Chapter Text
Ilya knows, logistically, that fucking his roomate is a terrible idea. Right up there with poking a bear, or calling his brother just to say hello, or sticking a fork in an electrical socket.
He hates Troy Barrett for deciding he wanted to live in “his own space” this year. He hates Scott Hunter for graduating and leaving behind an empty bed. He hates Shane Hollander for being a thoughtful, supportive team captain and offering the spot to Ilya when he heard he needed one. Because he hates his roommates. It was Ilya’s karmic punishment, moving in with these people. For which misdeed, he couldn’t be sure, but whatever it was that finally came back around, it came in the form of the four horsemen of the goddamn annoying apocalypse.
Pike is nosy. Boiziau is obnoxious. Comeau is dull as dishwater. The latter two are always cursing him out in French. He’s the only one in the apartment who doesn’t speak French. Hollander speaks perfect fucking French. And on top of that, Hollander is -
Complicated. Really, really complicated. Ilya should’ve went with the fork.
The first time was an accident. They were the only two staying in the apartment during Thanksgiving break, and they were bored and they were lonely and they were drunk watching bad holiday movies in the living room, and Ilya hadn’t meant to grab Hollander’s knee in a suggestive way. He was enjoying himself. He was drinking his seventh beer of the night. He was going to move his hand eventually, but then Hollander was looking at him. And Hollander was blushing. And when Ilya instead dragged his hand up Hollander’s thigh, the other boy immediately opened his legs wider to give him a better angle.
And, well, there’s a reason Ilya leads their hockey team every year in scoring goals. When he sees an opening, he takes it.
The second and third (and fourth) times were all, also, most definitely accidents. The time they were both running late for class and needed to shower was, as Ilya offered it, out of consideration for their utilities bill. The time Ilya twisted his knee and needed a ride home from practice, Cliff Marleau pointed out that he and Hollander were literally fucking roommates, and it would’ve looked suspicious if Ilya hadn’t gotten into Hollander’s car. Then, of course, he needed to thank him for the favor. And the time in Hollander’s back seat at 3:30 in the morning on a Wednesday was because…Ilya was really fucking horny. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
The point is: it’s a terrible fucking idea. It’s also, kind of, somehow, maybe turning out to be the best part of his day.
Hollander is, apparently, very funny. For years, he communicated with Ilya almost entirely in grunts, constructive criticism, and the occasional bump of a helmet. Ilya thought being in a room alone with Hollander might be an experience akin to watching paint dry. But he’s learned, in the past few months, that Hollander’s tongue is quite sharp when he’s not holding it. He makes Ilya laugh. Ilya likes when someone else can make him laugh.
And, as it turns out, he likes annoying Hollander. Ilya antagonizes everyone he meets - can’t help it, really - but it’s mostly out of boredom, or spite, or a fucked up sense of self-preservation that the team doctor tried mentioning to him once. He was annoying Hollander for years before they started this thing between them, was always jealous of him, always wanting some sort of revenge on him. Only, now he knows what it’s like to feel Hollander’s hot, exasperated breath on the side of his neck while he teases him in more ways than one. Now he’s had those anxious, angry hands bruise purple fingerprints into his hips. It’s better, way better, than any feeling he’s had before.
It helps that the man is stunningly attractive. Ilya’s twisted him around and folded him like a pretzel trying to find a bad angle, but no matter which way he flips him, Hollander still has those plump lips, that strong nose, the long neck. The further they get into this, the more he lets Ilya - begs Ilya - to twist him in every direction, the more beautiful he gets. And the freckles. Ilya can admit he’s a little obsessed with the freckles. Ilya sometimes wants to hold Hollander by the hair and kiss every individual freckle on his face.
But that’s normal, when you’re having sex with someone. Well, not in his experience, but in other people’s, he’s certain of it. He’s pretty sure. He should ask Troy.
Of course, he can’t ask Troy. Because then Troy would ask who the person with the freckles is that Ilya is having all this sex with, and then Ilya will have poked the bear. And then Hollander will have him deported.
He likes their set-up. Finds it rather amusing most of the time. Despite the fact that he’s never been so sexually frustrated in his life - spending 90% of his day in the same room as the guy without being able to touch him - he can’t ignore that the secrecy and subtle touches and stolen glances are really hot. Marleau made fun of him for blushing at his phone a couple weeks ago. Ilya’s never blushed before. It’s just that Hollander brings out a need in him that he’s never experienced, makes him feel like he’s on drugs, or on fire. It might not be easy, per se, but it works for him.
