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Truth be told, it eats him up and spits him out every single fucking day. No matter whether he’s at practice, or jerking off at his shower curtain, or wistfully staring out the hotel room window, or – for fuck’s sake – in the middle of a game.
Those words – six of them, and most of them monosyllabic! – make Shane feel like he’s going to eat the wallpaper off some filthy wall.
You are very bad at sexting.
First, well, yes, that is probably true. But second, fuck that.
For the first few weeks, Shane’s head is a carrousel that goes through the five stages of grief, honestly. He even sees Rozanov in the meantime, not that he would ever raise this issue out loud with his mouth, but it does nothing to soothe his ego. Which is badly bruised, apparently.
In the end, he’s so fucking pent up about it that his mom asks whether he’d like to have a punching bag installed in his kitchen or he’s just going to be smashing his pans like that.
“I’m fine!” he explodes, the most verbal he’s been all evening. Breathe, dude. “I’m just tense.”
The usual occurs on Yuna Hollander’s face – something between maternal worry and management problem solving autopilot mode. “Oh?”
“Uh,” Shane says, scrambling for a quick excuse, “I just pulled my shoulder a little bit, I think.”
Shane’s mom nods. “Oh,” she says again, fixing her tone. “Want me to set up a massage appointment for you?”
He smirks. “I think I can do that by myself, mom,” he says.
“Then do it,” she tells him. They’re sitting across from each other at his kitchen island, and she lays a gentle hand over his stressed-the-fuck-out one. “If something hurts, it’s best not to ignore it, sweetie. Otherwise, it can turn into a long-term issue which could affect…”
Shane tunes her out. For all the sweetness of her – problem solving to keep any health anxiety at bay is kind of sweet, though an onlooker would probably think her heartless – he really doesn’t care.
His brain is hurting, but not in an I-need-therapy way. No. In an Ilya-Rozanov way.
Ultimately, to shut up his mom and also possibly his brain, Shane books that stupid massage. And for a second there, he really thinks it’s going to help. The hotel he’s staying at has its own wellness below the ground floor like it’s a luxury resort in Thailand, but at least that means he doesn’t have to picked up and chauffeured and sunglasses-ed.
During his elevator ride down, Shane spends his time thinking about two things:
- How much he’s going to relax,
- How much he’s not going to think about this anymore.
Obviously, the reality of it is entirely different. Laying on the table, his shoulder blades rolled about like Christmas cookie dough, it’s the only thing he can think about. In fact, with all this free time, it expands in his mind into a mental Godzilla. He’s thinking about Ilya, and the last time they were together, and a voiceover says (in a Russian accent): you are very bad at sexting.
Because, okay, if he’s bad at sexting and he never knew that, is he also bad at, like, other things?
You are very bad at sexting. Ugh. Whatever.
“You are very –“ his masseuse says and Shane almost opens his mouth to yell NO I AM NOT! “- tense around your lower back.”
Beat. Shane’s heart goes bing-bong-bang. “Oh, yeah. Makes sense.”
Fuck him. He’s going to have to do something about this, isn’t he?
He’s in a hotel room in Pittsburgh. It takes one quick look at the schedule (to convince the ghost in his room that he doesn’t have it memorised) to figure out that Rozanov is in a similar hotel room in Columbus.
Before he can psych himself out of doing it, Shane clicks Call. It is now officially dialing Lily.
This is a bad idea.
This is the worst idea he’s had since ever.
As it rings once, twice, three times, Shane sits up in his bed. The realization that this call might go unanswered hits him like a brick and it completely paralyzes him. His brain is actively yelling at him to hang the fuck up, but his body refuses to move an inch.
And then the asshole has the nerve to pick up.
“Hollander?”
“Rozanov.”
God, Shane can hear him breathe. And he is very bad at sexting. What on this Earth has convinced him that he could do phone sex?
