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When Ilya woke up, he was unsure at first where he was. The cottage always had a silence to it that reminded him of the hush of a cemetery. There were no sounds of other people moving through their days, no licks of music or running machinery except what he and Shane turned on themselves. The cottage felt even quieter than the cemetery where Ilya’s mother was buried, because the sounds that did disrupt it were unnamable animals, and not familiar—and therefore ignorable—sirens. Everywhere else he’d slept, from Moscow to Miami, had noise in common.
So this was one of those days when he woke up in Shane’s cottage and couldn’t place it, too much a city dweller. He knew Shane’s body first. That was Shane’s leg and arm thrown around him. Shane was behind him, spooning Ilya loosely. They were in Shane’s house. Shane, he remembered with a thrill, was his boyfriend.
Shane was awake. He was touching Ilya’s back with his other hand, very lightly, trying not to bother him. Shane drew his fingers in straight lines between Ilya’s moles. Dot-to-dot. Ilya smiled. “What are you doing?”
His boyfriend froze like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “I was just looking at your back,” Shane told him sheepishly.
“Ah, yes? Have a good view?”
“Yeah.” In a more playful voice, he added, “I just don’t look at your back very often. Not like you do mine.”
Ilya pictured himself deep in his boyfriend, kissing his back while Shane came. The image was both memory and anticipation, and it gave him an idea. “Would you want to fuck me sometime?” His dick stirred with approval.
After a moment’s hesitation, Shane clarified, “You mean, with me as the…”
“Yes.”
“Do you like that? I mean—you’ve tried it and liked it?”
Ilya showed him one hand over his shoulder, folding and unfolding a finger to indicate three or four times. “I like it.” Much less than he liked topping, but he would enjoy it more with Shane. “For, you know, variety.”
Clearly surprised, Shane replied, “Okay. Yes. Anything you want.”
His energy had changed. Ilya couldn’t identify it, but there was something in Shane’s voice that reminded him of the time Shane abruptly left him. Ilya rolled over in Shane’s embrace and studied his serious face. “No, Shane, come back.”
Shane gave Ilya a look and pointedly squished him. “I haven’t moved an inch, you weirdo.”
“But I said something wrong,” Ilya said plaintively, “and I don’t know what.” He rubbed his thumb across the point on Shane’s neck where Shane most liked to be kissed. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” Shane claimed, brow creased. “I don’t know.”
• • •
Shane was thinking hard about doing anything Ilya might want, which struck him as intensely horny and not relevant. He shook his head slightly.
“Are you jealous?” Ilya asked.
“I don’t think so,” he answered slowly. It wasn’t clear to Shane why Ilya thought he might be. Maybe because he’d asked about Ilya trying it in the past? “I was curious—but it’s none of my business.”
Ilya shrugged. “Why not? We are boyfriends.”
Shane smiled a little. “I’ve heard that, yeah.” He bit his lip. “So, um, was it with that one guy, your coach’s son?”
“Twice, yes. Another time, maybe two times, with a woman I know in Seattle. She had a dildo and…a leather strappy thing?”
Shane thought about this. He was pretty sure he knew what Ilya was talking about, but he didn’t know the word either, and said so. He stopped himself from admitting what he thought next, which was that he would have been jealous if Ilya had been getting fucked on a regular basis, if it was something he craved and sought out, but had never offered it to Shane before.
He wasn’t optimistic their attempt would go well, but being asked was enough to make him want to try. There were other things he had not enjoyed until he tried them again with Ilya. (Like kissing with tongue, and being touched between his legs at all.) “You’ll still like me when I’m bad at topping, right?” Shane asked, smiling so it would sound like a joke.
Ilya saw right through him. “Shane,” he said, so gently that Shane couldn’t stand it. He closed his eyes.
“I know,” Shane said, irritated with himself. “You don’t have to tell me that even if I slip on a banana peel and break both of our penises, you’ll still love me, or whatever.”
His boyfriend let out a stupid little snorting laugh and kissed Shane’s nose. “Yeah. Mm-hm.” Ilya rubbed a soothing circle into Shane’s hip. “I won’t let that happen,” he promised calmly. They were still talking about a ridiculous scenario, but Shane did feel better. Ilya was right—he would take care of Shane.
Ilya continued, skipping words the way he sometimes did when he wanted to talk quickly, not precisely. “Is okay. You don’t want.” He shrugged elaborately. “Oh, well! There’s other sex!”
