Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Shane Hollander Verses The Voyageurs
...Err, The Bears?

Ilya Rozanov loved playing against Shane Hollander almost as much as he loved fucking him.

Not that anyone in the arena would ever guess it from the way he drove Shane shoulder-first into the boards. He followed through on the check a second later, crashing in behind him with enough force to rattle the plexiglass under their combined weight.

Shane’s mouth opened on a sound that never quite made it out, swallowed by the sudden roar of the crowd as they all surged to their feet. Twenty thousand people turned toward the collision, already cheering, but Ilya barely registered it. 

The arena blurred into noise and motion, everything narrowing down to the way Shane’s body went still beneath him. The way he tensed, ready to push back—only for the fight to ease out of him when he realised who, exactly, had him pinned to the boards.

For a second, Ilya thought he might actually groan when Shane pushed back into his chest. He was pretty sure he was panting in Shane’s ear—though he could probably blame that on the brutal shifts.

He honestly had no idea how Shane was managing to keep up when Pelletier kept putting him out for shifts easily two or three times longer than everyone else’s. But even when he was tired and sore and pushed to the absolute edge of his endurance, Shane Hollander was still the most dangerous player on the ice.

And he belonged to Ilya.

The thought made him almost dizzy. Because Shane had belonged to him from the moment he'd caught those pretty brown eyes watching him from across the ice in Saskatchewan. When he’d recognised the way they flicked away every time he caught him—until, slowly, Shane had started holding his gaze longer, something challenging settling in them that had nothing to do with hockey.

And maybe it was just the thrill of chasing something he already knew was his, but Ilya couldn’t help the way his grip tightened as he pressed in a little harder. Shane’s spine arched under his forearm, still trying to throw him off, though Ilya couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing it on purpose.

Because, sure, their gear kept them from being pressed skin to skin. But the sight of that familiar body yielding to him—fuck—he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his expression from slipping into something that would give them both away.

He knew, of course he fucking knew, that he absolutely should not be letting himself fantasise about fucking Shane against the wall in this position later, when they both made their own way back to Shane’s Montréal apartment. Or, at the very least, he shouldn’t be thinking about it in the middle of a fucking grudge match.

And yet, for a single heartbeat, it was all he could think about as the world narrowed to the familiar shape of Shane’s body trapped under his. And maybe he held Shane against the boards for a moment longer than he needed to—just to feel the subtle way Shane leaned into him.

Some that felt an awful lot like triumph flared in his chest. Because after chasing Shane across the ice during every shift they’d shared, Ilya had finally caught him—and an absolutely insane part of him never wanted to let him go.

But he knew the cameras were on them. Somewhere in the crowd—or high above it—their lenses were already zooming in to capture the moment for viewers at home, with no idea what was actually happening right in front of them.

Ilya could almost imagine the commentators leaning forward in their booths, already framing the collision as yet another brutal chapter in the rivalry between the captains of the Montréal Voyageurs and the Boston Bears.

“Did you hear that?” Ilya asked as another whistle cut through the roar of the crowd.

He leaned in anyway, pressing his visor against the damp fabric at Shane’s shoulder, and felt the shiver that ran through him in response. “Are you putting on a show for them, Hollander?” He murmured, unable to keep the grin out of his voice when he felt the sharp inhale Shane tried to swallow down. “Or just for me?”

The crowd was still roaring, their voices a wall of sound that turned deafening as Shane got his skates back under him.

“Don’t be a dick,” Shane shot back, shoving at him hard enough to knock him off balance.

Ilya laughed when he stumbled, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the crowd. Their helmets knocked together as Shane turned, shrugging off Ilya’s forearm now that he wasn’t pinned anymore. And there it was—that look. Those dark eyes that always got under Ilya’s skin in ways he tried very hard not to think about during games.

Their visors scraped together as they fought for the puck, the sound absurdly intimate for what they usually allowed on the ice, and Ilya knew he should probably back off. They were trapped against the boards now, the puck jumping uselessly between their skates with no room for either of them to break free without giving up possession first.

He knew he was risking Montréal’s referees calling him out for interference or roughing or whatever else they decided to invent tonight. But Shane was still glaring at him like he wanted to start a fight, and Ilya had never once been smart around the things he wanted.

So instead, he leaned in closer and smiled where only Shane could see it. “You skate slow today, captain,” he murmured, his accent thicker than usual. “Maybe still tired from last night.” His hand tightened against Shane’s hip before he finally let go. “Should I take it easy on you?”

Shane huffed out a breathless laugh, his shoulders shifting as his eyes darted across the ice, searching for someone he could make a pass to. But there was no one close enough for that play to work.

There rarely was, Ilya thought. The Voyageurs had a bad habit of leaving a wide gap around their captain, leaving him open to cheap hits even when he was the only one generating an offence for them. Shane was often alone on the ice, and even if he kept trying to minimise it, Ilya knew that behaviour had started bleeding into their locker room as well.

“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Shane muttered, though the twitch of his lips betrayed his amusement.

Before Ilya could stop himself, his gloved hand slid back to Shane’s hip, pulling him in again. He felt the tremor in Shane’s breath and, for one stupid second, almost forgot where they were.

“Ah. You need reminding how to be a good boy, dayes?” Ilya said, his lips curving into a mocking smile. “You forget how to behave when you play against the Bears. So aggressive today, solnyshkosunshine.” His gaze flicked briefly to Shane’s mouth before returning to his eyes. “Is very attractive.”

“Ilya,” Shane warned, already flushed beneath the visor.

Ilya wondered, sometimes, how thousands of people could watch them circle each other like this every game and still never understand what they were seeing. “You should be told how pretty you are more often,” he murmured. “You're very pretty when you blush.”

“Ilya,” Shane repeated, though the warning in it softened when Ilya smiled at him again.

Ilya followed Shane’s gaze as it darted across the ice, and he frowned when he noticed the Voyageurs had left that same gap around their captain again. They’d drifted too far ahead on the rush instead of giving him any real support to work with, and it left Shane stranded with no passing lane.

It also, ironically, left him completely defenceless against Ilya’s flirting. None of the Voyageurs even realised what Ilya was doing, because none of them were close enough to fucking stop him.

“Your team should be playing with you,” he muttered, unable to keep the growl from his voice as he glared toward Olsson and Berkes. Both of them rolling their eyes at something Drapeau had just bitten out, mostly under his breath, but it was still loud enough for a few of the Voyageurs nearby to laugh.

The way they all looked at Shane after carried that same ugly, familiar edge as the rest of the bullshit Shane kept pretending didn’t bother him.

“Your shifts are longer than theirs,” Ilya continued, his gaze narrowing slightly, “but they look like they’re the ones struggling to keep up?” He exhaled sharply, the next words coming out in Russian. “Tvoya komanda—yobanaya shutka, solnyshko. Ty yedinstvennoye khorosheye, chto u nikh yest’, a oni etogo dazhe, blyad’, ne vidyatYour team is a fucking joke, sunshine. You are the only good thing they have, and they don’t even fucking see it.”

His jaw tightened as he watched them again, tracking the lazy positioning, the missed reads, the way they left Shane to cover for mistakes that should never have existed on a team that had won three Stanley Cups in the last ten years. It made something ugly coil in his chest, because they weren’t just failing Shane. They were acting like he was the problem, when they were the only ones who’d apparently forgotten what Shane had done for their fucking team.

Didn’t they understand what his name meant? Or how many teams would kill for the chance to steal him from Montréal?

“Works out better for the Bears if they keep acting like idiots,” Shane said, snorting when Ilya huffed under his breath.

His expression only twisted into something more annoyed when, somewhere in the lower bowl, someone let out a loud, piercing wolf whistle. The sound cut through the arena, sharp enough to drag Ilya’s attention outward.

Another whistle echoed it almost immediately, this time from one of the referees, who was already skating toward them. “Keep it moving!” He barked, his narrowed gaze flicking between the eighty-one and twenty-four stitched across their jerseys.

He looked unimpressed, but laughter rippled through the crowd as they cheered. No doubt thinking it might turn into a fight between the rival captains.

“Either separate or we’re resetting at the dot.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed at the referee, irritation flashing across his face. And Ilya’s grip tightened again, reluctant to let Shane go even with the warning. A dozen excuses flickered through his mind and burned out just as fast, because—fuck it—he wanted Shane closer. He wanted to lean in and kiss him against the glass. Wanted to let the world see exactly what it was cheering for.

“Rozanov!” The referee warned.

Ilya sighed in annoyance.

“You’re gonna get us both a penalty,” Shane muttered, knocking his shoulder into Ilya’s.

There was something in Shane’s expression that made Ilya’s pulse stutter in his throat, only to begin racing twice as fast immediately after. There was always something reckless about him on the ice, something that pushed back just as hard as Ilya did when anyone else would have backed down. And how could Ilya not want to—

Shane grunted as he tried to pin Ilya’s stick against the boards and kick the puck free. “Oh, c’mon,” he muttered when Ilya rolled his wrist, keeping the puck trapped between his stick and the boards no matter how Shane tried to pry it loose.

Ilya leaned harder into Shane’s shoulder, skates planted firmly against the ice as a grin pulled at his mouth. God, he was beautiful like this. Frustrated and flushed and glaring at him like he was also trying very hard to remember they were in the middle of a game.

