Chapter Text
1
Ilya checked his phone again.
Still nothing.
He turned it upside down on the cushion beside him. It was somehow less damning when the screen was hidden, but it couldn’t completely stop him from thinking about how Shane should have landed in LA fifteen minutes ago and that was plenty of time to text him and let him know he had landed safely.
“You waiting for a call or something?”
Ilya crossed his arms over his chest and kept his eyes on the television. “No.”
“Good. You better not be.” Marlow sat up so he could reach his glass on the coffee table. “First time you don’t go to Russia for the summer, and you disappear on us anyway. You aren’t flaking on us for dinner tonight.”
“I will not skip your dinner.” But if he didn’t get a text soon that would be a lie, because he’d be getting on a plane to LA himself—
His phone buzzed and he did his very best to not make it look like he wasn’t desperate to see what it said.
Jane😘: Hey, landed safely. On my way to Rose’s place.
Ilya held in his sigh. The relief he felt at just that one text was pathetic, but he didn’t care. Shane flew all the time during the season, just as much as Ilya did, but something about this flight had Ilya’s nerves on edge.
He played it cool.
Good.
Your flight was okay?
Jane😘: Yep, all good.
Call me later?
Jane😘: Maybe.
Jane😘: If I’m not too busy having so much fun with Rose.
What a brat.
😭
You hate me!
Jane😘: 🙄Don’t be a baby.
Jane😘: I will call you tonight.
😍
“You and Montreal Girl make up or what?”
Ilya had forgotten that Marlow was there. He put on a frown as he turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s the cheesy little grin you always got on your face when you were talking to Montreal Girl. Is that where you’ve been all summer? In Montreal?”
“No.” Ilya locked his phone and set it down again. “Just because I wanted a break from your ugly face does not mean that I had to be somewhere special.”
“Or with someone special?” Marlow sat back and draped his arms across the back of the couch.
Ilya rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“If that’s the case and you aren’t waiting on a call from someone, then I don’t see why you aren’t going out with us tonight after dinner.” Marlow waited but Ilya wasn’t going to take his bait. “Maybe you wouldn’t be such a grumpy bastard if you got laid.”
He was right. But the problem was that the only person he wanted to have sex with was his boyfriend, and his boyfriend was on the opposite site of the country, visiting his ex-girlfriend.
The situation was emotionally messy for Ilya. He completely trusted Shane. First, he loved him and he believed that Shane loved him. He had no doubt. Second, Shane was very gay. He also had no doubt about that. So he was annoyed with himself that he was jealous. It wasn’t just that Shane was taking three days off to visit Rose Landry when maybe they could have spent just a few more days together before the season actually started. Rose Landry was a good person. She cared about Shane. Shane trusted her.
What if she found out about Ilya and convinced Shane he was too good for him?
He was too good for him, Ilya knew that, and that complicated things, too. Because he thought Shane could do better, and knew Shane deserved better, but he didn’t want Shane to think that. Because he was selfish.
It didn’t help that Ilya had lost control of his emotions a bit over the whole thing and told Shane he didn’t want him to go. That wasn’t his fault though. Shane shouldn’t have asked if he could go. Why would he need permission from Ilya to go do things? He just got to go do them. If he had just told Ilya that he was going to visit Rose Landry, that wouldn’t have opened the door for Ilya to admit how much he didn’t want Shane to go.
So, he had settled on a promise that Shane could tell Rose Landry things about Ilya, but he couldn’t actually tell her a name. Shane hadn’t questioned the request. He had promised, his face and tone so deadly serious that it had actually almost made Ilya laugh. He was sure Shane had thought it was because Ilya didn’t want to be out to her, but in reality it went back to Shane being too good for him. Rose Landry was a hockey fan and any hockey fan who loved Shane Hollander saw Ilya Rozanov as a villain. And he didn’t want one of the people that Shane trusted most in the world to try to push that narrative.
But none of that was Cliff Marlow’s fault. And so it wasn’t fair to him that Ilya was being such a grumpy bastard, because Marlow had no idea at all what was going on inside Ilya’s head. He was just trying to be a good friend.