Shane laughed. “No, but—I kind of do want? It’s worth a try. I don’t want you to get bored.” It was difficult to get used to the idea that Ilya was so into him—in love with him—that one awkward boyfriend was exciting enough for someone who had been drowning in international sex bombs.
“Oh my god, shut up!” Ilya’s voice was full of affection. “You are a very boring man, and if I was going to get tired of you being boring, it would have happened in minutes. You told me off for smoking and all I wanted was to smush you against the wall.” He kissed Shane’s chin, scraping gently with his teeth. “I’m hopeless.”
After a moment, Shane realized Ilya was talking about their very first conversation. “Oh,” Shane breathed, startled. “I would have loved that.” Ilya had been the most fascinating boy Shane had ever met, and Shane had wanted to be wrapped up in his attention, to wear it like a coat.
“You would not. You would have spooked.”
Indignant, Shane poked him. “What am I, a wild horse?”
Ilya beamed. “Yes! Yes, exactly! Beautiful, and untamed, and you just wanted to run free—”
“Nooooo,” Shane complained, speaking over him.
“—but I am very stubborn, and I fed you oats out of my hand,” Ilya continued, making a motion with his hands, playfully inching towards Shane, “until you trusted me.”
“That is so stupid,” Shane grumbled, smiling. “We are not a horse girl movie. Also, your metaphor sucks. You didn’t coax me over.”
“I did. The commercial, remember?”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Okay. But you didn’t need to be patient for long, because I got hard in the fucking shower and you went for it.”
“I suppose so. You are slut for me, is true,” Ilya announced, grinning like he’d won something.
Shane loved him so much his chest ached, like his heart was straining to jump out of his chest and run around with Ilya’s. He opened his mouth to call his boyfriend an asshole, but a humiliating, needy sound slipped out instead. “I, uh,” he managed, finishing his admission with a nod.
Ilya kissed his throat. “I know. I know, lyubimy.”
They kissed until Shane was growing impatient, trying not to squirm against Ilya for friction. Ilya nipped his ear. “I’m going to suck your pretty cock,” he promised. He slid under the blankets and surprised Shane by twisting around so that his feet rested on the headboard, and his own dick was right where Shane could take it into his mouth. Shane laughed, delighted. “It’s okay?” Ilya asked breezily, his breath hot on Shane’s skin.
“Yeah.” Shane kissed his thighs. “Yeah, it’s perfect.” He wrapped his lips around Ilya’s head and sucked, his eyes falling blissfully closed and his thoughts quieting.
• • •
Late in the afternoon, when the sun had passed its harshest point, Ilya put down his tablet, stretched, and turned to Shane to suggest they go for a run. Shane had fallen asleep on the couch, his book open on his chest. Ilya smiled and took it and Shane’s glasses carefully away, putting them on the side table, and went by himself. Even though he was out of the sling, Shane was still under medical advice to let his body get extra rest. He would be cranky if he didn’t eat dinner at the usual time, so Ilya would wake Shane when he returned.
It was Ilya’s turn to cook. He wanted shashlik, kebabs. Shane seemed to try out a different diet every year and Ilya wasn’t sure what the grains situation was this summer, but he knew he’d seen a bag of rice among the groceries in the cabinet. That would go nicely. And fruit salad? They had some leftover cubed melon. On his way back, he could come via the far hill, where there was a cluster of homes that were the closest thing the cottage had to neighbors. He was thinking of the one with the big garden and the honor box, where Shane had taken him another day to replace tomatoes they’d eaten up.
Ilya gave himself over to the blankness of running, but he did remember, later, to slow and stop, to choose boxes of delicate strawberries and black raspberries and nestle them in one of the reused plastic grocery bags tied to the stand. There was a water bucket full of yellow flowers, bundled into little bouquets with twine. He picked one up, put it down, picked it up again, wondered what Shane would think, and decided he liked flowers, so they wouldn’t be wasted. They went into the bag, poking out of the top. He paid with US dollars, because he hadn’t looked in his wallet before coming out, and hoped the gardener wouldn’t be annoyed. He walked the rest of the way home—to Shane’s cottage—at a mild pace, so he wouldn’t swing the bag and crush something.
He’d never bought anyone flowers before.
With everything safely put away in the fridge, Ilya checked on Shane. He was still asleep. The front of his athletic shorts was tented.