Like when Christmas rolled around and Hollander decided to host a team dinner in their apartment. All the roommates got their prep assignments, and Ilya was put on potatoes and vegetables. He knew how to make mashed potatoes. But he also knew how entertaining it would be to mess with Hollander’s mother’s carefully laid out recipe. Part of him was hoping that if he seemed helpless enough, Hollander would come over and show him how to use the masher the way men teach women in movies to play pool. When Ilya dipped his fingers in the mixture and wiped it playfully across Hollander’s nose, he delighted in the subsequent quasi aneurysm. Hollander had screamed at him - What the hell is wrong with you? Look at the recipe! Where in the recipe does it say ‘put mashed potatoes on Shane’s nose’? - and Ilya was suddenly so fucking hard that he purposefully knocked an entire can of chicken broth all over himself, just so he’d have an excuse to take a shower. Later, when the team had cleared out and they were undoing each other’s belts in Pike’s trunk - which was, they had discovered a couple weeks prior, much roomier than Hollander’s sedan - Hollander had the audacity to take Ilya in his mouth and say “mhm, tastes like chicken”. Ilya, in return, took his sweet ass time taking care of Hollander. Made him beg for it, whimper for it. It was the best Christmas Ilya ever had.
The inconvenience is usually only when other people are around. And with three roommates and an entire hockey team revolving around them, it seems like there are always too many people around. He can never have Hollander as much as he wants.
It’s the thrill of it, he tells himself. Bending the captain over his knee. Getting uptight, unrelenting Shane Hollander to submit to his every desire. Waiting for the day someone stumbles upon them in a compromising position. Ilya has always liked trouble. Otherwise, he’d have no reason to keep Hollander around. Really.
It’s been nine weeks of this now. Glancing at the man walking beside him, who made him wait an extra forty minutes after practice while he skated in circles around the ice with such a severe expression that not even Coach Wiebe attempted to talk to him, Ilya’s pretty sure he’s in trouble.
Hollander, patron saint of discretion, at least waits until they’re in the parking garage under the rink before he shoves Ilya roughly into a wall.
“What the hell is your problem?” Hollander snaps, his fist bunched up in the other boy’s shirt. Ilya can’t stop the grin pulling at his lips. He likes Hollander’s face when he’s angry.
And this is not Hollander’s angry face. He raises his eyebrows. “Something wrong?”
Ilya glances pointedly at Hollander’s sweatpants, which are doing a spectacularly poor job of hiding what seems to him an urgent and growing situation. He’s still smiling. He reaches a hand down.
Hollander pushes off him, getting a few inches of space between them, and it’s cute, really, the attempt to pretend. Ilya grabs him around the neck and drags their mouths together, swallowing whatever protest Hollander had on the tip of his tongue. It’s a bit messier than usual - sloppier, more teeth - and Ilya can’t seem to focus on his usual tricks, can’t think of anything at all other than going deeper, deeper, deeper.
He knows he may have gone a little too far today. They were scrimmaging with the team, playing center opposite one another, and Ilya gets impatient when he’s losing. He and Hollander were bent over, shouldering each other into the boards, when someone shot the puck in their direction and it promptly disappeared from sight. They skated around in circles for a few moments before Hollander started patting himself down, trying to shake something loose. Ilya quickly did the math on where the hit had come from and how they were positioned against each other and -
He wants to believe that he couldn’t help it. That he’s a jackass and he wanted a laugh, and he would’ve done it to any of his other teammates without a second thought. But he did think - about a public show of dominance, about the private message it would send, about the very moment his captain would throw him around and yell in his face about it. He hesitated. Just a moment.
Then he shoved his hand down the back of Hollander’s jersey and grabbed the puck. It had been trapped just above his waistline - which, yes, okay, maybe Ilya lingered a second or two before getting back to the task, but it was always, honestly, obviously, his destination. Ilya held the puck high and kissed it, a loud smack of his lips with an exaggerated wink for effect before passing it back over to Coach Wiebe to reset. He had definitely gone way too far.
Not that anyone else really paid the scene any mind. Ilya knew they wouldn’t, that’s why he did it, because he’s obnoxious and an instigator and overly touchy with everyone he meets on the ice. For Christ’s sake, he practically licks Troy across the visor every time they assist each other on a goal. Hollander knows that. But Hollander has rules.
