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“Reminded me of Vegas,” Ilya declares, a breath releasing him. Shane watches the curls dry against his forehead. The shower still drips, incrementally slowing, like it needs a minute to stop.
Shane settles, a little vacant, head tucked into Ilya’s shoulder and neck. Unable to sit still for long, Ilya props himself up, he peers down at Shane. He leans to kiss his cheek, his neck, his shoulder.
Vegas, it echoes in Shane’s mind. There is no more drip-drip to make noise there, as his thoughts claw their way up.
You wanted honesty, another one says. Shane gives in.
“I didn’t like Vegas.”
“Hm?”
Ilya must have heard him the first time, but Shane repeats anyway, “I didn’t like Vegas.”
“You are - you have many more awards now, Hollander.”
He's deflecting. Shane marvels that he knows now when Ilya is deflecting.
“You know what I mean,” he guesses, bluffs, with some confidence he does not truly possess. After a moment of ceiling-staring, he looks back over to Ilya, finds Ilya’s eyes in the whiteness.
Ilya nods slowly and straightens up, off Shane’s body, not a single point of contact between them. This isn’t how Shane wants to have these conversations.
“I… Um, you didn’t say. That the sex was bad.”
“It wasn’t the sex. The sex was great,” Shane says. He places a hand on Ilya’s shoulder and pulls him closer. It’s hard to keep looking in his eyes.
Some of Ilya is less obscured now. The concern in his eyes. The open curiosity he wears. Slowly, these will stop being revelations to Shane.
“So what then?”
It’s just the way he speaks. He’s not trying to start an argument.
“It was…”
And Shane has to look up at the ceiling again, has to find himself in textured white, again.
“It was the sex, I guess. I –”
Ilya kisses his shoulder again, gently. “What about it?”
“I.. you…”
We didn’t even kiss. We didn’t even kiss. Wedindn’tevenkisswedidn’teven
“We didn’t even kiss,” Shane tells the ceiling. Then he finds Ilya’s eyes, Ilya’s stony, blocked-off eyes. “We didn’t even kiss,” Shane tells Ilya.
The silence ticks on. His cottage is too modern, too clean-finished to hear the bowels of plumbing and electricity through the walls. There is only the nature through the muting glass.
At least Ilya doesn’t look away. After a few more moments, he nods.
“You hadn’t texted me for months. Before that. Before Vegas.”
Shane’s eyes seek the ceiling again. He knows Ilya is looking at him, his mind working. A gaze can be so tangible, sometimes, so telling.
“And I did not say sorry,” Ilya adds. “And at the Olympics…”
Shane’s eyes flick back to him.
“At the Olympics…” Ilya tries again, his eyes comfortably somewhere beyond Shane. “My father, he put a lot of pressure on me. The team was bad. I was also a bad captain.”
“And you took it out on me?”
A defensiveness sparks. “No, Shane, I did not take it out on you —”
“Not —” Shane also rushes to defend, “Not like that. I mean, a little bit like that. But you couldn’t help it,” he says. “Or, that’s what I think, at least. That’s what I think happened.”
“Okay,” Ilya says, quietly. Neither of them are looking at each other now. “Okay,” he repeats, maybe consoling Shane, maybe consoling the both of them. “Maybe that’s what happened. A little bit. Maybe.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Shane brings his hand to Ilya’s tense neck. “Okay?” he prompts again, rubbing into the tension, the stiffness. He counts two exhales before he feels a release.
“I am,” Ilya offers, as Shane’s fingers run circles in the same spot, over and over. “I am sorry. For the Olympics. And Vegas.”
Shane tilts his head, and somehow, Ilya knows to speak again when their eyes meet, “I’m sorry, Shane. I… I hurt you.”
Shane eases their mouths together. They kiss, slowly, purposefully.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry about how it went in Boston. I hurt you, too.”
“And Rose Landry? Are you sorry about that too?”
“Don’t push your luck —”
Ilya kisses him silent. Playful, the air diffused and light. A smile creeps upon Shane’s lips, catching Ilya’s teeth. Shane takes the snips, the light aggression, traps Ilya with his thighs. They roll around, and Ilya takes an advantage, palms in the sheets as he looms over Shane, a loving, engulfing shadow. He bends to kiss him, once, twice, the light bright in his eyes. Eventually, Shane pulls him to his chest and Ilya goes, gets comfortable with his forehead against Shane’s clavicle, content like a big housecat.
