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He doesn’t know where he is when he opens his eyes, but what else is new? It’s the same every day—home? Hotel? Plane? The routine questions: am I horizontal or sitting? Do I ache? Do the sheets itch? Proximate snoring?
Start with the light: bright, natural, summer, mid-morning.
A window. Picture. Soft sheets. Warm bed. Too many pillows, they’re everywhere. Floor, nightstand, mountain beside him: pillows.
Home, but not.
The cottage. Shane's.
That’s when it comes into focus. Ilya can smile, now. Here. Safe.
—
The phone had rung again, only an hour after he’d hung up. After he’d spent an hour grinning at nothing. Pacing the place. Lungs screaming for a fucking smoke.
Come early. Just … just one day.
A little rush, a little fear. Why?
Tired of lying to my parents.
Shane.
I know. Look, just. A pause. Dinner. They’ll fly out the next morning. Then … just us.
Fuck.
I’m not saying tell everyone. I’m just saying, he said, if we’re doing this, and they find out, and I didn’t tell them …
They won’t find out.
I want them to know me. A longer pause. The way he exhales when he’s processing. Like he’s exhaling those three dots that say he’s typing, deleting, typing, deleting. And then, softer: I want them to know you.
—
The bed is huge. Room to roll over and still not have his feet on the floor.
Cottage, my ass, he thinks.
The rug is soft and summer-warm on his bare feet. No cold, no ice. Not here.
He checks, but Shane doesn’t move. Dead to the world. Sleeps like a little kid. Weird positions, folded up, but still sprawled.
He didn’t know that yesterday. Now he does.
Knows what color the dildo is now, too. Both of them. Called the purple one Lily and the minty green-pink one Jane, and learned Hollander’s freckles go darker when he blushes.
Shane’s pink now, overwarm in the bed. He breathes shallow and steady like a kitten, little wheezy exhales, but only if Ilya’s close enough to hear. The muscle in his jaw flexes. He grinds his teeth in his sleep. Asleep, but never relaxed. Never.
He pads over to the window, stretches. Narnia, out there. Magic. Different green than Russia, different sun, different air, different smell. Like there’s more of it. More light, more color, more everything. More shades of pink for him to turn.
He turns from the window, watches Shane snooze a little more. No signs of waking. Ilya’s not nervous, per se, but there is energy in his body, first day of vacation energy dialed up to twelve. He wants to be busy doing something. So he pulls his sweats on, wanders down toward the kitchen.
The bed’s all dirty, he’d said that first night, that old apartment, the first time. Stuck in his head like a song, all these years. The little fried synapse in Shane that can’t stand when things aren’t perfect. The way when he gets nervous, he looks for problems to solve.
Just like his mother. Ilya knows that now, too.
—
Shane appeared in the doorway as he got out of the car, gathering his bags. Ilya was nervous, but Shane looked sick.
He’d told his parents he’s gay. Called Ilya right after.
They were okay with it, after a minute. After he reminded her she’s his mom first, his manager second. I’m asking you to worry about your son, he’d had to say. That snapped her out of it, all her anxiety about the league, the brands, whatever. All the problems to solve.
He told them the person he’d been seeing in secret for years was coming for dinner. One night, happy family, new start. Honest.
Only thing: Shane didn’t tell them it was Ilya.
Shane told them, I’d rather let him make the impression.
Made that impression already, Ilya said on the phone, knot in his stomach. You play up the part for so long, it stops being a part. It’s just you. Asshole. Cocky. Mean.
No, Rosanov did, Shane said, playful. It’s Ilya’s turn.
So, there, in Shane’s driveway, he’d tried to shake off the extra Rosanov. Let it go. Nothing to prove, nobody to fear. Impressions to make.
A stiff hug at the door, a cheek kiss, like they were cousins. Ilya didn’t push. Smiled, just a little, just for him. Shane held the door. He stepped inside.
Jesus fucking—
Yuna didn’t drop her wine. But it was damn close.
