Chapter Text
March 2029, Los Angeles, CA
Ilya scrolled absentmindedly through his Instagram feed as he waited for his drink — a sickly sweet frappuccino thing with java beans and whipped cream, which he had gotten into the habit of drinking to piss off his coworkers, but was still ordering on his day off.
Hockey highlights — the new rookie out of Tampa is doing surprisingly well, might be a contender for the Calder.
Video of a guy showing off his Ducati bikes.
A meme in Russian that is nearly untranslatable but makes him blow air out of his nostrils.
Ferrari. Jar of marbles being crushed. Minnesota defenseman getting his shit rocked. Bleach blonde model.
Ilya wasn’t actually taking in any of it. His thumb was moving faster than his brain could think to stop it, and his eyes were glazing over in the way that they always do when he wants to shut his brain up, to keep himself from having to look up and awkwardly stare at the wooden wall, so that he didn’t have to battle his thoughts while trying to keep his cool standing in the back of this bougie café.
Clash Royale highlights clips. Top 7 ways to know if your boyfriend is turned off by you. 5 minute crafts. The puppies up for adoption at the LA Humane Society — that snapped him out of his trance and got his attention.
He was so enraptured by a Pomeranian with the tiniest little wagging tongue he’d ever seen in his life that he missed the flash of dark green fabric that came through the chiming door, missed the sound of someone’s order over all the chatter at the tables, missed a man whose shape he should know in his sleep also slumping awkwardly over his phone. His order, however — a black coffee and an herbal tea — took much less time, and was ready before Ilya’s multi-step concoction.
”Order for Shane?” the barista projected out to the café.
Ilya couldn’t say that it doesn’t still hurt. Even those little benign coincidental reminders dredged up the thick sludge that remained pooled in his chest, yet unable to evaporate from his chest after over a decade. He had learned to tamper them down, though, calcifying within a small pocket of his heart — you’re not going to get very far working in hockey if you start sobbing every time you hear the name Shane Hollander. At this point, he had learned to accept that a few times a week, he was going to feel a dull kick to his stomach at the sound or thought of those five little letters. The dread had become so second-nature to him that he barely registered it anymore as an event. The sun would rise, the tides would fall, and Ilya Rozanov would have a fleeting urge to curl up into a ball and vomit every time he was reminded of Hollander.
It had gotten better over the years — he started to make new associations in the pathways of his brain, and the memories had started to lose their definition. Moving to LA had certainly helped. But the name was one thing he couldn’t quite get over. He silently cursed the universe for sending some stranger with the same name to cross paths with him while he was trying to live in peace.
He looked up to take a deep breath and calm his nerves, and was met by a terrified pair of dark eyes locked with his own.
—
Shane’s worst fear had come true.
Every single time he came to LA, a nagging, intrusive thought would prevent him from letting his guard down for even one moment, forcing him to hyperfixate on a single idea for days at a time.
It’s a ridiculous concept. It’s a county of almost ten million people, and he was here maybe ten days a year. Every time it didn’t happen, he allowed himself to relax just slightly more at the statistical impossibility of it.
Yet here it was, in all of its dreaded glory. He had, somehow, impossibly, run into Ilya Rozanov.
And Ilya Rozanov had looked up from his phone to meet Shane’s eyes.
He was that same rugged kind of beautiful that Shane remembered so fondly. Small wrinkles had started to form at the corners of his eyes, and his hair seemed just a bit thinner, but he was still in perfect shape, still stood with an effortless swagger. Still had that hazel sparkle in his eyes, the kind that would shine when he smiled that crinkly smile of his.
It was the smile that Shane was facing now — not his cocky, camera-forward smirk, but a hint of a true smile, cautious, but not calculated, almost delighted.
”Rozanov.” Shane heard the name fall from his mouth as he walked towards the other man, who in turn, stepped forward from his relaxed lean against the wall. The two hot drinks in his hands were threatening to spill over from the trembling in his fingers.
“Hollander.” He said the name like he was surprised, but Shane couldn’t exactly read his reaction. “Long time.”
“Yeah, wow.”
Shane had run into old friends before, and he knew the script. You hug, you ask how they’ve been and hear a shortened, compressed, polished version of their life, and then you make a promise to see each other soon that you will inevitably fail to keep. But none of that playbook seemed to make sense here. The two of them just stared, lost in the ambience of the coffee shop, for what felt like minutes but was probably more like 20 seconds. They both seemed stunned into silence by the idea of the other.
Rozanov carded his hands through his hair awkwardly at one point, and had just begun to speak, “Are you-“
“Order for Ilya?”
Shane watched as Rozanov’s eyes moved to the drink counter, but his feet stayed planted.