“You are very pretty when you’re desperate, Hollander,” Ilya murmured, his voice low enough that no one else would hear it over the noise of the arena. “Is not bad thing to lose to the Bears. Many teams do.” He felt Shane shove harder against him in response and only smiled wider. “Do not worry, solnyshkosunshine. I will, ah—make it up to you later. DaYes?”

“Behave, Ilya,” Shane said, his eyes flicking toward the referee, who already had his whistle poised between his lips. “And fuck you. We’re in the fucking lead.”

Ilya followed the glance for half a second, then looked back at Shane. If they’d been anywhere else, he was pretty sure he would’ve dropped to his knees right there just to hear Shane say his name again.

“Hm,” he murmured, pressing his shoulder harder into Shane’s when Shane tried to dig the puck free again, refusing to give him even an inch. “Make me,” he said, right before he drove Shane straight back into the plexiglass.

The impact tore through both of them, skates biting into the ice as Shane’s breath hitched—and yes, maybe Ilya had timed it exactly for that. The puck was knocked loose somewhere between them, momentarily forgotten as their bodies pressed closer than the play strictly required.

“Ugh, fuck you,” Shane muttered, the sound dropping low in his throat.

And Ilya—fuck—how the fuck was he supposed to focus after hearing that? The only other time Shane’s voice sounded that wrecked was when Ilya was fucking into him. When Shane was already all flushed and shaking beneath him, making all those helpless little sounds like he couldn’t hold them back anymore.

The thought of anyone else hearing him like that made something possessive twist in Ilya’s chest. No one else was supposed to get that version of Shane. It was his. And the instinct to hoard it, to keep it locked away somewhere no one else could touch it, hit him hard enough that Ilya’s grip tightened around his stick for a second.

But it was swallowed almost immediately by the memory of the last time Ilya had heard that sound. Which had only been last night, but that just meant the memory was still fresh enough that he could almost feel Shane’s skin against his instead of the layers of gear separating them now.

For one perfect, agonising second, Ilya remembered having his hands on Shane’s hips instead of the stick clenched beneath his gloves. He could almost hear the way Shane’s voice had kept catching every time Ilya fucked his tongue into him. And, if he let himself think about it any longer, he’d start remembering the way Shane’s thighs had trembled beneath his hands. The way he’d thrown his head back with a sound so desperate that Ilya had nearly come right there on his knees.

Ilya swallowed hard, almost certain the ache still lingering in his throat came from the way Shane had fucked himself into it. It was—fuck—he was letting himself get distracted again, wasn’t he?

But it was difficult not to when Shane moved like that. When Ilya could still remember the way Shane had clung to him when Ilya finally fucked him, the way he’d arched into every thrust, impatient and demanding and so fucking beautiful about it that Ilya had barely been able to think straight then either.

The memory flashed behind Ilya’s eyes so vividly he nearly groaned out loud, barely managing to catch himself at the last second. “Later,” he muttered under his breath, only to get distracted all over again when Shane made another frustrated sound against the boards.

Fuck. He had to be doing it on purpose, right?

“I swear you do this on purpose,” Shane hissed through clenched teeth, looking as distracted as Ilya felt.

The crowd erupted into cheers a moment later, the sound crashing back into Ilya all at once. It hit almost as hard as the plexiglass still rattling beneath his shoulder and, for a split second, everything seemed to blur together.

He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing from his ears when Shane—who Ilya was becoming increasingly convinced had been put on this earth specifically to make him lose his fucking mind—used the opening to break free.

Ilya refused to be impressed by the move, but he couldn’t help thinking—of course he’d turn getting pinned into the boards into a fucking zone entry. He watched him twist away with a sharp roll of his hips, the puck hooked to his blade as he tore down the ice like Ilya had never had him pinned at all.

All Ilya could do was stare after him, briefly stunned by the sheer audacity of Shane getting him all worked up like this only to skate away like a fucking coward.

“BlyatFuck,” he groaned, already pushing off to chase after him.

He closed the gap in four hard strides, the muscles in his legs burning as he cut straight through the lane Shane had just opened up. There was barely enough room to slip his stick beneath Shane’s, but he still managed to steal the puck clean off his blade with a quick, arrogant little flick.

Their sticks cracked together when Shane tried to block the lift, the puck jumping loose between them. Satisfaction flared in Ilya’s chest as it slid directly into his path, and he saw the play unfold in his head before he’d even fully reached it.

Cliff was close enough to take the pass, which meant Ilya could use him to create some space between Shane and the puck and force Montréal back on the defensive. And maybe, finally, they’d break the suffocating pressure that had kept Boston down three to one.

His skates bit hard into the ice as he turned with the puck, already tracking the movement of everyone around him as he mapped out the ice. Victor was open near the far boards. And Luke was staying close to Brad by the net, trying to reinforce their defence before Montréal could collapse on them again. He could probably—

Shane slammed into him with a brutal pivot before the thought could finish forming. The hit went straight through him as Shane’s shoulder drove into his side, forcing him off balance while Shane stole the puck right off his stick.

The impact forced all the air straight out of Ilya’s lungs for one breathless second—and no, the hitch in his chest after had absolutely nothing to do with how fucking pretty Shane looked when he grinned at him.

“You’re getting slow, Rozanov,” Shane taunted, close enough now that the words seemed to press directly against the pulse in Ilya’s throat. “Maybe you’re the one who needs to take it easy after last night.”

And then he was gone again, before Ilya could even process what the fuck had just happened.

Shane still had that grin pulling at the corner of his mouth when he glanced back over his shoulder, his dark eyes bright beneath his visor. He was moving the puck back up the ice like he’d seen the play unfolding three moves ahead and had simply chosen the version where he won. Which—fuck—he probably had.

Ilya snarled under his breath and pushed off hard, his legs screaming in protest as he chased after him again. That look should have earned Shane a fucking penalty. There had to be a rule somewhere against deliberately distracting the opposing captain in the middle of a fucking game.

Though, Ilya admitted distantly, his team would probably laugh him out of the locker room if he ever said any of that out loud. But there was no other explanation for the calculated misuse of those eyelashes and that infuriating fucking mouth. All of it carefully folded beneath the near-perfect mask of Captain Hollander™ that the rest of the league apparently took at face value.

Probably, Ilya thought, because they were all fucking idiots.

The restraint Shane showed on the ice was almost a crime in itself. The way he kept his expression locked down, like nothing ever got to him, while his eyes still lit up the second someone actually challenged him instead of just trying to survive a shift against him. The fact that a part of Ilya could only admire that level of control only made it worse.

“Ugh, why is it always fucking Hollander?” Marcus groaned from behind him as the Bears tried to force the play.

Ice sprayed under their skates as the Voyageurs finally seemed to remember they were meant to be playing hockey, not just standing around watching their captain do everything himself. They moved to intercept the Bears so Shane could make a clean break through the neutral zone—but there were too many bodies scrambling to close the gap now.

Victor went down hard from an elbow to the jaw. And Luke, somehow, managed to trip both himself and Berkes as they collided trying to recover. It all collapsed into a mass pileup near the blue line, but Ilya refused to let any of that stop him.

He vaulted cleanly over Berkes, who was still sprawled on the ice beside a laughing Luke, and drove his shoulder straight into Drapeau on the way past. The hit sent him crashing sideways into Hayden Pike, hard enough that both of them slammed awkwardly into the boards.

Even the Jumbotron flashing Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander in giant block letters didn’t pull his focus away. Though somewhere, distantly, he registered that the screen was replaying their second hit against the boards from three different angles, and that the crowd was roaring loud enough to rattle the glass.

All Ilya could see was the puck just ahead of Shane’s stick. The way his stride lengthened, edges biting into the ice as he cut around Marcus’s attempt to block him. He carried the momentum straight toward Brad in net without even glancing over his shoulder to check who was chasing him.

That, more than anything, made Ilya want to catch him. To drag his teeth over the tense muscle at the back of Shane’s neck and bite down hard enough to make him gasp. He probably would have last night, if Shane hadn’t been so worried about his team questioning the marks Ilya left behind.

And look—Ilya knew he’d been distracted for most, if not all, of the game. But he still should have noticed Cliff cutting straight toward them through the narrow gap in the Voyageurs’ defence, jaw clenched like he already knew this was going to be an ugly hit before he committed to it.

And Ilya definitely should have seen the way Gilbert Comeau’s eyes had locked onto Shane from the moment he stepped onto the ice. He’d only just come off the bench, taking over the shift from Olsson, but his blades were already biting hard as he drove straight toward them.

Fuck, Ilya thought, dragging the word out in his head as he realised all four of them were about to collide. Well—maybe it would just be three of them, actually. Cliff was still in the neutral zone, while Comeau was nearly on top of them by the time Ilya finally understood what was about to happen.

Ilya should have been bracing for the hit. He should have either stepped back to avoid it entirely or turned to take the impact on his shoulder, hoping his pads would take the worst of it. But there was something about the way Comeau’s eyes stayed locked on Shane instead of the puck that sent something cold down his spine.

There was no time to call out a warning by the time he finally realised that Comeau wasn’t aiming to intercept the play. No. He was heading straight for his own fucking captain.

And Ilya knew it wasn’t his place to interfere in another team’s internal bullshit, especially when it might give Boston the chance to even the scoreboard. Besides, Shane had taken worse checks before. Hell, he’d probably taken worse hits from Ilya himself.

He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t his team. Shane wouldn’t even want him to—

Ah, fuck it.