He thinks of Shane as a nervous person, but that’s just the tension in his body, the way he picks his words like if he chooses the wrong one it might explode. He is brave, though. Because right there in the foyer, he snaked his good arm round Ilya’s waist, tight, grounding, said, This is Ilya. Ilya this is Yuna and David. Like everyone in the fucking room didn’t know that. Ilya felt his mouth open. In his periphery, Shane was still. Only the muscle in his jaw flexed.
There was a beat of pure, uncut silence, echoing off the tile.
And then: Yuna started to laugh. High, manic. Her wine glass hit the kitchen island so hard he couldn’t believe it didn’t shatter. She turned and curled in on herself, one foot on top of the other, pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, shook with it.
Honey?, David said to her. He remembered his manners, said, Sorry, to Ilya and Shane, then turned back, bewildered, put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. Yuna?
He glanced back at them again. David was holding it back, trying not to laugh too.
It was, in fairness to them, very funny.
Shane’s fingers flexed against him. Ilya risked a glance at him. Shane’s mouth, just open, betrayed his hurt and disbelief, because he didn’t understand yet how perfect the reaction was, how perfect the moment was, compared to how it could have been. Too lost in his anxiety fog.
So Ilya turned, took his face in his hands, kissed him. Just once, on his pretty, sad mouth. Right there, where his parents definitely saw. Breathe, he whispered. Just us. Forehead to forehead, where it was always safe. Shane released a laugh, shook his head, snapped back to life, like he always did when Ilya kissed him.
I can’t believe you guys are laughing, Shane said, bratty, perfect. Now I know you’ll get along, you’re all fucking assholes.
It broke them out of it. David approached then, hand extended, smirk. Looking forward to getting to know you, David said, and Ilya could feel himself smiling. The sweetness of this, the absurdity. This little family, all trying to make sense of Shane Hollander. Like anyone could.
Yuna wiped her eyes, turned, smiled, a little pained. Can I offer you a glass of wine, Ilya? I am going to have—
She eyed the dregs in her glass, lifted it, slammed it back.
Another glass of wine, she finished.
Yes, thank you, Ilya said. Grinned. Big. Please.
More laughter. A hand skimming across his back as Shane moved to take Ilya’s bags.
It got easier after that.
—
The coffee maker is fancier than the shitty hotel ones. One million buttons. But he figures it out. Gets a pot going. Mainlines a banana—never not starving. Could make breakfast, probably will. He’s a better cook than Shane—or, assumes he is, because he doesn’t have a mom buzzing around him all the time. Eats pretty good at home, when he’s home long enough. He thinks about what to make to show off: opens the cabinets, the fridge. Stocked to the hilt, of course. Could make do in here, definitely. Will do, later.
More huge windows out here. He stares, and he listens to the coffee percolate until it doesn’t sound like a sound anymore. Time warps. Slows and stretches. Tick, tick.
Time has always been weird with him. Six months no texts, no secret kissing, no pained gasps and cum on the sheets, and the whole time you think in rigid little calendar boxes—game Wednesday, shoot Thursday, fly Friday. But the days, the ones with letters and shapes, they blend and warp—when was Saturday? When was April? Then Hollander’s head hits the ice and ten years elapse in one remaining hour of gameplay. Hair turns gray, bifocals. Tinnitus. Five minutes at a hospital bedside and you feel every individual second as blood pumps through you, as blood pumps through HIM, you’d give him all of yours if that’s what it took—you remember thinking that, as he yammered, as terror plucked its claws from you one by one—and he’s high as fuck and he’s inviting you here, to this marble palace he calls a cottage where you’ll wake earlier because you don’t have to take a painkiller to sleep and make him coffee in his meticulously organized kitchen. That kitchen is a lifetime away, you thought, slinking out of his hospital room like a coward, hat, sunglasses—and yet: here you are.