Hollander is sucking at Ilya’s bottom lip so hard that Ilya thinks he might pull it off. But since he hasn’t shoved Ilya away, since his fingers are pressed hard enough into Ilya’s cheeks to bruise them, Ilya knows that he’s probably been forgiven.
When they come up for air, Hollander’s brow creases. “Don’t do that shit again.”
“I think you like it.”
“I think we’re going to get caught.”
“I think,” Ilya swipes his thumb across Hollander’s lips, swollen and red and parting at his touch, “That we have an empty apartment waiting for us.”
It was true, for what seemed like the first time in weeks. Boiziau and Comeau were off to help out at the grand opening of a friend’s restaurant. They were on set up, serving, and clean up duty, which meant they wouldn’t be home until after midnight, and they were intent on celebrating their friend’s accomplishment afterwards, which meant they wouldn’t really be home until morning. Pike had left right from the ice, almost, to drive down to Toronto and visit his girlfriend for the weekend. How Pike had a girlfriend to visit was beyond Ilya, but at the present moment, he could kiss the ground this mysterious, dumb, possibly blind girl walks on.
Hollander shakes his head a little before disentangling himself. Ilya, grinning again, follows him to the car, indulging in the frustrated huff that escapes Hollander as he slides gingerly into the driver’s seat. He still hasn’t let Ilya touch him.
Ilya reaches for the passenger side door, tugging on it a few times before he realizes it’s still locked. He leans down to peer through the window.
Hollander looks mighty proud of himself. “Sorry,” He’s practically giddy, “Did you need a ride?”
Ilya stabs his finger at the glass in the general direction of Hollander’s pants. “Funny. I was going to ask you same question.”
The door clicks open.
Ilya realizes something is wrong just a little too late. Hollander was on top of him screaming yes yes yes until it suddenly - too quietly - turned into no no fuck fucking no. Hollander’s hips grind to a violent stop, eliciting a confused groan out of Ilya, prompting Hollander to slap a hand over Ilya’s mouth and shush him. Dimly, Ilya thinks that the bespectacled Hollander (Ilya’s request) would make a really sexy librarian. He should tell him that. Except Hollander seems to be really quietly, confusedly, yelling at him.
“Who the fuck is that?” He’s hissing. Ilya understands then that, no, that was not the sound of angels singing as Hollander came apart around him. They’re naked, they’re in Ilya’s bed, and they’re not alone. Someone’s keys are jingling at the front door.
Hollander seems to be playing possum. Ilya springs into action, lifting the other boy off him and practically rolling off the bed to crawl to his bedroom door. He closes it as softly as possible just as the front door slams open.
Ilya grabs the closest pair of something on the floor - his own boxers, he registers - and throws it at Hollander’s chest, apparently shaking him from his anxiety spiral. He wishes he could appreciate the sight of Hollander sliding them on, how tight they were on his thighs. But -
“Shane!” The voice is closer than they realized, coming up on the room next door. Hollander looks like he’s going to have a heart attack. “Buddy, you won’t believe - oh. Where the fuck are you?” Footsteps recede down the hall.
Fucking Pike. Ilya wants to body slam the guy on a regular day, but interrupting just as Hollander was about to orgasm on his chest? Ilya could kill him.
This was not how tonight was supposed to go. Ilya had it all planned out - what they were going to eat, what they were going to watch, what positions they would be in when they finally fucked in every room of the apartment. They were only on room three. He’s shaking his head in disappointment, reaching around blindly to find the other pair of discarded boxers, when he suddenly realizes.
He looks at Hollander. Hollander looks at him. They’re on room three. He’d removed Hollander’s underwear with his teeth in the -
“What the fuck?” Pike is yelling. Hollander’s eyes go so wide that Ilya can’t hold in his laughter. He slaps a hand on his own mouth, smacking himself in the teeth, and keeps laughing. Hollander throws a pillow at him.
When the footsteps come back, fast and closer than ever, Ilya - graceful as he is - dive bombs the bed. He prays to any god listening that Pike doesn’t go for the knob. For fuck’s sake, how could he have forgotten to lock the door?
“Rozanov!” Pike shouts, “Is that your underwear on the goddamn kitchen counter?”
Ilya has to respond. If he doesn’t say something, Pike will open the door, and then he’ll have to say a lot of things he really doesn’t want to say. And then Hollander will probably blow his brains out or something.
