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“Have you talked to your brother lately?” Shane asked.
This was their first evening at the cottage together, and they were spending it outside, cuddled on the couch, watching the fire crackle in the pit. At first, Ilya had been skeptical about this indisputably romantic activity, but by this time, they’d spent more than an hour mindlessly staring into the flames, and it turned out to be a wonderfully enjoyable, contented night. Ilya seemed relaxed, lying on the couch with his head tucked on Shane’s lap, and Shane deemed this to be a good moment to broach the topic.
Ilya made a negative sound.
“Is that a good thing?” Shane inquired cautiously.
“Probably, I don’t know.” Ilya said, adjusting position slightly. He did not tell Shane to shut it, however, so Shane took this as an encouragement to venture into forbidden territory.
“I’m sorry about your family,” he offered. “Even if they suck, you must miss them.” If he had to be completely honest, Shane had only theoretical knowledge about dysfunctional families. His own parents, much as they annoyed him with their over-presence in his life sometimes, were great and supportive all around.
“My mother didn’t suck,” Ilya protested. “She was great.”
“How did she die?” Shane dared to ask. He had been curious to know more about Ilya’s family and upbringing for years, but he’d never been able to find the right moment to explore the subject. Usually, Ilya cut off any line of questioning about his family quickly and unceremoniously. Whether this was because he did not trust Shane enough to share things that were so personal, or because he did not want to spoil his time with Shane by talking about family issues, this just wasn’t something that they had ever discussed in any depth. This time, however, Ilya answered.
“By accident,” he said. “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills.”
Shane felt a pang in his chest, almost regretting he’d asked. He did his best not to show it. He knew Ilya would not tolerate pity.
“How old were you?” Shane asked him instead.
“Twelve.” Ilya responded. A moment later, he added, “I found her.”
Shane tried to imagine what it must have been like for a 12-year-old Ilya to discover the lifeless body of his overdosed mother.
“I do not want you to think she was weak,” Ilya continued defensively.
Shane shook his head. “I don’t.” That was the last thought that would ever enter his mind.
“She wasn’t,” Ilya insisted. “She was so funny and beautiful… She was so sad.”
Shane listened quietly, taking in Ilya’s memories of his deceased mother, this rare moment of candor.
“And my dad was so hard on her,” Ilya added. “And… mother fucker!” he burst out, spooked by the cry of a loon on the lake. Shane had explained to him earlier that this was just a bird, but loons’ calls could be really loud in the quiet of the night and took a bit to get used to. Ilya laughed at his own reaction but didn’t add anything else to the story. The distraction seemed to have destroyed the fragile bubble of trust around them.
“Do you want to go inside?” Shane asked.
“No.” Ilya settled his head on Shane’s lap again. They fell into comfortable silence.
All this was new. They had been seeing each other for seven years—more than many couples managed to make it—and yet they had never even spent a whole day together. They had barely talked about anything other than sex and occasional League gossip. Ilya had never before told Shane anything about his mother—other than that she was dead. Shane instinctively understood that, for Ilya, the stoic Slavic type who tended to compartmentalize his life and bottle up feelings, this was a big step.
Every activity they did together that day, every conversation they had, felt like they were stepping further into a new, uncharted territory—a territory that most people explore in the first weeks of their relationship, but Shane and Ilya just allowed themselves to wander into now. And that was exhilarating and absolutely terrifying at the same time.
The first day they spent at the cottage was so mundanely domestic that it felt surreal. Never in the seven years of their odd relationship did Shane allow himself to even dream that this was possible—that this was an option for them. And yet, they fell into this domesticity so naturally, so easily. All it took was picking up Ilya at the airport and a two-hour drive. Why had they never done this before? Ever since Shane opened the door of the cottage for Ilya that morning, every minute felt like a precious gift. Shane had spent days planning their time at the cottage in detail, including this evening by the firepit. And now this was going better than anything he had imagined, and yet he couldn’t allow himself to relax, couldn’t shake the fear of doing or saying something that would ruin this, that would alienate Ilya and make them both realize that taking this step was a mistake.