You spend years with a live rabbit trying to claw its way out of your chest and every day is an eternity. You finally release it and, well—
Time stops.
The machine beeps. The coffee’s ready.
—
Dinner was easier than he’d feared. They’d asked, they’d listened, they were patient about the language thing. It’s still hard for him when there are multiple people, when they talk over each other, when there are tangents and non sequiturs and idioms. Fucking idioms. But over and over, Shane would put a hand on his forearm, slow them down, rephrase. Give him a chance.
He’d skirted the hard stuff, the mean stuff. Told stories about Russia, about hockey there. The benign shit about his family, before it got ugly, fractured, sad. When they asked if he missed being in Russia, he thought about how to answer honestly.
When Hunter pulled that guy onto the ice, Ilya knew. Knew in his guts because his guts wanted to eject themselves onto the floor. He stood up from the couch but the room kept going, faster and faster, somersaulting. Hunter kissed the guy, and Ilya saw it with his eyes, that moment where all the heavy secrets drop away and you sprout wings and float way up into the rafters like a lost birthday balloon. He wanted to taste the air up there so bad. Head hot, heart thumping, and Shane Shane Shane, he was pressing the big green button before he knew it.
Sort of, he told Shane’s parents. Complicated, but. Would rather be here.
Shane looked at him, openly happy, squeezed his knee from the stool beside him. His parents’ heads swiveled in unison, eyes locked on them like owls.
Oh my god, this is really real, Yuna said, like it had only just landed. She’d gestured at Shane, but looked at David. Are you seeing this?
Mom, stop, Shane said, but this time he didn't let go of Ilya’s leg.
Can’t imagine, David said, what it must have been like for you two all those years. He was grinning. Was he proud? You were so young. But I guess that’s what makes sense about it—who else would have understood the pressure, the loneliness? You two were in your own stratosphere, really. Glad you had each other to lean on.
Oh, yes, we leaned on each other, Ilya said, let his eyebrows lift, his mouth twist into a smirk.
ILYA. Shane’s head whipped to him, eyes furious, cheeks pink, fighting the grin.
But Yuna, obviously still in some suspended state of alternate-reality disbelief—and wine-drunk, which helped—only barked a laugh and buried her head in David’s shoulder.
Well. Got any other earth shattering secrets you two want to drop before we head off on vacation?, David said, deadpan like Shane.
Yes, I actually hate him, don’t leave me alone with him, Shane said, face in his hands.
We should get to bed, Yuna said, wiping tears, from laughter and also not laugher, Ilya thought. She glanced at her watch, grimacing. We leave for the airport at four.
We’ll finish cleaning up, Shane said, obviously eager for them to go.
You will finish, Ilya said, grinning, all his teeth. I am a guest.
Laughs, back pats, David’s dishes clattering into the sink.
But Yuna hesitated. When she spoke again, she was serious. Sober. I know you’re not planning anything. You said that, I believe you. Just … if that changes, all I ask—
Mom—
All I ask, she’d insisted, speaking slowly, bomb words, finger held aloft to silence her protesting son, is that you wait until we’re back. And before you get upset, I want to be clear I AM saying that as your manager, but not in the way you think. I’m saying it because when or if this thing goes public, you deserve someone in your corner to help you navigate it, the, you know, the brands that throw a fit, whatever nonsense the league pulls.
She’d reached across the island. Grabbed Shane’s hand with her right hand, Ilya’s with her left. Looked at Shane, then at Ilya like his own mother might, killing him on the spot. Dead.
I want to HELP you, whatever you decide. Please just. Just promise you’ll let me help you.
—
He pours himself a cup. He walks to the window, slowly, carefully, so he doesn’t spill coffee onto Shane’s perfect, pristine floor in his perfect home. Perfect like his body, like his game, like his haircuts. Like his decor and wardrobe—if he can’t make it perfect, he’ll find someone who can. All of it.
There’s only one imperfect thing Shane can tolerate.
Or, two, now. Both of them. Getting the sheets all dirty.