“Are you gonna get that?”
”Ah. Yes.” He returned his gaze to Shane. “But who knows. Maybe there is another Ilya.” He smiled and began walking towards the counter to get his drink. On his way there, Rozanov looked over his shoulder to confirm that Shane was behind him — he was, following with some distance as he crossed the cafe and picked up what looked like a chocolate slushy with whipped cream. Usually Shane would cringe at the idea, but he was too focused on something else.
He knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that he should walk out of this coffee shop and go home, wave this off as just a silly run-in. But there was a voice inside of him screaming for him to be irresponsible, to take this fleeting chance before it slipped out of his grasp forever. The funny thing was that it didn’t sound like his own voice at all; it sounded like a teenager’s.
“Hey.” Rozanov turned his head toward Shane from the counter where he was grabbing a straw. “What are you doing right now?”
”I am getting coffee.” He gestured to the counter in front of him as if it was obvious.
Shane scoffed. “No, I mean like— are you in a rush?”
Rozanov’s eyes seemed to gain a bit of understanding. “Ah. Um…” he popped the plastic straw through the end of its paper wrapper and shoved it into his drink, taking a long sip.
—
Ilya, this man has hurt you too much.
If he wanted a second chance, he should’ve asked a decade ago.
He is an insecure, selfish prick who is going to drag you into his hellstorm again.
You’ve come so far. Don’t turn back now.
The words of his friends, his confidants, his therapists, all bounced around in his head. He knew, of course, that they were right. It was these kinds of moments that he had been working so hard to be ready for. The moments where he would have the choice to do something self-destructive and actively choose himself, in spite of everything. The inflection points where the new Ilya was created.
He considered all this as the cold, sweet coffee coated the inside of his mouth. He then glanced over at Hollander.
Ilya had misremembered the freckles. He remembered liking them, of course, but these were so different than in his mind’s eye. This was a constellation waiting to be gazed at, flush against the background of a blush-pink sky.
Closure, he told himself. Maybe this would finally be the opportunity to grasp onto that elusive concept he had been dreaming of for so long, this long-promised feeling of peace, the sense that every door was locked and he didn’t need to go back looking for anything behind them.
He knew full well, and had accepted long ago, that Hollander was incapable of giving him closure. But it was the freckles that threw him off. Whatever closed doors Ilya had worked tirelessly to lock had just been smashed in with a hammer, and the light of these stars was peeking through.
“No, I am not in a rush. Why?”
”Would you, um,” Hollander chuckled awkwardly. “Maybe, wanna talk, for a bit? You know, catch up?”
Ilya pretended to consider the idea for a moment, but he was already gone on the whole concept.
“Sure, why not. It’s not every day I run into the golden boy.”
The two of them both made their way towards the stairs which led to the quieter, upstairs section of the cafe. They found its few tables empty and took a seat across from one another.
“You know, I don’t think we’ve actually said more than five words to each other since, um… since the last time.” Hollander awkwardly laughed.
“The last time?” He put on a confused, almost uninterested face. “I don’t think I remember. I guess it’s been so long.”
Ilya was lying straight through his teeth. He remembered every moment of that afternoon like it was yesterday: remembers the ecstasy of the final release they shared together, the elation of letting the cry of “Shane” pass through his lips and the crack in his voice as he begged “Hollander”, the creak of his footsteps and the cold wind that blew in through the door as he left. He had been sitting on that couch, with the taste of tuna and cheese stuck to the inside of his mouth and a puddle of cum drying on his stomach, for the last thirteen years. But he couldn’t say that.
He needed Shane to tell him. Needed somebody — the only other person in the world who knows what happened that day — to confirm he wasn’t crazy, that he didn’t imagine the whole thing. That there had been something real, even if just for a millisecond. He needed somebody to tell him back the story he’d been picking apart with a magnifying glass for the better part of two decades.
Ilya watched the gears in Hollander’s head turn as he figured out how to talk around the issue. “Um, that one time I went to your house, in Boston. I think — I guess that would have been the last time we hung out. If I remember correctly.”
Hung out. The words hit the same way that ice stung his face when he fell skating as a child. So unserious. Even hook up would have stung less. Ilya coped the only way he knew how.
”Yeah, there was certainly something hanging out, Hollander.” He pressed the plastic straw to his lips and let the cold slush of coffee prevent the heat from rising up his face — not a blush, but anger, humiliation.
Surprisingly, Hollander didn’t look pissed — he actually burst into laughter. There was still a fake sheen to it, sure, but it was mostly genuine. Ilya watched as his eyes crinkled slightly, as he set his shoulders back and sighed. “Wow. Still funny, Rozanov.”