“I tried it too, you know,” Ilya said, interrupting Shane’s thoughts.
“What?” Shane asked, bewildered.
“Well… Not tried, but…” Ilya stumbled. And as he was searching for the right English words, Shane suddenly felt dread spreading inside. He waited with trepidation for Ilya to clarify, feeling that he already knew what would follow.
“Took too many pills. And booze,” Ilya said finally. He did not elaborate.
“When?” Shane croaked.
“Years ago.”
From how Ilya said it, Shane got the impression that maybe, this happened when Ilya was very young—possibly too young to even drink. Perhaps, soon after his mother died?
“After the Sochi Olympics. A few months later,” Ilya added after some thought.
Shane felt sick. So, this was during the time when they knew each other, when they were already together. Well, not really “together,” but still.
“Why?” he asked. He suddenly felt incapable of forming longer than single-word questions.
Ilya, who was still lying on his lap, gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. Just… was at a shitty point of life, I guess.”
Shane waited, hoping he would continue.
After a few moments, Ilya explained, “We lost at the Olympics. It really fucked me up. Not just that we lost, but… it was important. Like, I was supposed to be pride of my country, you know. Dad was so looking forward to it, and I disappointed him. It was like I failed the most important test. And it was when… he was getting worse. He just got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.” Ilya pronounced the disease name as “Alts-gamers,” so it took Shane a second to figure out what he meant. “His memory was getting worse, fast,” Ilya continued, “and I thought maybe that would be his last clear memory of me. That I embarrassed him.” His voice trailed off.
Shane recalled how bad he felt for Ilya after Russia’s unfortunate loss to Latvia at the Olympics, the irrational guilt that spoiled Shane’s own joy when Canada won the gold medal. He could only imagine how hard it must have been for Ilya. Shane squeezed his shoulder.
“And then I returned to Boston, and I had to figure out what to do about dad, from America,” Ilya continued. “I had to find the best doctors, arrange visits, find out how to order drugs, which you normally won’t get in Russia. Find a… how do you call it… sitter.”
“A caregiver?” Shane supplied.
“Yes. And trust me, it’s not easy when you can’t even interview her in person. I had to kick out the first one when dad complained that she… I will not get into that. He had a wife, by the way! But oh, she wouldn’t do that! She didn’t marry him to be a caregiver!” Scorn was clear in Ilya’s voice.
Shane had never seen him so animated—except, perhaps, when he cheered up his team during a game break. Shane had never seen him talk so much at all—let alone about his family. So, Shane listened, very still, afraid to spook Ilya and make him close up again.
“It was exhausting.” Ilya sighed. “And I guess, the other part of it was that I felt it was on me, alone. I would come to a hotel room after a six-hour flight across the country, tired, with my bags, an early practice and a game the next day, and I would spend half the night on the phone to Russia, because that’s the only time I could sort out any of that, while it was night here and day there. My brother wasn’t worth shit, he can’t even take care of his own family. I would have to fight him and coerce him with money every time I needed him to take dad to a doctor.”
Shane tried to imagine what that was like—and couldn’t.
“I don’t really have anyone else there,” Ilya continued. “My friends—former teammates—we don’t keep in touch after I signed with Boston. There’s… jealousy, you know. So, I was dealing with this for months, and no one even knew...”
You could have called me, Shane wanted to say. But he knew that Ilya couldn’t. Shane remembered those months after the Olympics very well. Too well, in fact, because they were agonizing. Ilya had gone completely off the radar and stopped answering Shane’s texts, and Shane tortured himself with theories, suspicions, imaginary scenarios in which Ilya was picking up women, fucking them, maybe even finding someone to marry. Shane would check news and social media for mentions of Ilya Rozanov several times a week, searching for clues, for validation of his wild theories, for any hint of why Ilya suddenly cast him out.
He remembered barely holding back tears—half-proud, half-desperate tears—as he was watching Ilya lifting up the Stanley Cup on TV at Hayden’s house that summer. Shane had already been completely head over heels for Ilya that year, he now realized—but back then, all he knew was that harrowing sense of loneliness and betrayal.
