Archive of Our Own

It wasn’t even his idea. That’s the worst part about it. No, Shane corrects himself, the worst part about it is that he was dumped by his fiancé less than a month before the wedding. But, if he’s ranking things, spending two weeks in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in July as a hot-natured Canadian, alone on what should have been his honeymoon, in a queer resort full of happy couples, when he didn’t even want to go to Mexico, has to be up there on the list. It is twenty-seven degrees, only 7am, and only going to get hotter.

If it’d been up to him alone, irrespective of schedules, he and Michael would have planned a trip for later in the year, during the dying gasps of summer at the end of August or start of September, maybe somewhere European. He’s heard Malta is gay-friendly and gorgeous. Not that later was ever a meaningful option for him—he has to be back in Ottawa for training camp before then.

Even given the time constraints, Shane would have opted for somewhere cooler this time of year, maybe Iceland. Then again, if he’s ranking things, his number one preference at the moment would be to have Michael with him on their honeymoon in the gay capital of Mexico, not having fucked off to God knows where with a man, who, as fate would have it, is also named Michael.

But what was he going to do, not go? By the time Shane came home from a roadie only a few weeks ago to find Michael with bags packed and a practiced apology, the cancellation deadline had long passed, and Shane was out many thousands of dollars on the trip.

When he called Rose, A-list actress and ex-girlfriend turned best friend, and filled her in, she told him about something called the sunk cost fallacy. Conceptually, Shane understands it; he’s a hockey player, not a complete idiot, even if he feels like one right now. But the sunk cost fallacy doesn’t factor in the desire for revenge. The best way he can get back at Michael is to enjoy the fuck out of their honeymoon, all by himself.

That is how Shane finds himself here, now, sitting in front of one of maybe ten different check-in desks with a glass of champagne and a conspicuously vacant seat beside him, across from a woman in a turquoise polo who is apologizing profusely. The name Sofía is embroidered below the ornate resort logo in white thread.

"It’s fine, really," Shane insists, not for the first time. "I didn’t contact you. It’s not your fault. The honeymoon package really won’t bother me." In reality, Shane isn’t so confident that the honeymoon package won’t bother him, but, it wasn't exactly his top priority to reach out to the resort after Michael left his life in shambles, so he'll make himself not care to get into the room sooner. After overnight travel, he’s eager to shower, order room service, and collapse into bed for what he hopes to be a long, dreamless sleep.

"If you are sure," Sofía finally acquiesces, though she still looks leery.

Shane sits listlessly, taking tiny sips from the flute in his hand while Sofía click-clacks away on the keyboard for a few more painfully long moments. Finally, she reaches across the desk and deposits a silicone wristband into Shane’s hand. It has a heft to it, weighted on one side. She explains that the wristband is the key to his room and proof that he is a guest when he is out and about on the property. The resort is all-inclusive, but he can use the wristband to purchase add-ons—booking excursions, spa treatments, cabanas. Shane briefly considers leaving Michael’s credit card on file, but decides it isn’t worth the fight with him on the back end and adds his own for any extra charges.

Sofía finally leads Shane to the top floor, and offers him another sheepish look when they reach room 1410, a banner stretching from the bottom left corner to the top right corner of the door, vibrant text that reads luna de miel across it. Shane averts his gaze while she opens the door.

Inside, he barely registers Sofía’s tour, instead focusing on the uninterrupted view of the Pacific Ocean out his enormous glass balcony doors. The moment he is alone, he steps out onto the balcony and is met with a pleasant breeze, the smell of saltwater and the squawk of birds overwhelming his senses. He inspects the jetted tub—a feature he’d forked over an extra few grand for, over the course of a two-week stay—and feels a pang of sadness that he won’t be comfortable using it; without someone with him, he would be too afraid of slipping and falling on the slick tile. Ending up in a hospital bed in a foreign country is not on his travel itinerary.

Attempting to cast the reminder of his newfound singledom aside, he slips back through the doors, and immediately realizes the flaw in his plan; the suite is, as Sofía warned, furnished for a couple on their honeymoon, complete with a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket, two champagne flutes, a neat box of six chocolate-covered strawberries, and red rose petals arranged artfully on the bed to form a heart with M + S at its center.

Shane wordlessly sweeps the petals into a waste basket. Suddenly too exhausted to shower or wait for real food, Shane strips to his boxer briefs. He pops the bottle of champagne with no celebratory flourish, tucks the box of strawberries under his arm, and, without the pretense of taking a flute, crawls into bed with his spoils.

Some time later, Shane wakes with drool crusting at the corner of his mouth and acid climbing up his throat from drinking half a bottle of bubbly and eating all six chocolate-covered berries before lying flat for several hours. He wonders idly if room service would bring him Pepto Bismol and checks the time.

It’s just after 2pm. Normally, it’d be too late for Shane to eat lunch; he is the type of person who sticks to a consistent regimen (and a diet that does not include chocolate covered strawberries or huge volumes of champagne), and eating now would throw off his dinner, which would throw off tomorrow’s breakfast, and so on. But his stomach is churning, and his head is pounding, and he is on the wrong side of the continent, and Michael is gone, and nothing matters, so he forces himself to get out of bed.

Shane takes a quick shower, dual shower heads mocking him, and throws on an acceptably unwrinkled cream linen shirt and solid navy swim trunks that could pass for regular shorts. He hates living out of a suitcase, but the burning in his stomach is only getting worse, so he can deal with unpacking later. He slathers himself in SPF 50, messages the concierge to ask for his now-dirtied sheets to be changed while he’s out, and steels himself for what lies beyond the relative comfort of the room.

The resort has a dozen or so dining options, each mostly centering on a different type of cuisine; there is an American-themed restaurant, which appears to be styled like a 1950s diner, a French restaurant, an Italian pizzeria, a steakhouse, a couple of buffets with various offerings, and a hibachi, which Shane is deeply suspicious of and does not deign to try. He lands, naturally, on the beachfront Mexican place.

It is beautiful, as expected, all terracotta tile and rattan light fixtures, barely functional ceiling fans made out of woven palm leaves, every side open so as not to obstruct the view of the white sand beyond. Shane is seated at a small bistro table facing the water; several queer couples sit between him and the rope demarcating the restaurant’s dining area. A long row of wooden cabanas dot the beach, white privacy curtains billowing loosely in the wind where unsecured and bowing like sails where they are tethered to the posts.

Though he would have obviously rather the past six weeks gone very differently and be here with his new husband, Shane is reasonably capable of being alone. While it used to bother him, he can recognize now that he is not and will never be the most outgoing person in the world. He makes no extraordinary efforts to try to conform to society’s expectations anymore, with the exception of media junkets and talking to sponsors. He doesn’t practice his food and drink orders ahead of time like he used to and he doesn’t force small talk with strangers or acquaintances. When his waiter arrives, he orders his meal concisely but politely and is content to people-watch.

And wow, is this good people-watching. One older couple, two (probably?) white men with skin that looks like inexpensive leather, sits two tables away, gesticulating wildly and arguing about whether Mark was flirting with their bartender last night. Shane scoops up some shrimp ceviche and relishes the fresh acidity—reflux be damned—as he continues to scan.

In the cabana second closest to the restaurant are two women, one white and blonde, the other a dark-skinned Black woman with a mop of natural curls swept up on her head. They don’t seem to have noticed that one of their curtains has come untied and the blonde is wedging her thigh between her partner’s legs, face buried in her neck.

Shane watches with bated breath as a server approaches the cabana from the other direction with a tray of pale green drinks, unaware of what awaits him on the other side—and then, when the man gets close enough to come into focus, Shane is no longer thinking about the women at all.

The server, seemingly unfazed by the couple’s cabana activities, is quite possibly the hottest man Shane has ever seen in his life. The trio is out of earshot, but he watches rapt as the man apologetically announces his presence; he must have said something funny, because the women look charmed as they peel themselves apart and gratefully take their beverages. The man offers them a parting grin and it’s brilliant and disarming even from here.

Finished with his task, the man crosses past the last cabana and his face shifts into something more neutral, less optimized for maximum hospitality. He exhales visibly and reaches to the hem of his work-issued white polo, identical to those of all the serving staff with turquoise embroidery, the inverse of the concierges, and pulls it up to wipe sweat from his brow, and—Jesus Christ, he’s ripped.

He looks like a tennis player regrouping between sets, thick thighs threatening to burst out of white chino shorts with a devastating inseam, and discrete, defined abs glistening in the afternoon sun. Atop the perfect body is what, admittedly from a distance, appears to be a perfect face, sharp angles giving way to a supple, pink mouth, all nested in a halo of golden curls.

Shane forces himself to avert his gaze as the man loops back around to the walking path behind the beach, briefly crossing too close to Shane for comfort. Shane finishes his meal the same way he started it: Silently observing those around him. The older men have stopped bickering and are holding hands over the table; the women have re-secured their privacy curtain but Shane can still see a nest of feet tangled at the foot of the cabana.

He’s happy for both of the couples. He really is. And for the moment, he isn’t even thinking about Michael. No, when his server comes to ask if he needs anything else, there is only one question on his mind: "Do you know how to reserve a cabana?"

‿‿‿‿

Shane arrives at his cabana at 9am on the dot, the very moment his reservation begins. He has an eight-by-eight-by-eight box of cozy privacy all to himself until 6pm and he does not intend to waste a moment—or an opportunity to lay his eyes on the man from yesterday. That is, of course, if he’s even working today; Shane has resigned himself to renting a cabana every day if he must to see him up close.

He situates the lounger and ties back the curtains just enough that he will get a few moments’ warning when approached and settles in against the cushions with his ereader in what he hopes is a reasonably alluring pose. He unbuttons his linen shirt and lets it hang open, displaying his bare torso. He might not be as ripped as the man he is waiting anxiously to meet, but he is still a professional athlete and occasional, if reluctant, underwear model, thank you very much. It isn’t long before the man in question appears in his periphery, angelic in white against his gold-all-over skin and hair. It takes a physical effort not to sit up to get a closer look, but Shane wants to look relaxed. He’s on vacation. His heart shouldn’t be beating out of his chest cavity.

"Good morning," the angel greets him. His voice is lower than Shane expected, richer somehow, with an accent he can’t immediately place. His eyes trail over Shane’s body in a way that feels both predatory and intimate. Shane supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that someone working at a gay resort in the gay capital of Mexico might be at least a little bit gay, but he is, nevertheless, at least a little surprised that the angel is looking at him like this.

"Good morning," Shane replies. "How did you know I speak English?" It’s the most innocuous question he can think of that would allow the angel to come out and say, ‘actually, I know exactly who you are, Shane Hollander.’ Instead, the angel grins, looming over him, and Shane feels his breath catch in his throat.

"Lucky guess," he answers with a shrug. "Can I get you a drink? Breakfast? Is there someone here with you I should wait for before I take your order?"

Shane looks at the empty space beside him, unoccupied but for a drink tray and the resort-issued beach bag.

"Uh, yeah, no, a drink would be good," Shane stammers. "I already ate. Room service. And it’s just me today." The words roll out of Shane’s mouth unbidden, Shane powerless to stop them once they start. The angel lifts an eyebrow, and his eyes catch just enough light for Shane to see for the first time that they are hazel, a million colors blending together to almost green-gold. If he’s surprised that Shane is alone, though, he doesn’t say anything.

"O-kay," the angel replies, a pleasant, mildly amused lilt to his voice that Shane wants to keep hearing even if it is at his expense, and his accent making it sound more like okey. "So, just-you-today, what can I get for you?"

The angel has jokes. Huh. Shane’s mind is suddenly blank, as if someone hit the hard reset button on his brain. What do people drink on the beach? It’s probably safe to order water, but is that too boring? Why do I care if he thinks my drink order is boring? It’s my drink order. His face must look equally vacant, because the angel is suddenly speaking again.

"We have mimosas with every type of juice you could want, bloody marys, piña coladas, margaritas, really any type of cocktail you can think of, most major Mexican beers…" The voice trails off, and Shane misses it immediately.

"Do you have ginger ale?"

The angel cocks his head to the side slightly and looks at Shane curiously.

"You come to beautiful place that charges a million dollars a night to include your food and drinks and you want… ginger ale?"

Shane feels heat climb up his exposed neck and face before he can mount a defense.

"It’s not a million dollars," Shane protests reflexively. "And I don’t drink a lot. Of alcohol, I mean. Or really anything with sugar. Ginger ale is kind of a treat."

The angel looks at him consideringly for a long moment, then seems to make a decision.

"Do you trust me?"

Shane finds himself nodding before he’s made a conscious decision to do so.

"If you don’t want to try it, you do not have to, but if you are willing, I would like to get you a cocktail. Something with ginger in it that you might like. You are on vacation. Live a little." He punctuates the entreaty with a wink that Shane feels shoot directly to his dick.

"Yeah, okay," Shane acquiesces easily. "Can I get a water too, please? Gotta stay hydrated out here," Shane adds with a half smile and a chuckle that comes out sounding nervous.

"Ah, yes," the angel agrees readily, eyes flitting across Shane’s exposed skin. "You are already sweating. Be back soon."

He has turned before Shane has time to process the comment and Shane watches as he walks away, his impossibly round ass straining hard against his shorts. Fuck. What is he doing here? When he booked the cabana, he had little plan beyond see hot man up close. Shane doesn’t flirt with strangers. He isn’t the kind of guy who tries to pick up hospitality workers.

Or, at least, he hasn’t been historically, but it’s not like he’s had much of an opportunity to do so. Before he met Michael, his romantic experiences, if one could call them that, were limited, to say the least. It was incredibly difficult to find safe hookups, better yet date, as the deeply closeted and indisputable best hockey player in the NHL.

Once he was outed five years ago, the hooking up got easier—if Shane wanted to have sex, all he had to do was open his Instagram and select from the vast array of other public figures, some closeted, some not, who were shooting their shots in his DMs. But the dating was still hard. He went out with a few men, and it never went well; for one, the dates were all media spectacles, fodder for hockey gossip rags. Two, the other public figures tended to be kind of self-involved in a way that Shane found off-putting.

Michael, on the other hand, made it easy; when Shane made the move to Ottawa four years ago, one of the first people he met was a mild-mannered physiotherapist with dark brown hair, blue eyes, the ability to cook, and no desire to egg on paparazzi. The novelty of Shane Hollander, hockey superstar dating a random private citizen eventually wore off and their faces stopped appearing on hockey news sites with any frequency.

Meanwhile, the mutual interest and attraction remained, and developed into something with the vague shape of what Shane had spent his adult life waiting for—extremely patiently, he might add. It was enough for him. It was enough for Michael, too, right up until it wasn’t.

A few minutes later, the angel returns with drinks in hand; in one, a short rocks glass filled with dark liquid and garnished with a lime, and a water with a lime wedge in the other. Shane sits upright to take both glasses, but the angel first leans over to deposit the water on the small tray on the chaise beside Shane, the incursion into Shane’s personal space more welcome than it should be with a stranger.

Up close, Shane can see the angel’s imperfections: The errant acne scar, a clear pimple patch holding on for dear life near his hairline, a slightly crooked nose that looks like it’s been broken and reset, possibly more than once. The flaws, in the aggregate, only serve to highlight their scarcity. This man is beautiful.

"This is called a dark and stormy," the angel says without preamble, reaching out to pass the cold glass to Shane. "It is dark rum and ginger beer. Let me know what you think." When Shane goes to take it, for one fleeting moment, the angel’s fingers weave with his own, the contact far more intimate than necessary. For the second time in a few short minutes, Shane’s brain short circuits, and hazel eyes stare back at him expectantly. He takes a long pull to have something to do with his mouth besides letting it hang open, and when he meets the angel’s gaze, it looks like maybe he felt it too.

"It’s good," Shane announces. And it is; it’s sweet and kind of spicy and tastes vaguely tropical, which feels appropriate for the setting. "Really good, actually. Thank you."

"You are welcome," the angel replies. Then, after a moment, looking as though he has just remembered he is at work, "I have forgotten my manners. My name is Ilya."

By this point, Shane probably could and should have noticed the letters embroidered just above where he imagines the angel’s left nipple is, but he hadn’t, and, at any rate, he’s grateful for the pronunciation help. Two syllables, Eel-ya, the emphasis on the latter.

"Shane," he offers in return. He doesn’t dare extend a hand because he doesn’t want his brain to stop working again. The ang—Ilya, Shane corrects himself, grins at him boyishly one more time, briefly biting his bottom lip before stepping backwards a few paces.

"I know your name," he admits, and, oh, this is it, Shane thinks, he’s going to say he’s a hockey fan and it will all be ruined—"Is on cabana reservation. Let me know if you need anything else, Shane."

It’s probably nothing, but the way he says anything else makes Shane believe he really means it. Shane exhales and feels his entire body deflate.

Over the course of the day, Shane eats three grilled fish tacos, swims in the ocean, cat-naps at least a cumulative two hours, and has more alcoholic beverages in a single day than he has since… ever. He flirts with Ilya unrepentantly, and, while he isn’t usually great at noticing these things, he’s pretty sure Ilya flirts back. So, it’s a pretty good day, all things considered.

He leaves a massive cash tip on his drink table and retreats to his room, reserving a cabana for the next day in the resort’s app. He orders room service for dinner, showers, and comes hard with Ilya’s name on his lips before he passes out completely.

‿‿‿‿

Ilya doesn’t look particularly surprised to see Shane the next morning—but then, of course he wouldn’t. He saw his name on the reservation.