He panics, and yells back in Russian: “Curious Varvara’s nose was torn off at the market!” Then, in English: “I have migraine, I am sleeping!” He shrugs at Hollander, not sure where the old proverb came from, but knowing that most anything screamed in his mother tongue sounds like a boxing match to North Americans.
Pike hesitates, voice a little softer. “But why is your -”
“Sleeping, Pike! Means go the fuck away.”
There’s a long pause. Hollander’s knuckles are white.
Pike’s footsteps pad down the hall, back towards the living room. “Asshole,” They hear him mutter to himself, “Disgusting weird asshole.” Ilya feels such a wave of relief that he wants to buy Hayden Pike a floral bouquet.
They listen to the creak of the couch cushions under Pike’s weight, the click of the TV remote. ESPN basketball coverage floats through the apartment.
Hollander remembers how to speak. “We’re so fucked.”
There’s the sound of a call being made on speakerphone, which reminds Ilya why he finds Pike so annoying, because who the hell turns on the television before making a call on speakerphone while his roommate sleeps off a migraine? It rings, rings, rings, before a familiar voice comes back out through the speaker.
“You’ve reached Shane Hollander,” Both of them flinch, “Please leave a message with your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” It’s painfully endearing. It half brings back Ilya’s erection.
“Shane, where’d you end up today?” Pike is so loud and inconsiderate. “Jackie called me when I was halfway there to say she had the flu. Fucking shitty timing, huh? I guess I’ll go to the restaurant later, if you want to go together. Unless you’re out there getting lucky. Then stay right where you are, brother. I’ll be here. Love you. Call me.”
ESPN gets louder. Ilya bites his lip, looks at Hollander.
“Don’t say it.”
“He loves you. Is cute.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Should we invite him inside?”
Hollander frowns. Ilya watches his fingers pull nervously at the hem of his boxers, and he suddenly feels too naked.
He stands, a little awkward, to grab a pair of sweatpants out of his dresser. When he slides back into bed, he pretends not to notice Hollander scooch further towards the wall.
“What are we going to do?” Hollander asks him, earnest.
“Where is your phone?”
“In my pants. In the bathroom.”
“Okay,” Ilya lets his mind run, “Pike will go pee, will see pants and think you showered and changed for your date.”
That seems to make sense to both of them. “Okay. But what do we do?”
Ilya shrugs. “We stay here until he goes to restaurant opening.” Hollander doesn’t look like he likes that idea. “Or we go out there and kill him.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, is not. Would be great relief to me after all this time.” That finally gets a smile out of him. Ilya settles into the sheets, turning on his side to face Hollander. “So you stay here.”
Hollander shifts, mirroring him. Breathing out a little. “I guess I’m staying here.”
Turns out, they have a lot to talk about. Despite being on the same team for three and half years and living together for six months and fucking each other senseless all winter, they don’t actually know much very much about each other. Ilya learns that Hollander’s father played hockey in university but went into finance after a bad hip injury, that both his parents objected to him going to an American school despite its top notch sports program, and that he briefly dated the gorgeous movie star who did a couple semesters with them before dropping out to focus on her career. (You fucked Rose Landry? Ilya had been incredulous. Hollander had the same look in his eyes as he often did on the ice. If you want to be impolite about it, he’d said, then yes.)
When they get to the topic of partying, and Ilya’s recounting a particularly wild story from when Sveta punched a girl in the face and got them kicked out of a lesbian bar, Hollander goes quiet again. Ilya reaches out, brushes a thumb across his cheek.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Hollander says, tilting towards - then away from - his touch, “I’ve just, uh…I’ve never been to a gay bar.”
Ilya could’ve guessed that. They both know he’s the first man Hollander has ever been with. He pats him on the cheek now. “I’ll take you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I am very fun to be around.”
“Hollander and Rozanov, at a gay bar. Together.” His brows are furrowed together. “That won’t raise any questions.”
“Who will see us?” Ilya counters, “Most people we know will never go into places like this. Anyone who does will be keeping same secret.”
Hollander pauses. The sound of gunshots - loud and exaggerated from where Pike is now watching The Godfather Part 2 - echo in the silence. They’ve been shut up inside his bedroom for four hours now, but at some point, Ilya stopped feeling trapped. Looking at Hollander, Ilya realizes his captain still does.
“You seem pretty confident.” Hollander’s voice is tight.