Shane idly massages his curls. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Hm?” Ilya kisses the skin available to him.
“Talking about it.” Shane clarifies. “Vegas, I mean. And the other stuff.”
“It is not so scary once you say it,” comes the agreement. “But it is scary to start. I think… I think I will always be a little bit scared, to talk about Russia.” Ilya sighs and Shane feels it against his skin, hot breath, wet breath. “You will have to be, ah, patient. You will have to be patient with me, Shane.”
Shane tilts his head up, the angle uncomfortable, tugs Ilya’s hair so that their eyes are at level. “I can be patient. For you, Ilya. I can do it.”
And Ilya can’t help but kiss his way back up, shoulders to neck to lips, a heavy, wet devotion.
-
“Was it just the kissing?” Ilya poses, after they’ve had dinner and he’s wiping down the counters like Shane had told him to do the first night. “In Vegas,” he clarifies. “Was it just that we did not kiss?”
“Um, mostly,” Shane replies. So we’re back here. He sits at the kitchen island, observes Ilya who is across it, as he absently keeps wiping down the counter. “It felt like you weren’t there, after. I tried to talk to you, and yeah. You didn’t even look at me when I left.”
He watches Ilya nod. Watches as his movements slow down. His jaw works, staring down at the kitchen counter.
“You asked about home,” Ilya finally says. “It made me mad. You… you do not know what it is like. Was like. And I was mad at you for asking. Because…”
As the quiet lulls on, Shane stands to be beside Ilya. He puts a hand on his back, looks at his face with enough force for Ilya to look back, to be compelled to look back.
“You do not know what it is like,” Ilya repeats. “My brother hates me. My father also hated me. And I would always pay for everything, but I was never there. It was…” he sighs. “It was…”
“Complicated?”
“Yes. Complicated. Bad. And I was very sad in Russia, always, very angry.”
Shane rubs his back, Shane keeps his gaze steady. “And here?”
“Here is nice,” Ilya says. His eyes flicker back to the counter, then back to Shane. “I like it here. With you.”
“Me too.” Shane smiles. “Would you go back?”
“To Russia? Maybe. I do not want to see my brother again, but I would like to see my mother’s grave. There are some nice places in Moscow,” he shares. He quirks an eyebrow over to Shane. “You will not like it. My Moscow is also full of boring parties, like Vegas.”
It sits between them. Not good, but not yet turning the mood sour.
“Is there anyone you want to see there? Still?”
Ilya shakes his head. “No, Sveta is here. I see her in Boston.” A funny look crosses his face then, and he says more to the counter than to Shane, “Ah, there is Sasha. But I do not really want to see him.”
Something about Ilya’s look makes Shane’s eyes narrow, his eyebrows come together. “Who’s Sasha?”
“Like, um…” and Ilya chuckles, ready to make a joke only he finds funny. “Like my Rose Landry. We fucked a couple of times. It was, ah… convenience.”
“Rose wasn’t convenience —”
“Convenient for you to look straight,” he fights back. “Convenient for you to get over me.”
“I never got over you,” Shane huffs, rather than addressing Ilya’s… accusations. “It didn’t work.”
He watches Ilya’s face, maybe catches some of the decision-making going on behind, how Ilya eventually chooses softness. “Yes, I am glad. I never got over you, either.”
He finally releases the microfibre cloth he’d been clutching, and cradles Shane’s waist. “I don’t have to.”
It’s not a question, but Shane answers anyway. “Don’t even try.”
Ilya kisses him, chaste. There is a lightness delighting Shane’s insides. He kisses back, and does not stop.
-
Ilya kisses him all the way from the en-suite to the bed, short, sniping kisses all over his face, a deep, languid one into his mouth. As Shane falls back into the sheets, slightly sore and very blissed, Ilya kisses up his neck, the shell of his ear.
“What – what is it,” Shane asks, small laughs in his voice.
“I am making up,” Ilya says, too seriously. “For Vegas. I will always kiss you after sex.”
Shane sighs, two hands in Ilya’s hair, holding his face, beholding his boyish grin, his untamed pride. Shane is so happy. He doesn’t know when he last felt this elated. His mouth tastes like the last of toothpaste and the smell of his neutral body wash prevails in the air around him. At some point, Ilya had cracked the window open, and a coolness settles in the dark room.
“Take your time,” Shane smiles. He looks straight into Ilya’s eyes, and somehow, he thinks he can see his soul from here, his heart. “We have time.”