Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ilya doesn't spend the night. After he's showered, he says to Shane, "Big date with Ana tomorrow. I will let you sleep." 

Shane is still sticky, formless and melted against his sheets. He twists the cover between his fingers, crushing it like the paper wrapper on an ice cream cone. Ilya towels off, shamelessly naked for a few seconds before he's pulling on his clothes, disappearing back into the black uniform. Stay, Shane thinks.   

"Thanks for, um, your help." Shane clears his throat. Awkward. There's so much stuck in it, and there's nothing left he can force out. "With what to say to Ana and Kendall." 

Ilya shrugs. "It is my job." 

That doesn't settle in his stomach any better. "Right. Your job." 

"You have off day afterwards," Ilya remarks. Very casual. "No dates on Tuesday." 

"Yeah. But, um, my parents are coming here that day." Shane swallows. "They're not going to leave until after the Rose Ceremony."

"Ah." Ilya nods. "So they can celebrate with you and your fiancée." 

"I guess." 

"And they will be staying with you, yes?" 

Shane nods, miserably. "Yeah." 

"So then…" Ilya looks him up and down. "This is the last time we will be seeing each other." 

It's not, really, but Shane knows what he means. With Shane's parents in town, Ilya obviously won't be coming over to the rental to fuck him. They won't see each other like this again: with nothing between them but oxygen, with whatever pieces of each other they've scraped off still clinging to their skin. 

He could tell his parents to get a hotel. They wouldn't understand why, but they'd do it if Shane told them he wanted to be alone. He could tell them he's nervous about the proposal. It would even be true.

But Ilya's back is to Shane already, fully dressed, and what would be the point of stealing any more time? They've already left themselves too exposed, gotten too close to the radioactive core at the heart of all this, started burning from it. Been obvious enough that one person already knows something. One that they know of. All those moments on set, all the times Shane followed Ilya around with his eyes. Followed him around, period. They’ve been so stupid. 

It’s too dangerous. The only thing they can do is stop. Shane looks down at the rumpled, sweaty sheets and feels so sick that for the first time he wishes none of this had ever started in the first place. He can't look at Ilya. His body knows, down to its cells, that the source of his pain is right here in the room and Shane's nervous system abruptly wants it gone. 

That hurts, too. He's never wanted to not be close to Ilya before. 

"Yeah," Shane finally says. "The last time." 

He wants Ilya to leave. He also wants Ilya to come lay on top of him, cover every part of him until Shane can't breathe any longer and he stops feeling any of it. He knows if Ilya was touching him, he wouldn't feel this way, like his chest is ripping in half with how badly he needs Ilya to leave and how desperately he wants Ilya to touch him. 

But it doesn't matter what Shane wants. For his entire life, Shane has recognized the limits of what he can and cannot have. He's so, so good at following those rules, staying in his lane, coloring only between the lines. 

So Shane doesn't say anything, and Ilya doesn't stay. 

"Good night, Hollander," Ilya says, and then, just like Shane wished for, he's gone. 

At the end of his date with Ana, he invites her back to the four-star hotel they're using for the overnights. The show booked the room. It's not even under Shane's name. The set is oppressively quiet while he asks her, and Shane can't imagine ever being able to watch this back. It would be like watching someone else speak to Ana. Someone new. Not his own awkward alter ego, the guy he watched on the monitors at the beginning of all this who made Shane feel humiliated and sorry for himself. Not the person Ilya coached him into being, the lines he fed to Shane to recite back that made all of this feel less embarrassing, more entertaining. 

The person who asks Ana to the Fantasy Suite is different from every person Shane’s ever been. Shane speaks like he’s possessed, almost reckless. He doesn't know if his performance was any good. He knows he said something to Ana, but all he could see when he was looking at her was the bright, changing color of Ilya's eyes, different and dazzling in every kind of light. All he could hear was Ilya's voice. 

He feels like he's breaking out of his own body, his strings cut and his limbs going in all the wrong directions. He wants Ilya's hands to soothe him back into himself, to put everything back where it's supposed to be. 

Later, he does get Ilya's hands on him. It's just for Ilya to give Shane the keycard, in full view of everyone else.  

Ilya's touch doesn't linger when he passes it over. Shane still feels the impact of two of Ilya's fingers like two pebbles hurtling downhill, sentries with the full force of the rock slide behind them. Ilya's fingers are warm, even though the air conditioning in the hotel is set to polar freeze, and Shane wants to chase them back to Ilya's sides when he drops his hand down. Wants to fall to his knees on the floor and put his head underneath Ilya's palm, rest there like a dog and wait for Ilya to tell him to lie down.

Ilya doesn't even do Shane the courtesy of avoiding eye contact, of sparing his skin the sunburn of his gaze. It hurts too much to keep looking at him, so Shane stares instead at the hotel light reflecting off of Rozanov's bright cheek until he gets ushered back to Ana's side.  

The room is on the highest floor of the hotel. With the camera crew and two producers in tow, they ascend. Ana keeps trying to catch his eye, smile secretively. Like it's a joke they're in on together. 

It is a joke. All of this was.

Ilya's one of the producers. Shane doesn't look at him, and it doesn't matter. He feels Ilya even when he can't see him. 

"This is where we leave you," the other producer says. Shane can look at him. Nods. "Can we get a kiss, up against the door? It'll play great on camera." 

"No," Shane hears himself say. Ana takes his hand in hers, nods once. 

"Yeah, no thanks guys. We'll see you in the morning." 

"Have fun," Ilya offers, hurtling the words through the air like a gunshot, and Shane isn't going to stand there and let himself be hit. He squeezes Ana's hand, opens the hotel door with the keycard Ilya gave him, and follows her inside. 

The door shuts behind them. Shane's eyes fall on the minibar. He knows that if he opens it it will be stocked with vodka Ilya put there. Probably a real bottle with a brand name that Shane can't even read because it's in the wrong alphabet. All of it is wrong. He doesn't want to see Ilya's vodka. He doesn't want to look in the fridge and find something other than tiny liquor bottles. Props in a dollhouse, with recognizable brand names. Fun-sized and fake. 