Ilya let himself forget the world and smile at Shane.
“I have always been funny. Don’t you remember?”
”Of course I remember.” His tone was more factual than wistful.
“So what brings you to LA? Come to watch the Royals wipe the floor with Vancouver?” He pauses for a moment. “Why are you Canadians so bad at hockey?”
Hollander scoffed. “Yeah, why don’t you ask my five cups.”
”Meh. Lucky streak, that’s all.” Ilya had three.
”Sure.” Hollander shifted in his seat. “No, I’m actually here for the Oscars. Rose is nominated, so I’m tagging along. Honestly, with the amount of time we have to be in LA for her schedule, I’m surprised this is the first time I’ve run into you.”
Rose. Of course that’s why he was in LA.
Ilya had been so entranced by Hollander’s face that he had forgotten all about that, for just a moment. He glanced down, and just as he expected, a solid gold band rested neatly at the base of Hollander’s ring finger, wrapped around his cup of black coffee.
“Right, of course.” Ilya tried to play off the frog that had jumped into his throat at the sight of Hollander’s wedding ring. “Well, you know me, I am busy guy.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
It had been almost eight years since Ilya had taken his free agency by the reins and became the star forward of the Los Angeles Royals. He had loved Boston, loved his friends there, loved the Raiders. But he had told the media that he wanted the opportunity to take on a new challenge, help reshape the franchise and usher in a new era for the Western Conference. He ended up winning two cups for LA and becoming the face of the team.
Nobody had noticed that he made the decision two months after Rose Landry’s engagement to her MLH star boyfriend had become the talk of every gossip magazine. And if that meant that he played the Metros now two times a year instead of four — save, of course, for the one year where the Royals had taken the Cup from them in a series that stretched to a grueling Game 7 — well, nobody noticed that either.
“You certainly are,” remarked Hollander. “Even now, you’re retired and you still can’t escape it.”
Ilya laughed politely.
“And how is that going? The coaching?” Hollander took a sip from his coffee.
Ilya had retired the year before, at age 36, to honor and fanfare across the hockey world. That fall, he had started as an assistant coach for the Royals.
”Is good, I think. It’s a different kind of hard than being a player is. I have to be a lot more, um, brainy.”
Hollander smiled. “Cerebral?”
Ilya rolled his eyes. “Yes, sure. Thank you for the lesson, Mr. High IQ.” Hollander laughed in response, and Ilya started laughing too. To Ilya’s utter shock, it seemed that the awkwardness was not lasting — just as quickly as they began, thirteen years of dust had shaken off and a friendly sort of banter had come back.
Maybe it was that small glimmer of hope that made Ilya reveal what he said next.
”Royals are great, honestly. But I don’t know if this is… what I wanted my retirement to look like.”
Hollander looked confused. “Huh. What did you want it to look like?”
I’m staring at it right now.
Ilya pushed the wrong, stupid idea out of his mind as quickly as it came in, but a cloud of similar thoughts flooded his mind.
He unwillingly conjured blurry, far-off images of lakes and dogs and forests and sunsets, of puzzles and board games and cooking and lounging around, of children with black hair giggling and speaking Russian, of strong, soft arms lovingly wrapped around his waist like an anchor. None of it meant anything.
”I don’t know, I guess. Hockey is great. But I guess I thought… I thought I might have figured out something else to do by now.”
Hollander’s eyebrows furrowed, as if he could not conceive of the concept that somebody would want to spend their life doing something other than hockey.
“Then why’d you take the coaching job?”
”I like LA. I have good friends. And I think I would get bored with nothing to do. But I don’t know how long it will last.”
What Ilya couldn’t admit, even to himself, was that he was still unsure what a life without the MLH would look like. Because the MLH was all he had to tie him to what he was floating away from, all that was making sure he did not completely drift away and drown alone. Well, now, the MLH and this coffee shop and this stupid awards show.
“What kind of friends do you have?”
”Huh?”
”You said you have good friends here. What kind, like where did you meet them?”
”Oh.”
Ilya did have friends in LA. Some of the guys on the Royals were great, and he kept up with some other guys in the league. He had a few smart, fit women who he had regular, meaningless sex with. Sveta still lived in Boston, and would visit every now and then. But he thought Hollander might get a kick out of hearing this.
”I do a lot of volunteering, actually. That is a good way to make friends.”
Hollander looked pleasantly shocked. “Volunteering? Like, at a soup kitchen or something?”
Ilya smiled and looked down, shyly. “Not exactly.”
”Wow. I never expected the great Russian menace to be serving people soup.”
”It’s not a soup kitchen. It’s, um, a program for kids. Like, kids who have been through something difficult.” He always got nervous explaining this. “I am basically a camp counselor.”