Shane is mildly hung over, so he starts with water. By noon, he switches back to dark and stormies, and spends an inordinate amount of time riding the waves out and in with his ass wedged into a donut-shaped floatie. Eventually, to less concern than he might feel were he not drinking, he realizes he has gotten his first sunburn in a decade due to his lack of a meaningful way to tell time apart from the location of the sun in the sky.

By 4:30pm, Shane is back in the cabana, well and truly intoxicated, and it seems like most of the other cabanas have been vacated for the day.

It is a combination of liquid courage and heat exhaustion on Shane’s part, and an absence of work duties on Ilya’s, then, that allows Shane to ask Ilya to join him in the cabana and for Ilya to say yes, but only a few minutes.

"So where are you from originally?" Shane asks, sucking down the water that Ilya insistently placed in his hand a few minutes prior. Ilya’s eyebrows quirk up in amusement.

"I am from Russia," he replies sardonically. "I thought this was obvious." Shane rolls his eyes.

"Shut up," Shane scoffs. "I mean, I knew it could be Russia, but I don’t want to be the guy who just assumes every person from Eastern Europe is Russian. You could be from, like, Czechoslovakia or something." Ilya laughs openly now, something buoyant and joyous.

"Czechoslovakia has not existed since 1992, Shane," Ilya explains, grinning widely. Shane brings his free hand to his face and pushes the cold glass against it with the other. It smarts against his sunburnt skin.

"Oh my god, I’m such a fucking idiot," Shane giggles, feeling ebullient. Drinking is nice. Why doesn’t he drink more?

"Not idiot, just drunk. And American," Ilya replies like he’s being gracious. Shane feels his face contort in offense, and llya's brow furrows adorably in response. "What? Why do you look like angry kitten?"

"I am not American, asshole," Shane sniffs. "I’m Canadian. And I do not look like an angry kitten, what the fuck."

"Same difference." Ilya shrugs indifferently. "And you tipped me in U.S. dollars yesterday—too much, I might add. Why would Canadian have U.S. dollars?"

"Because we are a famously kind and considerate people and I read that the employees at resorts in Mexico like it if you tip in U.S. dollars," Shane explains as if it makes all the sense in the world—because it does, to him. It sets off a fresh bout of laughter from Ilya, who is lying on his side across the chaise. If Shane so much as pointed a toe—

"I should go," Ilya says after his laughter peters out. "I have one other cabana guest. She was asleep last time I walked by, but…" He shrugs.

"Yeah, okay," Shane agrees, sitting upright. He can’t completely monopolize the man’s attention. He can buy a fraction of it, but he knows even that is only temporary.

Ilya pushes himself up as if to stand, but falters. Finally, he makes eye contact with Shane. "I am off work tomorrow."

"What?" Shane replies dumbly. It’s such a deviation from the previous topic of conversation that Shane can’t understand why he’s mentioning it. Probably too much rum.

"I wanted you to know so you don’t make cabana reservation," Ilya explains like it should be obvious. And… maybe it should be. Shane scowls anyway.

"Get over yourself," Shane replies, sounding unconvincing even to his own ears. "Like you said, I am in a beautiful place. There’s plenty to do." There’s a long beat of silence.

"How long have you been here, Shane?" Ilya’s voice is inquisitive, not suggesting in any way why he is asking.

"Two and a half days," Shane answers honestly.

"And you have spent two of those two and a half days in cabana," Ilya replies plainly. "Have you been to the pool? Any of them? If you haven’t noticed, there are three." Shane can’t meet Ilya’s eyes as he shakes his head in the negative. "Have you left the resort?"

This time, Shane hears himself utter a sheepish "no."

Ilya drops back down to his elbow to force his face back into Shane’s line of vision. Shane watches as Ilya places his hand tentatively on Shane’s ankle and squeezes. The sensation floods Shane with more heat than it should.

"Let me show you around," Ilya suggests. Shane forces his eyes to focus on Ilya’s, vibrant, if a little backlit. He watches Ilya swallow around nothing. "You are single, yes? And interested in me?"

Shane glances down at his bare left hand as if to double check; he hears himself laugh out loud and he hopes it doesn’t sound as manic to Ilya as it does to him.

"Yes, I’m single," Shane confirms. "And… interested. In you." He is briefly grateful for the sunburn obscuring the flush he can feel spreading over most of his upper body.

"Good." Ilya offers him one more winning grin, and reaches his palm out expectantly. "You have Whatsapp? Give."

‿‿‿‿

Shane should maybe muster up a bit more concern about his lack of self-preservation instincts, but he can’t really make himself care. Is it the best idea he’s ever had to get in a car with a virtual stranger in a foreign country known for gang violence? No, probably not. Should it send up alarm bells at all that this virtual stranger seems to be the only Russian person working at a resort in Mexico? Yeah, maybe.

But this virtual stranger is unbelievably hot and Shane hasn’t had sex in three months, so no, he can’t make himself care, and yes, he did bottom prep at 8:30 in the morning, just in case. Ilya pulls up in front of the main resort entrance at 9am on the dot in a sleek black sports car that looks entirely too nice to belong to a cabana boy. Shane tells him as much as he buckles his seatbelt. He has a feeling he’ll need it.

"Thank you, I think," Ilya replies with that smirk to which Shane is rapidly becoming addicted. He looks edible, dressed practically for the heat in head-to-toe light linen, long sleeves rolled up to the elbow to expose forearms that look like they could throw Shane through drywall. "Is my roommate’s. She is rich. Has two of these and only drives to work and back. Complete waste of money."

She, Shane clocks. He isn’t sure why the pronoun sends a pang of jealousy through him—for one, he knows Ilya likes men and has no specific indication whether he likes women. Two, he has known this man for two days and until Ilya’s thick, sure fingers wrapped around his thigh a few moments ago, his only contact with him had been little more than incidental (save a weirdly horny squeeze to his ankle), if electric. Regardless, he knows it doesn’t bode well for his sanity long term.

"How did you meet? Does she work at the resort too?" Shane read somewhere that you should only ask people one question at a time, but he hopes the latter helps the former seem more innocuous. It seems to work.

"We are old friends," Ilya explains. "From Russia. We came here together." Shane tries to school his face into a neutral expression, but it’s an uphill battle; who moves across the world with someone they aren’t involved with romantically? He feels Ilya’s eyes dart from the road to his face and back again before he can put together a sufficiently casual response.

"We are not together, if that is what you are thinking," Ilya clarifies. "We love each other, but…"

"...But not like that," Shane finishes for him, relieved.

"Da. She is my best friend. She sells these," Ilya says, gesturing at the flashy, multi-colored logo on the steering wheel. "And I get somewhere nice to live for the cost of utilities and groceries."

It hardly seems balanced to Shane; this woman houses Ilya for virtually nothing and they aren’t even a couple. But, he supposes, he can imagine it’s lonely to live in a country that isn’t your own, thousands of kilometers from everyone you know and love. Maybe it’s worth it to her to have someone to speak Russian with every day, someone who knows what home is like. He faintly remembers hearing similar statements from his grandparents, how nice it was to have someone they could still speak Japanese and talk about Japan with in one another. He wonders idly how long it’s been since Ilya has been home and the thought causes a twinge somewhere deep in his chest.

"That sounds nice," Shane replies lamely. He’s suddenly eager to stop thinking about Ilya’s homesickness.

Just then, Ilya presents a perfect distraction by cracking open the driver's side window and pulling out a small, black device that Shane has seen some of the guys on his team use. He takes a long drag from the vape pen and angles his mouth towards the fresh air to exhale—even so, the car takes on a vaguely minty smell. Ilya must feel Shane's gaze, because then he is looking at Shane with a sheepish grin.

"Nasty habit, I know," Ilya says ruefully. "I am trying to stop."

And of course he is, Shane thinks. He could smack himself. Those are tobacco cessation tools, right? God, he can be so judgmental. Not everyone can be Shane Hollander, he of no vices. He shakes his head vigorously and gives Ilya an empathetic look.

"No, it's fine, I'm sorry, I—" Shane cuts himself off, unsure how to continue. Am an asshole? His mind proffers. Instead, he swallows, and switches gears entirely. "So, what is the plan? Where are we going?"

The man beside him flips on a turn signal and glances over with a wolfish grin. He has been driving a bit too fast for Shane’s liking, but he has also consistently used his blinkers, so Shane won’t complain.

"You only think to ask now? You have been in car with strange Russian man for what, ten minutes already. You could be on the way to have kidney removed."

The words themselves could be menacing depending on their source and delivery, but from Ilya, they make Shane laugh out loud.

"I really do have good kidneys," Shane jokes. "I drink lots of water. And I have no self preservation instinct. Are you going to kill me, Ilya?"

Ilya smiles, eyes trained out the windshield. "No, not today at least," he answers. "And we’re here." Shane had been too distracted to notice any signage as they approached the parking garage.

"Art museum," Ilya offers without being asked. "I figure you need to see something beautiful besides Pacific Ocean while you are here."

It's a feat of human willpower that Shane is able to refrain from seizing the obvious opportunity to call Ilya beautiful.

A few minutes later, having unsuccessfully tried to convince Ilya to let him purchase their entry tickets, Shane finds himself in a small exhibit hall, surrounded by vivid-hued paintings.

"There was an exhibition here a few months ago that I liked very much," Ilya tells Shane casually, thumbs hooked into his pockets.

"Oh?" Shane replies, interest piqued.

"Da. It was works by this Mexican artist, very interesting, clearly Mexican, but they were lubki, a type of Russian print. Was nice. Familiar, but different. Two things I recognize mixed together. I am probably not explaining this well. Hard to say in English."

Ilya's eyes are fixed on the piece in front of them, a dreamy painting of a bay filled with pink dolphins and enormous fish, a man selling paletas in the foreground to the people beyond the beach, no discernable sense of scale. It's pleasantly realistic but stylized, the colors rich and inviting but everything clearly identifiable.

"I think I understand," Shane replies. "At least a little. I've only ever lived in Canada, but I'm ethnically half Japanese." There is more he could say; he could tell Ilya that he has always struggled to feel like he belongs anywhere, too exotic to be perceived as white but not having meaningfully engaged with his heritage from a young age either. He doesn’t.

Shane feels Ilya's gaze land on him like a physical blow, a crooked smile stretching wide across Ilya's face.

"Is that where you get your looks from? Why you are so pretty?"

There is no way Ilya could have known that this comment, surely meant as a compliment, has been lobbed at Shane as an insult or a chirp so many times in his life—on the ice, in the locker room, at school—but, to Shane’s surprise, it lands as intended from Ilya. He feels his cheeks flush.

"Half of my looks, I guess," Shane replies sheepishly. "My dad’s not a bad looking guy either, though he is where I got my freckles from."

A line appears between Ilya’s thick brows. "What is freckles?"

He is so cute that Shane wants to bite him.

"Oh, they’re, like, little dots on your skin," Shane explains simply. "Smaller than moles, and flat. I have them all over my face and arms, fewer on the rest of my body."

"Vesnushki," Ilya says, looking affronted. "That is what they are called in Russian. Why do you say this like is bad thing to have?"

"Because they’re sun damage," Shane replies, grimacing. "I didn’t always put on sunscreen when I should have as a kid and now I have them forever. They have faded a lot, but I got sunburnt yesterday like an idiot because I was drunk and in the ocean and now they’re darker again. Makes me look dirty." It occurs to him that he shouldn’t display his insecurities in front of Ilya on a first date—this is a date, right? —but it’s a moment too late.

"Don’t talk about them like that." If Ilya looked affronted before, he looks genuinely offended now, on the freckles’ behalf. It’s ridiculous. It’s nice. "They are very pretty, like little constellations on your skin."

"You’re a real sweet talker, you know that?" Shane can’t help but grin. Freckles is new to him, but constellation he knows? This man contains multitudes. Ilya’s gaze scans his face for a few long, delicious moments, and Shane feels seen in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

"You deserve sweetness, Shane," Ilya replies, and Shane can’t bring himself to argue.

An hour later, Ilya sits across from Shane in a modern taqueria. He looks like he belongs there: Black, acrylic-framed sunglasses are pushed back to pull all but one errant curl away from his forehead, his loose-fitting natural linen shirt flows slightly in the artificial breeze of the ceiling fan, and the Corona bottle in his hand drips condensation as he squeezes his lime wedge with practiced fingers and pokes it through the bottleneck.

Tiny lines are etched into the skin at the corners of his eyes, betraying years of smiles and laughter and squinting in the sun. He is so unbelievably beautiful that it almost hurts to look at him.

"So, this is your first time in Mexico?" Ilya asks, then takes a long pull from the bottle. Shane watches Ilya’s throat work as he drinks, then realizes he’s waited a beat longer to reply than ordinary conversational conventions would dictate.

"Uh, yeah," he stammers. "First time." Ilya grins at him, something lupine. Shane swallows hard.

"What brings you here during the off season?" Ilya prods. "It is much nicer when it is not so hot and wet."

The words hot and wet coming from Ilya’s mouth hit Shane embarrassingly low in the abdomen, but the content of the question is enough to prevent him from getting an inconvenient erection in a taco restaurant. Shane sighs.

"I was supposed to be here on my honeymoon," he confesses. "We… broke up, I guess, and it was too late to cancel, so."

"So you came alone to meet hot cabana boys," Ilya replies levelly. Shane hears what could only be described as a giggle bubble up and out of his throat, much to his embarrassment.

"I mean, I kind of hoped I’d meet somebody," Shane admits. "And you are hot. Like, stupidly hot. But I really just figured I should try to enjoy it any way I could. Also, isn’t cabana boy kind of…" Shane reaches mentally for a word Ilya would know because he doesn’t want to embarrass him—infantilizing and patronizing are the words that come to mind, but he can’t find one he’s confident would be in Ilya’s dictionary. Is assuming he wouldn’t know those words in itself kind of infantilizing or patronizing? Shane chooses not to inspect it too closely. Instead, he pivots. "Isn’t there another title you’d prefer?"

Ilya seems to consider the question before replying. "No, I like cabana boy. If it makes gross old men happy to call me this and they tip better because of it, I do not mind." He shrugs like the answer should be obvious, and maybe it should be. Shane has never worked in the service industry, but he knows from his own experience that it’s usually easier for everyone involved not to disturb others’ notions of you, especially where money is involved.

"So, what happened?" Ilya continues evenly, as though he isn’t asking for intimate details about Shane’s personal life. Shane is surprised to find he wants to answer honestly, if partially.

"He called off the wedding a little over a month ago," Shane replies frankly. "Said we weren’t compatible and ran off with another guy."

The line reappears between Ilya’s eyebrows.

"I do not know this word, compatible," Ilya confesses. Shane feels better about his decision to make an effort to speak plainly. There is no sense of superiority in it; by Shane’s count, Ilya speaks three languages at least proficiently (Russian, English, and Spanish) to his two (English and French), but he wants to communicate clearly with the man sitting across from him.

"It means, like, that two things work together," Shane explains. "So by saying we were incompatible…"

Ilya grimaces sympathetically, reaches across the table, wraps his huge hand around Shane’s forearm, and squeezes lightly.

"Do you want me to kill that guy for you?" Ilya sounds so serious that Shane is momentarily taken aback, then lets out a single laugh of surprise before combing his hand through his hair and taking a sip of his own Corona to buy himself an extra moment. He sets the bottle down with a sigh.

"No, no felonies necessary," Shane says. "I mean, the timing wasn’t ideal, to say the least, but I guess I’d prefer this happened now rather than later, you know?"

It’s the first time Shane has even had this thought, better yet verbalized it; two days ago, in his ideal world, Michael would still have been here with him, wedding bands on their fingers. Now, Shane can honestly say he would rather be alone than with someone who would do this to him, who would leave him for someone else mere weeks before their wedding day.

Ilya nods, but he looks unconvinced.

"You are better person than me," Ilya tells him, raking his fingers through his curls casually. "I would have tracked them down by now, slashed tires, thrown punches…" Ilya trails off, looking wistful. Shane smiles.

It’s not like these… conflict resolution tactics haven’t occurred to Shane. Of course he has baser human instincts. But he can’t give in to any of them. He is Shane Hollander, Canada's Golden Boy. He does not smash in headlights or vandalize homes, no matter how much he wants to do so.

"Trust me," Shane replies simply. "I’ve considered it."

The rest of lunch passes by easily and quickly, conversation and drinks flowing. Shane has three truly inspired shrimp tacos with cabbage slaw and a full lime’s worth of wedges and watches with awe (and, okay, maybe a little jealousy) as Ilya expertly dips and eats no fewer than six birria tacos. How he eats like this and looks like that is beyond Shane.

They amble around the Zona Romántica for an hour or so afterwards, dipping into various boutiques and enjoying the relative cool provided by the dense cloud cover of the afternoon. They have just purchased paletas from a street vendor—watermelon for Ilya, mango for Shane—when the skies open up.

The smell of rain on hot pavement fills Shane’s nose as he follows Ilya, each of them running as best they can in sandals, while attempting to shield their frozen treats from the sudden downpour. By the time they make it back to the car, they are each doubled over laughing and panting. When he rises back to his full height, he is surprised to find Ilya only a few feet away, still grinning as he closes the last bit of distance between them. His paleta-free hand finds Shane’s waist and presses him into the bumper.