Ilya moved without thinking, the muscles in his legs screaming as he forced himself to close the remaining distance between them. There was a split second where he thought he wouldn’t make it. Comeau was too close, too fast out of the gate compared to Ilya lagging at the end of his shift. But he refused to be outpaced by a second-rate asshole like Comeau.

He dropped his shoulder and drove his whole body into Shane from behind, the impact knocking them both off balance as the puck skidded toward the boards.

Shane managed to stay upright, shooting Ilya an annoyed look over his shoulder as Brad dove headfirst for the puck. Which was—great, actually. The Bears needed a goal badly enough that even Brad had apparently decided abandoning the net was preferable to facing another one of Shane’s impossible-to-read shots.

Ilya caught himself a moment later, his skates biting hard into the ice—

And everything was fine. It was.

—right up until Comeau hit him at full speed.

The boards cracked when they collided with them, and Ilya had just enough time to think—absurdly—that maybe the padding would still take the worst of it, even if he hadn’t had time to prepare properly. But he knew the second Comeau hit him that they hadn’t absorbed enough to stop the impact from going straight to his ribs.

Pain tore down his left side from where he’d hit the boards. It folded him in on himself, legs giving out beneath him before he could even try to catch himself. And maybe he would have groaned, but the air had been punched out of his lungs all at once. When he tried to drag it back in, there was nothing—just a soundless grunt where a curse of Comeau’s name should have been.

His lungs kept trying to inhale anyway. Panic followed fast when they failed, rising up from his chest until it caught at the back of his throat. He forced himself to focus, to think past the pain and remember that it was just the shock of the hit. He’d taken worse before. The adrenaline would kick in at any second now and have him back on his feet—he just needed to remember how to breathe first.

On the ice, Ilya’s lungs finally expanded as air rushed back in to fill them.

He groaned, maybe a little in relief, but mostly because he was annoyed that Comeau, of all fucking people, had managed to knock him flat on his ass. He pulled in another shallow breath through clenched teeth but didn’t try to move yet. Maybe the ice would numb the ache in his ribs long enough for him to figure out whether he’d broken them or just bruised them. Then he could—

“Fucking asshole,” Comeau’s voice came from somewhere above him.

Ilya rolled his eyes. He just knew that bastard was going to be smug about this.

He turned his head slightly as Comeau skated backward, probably just so he could keep staring down at Ilya sprawled out on the ice. Comeau’s smirk pulled awkwardly at the split in his lip, probably from the collision—there was blood staining his teeth right before he spat a mouthful of it onto the ice beside Ilya’s shoulder.

“Stay down there where you fucking belong,” Comeau sneered, before adding a mangled, mocking attempt at Russian. “Russkiy skuaRussian bird.”

And fuck—his accent was atrocious. He’d also just called Ilya a fucking bird when he was clearly aiming for sukabitch, which honestly wasn’t even close to the worst thing Ilya had ever been called, on or off the ice. Still, he opened his mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, but the only thing that came out was a rough, breathless laugh.

Ilya kept laughing until the pain in his side forced it out of him. And even then, it didn’t stop completely, just broke into breathless chuckles as he wrapped an arm across his chest to hold his ribs. It didn’t help much, but it felt better than not holding them at all.

“Can’t win in a fair game, so you play dirty?” Ilya tsked softly. “When was the last time you scored, Comeau?” He added, even though they both knew the answer was a lucky shot Comeau had made two seasons ago. “Or even got an assist? No?”

Ilya blinked slowly, feigning surprise as a grin pulled at his mouth. “Ah, do not feel too bad, sukabitch. Many players spend their whole careers trying to keep up with me.”

“Man, fuck you!” Comeau snapped.

Ilya rolled his eyes again, ignoring the way it made the world spin. Comeau could lie to himself all he wanted, but the hit had been dirty. The Boston crowd certainly seemed to agree, their boos rolling down from the stands, while the Montréal fans laughed at the sight of Ilya Rozanov dropped by one of their own.

He couldn’t even be annoyed at them for it. It was an away game, and the referees might as well have been skating in Montréal colours instead of stripes. No one in this arena was calling anything in Boston’s favour unless they absolutely had to. So no, he wasn’t expecting a raised arm or a whistle calling a penalty on Comeau.

Montréal might like to pretend they were above that sort of bias, always talking about honour and leading by example—but everyone knew they played just as dirty as everyone else in the league once the puck dropped. Ilya might have been able to respect them more if they at least owned up to it, but the only thing worthy of respect on their piece-of-shit team was their captain.

Ilya closed his eyes at that thought and finally let the relief settle beneath the ache in his ribs, because at least it hadn’t been Shane who'd been hurt.

“Comeau, you fuckin’ bastard,” Cliff roared from somewhere behind him, still skating toward them. Fury had twisted his expression into something that might have been terrifying, if only Ilya hadn’t spent years watching him act like a lovesick fool around his, admittedly terrifying, wife.

Ilya turned his head to look at him, and maybe he would have called out to tell him Comeau wasn’t worth the fine, but he was distracted by the sight of Ryan Carmichael vaulting over the boards to join Victor in squaring up to JJ Boiziau against the boards. One of the rookies scrambled after them a second later, the rest of the Bears moving all stepping out onto ice too—all of them looking like they’d just been waiting for a reason to drop their gloves.

For half a second, Comeau went pale. But it vanished just as quickly, replaced by that same stubborn lift of his chin. Because everyone, Comeau included, expected someone to get hit after a play like that.

But no one expected it to come from Shane Hollander. Captain of the Montréal Voyageurs.

One second he was just standing there, jaw tight, dark eyes locked on Comeau. And then—his hand twisted into the front of Comeau’s jersey, yanking him forward with enough force to throw him off balance as he drove a punch straight into his jaw.

Comeau’s head snapped sideways, surprise wiping the smug look off his face as his skates went out from under him. Shane let go immediately, refusing to give him the dignity of holding him up after a hit like that. He watched him hit the ice with something like satisfaction in his eyes.

And Ilya found himself—well, stunned mostly. He searched Shane’s face for even the slightest flicker of regret or doubt, but there was none.

Oh, he thought, with the sudden, alarming realisation that—Shane was pissed. And not in the careful, controlled way he usually allowed himself to be, when he gave tight smiles and clipped answers to reporters who asked the same stupid questions in every post-game interview. No, this was more honest than anything else he’d ever allowed himself to show in public.

For a single, disorienting second, relief hit Ilya so hard it almost turned into laughter. Because Shane was finally angry. After months of holding it back when his teammates pushed too far in ways he pretended not to notice, he finally looked offended by it. No, he looked outraged. Like Comeau had crossed a line Shane had finally stopped trying to excuse.

It—probably shouldn’t have felt like a victory. But Ilya couldn’t stop the fierce, aching swell of affection that rose in his chest at the sight of Shane standing there, flushed with anger, glaring like he wanted to fight the entire world for daring to touch something that belonged to him.

“What the fuck is your problem, Comeau?” Shane snarled as Comeau stared up at him, eyes wide as he cupped his jaw.

Hands grabbed at Shane from behind as the Voyageurs’ defensemen tried to pull him back. Ilya could see the surprise on their faces when Shane didn’t move, even with three of them holding onto his arms and the back of his jersey, the fabric pulled taut as they tried to drag him away.

Everyone always seemed to forget that Shane might choose not to fight, but he was still over six feet and could throw a punch as well as any other professional hockey player.

Ilya’s eyes flicked back to Shane’s face. He looked calm enough, but his chest was rising and falling hard, pulling in sharp breaths around the mouthguard clenched between his teeth. His hand was trembling slightly now, still clenched at his side, but his eyes never left Comeau—not even when Hayden Pike forced his way through the other players and grabbed Shane’s shoulder, shaking it like he was trying to snap him out of whatever fury had taken hold of him.

“Shane, man—c’mon,” Hayden said, almost pleading.

“No,” Shane said, still glaring at Comeau.

He spat his mouthguard into his hand, his top lip curling back into a snarl that showed off all of his perfect teeth that had never once been knocked out and replaced after a fight—unlike Ilya, who had four veneers and was fucking proud of it. If either of them should have been fighting right now, it was him. Shane’s face was too pretty for Comeau to ruin. Not that he was doing much damage sprawled out on the ice.

“That was a dirty hit,” Shane said, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the noise pouring down from the stands. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

Comeau coughed, blood splattering onto the ice as he turned onto his side, groaning as a piece of enamel bounced against the surface before skittering off toward the boards.

And Ilya—should probably not have been as turned on as he currently was. But there was something very attractive about the way Shane looked standing over Comeau, willing to throw himself into a fight he barely knew how to finish just because someone had touched Ilya first.

His hair was damp with sweat beneath his helmet, curls sticking out at the edges, and his whole body was wound tight with adrenaline in a way Ilya recognised instantly. Shane looked dangerous like this, he thought. It wasn’t the carefully charming, media-trained version of him everyone knew. No, this was an angry, pissed-off version that had forgotten to worry about the consequences for one beautiful, stupid moment.

And fuck—Ilya loved him so much his chest didn’t feel big enough to hold it all.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Comeau spat at Shane as he tried to get his feet under him. One glove was pressed flat to his mouth as he pushed himself upright, only for his blades to slip out from under him again. “You down that bad for Rozanov you’re throwing punches for him now? Too busy sitting on his dick to remember what fucking team you play for, Hollander?”

“The fuck is wrong with your team, Hollander?” Ilya snapped before he could stop himself, glaring at Comeau as he tried to sit up. “They can’t even come up with good enough insults, they have to—”

“Sit the fuck down,” Shane said.