Ilya had started volunteering at the Serenity Center during his third year on the Royals. The team had gone one day to visit, one of their monthly charity photo-ops. Ilya always found it a bit odd — sure, the kids enjoyed seeing hockey players, but he wondered if all the cameras were more exploitative than doing any good. But then he had seen a girl with sunken eyes and a flat scowl of a gaze, who had no reaction when Ilya had waved to her, and had screamed at him to get out when he tried to say hello. The nurses apologized profusely, explaining that she had found her father not breathing with a pile of syringes next to her just two months before. He stared at the child through the window and understood he was looking into a mirror.
He had begun coming once a week, which over the years had increased to three times a week. His closest friends in LA were another frequent volunteer and the two women who owned the center.
“Why?” Hollander’s tone was genuinely curious.
Ilya sighed. “It helps me feel like I am making a difference. It is so, so hard to see some of the things. But it makes me feel like I matter.” A smile rested on his cheeks.
“And sometimes, it is so fun. Like, there is this kid who draws me a new picture every day. He doesn’t really say much, but he has these great drawings.” Ilya pulled out his wallet and gingerly removed a crinkled piece of paper with a crayon-etched fire-breathing dragon on it. “Look, this one’s from last week.”
—
Shane hadn’t felt this way in a long time. In fact, the last time he remembers feeling this way was 2014, at the MLH Awards in Vegas — the bizarre mix of vibrating from intense, almost dreadful anxiety, and genuine elation and joy. It was a feeling that only Ilya Rozanov had ever allowed him to feel.
And as he watched Rozanov’s eyes glow, pointing to the drawing and looking at Shane expectantly for praise, he felt the joy balloon in his chest.
Shane would never think to do something like this. His life had been hyperfocused on maintaining a perfect image since he was a teenager. But since becoming a member of a Hollywood power couple, whose life was constantly dissected, criticized, and exposed bare for the whole world to spit on, he had felt a greater need than ever to be more than perfect. Any mistake would send him spiraling into what sometimes felt like a fear for his life.
And so he took no risks. He did nothing that would rock any boat, did nothing that even had the chance of scuffing the glass case he presented himself in. And he never, ever, faced the emotional difficulties in the world if he could get away with it. He never even faced his own.
But here Rozanov was. Doing something difficult, something admirable, something maybe even painful, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
”God, I wish I was a good enough person to do something like that.”
Rozanov frowned. “Then choose to be a good enough person.”
An awkward silence hung between them. Shane didn’t know if Rozanov meant to insult him, but he couldn’t say it didn’t sting.
Shane began to rebut. “I-“
”But enough about me. How does it feel to be the great grandfather of Montreal?”
”Rozanov, we’re the same age.”
”Yes, but I took my leave before my bones started falling apart.”
Shane knew, realistically, that retirement was imminent for him. Sure, he was still a great captain, but it was clear that his time in hockey was coming to a close; the dull ache of a check to the boards was taking longer to heal, the laser-focused speed with which he chased the puck was waning. Almost imperceptibly, but Shane knew.
“I know, I know. I’m gonna try to squeeze a few more years out of me.”
”You know, elder abuse is a crime in the United States. Probably in Canada too.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Then you should be charged for filling your body with a milkshake at 10 am.”
Rozanov smirked. “I was wondering when you were going to mention this.” Shane did remember chirping him a few times for his eating habits when they had been… friends, he guessed.
“I am not a player anymore. I just need to sit and look pretty. And have nice things come out of my mouth.”
Rozanov raised his eyebrows suggestively. Shane cleared his throat and looked down at the floor.
He needed to shut down any… implications that Rozanov was trying to make.
He fidgeted with his wedding ring, twisting it gently around his finger, maybe to calm his nerves, or maybe to remind Rozanov to watch himself. It seemed like he noticed.
”And how is Rose?”
”Oh, she’s great. I think she’s also kind of wrapping some stuff up, career-wise — not totally, just being more picky about what she spends her time on. She wants to spend more time in Montreal, and I think we both are just looking forward to leaving behind some of the chaos and focusing on family.”
The mundaneness of his words — the drab tone that he puts on for the press and his distant cousins who he doesn’t want to talk to — was physically hurting Shane. He was used to putting up a front for Rozanov, sure, even if he was a little out of practice. But this felt suffocating. He had indulged a bit of the friendly banter at first, but now he was trying desperately to keep the more vulnerable parts of himself caged away, to just give answers that wouldn’t cause any problems, wouldn’t reveal too much.
Rozanov cocked an eyebrow. “Family? You mean she is moving to Montreal, then?”