Humming a little, feeling tender and aroused, Ilya grabbed the lube on his way to the shower.
• • •
When Shane woke, he recognized immediately the golden light and stillness of the cottage. There was nowhere else he felt so peaceful. That his face was being lightly touched was surprising. He opened his eyes and was overjoyed to remember that Ilya was there with them. Shane touched his own lips. “Come here,” he said. Ilya kissed him while he woke up the rest of the way. Shane smiled shyly at him. “Hi. I was dreaming about you.”
Ilya cupped a hand around Shane’s erection, making him gasp. “I noticed.” He was warm, faintly damp, and bare-chested. Shane ran his hands over Ilya like he would touch a sweater fresh from the dryer, rubbing back and forth to enjoy the sensation with no doubt that he was allowed. “Come to bed,” Ilya said, mouth against Shane’s ear.
Shane let Ilya pull him to his feet and lead him there. At the foot of the bed, with Ilya’s hands sliding under Shane’s t-shirt, and Shane’s untucking the towel around Ilya’s waist, both of them said, “About earlier—” Their voices overlapped. Both hesitated.
Ilya kissed him briefly and said decisively, “You first.”
Shane put his arms around Ilya, grinding his clothed erection against Ilya’s newly bared thigh. “I think maybe I sounded like I was telling you ‘yes’ just to not tell you ‘no.’ But now I’ve been thinking about it all day,” he whispered. “I really do want to try. I’m just nervous because I was super awkward when I…before.” Shane was not going to discuss the details of having sex with Rose. He couldn’t get the rhythm or the angle right, and he’d been embarrassed, and it wasn’t right, and he’d gone soft. “But I did mean I’d do anything you wanted. I love when you make me do things. Sometimes I think about it so much that I feel kind of insane.”
Ilya bumped his nose against Shane’s. “But you don’t want me to make you do just anything,” he said matter-of-factly. Before Shane could contradict this, Ilya added, “You want me to make you do things that get you so hard you think you might pass out.”
“You got me there.” Shane kissed Ilya’s smirk. “So if what I want is you….”
Ilya actually blushed. Shane traced his pink cheek, fascinated.
“I want everything about you, too.” Ilya’s speech was thick in the way it got when he was tired or emotional. “Earlier,” Ilya said apologetically, “I wish I had not said what I did about variety. I did not think about it until I was in the shower, but I don’t want you to think…. Shane, there is nothing I’m missing.”
“No, I—” Shane started to lie that he hadn’t been worried about that. He took a steadying breath. “Okay. That’s good. I’m glad. But it’s fine. I mean, it was for my benefit, too. I, um.” He looked at Ilya’s mouth, less intense than making eye contact. “I want you to touch me in ways I haven’t even thought of yet. I don’t even know what to ask for.”
Ilya grinned. He framed Shane’s chin with one hand so that he couldn’t retreat, but Ilya didn’t try to make him lift his gaze. “It is not your job to decide how I’m going to make you come.”
Shane felt his face heat. “Thank god for that.”
That made Ilya laugh. “Okay?” Shane didn’t know whether he was asking whether Shane was okay, or what Ilya had just said was okay with him, but he nodded emphatically.
Ilya tugged on Shane’s shirt with a renewed energy. Shane lifted his arms cooperatively, letting Ilya move him around to get it off before he pushed down on Shane’s shoulders. Shane knelt, melting as easily as butter.
He opened his mouth without prompting, satisfied when Ilya slid his thumb inside to hold Shane open while he adjusted. Ilya kicked the fallen bath towel away from his feet, shifted his weight and Shane’s angle, put his other hand firmly on the back of Shane’s head (stay where I put you) and fucked Shane’s mouth. The first thrust was considerate, but not restrained. Ilya knew what Shane could handle, and he was giving his cock to Shane with enough force to be exciting, but not overwhelming.
Shane made a noise he was embarrassed of, but if he was being honest with himself, that made it hotter. With Ilya, he was safe to be embarrassing in a way he otherwise couldn’t afford to be—uncomposed, or scared, or a horny little freak. Ilya stroked his cheek with the thumb that had been in Shane’s mouth, leaving a cool trail of spit. “You take it so sweetly,” Ilya told him, thrusting with casual grace. “You have no idea how lovely your mouth is, how well you hold still for me. It’s just how you are.” His voice was not particularly gentle. Shane burned from the praise.