Not that they did that yet.
Last night wasn’t the night for that. His parents were there. Room just below. When Ilya gets his sheets all dirty again, he wants nobody within earshot for miles. He wants to shatter all this silence like a puck through one of these floor to ceiling windows. Got plans for that after coffee.
He should bring him a cup in bed—big boyfriend points—but he doesn’t want to wake him yet. So rare to be alone like this, when there’s so much expanding inside him. So much new to wrestle with. So much space between his ribs. The kind of new, big, soft things he’s spent years shoving aside with sex and banter. But he’s trying.
Which isn’t to say they’d done nothing. Impossible, with how long they’d been apart. With how much had changed. Just … quieter. Sheets rustling, stuck with sweat, hands on cocks, working. But that was almost supplemental to the kissing. God, kissing him. From the first time, that boy kissed so eagerly, but with such asking. Kissed like the first snow in winter, silencing the world. That first snowflake melting into your warm skin, dying for you.
Fuck.
Shane had teeth in Ilya’s lip when he came—always so fast with him, nobody’s ever wanted it more, it’s gorgeous. His dirty shirt down there to collect it, Shane’s insistence, like sleeping in the puddle wasn’t kind of hot—but he makes that little face, so what could Ilya do? Shirt. Later Shane will make him lay down a towel, probably. But he’ll do everything in his power to get him to forget to be perfect at least once while he’s here. While they’re here. While they have all this time, time that will fly by in that weird way that it does when it’s too good to be true.
Too good, too fast. See you next season.
He should bring him that coffee.
He leaves a dishtowel crumpled on the countertop just so that later he will get to watch as Shane folds it into precise thirds and drapes it back over the oven handle.
—
He’d helped clean up dinner, because it was a chance to flirt, to compete, to get in his space and annoy him a little. Hip checking him out of the way of the sink, you can’t wash with one hand, idiot, whipping him with the towel when he said his arm was fine. Pressing him up against the island when it was done and their shirts were wet with dishwater and all the other sounds of people in the house had ceased. The dishwasher whispered as it filled. The counter was cold beneath Ilya’s palms. Shane was warm against him.
Shane was grinning like a madman, looking down. Ilya ducked to catch his eyes.
No, stop, God, I can’t even look at you.
He giggled that giggle Ilya hadn’t heard since they were idiot kids, racing up stairs, ruining expensive photoshoots. Before all this sediment had settled into their hearts. Or at least before they started trying to pretend they didn’t notice the sediment.
He missed it, that giggle.
Of course you can’t, he said, my sex appeal is too much. Like looking at the sun. Too potent for mortal eyes.
Fuck off, he’d said.
But fuck off was Shane for there is something I’m not saying. The third language Ilya spoke. Fourth, if you counted his abysmal French.
Why not, he asked, serious this time, settling a hand on his warm chest.
He exhaled those three dots. Typed, deleted, typed, deleted. He gripped the counter, but he didn’t try to leave.
All these years, and all I’ve done is miss you. I think about you, I miss you, I watch you on TV, I miss you, I text you, I don’t hear from you, I jerk off, I catch your eye on the ice, I get you for one miserable hour, two if we’re lucky, and then it’s right back to missing you, thinking about you, worrying about you, wondering whether to text you… and now you’re just. Here. In my kitchen. Doing my dishes. Flirting with my mom. You’re not about to say you have an early flight or call me a cab or anything, and I just. I can’t get used to it.
Want me to call you a cab?
He laughed, at least. Lifted his head to stare at his perfect ecru walls, typing and deleting, gearing up. He finally looked at Ilya, determined. Then—
I love you, he said.
All the sediment in his heart kicking around like a snow globe. High and hard enough to choke him up. Core temperature up ten degrees, fatal. A perfect boy in the cold, trying to shake his hand in the no smoking section, the only one who refused to be afraid.
Ilya dropped his head, laughing. For the first time, the one who couldn’t stand the eye contact.