“Is nothing I have not done before.” He doesn’t mention that he hasn’t been there since Thanksgiving. That he hasn’t done a lot of things since Thanksgiving.
Hollander swallows. “Alright, then.”
“Okay.” Ilya’s watching his throat move up and down, “Big gay night out.”
He feels something warm in his stomach, not for the first time. Feels it reaching out inside him, tingling through his chest and warming the back of his neck. There must be a reason, he thinks desperately, there must be something. A simple answer. An easy one.
“I’m hungry.” He says. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, trying hard not to trip over his own feet. “You want food?”
Hollander’s dazed. He pulls the sheets back up to his chest. “You’re gonna go out there?”
“He knows I’m here,” Ilya shrugs, “Would not be surprising if I do not want to sit down with him.”
“Sure,” Hollander says, “I guess I should eat.” It’s weird, suddenly. Ilya’s made it weird somehow. He wants to go back to ten minutes ago, when they were quietly laughing about Hollander’s inability to find ginger ale in any campus vending machine, and Ilya had his hand lazily stroking Hollander’s knee, and his brain wasn’t sounding panic alarms. He feels like he’s at a museum, like he’s a child who’s stepped too close to a prized painting.
He takes a breath at the door before stepping out into the hall, making an inconspicuous journey to the kitchen. He doesn’t look at Pike as he enters, but sees him look up out of the corner of his eye. Don’t talk to me, Ilya prays, remember that you hate me.
“Feeling okay?” Pike asks, and Ilya curses the universe for reminding him that the jerk isn’t actually a bad person.
“Hungry.” Ilya responds, digging through the cabinets. His mind is racing. What will be least suspicious to carry back to his room? What will not require the use of two forks? Is it gross to eat tuna salad in bed?
“Make sure you hydrate.” Holy fuck, why won’t Pike leave him alone? “When my mom gets migraines, she drinks a lot of water.”
Ilya gives him a short, polite smile, before grabbing a box of cereal and a bottle of water.
“Isn’t that Shane’s granola?”
“I do not see his name on it.”
Pike huffs. Mutters something about him being an asshole. Ilya makes his calm, casual escape.
When he returns to his room - making sure to lock the door this time - Hollander raises an eyebrow at him. “One water bottle?”
Ilya smirks, settling back into their routine. “You put tongue in my ass but you cannot share water bottle?”
Hollander rolls his eyes before reaching out a hand for it. Ilya, instead, grabs at his hand and roughly pulls him close, planting a wet, sloppy, playful kiss on his mouth. Hollander lets it happen, even laughs against his tongue, before he shoves back and takes the water.
“How much longer do you think Hayden’s going to sit here?” He asks after a long pull.
Ilya rips open the bag of granola, crunching it with his mouth open. “Why? You have big plans?”
“Yeah,” Hollander’s eyes are so brown, “Rooms four through eight.”
They don’t even hear it, when Pike finally leaves. Ilya’s turned his own TV on max volume and shoved a towel in the crack under his door, and his head’s in Hollander’s crotch. Hollander’s got one hand in his hair and the other in his own mouth to keep from groaning. It’s only after, when Ilya has kissed his way up Hollander’s body and has the other boy tasting himself on Ilya’s tongue, that he realizes what the quiet outside means.
He doesn’t mention it. But then, neither does Hollander. They lay there like that - sweaty, sticking together, snug - for the rest of the night.
Something’s changed between them, Ilya knows. He just doesn’t know what it means yet. For a week after their little quarantine, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Hollander came to his room every night, twice on Sunday, and they’d sucked each other off in his car every morning before class. He’d even let Ilya give him a hand job in the empty locker room once after practice, which they both knew was crossing a line. They didn’t even talk, really, except to say more harder faster please fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Their mouths were always otherwise occupied.
Then, suddenly, two days ago, Hollander didn’t turn his doorknob at 2 AM. He didn’t wait to drive him to class in the morning. He didn’t look at him at all during practice, even when Ilya purposefully bashed Boiziau into the boards so hard he strained his own shoulder. Boiziau ate the slice of five-layer chocolate cake Ilya had been saving in the fridge that night. He’d hardly even noticed.
They had a plan tonight. They had a plan in ten minutes. Ilya is on his way to the club, he’s wearing a nice shirt and he’s doused in cologne, and he has no idea if Hollander is actually going to meet him there. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he’s dead in a ditch somewhere.
Maybe he freaked out and decided to end things between them immediately. Ilya’s never been stood up before. He should call him. He should step out into traffic.