“What you want?” There is shuffling in the background, but it’s impossible to say what Rozanov is doing. He could be lounging in his bed or doing a five-thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. That man is a mystery unto itself. “I’m busy.”
“Rozanov,” Shane repeats again.
“Yes, me, Rozanov.” But still, there is not a hint of annoyance in his voice. Like he knows why Shane is calling.
Shane bites his lip. “So what, uh, what are you wearing?”
A never-ending beat of silence. Then: “What?”
Shane facepalms. And then keeps his face hidden in his palm. The only reason he doesn’t press the phone against his chest so he could groan loudly is that he knows Rozanov would hear his heartbeat too clearly. He’s about to have a heart attack. Not that Shane is freaking out, but he is literally going to go outside to dig his grave with his own two hands.
“Never mind,” he rushes to say, muffled against his hand, and he hangs up.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Heart racing, thumping in his ears like a drum, blood rushing, Shane wonders if it’s possible to hire a hitman on himself. His brain is never, never going to let him live this down. Even if he lives to see eighty, he’s going to be thinking about this moment on his deathbed.
Not long after the fiasco, Shane’s phone vibrates in his hand.
Lily
What was that?
“I’d love to know myself,” Shane whispers to nobody in particular. But, well, he has to reply somehow. Staying quiet would make this even worse.
Jane
Misdial.
Lily
Oh? You know very many Rozanovs?
Jane
Obviously.
Lily
Okay. I know just one Hollander.
The real two questions here: why can Shane hear the way Rozanov would pronounce his name? Why does that do something for him?
But the answer doesn’t really matter. The answer is probably that he has a game tomorrow, but today is just a cold hotel room where he is alone. The room feels cold; the bed feels cold; his clothes feel cold. They’re not, not really, but the liminal-space-feeling of these places gets to him sometimes. And that’s that.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Shane should pursue his every whim.
There’s a perfectly good book in his bag –
Lily
So that is all? I can go sleep now?
Ugh. It’s barely nine in the evening. Rozanov is certainly not the type to hit the hay at this hour. He’s just doing what he always does, poking until he needles his way under Shane’s skin.
Shane may be a man, barely a boy (or a boy, barely a man), but he can’t help himself. Despite how the first attempt went, he starts thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to try again. Chewing on the cuticle around his thumbnail, Shane considers his options. He’s scared, sure. Of making himself look stupid, mostly. But then again, he feels like this all the time. And sure, sometimes he does end up looking stupid, but not – never with Rozanov. Somehow, that always ends up going well. Good, even.
“You’re an adult man and you need to get a grip,” he tells himself in a tone that almost makes him believe it.
And so he dials the number again.
This time, Rozanov picks up on the first ring. Like the man has been clutching his phone and waiting for the call. Having a staring contest with it, maybe, intense eyes and all, the usual.
Rozanov doesn’t give Shane a moment to breathe or to change his mind. “What are you wearing?” he breathes into the phone, sending shivers down Shane’s spine. This is how you say it. Like you’re hungry to know, because it might help you imagine tearing into the fabric with your teeth and ripping it away.
Everything in Shane wants to play this game. It wouldn’t be bad at all to lay back in this bed, legs slightly open, and answer the question. Good Boy is ingrained in Shane; he wants to please, needs it – especially when Rozanov asks something in this tone, languid but urgent. Easy but demanding.
“You first,” Shane says instead.
“Nothing.”
Shane shoots up in his bed. “Nothing?” he repeats, voice hitched.
“Nothing, Hollander. I’m wearing nothing.”
Was he showering? Did he undress after the first time Shane called him? God, this is going to drive him crazy. Turns out this was a bad idea because Shane can’t see the man.
Well, okay, sure, he can see him when he closes his eyes. They’ve been together enough times now that Shane can map him out in his mind pretty well, but that will never beat the real thing. There are birth marks he doesn’t quite know where to place, ridges and valleys he hasn’t traversed yet – like this, it will never be a complete image. But still, if he tries hard enough, Shane can invoke Rozanov’s smell and the way his hands always slide down his arms when they’re covered in sex and sweat.