He wasn’t even looking at him when he said it, but Ilya dropped back onto the ice immediately anyway, biting down on the grin threatening to break across his face. Because Shane Hollander had just told him to stay down like he expected to be listened to, and Ilya obeyed without thinking about it for even a second. It was, ah—it was maybe a problem, but not one he particularly cared about dealing with right now.

Shane turned back toward Comeau just as the Montréal players trying to restrain him loosened their grip. Ilya probably could have warned them that was a bad idea, but then he wouldn’t have gotten the satisfaction of watching Shane punch Comeau again.

Comeau hit the ice hard for a second time, sprawling backward while one of the Voyageurs nearby made a choking sound that was definitely a laugh, before slapping a gloved hand over his mouth like he could somehow take it back.

“You’re a fucking embarrassment,” Shane told Comeau, finally stepping away. His shoulders stayed tight, his gloved hands flexing like he wanted to swing again. “Stay the fuck down before I put you there again, connardasshole.”

Fuck. Ilya was going to be thinking about this moment for the rest of his life. He hoped one of the fans had managed to get a good angle of the ice so he could rewatch it later—just so he could see the way Shane’s eyes flashed as he shrugged off the hands still grabbing at him, even shoving past Hayden when he tried to steer him farther away from Comeau.

Ilya watched, half-stunned and half-deliriously in love, as Shane skated away from the Voyageurs players gathered around the fight. He ignored the referee shouting after him about penalties, even ignoring Coach Pelletier yelling from Montréal’s bench. Instead, Shane took a single deep breath and turned toward him, skating straight in Ilya’s direction like there had never been another possible decision he could have made in that moment.

The Bears didn’t even try to stop him. They looked almost as shocked as everyone else that it was Shane Hollander™ dropping his gloves for their captain. Which, Ilya thought, was fair. Shane was famous for not fighting, and almost equally famous for his rivalry with Ilya.

Their surprise made sense, but it still wasn’t going to stop Ilya from mocking them for it later.

The entire arena seemed to inhale at once as Shane dropped to one knee beside him on the ice. His hands were braced against his thighs to steady himself, and he was close enough now that Ilya was almost certain he could smell the adrenaline still clinging to him.

He watched Shane’s fingers curl tighter against his own thighs, digging in hard like he was stopping himself from reaching out. Ilya knew he wouldn’t, because there were twenty thousand people watching them and a dozen cameras pointed at them from every fucking angle. Only—fuck it—Ilya didn’t care about that anymore.

His gaze dragged slowly over Shane, even though he knew Shane hadn’t been caught in the collision. Just like he knew the only person who’d managed to bruise Shane tonight had been Ilya himself—but he still had the irrational urge to check him over anyway.

Shane was fine, thankfully, which should have been reassuring enough to keep Ilya’s attention where it belonged. Instead, his gaze drifted down to the way the muscles of Shane’s thighs flexed as he shifted his weight. The Montréal kit was offensively tight around his legs—not even in a flattering way, either. Montréal somehow managed to make every player look vaguely miserable, like the jerseys themselves were punishing them for historical success.

But Shane’s thighs still looked unfairly good in them. All strong lines and controlled power and—fuck—they were so fucking beautiful they should have been illegal, even when they were hidden beneath Montréal’s ugly excuse for a kit. Which Ilya was convinced was the worst in the league, second only to the monstrosity of the Ottawa Centaurs’ logo.

Ilya’s thoughts derailed immediately after that—all he could think about was how those thighs would look wrapped around his waist. How they’d feel trembling beneath his hands. How easy it would be to pull Shane over him, settle him into his lap, and hold onto him while he kissed him and told him just how fucking beautiful he’d looked defending him like that.

“You good, Rozanov?” Shane asked, oblivious to every thought in Ilya’s head as he tugged one glove off with his teeth, then the other, his eyes never leaving Ilya’s face.

Ilya felt his mouth finally give in to the grin he’d been fighting since Shane told him to sit down. “Ah,” he said, his gaze catching on Shane’s swollen knuckles. “M’fine.”

Over Shane’s shoulder, the medics were already grabbing a bag and hauling themselves over the Boston side of the boards, but Ilya shot them a quick look and shook his head. They frowned, lowering the bag slowly, though the concern didn’t leave their faces.

Ilya resisted the urge to snort. His ribs still ached with every inhale, but it hardly felt important enough to stall the game like this. Though, he thought, he’d happily play it up if it meant Shane would keep looking at him like that.

“IlyushaIlya,” Shane said softly. “Don’t lie to me.”

Ilya’s smile slipped into something crooked. “Did you miss me, solnyshkosunshine?” He asked, leaning into Shane’s space. “Ah. I know, is okay. I’m very irresistible.” His grin widened slightly. “Even your team misses me so much Comeau tried to pin me down.”

Shane’s eyes flicked between Ilya’s before he finally seemed to realise the game Ilya was playing. He exhaled through his nose, his mouth settling into that familiar, irritated line as he rolled his eyes. “You’re such an asshole,” he muttered, but his voice was relieved.

Ilya watched Shane’s shoulders finally drop, the concern he’d been wearing so openly a moment ago folding itself neatly back beneath the mask of Captain Hollander. That was okay, Ilya thought. What wasn’t okay was when Shane’s hands braced to push himself back up, his thighs tensing as all those thick, beautiful muscles prepared to stand.

Ilya’s hand shot out before he thought it through, closing around the ankle of Shane’s skate. “Ostan’sya so mnoyStay with me,” he said in Russian. “Khotya by na mgnoveniye, solnyshkoJust for a moment, sunshine,” he added pathetically. “Mne, ah—nuzhno perevesti dykhaniyeI, ah—need to catch my breath?”

“Your breathing’s fine,” Shane said.

“Is not true. I am dying, no?” Ilya said, tilting his head back against the ice with an exaggerated groan of pain. “You must defend me from all of those bloodthirsty Voyageurs. That is your job, isn’t it—captain?” He tugged lightly on Shane’s skate, smiling when Shane shook his head and let out a sound that was almost a laugh.

“You’re going to get us caught one of these days,” Shane murmured as he dropped down onto the ice beside him. He had one leg bent underneath him, so his left skate pressed against the outside of Ilya’s thigh, and Ilya smiled. Because maybe he still couldn’t convince Shane to hold his hand in public, but he would take this instead.

“Hm.” He let his eyes close. “DaYes. Much better.”

He distantly registered the noise from the crowd starting to pick up again, and realised with faint amusement how absurd this must look to them. He could hear the Montréal side becoming unsettled somewhere to his left, their angry voices too distant to make out clearly. But the Boston side was louder, laughing as they chanted Shane’s name like they’d decided Shane belonged to them instead.

“Your name sounds better in black and gold,” Ilya murmured.

“You’re in your away kit, Ilya,” Shane scoffed. “You’re wearing fucking white.”

Ilya opened one eye just in time to catch Shane glancing toward the crowd behind the glass. The Boston fans were openly grinning now, some of them pounding hard enough against the glass to make it rattle. And they were still chanting Shane’s name with the kind of uncomplicated affection they usually reserved for their own players.

Shane looked genuinely confused by it, like he didn’t know what to do with all that attention. Because Montréal had apparently spent so long teaching him how to survive being watched that he no longer recognised what it looked like to simply be wanted.

“Hey. Keep those eyes open, Rozanov,” Shane snapped, nudging Ilya’s thigh with his skate when he closed his eyes again. “You close them and they’ll call concussion protocol. They’ll probably end up benching you for the rest of the game, which—fine. I hear the bench is pretty comfortable this time of year. Lots of warm towels. No Voyageurs.”

Shane frowned then, turning toward the Boston bench with growing irritation. His gaze swept across it like he expected someone to appear out of nowhere with a flashlight and a concussion protocol clipboard. “Where the fuck are your medics?” He muttered under his breath.

For a second, Ilya couldn’t understand why Shane suddenly looked so furious with the entire Bears medical staff. But then it clicked—

“SolnyshkoSunshine,” he said carefully. “I didn’t hit my head.”

“You don’t know that,” Shane shot back immediately. “You just—”

“I’m fine,” Ilya interrupted. “Shane, look at me,” he added, waiting until Shane’s eyes actually settled on him instead of darting back toward the Boston bench. “I’m fine,” he repeated, slower this time.

Under different circumstances, Ilya might have laughed. Or teased him for the little crease forming between his eyebrows. He might even have let Shane fuss over him for a while, just to see how long it took him to realize Ilya was fine and only wanted his attention.

But he could hear the fear hidden underneath the sarcasm now. He’d grown up around enough of it to recognise the sound of someone pretending to be calm while panic clawed at their insides.

“I promise,” Ilya said. “I’m not concussed. Just sore.” He gestured vaguely toward his ribs, then instantly regretted it when the movement pulled at his side. He hissed through his teeth before forcing himself to relax again, and it was only then that his own words caught up with him. “Ah—do not tell the Voyageurs, solnyshkosunshine,” he added quickly, frowning. “They are filthy cheats who will try to steal the game from us.”

Shane arched a brow at him. “Uh—are you forgetting that we’re already ahead in points?”

Ilya snorted, despite knowing it was going to fucking hurt. “Hm. But Shane Hollander is the only person who can score on the Voyageurs. He already got three goals all by himself—and he will be stuck in the penalty box now.” He let himself grin fully then, teeth flashing. “I think this game is ours, Hollander.”