”No, I don’t know. Maybe she’ll spend less time out in LA. It depends on work, and…” He was leaving out part of the story. The dryness in his throat and the anxiety in his chest subsided as the knowledge of his perfect miracle filled his mind.
He had a sudden, desperate urge to tell Ilya, even though it was really none of his business, and Shane had barely told his closest friends. Rozanov would not give a shit. But Shane felt like he needed to know. His willpower gave up quickly as he cocked his head around the room, making sure nobody could hear him.
”Um — well, actually, don’t go around telling anyone this, please, it’s quiet for just a little longer — but Rose is pregnant. Due in June.” Shane felt his cheeks strain with joy.
—
The elation on Hollander’s face gave Ilya an uneasy sense of dejá vu.
Those blurry images — the object of so many dreams and nightmares and fantasies and panicked screams and cold sweats. The images of the life he was always wishing was his.
He had seen that same face on some far off figure, who he didn’t fully recognize, but knew that he loved, trusted, more deeply than he could fathom. He had seen that face over and over again.
Whenever he saw the kids at Serenity make a breakthrough, or burst into laughter, or be able to fully rest in the joy of being a child, he felt that same face smiling just beside him. That infectious, perfect joy. The peace of watching a miracle happen.
The peace of watching a miracle happen and knowing your best friend was watching it with you.
That was how he had stopped himself from answering Shane’s question from earlier, about what he really wanted retirement to be.
I wanted to spend my retirement building a family with you.
He cursed himself for being so self-centered as to fantasize about being a homewrecker.
”Wow.” He tried to act as convincingly happy as possible. “Congratulations. June, huh?”
”Yep. We’ve been, um, struggling with fertility for a couple years, but everything seems healthy and good. And we found out a couple weeks ago, it’s a girl.”
It became a little easier to fake his smile. There would be a real little girl, living on this Earth, with Shane’s last name and Shane’s freckles and Shane’s furrowed eyebrows. His own selfish emotions subsided for a moment, and let him sit with that fact.
”Do you have a name picked out?”
Hollander smiled. “We’re thinking, maybe, Marigold. I’ve always really liked flower names.”
That brought back the feeling of a punch to the chest.
Lily, apparently, wasn’t good enough.
Ilya needed to start talking about something easy while he figured out how to ask Hollander what he really wanted to ask. Thankfully, he knew the first trick in the book of Avoiding Emotion in Conversations with Shane Hollander. It was a book that he probably, unfortunately, knew front to back.
“Marigold. Well, I bet she’ll be outskating you and all the other Metros before she’s five.”
Shane and Ilya shared a genuine laugh, as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing had changed.
—
“You guys have really cleaned up your forecheck, huh?”
It was an offering from Rozanov. Take the bait. Do what we’re both best at, what is easiest. Talk about hockey. These were the only two things that they had in common, Shane forced himself to remember. Sex and hockey. And the first one was off limits.
So he gave in, and they spent the next twenty minutes engaging in surface-level analysis and petty gossip about the MLH.
Had Rozanov seen that crazy last-minute win that Vegas pulled off last week, with the two short-handed goals during a single power play with only a few minutes on the clock? Of course he had, who hadn’t? What about that absolutely lethal goalie in Minnesota? Shane shared a story about the brick wall he faced last time the Metros had played against him.
Dallas Kent’s early release application was denied — good fucking riddance, they both agreed. The teams were being drawn up for the French Alps Olympics in less than a year — Shane told Rozanov he thought he might try to play one last time, see if he could redeem Canada after getting silver in 2026, but Rozanov wasn’t interested. They swapped their theories about who had the best chances at the Cup this year, and Shane told Rozanov that he had a lot of ideas about how the Royals could improve their strategy. When Rozanov looked up with excited, almost puppy-dog eyes, he was of course met with, ”I’m not going to tell you, asshole!”
It felt normal, and safe. But not safe as Shane usually meant it, in the sense of not risky — no, Shane felt that he was safe, he could drop his shoulders and be at ease. He didn’t expect that, and usually didn’t feel that when talking about hockey; it required too much of his focus. But for a while, he had almost forgotten all the disgust and fear that the idea of this conversation had given him. He wished that they could keep talking about other things. Shane wanted to know if Rozanov had seen any good movies lately, which beaches he liked best in LA, whether or not he was keeping up with March Madness. He honestly kind of wanted to know what the hell was going on with that whipped cream thing.
But then, Rozanov mentioned how he had become friends with some of the guys on the Ottawa Centaurs, and Shane shifted awkwardly in his seat. Because he knew exactly why.