"Should we… sit down?" Ana says. She sounds nervous. It should help that she's nervous too. It just makes Shane angry, which isn't fair. None of this is her fault. 

"Yeah," Shane says. He turns around, sees her watching him, dark eyes curious. The hotel room is—nice, probably. The MLH doesn't make them stay in shitholes, but pro league accommodations aren't like this—champagne bathing in a bucket of ice, sheets on the bed that look like whipped cream, the lights in the suite already strategically dimmed. The cameras are on the other side of the door but he feels the heavy hand of production here anyway. He knows the path he's meant to walk down, lighting cues and all. 

They sit. The bed depresses beneath them. The last person Shane shared a bed with took up so much more space. 

"This is the first time we've actually been alone together." Ana says this like a question. 

"Yeah." Shane swallows. His fingers are still burning from where Ilya touched them. They're on the bed, he thinks Ilya said they should do that. But the eye of the camera is closed, and Shane can't make himself say any of the things to Ana he knows he should.

He kisses her, instead, because he's probably less likely to get that part wrong. Kissing is what bodies do, and Shane is better with his body than he is with his words.

Ana is soft, and her skin is cool, like the air-conditioned room they're sitting in. She opens her mouth under Shane's, and Shane's stomach twists. Their lips and tongues are moving against one another's. Shane is aware of Ana's teeth, the waxy taste of lipstick sticking to his gums. He feels like a painting, one of the ones where the nose is drawn in the middle of someone's leg and an open mouth is on the wrong side of a head. His nervous system is disconnected from itself, all of his organs are piled up on top of each other like cars after a collision. 

Shane wishes now that he'd gone for the minibar, wishes he was numb for this, wishes he couldn't feel Ana's hands on his thighs. Shane probably won't ever be able to drink vodka again. He's not sure he'll be able to drink anything again that isn't fed into his mouth, tasting like cigarettes and spit. He doesn't remember how to swallow on his own.

It takes him a second to notice that Ana has stopped kissing him back. They break away from each other. Shane looks down at his lap. His hands are on either side of his legs, gripping the bedspread. If he's holding onto something, then Ana won't see that they're shaking.

"Are you—" Ana starts to say. "Are you okay?" 

Shane grips the covers tighter. "What?" 

"I don't know. I haven't ever had the chance to ask you a real question. Without the cameras. How are you doing?" Ana laughs a little. "Maybe we should talk. First."

"I'm—fine," he says. None of this, not even talking, was ever going to be easy. He tries to remember his lines. Tries to tell his hands to stop trembling.

"I'm fine," he repeats. "Are you okay?" 

Ana sighs. "I don't know, Shane. This whole thing has been a lot." She leans back on the bedspread, eyes falling shut. "I'm actually really tired." 

Shane doesn't let himself hope. "Oh. I'm sorry." 

She opens one eye. "Do you think maybe we could just—hang out for a little? Then maybe go to sleep." 

Shane makes himself wait a few seconds before nodding. "Yeah. Of course. I'm really tired, too." 

She nods back at him. "I thought you might be." She sits up and plucks at the thin straps of her shiny black dress. "I'm gonna get changed in the bathroom, I think." 

"Okay," Shane says. He's taking deeper breaths, now. They're filling his lungs all the way, which he realizes they weren't before. The air had started to thin, his brain deprived of oxygen like he was at high altitude. 

Ana picks her slim bag up from the carpet to go into the bathroom, then stops. Turns to Shane and says, "Can I ask you to do something?" 

"Yeah, sure." 

She exhales. "Don't pick me, unless you're really picking me, okay?" 

He doesn't know what she means. He opens his mouth to speak, but she keeps going, gathering steam. 

"I like you a lot, Shane. I don't want to be embarrassed, though. Not on national TV. I don't know what I was thinking, doing this. I kind of thought it would be a good way to rebound, show how little I cared about my ex, you know? And now I feel like I've just given him the chance to laugh at me. To give everyone who ever has before the chance to laugh at me more. I'm single, and my job is going nowhere, and now—I don't think I could take it. If we had some sort of embarrassing breakup, or if you left me down the road with nothing. I do want you to pick me, okay? I want to try this with you. You're so great, Shane. And we—we get along. I think we could be good together. But I don't want it unless you do, too."

They've never spoken this many words to each other. She's still one of the only people Shane isn't related to or paid to be around that he's talked to this much. 

"Okay," he says. He's a little dizzy, like being dehydrated after a long shift. No one's handing him a water bottle, though. He has no idea what he's supposed to do once he's off the bench.

"It wouldn't be fair," Ana adds. "To either of us." 

Ana is being honest. And she's right. Even Shane knows a few reality TV catch phrases, and he thinks that Ana might be the first person in all of reality television history who genuinely did come here to make friends. 

Maybe they can be friends, after all of this. In a few months, once everything with the show has died down. Maybe Shane can escape this experience with one person who likes him, who he's allowed to like back.

He puts his hand on top of hers, then scooches back a little, so she knows he isn't trying to make a move. "I'll be fair to you, Ana. I promise." 

She nods, and Shane knows he'll miss her after he sends her home. That they won't be staying friends, of course they won't. Once all of this is over, no matter what happens, Shane isn't going to be anything but alone. 

Yuna and David Hollander arrive in Toronto, in the middle of a downpour, in the same SUV they've been driving for ten years. Hayden made a joke once about how much Shane's mom loves money, because she's always been in charge of Shane's, because she's good at turning it into more and more and more of itself. 

That was the only time Shane had told Hayden to shut the fuck up if he didn't want to get his ass kicked and meant it, fists curling around real rage. Shane's parents don't care about money like that. They're not monks, but all of the luxuries in their lives are pretty modest. They could have so much more—they could ask so much more of Shane—and they don't. All they've ever wanted is for Shane to be the best he can be. The money comes second to the legacy. It always has. 