He remembered how boiling angry he felt at Ilya’s nonchalant demeanor when they met again at the MLH awards ceremony; remembered causing a scene in the bathroom afterwards, like some jealous girlfriend. But never—not once in those six months—had it occurred to Shane that maybe Ilya did not return his texts because something was not right. That Ilya was not okay. Not everything is about you, Hollander. Shane really hadn’t gotten the message, had he?
So, instead, he said, “You could have called Svetlana.” He had never met her, but he felt that she probably cared about Ilya.
“Eh,” Ilya made a noncommittal sound. “Didn’t want to dump it on her. Our relationship isn’t about that.”
No relationship is “about that,” Shane thought. It’s just something that comes with a relationship.
“So, what happened?” he asked quietly. He felt irrationally afraid of phrasing the question more directly, but Ilya understood.
“I injured my knee at the playoffs against Los Angeles that spring. When I crashed into Clarke, don’t know if you saw that.”
“Mm-hm,” Shane acknowledged barely audibly. He did see that. He would never admit it, but he watched every Boston Raiders’ game that season, leading to their winning of the Stanley Cup, and he knew all of Ilya’s triumphs and all the hits he took like Shane knew his own.
“So, I got benched for a couple weeks, to let it heal,” Ilya continued. “I guess, that didn’t help. Being on the ice, that always takes your mind off things, you know. You get high on adrenaline, it pushes the other stuff to the back. And when I had to stay home for days, with vodka and painkillers to entertain me...” Perhaps realizing how bleak that sounded, he clarified, “It’s not like I wanted to die. I guess I just got to a point where I didn’t care if I took one too many. I just wanted to stop thinking and feeling like shit.”
He fell silent, and Shane suddenly became aware that his hand was gripping Ilya’s shoulder, fingers digging in through the sleeve of his shirt. Ilya must have noticed it, too. He moved his right arm and covered Shane’s hand with his own.
“Is okay,” he said. “How they say… all well that ends well.”
“How did it end?” Shane asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
“I didn’t show up at press-conference the next morning. And, I guess I did not answer the calls, too. Because Sheila went to my house. Sheila—the Raiders’ press agent. She called the paramedics.”
“Oh my god…” Shane heard himself whispering.
“I only spent a day at the hospital. They cleared my stomach and gave me something—like, an antidote. The doctor at the hospital said it could’ve been worse. You know you can choke on your own vomit? It’s a common death, apparently.”
Shane closed his eyes.
“Promise me that if you ever have thoughts like that again, you will call me first,” he demanded, lowering his head close to Ilya’s ear. “Please, please, promise me. I need you to promise me that!”
“Okay, okay, I promise!” Ilya exclaimed, sounding alarmed at the feverish tone of Shane’s voice. “I’m okay. Don’t worry. I promise. It doesn’t get that bad anymore.”
The way he phrased it made something clench in Shane’s heart.
“Does anyone else know?” he asked.
“No. Sheila told the coach I had a bad food poisoning, so nobody figured it out. She is a great sport like that. Offered me to see a therapist afterwards, though.” Ilya chuckled.
“You should have taken her up on the offer,” Shane said seriously.
“Nah,” Ilya jerked his head. “Russian guys don’t do therapists.”
Shane squeezed an arm under Ilya’s neck and hugged him from behind across the shoulder, holding him close. A loon cried again somewhere on the lake, but this time, Ilya did not seem to notice.
“It’s not easy, you know,” he said quietly after a moment. “To be with someone who… has these… phases.”
The warning in his words coupled with the tentative suggestion that they could be “with” each other broke Shane’s heart and gave him a fluttering hope at the same time. He clung on to the latter.
“I don’t care,” he said resolutely. “I want to be.” As a second thought, he added, “And it’s not like I’m a poster boy for being well-adjusted either. I have issues. It took me seven years since fucking a guy to admit to myself that I’m gay!”
“I like your issues.” Ilya turned his head and looked up at Shane playfully. “They make you adorable.”
“Fuck you. ‘Adorable’ – is that a new word in your vocabulary?”
“Better than ‘boring.’”
Shane rolled his eyes.