“So what about you?” Rozanov asks.
Shane sighs. He leans back against the headboard, eyes still closed. “Much less exciting stuff, compared to you.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“Well, uh – “ Shane quickly looks down to make sure he gets the colors right, then closes his eyes again, “- white socks, black sweatpants, uh – briefs, and like a grey shirt, I guess?”
Shane can’t hear the smile, but he can feel it.
“You want me undress you first, huh?”
Shane swallows. “Yeah.”
And it doesn’t escape him that Rozanov doesn’t say You are very bad at phone sex, even though he could.
“Okay. Take your shirt off.”
Quickly, like, trying to reach lightning speed quickly, Shane puts the phone down and pulls his shirt over his head. He only half-folds it – he doesn’t want to miss it in case Rozanov says something else or gives him something else to do.
Phone pressed back against his ear, Shane breathes out. “Done.”
“Good,” Rozanov says. “Now touch yourself. Tell me how it feels.”
Shane can’t do this with his eyes open – he closes them yet again, and when his fingers gently land above his belly button and slowly start trailing upwards, they’re not his fingers anymore. It’s Rozanov and his fingertips. Shane could almost believe it. It only feels a little awkward when he moves up and pinches his own nipple the way Rozanov would – when he squeezes the muscle until it hurts just so. It's enough, though – enough to make him sigh in pleasure, enough to make his cock wake up and twitch. “Feels good.”
“As good as me?” Rozanov asks, the bastard.
Shane shakes his head. “No. Not as good as you.”
On the other side, Rozanov gives a satisfied grunt.
“Are you – are you touching yourself?” Shane asks, breathless.
Instead of an answer, Shane hears non-committal shuffling, followed by the same sound again. It can only be taken as yes.
“I’m going to touch myself, too,” Shane whispers into the phone. Like it’s a secret that nobody is privy to, other than Rozanov. Like not even Shane really knows where it’s come from but it’s there regardless – a need to feel something more that he doesn’t know how to verbalize.
“Okay,” Rozanov agrees, short but soft. He always sounds soft to Shane when they’re like this. And even though they can’t see each other, it’s right now that Shane realizes that maybe, just maybe, he’s taken Ilya Rozanov apart just as well as he gets taken apart. Rozanov, cocky and arrogant, in shambles because of him.
Shane has done this hundreds of times, but when he licks his palm and gives his cock a tug now, this, too, feels new and different.
Yes, it would be so much better if Rozanov were there, but Shane will take this strange in-between over nothing.
“Sweatpants off. Briefs also,” Rozanov orders over the phone.
It takes everything in Shane not to whine. He wants to keep touching; wants to keep imagining Rozanov’s fingers rolling over the tip; wants to bring it as much to life as he can, the moment where teasing turns into something more – where it’s the three of them: Rozanov, Shane, and the pre-come on his dick.
Despite himself, Shane does as he’s told. He has to put the phone down for this one. The bed creaks as he shakes the sweatpants and then the underwear off. The springs moaning make him think of being fucked in these sheets; it drives him fucking crazy that he’s not.
Shane rushes back for the phone like it’s his lifeline. He catches the second half of a quiet moan. In the pit of his tummy, it shivers and crackles like static; makes his toes tingle, turns his body into a suspender stretched too tight.
“Yes,” Shane says.
“On your knees. On bed.” Rozanov’s voice is trembling slightly. It sounds like he’d been jerking off even before Shane called again, and it makes Shane wonder – it makes Shane wonder if the first time was enough after all. If just hearing his voice was enough to get Rozanov going. He will give himself this, he decides – this sliver of confidence that it’s him and nothing and nobody else. It’s a two-way street, this thing they’ve got going.
Though, well, it’s more of a dark alley than a street.