When Shane sees their unfussy, reliable car pull up in the Toronto driveway through the water-streaked glass, he feels so homesick he wants to cry. He's got his shoes on and is out the door before he's thinking about it, tripping on the wet grass as he rushes to get his mom's door open. He didn't grab an umbrella on the way out, so it's useless that he's standing there in the rain with nothing to offer them. His mom hugs him for a long time anyway, both of them drenched before they go back inside. 

His dad makes tea while his mom talks, and talks, and talks, wandering through the house and opening drawers, a compulsion she's never been able to control. Shane knew she’d be the same here, and it’s why he already threw out all the condoms and the lube. He drove all the way to a gas station to do it. There's nothing for her to find, but his pulse pounds anyway, watching her touch all the same places Ilya touched, all the places Ilya touched him. Shane feels like a criminal even though he's gotten rid of all the evidence. 

Shane's talked to his mom on the phone plenty of times over the past month, but it's not the same. The sound of her voice is a pleasant, hypnotizing hum. She doesn't seem to expect him to chime in, so he just listens and nods when he thinks he's supposed to. At least she's not talking about brand deals. It's all about the upcoming season now; how many games she thinks it will take Scott Hunter to fall apart like he always does, how badly Detroit fucked themselves by trading away a number one draft pick for an aging, injury-prone center who is more likely to spend next year's playoffs on IR than anywhere near Detroit's ice. 

They can't gossip about hockey forever, though. Eventually, things come around to the reason they're here. His mom levels him with a look and, in this same tone of voice she's used a million times to ask him about his career before, she says, "Okay. So, hon. What are you thinking?" 

Shane knows what she means. He doesn't pretend otherwise. "Well. They're both great. What do you think?" 

"I asked you first," she says gently, smiling. She looks a little bit sad, which makes Shane feel awful.

He tells her, "I talked about it a little bit, actually, with Ana. Last night. I don't think I can pick her."

"Oh," Yuna says. "Is that—are you okay?" 

Shane nods. "Yeah. It's fine. Kendall is better anyway. Optics-wise." 

"Hm." His mom studies him. "Are optics the best way to pick a partner?" 

"Yeah. I mean, like you said before. It’s great PR. She can come to playoff games if we make it. Probably stretch out the buzz for a while." 

"Well. Sure. But… Do you have feelings for her? Kendall?" 

Shane shrugs. "Yeah, sure. She really gets hockey. And she's really fun, and nice, and beautiful. She wouldn't be here if she didn't want to be famous. Someone who dates me has to be okay with being famous."

"Like Rose?" Yuna asks gently. She's always bringing her up, and Shane fights down the familiar pang of annoyance. He shakes his head. 

"Sort of. But Rose was already famous. Like, way more famous than me. Kendall will be good at being famous, but like, it's reality TV famous. Not the same as Rose." 

"And you think that would be better? For your relationship?" Yuna prods gently. 

"I don't know. Probably."

"Hm." His mom puts a hand on top of his. "Honey. Come on. You don't really seem like you really want to be with this girl." 

A little ripple of anger thrums through Shane's body. He says through gritted teeth, "This was your idea, Mom. It's fine. It's—I'm not going to do any better. And it's not like we really have to get married, obviously. She only has to last until playoffs, right? Isn't that what you said? You're the one who said the timing was so great, with the premiere lining up with preseason." 

His moms eyebrows knit together on her forehead. She's looking at Shane in a way she hasn't ever really looked at him before. "That's not—Shane. 'Last until playoffs?' This doesn't sound like you. If you don't want to be with Kendall—" 

"Why does it matter, all of the sudden, what I want?" He doesn't mean to yell, but the words all come out too loud. His mom's mouth opens, and he knows she's getting ready to fight back, but then his dad comes in from the kitchen to gently lay some food between them.

Shane and his mom both tend to erupt when they're stressed, to simmer for a while before boiling over with a snap. His dad is eternally calm. Shane glares at him, too, even though his dad is just trying to help. Both of his parents are trying to help, in their own way, and it's not making anything better. 

"I'm going to pick Kendall," he tells his mom forcefully. "She's great. She's so great. It's already decided. That's what all of this has been for." 

He'll get engaged on TV. The show will have done what it's meant to do: elevated his profile a little, shown that he's human and masculine and red-blooded. Maybe people will stop fucking asking him about it in interviews. Maybe he'll finally accomplish the thing he's been trying to accomplish since he was the first fucking pick in the first fucking round of the MLH draft. 

"Okay," his mom says carefully. "Let's take a break, how about that? David, did you bring in the wine? It's a white, can you put it in the freezer for a few minutes to cool down?"

A few seconds later,  his dad pokes his head out of the kitchen, wearing a surprised look. 

"Shane," his dad says. "Why the hell do you have vodka in your fridge?" 

The second time feels easier. It helps that Kendall fully commits to the seduction—makes her blue eyes really big, simpers when Shane whispers Ilya's words in her ears. Shane's not turned on by any of it, but he can see how it would look hot to someone watching. Kendall is a hot person, and Shane is saying hot things to her. When they cut, someone on set actually applauds. 

Ilya isn't on set. Shane has no idea where he is. He tries to get used to the feeling. 

Kendall agrees heartily to making out against the door of the hotel room, but as soon as they're inside and the cameras are gone, she wipes the lustful expression off her face as easily as she does the lipstick Shane left smudged on her cheek. 

"Let's sit down," she says. They do; Shane on the bed, Kendall in a chair next to the window. She crosses her ankles. 

"So," she says. "I think it would be good if we talked about who you're going to pick." 

"Um." Shane was not prepared for this. Kendall, with her boobs hanging out of her dress and her hair messed up from being pushed against a hotel room door, is wearing the pleasant, sharklike smile of someone entering a business negotiation. He's reminded, in a way that he does not enjoy while sitting on a bed covered in rose petals, of his mother. 