Ilya’s curls are soaked as Shane’s fingers find them on reflex, as if he’s done this a million times in a million different lives, and they kiss, wet body against wet body, and Ilya tastes like watermelon juice. Shane feels like if he weren’t tethered to the ground by Ilya’s considerable weight pressed hard against him, he would simply float away like a helium balloon.

Ilya’s hand snakes under the hem of Shane’s shirt, groping blindly at his soaked skin, and Shane is fairly certain that if they do not get in the car in the next ten seconds they are both going to be arrested for Shane dropping to his knees and exposing Ilya in a public parking garage.

"Your place," Shane gasps, sucking in the humid air. "Now."

Ilya bites his bottom lip hard in parting, then nods. In the car, Shane feels that hungry gaze fall on him again, and it takes an absolutely herculean effort to hold up his hand and to firmly prompt Ilya again: "Your apartment. Please."

He looks devastated, the appearance not helped by the fact that he is completely drenched, but starts the car anyway.

‿‿‿‿

The moment they are through the door of Ilya’s apartment, Shane is wedged against it, Ilya’s lips on his and Ilya’s fingers fumbling with his shirt buttons. A groan of frustration burbles out of Ilya’s throat as the wet fabric puts up a fight, and Shane reaches down to pull the shirt over his head instead. Ilya pulls away to get a better look.

"Take your clothes off," Shane demands, tone leaving no room for argument. He watches as Ilya strips to his underwear, and Shane’s breath catches in his throat; the white Calvin boxer briefs stood no chance against the downpour, and the effect is indecent, if not downright pornographic. He is hard, and huge, and straining against the translucent fabric. Ilya’s hand wraps around his length and tugs lazily over the fabric as he lifts his chin and glances down at Shane’s still-clothed bottom half.

"Oh, sorry," Shane stammers, and is immediately embarrassed. Why does he have to be so Canadian all the time? He scrambles to pull off his shorts and suddenly feels incredibly exposed and cold, goosebumps rising all over his body and his nipples pebbling in the air conditioning. He’s grateful for his erection because otherwise he’s fairly certain he’d be shriveled up in his briefs.

"You are cold," Ilya says, closing the space between their bodies and pressing hard into Shane. His lips meet Shane’s and his mouth is so warm that Shane wishes he could curl up inside it like a cat napping in a shaft of sunlight. He weaves his arms around Ilya’s neck to deepen the kiss and barely notices as Ilya shifts to wrap those large hands under his thighs and lift. "Let me warm you up."

"Ilya," Shane yips. "Put me down. I am two hundred pounds of—" In his indignation, Shane almost says hockey player, but catches himself, and focuses on holding on for dear life. "Just, put me down."

"Ah, no," Ilya replies steadily, carrying Shane through the apartment as though he weighs nothing. "I bench more than you weigh five days a week."

The thought is undeniably, stupidly arousing, and Shane wonders if Ilya can feel the fresh rush of blood it sends through his cock, now pressed firmly into Ilya’s abdomen.

"Okay, fine," Shane acquiesces. "But you gotta warn a guy—"

Shane’s admonition is cut off abruptly as Ilya drops him on the bed, and then Ilya is on top of him and Shane forgets whatever it is he wanted to say anyway.

Ilya’s tongue is hot and probing, one hand roaming freely over Shane’s body. Ilya’s mouth trails along Shane’s jaw and is pressing in where his jaw meets his neck when his fingers find the waistband of Shane’s briefs.

"Can I take these off?" Ilya asks, and all of the synapses in Shane’s brain fire at the same time, shouting yesyesyes, and lightbulbs flash, and a jaunty little tune plays in his mind like he’s just hit the high score on some arcade game, but none of that is perceptible to Ilya, so he answers aloud instead.

"Yeah," Shane breathes. "Yes, please."

Ilya peels off Shane’s briefs and meets Shane’s eyes for one wonderful, stomach-churning moment before he grins and licks up Shane in one long, uninterrupted stripe from perineum to tip. His cock moves of its own volition when Ilya’s tongue flicks at the frenulum, pushing the head insistently onto Ilya’s tongue, and Ilya takes the hint, wrapping those beautiful lips around it and taking Shane deep.

It is so good that it’s almost too much, and yet, it’s not enough. Shane could come like this, fast and hard down Ilya’s throat, and he would like to do that, preferably sometime soon. But he feels so empty that it almost hurts.

Ilya pulls off with a pop, continuing to work Shane’s cock with firm, relentless pumps of his fist.

"Can I touch you here?" Ilya asks, rubbing one finger tentatively over Shane’s hole.

"Yes." Shane is so relieved that he sighs out his response. Ilya, the bastard, doesn’t have the decency to pretend not to notice.

"Eager, are we?" Ilya asks, half-climbing over Shane to reach into his bedside table to snag a bottle of lube, and, Shane notes with a rush of excitement, a condom. He pauses hovered over Shane’s face and steals a kiss. There’s no use denying it, not when his face would give him away immediately.

"Yes," Shane replies begrudgingly. "Now can you please put your fingers inside me?"

Ilya chuckles and settles back between Shane’s legs. Shane throws one arm over his eyes to prevent himself from coming too soon, but he hears the snick of the cap opening and the sound of lube coming out of a bottle, and then the pressure is there.

Ilya teases one finger past the tight ring of muscle at Shane’s opening and Shane gasps, his body lurching at the intrusion.

"You are okay?" Ilya asks, not pulling his finger out but making no attempts to go further.

"Yeah, oh my god, yes," Shane replies quickly. "Keep going, please. Just, it’s been a while."

Ilya relents, pumping his finger in and out lazily, curling at the top.

"What is a while?" Ilya asks, brow furrowed. "I thought it had not been long since…" Since your fiancé left you, Shane finishes mentally, and winces.

"It hasn’t," Shane clarifies. "We had sex still, before, but I didn’t…" Shane chances a glance at Ilya, and he looks confused, at best. Finally, recognition dawns on his face, quickly replaced by something else.

"You… topped?" Ilya asks, and Shane isn’t sure whether he should feel offended that Ilya is so surprised.

"Yes," Shane confirms, the response coming out a little sharper than intended as the pad of Ilya’s finger makes delicious contact with his prostate.

"You liked to do this?" Ilya, to his credit, never stops or slows.

"Sure," Shane replies, then realizes that sounds a bit tepid. "Yes. No? I don’t know, don’t ask me right now," Shane snaps, and Ilya seems to get the memo. He drops a chaste kiss to Shane’s hip, and slips another finger inside him.

"Okay," Ilya relents. "We talk about this later. Now I make you come."

One more finger does the trick, stretching Shane so much, so well, that he feels tears welling in his eyes, Ilya’s mouth wrapped around him like a vice.

"Jesus fuck, Ilya," Shane moans, high and breathy. "So good, baby."

What the fuck? Shane poses the question to himself, not rhetorically. He has never been a pet name person—at least not the bestower of pet names. It’s never even occurred to him to call someone by something other than their actual, real life name, outside of, like, hockey nicknames. But Ilya moans gratefully, swallowing everything Shane is giving him, and the vibrations hit as pleasure turns to overstimulation. Shane realizes a moment later what elicited that response, and, well, he guesses there’s a first time for everything. He grins to himself as Ilya kisses up his torso and back to his lips.

"You like that, huh?" Shane asks. "Being called baby?"

Ilya seems to consider it for a second, but he’s smiling adorably.

"Not usually, no," Ilya concedes, then glances down. "But from you, yes, it seems that way."

He drops another closed-mouthed kiss to Shane’s lips then pulls away grinning.

"Okay, baby," Shane replies. "I’ll keep that in mind."

Ilya kisses him again, promptly deepening it, and Shane realizes with horror that Ilya is still wearing his wet underwear.

"Why are you still wearing those?" Shane asks, pointing as though there is any ambiguity.

"Was distracted." Ilya shrugs.

"Well, take them off," Shane commands, and Ilya immediately shifts to his knees to oblige, and oh. However big Shane thought Ilya was under the briefs, he was mistaken. He pulls onto his elbows almost involuntarily and stares reverantly at the huge, angry red cock hanging heavy between them. He takes it in the palm of his hand almost gingerly and pulls it towards him, coaxing Ilya closer.

"Please fuck my face," Shane begs. If he doesn’t get to taste Ilya in the next thirty seconds, he thinks he might die.

"Oh fuck," Ilya groans and shifts to straddle Shane’s chest. "You are desperate for it, da?" He feeds the tip into Shane’s waiting mouth and Shane moans, eyes rolling back gratuitously. What the fuck? If he saw the same thing happen in porn, he wouldn’t believe it was real, but here it is, happening in real life.

"So pretty like this," Ilya says, every other word accompanied by a slightly deeper thrust. "Such a pretty fucking cockslut."

The words go straight to Shane’s spent dick, twitching uselessly against his lower abs. He’ll have to assess where that came from later. For now, he’s content to moan like, well, a cockslut, while Ilya punches deeper and deeper into his mouth until he has to focus very hard on breathing through his nose, and the only things coming out of his mouth are strange gurgling noises and copious amounts of saliva, tears streaming steadily from his eyes.

Suddenly, Ilya pulls out entirely, and Shane gasps for several long seconds, sucking in cool air.

"Why’d you stop?" Shane whines, his voice thready and wet.

"Bratty," Ilya chides, pushing his hips forward and lightly smacking Shane's cheek with his cock. Shane chases it as Ilya pulls away. "I was going to come and I want to fuck you." Shane can’t argue with that. "Do you want me to fuck you?"

"Yeah, yes," Shane affirms, some fucked-out part of his brain continuing in every language he can think of—oui, hai, si, da… and… there are surely other languages, but they aren’t coming to mind right now.

Ilya can’t seem to help but pause to kiss Shane as he makes his way back down the bed, coaxing two fingers inside Shane and scissoring them to make sure he is still ready for him. Shane lets out a high-pitched hmph and it’s all the prompting Ilya needs to sit back on his heels.

"How do you want me?" Shane has the wherewithal to ask, as Ilya rolls on a condom and slicks himself generously with lube.

"Just like this," Ilya replies, settling heavy between Shane’s hips.

Ilya rubs the head of his cock once, twice, three times over Shane’s hole, catching the rim on a fourth pass and pressing in slowly.

"Ohhh my god," Shane gasps, eyes opening widely at the incursion, extremely welcome but more intense than expected.

"You are okay?" Ilya asks, genuine concern clear on his face. It’s so unbelievably sweet that Shane finds himself grinning.

"I’m great, Ilya," Shane assures him. "Please—" But he doesn’t need to finish that sentence, because Ilya is pushing deeper, deeper, until he’s bottomed out and Shane is so full that a few good tugs to his dick would do him in completely.

Probably by accident, Shane thinks, Ilya finds his prostate virtually immediately. The slow drag of incredible pressure is nearly too much, Shane moaning and clenching hard around Ilya, so close after only a few minutes that it is embarrassing. Shane is almost, but not quite, grateful, then, when Ilya forgoes his angle for speed.

Ilya hovers over him, face ruddy with concentration as his hips snap relentlessly, and Shane takes inventory of his perfect body. Shane trails his hands over strong, defined shoulders, firm pecs and pink nipples, the valley of darker strands trailing down Ilya’s abs and into coarse pubic hair.

"Fuck, Shane," Ilya groans. "So good for me."

Shane tugs lightly on the thatch of hair above Ilya’s cock, tiny, almost foreign, punched-out noises emanating from his own throat. Ilya’s movements become erratic, hips no longer rolling or thrusting with any discernible rhythm, until his body stills suddenly.

"Oh, fuck," Ilya grunts, collapsing forward onto Shane’s body, still buried deep. "I am sorry."

Shane wraps his arms around Ilya, burying one hand deep in his damp curls, running the other soothingly over the firm muscles along his spinal column. Ilya rides out his own orgasm, dropping errant kisses against Shane’s neck and shoulder, Shane feeling every seemingly random spurt, until he pulls out soft. Ilya ties off the condom and temporarily disappears to dispose of it, and Shane could scream. His hard cock weeps sadly against his belly.

Ilya reappears, and climbs on top of Shane eagerly, fingers trailing back and forth along Shane’s inner thigh. He drops a kiss to Shane’s lips then pulls back to meet his gaze.

"I am so sorry," Ilya repeats, smiling sheepishly. "I am not usually… like that. Quick shooter. You feel too good."

Shane offers a half-smile in return; yes, he is frustrated, but he has already come once. Would he have been the one finishing too quickly if not?

"It’s okay," Shane assures him, sounding more convinced than he feels. "We don’t have to do anything else." Ilya’s brow furrows adorably.

"This is what you want?" Ilya queries, sweeping his fingers up closer to Shane’s hole. His body reacts before he can, jolting involuntarily.

"Well, no," Shane admits. "But if you don’t want—"

"What part of this make you think I do not want?" Ilya asks earnestly, lifting up just enough that Shane can see his impossibly already half-mast cock.

"Jesus Christ," Shane mutters. "Okay, yeah, I want to keep going." Ilya grins broadly, absolutely beatific above him.

"Krasivyy," Ilya utters, before licking down the crevice of his V-line. Shane wonders if he’s just been called a cockslut in a second language, but it didn’t sound like it, the way Ilya said it. "You are so beautiful."

Ilya fucks Shane with his fingers, keeping Shane just on the precipice of an orgasm for ten long minutes until he announces proudly that he is ready to go again.

This time, Shane taps Ilya’s hip insistently until he gets the message to lie down; the man has done enough already. Ilya lets out a tiny wince as Shane rolls on a fresh condom, and Shane knows he must still be sensitive from coming maybe fifteen minutes earlier.

"I know, baby," Shane coos, swiping the head of Ilya’s cock against his rim until it catches. "Let me take care of you."

He sinks down quickly this time, in one steady, controlled motion, and Shane remembers viscerally and immediately how different it is to be on top. He feels like he is being ripped in two, though, which is new; Michael was average, maybe, on a good day, and his few prior partners had been slightly above average at most. Ilya is… not average.

"Blyat, ah, Shane," Ilya grunts, squeezing his eyes tight as Shane gives his hips a tentative roll.

"Eyes open, Ilya," Shane admonishes. "I want you to watch."

Much to his credit, Ilya obliges, eyes snapping open before Shane can even finish the demand. His gaze looks glossy, though, wet, gold-green eyes reflecting the dim natural light from the window. A string of what sounds like praise, or maybe prayer, spills from his plush pink lips; Shane can’t be sure, though, because it comes out in Russian.

"You’re doing—ah!—so good, baby," Shane pants, planting the balls of his feet under him and taking the motion into his thighs.

The difference is immediate and profound, the slightest shift pressing Ilya’s cock into that tight bundle of nerves on every stroke.

"Touch me, please," Shane begs, prying Ilya’s fingers from where they are wrapped tightly around his hip.

"Come for me, zaychik," Ilya says, sounding more like a plea than a command, spitting into his palm before taking Shane’s cock in hand.

Slick with Ilya’s saliva and his own freely-flowing precome, a few firm tugs is all it takes before Shane is coming. The noises emanating from his own mouth are loud and foreign, the kind of gratuitous moans that Shane associates with pornography rather than sex in real life, as he coats Ilya’s abs and chest with his release.

"Oh my god, Shane," Ilya wails as the last rope of come hits his body. "Thank you, thank you."

Ilya’s eyes squeeze shut again and Shane can’t have that.

"One more, Ilya," Shane directs. "You can do it."

It is almost certainly too much, Shane’s thighs screaming, his spent cock slapping helplessly against his pelvis like a buoy in a storm, his hole begging for relief, but Shane is not a quitter. His quads feel like he’s skated a double, triple shift, and he worries that they’re going to give out from exhaustion.

But then, Ilya’s planting his own feet and pitching Shane’s body forward, huge, capable hands wrapped underneath his ass to hold him open and upright to fuck hard into him, and it’s so much, so good that Shane feels tears escape his closed eyes as Ilya shatters under him. The two sob in relief and ecstasy as Ilya’s hips shudder and falter, Shane collapsing into Ilya’s waiting arms.

"Thank you, zaychik," Ilya coos into his neck, planting a chaste kiss there.

"Mmph," Shane replies in acknowledgement, still not particularly verbal. He feels Ilya’s facial muscles pull into a grin against him.

He can’t be sure how long they stay like that, but as he slowly comes back to his senses and takes stock of his sticky body, he is struck by how very gross he feels.

"I need to get washcloth," Ilya says regretfully. "We are covered in come and lube." Shane groans but nods, throwing his leg back over and freeing Ilya’s now-soft cock. Come is leaking from the bottom of the condom, but Ilya does his best anyway to trap the rest as he stands up to retreat to the en suite.

He returns a moment later with a warm, wet washcloth and a dry one for after to boot. He cleans Shane like it is in itself a sexual act, or at least part of sex, not an afterthought, each swipe of the cloth gentle and slow and more like a caress, taking extra care between Shane’s legs. He tosses the soiled clothes into a nearby hamper and climbs back into bed.

"That was good?" Ilya asks, leaning on an elbow to get a better look at Shane. Shane suspects he’s compliment-seeking, but he’ll humor him anyway.

"That was great," he replies honestly. "So good, baby."

Ilya grins, and Shane can’t be sure if it’s in response to the praise, the pet name, or a mixture of the two, so he makes a mental note to do more of both.