“You wish,” Shane muttered.

Some of the tension finally started to drain from his shoulders. But he still looked down at his hands instead of at Ilya’s face when he spoke again. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t—I know you can look after yourself, I just—” He shrugged awkwardly. “Worry, I guess.”

Ilya nodded slowly. “Mne tozheMe too,” he whispered.

The words slipped out before he could stop them, quiet enough that they should have disappeared beneath the noise of the arena. But Shane must have heard them anyway, because his eyes snapped back to Ilya immediately—open and searching in a way that made something ridiculously warm unfurl in Ilya’s chest.

For a second, he forgot how to breathe properly. But then he cleared his throat and forced himself to look away first. “Ah. Your punch was very good,” he said, because it was either that or accidentally confess his feelings in the middle of an NHL game, when they had both agreed, years ago, that coming out was a Bad Idea™.

It had been true at the time, and probably still was. But watching Shane throw a punch for him might have been one of the most romantic things Ilya had ever experienced.

Maybe one day, he thought, glancing back just in time to catch the slight tilt of Shane’s head.

“Which one?” Shane asked, his mouth pulling into a smile now. “I thought the second one was a bit sloppy.”

“Maybe,” Ilya admitted, before switching back into Russian. “No my mozhem porabotat’ nad etim etim letom na dacheBut we can work on that this summer at the cottage.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “You just want an excuse to get me under you again,” he muttered under his breath.

“DaYes,” Ilya replied immediately. “It is a stupid thing to even question, Hollander.”

Shane bit hard against the inside of his cheek, his shoulders shaking slightly as he tried not to laugh out loud, and Ilya found himself watching him instead of the ice. Which was stupid, probably. But it felt natural now, looking for Shane first. Like some part of him had quietly rearranged itself around the expectation of finding Shane looking back.

“Ty tam tak khorosho vyglyadelYou looked so good out there,” Ilya heard himself murmur, the words slipping into Russian halfway through without him meaning them to.

Shane blinked at him, visibly caught off guard by the comment. His face was still pink from the fight, his visor shoved crooked halfway up his helmet, breathing hard enough that Ilya kept getting distracted by the shape of his mouth every time he exhaled.

“Pravda, ah—Though, ah—” Ilya smiled helplessly. “Mozhet, tebye stoit ostavit’ draki mne, yesli khot’ odin iz nas khochet zavtra vybrat’sya iz posteliMaybe you should leave the fighting to me, if either of us wants to get out of bed tomorrow.”

Shane ducked his head slightly, his mouth twitching as the flush spread higher across his cheeks. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to reinforce bad behavior,” he mumbled.

Ilya watched him glance away, still smiling despite himself, and a sudden, ridiculous rush of affection hit him so hard it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs all over again.

“You know,” Shane added as he looked back at him, “it’s really not fair when you talk in Russian to me.” He laughed quietly under his breath, shaking his head. “Especially when we’re in public and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

Ilya laughed before he could stop himself.

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane said, though he was still grinning as he nudged Ilya’s thigh again with his skate. “I hope they do bench you.”

“You have no chance of benching me this season,” Ilya said. “Like fuck I’m letting you take the Stanley Cup home.” His mouth twitched faintly. “Or leaving you alone with those idiots you call teammates.”

“They’re not that bad,” Shane said, looking away from him again.

“SolnyshkoSunshine—”

“Hollander!” Cliff’s voice cut across him before Ilya could finish. He turned to watch him skating toward them, and Shane looked over too—but only when Cliff stopped beside them with a spray of ice. “Hey,” he said, grinning down at them. “You realise you’re not supposed to hit your own players, right?”

For a second, Ilya thought Shane might not answer him at all. His attention had already snapped toward the movement near the boards, where Hayden and JJ were dragging Comeau upright with matching looks of irritation. Neither of them looked especially concerned as they hauled him toward Montréal’s bench, where the medical staff were already moving out to meet them.

A flicker of relief moved through Ilya when he realised their anger seemed aimed at Comeau instead of Shane. But he still couldn’t stop the thought that followed. They were handling this like it wasn’t the first time they’d had to drag one of their own teammates away from Shane after things had gone too far. Maybe it was the first time Shane had fought back, but something about the way the Voyageurs had all reacted to the fight made Ilya doubt it.

“It was a dirty hit,” Shane said finally, his jaw tightening as he watched Comeau go.

“Oh, I dunno,” Victor said, sounding faintly amused as he came to a stop beside Cliff. “I thought that hit of yours was pretty good, actually.” His eyes dropped to Shane’s hand, which was already swelling at the knuckles. “Hm. Is that why you don’t get into brawls, Hollander? Been saving it for when it really counts?”

“No,” Shane said. “Just haven’t met anyone I wanted to punch before.”

Victor let out a startled laugh before turning to check on Ilya. “Hey—you good down there?”

“DaYes,” Ilya said, tightening his fingers around the ankle of Shane’s skate to stop him from moving away. “Hollander told me to sit down,” he added, grinning at their surprised looks, then laughing when Shane just rolled his eyes in response. “I am being very obedient.”

Cliff blinked at him. “Are you—” He hesitated, looking between them like he was trying to understand what the fuck he was actually looking at. “Roz,” he said slowly. “Are you waiting for fuckin’ permission to get up?”

“DaYes,” Ilya said again.

And it was ridiculous, maybe, how much he liked Shane fussing over him. The way he got bossy in that very particular way he did whenever he was worried. But it made Ilya smile every time—the way Shane cared for him so openly. The way he chose to do it again and again without hesitation, even when Ilya complained and acted like a little shit about it.

“Hollander is very scary when he’s mad,” he added. “He threatened to bite me if I tried to stand up again.”

“I did not,” Shane said, frowning at him. “Oh my god—you’re such a dick sometimes.”

Ilya smiled at him. “Hm. But you love when I am dick.”

Shane groaned. “Not right now I don’t.”

Cliff stared between them for another long second before groaning. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Are you two actually friends?”

Ilya wasn’t sure there was an answer to that that wouldn’t just make things worse, but before he could decide which lie would cause the least damage, Hayden came to a hard stop on their other side. His shoulders were already squared like he was preparing for a fight, and Ilya almost groaned out loud at the sight of him.

“What the fuck, Shane?” Hayden demanded, looking at Shane first, then at Ilya. “Are you forgetting that we hate him?”

Ilya’s glare was sharp enough that Hayden really should’ve had the sense to look away. Which, of course, he didn’t. From the corner of his eye, he caught the way Cliff’s broad shoulders had tensed too, the way Victor had shifted like he was preparing to step in—but Shane just shrugged.

“I’ve never hated him,” he said.

Hayden groaned. “Shane.”

“Hayd, c’mon. You know I don’t hate him,” Shane said. “I mean, I’ve known him since I was seventeen—”

“Eighteen,” Ilya corrected.

“I was seventeen,” Shane repeated, rolling his eyes. “Ilya was basically a senior citizen. If the three months between our birthdays actually count for anything, then he should’ve been sitting on the fucking bench with Scott Hunter.”

There was a brief, stunned silence—the same kind that always seemed to follow whenever Shane said something genuinely funny and caught people off guard with it—before Ilya let out a loud laugh.

“Look,” Shane said with a sigh. “I’ve known him since before we got drafted. We played against each other more times than I can count when we were still in juniors—hell, we even played in the same fucking Olympics.” He dragged a hand over the back of his neck, fingers catching in the damp hair beneath his helmet. “He’s probably my best friend—”

“Rude,” Hayden muttered.

Shane shot him a look that clearly meant shut the fuck up, his jaw clenching hard enough for the muscle beneath his skin to jump. It was a ridiculous thing for Ilya to notice in the middle of that conversation, maybe, but his brain immediately fixated on the idea of leaning over to bite it.

“We’ve been competing against each other for a decade,” Shane continued, still glaring at Hayden, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed for a full two seconds. “But everyone just—they bought into the rivalry the media and the league built for us. It’s like they all forgot that we’re allowed to be fucking friends.”

There was probably something funny about the phrase fucking friends, Ilya thought. But he got stuck on the word friends before he could find the joke in it.

It was just—it was such a small word for something that had changed his life so completely. But it wasn’t wrong, exactly. Because they were friends. They were just the kind who had fallen for each other far too quickly. The kind who’d spent too long hiding behind labels and not-labels, convincing themselves they could still walk away from this if they called it a situationship, or just sex.

The kind who’d spent years finding every excuse to come back to each other whenever their schedules and cities and locked hotel doors allowed it. Hiding behind fake names, late-night calls, and conversations neither of them ever seemed willing to end first. And Ilya still didn’t fully understand how they’d survived wanting each other too much, too young, and at exactly the wrong times.

He only knew that somewhere along the way, he’d found the courage to tell Shane he’d fallen in love with him. And, somehow, Shane loved him too. So while the world might never fully accept them—hockey had certainly done its best to make that feel impossible—the truth itself was painfully simple in a way nothing else ever seemed to be: nothing about loving Shane had ever felt wrong to him.

“To be fair,” Victor said, dragging Ilya out of the spiral his thoughts had been trying to disappear into, “you two spent, like, eight years trying to kill each other.”

“We were competing,” Ilya corrected.

“You high-sticked him in Stockholm,” Cliff pointed out.

“He tripped me first!” Ilya shot back immediately, pointing at Shane before he could deny it.