"You should know that I've got my own plans," Kendall says. 

That really sounds like Yuna. "What do you mean?"

Kendall exhales, and when she starts to speak Shane recognizes the practiced cadence of someone who's rehearsed what they're about to say. "You know what it's like where I'm from. You've met my brothers. My dad is a mechanic and my mom is dead. Hardly anyone in my family has graduated from college. But none of that matters. I'm going to be famous." She says the last part with a conviction that sounds almost religious. Shane recognizes that, too. It's the same way athletes talk about their sport.

"Okay," Shane says uncertainly.

"What I'm saying, Shane," she says slowly, "is that I don't want you to pick me." 

Shane's mouth drops open. He closes it. "What?" 

"I don't want to win. If I'm the runner-up, they'll probably pick me to be the next Bachelorette, or at least to go on Bachelor in Paradise. I'll get like, a hundred times the Instagram followers. You should pick Ana. She's a nice girl, she really likes you." 

Ana is a nice girl. She does like Shane, she likes him a lot. It's exactly why he doesn't want to choose her. 

"Kendall," he says. "I—I was planning on picking you." 

She grins. "Yeah. I know. That's why I'm asking you not to." 

Kendall is perfect. She looks right, she acts right. Everything seemed perfect. The only thing that never occurred to Shane was that she might not want to say yes.

"You couldn't even—I mean, we don't have to get married, you know?" Shane offers. "No one on this show actually gets married. We could just date. One season." He grips the bedspread, hating the desperate wheeze that's seeping into his voice.

Kendall shakes her head. "I don't want to get locked into being seen as a WAG. I need to build my own brand, outside of you. MLH girlfriend puts a ceiling on things for me. It's better if I can go out on my own right away, even if they don't pick me for the next Bachelorette." 

His voice cracks a little when Shane asks, "What if—it doesn't even have to be a full season. You could just come to a few games, maybe through the holidays? We could be done before the regular season is over." 

She laughs. "And what, be the girl who dumps Shane Hollander right before playoffs? The entire city of Montreal would hunt me for sport." 

"Well. I could dump you?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, people love to blame men for breakups. " 

"But—" 

"Shane. Please. I'm not asking you to decide right now. But I know you don't want to date me. If you did, we might be having a different conversation." Somehow, Shane kind of doubts that, but he also knows that's not fair. Kendall clearly came here with very specific plans, but falling for someone for real could have fucked all of her plans up. 

He tries not to dwell on her exact words. Kendall said I know you don't want to date me. She's looking at him like she knows everything about him, but she doesn't. She can't. Shane hasn't been as careful as he should have been, but he's done his best with the girls.

He thinks he has.

"Okay," he says, when he realizes there's nothing else to do right now. "I'll think about all this." 

"Thank you," she says. She stands up from the chair and pulls the champagne from the ice bucket. "We're not gonna have sex, but I wouldn't mind getting drunk." Brightly, she asks, "Hey, are you hungry? I've never gotten room service before. I'm kind of hoping they have lobster." 

Shane stares at the sweating champagne, gigantic in her tiny hands. There’s nausea swirling in his stomach already.

Still. It might help him forget about everything that he can’t afford to think about right now. At least for tonight.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get lobster. Pass me the bottle, please, and two glasses. I’ll open it.”

Yuna and David are on set for the second-to-last day of filming. Production has rented a whole restaurant out for the Meet-the-Parents date. Kendall is charming and perfect with his mom and dad, and Ana is honest and sweet. Shane just feels sick; a little hungover, a little like none of his limbs are all the way attached to his body. A little like a toy that someone's taken the batteries out of.

While they're on break, Roshni corners him outside the washroom. He's kind of afraid of Roshni, but she surprises him by opening with praise. 

"You've been the perfect bachelor," Roshni says appreciatively. "Thank you for making our jobs easy. We were a little worried."

Shane grimaces ruefully. "Because I'm such a robot?" 

"Because you're a celebrity. An athlete! People come on this show who are way less famous than you and one hundred times the diva. We were expecting an ego the size of a planet and an IQ the size of an atom. But that's not you at all! You're a sweet, humble guy, Shane, and you're smart as fuck." 

Shane doesn't quite know what to do with the compliments. Roshni isn't a bullshitter, so he knows she means it, which makes him want to squirm. He tries not to. 

"But I'm boring, right?" 

"Boring? This season has flirting on ice, cat fights, and one of the hottest fantasy suite invitations I've seen in years. I think we could pull numbers that network television hasn't seen since the Bush administration. What the fuck gave you the idea you were boring?" 

Shane face heats. "It's just… it's a thing people tell me. Sometimes." 

"I mean, at first you were a little stiff. But you loosened up pretty quickly. I know Ilya was helpful with that." 

Fuck. Now he's definitely blushing. 

"Listen," Roshni says. "You really came into yourself on this show. It was fun to watch! You did good." 

"Thanks," Shane says quietly. 

"It was great working with you. It'll be tough to top this next season. Minus the finale, of course. I think next year we'll go to Thailand. Hopefully we can use a lot of the same crew, they deserve a real destination after getting stuck in Toronto this summer." 

Shane almost laughs. Thailand. Why not? It's not like it matters how close the crew will be to Montreal. Unable to help himself, even now, Shane searches the room. Kendall is laughing with the camera guy, and Cassie the PA is talking to Ana. His gaze falls next on his parents. They're talking to—Ilya. 

Ilya is standing next to Shane's parents, and Shane's heart does something in his chest that Shane hasn't ever felt before. He wants to grab onto the wall to hold himself up. It hurts so badly that he thinks for a moment that he might be dying. 

His feet move towards them, his mouth making some tepid excuse to Roshni. When he reaches the three of them, his mom turns to him with a smile. 

"Hi, honey! I was just talking with Ilya here." 

Shane swallows. Looks at Ilya. Ilya tilts his head a little, as if to say, It's okay. Calm down. He exhales. 