"Good," Ilya replies, flopping back down beside him, jostling the bed as he does so. Long fingers start trailing up and down Shane’s abs in movements that would go straight to his cock if it weren’t completely spent and useless. "So, Mr. Top Man…"

"Shut up," Shane says reflexively. "I didn’t always top, just… most of the time." Shane doesn’t clarify that most of the time means almost all the time, means Michael would occasionally top, as a treat for Shane’s birthday or something (and not even that this year). He wonders if Ilya hears it anyway. A long beat passes before Ilya responds.

"So when he said you are not compatible…" Ilya’s tone is gentle and cautious, worlds away from how he sounded calling Shane a cockslut a few minutes before.

"Yeah, it was about sex," Shane confirms. "I tried really hard, and he knew that, but even if it physically felt good, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Every now and then, sure, but not… like what we were doing."

Ilya’s fingers slow to a stop and weave in with Shane’s and Shane goes easily into his arms.

"I’m sorry," Ilya says against Shane’s shoulder then presses a kiss to the skin there. He meets Shane’s eyes, mischief in his own. "I promise to never make you fuck me. It is real sacrifice, to never be fucked by the Shane Hollander, but is one I am willing to make."

A startled laugh erupts from somewhere deep in Shane’s chest, but cuts off abruptly as Shane plays back Ilya’s words. The Shane Hollander. Shane stills, and realization sets into Ilya’s features.

"You know," Shane says simply, voice small. Ilya squeezes him tightly, as though he’s afraid Shane will run away.

"Yes, Shane," Ilya confesses. "I know who you are. I am from Russia. Hockey is big deal there. Of course I know."

Shane’s head is suddenly swimming; the room feels small, suffocating. Somehow, though, it doesn’t even occur to him to pull away from the body pressed into his.

"Why didn’t you say anything?" It seems as good a place as any to start.

"I wanted you to feel normal for once," Ilya replies easily, and his eyes are so clear and so earnest that Shane has no doubt that he’s telling the truth. "I figure, this is Shane Hollander, pride of Canada, on vacation for once in a place no one cares about hockey. Why would I fuck that up for you?"

Shane sits with the words, allowing the question to remain rhetorical. What Ilya did, letting him just be a person for a while, is so considerate that he feels like crying. Then another thought occurs to him.

"You pretended to think I was American," Shane says, faux-scandalized, and lightly slaps Ilya’s pec. Ilya grins mischievously.

"Da," he concedes readily. "Was proud of that idea. I knew you would hate it. Good flirting material."

Shane huffs out a laugh and settles in on Ilya’s chest, up close and personal with a very silly bear tattoo. Nevertheless, he feels the most at peace he’s felt in… a long time. Longer than he can remember.

"I played," Ilya says simply, in the tone of a confession. "Before I left Russia."

"You played hockey?" Shane asks, combing his fingers through the hair on Ilya’s stomach. "Were you good?" Shane’s hand rises and falls with Ilya’s deep sigh.

"Yes, I was good," Ilya replies. "I was pulled out of school. There were recruiters, conversations about the NHL. It was supposed to be my way out, but…" Ilya bends his left knee so it catches the light, and sure enough, underneath a thick layer of golden hair, is a long, silvery scar. Shane swallows hard.

"ACL?" Shane isn’t sure he could manage to get any more out from around the lump in his throat.

"Yes. I was seventeen. It healed well, or well enough that I could be conscripted into military service, but not well enough that I could play in NHL," Ilya explains. "And then Putin was putting military on Ukraine border a few months before I turned eighteen and I knew I had to get out. My friend Svetlana, my roommate, her dad is very powerful and he did not want her to stay in Russia either with the war coming. I wanted to go to U.S. or Canada, somewhere far from Russia that speaks English, but was harder to get those visas, so. Here I am. I got here six months before war started. Spoke no Spanish, but is better than my English now."

"Oh, Ilya, that’s…" Shane exhales, clinging more tightly to Ilya’s torso. "That’s fucking awful. I’m so sorry."

And it is—it’s fucking awful. Of course, Shane knew a lot of guys in juniors who never made it for one reason or another. Most often, it was because they weren’t good enough; other times, it was because of an injury. There was a third group for whom the injury was the final nail in the coffin, but weren’t good enough to make it anyway, they just didn’t know it yet at the time of the injury. This group would go on their entire lives telling people, I could have gone pro, if only I hadn’t blown out my *insert body part here.* Shane can’t know if Ilya falls into the second group or the third, but it doesn’t really matter. The feeling is the same either way.

In Ilya’s case, Shane has to assume, it’s even worse; he grew up a queer kid in a homophobic country, believed he had a way out, and had to find another way to escape before—

The second revelation hits Shane like a hard check to the boards. Russia invaded Ukraine in, what, 2022? If Ilya turned eighteen the year before… Shane’s stomach turns and he scrambles to his feet.

"Shane?" Ilya looks up at him, hurt and confusion coloring his features in equal measure. Shane's stomach turns. "What is it?"

"You’re twenty-two," Shane sputters, raking his hands through his hair, unable to meet Ilya’s eyes. "You’re twenty-two and I just had sex with you."

"I’m twenty-three," Ilya corrects quickly and absurdly, as though the extra year makes a difference.

Oh my god, Shane thinks. I am a cradle-robber. A predator. I should be sent to jail. This man, this boy, was… how old when I was drafted? Seven? I called him baby. Where are my fucking underwear?

Sometime in the intervening thirty seconds, Ilya has gotten to his feet and come to stand in Shane’s pacing path. He reaches out tentatively, more cautious with his touch than he has been all day, huge hands wrapping around Shane’s shoulders and squeezing. Shane is embarrassed by how quickly and forcefully his nervous system responds to the touch, melting into Ilya and dropping his forehead to the chain and pendant around Ilya’s neck, warm against his skin.

"You are thinking very loudly," Ilya observes. Shane lifts his gaze, meeting Ilya’s eyes for the first time in what feels like an eternity. "Is okay. I am adult, you are adult. You are hot, I am hot. Is not a big deal." He shrugs as though it’s the simplest thing in the world.

"It is a big deal, Ilya," Shane disputes, and god, he doesn’t want to. "I’m a public figure. I have a—a brand I have to protect. An image," Shane continues, wincing. "One that doesn’t include fucking younger men. I’m so sorry, I thought you were older."

Now that he knows the truth, though, Shane isn’t sure how he didn’t catch on sooner. Ilya being unbothered by the title of cabana boy; Ilya using a fucking vape pen, which Shane now realizes is itself Ilya's vice and not his tobacco cessation device of choice; Ilya eating like a teenager and still looking like he was carved out of marble, because he was a teenager not too long ago; the lack of any meaningful refractory period. It all makes sense now. Except…

"You have laugh lines," Shane sputters, gesturing, as though one piece of contradictory evidence could bend reality, make the horrible truth false. "You look older because you have laugh lines. The little wrinkles beside your eyes."

The mournful expression on Ilya’s face is temporarily replaced by one of surprised, wry amusement, and his eyes crinkle up at the corners in a way that sends a pang of sadness through Shane’s chest. He’s so beautiful.

"Is sun damage, Hollander," Ilya explains. "Like your freckles. I look older because I work outside."

Shane lets out a weary chuckle and lets Ilya pull him into a tight embrace.

"I would like you to stay," Ilya confesses, lips against Shane's temple, not quite in the form of a question. "Just one night. We order dinner, I make you come another four times, we sleep in same bed. I take you back with me in the morning when I go to work or you call resort for ride, and no one ever knows this happened."

Shane grins into Ilya’s shoulder. He can’t say yes. Someone could see him, someone could find out, and it would be yet another mark against him. His country has just come to accept, however begrudgingly, that his sexuality doesn’t make him a worse hockey player, when he led the Centaurs to their first cup last year.

He really can’t afford to cause a scandal, and yet, he wants this. He wants this one tiny thing, to stay one night with Ilya, and when is the last time he let himself have something that he wanted? And regardless, he’s already been seen in public with Ilya. He shouldn't and can't see him again after this, in public or in private, in the interest of minimizing the risk of photos leaking and the risk of hurting Ilya. But what’s done is done. He might as well.

"Four times, huh? I’m an old man," Shane demurs. "Might need to lower your expectations."

Ilya pulls away, taking Shane’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing him to meet his eyes.

"Is that a yes?" Ilya sounds confident, but the way his eyes are flitting between Shane’s belies his tone. Shane’s smile starts small but stretches wide as Ilya’s expression turns relaxed and open.

"Yes, Ilya," Shane replies. "I’ll stay."

Having spent a sufficient amount of time spiraling for Shane’s mid-thirties libido to recover, Ilya wrings one more orgasm out of Shane, this time with his expert tongue and deft fingers in Shane’s ass, before showering. The glass stall is a tight squeeze, but Shane will be damned if he’s going to let a single moment of his limited time with Ilya be spent apart.

Later, Shane settles in on Ilya’s couch, cozy in worn-in sweatpants and a threadbare T-shirt with faded Cyrillic writing across the chest, feet resting in Ilya’s lap. Ilya is typing something into his phone, so Shane takes the opportunity to pull up the collar of the shirt and inhales deeply, learning the light, fresh scent of Ilya’s laundry detergent. He’s just let the fabric slip off the pointed tip of his nose and back to his neck when Ilya looks up.

"What do you want for dinner?" Ilya asks. Shane isn’t sure how Ilya is already hungry—it’s only been a few hours since lunch—but supposes it can’t hurt to have dinner on hand when hunger does strike.

"I’m not sure," Shane replies. "What’s good around here? I don’t think I can eat any more Mexican food right now."

"No, you have had a lot of that lately," Ilya agrees with a chuckle, flipping his phone around and depositing it into Shane’s hand. "Here. You can look at the top and see everywhere I have ordered from. I like this Peruvian place very much." Shane feels his brow knit together.

"I’ve never had Peruvian food before," Shane admits. "What is it like?"

Ilya’s eyes light up at the opportunity to teach Shane something, and Shane feels his stomach flip-flop in his abdomen.

"Is… Different from Mexican food," Ilya explains. "There are Peruvian people here, obviously, is not very far away, and the restaurant is authentic I think. I learned when I got here that there were many immigrants from China in Peru a few hundred years ago, contract laborers after Peru ended slavery, but they were not treated much better. They made their foods from home with what they could find in Peru. Is simpler now, with international grocery stores and things, but this is something I understand. Was hard for me when I moved here. There are no eastern European grocery stores here, but I do the best I can."

Shane has always taken it for granted that, on the rare occasions that he can allow himself to eat whatever he wants, whatever that is will be available to him. It wasn’t hard to find decent Japanese food in Montreal, and it certainly isn’t hard to find in Ottawa, when his favorite dishes are only a few kilometers away (and a day or so’s notice, so his mom has time to prepare) at his parents’ house. And that is, of course, to say nothing of the rest of the foods he ate growing up, staples of the Canadian diet.

Shane feels a deep, horrible wave of sadness for the man in front of him, who came to this country little more than a boy, who had to learn a new language, a new culture, and found comfort not in the cuisine of his new country but in that of another, shaped by immigrants doing their best to make a home in a new land. Shane blinks back the tears threatening to spill over and tries his best not to let the sudden burst of emotion show in his voice.

"That sounds good," Shane croaks. Dammit. "Let’s do that."

One hour later, Shane’s appetite has returned—no doubt hastened on by the three very good orgasms—and dinner has arrived.

"This is causa," Ilya says, indicating the contents of the small appetizer container with his fork. "Is like dumpling, but made into little cake. There is potato, chili pepper, lemon, tuna. Here," Ilya explains, breaking off a bite with his fork and offering it to Shane. Shane looks at it skeptically, but is too polite not to try it. He draws the line, however, at allowing Ilya to feed him, so he takes the fork from his hand instead.

"It’s good," Shane decides, scooping up another bite. "Weird, I think, but good. Or maybe not weird, just different." Ilya seems pleased enough with that answer, and the two tuck into their dishes in earnest.

Ilya has lomo saltado, a beef dish served with both rice and fries, Shane notes, and Shane has roast chicken with rice and a variety of colorful and flavorful sauces, his favorites being the olive sauce and the chimichurri. Ilya forces Shane to try a piece of steak, which tastes confoundingly both South American and Asian, marinated in soy sauce and vinegar but also distinctly regional ají amarillo paste.

All in all, it’s delicious; Shane makes a mental note to look up Peruvian restaurants in Ottawa when he gets home, then feels vaguely nauseated at the thought of leaving this place, leaving Ilya, calling somewhere thousands of kilometers away from him home.

But he can’t afford to think that way. He has to kiss Ilya goodbye in the morning and accept that this was one perfect day and go back to his resort for the next one-point-five weeks and then back to his life, a life that has no room for any of this.

Their takeout containers cleared, Ilya sits one couch cushion closer to Shane, and Shane takes it as an invitation to throw his leg over Ilya’s strong thighs, bracketing him with his own.

"Thank you," Shane says, little more than a whisper. "That was really nice." He tries to imbue the simple words with more feeling than they strictly carry. Shane gets the sense that dinner was a small way for Ilya to share something important about himself without getting bogged down by the constraints of a second language, so Shane doesn’t want to force it. He wants even less to discuss their separation, impending and inevitable. Ilya’s hands settle firmly against Shane’s hips as they each lean into a kiss.

Unlike the frantic, desperate kiss, soaking wet in the parking garage, this kiss is slow and deliberate, languid tongue against languid tongue. He learns that Ilya’s teeth are crooked and his lower left canine a bit sharper than the others, and he wonders horribly if he will remember that in a month, two months, a year from now.

He wonders if Ilya will think of him, not just as a point of pride that he fucked the Shane Hollander, as he called him, but the time he met Shane, just Shane, and kissed him sopping wet, his lips tasting like mangoes. He wonders if Ilya will think of how he spent the day with him and told him about abused Chinese contract laborers blending their dishes with Peruvian ingredients and making a new cuisine that is more the sum of its parts. He wonders if, somewhere underneath the halo of golden curls, there is part of Ilya’s brain grasping desperately for any way they can have a little more time together the way Shane’s is.

Shane is pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a door unlocking. He pulls away as the sound is replaced by that of dog feet skittering on the tile floors and a long string of Russian ringing out, a woman’s voice.

"Sveta," Ilya calls back. "We have company." The dog finds them, then, launching itself at Ilya and thus at Shane, and Shane can’t help but be a little aggrieved when Ilya’s hands so quickly leave his body and find the dog’s.

"Shane Hollander," the woman intones from a few paces away. She is intimidatingly beautiful, all long legs and tan skin, and Shane is immediately acutely aware that he is still straddled across Ilya’s thighs. He scrambles to his feet like he’s been walked in on by his mother. "Ilyusha said you were staying at the resort, but I did not expect to meet you here. Please, don’t stop on my account."

"Shane, Svetlana," Ilya gestures with one hand, the other scratching the very content-looking dog behind the ears. "Svetlana, Shane. Svetlana is very discreet, will not tell anyone you were here. Anya, on the other hand, she will tell all the neighborhood dogs. Chatty bunch. Good thing no one understands them."

The dog—Anya, Shane presumes—perks up at the sound of her name, perfectly triangular, floppy tan ears quirking adorably. Shane is not a dog person, but he’s also not the kind of person who has sex with people who were born in the twenty-first century, so he figures he’s already bucking trends today. He kneels by Ilya’s legs to get closer to her and holds out his hand for her assessment.

"Is she yours?" Shane asks, looking up at Svetlana, still standing several feet behind Ilya. She smiles fondly in return.

"No, she is Ilya’s, I just take her to work with me sometimes," She replies wistfully. "When Ilya wants to have the apartment to himself." Ilya whips his head around with so much force that Shane is concerned for his neck, then glares at her. The two bicker in rapid Russian, and Shane feels himself flush when he hears Ilya say something that sounds vaguely like ‘Shane.’ The exchange ends in laughter and a playful shove to Ilya’s shoulder that looks platonic enough that Shane breathes a sigh of relief about it.

"I will leave you alone, Shane Hollander," Svetlana promises. "I am afraid I cannot prevent Anya from climbing into bed with you, though. It was nice to meet you."

With that, Shane and Ilya are alone again. Shane climbs onto the couch tentatively so as not to touch Anya, who is now obliviously stretched between them. She doesn’t seem particularly bothered, so he chances a few soft strokes to her hip, which elicits little more than a glance and satisfied sigh in his general direction.

"She seems nice," Shane says.

"She is good dog," Ilya replies, besotted. Anya looks up at him amorously. Shane chuckles, feeling vaguely like he needs to leave the room.

"Svetlana, I mean." Ilya looks up at Shane, amused.

"Ah, yes. ‘Nice’ is maybe not word for Svetlana," Ilya disputes, seeing Shane’s true meaning. "Kind, yes. But she can be intimidating. You do not need to be afraid of her. We are just friends. We used to fuck, yes, but got too complicated when we moved here. Too much like playing house. No more, not in many years. She has boyfriend now."

Shane worries at the hem of his borrowed T-shirt and avoids Ilya’s eyes.

"So, you like women too?" It feels dumb to ask, immediately after getting what amounts to confirmation of the fact, but he isn’t sure how else to broach the subject. Do you fuck a lot of women, then? feels rude.

"Yes, I like both," Ilya replies breezily. "Was dangerous in Russia. Only fucked one guy there, my coach’s son. But is easy here. I used to hook up with resort guests, married couples who wanted to spice up their sex lives on vacation, but not so much anymore." Ilya winces almost imperceptibly.