Ilya wriggled in his arms, turning around to face Shane’s stomach, and tugged at his jacket. He propped himself on one elbow between Shane’s knees and began dutifully untucking Shane’s T-shirt from his shorts. Having freed a patch of a bare stomach, Ilya started kissing it along the beltline of Shane’s shorts. His eyes were closed, and he seemed lost in those kisses.
Shane’s cock twitched in his shorts. It was amazing how sex with Ilya never got stale, how Shane’s body woke up and responded to Ilya’s touch immediately, just like it did for the first time all those years ago.
With his right hand, Ilya unfastened Shane’s shorts. He freed up Shane’s half-hard cock and took it in his mouth.
“Oh…” Shane exhaled with a quiet moan. He cupped the back of Ilya’s head with his palm.
Ilya immediately took to a fast pace, apparently not interested in foreplay. It felt amazing. Shane got to a full erection in seconds; he could tell this was going to be a quick one. Ilya must have felt it too, because he moved his left hand that had been resting on Shane’s lap to squeeze the base of his cock. That took the edge off a little bit, but at the same time, weirdly, raised the pleasure up a notch.
“Fuck…” Shane whispered. He buried his fingers in Ilya’s hair.
Ilya was taking him in deep, sucking around his cock on its way out, and each stroke rolled inside Shane like a wave that brought him to a new height, higher, closer. He resisted the urge to start moaning. Doing this outside, in the open, felt inappropriate and incredibly arousing at the same time.
Ilya’s free hand snaked under Shane’s jacket. He squeezed Shane’s chest, catching his nipple between fingers, and Shane’s breath hitched. “Ah! Ilya!” He cried out, two seconds from coming. He reflexively gripped Ilya’s hair. Ilya swallowed him all the way, closing his throat around Shane’s cock, and Shane’s hips jerked—the next second he was coming deep into Ilya’s throat. The orgasm hit so strong, it consumed Shane entirely.
“Holy shit…” he breathed, eyes squeezed shut.
Ilya swallowed around Shane’s cock and released it. He propped himself upward, settling on his knees beside Shane, and carefully fastened Shane’s shorts. His mouth was slack and wet, lips glistening in the orange light of the fire. His eyes were hazy from his own unfulfilled desire, but, when he lifted his gaze to Shane’s, it was intent, searching.
That blowjob was as hot as their sex had ever been (maybe hotter), but looking at Ilya, Shane suddenly had a strange feeling that it wasn’t just that. It felt almost like it was… a thank you? An offer tendered with hesitant hope? Ilya kept watching him quietly and closely, as if trying to find the answer to an unspoken question.
And at that moment, looking into Ilya’s inquiring eyes, Shane made a silent promise to him.
You will never be alone again. I will be there. For all phases.
It was big, he knew. It was a huge commitment. It was life-changing. But at that moment, it seemed like the simplest and most obvious thing in the world, and Shane fully meant to uphold it for the rest of his life.
He smiled a small reassuring smile and gently took both of Ilya’s hands in his.
“Let’s go to bed?”
***
As they put out the fire and walked back inside the cottage and into Shane’s bedroom, Shane felt an unusual lightness. He felt like his life had suddenly gained purpose, like he had suddenly gained clarity. Like he had been navigating this relationship blindly for years and then turned a corner and saw the light. He knew what he needed to do now. All the anxiety about his affair with Ilya, all the uncertainty about their future, all the fear of being discovered seemed pointless and silly all of a sudden. He made a promise that was so much bigger than that. It felt weirdly liberating, as if he had, for the first time, given himself permission to live his life.
Of course, there were details to be figured out. There were obstacles, like the fact that he and Ilya lived in different countries and saw each other twice a year on average, for example. But that seemed like mere logistics now. Shane would work it out. He would come up with a plan. He felt certain in a way he could not explain that the world would rearrange itself to accommodate his promise. Smiling at the unfamiliar feeling of peace that settled inside, he reached behind his back and found Ilya’s hand.
The loon in the lake’s backwater tucked its head in the feathers and dozed off, no longer bothered by the nearby fire.