After a short time, Ilya pushed in just deeply enough to flirt with the edge of what Shane could accept without choking. He resisted an impulse to squirm, trusting Ilya to withdraw before it stopped being fun. When Ilya did, he slid out of Shane’s mouth completely. Shane felt a glow of pride even before Ilya bent over to kiss his mouth over and over, murmuring, “So good, so good, Shane.”
They moved to the bed. Ilya sprawled luxuriantly on his back like the king he’d briefly been in Shane’s napping dreams. He put a pillow under his hips and threw a knee over one of Shane’s shoulders. Shane was busy giving some attention to Ilya’s balls when Ilya lightly tossed the bottle of lube to land beside him. “Finger me.”
Shane coated two fingers, feeling very much the way he did when Ilya watched Shane touch himself. It was like he was a shiny beetle trapped harmlessly in Ilya’s hands to be enjoyed and released. He wanted to perform a little, and to be studied. He didn’t realize how much he was smiling until he saw Ilya grinning in response.
He put the tips of his fingers at Ilya’s entrance, and hesitated. It felt more different from doing it to himself than he had expected. The possibility of hurting Ilya, who hadn’t been penetrated for a while, entered his mind. Shane found he did not care for being able to do that.
“Ah, it’s okay,” Ilya said, soothing him, rubbing Shane’s thighs where they bracketed Ilya’s hips. “I fingered myself in the shower, you can just—” He wrapped a hand around Shane’s wrist. “Give me both of them,” he ordered, before pulling firmly to guide Shane’s fingers inside.
Shane held his fingers the way Ilya wanted, and shivered with his whole body as the heat of Ilya enveloped them. “Oh, fuck,” he said, with a lot of feeling. Ilya winked at him.
Ilya pushed and pulled his wrist, freeing Shane from thinking about the rhythm, or how hard to press. Shane curled and spread his fingers, trying to make Ilya twitch as he spread the lube. When he had put more on his fingers and Ilya had lined his hand up to pull him back in, Ilya said, “Tell me how it feels.”
Shane blurted out, “It’s kind of spiritual.” He winced and looked to the side, out the window.
Ilya used his free hand to turn Shane’s chin. “Don’t hide. Am I laughing? No.”
It took Shane a moment, still moving his fingers gently inside of Ilya, to fight through the discomfort of feeling overly vulnerable. He really didn’t want to have a conversation during sex about where that connotation probably came from: going into his mom’s temple. It always felt to him to be a little sheltered from the world. Restful. “It feels very intimate,” he said finally. He wished he could rewind a couple minutes and say something that wasn’t weird, something cool and self-explanatory. Now he was in his head for the first time since Ilya had pushed him to his knees.
His boyfriend must have known it, because he pulled Shane’s shorts and underwear down. “You’re the sexiest fucking thing,” Ilya told him, in a voice that did not brook argument. “Stroke yourself. I want you to watch my face while you do it.”
Shane looked into Ilya’s beaming face, how radiantly happy he was to be in bed with Shane, and his self-consciousness fell away. As he was safe to be embarrassed with Ilya, he was also safe to expose the parts of himself he was protective of. Affection swept through him. Ilya was welcome to crack Shane open like an oyster, if he wanted. Shane wrapped a hand around his own cock, met Ilya’s eyes, and said, “I really do love you.”
“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu,” Ilya responded fervently. Shane didn’t need to ask what that meant.
While Shane stroked himself, Ilya ran his hands over his own stomach and chest, playing with his nipples but avoiding his dick. “When I met you, I wanted that body in all the ways I could get it,” he told Shane.
“It’s yours. I’m yours.” Shane let a moan escape. “When I was waiting to see if you’d come over, that first time? I was going crazy, trying to guess what you would want to do, and I wasn’t even sure what I wanted, or would like…and then you came in, and you touched me, and it all kind of made sense. I don’t think I ever thanked you.”
“For what? Hooking up with very hot guy?” Ilya made an endearingly camp hand flick, looking Shane up and down.
Shane laughed. “I don’t know. Making it not scary. Getting me to suck on your thumb, I guess.”
Ilya smiled coyly. “I just wanted to see if you would obey.”