His bromance with Troy Barrett had gone viral a few months after Rozanov came out as bisexual with an elegant GQ cover in 2022. The two of them, along with Scott Hunter, had helped launch a conversation about queer athletes in hockey. Their advocacy over almost a decade had been genuinely game-changing; now, rookies were showing up to the draft with boyfriends in tow, and Shane had even noticed a decrease in six-letter f-words and cock-sucking allegations in the Metros locker room.
(Some people online even suspected Barrett and Rozanov were dating, but they both put those rumors to bed quickly with the help of Barrett’s social media manager boyfriend.)
And… it’s not that Shane was uncomfortable with it. He wasn’t homophobic, of course. And he would never tell anybody about this. But he got this sick to his stomach feeling every time he saw these conversations about gay MLH players. He didn’t ever look too closely at it. But, shamefully, he secretly thought it was unbecoming of a professional hockey player to be so public about something like this.
Shane had wondered, over the years, if he might be some kind of gay. There was certainly a significant… body of evidence from his years with Rozanov. And sometimes, when his guard was down, he found his mind — and sometimes even his eyes — wandering to firm torsos, broad shoulders, muscled calves, obliques carved into a downward-sloping V and that which they suggestively pointed to. But, he assumed, every guy probably thought about those sorts of things. He was a professional athlete obsessed with his own body — of course he would be obsessed with other men’s bodies. As a matter of comparison, that’s all.
Sex with women had certainly, and somewhat embarrassingly, been a learning curve for Shane. He sometimes cursed himself for spending his formative years exploring a side of himself that, in the end, must have just been some hormonal phase, instead of learning how to pleasure a loving partner. And because of this, Rose had asked once, at a dinner a few months into their relationship, if Shane might be gay. He deserved an Oscar for the performance he put on that night. He laughed profusely and insisted that she had nothing to worry about, and she never brought it up again. He eventually got the hang of performing exactly what his wife needed to feel cared for in the way she deserved.
The fact of the matter was that he loved Rose, and nothing would get in the way of that. And because he loved Rose, he needed to be the perfect, charismatic, untouchable A-lister husband that she deserved.
There was something deep inside Shane that kept telling him that the kind of perfect he needed to be demanded that he turn away from this kind of thing. Maybe Rozanov and Hunter could get away with it. Because they didn’t need to be Shane Hollander. He felt like he was held to a different standard — and maybe the only person really holding him to that standard with any conviction was himself, but that didn’t matter. He needed to listen. He needed to be absolutely, effortlessly perfect, or the world would fall apart, he was sure of it.
This world had no room for a Shane Hollander who wanted to feel stubble against his cheek during kisses or reacquaint himself with the weight of a cock in his mouth. So that Shane Hollander, if he existed, would need to die. Thankfully, Shane didn’t think he really existed.
—
“Things have changed a lot, you know. I think it meant a lot to me to see Scott and Troy come out. I don’t know if I would have done it without them.”
Ilya noticed that Hollander was cringing as he told this story, and that irritated him to no end. He wanted to believe that it was only because of what had happened between the two of them, and not because Hollander’s own insecurities had converted into some kind of fucked up bigoted asshole act, but he was doubtful.
Hollander plastered on a fake smile. “Yes. I was, um… glad. To see that you felt comfortable. To do… that.”
He knew he was purposefully pushing Shane’s buttons, trying to get something out of him that he didn’t want to give up. Getting him to address the screaming elephant in the room.
But it had been over a decade of obsessing over this bullshit, and he thought that he owed it to himself to try and sever this fraying rope, once and for all.
“I guess it just makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Ilya tilted his head and looked at Hollander with a glare that clearly meant you know exactly what I’m talking about. Shane maintained his facade of ignorance.
Ilya’s stomach tightened. Closure, he had told himself. That’s why he asked Shane to sit and talk. He deserved closure. He deserved to put this part of his life behind him. He was always chasing some kind of finality with Hollander that seemed impossible; Ilya wondered if there could ever be a “last” anything with Shane. But he could try.
But the truest, rawest parts of him wanted nothing less. He was silently begging for some kind of impossibility. Always wishing for something he couldn’t ever have, yearning for something that would probably kill him if he got his hands on it.
You’re 37 years old, Rozanov. Be a man. The self critique echoed in his head — not his father’s voice exactly, but not his own either, some third thing that ached to do what he knew would destroy him. He listened. He walked right into the lion’s den.
“I know it was such a long time ago.” He chuckled and maintained a light tone, trying to stave off the awkwardness. “And of course, it never could have worked out. We couldn’t have been… anything.” As if this was an empirical fact and not a coping mechanism of his own design. His stomach twisted.
“But would you have wanted to be? If we could?”