Say it back, you fucking asshole, Shane shout-whispered, hitting him in the shoulder with his good arm. He was smiling, but he was scared.
Me? Say it BACK? Ilya shoved him back, good shoulder, softly. I already said! You left me hanging for WEEKS—YOU are the asshole.
It wasn’t fair, what he was doing. Maybe a little mean. Probably. Shane’s face contorting, trying to solve the Rubik’s cube in his brain. But it was a game, then, and Shane loved to win. He was looking at him again, at least.
Oh fuck, was it while I was passed out? Before the medic got there? Because I don’t remember any of—
No.
He worked it over some more.
In the hospital? I thought I remembered most of that, but maybe—
Ilya rolled his eyes. Nyet, he said, and watched that beautiful shiny penny drop right down through him.
You fucking asshole, you—
The storm blew in. His eyes teared up. Mouth dropped open. Awe this time.
At the end. When your voice—
Ilya nodded. The storm hit him too, eyes welling up. It had been like crawling out of a tomb after five years playing dead. Relearning how to walk, how to eat, how to fuck. But it was scary out there. He had to stuff himself back in—until Hunter.
Will you say it again? In Russian, I mean?
So he’d said it. Every word. Shane’s eyes closed, listening.
English, now. Please.
Ilya gripped him by the neck. Pressed their heads together.
All I want is you. It’s always you. I’m so in love with you, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Will you tell me everything else you said?
Another time, yes. It had been a long day. There was heavy stuff there he was still in the process of sloughing. That’s the important part, anyway.
I love you, he’d said again. I loved you then, I just. Couldn’t say it yet.
I know, Ilya said, sniffling. True, anyway. Why I called. Ilya kissed him, kissed him, snow globe swirl, flakes everywhere, an avalanche, lovesick. Take me to your bed, Hollander.
—
He stops short in the doorway and almost—almost—lets one of the mugs slosh over. Shane’s upright, arms folded across his bare chest, head tipped back against the headboard, sheet across his lap. Obviously awake.
It gets very real, very suddenly. The feeling in his stomach, the warmth of this place, the smell of him concentrated in the room. Days and days of it. Just us.
Shane opens one eye and smirks.
He sets a mug on Shane’s nightstand, leans over to kiss him.
“Coffee,” he says. “Figured out your fancy machine.”
Shane chuckles, lets his eye close again.
“Heard you puttering around out there,” he says, as Ilya pads around to his side (his side).
He stops. “Puttering? PUTTERING? I am doing the vital work of keeping us alive and nourished enough to fuck each other and you call it PUTTERING?”
Shane’s smirk creeps into a grin. A flash of teeth. Ilya sets his coffee down and flops into the bed beside him.
“Fine. Snooping.”
“Hollander, you injure yourself, forfeiting the scoring competition, and then bring me to the middle of fucking nowhere and repeatedly mention that we are all alone. I think I have a right to be suspicious. I am only protecting myself.”
“Find anything good?”
“Of course not, because you are boring,” he says, mounting him over the sheets, kissing him, kissing him.
He’s brushed his teeth. Perfect, boring man.
When he sits back, Shane looks sleepy, smiling, stupidly happy. His mind flashes back to the hospital, like it has three, four, ten times a day since. To the drop in his stomach entering the room, the smell of him concentrated there, too. To his opiate-smeared name in Shane’s unguarded voice, to the heat of him under his hand, heartbeat in his palm, alive, awake, okay.
“Almost told you in hospital,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Couldn’t stop thinking about how you were almost gone, just like that, and you didn’t know. But that nurse walked in.”
And just like that, Shane’s awake. But his reaction is funny. Wrong. His face contorts, he covers it with his hands, something like laughing.
“What?”
“Just remembered—fuck. It’s so embarrassing.”
“Tell.”
“After you left, she said she was surprised I let you in, and I, uhh, maybe told her you were secretly my boyfriend. And that I was in love with you.”