"Why don’t you hook up with guests anymore? Present company excluded, of course," Shane asks with a grin. Ilya sighs anyway, leaning heavy on his propped-up forearm.

"I made the mistake of going to guest’s room and her wife walked in," Ilya confesses. "Turns out the queer ladies are much less… open than the men. Resort made new rule about staff in guest rooms just for me." He smiles mournfully and Shane’s hand flies to his mouth to stifle his laughter.

"Ilya—wait, I don’t know your last name." Shane cocks his head, brow furrowed. "I wanted to call you by your full legal name, because that is so scandalous, but I don’t know it."

Ilya laughs out loud, something buoyant and dangerous to Shane’s well-being. "Rozanov."

Shane ignores the flutter in his chest and presses on.

"Ilya Rozanov, you are a menace, seducing wives and threatening marriages," Shane declares.

Ilya leans forward, forcing a notably miffed Anya to the floor, and folds his body over Shane’s.

"I think you like it, Shane Hollander," Ilya purrs, lips hovering millimeters from Shane’s.

And because Shane is evidently in the habit of engaging in self-destructive behavior today, the next words out of his mouth come as no surprise to him.

"No, I think I just like you."

Shane leans into the kiss and knows beyond a reasonable doubt that he is truly, profoundly fucked.

‿‿‿‿

Svetlana was correct, as it turns out; to Shane’s horror, Anya slept diagonally across Ilya’s bed, taking up as much space as possible, snoring lightly. As a result, Shane slept more or less curled around Ilya, hot and vaguely sticky but more soundly than he had in weeks.

That peace is disturbed when Shane wakes the next morning to find his very sexy body pillow and his furry companion gone, the bed cool. He checks the time (6:23am) and his Whatsapp messages (none from Ilya, two from his mom, one from Rose). He takes the extra moment to put Ilya’s T-shirt and sweats back on just in case Svetlana is around before ambling out into the common area.

In the early morning light, he can see that it is a nice space, modern and tidy and, as Ilya readily acknowledged, too luxe for a cabana boy to afford an equal share of. He is reaching for a cabinet to find a mug for tea when he sees a note on the white stone countertop: "Taking Anya for run. Ginger tea by kettle. Be back soon. - Ilya"

Shane smiles stupidly at the note for far too long and scans the counter until he finds the tea in question, still in an unopened box. That thoughtful asshole planned this.

His tea has just finished its recommended four minutes’ steeping when Ilya walks back through the door, glistening with sweat in a cutoff shirt and shorts. Shane must be gawking, because Ilya looks entirely too pleased with himself.

"Like what you see, Hollander?" That crooked smile is going to haunt Shane’s dreams. He swallows hard.

"Obviously," he concedes, blowing on his too-hot tea for something else to do with his mouth.

Ilya lets Anya off leash and closes the distance between them. He plucks the mug from Shane’s hands and sets it on the counter.

"You should let that cool," Ilya suggests, lifting an eyebrow. Shane is nodding before he can formulate a response.

"Yeah, that’d be good," he gulps. Ilya takes his hand and steps backwards, pulling Shane back towards his room.

The shower blow jobs that follow are hot and desperate and then somehow mournful in a way that Shane was previously unaware blow jobs could be, the knowledge that it is the last time making it all the more important to savor the contact. By the time Shane is swallowing down the last of Ilya’s come, his stomach is in knots.

They get ready silently, Ilya tossing Shane a pair of well-loved athletic shorts, underwear, and a fresh T-shirt that Shane has no intention of returning. It is 7:30 now, the minutes before Ilya needs to leave for work and Shane needs to leave and forget Ilya entirely running low, when Ilya speaks.

"Shane," he begins, but Shane can’t afford to hear it.

"Ilya," Shane cuts in. "I can’t. I’m so sorry, but you know I can’t."

Ilya steps forward slowly, palms facing out as though he’s steadying a skittish horse.

"I know you think you can’t," Ilya concedes. Shane shakes his head but can’t get his mouth to work to respond. "Just. Just think about it. It doesn’t have to mean anything. No one has to know. I just want to see you again."

Ilya is begging. Ilya is begging him and Shane can’t make him understand why he can’t see him again. He is beautiful and kind and thoughtful and does not have a fully formed prefrontal cortex and Shane has to leave him here. He meets Ilya’s glossy gaze, thick lashes darkened with welling tears, and has to avert his own as a protective measure.

"I’ll think about it," Shane lies, knowing it’s the only way out of this impossible conversation.

"Da, okay." Ilya offers a small smile, just his lips quirking up at the sides, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He steps forward into Shane’s space and drops one vanishingly soft, chaste kiss to his lips that Shane doesn’t dare deepen. "Go on."

Shane pries his feet from where he is standing and turns, legs feeling impossibly heavy as he reaches the apartment door.

"Shane," Ilya calls from a safe distance. Shane turns, taking the enormous risk of looking at Ilya. He shouldn’t have. "Rent the cabana."

‿‿‿‿

It’s been a strange few days for Ilya Rozanov. For the past four years and some change, Ilya has known what to expect, even if it’s not what he initially planned for his life; while he’d always anticipated moving to North America, at least from the time that it became apparent that hockey was his ticket out of Russia, he’d never imagined it would be to the southwestern-most edge of the continent. He can’t say he ever dreamed of serving drinks to drunk, handsy, largely older gay men for a living.

But time has a way of helping you adjust to even the most ridiculous of circumstances, so Ilya has adjusted. He wakes up at six to take Anya for a jog before it’s too hot for her paw pads to touch pavement. He showers. He chokes down a protein shake while he gets ready for work, the least chalky one he can afford. He rides his bike to the resort and chains it to the staff bike rack. He flirts relentlessly with any guest he suspects is interested in men and only tones it down about twenty percent for those he suspects are not, having found that to be the sweet spot for tips early on into his tenure here. He goes home, goes to the gym, eats dinner, cuddles with Anya until bed. Rinse, repeat.

On his days off, Ilya enjoys exploring the city as much as he can. Sveta is rarely off at the same time as him, given that she works Monday through Friday with weekends off, and Ilya usually works six days a week with no consistent schedule. On those rare occasions, she will drag him hiking, or to one of a handful of museums, or to a public beach. Depending on the activity and the heat, Anya will join them, equally content to nap under a bistro table at a restaurant or play fetch with a frisbee in the waves.

And yes, Ilya also enjoys fucking. When he initially arrived in Puerto Vallarta, it was easiest for him to find people to hook up with at work. Being marketed as a queer resort and having the body that he does, it is virtually guaranteed that the male guests will be attracted to him, so it’s really just a question whether they bottom—though Ilya has been known to switch on the rare occasion, it's not his preference. Like ‘shooting fish in a barrel,’ he once overheard a guest say, much to his alarm; who the fuck is shooting fish? Seems like a terrible method if you want to eat them, and a good way to make a mess. Anyway. The women and genderqueer people are trickier; of course, there are those he’s fairly certain are not interested in what he has to offer, though he concedes that he has occasionally been wrong.

Nevertheless, he hasn’t tried to pick up at work in at least a year after the incident with the jealous wife, and he tries really hard not to acknowledge it to himself when he’s tempted to do so.

That is, of course, until Shane fucking Hollander showed up. Initially, Ilya assumed someone had reserved the cabana under a fake name. Weird behavior, but whatever. Then he decided it must be a coincidence. There has to be another Shane Hollander out there. Maybe they’d have a laugh about it—even if the man has no interest in hockey, surely he’d been asked about it previously, or even just noticed by accident while Googling himself. Huh, how funny, I share a name with the best hockey player in the world.

But then there he was, resplendent in linen and tiny swim trunks. Fortunately for Ilya, the man was too busy gawking at him slack-jawed to notice Ilya's internal panic as he ran through his script.

He said he was here alone, Ilya considered as he waited for the bartender. Resort guests always got priority over cabana staff because otherwise they'd get huffy while waiting. Wasn’t Shane Hollander engaged? It’s not like Ilya was following this closely; sure, he’d had a bit of a crush on Hollander when he was younger, once he hit puberty and realized that the subject of his childhood admiration was as gorgeous as he was talented.

And maybe he would have liked to have a Hollander poster on his wall as a teenager, fodder for wet dreams and amorous evenings with his hand alike, if his father would have agreed to allow such a thing in his home. But Ilya didn’t make it a habit to get hung up on famous people he would never meet, even or especially when those famous people came out as gay. His phone was in a staff locker so he couldn’t confirm until after work, regardless.

Over the course of the day, Ilya decided that if Shane Hollander were still engaged, he was certainly doing a poor job of showing it. The way he looked up at him with those big brown eyes, guileless and sweet, had affected Ilya more than he’d like to admit.

Shane Hollander, Fiancé Split Weeks Before Wedding, the headline read. The article was little more than a bare recitation of the headline and a carefully-worded press statement, but what Ilya noticed most was the date. This article had come out roughly six weeks ago. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize that Shane Hollander was on his honeymoon, alone.

Ilya lay under his ceiling fan contemplating the ethics of the situation. On the one hand, the man was probably heartbroken. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would be stupid enough to break off a wedding to Shane Hollander, but even assuming this was Shane’s doing, it couldn’t be easy for him either. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to hook up with someone in that state. On the other hand, this was Shane fucking Hollander.

Ilya sighed and threw his arm over his eyes. As Anya licked his open palm, unbothered by Ilya’s plight, Ilya resolved to leave the man alone. If he came back, Ilya would take it as a sign that he was interested. If not, Ilya would let it go.

What Ilya didn’t foresee about it all was how much he’d like Shane. At some point he’d stopped being the man, or Shane Hollander, or Shane fucking Hollander in Ilya’s mind and instead had become just Shane. Shane, who was drinking more calories and grams of sugar in dark and stormies than Ilya would ever tell him because he looked so happy sucking them down; Shane, whose freckles had noticeably darkened in the two days he’d spent in the sun and looked more beautiful than ever; Shane, who is a Canadian multi-millionaire but went to the trouble of taking out American bills because he read somewhere that serviceworkers in Mexico like to be tipped with them.

He should have offered to sneak into Shane’s room. He should have fucked him and left abruptly so Shane wouldn’t come back to the cabanas. Or maybe he should have left Shane alone altogether to grieve his relationship in peace. Of course, Ilya didn’t do any of that.

Instead, he took Shane on a date to a fucking art museum. He told him about the artist who does Russian printmaking here and poorly explained why he liked their work so much. He bought Shane tacos and popsicles made out of fruit and kissed him while drenched head to toe. He fucked him. He mortifyingly came before Shane did because of course his body couldn’t compete with all of that, but he made up for it in the end, or at least he’s pretty sure he did. It’d been the best day Ilya could remember, not just since moving to Mexico, but in his lifetime.

And then he’d gone and ruined it by being vulnerable about how he ended up here. How Ilya hadn’t foreseen that Shane would be horrified by his age is beyond him, in hindsight. This was someone with a squeaky clean image, only marred in the minds of idiots who couldn’t stand the thought of a gay man being the best. Ilya managed to convince Shane to spend one night with him, the damage already done, but that was probably stupid too. It only made the goodbye the next morning that much more painful.

It’s been three days now since Shane left Ilya’s apartment. Every day, he checks cabana reservations, and every day, he’s disappointed. He stares at the box of ginger tea on the counter, unwilling to move it because Shane’s hands were the last to touch it. He tucks the pillow Shane slept on away in his closet because he doesn’t want it tainted with his own scent. He pets Anya behind the ears and wonders if Shane is still finding pieces of her short caramel-colored fur in his suite at the resort.

Finally, he decides he’s wallowed enough. He’s going out.

‿‿‿‿

Shane makes it three miserable days. Three miserable days of activities that Shane did not previously know could be rendered miserable—Shane reads by a pool miserably. Shane gets a massage miserably. Shane exercises miserably. Shane books a dolphin excursion and experiences the majesty of nature or whatever miserably. He explores a beautiful, famously gay city miserably. He drinks miserably—actually, he’s pretty sure he knew you could do that miserably. The three things he doesn’t do, miserably or otherwise: (1) Rent a cabana; (2) Check his WhatsApp messages with Ilya; (3) Google ilya rozanov hockey russia.

On the third day, however, something breaks in Shane. He is a man of incredible restraint, but he is only a man. He Googles. A little sleuthing pulls up a video from an international tournament in 2020 and what he sees is astonishing.

The Ilya on the screen plays almost like a professional despite his age; in some ways, he reminds Shane of himself, all clean edges and sharp instincts, a preternatural awareness of where his teammates are on the ice. Sure, it's clear there is more for video Ilya to learn, skills you can really only hone playing at the highest level with true peers. Where he differs from Shane is that he’s rougher, more willing to hit hard and to take chances that open him up to hard hits in turn. Shane’s stomach churns and he swipes out of the video, wondering whether that type of physical play is what led to his injury.

Unsure what else to do, he calls Rose. She picks up on the first ring.

"Shaney!" Rose’s tone is too enthusiastic for Shane’s general vibe, but she has no way of knowing that. "How’s vacation? Have you met any hot guys? Tell me everything."

Shane groans and rubs his eyes, and it’s almost as though she can see the gesture through the phone.

"Shane…" Rose pitches her voice lower. "What’s wrong? Talk to me."

"Rose, is it weird to… be with younger guys?" Shane asks delicately.

"Hm," Rose says contemplatively. "How much younger are we talking?"

"He’s… twenty-three," Shane blurts out like a confession. Rose gasps, and Shane winces. That can’t be a good sign.

"Twenty-three, Shane? You dirty old pervert," She needles, but it sounds playful. "I mean, it’s not ideal, Shane. But do you like him?"

Shane waits a moment too long to reply.

"Oh my god, you like him," Rose prods.

"It doesn’t matter if I like him, Rose," Shane snaps. "He lives in Mexico. I just want to know if I can see him again without it being, like, gross. If I can do it without other people finding out."

"See him again?" Rose is shrieking now, which Shane should have expected. That one's on him. "Okay, now you really do have to tell me everything."

Shane does so begrudgingly, down to the multiple orgasms and the adopted Mexican street dog and the box of ginger tea still wrapped in cellophane and the wild trickshot he could pull at age sixteen. After a few moments of unintelligible screeching, Rose calms down enough to form coherent sentences.

"Okay, so, first of all, I can’t believe you’ve been in Mexico for what, a week, and you’ve already found someone who was basically made in a lab to be the perfect man for you, and, second of all, I can’t believe you’re even considering wasting any more of your vacation not in bed with him," Rose chides.

Shane weaves his fingers tightly against his scalp and pulls.

"That's just it, though, Rose," Shane moans. "He's not perfect for me, because he can't be twenty-fucking-three and perfect for me."

"Shane—" Rose attempts to cut in, but Shane presses on.

"And even if he is in every other way, you don't hook up with the guy who is perfect for you if you can't turn it into something real."

"Shane—"

"I feel like I'm setting myself up for heartbreak here, which is kind of the last thing I need right now, given why I'm in Mexico in the first fucking place."

"Shane. You are spiraling. Take, like, five deep breaths, please," Rose finally gets out, taking on the tone of a primary school teacher. "Shane, I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer honestly. Okay?"

Shane nods, eyes squeezed tightly shut, then remembers this is not a video call. "Yes."

"Good. Shane, why did you call me?" Rose asks the question like she already knows the answer.

Shane punts anyway. "Because you are my best friend and I needed advice."

"Hm, no," Rose replies dismissively. "You have two best friends, one of whom you have known longer than you've known me. Why did you call me and not Hayden?"

Shane sighs. "Because you are actually emotionally intelligent?" He knows he's putting off the inevitable, but he can't help it.

"Dammit, Hollander," Rose intones. "No, you know full well that you called me because you wanted permission and you knew I'd give it to you. The only thing I care about is you being happy. If that means having sex with someone who doesn't know what a VCR is, fine, that's great. But if you're going to beat yourself up over it or what it could do to your image or whatever if it somehow got out, then my advice is to get over him by getting under someone else."

Shane laughs despite himself. "Are you sure I didn't call Hayden by mistake? Because ‘hook up with another random person’ definitely sounds like the advice a hockey player would give."

"Hey, I'm just presenting you with options," Rose points out. "And you knew who I was when you befriended me. Having three brothers shapes you as a person."

‿‿‿‿

Shane decides to take Rose’s advice—not to have sex with Ilya again, that is far too risky, but to try to find someone else. In the previous three days of miserable solo exploration, Shane hasn't been recognized once. He has padded along kilometers of hot pavement, staring vacantly into restaurants and storefronts and faces of strangers, and not once has someone so much as done a double take, better yet taken a not-so-sneaky photo. He is, from all indications, anonymous here.

This anonymity, along with the events of the past several weeks lowering his threshold for throwing up his hands and saying this might as well happen, is emboldening. It's a Saturday night, and Shane is committed to trying new things. He goes through his full bottom prep regimen, rather than the abbreviated one he can usually get by with when he can control the timing better and his diet has been more predictable.

Resigned to his wardrobe not getting any more club-appropriate the longer he stares at it, Shane gives up and dresses in his sluttiest outfit, which is, in his case, unfortunately a tight-fitting white T-shirt that shows off the swell of his pecs and the contours of his abdomen with jeans.

In his rideshare to the club, Shane pulls up farmacias in the area and picks the one closest to his destination for a quick stop.

The club itself is both familiar and something entirely new to Shane; the flashing lights and densely packed, undulating bodies are universal, it seems, and as is the too-loud bass and the sticky flooring.