"What were you guys talking about?" Shane asks. His voice sounds pained and thin. Ilya is staring at him so hard that he worries it might bruise his skin.

His mom laughs, like she doesn't notice. "Your father was asking him about Russian vodka. He liked that stuff you had in your fridge so much."

"Oh." Shane looks between them. "Well. Ilya bought it. As a gift." 

"You didn't tell us that!" Yuna smiles at Ilya. "That was nice!" 

"Hollander is very healthy," Ilya says. "He does not like my vodka. I am glad you appreciated it." 

His dad laughs, too. "Appreciated it a little too much, last night. Probably wasn't a good idea to have some after a four and a half hour drive when all we had for dinner was some Doritos from the gas station."

Ilya raises an eyebrow. "Vodka and Doritos for dinner? Are you certain you are the parents of Shane Hollander?" 

That gets a big laugh from his parents. Shane might throw up.

Ilya eventually excuses himself politely, and his mom and dad turn to Shane, still smiling.

"Nice guy," his dad says once Ilya is gone. "Jesus, the arms on him. Do you think he'd leave the wild world of reality TV to be your trainer, Shane?" 

"Rozanov!" They've wrapped for the day, and Shane is pounding on Ilya's trailer door. He doesn't really remember coming here, can't remember the excuses he made to his parents. All he knows is that something inside him caught on fire, and the only way he could imagine dousing it was seeing Ilya again. 

"Rozanov!" He's almost shouting. "Let me in!"

The door opens. Ilya stares back at him, face blank. He fills up the whole doorway, comically big for the little frame.

"What are you doing here, Hollander?"

Shane's lip wobbles, throwing him off-balance. He tries to remember how to control the muscles in his face. "Can I come in?" 

Ilya glances behind Shane. There's no one there. Shane feels crazy, but he's pretty sure he checked to make sure he wasn't followed or noticed.

"Fine," Ilya says. "We cannot let anyone see you." 

Once Shane is inside, he sinks into one of the chairs and buries his face in his hands. It's hard to breathe. The trailer is already so small and every room feels smaller with Ilya in it. It’s too hot. 

Shane says into his palms, "I don't know what to fucking do." 

"What do you mean?" Ilya asks coldly. His voice is far away. He’s standing as far as he can be from Shane. 

It all comes rushing out of Shane, too fast and too loud. "Kendall asked me not to pick her. If I propose to her, though, I don't think she'll say no. It will make her look like a villain. But if I propose to Ana like Kendall wants, Ana will probably say yes. And then…"

Shane looks up and finds Ilya making a face. Like Shane is wasting his time. Like Shane has no right to be here at all. Ilya sounds bored when he says, "And then what?" 

"With Kendall I think we could break it off without any hard feelings," Shane says desperately. "But with Ana… I mean, somebody is going to get hurt. Either one of these girls is going to get hurt." 

Ilya stares at him. "That is life. Sometimes people get hurt." 

"But—" 

"You come onto this show to find a wife, even though it is very obvious you do not fucking want a wife. You thought no one would get hurt? Fuck, Hollander, you do not even care that you are hurt." 

"Me —?" 

"You rip yourself into little pieces, to give all of them away. You give pieces to everyone, and then when you are done you bring the last scraps to me and you say, here, Ilya, please hurt me some more." 

"You don't hurt me."

Ilya's eyes flash. "I have not been gentle with you." 

"No." Shane says, voice getting firmer. "Ilya… I think…" He tries to find the words. Shane isn't good at this part. Ilya has always been better at telling him what to say. It seems important that Shane do it for himself this time. "I didn't really feel much, before. Good or bad. Outside of hockey. But you and me… I like that you're not gentle. It doesn't hurt. It just—" 

"Shane," Ilya's voice is pained. "Stop."

Shane closes his mouth. There's more. He was so close to saying all of it, but he forces it back down. Wet heat burns his eyelids, he forces that back too with a pinch of his fingers, and breathes out, "Can you please just tell me what to do?" 

Ilya stares at him, eyes like ice. When he speaks again, all of the strain is gone from his voice. "No." 

"But—" Shane wants to beg. Fix this. Touch me. Fix me, please. 

But Ilya's right. It's too late for that, they've run out of time. The hourglass is empty, and Shane is trapped. Ilya Rozanov isn't going to save him. He was never going to save him. 

Shane was a fool for imagining that somehow, in the last moment, he would.

"Sorry," Shane says abruptly, standing up. "I shouldn't have come." 

"Goodbye, Hollander," Ilya says, then turns his back on him, and Shane goes.

Shane's mom is waiting up for him. 

When he sees her in the rental, curled on the couch and looking too small to be the same person who's been guiding him and molding him for as long as he can remember, who's taken care of him for so many years, all the anger he felt the night she got here, the anger that’s been simmering for weeks, evaporates.

He's been blaming her for making him do this. But she didn't, not really. Shane chose to be here. He could have said no. He could have stopped this so long ago. 

"Is something wrong, honey?" his mom asks, and Shane's heart bursts open. Someone makes a horrible noise, and Shane realizes that it was him.

Shane doesn't cry, ever, and the first thing he thinks is that something is wrong with his body. The sensation is so strange. Fat tears, hot ones, are breaking out of him like magma. He doesn't remember the last time he let the heat burn past the barrier of his eyes, bubble out of his throat, erupt down his cheeks. Everything is emptying out of him, and Shane can't stop it from scoring his face.  

"Sweetie," his mom murmurs, worried. "Hey, hey, Shane. Come here, come over here." 

He stumbles to the couch and just sort of collapses on her. He's so much bigger than her, but he doesn't worry about crushing her, lets her wrap him in her arms. And he cries, and cries, and doesn't stop crying. 

"Shane," she says brokenly, petting his hair. "Oh, Shane. What's wrong, honey? You can tell me. You can tell me anything. I love you so much, Shane." 

"Fuck," Shane sobs quietly. "Mom. I can't."

"What? Can't what, honey?"

"I can't—" tell you, he means to say, but what he says is, "I can't do this." 