His dick had, honestly, probably too much lube on it by this point. Shane stopped stroking and squared his shoulders, pushed away his nerves. He looked at Ilya attentively. Ilya would move him around, and tell him what else to do, and it was going to be really hot and completely fine. Shane just needed to be topping Ilya, or whatever, without disaster. Then he’d stop being nervous at all.
Ilya was looking at him too long. Shane bit his lip. “Fuck!” Ilya exclaimed. “Shane, I’m sorry.” He propped himself up on his forearms, talking fast, like he was trying to express himself faster than Shane’s heart could sink. “No, no, we’re fucking! I just had idea—wish sooner—I can do this better for you—come here.”
Ilya sat up all the way, their legs tangling together, and kissed Shane hard. He pulled Shane down with him, so that Shane lay on his chest, being kissed silly, before Ilya rolled them over to put Shane on his back. Then he straightened, kneeling over Shane. Shane had reached out to pull him back, not wanting the kissing to stop. Ilya pinned his arms to the bed, over Shane’s head. Ilya shifted his hips illustratively. “Oh,” Shane breathed. Ilya wanted to ride him.
“Like this?” Ilya asked. “Would this be okay?”
“Yeah,” Shane said in a soft, breathless voice, unable to string together more words than that. He’d been very turned on, but this was—what had Ilya said? Making him so hot for it his brain might melt, or something like that.
Ilya looked relieved, for some reason. He got off of Shane just long enough to pull Shane’s shorts and underwear completely off. When he straddled him again, he looked at Shane’s hands, still where Ilya had put them, and pinned his wrists again, smirking. Shane let out a silly little happy noise, and didn’t care about it at all. His thoughts had gone calm and pleasantly muted. “That’s better,” Ilya said. “Not so nervous?”
Shane had thought he’d been doing pretty well. He squirmed, to feel Ilya’s body holding him. He had less range of motion, less control, and it was a relief. He no longer felt like he could mess this up. He laughed. “Not at all.”
Ilya kissed him again, leaning in with a quick motion that made his pendant bump Shane’s collarbone. He nuzzled his face against the side of Shane’s, lips close to his jaw as he said, “I’m going to take you like the very best toy, Hollander.” He gave Shane a little cat-lick up his cheek. “You can be still, or you can fuck up into me, but your hands stay put, mmm?”
“Yes, yes, yesssss.”
When Ilya straightened, he tried to sink down onto Shane without letting go of him. He lost his balance a little, laughed, and had to move both hands to make it work—placing one flat on Shane’s stomach, steadying himself, and using the other to hold Shane’s dick to line them up. He didn’t get the position right immediately, and made a goofy, self-deprecating face. “Hang on. I haven’t done it this way before.”
Shane swallowed hard. “That’s really hot,” he said softly. Maybe he and Ilya could trade small virginities until they had none left.
Ilya finally sank down onto Shane’s cock, making both of them moan from the intensity of it. Shane could tell from Ilya’s startled, wide eyes that he had taken more of Shane at once than he meant to. Shane had found that easy to do when riding Ilya, too. He resisted several impulses at once. He had an urge to stroke Ilya’s chest—but not when he’d been told to leave his hands where Ilya put them. He had an urge to buck his hips—but, though allowed, he wouldn’t at this moment, when it would overwhelm Ilya. Shane held himself very still, remembering that Ilya had said he was very good at being still for him. He curled and uncurled his toes, and mumbled, “I love this, I love you,” but that was all.
Ilya relaxed gradually, until he had taken all of Shane. He grinned down at Shane, cocky and compelling, and so beautiful it hurt. Shane marvelled that Ilya seemed to him equally in control however they were positioned. It was profoundly sexy of him.
He fucked himself on Shane’s cock, effortlessly setting what felt like the perfect pace. Shane chased it erratically, lifting his hips to meet or follow Ilya’s movements. Neither of them lasted long; they’d both been too worked up.
When Ilya slipped off of Shane, breathing hard, Shane rolled onto his side to cuddle. Ilya cushioned Shane’s head on his chest and kissed it. “I feel like I was the one getting fucked, in a way,” Shane told him, happy and worn out. There were muscles in his stomach that were sore from moving in a way he wasn’t used to. Ilya’s come was drying in a mess all over Shane’s stomach. That was a familiar sensation. Shane thought it was pretty gross. He liked it. “Was it—did it feel like you hoped?”
“Better,” Ilya told him. Shane could feel his smile.