“I have a meeting early tomorrow morning with my agent.” It wasn’t a complete lie. He did have to get in touch with his agent, but all he owed him was a response to the “just checking in” email he had gotten.
“Ah.” Cliff nodded. “That sucks. Yeah, wouldn’t want to be hungover for that.”
“I am Russian, I do not get hungover.” Ilya said and Cliff snorted, “But I do not want to have to meet with him after being out all night.”
“You really should find a new agent, Roz. You’ve been in the U.S. long enough now and your English is good; you don’t need to stick with your Russian agent. It’s not like he’s super good at his job or anything.”
Marlow was right about that, too. Ilya had suspected his agent wasn’t particularly good at his job long before Yuna Hollander had taken an interested in Ilya’s business affairs and had been personally insulted by his agent’s waning attention. And Ilya hadn’t even told her about the email.
He did have plans to change to a new agent, but that would come later. Next year, after Ilya left the team.
That part had been stranger than Ilya had expected. They had their plan, and Ilya was committed to it. It all started with him signing next year with Ottawa when he became a free agent. He wasn’t changing his mind, but since his Boston teammates had heard he was back in town and they all started bugging him to hang out and inviting him to workouts to get ready for the season, he had started to feel… guilty. Of course, he would play this season as if nothing was changing. He wasn’t just going to give up on his team or on Boston, but it was strange to know that he was going to be leaving them next summer without a single look back.
And big dumb Cliff Marlow was about the biggest part of that. Ilya was not always an asshole, but that was the only Ilya that his teammates knew. He had come in hot with something to prove and as far as he was concerned, he had proven himself, but he had never bothered to reestablish himself as anything other than the asshole. Everyone got used to it eventually, but Marlow had never had to get used to it, because he had just come in and decided Ilya was his friend.
And Ilya couldn’t explain it, because no one in this world annoyed him more than Marlow, and he was the biggest idiot that Ilya had ever met, but Marlow was his annoying idiot and he loved him.
Marlow gasped. “Whoa! You’re not going to believe this.”
“What?” Ilya asked, sure he wasn’t going to be as mind blown as Marlow expected him to be.
His phone buzzed. “Check it out!”
Ilya shook his hand free of the curl he had been absently twisting around his finger and reluctantly opened the message Marlow had sent him. It was a link and the title made Ilya’s stomach clench painfully: Shane Hollander and Rose Landry Seen at Airport: Are They Back Together? How fast did the fucking parasites that run the rumor sites move? Shane hadn’t even been in LA for an hour! But when Ilya opened the link, there were several pictures of his boyfriend, looking handsome even in his airport clothes and smiling while holding hands with Rose Landry.
“Shit, hold on, I should have just sent it to the group chat.” Marlow muttered before Ilya got another text about Shane Hollander and Rose Landry being seen at the airport. It was only a matter of time before the team got involved. They loved to get Marlow going on his celebrity gossip.
Ilya wanted to die.
“Crazy coincidence, right?”
Ilya knew he couldn’t keep the shock off his face, but Marlow was too focused on his phone to even notice his panic. He gave himself a second to set his face into his scowl instead. “What do you mean? What is coincidence?”
“A coincidence is when two things happen at the same time, and it’s weird because they seem like they line up, but they don’t.”
“I know what the word ‘coincidence’ means, you fucking asshole! What other thing is coincidence with this Hollander and Rose Landry thing?”
“Oh. You and Montreal Girl. The two of you split about the same time we first heard the rumors that Hollander and Rose Landry were together. Now you and Montreal Girl are back together, and we’re seeing rumors about Hollander again. Fucking weird, right?”
“I never said we were back together.”
Marlow rolled his eyes. “Come on, Roz, you can’t hide shit from me.”
Oh, if he only knew.
“Who fucking cares if Hollander is fucking Rose Landry anyway?” Ilya asked, as the person who cared the most if Hollander was fucking Rose Landry.