What is different is that these undulating bodies are, to a person, male. Men of every race and ethnicity writhe against each other, kiss each other, grope each other openly. If Shane is to survive the night and let loose enough to hook up with someone, he's going to need to be a lot less sober, and fast.

Shane sidles up to the bar and makes meaningful eye contact with a bartender. He is, Shane registers faintly, attractive; he is tall, with dark features and deep dimples in his cheeks when he grins at Shane. It does absolutely nothing for him. He orders three tequila shots, lines them up in a row, and, with a lick of salt from the back of the hand, takes them in quick succession. He chases them down with the blessedly sour juice from a lime wedge. Then, once his face has stopped contorting with displeasure, Shane orders a dark and stormy, because he's eager for something familiar and spicy and not at all because he misses Ilya.

He assesses the men on offer; he figures that, while he could try to peel away one of the men whose mouths are currently occupied with someone else's mouth, it would be less messy to find someone who doesn't appear to be here with someone or have already partnered off for the night. There are several men looking at him, certainly.

One such man is crossing the room now, actually; his average height is something he clearly compensates for by spending time in the gym. His arms appear to be bursting out of his black button up, sleeves rolled to display veiny, tattooed forearms. His hair is dark, but his skin is lighter than the bartender's, and his eyes are a pale shade of blue. He looks like Michael but hotter, something that should be irresistible to Shane in his current state. He finds, with a jolt of surprise, that it is not.

Just then, Shane locks eyes with someone from across the room. The man is tall, with at least a few inches on Shane, and his long, dirty blond curls are tied back from his face. His face toes the line of masculine and feminine, all strong brow and rosy lips. He looks… maybe forty. Much better, Shane's brain supplies helpfully. Shane waves apologetically to the tattooed man and works his way through the crowd.

"Hi," Shane offers. "I'm Shane. Do you want to dance with me?" The man smiles back and his teeth are too straight, too American, but Shane chooses to overlook it.

"Bryce," the man replies, in an accent that is definitely and disappointingly American. "And sure."

Shane lets himself get lost in it, the disorientation of flashing lights, of sensory overload, of three and a half drinks, and he dances. He forgets the American's name somewhere between the bottom of his first dark and stormy and his second. He can't say if he is dancing well, but the American's hands are on his waist, on his chest, on his ass, and he supposes it doesn't really matter.

At some point, the American presses in hard against him and puts his mouth to Shane's, and it's fine. His tongue is too wet and his teeth are too smooth, and it's fine. Shane feels the American's fingers nest in the hair at the back of his head and the American's cock hardening against his own and the front of his jeans getting tighter, and it's all absolutely fine.

"Do you want to go somewhere more private?" The American peers down at Shane and Shane breathes a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, just give me a minute," Shane replies.

On the way back from the bar, this time with water in hand, Shane sneaks a hand into his pocket and pulls out a small glass bottle of what is ostensibly room deodorizer. Here goes, Shane thinks, as he opens the cap and brings the foreign substance to his nostril. The rush is instantaneous and euphoric, and he's suddenly much more enthusiastic about finding somewhere more private with the American.

When he finds his companion for the evening in more or less the same place he’d left him, he pushes hard into him, hands finding and tangling in curls as they kiss. He feels a little dizzy, though, so he pulls back just enough to breathe after a minute or so.

"You're so hot," the American says, though Shane wishes he wouldn't talk at all. "Can't wait for you to fuck me."

Shane pulls back immediately and forcefully. Why does everyone want me to fuck them?

"Uh, because you look like that?" The American blinks down at him in confusion, and Shane registers that he must have posed his question aloud.

"Come on, we can just get each other off," the man adds, his tone clear that he views it as a concession, grasping at Shane's forearm, but Shane is pulling away like he's touched a hot stove.

"I think he said no," comes a familiar voice from somewhere nearby. Shane's rescuer steps between him and the American, and Shane would recognize the set of those shoulders anywhere.

"Ilya," Shane sighs, relieved.

Shane hears the American stammer out something like "sorry, man, didn't realize he was here with someone," as he turns and weaves his way through the crowd.

"Shane," Ilya finally replies, turning to face him. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes and a stricken set to his features. "Can we go somewhere private?"

Shane's brain lights up at the question in a way it did not when the American asked it, and he nods emphatically. Ilya pulls him through the maze of bodies with purpose, as though he knows exactly where he's going.

Shane rounds on him as soon as they're through the door of the single-occupancy bathroom, pushing in close and pressing wet kisses to the exposed skin at Ilya's neck and chest. Shane registers it with confusion when Ilya firmly grasps his biceps and pushes him back lightly.

"What's wrong?" Shane thought they were on the same page about why they were alone in the bathroom of a gay club, but clearly they were not. Ilya laughs mirthlessly.

"What's wrong? What's wrong, Shane, is that you have not spoken to me in days." Ilya sounds incredulous and devastated. "We spend day together, perfect day, have great sex, you meet my dog. I am very mature, say ‘okay, Shane, we can just be friends even though we do not want that because you think being seen with me is bad for image, but you will keep renting cabana,’ and you do not rent cabana and you do not reply to Whatsapp for three fucking days. Then I find you here with some other man I know you do not want, so I try to talk to you and you start kissing my neck like a slut."

The word slut lands like an insult this time, so different from the degradation in the safety of Ilya's room a few days ago. Shane has two options here. Option A, Shane grovels. He tries to explain that he thought cutting off communication entirely would be the least painful option for both of them, but that he sees now that regardless of whether they see each other again before Shane leaves they are both going to be kind of miserable, so they might as well keep seeing each other. Option B, he leans into the moment and hopes Ilya can put the rest together himself.

"I thought you liked it when I acted like a slut," Shane replies boldly, cupping Ilya through his jeans and looking up at him challengingly. Ilya looks torn, and Shane briefly drops the facade. "Tell me if you want me to stop."

Ilya doesn’t say anything, but he does groan almost mournfully and let his head fall back against the door with a soft thunk as Shane reintroduces himself to the junction between Ilya’s neck and shoulder, sucking a proprietary bruise into the delicate skin there. Shane takes that as a yes, and forces his drunk fingers to cooperate long enough to unbutton and unzip Ilya’s fly. He shoves a hand behind the elastic of Ilya’s underwear and lets out his own groan as his fingers wrap around Ilya’s cock, already so familiar to him.

"Da, like that, Shane," Ilya pants, shimmying the fabric down lower on his hips as Shane works. The praise, having been constrained only to Shane’s (very good) dreams the previous few evenings, goes straight to Shane’s dick.

"Fuck me," Shane hears himself say. He sounds desperate, almost pathetic, but he can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed about it, his need too all-consuming. Ilya’s head falls forward again, brow laced together.

"Fuck you here?" Ilya asks incredulously, gesturing at their surroundings. Shane can’t say he noticed them before, given that he’s been pretty distracted, but a small part of his brain registers that Ilya may have a point.

The bathroom is not especially clean or well-appointed, little more than a toilet with a loose seat (left up, naturally, but tilted at a concerning angle), a suspiciously wet-looking floor littered with empty toilet paper rolls, a standalone sink, and walls covered in phone numbers, lewd drawings, and messages in English, Spanish, and at least a couple other languages Shane can’t readily identify in his state.

"Yeah, here," Shane replies, undeterred. "I’m ready, come on, just fuck me."

"What do you mean, ready?" Ilya starts to pull his underwear and pants back up, forcing Shane’s hand out of the way, and Shane can’t have that. He more or less falls into Ilya, in what he hopes is an alluring way, grasping the fly of Ilya’s jeans in his fingers.

"I did poppers," Shane replies, though he can feel their effects dwindling rapidly. He knew from his online research, which consisted of Google searching ‘how to do poppers,’ and then ‘where to buy poppers mx,’ that they would be intense but ephemeral. At the moment, though, he doesn’t care; he’s pretty sure he’d like the pain, that he deserves it. So he lies again. "Please, I’m ready."

Ilya twists abruptly and the fly slips through Shane’s fingers. Shane looks down dumbly at his empty hands and then up at Ilya, whose expression is angry and resolute.

"No," Ilya murmurs. His thumb and forefinger capture Shane’s chin and force him to meet his gaze. "I will not fuck you in this dirty bathroom, bent over that dirty sink, open from drugs you took to fuck someone else, even though that is what dirty slut like you deserves."

Tears prick at the backs of Shane’s eyes at the harsh words, but a wave of heat ripples through him anyway and settles somewhere deep behind his navel. He closes his eyelids and feels his lashes wet, waiting for Ilya to say more, to say he never wants to see him again, that Shane was right, that this is a terrible idea.

"I will take you home with me, and when you are sober enough, I will open you up on my fingers, and I will ruin you. I will have you every day until you leave this place and go back to fucking boring Canadian men who will never make you feel as good as I do."

Shane forces his eyes open, and, through the unfallen tears, he watches as Ilya’s expression falters. "We do this, or you go back to resort now and we never see each other again."

Shane doesn’t need to think about his answer.

"The first one."

‿‿‿‿

Ilya doesn't make a habit of having sex while angry. It's hard to get too angry at someone you've just met in a bar or club in the first place, a virtual stranger who is not only willing but excited to have sex with you. And Ilya makes it a point not to fuck the same person twice in a six-month period, lest they get the wrong idea, which helps in the not-caring-enough-to-be-angry department.

So it's kind of foreign to him to have Shane under him tonight; he's more sober now, the effect of the poppers long since worn off and one drink metabolized, but he's still a bit less uptight, a bit needier. Meanwhile, Ilya, for his part, is still pissed.

"What do you want?" Ilya asks the question between slow, wet kisses along Shane's collarbone.

"I want—ah!—I want your fingers," Shane gasps as Ilya digs his grip deeper into Shane's hip.

"You want my fingers?" Ilya circles one lightly around the furrow of Shane's hole. "You seemed like you wanted someone else's fingers earlier." He bites down on Shane's clavicle and Shane's breath hitches, his chest chasing Ilya's mouth.

"You are such a slut that you would take anyone's fingers, I think," Ilya says. "Let any of those men tonight touch you, put their fingers inside you, fuck you. Maybe two, three men, same night." He's being reckless now; he knows Shane likes it when he's a little mean, but he also sees the difference between what he did the other night and what he's doing now, actually motivated by the blind rage of unearned jealousy he'd experienced earlier tonight.

"No," Shane protests, squirming under his touch. "Only want you, please."

"Only want me?" Ilya prods, the dry pad of his fingertip breaching Shane's rim. "Say it. Say that while you are here you will only look at me, touch me, fuck me." Ilya hopes that Shane is too far gone to hear the desperation in his voice.

"Only you," Shane answers, breathy and needy. "Your hands, your mouth, your cock."

"Da, okay." Ilya plants a chaste kiss to Shane's pec and reaches his hand across the expanse of his chest to get the lube from his bedside table, feeling all the fight go out of his body. He can't have Shane forever, but he can have this, and he intends to make it be enough.

Somewhere between the second and third finger, it occurs to Ilya that he should try to remember everything about this. Shane is splayed out underneath him, chest and neck and face flushed and ruddy; brown nipples pebble under Ilya’s tongue. The hair adorning his defined abdomen is thin but dark, giving way to neatly trimmed pubic hair. The skin currently stretched around Ilya’s fingers is more pigmented than most of Shane’s body, the same dusty brown as his taut balls and neglected cock.

Atop it all, Shane’s face is drawn up with pleasure, brow knitted together and deep brown eyes flickering in and out of focus. His lips look pink and plush and imminently kissable, so Ilya does, eliciting a soft moan of surprise from the man underneath him. Ilya pulls back before spreading his fingers and relishing in the hitch of Shane’s breath only a few millimeters from his mouth.

"You are so beautiful," Ilya tells Shane earnestly. "I want to do this always, okay? No more drugs. I take my time with you." Shane nods aggressively against his forehead, and Ilya feels himself grinning.

"Okay, yeah," Shane agrees readily, breaths rapid. "No more poppers. Just fuck me."

Ilya tips his head side to side as though considering the proposition before responding.

"No," Ilya replies with a smirk. Shane has just opened his mouth to protest when he continues. "I’m not ready yet."

He pulls away from Shane with a parting kiss to his confused, scrunched up forehead, and gets comfortable. He thrusts Shane’s knee back with his free hand, and Shane must get the memo because in the next moment, he’s blindly flailing his arm out to his side to find the spare pillow that is definitely still in Ilya’s closet. Without so much as a grimace, Ilya sacrifices a pillow in a sham, having previously been discarded on the floor, and shoves it gracelessly under Shane’s hips.

The angle much improved, Ilya lurches forward, his tongue meeting his fingers inside Shane’s pliant rim. He laps and sucks around the edges, until he feels the tight furl of muscles give enough to probe inside. He extricates his fingers, a strangled whine coming from somewhere above him, to be able to dive in properly.

Ilya presses his tongue flat and licks from just below Shane’s rim to the top of his perineum in long, full swipes, the tip dipping inside on each pass as Shane’s greedy hole tries to suck him inside. He finally relents, swirling his tongue over the dark ridges of skin and pressing inside. It’s a battle of muscle against muscle, Shane’s rim convulsing around him, but the noises Shane is making egg him on, pushing in as deeply as he can to elicit more of the ragged, inhuman wails coming from above.

"Oh my god," Shane cries, inhaling sharply. "Please, Ilya, please—"

Ilya could draw this out, could make Shane beg more effusively, but he finds he’s ready too. He reaches up to grab a condom from his bedside table, but stops short when Shane catches his wrist.

"Let me," Shane pleads, and makes quick work of opening the foil packet as Ilya rises onto his knees. It’s not something Ilya would usually allow; it’s somehow too intimate for a casual hook up, though he could never explain why. Shane rolls the condom on carefully, as though he hasn’t done it in a while, which, Ilya supposes, he probably hasn’t. People don't typically use condoms with their fiancés. He casts the thought aside and kisses Shane one more time, sweet and affectionate, before Shane lies back again and Ilya settles in between his thick thighs.

Ilya breaches the hot grip and has to immediately remind himself that his goal is to last longer this time. He forces himself to push in steadily rather than in starts and stops, nothing belying his confident exterior, while, internally, he’s singularly focused.

"You have to move, Ilya," Shane groans, squirming on his cock as Ilya realizes he has been fully seated and still for longer than strictly necessary. He grunts his assent and gives his hips a tentative roll, then another, and then he couldn’t hold himself back if he tried.

Underneath him, the sounds Shane makes are delicious—tiny punched-out gasps and whimpers that Ilya does his best to catalog, slotted somewhere between the faint line permanently etched in the center of Shane’s brow and the wry half-smile he gives Ilya when he is trying and failing to look annoyed.

Torn between hearing more of those sounds and crashing into the lips they come from, Ilya splits the difference, folding into Shane, forehead to forehead, nose to nose. He’s so close that he can feel Shane’s long, straight lashes as his eyes flutter open and shut, soft as butterfly wings against Ilya’s cheek. It’s sweet and dizzying and Ilya has to kiss him, so he does, something hot and desperate, teeth and tongues and gasps.

He needs to be closer, needs to envelop Shane, to absorb him, to take up residence inside his body. Ilya pulls out with a groan and rolls Shane over, hiking his hips up and sliding home. Shane lets out a high, garbled ungh, and Ilya plants a palm between Shane’s shoulders for leverage, pushing down and snapping into him rhythmically.

"You like that?" Ilya growls, and takes the whimper from underneath him as a yes. "You love it, I think. Slutty hole like this needs to be filled, yes?" Shane rolls his head to the side and gasps, his face flushed and glistening.

"So full, baby—ah!—so good," Shane stammers, squeezing his eyes shut. "S’ big."

Spurred on by the words, Ilya can’t help himself, draping his body over Shane’s prone frame and driving into him. He fastens a proprietary bite to Shane’s shoulder, eliciting a gasp of surprise and pleasure.

"Ilya-a," Shane whines, and Ilya is so close, so close—he pulls out with a growl and rolls onto his back, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth and gripping the base of his cock while Shane scrambles upright.

Shane takes no prompting, throwing one leg over Ilya’s hips easily. He looks destroyed, debauched, desperate, as he reaches behind himself, notches Ilya’s cock against his open rim, and sinks down on him unceremoniously.

Ilya feels almost delirious, still disbelieving that, if for a short time, he gets to have this. He reaches for Shane, for something to hold onto, a tether to reality; his hands skim over firm pecs, thumbing pert, brown nipples, then trail south, over the hills and valleys of Shane’s broad abdomen, and settle on his hips, his Adonis belt a perfect handhold. He grips Shane tightly, hoping to leave marks on his unmarred flesh.

If Ilya is holding on too firmly, Shane gives no indication, bouncing and clenching on Ilya’s cock with abandon, hands steadied on Ilya’s thighs. Ilya watches, rapt, as Shane’s defined quads work over him.

"So good for me, zaychik," Ilya praises, the reverence in his tone real, as he plants his own feet under him and bucks up to meet Shane’s movements. Shane falls forward with a cry, hands landing on Ilya’s torso, but doesn’t stop driving his hips back to meet Ilya’s.

"Touch me," Shane pleads, deep brown eyes lidded and glazed. "I’m close."