“You didn’t.”
“She said she couldn’t blame me, with your cheekbones.”
“Hm. It’s true, women love the cheekbones.”
He giggles. “I asked her if there was doctor patient confidentiality, but I couldn’t say the word. Pretty sure she just thought I was high as fuck. And then—oh, god.”
“What?”
He hides again. Ilya pries his hands away, pins him, grinning. “Say. Now.”
He exhales, winces. “I told her you have a huge cock.”
His mouth drops open. “HOLLANDER.” He should be mad, but he can’t stop laughing. His beautiful pain-drunk idiot boyfriend bragging about him.
“I knew enough not to say anything to anyone else,” he groans. “I told my parents you came, but that was it.”
“You are insane.”
“I think,” he says, more serious, still smiling. He hesitates, slowing time down again. “I think I was worried about you? But then you came, I just felt like it would be okay. I was … happy. After. I had to let it out, or something.”
“Good thing I didn’t tell you. You would have run through the hallways screaming, or lit the building on fire.”
“Probably.”
“Mm,” Ilya kisses him, kisses him, kisses him. Pressing into him, careful of his imperfect collarbone. “Hungry?”
“No,” Shane replies, breathless.
“Good boy,” he says, flopping off of him, smacking his thigh. “Go get ready.”
—
Ilya left the hospital in tatters. Shaking. Hat, sunglasses, straight to the airport. Always straight to the airport.
The cottage. Insane idea, wrong idea, bad, bad. It had shocked him out of his lovesick worry haze, right back into the world of cameras, news coverage, flights, teammates, all of it. He’d ground his teeth to nubs in the car. He’d found a corner in the lounge and covered his face with a hoodie like he was sleeping so he could cry a little, uninterrupted.
All those years of trying to scare him off. All those years, being distant and mean for no reason, breaking his own stupid heart, chain smoking, crushing his phone in his fist instead of texting back—and for what? Shane was hopeful as ever, determined as ever. Never scared of his bullshit. Never, not once.
Shane loved him. Ilya already knew it when he walked into that room and swallowed the words. He’d suspected it for a long time, knew it for sure when Shane tried to say it in the hotel, when he climbed into Ilya’s lap and held him. You didn’t hold on so tight for someone you only fucked. You didn’t kiss like that, with tears running into your mouths. Didn’t blush just because someone said your name. The smile when he opened the door, the cottage invite—those were only confirmation.
Fuck.
He told himself under no circumstances would he go to that cottage.
Promises, promises.
—
“You’ll tell me if your shoulder hurts?”
“It’s fine,” he says, bratty.
Ilya takes his chin in his hand. “You will. You will do as I say, or you will get nothing. We will spend two weeks learning crochet. Understand?”
He nods.
“Answer, please.”
He rolls his eyes, and Ilya wants to eat him bite by bite.
“Yes,” he says, obedient. Loving it.
“Good.” Ilya shoves him a little toward where he wants him. Face down, all the pillows under him. Warm. Easy. New, big, soft.
Shane adjusts his weight, gets it off his bad shoulder. There are so many fucking pillows. The sun is warm. It’s midday now, all that Narnia green out there. The half-drunk coffee is cold on the nightstand. In the kitchen, the machine clicks, heating.
No more silence.
Ilya lets his fingers trace over the dimples in his back, the curve of his ass, the back of his thighs. From up the bed, Shane’s breathing heavier now, anticipating.
But not this.
Ilya grips him. Bites softly at his flesh.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
Ilya licks at his hole. Shane’s whole body tenses, surges forward, then back. He moans into the pillow, muffled.
Ilya stops.
“Hey,” he says, smacking his thigh.
His head lifts. His breath heaves.
“No whispers. No pillows. I want to hear you, got it?”
He nods desperately.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Fuck,” he barks. “Yes, yes.”
“Good boy.” Ilya kisses the small of his back, once, slow. “Remember. Just us.”