“Come on, you know Rose Landry is really fucking hot, dude. You don’t find it at least a little encouraging that she fucks with hockey players? Maybe if they break up again, you could try sliding into her DMs.”
Ilya hated everything about this conversation, and if they weren’t in his own house, he’d probably make some excuse to leave. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. It shouldn’t be a problem if you and Montreal Girl aren’t back together.”
Ilya rolled his eyes. “Go fuck yourself. I do not want Hollander’s sloppy seconds.”
“Not even if it’s someone as hot as Rose Landry?”
“First of all—” Ilya, in his anguish at having to talk about his, was about to say that Shane was way hotter when Rose Landry. He shook his head and made a disgusted sound before he grabbed his phone and stood. He couldn’t leave, but he needed to be somewhere else, at least for a bit.
Marlow, thankfully, didn’t even call after him.
He shut himself in the bathroom and leaned back against the door. He had to get his shit together. He could not spend all season this way. What was the point of Shane and his mom working so hard to come up with a plan if Ilya just fucked the whole thing up because he got jealous the second someone brought up Shane with someone else?
His phone buzzed in his hand, and he almost didn’t even look. He really didn’t want to know how they were going to get Marlow all riled up this time.
But when he did check, it wasn’t the group chat.
The photo must have been a view from Rose Landry’s house. The rolling hills and city below was maybe the most generic California view that Ilya had ever seen, but he knew it was the kind of thing Shane got excited about.
Nice view.
He leaned his forearms on the counter as he typed.
Is your real estate fetish really popping off? How hard is your dick?
Jane😘: My dick isn’t hard.
Ilya laughed at his reflection in the mirror. If Marlow thought he had looked cheesy before… he was so stupid in love with his boring, Canadian hockey player, he couldn’t stand it. The effect that Shane had on him was embarrassing.
That’s sad.
I could help you with that.
Jane😘: You really want that when I’m hanging out with Rose?
Part of him did. A little torture would serve him right for being caught by the paparazzi at the airport. But Shane had told him that they would be doing nothing while he was at Rose’s place, and Ilya was sure he was sticking with it, so it would be a waste. So instead, he sent:
Gross.
He splashed water on his face, fixed his curls, and headed back to the living room.
Marlow didn’t say anything as Ilya came back, but he watched him as he fell back into his spot on the couch. Ilya sighed. “You are right. I am grumpy bastard.” Marlow chuckled. “And I probably need to get laid. But… not tonight.”
“Alright.”
“Another time.”
“I’m holding you to that, Roz.”
****
Marly: Shane Hollander and Rose Landry Seen at Airport: Are They Back Together?
Carmichael: So, Hollander’s been busy this summer?
Hammersmith: What does she see in Hollander anyway? He’s so fucking weird. She’s way too hot for him.
St-Simon: He might be weird, but he’s better at hockey than you.
Hammersmith: Fuck you, Vic!
Hammersmith: You fucking hard for Hollander?
St-Simon: This has nothing to do with Hollander and everything to do with the fact that you spent the summer getting fat and lazy.
Hammersmith: Fuck you! You’re just mad I didn’t want to work out with you this summer.
Hammersmith: Roz never works out with anyone, and you never talk shit at him.
St-Simon: Roz always comes back in the fall ready to play. You don’t.
Connors: Can you two either stfu or take your little marital spat somewhere else?
Hammersmith: Why? You’d rather talk about the Hollander and Landry dating rumors?
Hammersmith: You hard for Hollander as well?
Carmichael: Anything is better than listening to you guys bitch and moan at each other like an old married couple.
Hammersmith: Ha! Vic wishes he could have this dick!
St-Simon: Fuck off. No one here wants your dick.
Marly: Smithy, shut up.
Hammersmith: Wtf why am I the villain here?
Because you’re being an annoying asshole.
Marly: If you don’t knock it off, you’re uninvited to dinner.
Hammersmith: Who the fuck put you in charge, Marlow?
Ilya muted the chat.
Maybe he wasn’t as guilty about leaving as he thought.