• • •
Ilya had not intended to make Shane help cook, but Shane saw the bag of rice and categorically refused to let Ilya be in charge of that part. So while Shane started his rice cooker, Ilya prepared the shashlik and hummed along to the local radio station Shane liked.
“I can help chop,” Shane offered.
“No, no. I know how I want the pieces. You could wash the fruit?”
Shane opened the fridge to find it. “Oh! There are flowers in here. Why are there flowers?” He brought out the tall drinking glass Ilya had used as a vase. The yellow blooms looked even brighter in the evening light.
Ilya fidgeted with a bamboo skewer. “I wasn’t sure how long ago they’d been cut, and I think cooling them down is a thing.”
Shane considered this. “So, you bought them?”
“Yes. From the garden house.”
“For me?”
“Could be.”
“Just because, or were you making a joke?”
Ilya couldn’t look at him. “I know it is ridiculous. You can throw them out.”
There was a soft sound behind him of Shane putting the glass down carefully. Shane sidled up beside him, his back to the counter, and put his hands on Ilya’s face. “Hey. I don’t think it’s ridiculous. What is it?”
Ilya swept the seeds from the bell peppers he was cutting into a little pile. “It was not meant to be a joke.”
Shane made a face. “Shit, I’m sorry. They’re daylilies. I thought maybe you were thinking of Boston Lily.”
“Oh!” Ilya felt his shoulders relax. He met Shane’s eye. “I didn’t know what they were, I just thought they were pretty.”
“They are. I really like them.” Shane kissed his cheek. “My boyfriend bought me flowers,” he said slowly, like he was trying out the words. He looked delighted. Ilya felt a smile tugging at his lips. Shane reached over and rubbed Ilya’s back. “Are you okay? I’m sorry it seemed like I was making fun of you.”
“It is not your fault.” Ilya wasn’t sure how to explain, so he just started talking, figuring it out as he went. “When I was little, it was hard for me to know what was masculine enough. My mother thought maybe hockey would….” He rolled up the small sleeve on his t-shirt and flexed his arm. Shane nodded. “So it got easier. Mm. Well. I got better at it.” He picked up the knife again to halve little jewel-like oval tomatoes. “But I wasn’t sure how you’d react, and I…I suppose I was a little bit scared.”
This made Shane look very distressed. “You were scared of me?”
“No, no!” Ilya closed the distance between their faces, kissing his forehead. “I was scared you might think it was weird that I thought a man would like flowers. Because I like them too. It was stupid. If I had thought about it, I would have known you would get it.”
“I think I do,” Shane agreed. “I don’t think about whether I’m being masculine enough all that often.” Ilya must have looked surprised, because Shane asked, “What? Do I have a thing?”
Ilya grimaced. “No. If I tell you, you might stop doing it.”
“That’s not fair!” Shane poked him. “Asshole.”
Ilya relented. “Sometimes, when you’re only talking to me, your voice isn’t as deep. And then if someone else comes in, you drop it.” Ilya stopped himself from telling Shane the lighter voice was very cute.
“Oh. Huh. I didn’t realize I still do that.” Shane looked thoughtful. “I knew I did it when I was a teenager. It was on purpose, then. I knew people weren’t going to think I was as masculine as most players either way, but I felt like I fit better.”
That was baffling. Ilya thought Shane was deliciously masculine. It sounded like it started before Shane thought he might not be straight, too. “Because of…?”
“Because of the Asian thing,” Shane said simply.
Ilya remembered a few things people had said and swore in Russian. He put the knife down and pinched the bridge of his nose, aggrieved. “I didn’t think I’d heard you be singled out, but now I see a pattern,” he said. “I apologize that you had to explain that to me.”
Dryly, Shane said, “I can see why it might get drowned out. Do you ever think that maybe hockey players suck?” His tone was only half-serious.
In the same tone, Ilya agreed. “It would be the best sport, if not for the people.”
They looked at each other for a moment. They went for the joke at the same time. “Suck each other’s—”
When they were done laughing so hard they had to lean on each other, Shane took the berries to the sink, and Ilya took the sashlik to the grill. Shane moved the daylilies to the table when they sat down to eat. Ilya tangled their feet together. “When you said we were going to relax here, I did not believe you.”
Shane nodded. “I wasn’t sure. But it makes me think we’re going to be okay.”
And the setting sun bathed them in amber and gold.