His parents had not come to the game at Shane's request. He didn't want the cameras on them or to see them besieged by reporters. Yuna tried to argue, saying that she wanted to make it absolutely clear that she and David were standing by Shane, but he had put his foot down and told them not to come. "It won't change anything," he had said. "And… if anyone says anything, I don't want you to be there."
"That is exactly why we want to be there," Yuna insisted urgently. "Why we need to be there. Shane, when you have children of your own, you-" She cut herself off. Shane glanced away, not answering an unspoken question or acknowledging her realization. "Well," she continued, flustered. "It's just different for a parent. We need to be there. For you."
"Not tonight," Shane said firmly. "Just… not tonight. Please."
They listened, eventually.
Shane was glad they had not attended. Shane knew that if his parents had been in the audience, he would have been distracted—might have actually spent some game time looking up at the stands, trying to gauge the kinds of signs that fans had brought with them, which ones pertained to him and what direction they trended in, supportive or hateful. Outright hate speech wouldn't be tolerated in the arena, but there were plenty of insults that would fly under the radar and had in the past.
He didn't want his parents to see that. And Shane didn't want to watch his parents be confronted with the reality he was facing down.
At least he played well.
Hayden came back to his apartment with him, although Shane tried to insist he was alright. "No, dude, it's absolutely chill. Jackie isn't expecting me—she basically told me to follow you home." He clapped a hand on his shoulder, brown eyes overly earnest but sincerely warm. "We care about you, dude. I'm just… I'll just come to dinner, if that's alright."
Of course it was. Shane was grateful he had any friends on his team at all, given how fucking awkward and weird he knew he was, but words couldn't convey how grateful he was to have a friend like Hayden.
They stepped off the elevator, both worn down from an intense game, especially since they had both been required to pick up the slack for their distracted or irritated teammates. As soon as the door slid open, revealing the blank wall across from the elevator bay, they both heard the loud, strict sound of Yuna Hollander's voice drifting around the corner, but Shane never could have been prepared for the words she said.
"Mr. Rozanov, that's enough." For a second, Shane's breathing and his footsteps stopped. "I'm sure Shane will appreciate this… show of support, but it is completely unacceptable—I don't even want to know who told you this address, much less the code to the door, but this is really—I'm going to ask you to leave. Again."
Shane broke into a run.
Ilya responded to her, though Shane barely heard his frustrated, growling Russian accent over the rushing in his ears. "No, I am not making myself clear, I am-" He broke off.
Shane rounded the corner, Hayden at his heels. For a second, they all froze.
Ilya was standing in front of his door. There was a beautiful woman next to him, dressed in chic black clothing, her arms folded across her thin chest—Svetlana, probably, from how Ilya had always described her. Shane's mother was standing in front of the half-closed door, guarding the entrance as if she were a linebacker and not a manager in her fifties. The fierce expression on her face softened as Shane came into view. He could also see his dad over Yuna's shoulder, peeking out curiously.
And Ilya.
He looked tired—actually, he looked exhausted, the lines of his face drawn in stark relief in the antiseptic hallway lighting, bruises beneath his eyes. He was sluggishly dressed, wearing sweats that looked creased with wear. There were bags piled around his and Svetlana's feet, as if they had arrived straight here from the airport.
Here, to Montreal. To Shane's home.
To Shane.
"Ilya," he blurted, and then he was running again.
Ilya ran too. They met in the middle, like always, and Shane was already crying as he threw his arms around Ilya's neck and pulled his head down, and Ilya's hands snapped around his waist and pulled him onto the tips of his toes, and in the middle, like always, their mouths met in a wild, desperate kiss, made wetter by Shane's tears.
"Ilya," he repeated, gasping, feeling Ilya, feeling every inch of his body pressed against Ilya. Present in his body in a way he hadn't been all night, from the moment the first puck dropped.
"Shane."
"Oh," he distantly heard Hayden say. "Oh. Wait. What? What the fuck?"
"Wow." That was probably Svetlana, given the accent. "That's hot. Excuse me, Mrs. Hollander, may I use your restroom to freshen up? Long flight from Moscow."
The door creaked open. "Shane?" his mom called.
Shane didn't pull his mouth away from Ilya's. He didn't want to. His hands scrabbled across his neck, his shoulders, into his hair, looking for purchase anywhere he could find it as he felt the ground beneath his feet solidify, finally, after spending the longest day of his life airborne, completely adrift.
Ilya's hands were bruisingly tight on his waist. In between frantic kisses, he muttered little snatches of phrases in Russian, indistinguishable to Shane, perhaps totally illegible even to a native speaker. His fingers clenched, seized, spasmed, and Shane shook beneath the pressure, pressing his chest hard into Ilya's as he tried to crawl inside him.
"You're here," he whispered, exhilarated, probably ruining the collar of Ilya's sweatshirt from how hard he was pulling it. "You're here, you're here, you're here-"
"Yes, yes, da, right here," Ilya promised, turning them suddenly and pressing Shane hard into the wall, making Shane gasp with delirious relief. Ilya's hand cradled the back of his head so that his skull did not knock against the drywall, but the rest of him was stuck, weighed down and blanketed by the wall of muscle in front of him and the actual wall behind him. Grounded. Grounded. His feet were on the ground and Ilya was here, and kissing him.
"I needed you," Shane said, feeling more tears escape his eyes. He blinked open, wishing he could see Ilya's face clearly, without the awful blur. "Oh my god, you're here."
Ilya's eyes were open, just a haze of bright color, but so precious and so, so familiar to Shane. He dug his fingers through Shane's hair and scratched his scalp. "I'm here. Always. Soon as you need me, I come."
"What the fuck?" Hayden repeated.
Shane grasped the front of Ilya's sweatshirt. He wanted to wipe his tears off his face with Ilya's fingers and then put them in his mouth.
"Your family is watching," Ilya whispered.
Shane laughed. "I know." He kissed him again. "They know, too," he admitted, feeling the flush creeping up his cheeks.
But it was true.
They already knew.
"Ilya fucking Rozanov?" Hayden asked. "Oh my fucking god—Boston Lily?"
Svetlana had returned at some point because she chimed in. "Aw, they are so cute! Ilya calls him Jane."
Shane peered over Ilya's shoulder. His mom was still standing in the doorway, mouth open. She and Hayden both looked infinitely more shocked about this than learning that he was gay, although Shane supposed he hadn't seen their initial reactions. Svetlana had her arms crossed over her chest, grinning. Shane's dad peeked over the shoulders of the two women and gave Shane a little wave.
Shane looked up at Ilya, who was still crowding him against the wall. "You're here," he murmured.
Ilya smiled. "Yes. Right here."