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There is only one member of his cohort Shane cannot stand, and his name is Ilya Rozanov.
He is, for better or for worse, incredibly brilliant. He knows so much about hockey that it makes Shane, who knows just as much about hockey, mad. They are the only people in their cohort who are specializing in hockey in their Sports Management program and it seems like complete bullshit that, every time they have a big assignment, they are paired together.
Okay, maybe it makes perfect sense. But Shane cannot stand him, so he thinks it is a crime against all of the gods that may or may not exist.
Wherever he turns, Ilya Rozanov is there.
At the practice for the University of Ottawa hockey team. At class. At the study sessions Shane holds every couple of weeks, even though they usually end up being the only two that end up being there because their entire cohort is apparently filled with assholes, not counting Rose and Svetlana, who are angels among men and deserve all good things ever.
But Shane always ends up with Ilya Rozanov.
Who is at least very good at reserving study rooms.
Ilya is waiting for him in the study room in Shane’s favorite library, the science library, which has nothing to do with their program but they have the best and most spacious study rooms. Shane is almost mad that Ilya Rozanov knows the same trick as he stomps to his favorite study room, which is apparently also Rozanov’s favorite study room. Bullshit.
Rozanov looks up when he opens the door. Flashes a smile.
“Hey,” he says. “Do you know the answer to number six on the homework? I assume it has to do with the readings about sports injuries.”
“It does,” Shane allows. He finishes the homework immediately, in part because he is very studious and also because it gives him anxiety to let it sit. “The second reading is the most relevant.”
“That’s what I thought,” Rozanov mutters, clicking at his computer. “Fuck.”
So what if Shane has a crush on him?
Shane has had a crush on people before. He thought he had a crush on Rose until he promptly realized that he very much so didn’t, and he just liked that he could talk to her. It was quick to realize what the problem was when they were approximately two awkward dates in and, when Rose made a move to have sex with him, Shane panicked and made up a story about his mom calling and quite literally sprinted out of the room.
Thankfully, because of the aforementioned sainthood, Rose had thought it was funny and took it in stride, even though she also followed their clumsy breakup with, “So. Rozanov?”
So what if Shane has a crush, and so what if it’s apparently horrifically obvious? He’s allowed to find Ilya Rozanov attractive because he absolutely is. Golden curls, eyes like a lakeside, crooked smile and his mother’s cross hanging from his neck. Not even to mention the way his voice purrs with a hypnotic Russian accent.
Maybe Shane is just easy. Maybe he needs to get laid. He figures both are fair.
He realizes he’s been staring at Ilya when the other man raises a single eyebrow, a skill Shane’s always wanted. “Sorry,” he says, sitting down abruptly. “You haven’t done the reading?”
“Something came up,” he mutters, and chews on his lips as he narrows his eyes on the paper. “Due tomorrow, yes?”
“Midnight.”
“Fuck,” Rozanov says again, and closes the book with his notes still inside. He leans back to take in Shane and asks, “You always so stiff?”
“You ask me this every time.”
“Every time, you are stiff.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “I have good posture.”
“Mm,” Ilya says, mouth tilting up in amusement. His eyes are dancing. Shane wonders, in heart-stopping moments like this, if Ilya might like him back.
Shane looks away, shutting down his own thoughts. He pulls out his laptop and says, “Rose told me they’re already done.”
“They are quick,” Ilya comments, “and smarter.”
“They didn’t put off meeting for three days.”
“Knew it would not take us long.”
“Three days longer than needed.”
“You do all homework day it is assigned?”
“Usually.”
“Hm,” Ilya replies.
Shane narrows his eyes. “What?”
“Trying to think of word.” Ilya snaps. “Predictable.”
“Funny.”
“I am,” Ilya agrees, and nudges Shane’s foot with his. He’s got that small, crooked smile on. He doesn’t smile all the time but he smiles at Shane, and Shane never knows what to do with that. “We can start. Do not want you nervous.”
“I’m fine,” Shane mutters, but some of her anxiety does ebb away when he opens the project’s folder on his laptop, and he pulls up the tabs and tabs of research he has already done. Ilya makes no move for his own laptop, but Shane knows he’s already done the same, even if he pretends like he’s a slacker. “Are you good at numbers?”