“Just us,” he repeats.
The second time Ilya’s tongue makes contact, Shane’s moan is obscene. Like it comes from some deep, ancient place, like he’s been waiting to release it all his life. As Ilya’s tongue pushes past the resistance, it breaks into a whine, almost a cry.
“Fuck, why is that so good,” he chokes, and Ilya laughs against the warmth of him.
He takes his time—new, big, soft—exploring. Tasting his skin, his sweat, his sounds. He’s louder, even, than Ilya would have thought. Louder, still, when he slicks a finger, slips it in beside.
Nobody has ever loved this more than Shane Hollander. Perfect at this, at wanting it, at getting it. A perfect tremble to his perfect muscles. Perfectly responsive body pressing itself down, to grind himself against the sheets. He’s so good at letting himself go. Was from the very first time, grinding against the bed just like this. Ilya holding himself back for all he was worth, thinking there was another whole act still to come, that he’d have to work him back to full hardness before the finale, like most men that managed to take him.
Not Shane. Not perfect fucking Shane. When Shane came on the sheets, it shocked the orgasm right out of him. No chance. It wasn’t love yet, but it was the closest thing he’d ever felt. Thought he was only fuck drunk, delirious. But sometimes his body knows things first. On the ice, in bed.
“Please,” Shane says, hips moving. “Please, Ilya.”
Doesn’t even know what he’s begging for.
He puts him on his back, checks his shoulder’s okay, folds him up, enters his body. Shane, good hand braced against the headboard, remembers to be loud. He’s got a whole catalogue of noises. This one is deep, guttural, wild.
He finds his angle, his rhythm. A slower pace. Deeper, fluid. No rush here, just them. He feels it winding up his body, higher with each of Shane’s whining grunts. Shane’s eyes are open, his chest is slick with sweat. His legs hook around Ilya’s waist, pulling him in as Ilya holds himself up, back. That’s it, isn’t it, the tension between them, the raw physicality of it, the warring muscles, the way it ratchets everything up, even here, on the same team, the same body, toes over the same dizzying precipice.
“Beautiful,” Ilya says, “fucking beautiful.”
—
That first time, his socks.
His pristine white tube socks, glowing in the dim.
With anyone else, he’d have laughed. Bullied them, a little. Wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Who leaves those hideous things on like that? Was he weird about feet? Could be, Ilya thought.
But, his eyes. As he climbed up the bed, racing for Ilya’s cock, there was something there, some shard of vulnerability glinting in the lamplight that went deeper than this being his first time. Something gentle that Ilya almost never got to see in this world.
Fuck, Hollander, he’d said, with Shane’s mouth on his cock. But when Ilya’s eyes opened, they landed on his socks. Shane moaned around him, desperate in a way that was new for this sort of act, like finally sliding into your own bed after a month rattling around on buses and planes.
Something clicked, then. He didn’t take his socks off because he wasn’t thinking about them at all.
This kid had never, ever, EVER let go like this. This wasn’t just his first time with a guy, it was his first time with himself.
—
“God, it’s so annoying that you can cook, too,” Shane says, housing his remaining eggs.
Ilya winks, takes his plate.
“I can help,” he says from his stool.
“No,” Ilya says. “Rest arm. It was a big morning.”
He rolls his eyes, but stays put.
He scrapes, rinses, loads the dishwasher. Ilya’s in charge, he thinks, yeah, sure, right.
He puts the garbage away, clicks the dishwasher on. Cleans the coffee pot, puts it back on the cooling burner, dumps the dead grounds.
“Ta da,” he says, turning, palms out, wide, magic trick. “All clean.”
Shane hops off his stool, trods over in socked feet, kisses him.
“Thanks,” Shane says, grinning against his mouth.
He nods, once. Waits for it.
Shane steps back.
He picks up the dishcloth. He folds it longways into thirds. He drapes it over the oven handle.
So Ilya picks him up and carries him away before he dies of fondness.