"You don't have to do this," she says savagely. "You don't have to do anything, honey. We can leave right now. The car's here. We can drive to Montreal. Or the cottage. Back to Ottawa. Wherever you want." 

"No," he says sadly. "No, that won't help." 

"Why not, baby? Tell me what's wrong, and I'll fix it." 

"You can't." 

"Let me try, Shane." 

He's exhausted. When he left Ilya, Shane's heart shattered like tempered glass, all of it in pieces. It's not bleeding, because his heart was designed to break that way. Shane made it that way. Instead of jagged shards that will rip the rest of him open, there's a thousand tidy, blunt edges. Survivable damage, but no less of a wreck.

Right now he's too broken to tell his mom anything but the truth.

So he says it. "I'm—Mom, I'm gay." 

She's silent for what feels like a long time, hand paused in his hair. Shane tries to breathe around the barbed sobs that are still snagging his throat. And then he feels her lips, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

"Oh. Oh honey. I love you, Shane." 

"I'm sorry," he says softly, into her lap. She's wearing cashmere pajamas, which he's probably ruining by crying all over them.  

"Shane," she says sharply. "Don't ever say that. Don't ever be sorry, not to me. Not to anyone." His mom is crying now, too. Her voice comes out ruptured and wet. "I'm sorry, Shane. I'm sorry I let you do this. I'm sorry if I'm the reason you did this." A big sob hiccups out of her, and Shane can tell she's choking another one down. "Fuck, Shane. I'm so sorry."

Shane lets his head lie heavy in her lap. Lets her pet his hair. "I know, Mom," he manages to get out. "I know."

They stay like that for a while longer. Shane isn't sure how much time passes, how long he cries for. Eventually he speaks again.

"There's, um," he sniffs. He's so, so tired. Too tired to stop it falling out of him. He looks at the ceiling. "There's more." 

"What is it?" 

He shakes his head. "I can't tell you. Not yet." 

"Okay," his mom says readily. "That's okay, honey. Whenever you're ready. Anytime. I'll always be here." 

"I don't know what to do," he says. "I don't know what to do about any of this." 

Yuna Hollander wraps her son in her arms, and then she pushes him until he's sitting up, looking at her. 

"That's okay," she says fiercely. "Because you and I are going to figure it out. No matter what happens, you are going to be okay. Okay?" 

He doesn't see how that's possible. Even so, he feels lighter. The thing inside of him that's been so, so heavy is gone. Or, maybe not gone. But the weight isn't as bad. His mom is bearing some of the burden of it now.

"Okay," he says. 

"Okay," his mom says again. "Good. Now, let's make a plan." 

When the final Rose Ceremony ends, the sun has just finished setting over the lake. They're filming on a pier, with seagulls squawking and ruining their takes and probably shitting on a few of the PAs. Kendall is long-gone, limousined away. Shane hopes she ends up where she wants to be—in paradise, or in her own ugly McMansion full of guys who actually want to marry her. Somewhere far away from Ohio. He'll get her number from production, maybe. Maybe in a few months they can get coffee.

When he got down on one knee at golden hour, Ana smiled radiantly at him and told him yes. The ground around them was coated in rose petals. Shane held out a single long-stemmed rose between his fingers, weighted down with magnets so that it would stick to a place it didn't want to stay, and then he followed it up with a ring.

The ring was already picked out, gigantic and blinding. Ana beamed at it on her finger, though once the cameras stopped rolling she told him it was ugly as shit and she wanted a new one. Shane promised to buy her whatever fucking ring she wanted.

Then he went to find Ilya. 

When Ilya's trailer door opens and he sees Shane standing on the metal stairs, again, his face remains blank. 

"Okay," he says, like Shane asked him a question. He sounds tired and looks it, too. The skin under his eyes is purple and he's wearing a sweatshirt, which seems somehow more vulnerable than when he's showing off all his skin. He still looks impossibly beautiful to Shane.

Ilya opens the door a little more, giving Shane room to come in. "This will have to be quick. I am catching early flight to LA." 

"Sure," Shane says. He locks the door. "Um. There's just something I need to talk to you about." 

Ilya raises an eyebrow. "What? You are here to tell me again that I cannot tell anyone how much you like fucking me? Do not worry. It is nothing. I will not get in the way of happy ending with pretty wife."

"That's not why I'm here," Shane says. He hasn't slept in twenty-four hours. Being close to Ilya, behind a locked door, is making him dizzy. 

"So you are here for what? Congratulations?" Ilya asks sharply. "Congratulations. Ana will be a nice WAG." 

Shane shakes his head. "I'm not going to marry Ana." 

Ilya rolls his eyes. "Yes, we all know that Bachelor proposal is fake. Congratulations on fake engagement, then. I am sure People magazine will give you lots of nice, boring articles anyway. King of Hockey and his queen." 

"No" Shane's voice comes out a little more solid. His heart is pounding. "Ana—um. She knows." 

"Knows what?" 

"I told her the truth." 

"What truth?" 

"That I'm gay." 

A thousand seconds feel like they're passing by, slow as ice melting. Ilya, for once, actually seems too shocked to say anything. Shane waits. He's willing to wait a long time. 

"You told someone this? That you like men?" Ilya finally asks, like Shane might have somehow gotten confused about what coming out entails. 

Shane can't help it. He laughs a little. "Yeah. I mean. It's true. So." 

He and his mom had discussed the plan before he brought it to Ana. Getting time alone with her the night before the Rose Ceremony had been—really easy, actually. When he'd brought up the rule to his mom about not being around the girls without cameras, she'd rolled her eyes, stared him down, and said, "Honey, you are Shane Fucking Hollander. There aren't any rules this place can make up that will ever apply to you." 

His mom is a little crazy. Today, he loves her for it.

It had made him practically physically ill, to tell Ana the truth. But he'd gotten through it. And she had agreed to the plan. She'd seemed to like it, even. She offered her own ideas. She said yes to the real proposal, and then she said yes during the circus act they filmed on the pier.  

