the benefit of Shane. “I win mistletoe game, no? You are sore loser. Loser baby. I mistletoe kiss best, everyone here agrees.”
Shane shoved at his firm chest. “I’m not a baby.” Some of the crowd dispersed. A few players were pushing each other under the mistletoe and Shane stepped aside before a large Boston defenceman stepped on his toes.
Ilya’s spit-slick lip curled into a smirk. “You are biggest baby.”
“You better hope no one recorded that.”
“Because you hate to see me winning. Makes you cry.”
“Because people are going to get the wrong idea.”
Ilya tilted his head. “What idea? You are sore loser who loves kisses? That is right idea, Hollander.”
“I’m leaving,” Shane muttered, ignoring the heat flooding his cheeks.
Ilya leaned in before Shane could step away. “Good thinking. Keep sheets warm for me.” Hot, sticky breath hit Shane’s neck while something light slid into his pocket.
Shane left the noisy bar a few minutes later, icy night air immediately cooling his face. He kept his head down as he walked along the snow-laden sidewalk. He fought to forget the plastic key card burning a hole in his coat. He did his best to ignore the phone notification buzzing against his hip with nothing more than a room number and winky face.
A familiar Christmas jingle spilled out of a cab window and Shane resisted humming along. It was the kind of tune that you can't get out of your head, no matter how hard you try. Shane let his feet direct him forward and pretended he had no clue where he was heading.