Shane rolled his eyes so hard Ilya thought he might actually injure himself worse than Ilya already was, and the thought landed badly enough that he had to force himself not to look at the blood near his shoulder. Because—fuck, he still couldn’t let himself think about what would’ve happened if Comeau had collided with Shane instead of Ilya.

“It’s just—it’s easier to just let people come to their own conclusions about us,” Shane said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve known each other longer than anyone else in the league.”

“DaYes,” Ilya said. “They will all be very jealous when they realise I had Shane Hollander before any of them.”

The shove Shane aimed at his hip lacked any real force behind it, but Ilya still grinned anyway. “Ah, see! I’ve been telling people for years that Shane Hollander is a massive asshole,” he said. “Maybe now they'll finally believe me, dayes?”

“Y’know, now that I’ve seen you two together when you’re not, like, playing up the rivalry bit—I can kind of see it,” Victor said, arching a brow. “But, ah—not that this isn’t fascinating—but are you two planning on staying down there for the rest of the game?”

“Hollander has not told me I can stand yet,” Ilya said seriously.

“Comeau just knocked you on your ass,” Shane said, already sounding tired about the argument they were apparently about to have. “You really should get checked over before you move—”

“Ugh,” Ilya groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “We have already gone over this, sol—uh, Hollander,” he corrected quickly, wincing at the near-slip. “I’m fine,” he added, before glaring toward the Montréal bench where Comeau was still surrounded by medics. “Comeau is—”

Shane’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, I know. He’s a fucking asshole,” he said, frowning. “And he’s not even that good at hockey—I still don’t get what the fuck Pelletier was thinking when he put him on the first line.”

Hayden snorted. “Oh, I never would’ve guessed you hated ‘im,” he cut in, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like I’ve spent all season trying to keep you two from fighting. Or trying to keep one of your fights from spilling out onto the ice.” His eyes flicked pointedly toward the red smear beside Ilya’s shoulder, faintly pink around the edges now where the blood had started melting into the ice.

“Fuck off,” Shane muttered, crossing his arms as he leaned further into Ilya’s hip.

“Donc les rumeurs sont vraies, alorsSo the rumours are true, then?” Victor said, switching to French as his attention settled more carefully on Shane. “À propos de la tension dans le vestiaire des VoyageursAbout the tension in the Voyageurs’ locker room,” he clarified, his eyes narrowing slightly at Shane’s panicked expression.

“Oh,” Shane mumbled. He looked away from Victor, biting into his bottom lip before giving a small, reluctant nod. “Ouais. J’imagine. Il y a eu beaucoup de transferts ces dernières années. Il ne reste, euh, plus beaucoup des joueurs d’origine. Le vestiaire estYeah. I guess. There’ve been a lot of trades in the last couple of years. There’s, uh—not a lot of the original players left anymore. The locker room is—” He hesitated, then shrugged. “C’est juste différent maintenantIt’s just different now.”

“It is not fair if you talk in French when I am not allowed to talk in Russian,” Ilya murmured to Shane. He didn’t need to understand the words to recognise the defensive tone, and he didn’t like the way Shane looked when he said it either.

“Eto chiterstvo, solnyshkoIt’s cheating, sunshine,” Ilya added in Russian, smiling helplessly when Shane glared at him—but at least he didn’t look so sad anymore.

“Roz,” Cliff said, frowning at Ilya while Victor nodded thoughtfully beside him. “C’mon, how the hell did you forget to tell us you’re friends with Shane Hollander?”

“I didn’t forget,” Ilya said. “I just didn’t tell you he is mine, ah—my friend?” His hand slid absently across Shane’s lower back, his thumb brushing once over the padding there even though he doubted Shane could actually feel it through all the gear. “Shane didn’t want the—how do you say? Boundaries? Lines?” He frowned slightly when the word still didn’t feel right. “Shane, what is the word?”

“Hum? Oh. Implications,” Shane said, frowning slightly. “And that’s not what I said. I just don’t want anyone thinking they get to take a run at one of us because of something we did, or said.” He hesitated, lips pressing thin for moment. “Or because they think they can get to me through you. Or you through me.”

Ilya watched him for a moment, trying to decide if Shane realised how much that confession sounded like fear disguised as something practical. “People are stupid,” he said. “They see something they do not understand and make up a reason for it. They see what they want to.”

Shane nodded slowly, still frowning.

“They think our rivalry is permission,” Ilya said, his thumb brushing over the padding at Shane’s back again. “Or—excuse? To cross lines they would not go near otherwise.”

“Permission?” Shane repeated, and for one brief, unpleasant second, Ilya wondered if he had chosen the wrong English word again. It happened more often when he was angry, or when Shane was watching him with those dark eyes of his. Or when Ilya got distracted counting the freckles scattered over his nose and cheekbones instead of paying attention to the actual conversation.

“Ilya,” Shane said slowly, “I think that sounded way more threatening than you meant it to.”

Ilya considered that for a moment, then shrugged with one shoulder so it wouldn’t pull at his ribs. “Is not that threatening,” he murmured, only to grin again when Shane shot him a look. “Okay. Maybe a little bit threatening.”

Victor barked out another laugh behind them.

“There’s no way we’re making nice with the fucking Bears right now,” Hayden muttered as he dragged a hand over his face. “For fuck’s sake, Shane—we are not calling this—this—this blatant territorial bullshit professionalism.” He pointed accusingly at Ilya’s hand, which had settled into a slow path along Shane’s spine. “He’s a fucking Bear.”

“He’s also not your problem,” Shane said, but Ilya could feel how tight the muscles of his back were. He pressed his hand a little harder, trying to work the tension out without drawing attention to it.

Shane forced a smile as he watched Hayden roll his eyes at them. “Try focusing on the game instead.”

“The game?” Hayden repeated, arching a brow at Shane. “What—the fucking game you just stalled when you hit Comeau?”

Shane nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “They’ll probably give me a major for it, and Pelletier’s petty enough to bench me as well,” he added with a shrug. “Which means you’ll have to take over at centre for me.”

“Oh, great,” Hayden said flatly. “Love that for me.”

“You’ll be fine,” Shane said, rolling his eyes. “Just don’t let Ilya get under your skin during the faceoff. He only does it so you’ll get distracted at the dot and lose track of the puck.” He huffed. “Ugh. Please don’t let him steal my fucking lead.”

“You’re giving away all of my secrets, solnyshkosunshine,” Ilya murmured, his voice low and amused.

Shane hummed, then let out a small laugh when Ilya’s thumb pressed slightly harder at the base of his spine, ducking his head like he could hide the way he was smiling. But the sound carried anyway, slipping out into the arena until the crowd shifted, curious, like they wanted to catch it before it disappeared.

It was rare, Ilya thought, to hear Shane laugh like that on the ice anymore. And for a moment, everything else—the shouting, the tension, the blood on the ice—felt distant. But then the sharp sound of a whistle cut through it as one of the referees skated over, glancing between them.

“You need medical?” He asked, eyeing Ilya suspiciously.

Ilya shook his head. “No,” he said. “Am just enjoying short break. Catching my breath.”

The referee stared at him, unimpressed, before snorting. “Get back to your bench, Rozanov,” he said, then turned to Shane and Hayden. “Hollander,” he added, frowning now. “You’re getting a five-minute major for fighting and a warning for game misconduct. You’ll be lucky if this doesn’t get you fined.”

Shane stared at him, his chin tilting up stubbornly as he met his gaze. “Is Comeau gonna get a penalty too?”

The referee’s eyes narrowed. “All of you,” he said, turning away from Shane. “Back to your benches. We’re resetting at the dot once the ice is cleared.” His gaze flicked briefly to the blood melting into the ice near Ilya’s shoulder, his mouth tightening. “Move.”

“Fuckin’ piece of shit,” Cliff muttered under his breath. “Ah, no offence, man—but I fuckin’ hate playing in Montréal.”

Shane nodded. “Yeah, me too,” he muttered, missing the look Cliff and Victor shared.

“Hey,” Hayden said, glancing at their coach over his shoulder. “Pelletier’s waiting for us.”

Shane didn’t move right away, his jaw tight as he avoided looking at the Montréal bench, who, ironically, were all staring at him now he’d turned away from them.

“C’mon, man,” Hayden pressed, reaching out like he might physically drag him up if he had to. “You can’t just stay here. And d’you really want to give the team another reason to be pissed at you? ’Cause sitting on the fucking ice with Rozanov, of all fucking people, isn’t exactly gonna—”

“Pretty sure they’re gonna be pissed anyway,” Shane cut him off.

“I mean—” Hayden hesitated, grimacing like he hated that Shane was probably right. “Yeah, probably,” he admitted, before turning back to glare at Ilya. “But him?” He groaned dramatically, dragging both hands down his face. “Shane, c’mon. He’s a Boston Bear,” he repeated slowly, like Shane might have forgotten in the last thirty seconds.

“And he is a Voyageur, but I don’t hold it against him,” Ilya said. “Ah—well, not much.”

“See!” Hayden snapped.

“Oh, c’mon. Since when are you professional?” Shane shot back. “And your wife’s from Boston. You don’t get to pretend you hate the whole city just because you don’t like the Bears.” He snorted at Hayden’s outraged expression, his mouth curving into something sly. “I’m telling Jackie you said that.”

Hayden winced immediately. “Please don’t,” he muttered, still glaring at where Ilya’s hand was moving along Shane’s spine. “Ugh. I thought we agreed not to acknowledge you were friends with him?”