Ilya is still gaping at him. He says incredulously, "And you are not worried that Ana will tell the world this? That you will lose everything?"

"No. Well, I don't know. She might. I don't think she will, though." 

"Why not?" Ilya's voice is getting higher, faster. His accent sounds heavier. "Hollander. You are risking everything—MLH is —" 

"It's a calculated risk," Shane interrupts. "But, um. Some risks are worth taking." It comes out awkward, even though he'd practiced saying that one in his head all morning. "Anyway, Ana is getting something out of this too. Something that will hopefully make me look like less of an asshole and her not look like a fool." 

Ilya throws his hands up. He's so fucking dramatic. Shane likes him so much. He really, really wants to kiss him. "What is that?" 

"We're going into business together."

Ilya stares at him for a second, and then he laughs. "What the fuck?"

Shane laughs, too. He feels a little insane, too. "Yeah. We're going to make a show together. Me and Ana." 

"What?" 

"A reality show." 

Ilya's eyes are huge. "That is your plan? Another dating show? Hollander, you were lying to me about your head injuries. I think you have had too many concussions." 

Shane shakes his head. "No. It's not a dating show. And I won't really be on it, I'm just going to be the executive producer." 

"What fucking show?" 

Shane inhales carefully. "A real estate show." 

Ilya raises his eyebrows. "Like Fixer Upper?" 

"No. Or, I don't know. Kind of like that, I guess. It wouldn't be a show where they make houses uglier, or whatever you said. It would be about Montreal. Maybe kind of historical, like, the preservation of certain parts of the city. I don't know. Ana is going to be the star of it." 

"That sounds…" Ilya sighs. "Hollander. That sounds so fucking boring." 

Shane bristles and feels his mouth turn down. "Fuck you. I'd watch it." 

"And this is still reality TV. What, you have such a good time on this set you want to make more shows like this?" 

"Maybe." Shane stares at him, and says forcefully, "I had a pretty good time here, Ilya." 

Ilya wrinkles his nose and refuses to meet Shane's stare. 

"I would need a producer," Shane says. "Lead producer. Someone to boss everyone around."

Ilya looks at his fingernails. "Hm. Too bad you don't know any producers." 

Shane inhales slowly before letting out his breath. "There's actually one I had in mind." 

"Who? Me? I know you are not into…" Ilya pauses, searching for a word. Shane waits. "…HR violations?" 

"What?"

"Like sleeping with your employees." 

Shane blushes. "Oh. I, um, thought of that. Ana stays on the show for five guaranteed seasons, and our lead producer gets the same deal. And I’ll step back, once the producer is hired. So like, if you don't want to be with me, you don't have to worry about losing your job. Obviously. I won't have any influence over that. Not that I would ever—anyway. Everything will be managed by my production company."

He waits for Ilya to make fun of him, to call him boring for talking about personnel decisions. Instead, Ilya echoes back, "Your production company?" 

"Yeah." Shane nods. "Well, you need one to make a show. You know that. My mom has already emailed like, a thousand people." 

Ilya's eyes are very wide. "You are serious. You would start a company just to keep having sex with me."

"Fuck off." Shane says. Then, "I mean. Yes. I guess so." His mom also thinks they're gonna make a lot of money, that it’s a good idea to diversify Shane’s revenue streams, but Shane honestly doesn't give a shit about that. It's only ever been about Ilya.  

"I am not your fucking sugar baby," Ilya says coldly, eyes narrowing. "I don't need you to help me, to save me. I do not need you to do one single thing for me at all."

Shane looks at the furrow of Ilya's eyebrows, the angry lines of his perfect face. He feels so much for this man, and it doesn't scare him as much as it probably should. He cares about Ilya more than he cares about being afraid.

"Well, tough shit." Shane says. Swallows. "Because I need you." 

Ilya's mouth falls open. Not by much, but it’s impossible for Shane to miss, because Shane has been watching Ilya's mouth so closely for weeks. He’s made a physics of it. The tide of Shane’s bloodstream follows the gravity made by the rise and fall of Ilya’s lips. His mouth is always closed so tight. Ilya so rarely lets himself open it to laugh, but when he does, it's so big and honest and beautiful. He does it a lot more around Shane. Shane's gotten that much of him before. Now he’s getting something more. 

There's so much he wants from Ilya, and it's right there for the taking. Shane just has to keep reaching for it.  

Ilya bites his lower lip. Stares at the ground. "Five seasons," he says, "is a long time." 

Shane shrugs. "Maybe." It doesn't sound long enough to him. 

"And you and Ana? What about the show? LA will want happily ever after narrative, it will be very confusing for the public if you break up."

Shane shrugs. "People break up all the time. We'll put out a statement saying we're better as friends. We'd be telling people the truth—well, some of it." He tries to catch Ilya's eye, tries to smile at him. He just wants Ilya to keep looking at him. 

Ilya's gaze stays somewhere past Shane's ear. "What if you get traded from Montreal? What happens to show?" 

"I won't get traded." 

"What if someone finds out that you are a cocksucker? What if Tyler tells?" 

"Tyler doesn't know anything. And I'm not gonna worry about people finding out that I'm—" he swallows "—that I'm gay. I'm gonna worry about winning a Cup. Which is going to happen. Then who's gonna say shit?" 

Ilya scoffs. "Not with those edges will you win a Cup." 

Shane glares at him. "My edges are amazing." Then he asks, curiously, "Have you actually watched me play?" 

Ilya doesn't look at him. "I cannot control what is on TV at bars." 

Shane feels himself smiling. "That's such bullshit, Rozanov. What did you tell me once? 'Good producers control the environment?' You can control anything."

Ilya's lips turn upwards. He's pleased. "We will see." 

Shane wants to keep pleasing him. "I know it won't be good, obviously, if people find out. I hope that doesn't happen. But, um. My parents know, now. About me. I don't know. I'm not gonna like, come out to the world. But maybe—maybe I could tell a few other people, too. For now. Maybe my friend Hayden. That's my winger." 