Hollander’s resigned half-smile told Ilya that yes, he had known exactly what he was working up to ask. His gaze pierced Ilya’s soul, feeling, more than anything, like pity. Shane was correctly sizing up an absolutely pathetic man, stuck in a distant past and stuck on a distant person.
Hollander sighed. “I mean, we were kids, Ilya.” The second time he had ever heard his first name fall from Shane’s lips. “And kids do dumb shit. I guess I felt like I needed to… explore myself, or whatever, and that’s fine, you know, and I’m glad that you figured yourself out, but.”
Shane gulped and his expression changed to something a bit more distressed.
“I’m not… you know, that way. We were just horny, I think.” He took a beat. “And besides, I have my family now. I love Rose. I love Marigold, so much. And I wouldn’t give them up for anything. But I guess if you were part of the path that it took for me to get to them, I can thank you for that.”
Ilya turned away and scowled, tears prickling, but he refused to let them fall. He couldn’t look Hollander in the eyes after hearing that. That all Ilya had meant to him was a stepping stone on the way to his wife.
He was so angry. So fucking angry at Hollander. For ignoring him, for walking out, for giving up on them, for lying to himself, for marrying her, and for unintentionally holding the whole thing over Ilya’s head over the years, playing him like a marionette without even knowing it. And he had been so angry for so long, and spent so long trying to run away from it, trying to make himself into somebody that would not lash out or instill fear. He balled up all of his anger and took it out on the ice and played like a fucking monster. But he didn’t have that anymore. And all his righteous fury that had nowhere to go began to slosh around and overflow.
”You made me hate myself, Shane.” He said it matter-of-factly.
Hollander looked genuinely shocked. “Oh.” As if he had found a coin under his couch. “I’m. Um.” Shane’s lip was quivering.
The silence sat on top of them, a choking fog. The collar of Ilya’s t-shirt felt tight and he began to sweat. But he needed to get this out.
“You made me fucking hate myself. I don’t think you know how much. I have spent-“ He swallowed back a voice crack and schooled his face into a scowl, still staring into space just beyond Hollander’s face. “I have spent so long trying to forget you. And you keep treating me like a fucking doormat.”
“Rozanov. I don’t really think that’s fair. I didn’t-“
“Of course you didn’t. Of course you don’t.” He laughed wryly. “You’re not even gay, apparently, you just tripped on a banana peel and your mouth fell onto my dick.”
Shane looked furious. “Keep your fucking voice down,” he whispered, frantically turning his head around to scan the room. Still nobody on the upper floor of the café.
“Look, Rozanov, I don’t know what your problem is. I just wanted to say hi, but — Jesus Christ.”
Hollander’s face conveyed frustration, but he saw the heartbreak bubbling just below the surface. He knew that Shane pitied him, his pathetic obsession. But Ilya might have pitied him just as much. He acts this way towards you because he hates himself, as he had heard from his therapist.
And even though it felt good to finally get the words out, even just a few of them, he didn’t want to be this kind of person. He needed to get this train back on the tracks, but had no idea how.
Ilya had no instructions to read from. He knew, logically, that he should have never started this conversation, that it only would ever end up here. The wise thing to do was to get up and leave.
His instinct told him to take Shane’s face into his hands, caress his hair, kiss his neck, suck his cock in front of the glass walls for all of downtown LA to see, take him home and cook for him, do anything to keep him on that couch.
He did none of those things. He swallowed his pride. “Sorry. I think maybe I am just… shocked. To see you.” He almost said that he didn’t mean it, but he did. He needed Shane to know that he truly was hurting.
”I know. I understand.”
Ilya started to pick up his coat, to leave this whole situation behind, rising slowly out of the wicker chair that was hurting his legs.
”Wait.”
Hollander was looking up at him.
”I know you’re upset, but.” He looked down, and then up, directly at Ilya. “Let’s not end it like this.”
Ilya stood awkwardly next to his chair, not sitting back down but not leaving.
”I went to Moscow.”
That got Ilya to sit down.
“You went to Moscow.”
”Mm hmm.”
”Like. For vacation?”
”Uh, yeah. Rose and I went a couple years ago, during the off-season. We went to a bunch of other places in Europe too, but — I wanted to see Russia.”
He frantically pulled out his phone and began scrolling through his images folder, finally handing it over with a few pictures for Ilya to look at.
Shane, standing in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in a very obviously touristy outfit — fanny pack included — and an awkward, photo-ready smile. A piping hot plate of pirozhki sitting atop a beautifully adorned table. Rose in front of an Orthodox church with a warm tint to her cheeks, looking effortlessly stunning and clearly enamored with the person behind the camera. A picture of two opera tickets to the Bolshoi Theatre, each held by one hand, the two leaning against each other.