Shane blinked at Hayden. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“Shane,” Hayden groaned again.

Ilya watched Shane snort and turn away, only to sigh and look back a second later. “Fine,” he said, sounding reluctant even as he reached for Ilya’s forearm and pulled them both to their feet without asking first. Ilya let himself be hauled upright without complaint, for once, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep the wince from showing when his ribs immediately protested.

“Your coach is probably gonna have a stroke if we stay here any longer,” Shane added with a sigh. “And, uh—we probably shouldn’t have—I mean, I really shouldn’t have—”

“No,” Ilya cut in firmly, steadying himself once he was upright. “I told you, it was a good punch. Do not apologise for—”

His gaze flicked to where Cliff and Victor were watching them with badly hidden amusement, while Hayden looked like he was seconds away from physically dragging them apart. Ilya decided he didn’t care enough about their opinions to stop himself.

“—it was very hot, Hollander,” he said, adding a quick wink just because he could. “You should play aggressive more often. Everyone will be so distracted they won’t even realise they lost the Cup. Too busy looking at how khoroshen’kiypretty you are.”

Shane stared at him for a second, his cheeks flushing faintly beneath the visor. “Shut up,” he muttered, though he kept a tight grip on Ilya’s arm until he seemed satisfied Ilya wasn’t about to fold in half on him again. “You good to play with those ribs?”

“DaYes,” Ilya said, clearing his throat as he straightened, forcing his spine into something closer to his usual composure. “Yes,” he repeated, before turning toward the Boston crowd and lifting one gloved hand above his head.

They answered immediately, his name rolling through the arena in a wave that hit the glass and seemed to came back even louder. It should have made him grin, or play to the cameras so they knew he was fine, but it only made him more aware that everyone was already waiting to see what this injury meant for Boston’s chances for the playoffs this year.

He let the noise wash over him for a second, then let his attention drift away from the crowd, pulled back to Shane—who was smiling like the sound of the arena chanting Ilya’s name belonged to him too.

“Good,” Shane said quietly. “It’s not as fun to beat the Bears if you’re stuck on the bench.” He glanced toward Cliff and Victor. “Try and keep him on his feet this time, yeah?”

Victor grinned. “Are you trying to tell us how to look after our own captain, Hollander?”

“I mean,” Shane shrugged, “you did let him get flattened by a second-rate asshole like Comeau.”

Cliff snorted, stepping in close enough to bump his shoulder against Ilya’s. “We’ve got him.”

Shane looked like he was about to say something else, but Hayden swore under his breath and grabbed the collar of his jersey, dragging him toward the Montréal bench like he was a misbehaving rookie instead of their captain.

“There’s no way you’re making friends with the fucking Bears when I struggled for two years just to get you to talk to me after practice,” Hayden muttered, tightening his grip. “I can’t believe you sometimes. I swear, whenever you and Rozanov are in the same room, you lose your fucking head.”

Shane snorted. “Pretty sure I lost it long before that, actually.”

Ilya watched them go, his expression settling into something neutral enough for the cameras. It held, even as irritation flared in his chest.

He didn’t like the way Shane’s shoulders had tightened, or how the easy line of his posture folded in on itself the closer he got to Montréal’s bench—where Coach Pelletier was already red-faced, veins standing out in his neck as he waited for them to get close enough to start shouting.

So Ilya did the thing he always did when something threatened to get under his skin—he made himself impossible to ignore.

“Don’t be jealous, Pike!” He called after them, cupping his hands around his mouth so his voice cut through the noise of the crowd. “Maybe someday you’ll find a man who fights for you too!”

Hayden glared at him from over his shoulder, his grip tightening in Shane’s collar when it looked like he might stop and turn back again. “Fuck off, Rozanov!” He called back, dragging Shane the rest of the way toward their bench.

But Ilya just grinned, because he saw the subtle shift in Shane’s shoulders, the way he hesitated like he might turn around anyway, might shrug Hayden’s hand off and do something completely un-Shane-like. Except maybe it wasn’t so un-Shane-like anymore. Because he’d already crossed the ice for Ilya once tonight—so why wouldn’t he do it again?

“What the fuck just happened?” Cliff muttered, still leaning into Ilya’s shoulder as they watched Coach Pelletier start shouting the second Shane and Hayden reached the boards.

Hayden’s shoulders tensed immediately as he snapped something back at Pelletier, but Shane just shrugged. He turned away from the Montréal bench mid-rant and headed for the penalty box without even looking back.

“Ah, mon dieuOh my god,” Victor muttered, half-laughing. “He just walked away from his coach like that?” He shook his head, still grinning as he glanced at Ilya. “Hollander doesn’t usually—” he trailed off, searching for the words, but Ilya knew what he meant.

Shane was the kind of player who never gave anyone the satisfaction of knowing they’d gotten under his skin. He took hits, took cheap shots, and answered them all in the only way that mattered—by putting the puck in the back of the net over and over again. And yet there was always something sharp underneath it all, something dry and wicked that flickered out just often enough to make people chase it, to try to drag it into the open.

Ilya snorted softly at the thought. “Hollander just doesn’t care enough about other people to correct them,” he murmured. Which wasn’t entirely true, because Ilya knew exactly what it cost Shane to let things go like that.

“Hollander!” Pelletier shouted. “Get your ass back here—”

A whistle cut through Pelletier’s shouting as the referees gathered briefly at centre ice, one of them raising his arm to signal the call before skating toward the scorer’s table. “Montréal's number twenty-four, five minutes for game misconduct,” he announced. “Montréal's number twenty-four, additional major for unsportsmanlike conduct.”

The arena seemed to pause for half a second, all of them waiting for Comeau’s number nineteen to be called next. When it didn’t come, the silence broke into a disbelieving roar as the crowd surged back to its feet. Boos rolled down from the stands, someone throwing an empty beer cup over the boards toward the referee.

But Ilya’s focus had already shifted back to Shane to watch the way he stepped into the box without argument. He acted like the injustice of it didn’t matter, even though Ilya knew that was the one thing he’d be struggling with right now.

Because Comeau deserved a fucking penalty as well. Not for what he’d done to Ilya, but for what he’d tried to do to Shane. Ilya could imagine it too easily if he let himself think about it for too long. The way Shane’s body would’ve gone slack as he dropped to the ice. The way Comeau would’ve skated away grinning.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, something tight and uncomfortable settling in his chest at the thought. “Of course that’s how they fucking called it,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

Victor looked like he wanted to say something but thought better of it. He nodded slowly instead, like he understood exactly why that kind of call made Ilya’s hands itch for the fight they all knew was coming, even if it hadn’t happened yet.

“The refs are blind half the time,” Cliff offered, shrugging.

“Hm,” Ilya agreed, before smiling almost sweetly. “Next time we’re back on the ice with Comeau, I’m going to put that pridurokidiot into the boards so hard he forgets what team he plays for.”

Cliff huffed out a laugh, already sold. “Yeah, yeah—just make sure it’s clean enough that the refs don’t call it,” he said, before sighing. “Eh, you’re shit at being subtle.”

Victor snorted, shaking his head as he leaned into his stick, arms crossed over the shaft, chin resting on the taped top. “Even your threats sound like Hollander’s now,” he added, lowering his voice into a terrible impression of Ilya’s Russian accent as he repeated Shane’s threat: “Stay the fuck down before I put you there again.”

Ilya smirked, knocking Victor’s stick aside with his own. “I don’t like to share,” he said, his gaze flicking briefly over to Shane. “Especially not Hollander. It took me a long time to earn his, ah—” he snorted softly. “Friendship.”

“Oh, so that’s why you didn’t tell us—‘cause you’re a jealous asshole,” Cliff said, rolling his eyes, though he was still grinning. “Jesus, Roz. You robbed us of being friends with Hollander this whole time!”

“You would’ve been weird about it,” Ilya said as they started skating toward their own bench.

Victor scoffed. “I would have been completely normal about it.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Cliff shot back immediately. “None of us would’ve been normal about it. Are you kidding me? Hollander just popping over from Montréal to say hi to Roz? Nah.” He laughed under his breath. “It would’ve been fun to watch the rookies lose their minds about it, though. Could you imagine Luke?” He added, already laughing at the thought. “Oh god. No one tell him. He’s gonna lose his fucking head.”

“Baby boy has a massive crush on Hollander,” Victor said sympathetically. “I’m surprised he even manages to skate straight when they’re on the ice together.” He tilted his head, considering. “Though I gotta admit—Hollander has no right looking that hot when he throws a punch. Someone needs to tell him this is hockey, not a fuckin’ GQ cover.”

Ilya’s stick snapped out, knocking Victor’s skates from under him.

“TabarnakHoly shit—” Victor swore, stumbling as he lost his balance, only to catch himself on the boards.

“You good there, Vic?” Ryan laughed.

“OuiYes,” Victor muttered as he pulled himself up. “Our captain is just trying to kill me.”

Ryan barked out another laugh. “Eh. At least that means he’s probably alright if he’s still being a dick.”

“Rozanov,” Coach LeClaire called out, already frowning by the time Ilya reached the boards. “Are you actually alright or just being stubborn about it?” He asked, his eyes fixed on Ilya.

“I’m fine,” Ilya said, bracing against the rubber kickplate for balance.

LeClaire’s expression didn’t change. “You went down hard.”