"He should not be," Ilya interrupts. "He is a horrible player." 

"Jesus Christ." Shane laughs. "How much hockey do you watch? You're obsessed with me." 

Ilya glares at him. But all Shane can do with Ilya's eyes on him is grin like a fool. 

"So, um. What do you say?" he asks. "Will you come work on my show?" 

"You want me to work on the show," Ilya says slowly. "And keep fucking you."

Ilya keeps asking him the same questions. Shane opens his mouth to agree with him, say, Yes, still yes, obviously I want that, and then he stops.

It's sort of impossible for Shane to imagine that there's anything he could ever hide from Ilya. That Ilya would not know everything there is to know about Shane before Shane knows it, see around every corner of the puzzle box Shane constructed of his mind to conceal his own thoughts from himself.

But Ilya keeps asking Shane questions like he doesn't already know the answers. And so Shane turns his attention from the inside of his brain, from all the words he practiced on his way here, to the person in front of him.

Ilya's bright eyes are dull. He has a couple angry pimples on his jaw, a breakout that might have come from a bad diet, or stress. Losing sleep. A really beautiful face having a really bad week.

Shane has been barreling forward with this conversation, trusting that Ilya is following behind him, because Ilya, from the day Shane met him, has been able to see straight through him, past what distracted everyone else. The reality show with Ana is a distraction, a means to an end, another billboard advertising the product of Shane Hollander. And it's not the real thing Shane came here to offer.

Ilya can't wrap his arms around a billboard. What Shane is offering Ilya is something that can fit into an embrace.

"I do want you to work on my show," Shane says slowly. "And I do want you to keep fucking me. I want that a lot. But I don't — that's not it. That's not all I want."

"Shane," Ilya says. His eyes look hopeful. Shane's sure it's hope. It makes him brave. 

"I want you to come to Montreal and work on the show because I want you. For real. Like, you know." Shane breathes out through his mouth. There's really not enough air in this fucking trailer. “To be with me. Be my boyfriend, if that’s—if that’s what you want. I want to tell my parents and Hayden about you, too. About us.” 

For a few seconds, everything between them is still. The moment is frozen. Shane wants to swallow the words back down, they sounded so stupid, but then—

"You mean this?" Ilya asks. His mouth is closed again, the fault line sealed up once more. But Shane knows it's there. He's seen the fissure and he knows he can crack it again.

Shane clenches his hands into fists, ready to rip the earth apart if he has to. "You're really gonna make me say it?"

Shane sees the words rising out of the syrupy pool of his helpless, infatuated thoughts and can't believe he's going to speak them aloud. Whatever. They're true.

"I've never felt a connection like this with anyone before," Shane says. For good measure, he adds, "You dickhead." 

"Shane," Ilya says again. It comes out like a cry. Then, abruptly, he slams Shane against the wall. Shane's head thuds pleasantly against the cheap paneling. "Fine, yes, okay. I will work on your show. I will come to Canada and be with you. But first I am going to suck your dick, right now."

"We can't," Shane says, hands already going to the button of his stupid tuxedo pants. "But okay. Just a little. You have to be quick, I'm getting dinner with my parents and Ana. My mom wants to talk about the show with her. She has so many fucking ideas. I didn't even know my mom watched home renovation shows." 

"No," Ilya says, pulling Shane's dick out of his pants and licking his neck. "I am not going to be quick. I am going to take my time with you." 

"What about your flight?" Shane asks breathlessly. 

Ilya rubs his nose with the hand that isn't jerking Shane off. "I was, maybe, lying about flight. I have my car here, I am not getting on a plane."

"Oh, right," Shane says helplessly. "Then. Um. Well. Do you want to come to dinner with us?" 

Ilya laughs in his face. "No, Hollander. I do not want to get dinner with you and your parents and your fiancé."

"Fake fiancé," Shane insists. "I'm gay." The syllables still sound clumsy falling out of him. But they don't feel wrong. It's getting easier to say. "What about tomorrow then? Maybe just you and my parents? You could come over." He takes in a breath. "We don't have to, like, tell them about us. Yet." He looks hopefully at Ilya, who shrugs. It's not a no. "But if you're gonna be working on the show, maybe for now we can tell them we're friends."

They might not believe that he and Ilya are just friends. He did just tell them he was gay. It makes Shane dizzy again; a good kind of dizzy. The thought of introducing his parents to Ilya; properly, this time. Saying to them, this man is important to me. He's so important to Shane. Shane wants him so, so badly.

Ilya's hand stills. He studies Shane in blatant disbelief. "You mean this. You really want me to have dinner with your parents. The night after you are getting engaged."

Shane nods. Asks, hopefully, "What do you think?"

"I think… I think you are crazy."

"Is that a yes?"

Ilya closes his eyes, like the whole heavy conversation is too overwhelming to look at. Shane gets it. "Fuck. It is a maybe." 

"And then—tonight, after I'm done with my parents and Ana," Shane says hungrily. "I could come over to your place." 

Ilya scoffs. "It is not so nice as your house." 

"I don't care. I want to see where you sleep."  

Ilya finally kisses him, then. His lips are warm. He smells like cigarettes, like always. Shane doesn't really mind the smell, now, but still. Starting tomorrow, he's launching an anti-smoking campaign.

"I mean it," Shane pants when Ilya pulls back, taking all the oxygen in Shane's lungs with him. Good. Shane doesn't want anything of his not to belong to Ilya, too. "I want to know everything about you."

"Okay, Hollander," Ilya says, and kisses him again. “Whatever you want." 

Ilya shoves him into the wall to kiss him harder, and with the movement Shane feels something underneath the sole of his shoe. He looks down. One of the rose petals from the proposal must have stuck to his clothes and gotten tracked inside the trailer. Beneath them, it's just a red, ripped smear on the ground. Shane closes his eyes and kisses Ilya back.