“One plus one,” Ilya says, but he picks up his pen. “Sports should not have accounting. Accountants should have accounting.”
“They do. We just also do.”
“Do not care about money other than mine.”
“If you work for a team, it will kind of be your money.”
Ilya tilts his head like he will allow that argument.
They work quietly for a while, passing their notes back and forth with a familiarity of having done this so many times before. They work better than Shane would ever admit out loud, and it makes his chest flutter like some pining schoolgirl whenever their hands brush, or when he looks up and finds Ilya looking in his direction, or when their feet accidentally touch under the small table really only meant for one.
“What?” Ilya asks.
Shane starts. He realizes that he’s just been staring absently at Ilya. He feels himself flush and he looks away, back toward his notes. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” Ilya says, and Shane hears the teasing in his voice before he even starts to tease him: “Like looking at me, Hollander?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About how handsome I am?”
“Nope.”
“I think you’re handsome too,” Ilya informs him, nodding. “Good nose. Pretty freckles.”
This is astonishingly too personal and close to home for Shane, who was literally just mooning over this man. He feels himself turn brighter red. He doesn’t look up.
“Don’t be weird,” he mutters.
“Not weird,” Ilya disagrees. “Am looking at you.”
“Rozanov.”
“Pretty when embarrassed, too,” Ilya tells him, and nudges his foot again. Against his better judgement, Shane looks up, and Ilya is looking at him with—oh, those are bedroom eyes. What the fuck?
Shane blinks. Ilya is definitely still staring at him like he wants to eat him alive.
Holy shit. “We’re in a study room.”
“Okay.”
“This is a bad time.”
“Been waiting to be weird to you,” Ilya teases, tilting his head with a smile. “You opened door. I walk through.”
Okay, so maybe they’ve been here before.
Never in this actual study room. But definitely in Shane’s apartment, and Ilya’s, and once in an empty classroom and a few times in a bathroom, even though it was really gross. Shane’s only had sex with one person before and Ilya Rozanov is it, and it is a huge problem that he has a crush on him.
What they do is not romantic. They don’t do romance. They do quick, incredible fucks and then move on with their lives like nothing happened. Ilya didn’t even stop him from trying to date Rose, for the two weeks it happened, and he didn’t even blink that one time right after when Rose’s best friend Miles licked Shane’s neck at a bar.
Shane is not going to embarrass himself by telling Ilya Rozanov he has a crush on him. Sexy, startlingly sweet Ilya Rozanov, who would probably at least wait until Shane’s left before laughing himself hoarse.
Nope. Never going to happen.
Ilya narrows his eyes again. Shane realizes he’s spaced out.
“Tired?” Ilya asks. He almost sounds concerned.
“A little,” Shane replies, but his voice is shaking a little bit. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he is pretty sure his tongue is too big for his mouth all of a sudden. Ilya is watching him like a hawk, and Shane kind of wishes he would at least blink. “What?”
“You’re blushing,” Ilya tells him, but not like he is making fun of him. As if he is commenting on the weather, or saying out loud that Shane has brown eyes. “Looks good on you.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
“You’re so annoying.”
“I know,” Ilya says, and slides his chair away from the table.
“You’re leaving?” Shane demands, and he really is struck by how disappointed he is. He has rarely ever been this awkward and weird in his entire life, but the thought of Ilya walking out makes him feel like he’s losing something precious. He hates the moment where they leave the most.
“Nope,” Ilya tells him cheerfully.
And sinks to his knees.
Shane immediately hisses, “Ilya!”
“Mhm?” Ilya replies mischievously, and slides under the table.
Shane practically jumps a mile when Ilya’s hand touches his thigh, banging his knee so hard against the table that he yelps, and Ilya’s rumbling laughter echoes from underneath the desk. In the study room. That is definitely not soundproof and is also very much surrounded by other students trying to get work done, and is definitely unsanitary, and might be the hottest thing Shane knows Ilya is going to convince him to do.
“Come on,” Ilya murmurs. Shane looks down and Ilya puts his head on Shane’s knee, his hands on his thighs. “Relax, Hollander.”
Shane takes a deep breath.
“Good boy,” he murmurs, reaching for his fly.
Shane’s already almost all the way hard, raring to go just from the sight of Ilya on his knees. Ilya licks the tip reverently, trailing kisses down his dick all the way to the base. Shane throws his head back.