Thank God for that, Ilya thinks, taking Shane in hand. He’s slick with precome and a pretty shade of purple as Ilya gives him a few firm tugs—and then he’s spilling over Ilya in broad, white spurts, his body trembling and juddering. He clenches and spasms around Ilya, letting out a series of high, breathy, warbling sounds, and then Ilya is coming too, his hips deep and stilled as he lets go.

Shane collapses into his arms, and Ilya accepts him greedily. His cock gives a valiant pulse and he feels Shane shudder at it.

"Was that good?" Shane pulls back to look at Ilya, eyes round and doe-like and guileless. If it weren’t so earnest, Ilya would have to laugh. He grins instead.

"Yes, Shane," Ilya assures him. "You are the best."

Shane smiles down at him, pleased, and Ilya’s stomach flips.

"What does that mean, anyway?" Shane asks a few minutes later in the shower, his fingers deftly massaging shampoo into Ilya’s scalp.

"Mm, what does what mean?" Ilya purrs, eyes closed, smiling contentedly. He doesn’t remember the last time someone other than his barber washed his hair for him, and he definitely doesn’t feel this good when Chuy does it. He feels Shane’s hands slow to a stop before continuing.

"You keep calling me something," Shane replies. "In bed, I mean. Zay-something."

Reluctantly, Ilya turns, Shane’s fingers slipping out of his hair, and peers down at Shane with a smirk.

"Zaychik," Ilya provides. "Is like… baby rabbit?" He furrows his brow. Surely there’s an English word for that; he’s pretty sure he’s heard it before, but it’s escaping him.

"Bunny?" Shane looks at him incredulously. "You are calling me bunny?"

At the moment, Shane looks more like a wet, angry kitten, but Ilya figures pointing that out wouldn’t be welcome. Instead, he shrugs.

"Da," Ilya confirms, looping his arms around Shane’s waist and tugging him closer. "You bounce on my cock like sexy bunny."

Shane gives a dramatic eye roll, almost as though he feels obligated to do so, but looks up at Ilya not without fondness.

"I’m not a bunny," Shane protests weakly, scrunching his nose—not unlike a bunny, Ilya considers. "I’m a 200-pound hockey player."

"This is what makes you so good," Ilya reasons, wedging his leg between Shane’s thighs. "You have very strong leg muscles. You know, like—"

The words die on Ilya’s lips, silenced by Shane’s mouth on his own, and are soon forgotten entirely.

‿‿‿‿

They fall into a rhythm after that, Ilya borrowing one of Svetlana’s cars and Shane riding to work with Ilya. Shane does rent a cabana every day, but, at Ilya’s insistence—citing something about losing his job for fucking in the cabanas if he has to see Shane in those tiny little swim trunks all day—explores the resort’s other amenities as well.

Shane begrudgingly obliges, and finds that he very much understands why people like the whole all inclusive thing. He spends a few hours each day in the well-appointed gym; upon arrival, he fills his metal water bottle from the ever-present dispenser of infused water, always some combination of a citrus fruit and an herb. Then, he attends 9am yoga and 10am cycling before finishing his workout with solo weight training.

Afterwards, he goes up to his room and showers, changing into some combination of swim shorts and a linen shirt for lunch. He ambles down to the oceanfront Mexican place, having tried a few of the other restaurants and more or less sworn them off entirely, and eats his weight in fresh fish, vegetables, and salsa while watching Ilya work from a safe distance.

Ilya makes meaningful eye contact when he can, tilting his head in a go have fun, you weirdo kind of gesture, so after lunch, Shane spends as little time as possible swimming in or reading by the pool nearest the beach to placate Ilya before making his way back to the cabana.

It rains most afternoons, the first few days at the resort seemingly an aberration from the normal weather patterns of the season, which suits Shane just fine; after securing the curtains on the unoccupied cabanas, the rain leaves Ilya free to join Shane until it passes so long as there are no other cabana guests.

Today—day twelve of fourteen, which Shane is aware of as one is aware of any looming thing that seeks to destroy you—is one such day. As it tends to, the rain has driven the other cabana-dwellers indoors, so Shane has Ilya to himself for a while. He has stashed his beach bag under the lounger to keep it dry and to make room for Ilya beside him, stretched out and luxuriating despite the water dripping in from the fabric canopy above and coming in through the breaks in the curtains.

Despite the relative privacy, they don’t chance more than a few stolen kisses in the cabana; they can’t trust themselves to make out without it turning into more, and there is always the risk of Ilya’s supervisor catching them indisposed. It wouldn’t be great for Ilya if he were caught in Shane’s cabana, but he says he’s pretty sure he won't get fired for it as long as they’re clothed. He was hired—at least in part—to flirt with guests, after all. Instead, they talk about everything and nothing, or they lie side by side in companionable silence.

At the moment, Shane is idly tracing patterns with his index finger into Ilya’s forearm and palm, contemplating the series of life choices that led him here, unable to leap at the opportunity to meaningfully explore their connection after he leaves this place. He figures that it all goes back to the first time he told his parents, from the back seat of their station wagon, that he wanted to be a professional hockey player when he grew up, and they, being the good parents they were, agreed to do everything they could to make that happen. How different his life would be if he were, like, an accountant or something.

"Did you ever think about what you wanted to do if hockey didn’t work out?" Shane asks, his finger dancing across the crook of Ilya’s elbow. Ilya shivers. "I mean, obviously it didn’t for you, but I assume this wasn’t exactly plan B." Ilya looks distantly out past the shoreline, seeming to consider the question seriously.

"I am not sure," he answers finally. "I knew back then that it was hockey or nothing, so there was no point thinking about other jobs, going to university." He shrugs. "If I think about it now, I think I would have liked to help people in bad situations. My mother, she died when I was twelve. It was suicide. I thought for long time that if she had mental health help, maybe she would not have left. Now, I am not so sure." Ilya thumbs at the cross pendant sitting between his collarbones.

"Talking and medications, these help some people, and maybe they would have helped her too, but my father was awful to her. She was very young when they married and when she had my brother. Still young when she had me. I think she needed someone to help her get out of bad situation, get away from my father, more than anything else, but there was nothing like that for her. So maybe I would like to help people like my mama."

Shane sits with that, gives it the space it needs to breathe, before he responds. "I think you would be great at helping people," Shane croaks out wetly. "And I think she would be proud of you, for doing what you needed to do to leave, and for the person you’ve become. I’m sorry she doesn’t get to know you now."

Ilya’s eyes fall on Shane’s face, expression vulnerable, and it makes Shane’s breath hitch in his throat.

"She would have loved you," Ilya replies finally. "Thank you, solnyshko."

Shane offers him his warmest smile, which Ilya readily returns before placing the most feather-light kiss to his lips. When Ilya pulls back, he blinks as if shaking himself from a thought.

"I am off tomorrow. Do you want to go somewhere?"

Shane has been warming up to the idea over the past few days. The club was a test, as much as it was an ill-conceived plan to get over Ilya, and, at least as of yet, there are no photos of Shane making out with a random, vaguely Ilya-shaped stranger on the internet. As tempted as he is to sequester himself in Ilya’s apartment instead, fucking as much as physiologically possible for the next few days, he wants to have more memories with Ilya outside those four walls.

"Sure," Shane answers breezily, as though there isn’t an entire careful calculus behind his decision.

"Good." Ilya grins broadly. "And I have one more suggestion."

‿‿‿‿

"This is so fucking stupid, Ilya," Shane chides as he packs up his belongings. The rain has ended and the sun is peeking through the clouds, just in time for Ilya’s shift—and Shane’s cabana rental—to end. "What if someone sees you? Violating the rule they literally made for you?"

"Is fine," Ilya replies with a shrug. "Only people who would see me are housekeeping, and they love me. No one will tell. I go through fire exit. It says it will set off alarms but it does not. And if I do get caught, my VIP resort guest can talk them out of firing me."

Shane gives his eyes an exaggerated roll, but feels his face settle into something sickeningly fond. "Fine. Give me, like, thirty minutes."

After doing some perfunctory bottom prep, Shane barely has a moment alone in his room to pull on a T-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts before he hears knuckles rapping on wood. He flings the door open and tries to pull Ilya inside, away from prying eyes, but Ilya remains stubbornly frozen at the threshold.

"Luna de miel?" Ilya lifts an eyebrow, gesturing at the door banner. It’s the one relic of the honeymoon package not thrown away or already consumed, and Shane feels his cheeks and ears go hot.

"Oh my god, I’m sorry," Shane sputters. "I forgot to take it down the first night, and then I guess I just kind of became blind to it. Forgot it was there." Shane grimaces, and starts to reach for the elastic at the top corner, but Ilya grabs his wrist.

"Leave it," Ilya demands. Shane turns to meet his eyes, confused, and oh. Shane is no longer confused. "It’s our honeymoon, remember?" Ilya’s voice has a softness to it, giving Shane the permission to say no, this is too much, but Shane finds with some surprise that he doesn't want to.

"How could I forget," Shane hears himself reply, and Ilya finally comes willingly through the threshold.

Ilya toes his shoes off by the door, and Shane attempts to pull Ilya deeper into the room, but finds he is immovable. Whatever the game is, Shane is amenable to playing. He hasn’t met a game of Ilya’s that he doesn’t like, at least so far. Ilya kisses him deeply in the entryway until Shane feels soft and pliant, arms looped around Ilya’s shoulders like they’re at a middle school dance.

The world shifts without warning, Ilya dipping low, an arm sweeping behind Shane’s knees, and suddenly Shane is no longer touching the ground. Shane yelps out a mild protest that he knows Ilya won’t heed, and a moment later Ilya is depositing him on the fluffy white duvet and settling in on top of him.

"You were so beautiful today," Ilya coos, brushing the hair back from Shane’s forehead.

"Hm?" He’s so lost in Ilya’s warm, open expression that he momentarily doesn’t understand.

"Our wedding," Ilya provides, rolling his eyes with a goofy grin. "You wear that white linen suit with the slutty see-through shirt underneath," Shane lets out a surprised chuckle. "And that pretty flower on your chest. But the prettiest part was your freckles. They are so dark from being in the sun, like sun kissed you all over."

Ilya punctuates his description by littering tiny pecks across Shane’s cheeks. Shane beams, even as some small part of him is telling him in no uncertain terms that entertaining this will only hurt him later. That’s a problem for later-Shane.

"And what did you wear?" Shane asks, a playful lilt to his voice.

"You forget what your husband wears on wedding day?" Ilya is not much of an actor, but he does faux-affront well, clutching his chest with one hand as if mortally wounded, then settles back into the role of doting husband. "Is okay. I remind you. I wear tan linen suit, no shirt underneath to show off for you."

"Really? No shirt in front of all our guests? Scandalous," Shane replies drolly, eyebrows lifted.

"Da, but you liked it," Ilya counters, then occupies his mouth with Shane’s neck, hand trailing underneath the hem of his shirt.

Shane grasps for it, and Ilya helps him sit up just enough to pull it overhead, and sets to work getting Ilya’s shirt off too.

"Have we done this before?" Shane asks, panting against Ilya’s lips.

"Oh, yes," Ilya confirms. "You were virgin before, sweet little thing, and I tell you I will wait, but you say no, Ilya, I want you so badly." Ilya relays this last part with a whiny affect, and Shane slaps his pec lightly.

"Wow," Shane deadpans. "What a gentleman."

"Da," Ilya replies, and then they’re kissing again. It’s Ilya who deepens it this time, tongue searching and hot. Shane ruts up against him seeking friction, any friction, but Ilya doesn’t keep him waiting.

Ilya coaxes Shane’s shorts off first and then his own work shorts, settling firmly between Shane’s legs and getting to work. Shane tries to take a mental photograph of the image below him, his cock buried deep in Ilya’s throat and his own hand in Ilya’s curls, one of Ilya's legs hiked so the expanse of his lower back and the swell of his improbably round ass are visible beyond his head. He’s fairly certain, nevertheless, that it’s burned into his retinas like a flashbulb.

"Do you have lube, moya lyubov’?"

A flutter passes through Shane at what sounds very much like another pet name, but he tries to remind himself that they’re roleplaying as newlyweds right now, so he can’t get too excited about this particular one.

"Yeah," Shane replies. "Lube’s in the nightstand. Condoms are in my toiletry bag, in the bathroom." He grimaces to himself as he watches Ilya walk away—though not too much; the sight is magnificent, after all—punching himself for not preparing for the possibility of Ilya coming back here with him. Ilya returns swiftly, though, and reassumes his prior position, dropping a chaste kiss to Shane’s inner thigh.

Ilya teases the pad of one slick finger against Shane’s rim and Shane knows getting him off won’t be a difficult endeavor for Ilya. Shane’s hips lurch up and off the bed, seeking more.

"Wow, so sensitive after a long day," Ilya observes, slipping the finger inside and crooking it against the walls. "I wonder if all your friends and family know about the sweet noises you make for me."

"More, please," Shane wails.

"So polite," Ilya purrs, obliging him with another finger. "Please, thank you. So sweet for me."

"Only for you," Shane hears himself reply. He knows faintly that it’s a stupid thing to say, that he has to leave in two days and they can’t afford to get their wires crossed about the plan moving forward, but he finds he can’t help it. At least for the moment, he has the plausible deniability of the fantasy.

It seems to work for Ilya, regardless, because he’s working Shane open more urgently now, twisting and scissoring his fingers until Shane is begging for more. The third goes in easily, and it isn’t long before Shane is ready.

"You know," Ilya points out, rolling on a condom and slicking himself with lube. "If this were really our wedding night, I would not be wearing this." Shane feels his hole flutter around nothing.

"Yeah?" Shane asks, swallowing hard as Ilya notches himself against his rim.

"Da," Ilya confirms, pressing in just an inch or so. "I would push in so slowly, so you can feel everything," he continues, sliding forward at a languid pace. Shane barely recognizes the groan that comes out of his mouth as human, better yet his own.

"And then, once I am all the way inside you," Ilya says as he buries himself the rest of the way, "I would say ‘oh, my Shane, moya lyubov’, I am not going to last long like this.’ Then I would pull all the way back out and press back in all at once."

Ilya doesn’t wait for a response, then, but he does stay true to his word, pulling out until just the tip of his cock remains inside Shane and rolling forward again until he’s full. He fucks Shane like this, in long, full strokes, one ankle over his shoulder and the other leg wrapped around his back.

He picks up his pace and the strokes get shorter and more deliberate, hips pistoning in and out as his cock hits Shane’s prostate unerringly. Ilya kisses the ankle on his shoulder before putting his hands behind Shane’s knees and pressing forward to roll Shane’s hips off the bed.

"Oh my god, Ilya," Shane moans, so full he swears Ilya is hitting his fucking diaphragm, and so close he feels like crying. "What else, baby?"

"What?" Ilya pants out the question but doesn’t falter.

"What else would you do? If it were really our wedding night?" Shane knows he’s in dangerous territory, that he’s inviting an untold amount of pain on both of them, but he can’t stop, he’s so close, he can’t—

"I would make you come on my cock," Ilya replies, taking Shane in hand. "And I would tell you that I love you while I come inside you."

Shane’s orgasm hits him so hard that he’s temporarily blinded, vision whiting out as he coats his own chest and abdomen with his release, acutely aware of the faint throbbing sensation inside him as Ilya finishes.

He is incredibly grateful that he can take the full brunt of Ilya’s considerable weight collapsed on top of him for a few soft, fuzzy minutes.

Eventually, Ilya peels himself off of Shane’s torso, and Shane winces at the dual unpleasant sensations of Ilya slipping out of him and the fine layer of cool, sticky come and sweat coating his abdomen.

Ilya returns to bed with two cloths, one warm and damp and one dry, as is his custom, and sets about cleaning Shane with gentle, worshipful hands.

"Mm," Shane hums contentedly, eyes closed. "That feels s’good."

"Da?" Ilya asks, dropping a kiss to the point of Shane’s hip.

"Da," Shane answers, grinning even though he isn’t looking at Ilya. "It's nice."

Shane feels the bed shift and flutters his eyes open just as Ilya comes into his line of sight, suddenly face to face. His curls are wild, some sticking out errantly and others plastered to his sweat-damp skin. His face looks serene by contrast, gold-green eyes and kiss-swollen lips soft.

"Good." A smirk and a mischievous glint disrupt the serenity. "Only the best for my new husband."

Shane’s stomach does a somersault at the casual use of the word husband—red alert, danger, danger—but finds his traitorous face has stretched into a soft, adoring smile anyway. Ilya flops down beside him, sprawled out on his side, his elbow supporting his head like he belongs in a pornographic magazine from the ‘70s. Shane lets his gaze skim along Ilya’s body, committing the contours of it to memory, until it reaches Ilya’s smirking lips and expression of wry amusement.

"So, what does my new husband want for dinner?" Shane does his best not to let his low-level panic reach his voice, and figures he must be successful when Ilya wriggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"I can think of something I would like to eat very much," Ilya intones, glancing meaningfully between Shane’s groin and face. Shane rolls his eyes in faux exasperation.

"Something with calories, Ilya," Shane chides. "Room service." Ilya sighs dramatically.

"A good boy like you would order extra room service for someone who is not guest at all inclusive? I am surprised, Shane," Ilya jokes. Shane squirms in mild discomfort.

"I mean, I did pay for two people," Shane reasons. "It’s not like they gave me any money back when I got here alone."

Ilya nods slowly, eyes carefully assessing. It seems like he might not know how to respond to that, so Shane isn’t particularly surprised when he redirects the conversation back to food.

"You have the app?" Ilya asks. "It’s been a while. Might be different menu now."