Shane obliges. For a second, as he positions himself on all fours, he stupidly expects another body to press up against him. He forgets Rozanov isn’t in the room with him – especially now that he is hard and ass up and cold air hits the soft skin of his upper thighs. Somebody should be there. He feels like a book flipped open that somebody forgot to close.
The next thing Shane does is absolutely unhinged.
He puts his phone on speaker.
The next time Rozanov speaks, it echoes around the room: “You did it?”
Shane’s knees are sinking into the mattress. Propped up with one hand, his other goes back to his cock. He doesn’t care anymore – if he doesn’t touch himself now, he’s going to implode. “Yes,” he moans.
On the one hand, there is the possibility of dragging this out. Of being on the phone with Rozanov until dawn and edging each other until they’re screaming and the sheets around Shane’s body are yellowed with sweat. But he can’t.
Shane cannot comprehend much beyond his own hand, and the idea of Rozanov buried balls-deep inside him. It’s like he’s watching it on a screen, his own back arched, Rozanov’s hand on his waist to keep him down, and Rozanov’s cock so good and perfect –
“Fuck,” Rozanov moans. It’s loud a filthy this time and all around Shane. His legs threaten to give out. “Feels good.”
Shane gives his cock a squeeze. His forehead’s sweaty; it’s taking everything not to roll his hips and fuck his hand. “As good as me?” he asks, hitting Rozanov back with his own question.
And what a good fucking choice that is.
Because Rozanov groans, and Shane can practically see him. Fucking into his own hand, wishing, hoping, almost-crying that it’s not Shane’s ass he’s pounding into. A hand is good, but it is not Shane.
“Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov says like always when he’s close, “Not as good as you.”
Shane goes down; face in the pillow, ass still up. His wrist is getting a proper workout – he can’t go slow anymore. It sends him over the edge, almost, the way Rozanov says it, stupid proper grammar and all.
“Ah – I’m gonna –“
Over the line, all Shane can hear is Rozanov’s fast breathing, broken apart by little grunts and moans. And if he listens very attentively, he thinks he can hear the exact moment Rozanov gets to his tip and then rolls his fist back down. If only. Fuck, if only.
Rozanov comes first. There’s a telling second of silence followed by a barely held-back moan. It’s the only confirmation Shane gets that he can follow – and he does, not a full minute later. His body squeezes around the cock he wishes he had inside him and he’s going to have to wash these fucking sheets because he makes a mess. Not one single inch of his body cares as he comes, and instead of biting it back like Rozanov did, Shane does it as loudly as he can. He moans, his brain and mouth both go, “Rozanov, Rozanov,” like that would summon him.
All Rozanov says is, “Jesus, Hollander.” But it’s spent and muffled and it feels like they just fucked telepathically or something because Shane’s body never feels this jerky and hot when it’s just him and his hand.
The only thing that kills him that he can’t know for sure if Rozanov feels the same.
He’d fucking better.
“You look pretty,” Rozanov says all of a sudden, the unexpected softness back in his voice even though the act itself is over now.
Shane grins into his pillow. “Yeah, right. You can’t see me, Rozanov.”
“I know,” he replies, “But you are always pretty, yes?”
“Sure, yes. Whatever you say.”
There’s a scoff. “I say you are very bad at sexting,” Rozanov deadpans, “but very good at phone sex.”
Shane buries his head in the pillow, thankful now that his shit-eating grin can’t be perceived in real life. “Fuck you, Rozanov,” he mumbles. He shuffles onto his back, pretty certain that he’s all flushed and blushing, and turns the speaker off. Holds the phone back to his ear, so whatever is said next will be just for him again. Even if it’s something stupid and inconsequential.
“Uhuh, sure. Call tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Shane says quietly and presses the phone harder against his face. He imagines another hotel room, and he imagines it feeling less alone. He doesn’t hate the idea. “Maybe I will.”