“So easy,” Ilya murmurs like praise, and takes him all the way down.
Shane is a moaner. He knows this about himself so he slaps his hand hard over his mouth, but he doesn’t think that does nearly enough to muffle the noise that comes out of him, his other hand curling in Ilya’s hair. He can feel Ilya laughing through the vibrations on his dick and it’s such an insane feeling that Shane nearly wants to cum on the spot.
“Fuck you,” he hisses.
Ilya moans on his dick, and winks up at him.
And then he wastes no time.
The sounds are indecent. Pornographic. Ilya sucks dick like he wants to win an award for it and all Shane can do is sit back and let it happen, gasping and moaning softly and clutching at his hair but never stopping him. Shane lifts up one of his legs and Ilya hooks it around his neck. Shane is panting like he’s run a mile.
He didn’t think it would be this hot, to do this here. He should have known better.
“Fuck,” he gasps. “So close.”
“Good,” Ilya purrs into the head of his dick before taking it back into his mouth, expression almost rapturous. His hands run up and down Shane’s thighs, spreading them wider.
Shane gasps as Ilya sucks hard, and cums.
Ilya takes it without warning, moaning happily as he licks up everything he didn’t catch. Shane feels like his face is burning. His head is spinning and he feels drunk with it and maybe that’s why he’s watching Ilya Rozanov lick his softening dick and he opens his mouth to say, “I like you a lot.”
Ilya pauses. Looks up at him in surprise.
Shane realizes what he says and wishes a meteor will fall out of the sky and put him out of his misery. His dick is still out of his pants. Ilya is still under the table, gripping at Shane’s thighs and staring at him like Shane just spoke a whole other language that Ilya cannot possibly understand.
Shane has never been so mortified. What is he, a teenager? He gets his dick sucked in public for not even the first time and he announces that he’s caught feelings?
Shane starts to tell him to forget it, that he didn’t mean it, any lie that Ilya might pretend to buy, when Ilya squeezes his ankle and says, “Good. I like you too.”
Shane blinks. “What? Really?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, carefully and shockingly politely tucking Shane back into his pants. He looks up at Shane and puts his cheek on Shane’s thigh, his eyes big and sweet and so honest that Shane’s teeth hurt. “Liked you for a long time.”
“Not just sex like—“
“No,” Ilya agrees, and kisses his stomach.
Shane feels like the entire world is turning upside down. Ten minutes ago, they were doing homework, and now they’re having the weirdest possible confession in the middle of a study room reeking of sex, and Shane doesn’t think he will ever be able to study in this library ever again after how loud he was.
But Ilya is looking at him with a cautious smile and sweet eyes, hesitant like he thinks Shane might break his heart even after being the first to confess, and Shane’s chest is tight. He almost wants to cry.
He runs his hand through Ilya’s hair. “A long time?” he asks, a little too choked.
“Tell you about it later,” Ilya tells him, kissing his stomach again. “Knees hurt.”
Shane scoots back to give Ilya some room to crawl out from under the table. Ilya barely manages to stand and sinks into Shane’s lap anyway, curling his hands around the back of his neck and into his hair as he leans forward and kisses him so softly and sweetly that Shane knows he will never doubt him again. Not even for a moment.
“Come home with me,” Ilya murmurs. “We can talk.”
“And do our project,” Shane says, looking at the mess on the table.
“So boring,” Ilya sighs, but kisses him again like it turns him on. “Fine. Talk, then homework.”
“Okay,” Shane says, feeling suddenly shy.
He’s not even thinking about how awkward the walk out of this room is going to be, no matter how nonchalant they act. He knows everyone is going to know what they did and Shane will never be able to face this place again, and he will have to tell Rose who will laugh at him and his parents who will be very surprised to hear he likes men, even though he thinks his mother suspects.
But it doesn’t matter, because Ilya Rozanov is in his lap and kissing his forehead, and Shane might have just done a masterclass in the stupidest way to tell his hookup that he likes him, but it doesn’t matter because Ilya likes him back. Shane will take what he can get, and he thinks he is about to get everything that he ever wanted.
He kisses Ilya’s bottom lip. Smiles into it.
Shane cannot stand this man.