He shakes himself out of it, flashing his ID to the bouncer and stepping into the strobe lights. This is his element. The music is good, and the crowd is always full of opportunity. So what if Hollander doesn’t show up? Ilya isn’t going to waste his Friday night. He’ll down a few drinks, he’ll find someone with pretty eyes, and he won’t even think about -
“Hollander.”
He’s standing in front of Ilya and he’s holding a beer, and he looks fucking gorgeous. Ilya feels the bass from the speakers in his fingertips. His head is warm. He loves this song.
Hollander bites his lip. “You’re early.”
“Am I?”
“I wanted to scope the place out first. You know, get acclimated.” He’s so weird. So charmingly, wonderfully weird.
“Acclimated?” He has no idea what it means. He wants to move closer to Hollander, wants to touch his waist in public. He steps forward.
“Comfortable.” Hollander doesn’t step back. “With the lights and the music and…everything.”
“Is supposed to be comfortable place.”
“Yeah,” His voice is small, “It’s nice. The people are nice.”
Hollander is blushing, he realizes. Ilya feels suddenly dizzy. Something twists in his stomach. “There is man here you like.”
Hollander turns an even deeper shade of red, eyes flickering somewhere behind them. Ilya follows his gaze through the crowd. Definitely not the guy in the fishnet tank top and full glam. Not the meathead chugging beer foam through his mustache. The bartender, mid pour with another customer, looks towards them suddenly and nods, one corner of his lips quirked up. A glance back at Hollander, who could be considered purple at this point, confirms it.
“Him then.” Ilya says. Casual as anything.
“I don’t actually -” Hollander won’t look at him anymore, “I mean, we were just talking. Earlier. Before you got here. It wasn’t so busy and I asked if he would put the Montreal game on the TV. He likes hockey.”
Ilya grunts in acknowledgement. He needs to get a hold on himself. He needs a gun.
“That’s why you brought me here, right?” Hollander is still being stubborn. “To meet people.”
“Okay.” Ilya can be stubborn, too. He steps closer to him, trailing a finger lightly across his captain’s wrist, “We will make him jealous.”
He tries not to smirk at how quickly the hairs on Hollander’s arm stand on end, how his eyes go immediately half-closed in the strobe light. He lets his hands ghost there for a minute before he presses his fingers hard into Hollander’s hips, finding the sticky skin under his shirt and yanking Hollander roughly against him. Ilya’s rewarded with a sharp gasp. A desperate hand grabbing him around the wrist.
“Rozanov.” Hollander says into Ilya’s shoulder. It only encourages him, really, to tighten his grip. To start moving his hips against the other boy, who is still, frustratingly, rigid.
“Hollander,” Ilya slides one of his hands into the back pocket of Hollander’s jeans, “Move.”
“You’re gonna make him think that I’m…” Ilya isn’t sure if there was meant to be an end to that sentence, or if Hollander simply goes mute at the tug of Ilya’s hand in his hair. He drags Hollander’s head back.
“That you are what?” Ilya presses his lips to Hollander’s ear. “Attractive? Desirable?”
“Taken.”
Ilya freezes, just for a moment. Then he’s politely leaning back, letting both hands drift to the collar of Hollander’s shirt, straightening where he has rumpled it. The song has changed, he notices. He doesn’t know this one at all. “And you’re not.”
He’s letting go of Hollander now, or at least he’s trying to. There are two hands wrapped around his wrists, stronger than before, holding him in place. They’re shaking, Ilya realizes, both of them. He stares at Hollander. Hollander stares back.
One of them smiles first.
Hollander’s voice is soft. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Ilya could count the freckles on his nose. “I’m not looking at you.”
People are moving around them. People are shouting and dancing and spilling drinks on their shoes, and Ilya doesn’t even notice. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t notice if an asteroid came out of the sky and took out the entire city block.
Hollander’s palms are sweaty. His eyes are dark. He’s adorable, and he’s angry, and he likes Ilya’s jokes. He gets off on fighting with Ilya during practice. He talks dirty in bed and he blushes when Ilya looks at him. He never gave back the boxers. He probably washed and folded the boxers.
Hollander says, “Listen.”
It’s just an accident. Ilya is looking at him and his big brown eyes and suddenly he’s saying, “Shane.”
And then Hollander is letting him go. And then Ilya is running.
He’s so in love with his roommate.
He’s so fucked.