”I guess that I didn’t feel like I got to see it really well during Sochi, with being so busy, and all. So Andropov gave me a list of recommendations, and we explored for a few days, it was — it was really nice.”
Ilya gently passed back the phone. The pictures made his heart melt. He knew that these images would be haunting his dreams for months. Hollander had been to his hometown, seen the streets where he learned how to waddle on skates and make borscht and solyanka, where he would doodle in the margins of his school notes and play kickball. And then, the streets where he had buried his emotions in pussy and coke, where he had trained himself to be cold and cocky, hide the fact that he was just a child running from grief.
Shane had been to where Ilya could, now, never go. He had seen a part of Ilya that not even Ilya could see. Usually, Ilya was the one who could see Shane without Shane even knowing he was being seen.
But he also saw through what this was. Hollander was trying to tell him, in a roundabout, quiet way, that he thought about Ilya. That he cared about Ilya. And maybe, even, that he was sorry. But he was really, really sick of half-measures. That’s what this whole café run-in felt like. And Ilya wondered if every time he saw Shane, it was inevitable that it would feel the same way — like a half-measure. He couldn’t really take it anymore.
—
Shane was biting his tongue to keep the foreign words from spilling out of his tongue.
Я хотел увидеть, где ты вырос.
I wanted to see where you grew up.
Because I wanted to know you, really know you, in the ways I never got to, in the ways I have always longed to. I wanted to have a small piece of something almost like you, something that I could tolerate, because any real part of you, Ilya, would break me. I wanted you there the entire time I was visiting. I‘m learning Russian, and I refuse to admit to anyone, much less myself, that it’s another kind of keeping you close, so that I can have part of you in a way that’s safe, in a way that doesn’t make me feel like the world is collapsing around me. I missed you. I miss you. And I’m so, so sorry. But I can’t be sorry.
He didn’t say any of that to Rozanov. But Shane really, really hoped that he could glean some of that from his pitiful attempt at relating to him. Because Moscow was all he could give right now.
He couldn’t be sorry, he reminded himself, trying to take solace in it. He was a husband and almost a father and he couldn’t be sorry that he wasn’t able to be something besides that.
His phone buzzed and he glanced down.
Rose 💍❤️
Where are you?
He snapped back to reality. Shit. He was supposed to pick up the drinks and be back as soon as possible. Moscow, then, really was all he could give. But, Shane thought to himself, giving any more might start to eat him alive. He could swear that he felt his throat beginning to close up.
“Um. I’m sorry, Rozanov, I have to go.” Shane began standing up, running his fingers through his hair. “But — but, honestly, it was really good to see you. I, uh, hope we can keep in touch.”
Shane held out his hand for Rozanov to shake. He gave it a very suspicious look, seeming to think before taking it, sighing as he did.
”I hope you have a nice life, Hollander. I really do.”
Shane tried to take it as a genuine hope that his life is, and remains, nice. He was terrified of the alternative — that this was Rozanov saying that he never wanted to see Shane again.
Rozanov grabbed his hand and shook it firmly, before dropping his hand and going back to sipping on his coffee, avoiding eye contact with Shane.
”Goodbye, Rozanov.”
—
Ilya watched Hollander shuffle down the stairs at the edge of his field of vision, and then saw out the window as he approached a nondescript black Jeep and entered the driver’s side door. It took an uncomfortably long time for the car to actually start up and leave the parking lot. But of course he was leaving. Shane wasn’t the kind of person who changed. Ilya had tried, clawed his way out of holes and abysses, genuinely tried to become a better person. Hollander was 37 and still the same scared child that fled the scene in Boston at age 24.
Ilya looked back down at the table. Hollander had left his two drinks here, and one of them seemed to be full. He threw them out along with his empty plastic cup, shuffled down the stairs, and walked out to his car, rubbing the ridges of the luxury logo on his key with his thumb.
Shane’s words kept echoing in his head.
“We were just kids, Ilya.”
Yes, but we were kids together. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?
He knew the thoughts would come later. The anger, the sadness, the heartbreak, the pity, the guilt, and the anger again. He knew that all of his friends were sick of hearing about this evil mystery man from Ilya’s past, and that they were going to be subject to his obsession with the topic for the next few weeks. And worst of all, he knew that this entire interaction wouldn’t make Ilya lose any hope. There was still a delusional part of him that was absolutely, head-over-heels, teenage levels of gone for Shane Hollander. If anything, talking to him for the first time in thirteen years made it worse.
But for now, as he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and sped back to his house in Manhattan Beach, only one thought filled Ilya’s mind.
He was certain that he never wanted to see Shane Hollander again.
And he was going to do whatever it took to keep that promise to himself.