Ilya shrugged one shoulder to avoid moving the left side of his ribs. “Will be the highlight of Comeau’s career,” he muttered, grumbling when the whole bench laughed at his scowl. “I should send him flowers.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure he’d love that,” Ryan said, his head tilting slightly as he looked toward the penalty box. “But fuck, man. That was one hell of a hit from Hollander.”

Ilya hummed softly as he followed Ryan’s line of sight. Shane still had his helmet on, his jaw locked in that stubborn angle Ilya knew too well. His dark eyes were bright, and even though he was sitting still, he looked restless with leftover adrenaline—like someone had tried to force lightning into a cage and done a piss-poor job of it.

Even the crowd around the penalty box wasn’t slamming the glass the way they usually did. Everyone was watching him carefully now, like maybe they could feel the anger coming off him too.

“DaYes,” Ilya said before frowning slightly. “But his backhand is still weak.”

Ryan snorted. “Good thing his right hook isn’t, then.” He whistled low under his breath. “Fuck, did you see how Comeau went down?” His grin widened. “Man, I hope it makes the highlight reels. TikTok’s gonna lose its fucking mind over this.”

“You’re weirdly obsessed with TikTok,” Luke muttered around his mouthguard.

Ryan shrugged. “Eh. It’s more fun than Instagram Reels.”

“DaYes,” Artos murmured. “Is, ah—why you are always speaking with Becky?”

“No,” Ryan said quickly. “I mean, she’s our PR rep. And we talk about, like, videos and stuff—”

“More like she keeps telling you nobody wants a thirst trap of you on the ice when they’ve already got all those videos of Ilya in tiny shirts,” Marcus muttered.

Ryan pointed at Ilya accusingly. “Those compression shirts are a hate crime.”

“Oh sure, that’s the reason you don’t wear them,” Cliff said, rolling his eyes.

“Not all of us have tits as big as Ilya’s!”

Ilya snorted at Ryan, but his gaze drifted back toward the penalty box. Because out of the two of them, Shane definitely had bigger tits. And if he ever gave in to the pressure from Montréal’s PR team, Ilya was sure there’d be a dozen TikTok videos for him to jerk off to whenever he was alone, either stuck in Boston or out on the road. It’d be better, surely, than relying on all those “artfully undressed” photos from the sponsorship deals Yuna had set Shane up with.

Because even after ten years together, Shane was still terrible at flirting. And he was even worse at sexting. Ilya had only managed to get him to send one slightly suggestive photo in all those years, and that had only come after weeks of dick pics and voice notes describing every filthy thing Ilya wanted to do to him the moment they were together again.

Though, Ilya thought, distracted, Shane was a vixen when they were face-to-face. Or when he was face-down, arching into Ilya’s hands like he knew exactly what he was doing, even when he pretended he didn’t. All sharp breaths and bitten-back sounds, rolling his hips just to laugh at the way it made Ilya lose his mind.

Sometimes Ilya thought Shane liked the way he got a little rough with him, the way he held Shane down until he went breathless beneath him. It was like some part of Shane needed to feel that lost control just to—

“—the refs aren’t going to wait for you to recover,” LeClaire was saying, with absolutely no idea he’d just interrupted Ilya’s drifting thoughts. The words blurred together into something mildly irritating at the edge of Ilya’s mind, his attention still split between his team and Shane.

“But, look—they’re resetting the ice right now. It’ll take the Zamboni a couple of passes to clear the blood, which buys us five, maybe ten minutes.” LeClaire frowned as he looked him over again, his gaze catching on the way Ilya was still holding his shoulder a little too stiffly.

“You good enough to play, Rozanov?” He asked. “Or do I need to actually listen when the medics tell me to sit your ass out for the rest of the game?”

“Comeau is not making me sit out of a game,” Ilya said, frowning.

“You sure?” LeClaire asked.

“DaYes,” Ilya said again, already rolling his shoulders and ignoring the way it pulled at his ribs.

“Okay,” LeClaire said with a sigh. “Pelletier’s gonna put Hollander back out there. There’s no way he’ll pass up using his best scorer tonight, not with tensions this fuckin’ high.” He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked Ilya over again. “You gonna be okay playing against him?”

Ilya nodded. “Never been a problem before.”

LeClaire paused at that, like he understood that Ilya was really saying, “It will not start being a problem now.”

“You know he’s not gonna go easy on you when he gets back out there, right?” LeClaire asked.

Ilya glanced toward the box. “He never does,” he said. “Neither do I.”

LeClaire huffed out a laugh. “Right. Well, we’re down by two points. But Hollander is stuck in the box for the next ten minutes,” he said, frowning like he didn’t like the ruling but would take advantage of it anyway. “That gives us exactly ten minutes to even the score when the game restarts.” He glanced toward the clock, grinning now. “And it only gives Hollander twenty minutes to try and claw those points back when he gets out there again.”

Terrance, his assistant coach, nodded slowly, his eyes darting across the empty ice like he was trying to keep up with the play LeClaire could already see unfolding. “But that’s only if Pelletier puts him straight back out.”

“He will,” LeClaire said without hesitation. “He’s barely given Hollander a chance to sit down all game. And his shifts are running longer each time,” he muttered, before turning back to Ilya with a smirk. “Ten minutes is enough time for you to score again, yeah? The Voyageurs are all shook up right now, but you know damn well Hollander’s coming back onto the ice rested and ready to take whatever points we get right back.”

He rolled his eyes then, adding under his breath, “Fucking Pelletier. I swear that asshole just loves making my life harder.” He sighed, half groaning. “Ugh. We should’ve snapped Hollander up when we had the chance. Kid’s fucking wasted on that team.”

“Fuck, could you imagine Rozanov and Hollander on the same team?” Terrance asked. “It’d be like the All-Stars all over again. You two were unstoppable in Tampa.”

“Pretty sure Hunter almost cried when he saw you two lining up against him, actually,” Victor murmured.

Ilya’s teeth flashed as he grinned. And maybe he shouldn’t have enjoyed hearing people talk about them like that, but he did. There was just something so satisfying about the way other people reacted to the idea of him and Shane sharing a line again. The immediate dread. The way no one ever seemed to know which of them would make the play that buried the other team first.

Shane moved through pressure like he expected it to bend to his will, and Ilya had spent years learning exactly how to force the ice into the play he wanted. He still remembered when people had mocked the All-Star lineup for putting them on the same team. Convinced there was too much ego between them. That they wouldn’t be able to work past their rivalry long enough to remember how to play offensively.

But he also remembered the way Shane had laughed breathlessly against his shoulder after their first goal. The way he’d looked at him with that bright, wild light in his eyes after every goal that followed. Ilya remembered thinking that feeling was probably the closest thing to flying he would ever get.

“Voyageurs will cry tonight,” Ilya said, still smiling at the sight of Shane Hollander sitting in the penalty box, counting down the seconds until he could come back onto the ice. Or maybe, Ilya thought, until he could come back to him.

“I will score two goals,” he added. “One for me, and one for Hollander.”

LeClaire snorted before he could stop himself. “Cocky bastard.”

“Well,” Cliff said when Ilya dropped onto the bench beside him, “at least the competitiveness is alive, even if the rivalry isn’t.” He barked out a loud laugh at Ilya’s glare, clapping a hand against his shoulder, careful not to jar his ribs too badly.

Ilya barely registered it, too busy staring at Shane. He’d finally leaned back against the wall behind him, one knee bouncing beneath all the pads and equipment. But then one of the medics stepped into his line of sight, crouching in front of him and blocking Shane from view.

“Any pain?” The medic asked, fingers pressing briefly along Ilya’s side, quick and impersonal, testing for a reaction Ilya refused to give.

Ilya shook his head, even though his ribs ached every time he breathed too deeply. But it was a mere annoyance compared to the anger still crackling beneath his skin. Every second the medic spent poking at him was another second Montréal thought they could get away with taking a run at one of the Bears without retaliation.

Or at Shane, who wasn’t a Bear, but maybe he should be if his own team had started treating him like something they wanted to break.

“What about dizziness?” The medic asked.

“No,” Ilya lied.

“Hm.” The medic very clearly didn’t believe him. “Follow my finger,” he said, forcing Ilya to track it across his field of vision. He nodded, satisfied, then motioned for Ilya to raise his arms, guiding him through a twisting motion that forced him to turn from side to side while he kept a palm pressed against Ilya’s ribs.

“Well, I can’t feel anything out of place, and there’s nothing sharp—which means you probably haven’t broken them.” He frowned before straightening with a sigh. “Come see me after the game,” he added, already turning away. “They’re probably bruised to hell, and it’ll only get worse as it settles. I’ll wrap them before you head back to the hotel.”

“SpasiboThank you,” Ilya muttered, even if he hated the thought of wasting more time before he could get his hands on Shane properly.

Across the ice, Shane still hadn’t looked at him again. His gaze was fixed on the ice instead, eyes slightly unfocused, like he was replaying the game in his head and trying to figure out where everything had gone wrong. Ilya knew that look too well. Shane always carried responsibility like it belonged to him alone, even when the damage had started long before he stepped onto the ice.

It was only the sound of the whistle that finally dragged Ilya out of his thoughts. He blinked, realising he must’ve been so lost staring at Shane that he’d missed the rest of the game resetting.

He pushed off with the rest of his line, stepping back out onto the ice with his ribs aching at every motion. It was barely enough of a reminder to keep him from looking back at Shane, already desperate for the moment he could face him at the dot again.

Instead, he had to put up with Hayden Pike for ten whole minutes.