The two curl around Shane’s phone and make their selections. It’s oddly intimate, Shane thinks, to peer into a tiny screen together and discuss whether they would rather have sea bass or red snapper. In the end, they choose one of each. Once they’re satisfied with their dinner choices, Ilya reluctantly gets up from the bed to use the restroom, and Shane quickly adds two more items to the cart—a slice of white cake and a bottle of Moët & Chandon that costs extra, to say the least—and submits the order.

When Ilya returns, naked and still flushed in sporadic patches across his body, Shane decides he would like to prolong that nudity as long as possible.

"Do you want to shower?" Shane asks. "With me, I mean. It’s really nice. Big. Two waterfall showerheads and everything."

Ilya peers down at him, an amused glint in his eye.

"I would shower with you in tiniest shower with worst water pressure," Ilya informs him.

It turns out, to neither of their great surprise, that the second showerhead is completely unnecessary; Shane and Ilya take turns under one stream, crowding the other into the tile with wet, sloppy kisses. Shane is on his knees, Ilya’s cock heavy on his tongue and in his hand, precariously close to touching his uvula, when there’s a knock at the door.

"Shit," Shane curses. "Y—you stay here," he stammers, stumbling out of the stall. He wraps himself hastily in a towel and flings open the door just in time to catch the concierge with her knuckles raised, prepared to knock again. The young woman stares at him, mouth agape, wide eyes skimming over Shane’s bare torso before throwing her hand up to cover them.

"Lo siento," she croaks. "I—I’m sorry."

"No, oh my God, I’m sorry," Shane sputters, clinging to the towel at his waist for dear life, fairly certain that the poor woman would stroke out if he dropped it to reveal his still semi-erect penis. He steps back further into the room to make space for her to wheel in the room service cart, and fishes cash out from his safe while she deposits their order on the table.

"Here." The woman attempts to give Shane a wide berth as she passes him, so he extends his unoccupied arm as much as possible, averting his eyes and blindly thrusting out a $100 bill.

He can see her pause a beat too long in his periphery, maybe thinking about objecting to the sum, but clearly she thinks better of it.

"Thank you," the woman’s voice calls from the threshold, and Shane can’t get out his reply before he hears the door close with a click.

Shane drops his face into both his hands, and, no longer held up, the towel promptly falls to the floor in a wet heap. He lets in one deep breath before bending to collect it. When he looks up, Ilya is looking at him with great amusement, his own towel expertly tucked around his hips.

"Well, that was mortifying," Shane deadpans. Ilya closes the distance between them in a few slow, measured steps and wraps him in a tight embrace. Shane feels Ilya’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.

"W—what?" Shane sputters, which only makes Ilya laugh harder, audible now. Shane wrenches himself free from his arms. "What, Ilya?" Shane sounds more emphatic now, but he can feel the goofy grin on his face actively undermining him.

"I think you made that woman’s night," Ilya replies, finally having stopped laughing long enough to do so. "Best wet, naked body she’s ever seen."

"I wasn’t naked," Shane protests weakly. "I had a towel on. She saw less than she would've if I’d been wearing swim trunks."

"Ah, but swim trunks are not so… what is the word," Ilya muses, snapping the fingers of his right hand. "Like you are making someone think about you being naked."

"Suggestive?" Shane proposes. Ilya snaps once more and punctuates the gesture by pointing his index finger at Shane.

"Da, that," Ilya confirms, seeming pleased with himself.

"I wasn’t trying to be suggestive," Shane objects with a sniff. "I was just trying to get our food."

"I know, moya dusha," Ilya coos. "But you will have to be more careful now." Shane quirks his head in question. "You are married man. Don’t want to give wrong idea." Ilya winks.

Some time between dinner and dessert, Ilya notices the jetted tub on the balcony, and Shane is excited to no longer look at it longingly. Now, Ilya sits perched on the edge of the tub in a fluffy terrycloth robe, testing the water with his hand as Shane lounges at the outdoor bistro table, legs stretched long with his feet resting in the chair in front of him.

"So," Shane begins, a flirty lilt to his tone as he refills their champagne glasses. "What are we doing tomorrow?"

Ilya steps forward and bends down to place a single chaste kiss at the corner of Shane’s lips as he plucks a flute from his fingers. He steps back a pace before he responds.

"Is secret," Ilya demurs with a shrug, returning to his seat on the ledge.

"Oh come on," Shane probes. "Not even a hint?" Shane bats his eyelashes prettily. Ilya rolls his eyes in mock frustration and sighs.

"Fine," Ilya relents. "You can have hint. It is not in city, so car ride will be longer, and you should wear pants and long sleeves if you have them."

Shane mentally scans through his packing list and realizes he does not, in fact, have pants, and relays as much to Ilya, who offers to let him borrow some. They need to go to his apartment beforehand for Ilya to change anyway.

By this point, the tub is full—or as full as it can be before two large men sit in it and displace the water. Ilya strips off his robe first and steps in carefully, lying back against the edge. Shane follows, settling in between Ilya’s legs, his back to Ilya’s broad chest. It’s a tight fit, but not uncomfortable in the least.

"Nice view," Ilya remarks unnecessarily. The pacific ocean stretches out beyond the balcony, incomprehensibly vast and appearing blue-black and vibrant orange, pink, red, the sun just starting to set.

"Yeah," Shane agrees. "I’d never seen it before." Ilya squeezes one shoulder and pulls, turning Shane in his arms.

"You have never seen Pacific Ocean before this trip?" Ilya asks. "How is this possible?"

"I mean, I’d seen it, I guess," Shane sighs, shrugging. "But, like, only from planes. I had only been to the West Coast on roadies. It’s not like I was gonna use my one day off getting heat exhaustion or whatever. Ottawa is landlocked, obviously, but I’ve been to the Atlantic. Mostly, though, I’ve been to lakes. I have a cottage in Ontario, a couple hours outside Ottawa. After playoffs, I don’t want to go anywhere else."

Ilya is uncharacteristically silent after that, a thoughtful expression coloring his features.

"I thought it would be different," Ilya admits. "The life of a hockey star. It has been years since my injury, but I will sometimes imagine what it would be like to have so much money, so much fame. I would have lots of lovers, many cars, big house, expensive clothes, watches. But maybe it is not so good. I don’t know."

Shane mulls that over for a while and realizes with a jolt that the relative quiet, the lack of excitement in his life thus far has not been the result of hockey, per se, but some combination of things he can’t change, like his sexuality, and his hesitation to try new things.

"It might have been different for you," Shane replies, finger tracing the bear tattoo on Ilya’s chest for something to do with his hands. "I think I’m just… tired, and boring," he finally lands on.

Ilya’s fingers scratch lightly at Shane’s scalp and it feels so good that he has to shut his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I guess I mean that the season is really intense, right? And yeah, my team is great now that I’m in Ottawa, but for a long time when I was with the Voyageurs it was really draining to be with them. Some of the guys would go on these big trips during the summer, fun trips with other guys or trips with their families, and I just—I couldn’t make myself go. So I built a cottage, somewhere I could go by myself, or just me and my parents."

Shane looks up to check whether Ilya is still with him; he is, so he continues.

"And I couldn’t just have sex with whoever I wanted because I was gay—I tried to have sex with women for a while, longer than I should have, honestly, but it was awful for me and awful for them, so I gave up and eventually I accepted that I just wasn’t interested in women. Then I made the mistake of telling my teammates I was gay, thinking maybe I could have one fucking thing I actually wanted even if it had to be private, that these guys I’d known for years would be quiet about it.

"I never cared about the other stuff, the expensive cars, the clothes. I drive a very nice Jeep, for fuck’s sake, and I get enough clothes and watches or whatever from my sponsors, honestly. I just wanted to be able to go on a date maybe and tell them about it, for them to stop asking me about hooking up with women. But of course they weren’t quiet about it, and then the whole world knew overnight."

Ilya trails his fingers from Shane’s scalp to his shoulders and starts to rub them forcefully, as if he knows how much pressure to use without being asked. Shane lets his head loll forward on Ilya’s shoulder as he continues.

"I couldn’t stay there after that, playing with them, so I left at the end of the season, went where they had cap space. I met Michael, and it was all so easy. He works for the Centaurs as a physiotherapist, though I think he’s looking for a new job now, thankfully, and he didn’t make me feel bad about being kind of socially awkward or not wanting to do exciting stuff or whatever. I thought ‘okay, I’m in my 30s now, maybe this is good enough,’ even though I knew the sex was a problem, and then he proposed and I said yes and I thought that was it until a few weeks ago. Now I’m here, wondering how I let it get so far."

I’m wondering how it’s possible for me to feel more for you in a week and a half than I did for the man I dated for four years and was supposed to marry last month, Shane thinks but doesn’t add.

Ilya seems to be considering Shane’s words carefully as he works his thumbs deeply into Shane’s traps; Shane doesn’t mind the silence, if it means the massaging will continue.

"That does sound… specific to you," Ilya admits carefully, having moved on from Shane’s shoulder to the painful knots behind his left scapula. "Like there were good reasons you did not have so much fun but also you did not help situation." Shane winces, and he doesn’t know whether it’s from the sharp pain behind his shoulder blade or from Ilya’s likely accurate assessment.

"You’re probably right," Shane concedes. "Like, there’s only so much I could have done differently about the homophobia in the league, but I probably should have gone on fucking vacation with my friends. And I definitely shouldn’t have spent four years with someone who acted like it was a chore to fuck me." In response, Ilya bites into the junction between Shane’s neck and shoulder, squeezing him tightly against his chest. Shane’s breathing hitches as Ilya drops a soothing kiss there.

"Is not a chore, zaychik," Ilya assures him, voice low, resuming his task and shifting his attention to the musculature behind the right scapula. Shane lets out a low whimper at the sensation, riding on the edge of pleasure and pain. He feels Ilya’s fingers hesitate for a moment and then resume as though they never stopped. "Are you ready, then? To have more fun now that you are out and single?"

Shane’s muscles tense in a way that has to be noticeable to Ilya, but he forces himself to relax before meeting his gaze, an approximation of a flirty smile stretching across his features.

"I’m not single, baby." God help him, he knows this will hurt later. "It’s still our wedding night."

Ilya smiles back gamely, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. Shane spends the next few hours tipsy on champagne, pretending to be the type of person who can have the things he wants.

‿‿‿‿

"Now will you tell me where we’re going?" Shane asks, arms crossed brattily.

"No," Ilya responds serenely, offering up a small smile. They’re driving on a two-lane highway that runs along the coast for about half the forty-minute trip between the Zona Romántica and the Jardin Botánico de Vallarta before giving way to lush trees and greenery.

"I assume that you’re kidnapping me, then," Shane sighs dramatically, as if the prospect were a mere inconvenience. "Taking me to some remote place in the forest where no one can ever find me to make me go back to Canada and you can have your way with me."

Ilya glances over at Shane in the passenger seat, where he inspects his fingernails with feigned interest. He looks so good that Ilya wants to swallow him whole, dressed in a lightweight long sleeve compression shirt and a thin pair of Ilya’s joggers. Some maybe not so small part of him hopes that if he sends Shane back to Ottawa with enough of his clothing that maybe he will see them and think of him and decide he can’t live without him, which Ilya realizes is ridiculous; he likes how Shane’s thick thighs and ass fill out his pants, nevertheless.

"You would like this, yes?" Ilya teases, peeling a hand from the steering wheel and squeezing Shane’s quads.

"What? No." Shane’s eyes dart to his, then forward to stare resolutely at the road, a flush coloring his cheeks. "Shut up. Just tell me where we’re going." Ilya laughs disbelievingly, shaking his head.

"We are going to botanical garden," Ilya finally reveals. "Is very pretty there. You will like."

Shane looks down at his clothing as though it now makes more sense to him that Ilya insisted on long sleeves and pants.

"That sounds nice," Shane says. "Is there, like, hiking? Is that what the backpack is for?"

"Yes," Ilya confirms. "We need bug spray, sunscreen, water, things like that." Shane had previously noticed the backpack without comment, eyebrows lifting in curiosity. If he also noticed that the backpack is much too large and full to only contain bug spray, sunscreen, and some water bottles, he doesn’t point it out now.

The car settles into easy companionable silence, Shane periodically noting when the ocean comes into view through a break in the trees or they pass an interesting looking building. Eventually, Shane breaks it.

"Do you like it here?" Shane asks without preamble.

Ilya mulls the question over seriously. Does he like it here? It seems obvious to him that he should have considered it, that any normal person would, but he supposes he's so grateful not to be fighting an unjust war on behalf of a country that would chew him up and spit him back out if he were outed there.

"Yes," Ilya begins tentatively. "I like it here. I like my job, talking to people. I like being here with Sveta. Is nice not being in Russia—It is warm here, and there is no one who wants too much from me. I do not have to worry so much about who I fuck." He shrugs. "It is not what I imagined, no, but I like it."

Ilya glances over at Shane, who slowly nods, throat working hard for a moment before seemingly realizing he hasn’t responded.

"That’s good," Shane replies flatly, quirking his lips up at the corners and blinking rapidly.

Ilya is so distracted trying to decode Shane’s expression that he almost misses the turn.

Inside the botanical gardens, their first stop is a chapel, a brilliant red-orange building at the top of several sets of stairs. Between the sets are walkways of swirling dark and light gray stones, surrounded by tropical plants and trees, emerging from planters and growing from the earth. The interior is covered in an almost psychedelic wallpaper, vibrant hues of purple, blue, and green adorned with photorealistic flora and fauna.

Shane takes his time reading the description of the work and notes to Ilya that the wallpaper is biodegradable but will last for centuries if maintained. Ilya hums in recognition, but otherwise remains silent, allowing Shane as long as he likes to soak in the piece.

When Shane does eventually seem to get his fill, they walk along a small bridge and a longer footpath to the tropical plant house. Shane seems more impressed by the aquatic plants outside, enormous lily pads and flowers. Shane ambles over to a well-labeled map and peers at it, his brow creasing adorably.

"I don’t have my reading glasses," Shane confesses sheepishly. "Which trail do you want to do?"

Ilya is temporarily stopped short at the entirely pornographic vision his brain conjures of Shane in black acrylic-rimmed glasses and nothing else, and looks up to find that Shane is staring at him expectantly.

"Jaguar," Ilya replies without looking, cocking his thumb to the side. "Is this way."

"I see what you mean about the bug spray," Shane says wryly. "They’re everywhere."

"Ah, yes," Ilya agrees. "Dangerous, too. These are not your Canadian mosquitoes. Bug spray will keep you safe, though." Probably, Ilya adds mentally; there are no certainties when it comes to tropical insect-borne diseases, but Shane doesn't need to know that right now.

Shane seems at home amidst the well-maintained trail, the canopy of likely unfamiliar trees and flowers. He pauses without warning to take a photo of a vibrant yellow bird perched a few feet above them.

"You do this a lot?" Ilya asks. Shane checks the image on his phone, cupping one hand around the screen to ward against the glare of the morning sun, and must find it acceptable, because then he's slipping his phone back into his pocket and continuing forward.

"Sometimes," Shane answers with a shrug. "There are some trails near my cottage, but I don't get to do a lot of this kind of thing during the season. And the trails in Ontario definitely don't look like this." He gestures up and out, catching Ilya's eyes with a grin.

Ilya smiles to himself as he follows behind, just far enough away not to step on Shane's heels if he stops abruptly.

"I'm actually really hot," Shane calls over his shoulder. "Can you hand me my water bottle?"

Ilya shoulders off one backpack strap and rustles around in the bag until he finds Shane's ludicrously large metal bottle.

"You are really hot, yes," Ilya flirts, passing him the bottle. Shane rolls his eyes, but drinks gratefully. "Just ahead, there is place we can walk down to river. We could swim." Ilya shrugs. Shane looks back at him in horror.

"We can't swim, Ilya," Shane protests. "We don't have swimsuits. Can't exactly skinny dip in public."

Ilya ignores the thrum of excitement he has at the suggestion.

"We do have swimsuits," Ilya clarifies. "And towels, and sandals. I pack them. Did not want you to feel like you must say yes, but if you are hot, is good idea."

Then, as if on cue, the river comes into view, shallow but rapidly flowing and inviting. Shane stops short.

"Yeah, I guess we can swim."

They strip down awkwardly underneath their towels, shove their clothes into the backpack—to Shane's apparent dismay—and take turns coating each other with sunscreen, each taking more care than strictly necessary.

Ilya's short trunks are tight across Shane's athletic thighs, and he tries not to get too excited at the thought that his bare cock is tucked inside something of Ilya's.

Shane carefully climbs from one rock to another, arms out for stability, then sits, arms extended behind him and face to the sun. Ilya sidles up to him, nudging Shane with his knee.

"What are you thinking?"

"Mm," Shane hums, eyes closed. "That this is nice. Thank you for bringing me here." Shane's eyes open one at a time, his gaze turned to Ilya.

"You are welcome," Ilya replies. "I like it here. I have come with Sveta and Anya a few times. She likes the water. Anya, I mean. Sveta, not so much."

"Did you… ever do anything like this in Russia?"

"Hm, yes and no," Ilya reasons. "My family, we had dacha, small country house for summer. Was pretty there, but no hiking, and nothing like this. I was mostly… city boy." He smiles ruefully, flushing, and Shane laughs openly in response.

Shane rises to his feet and extends a hand to Ilya, a look of wry amusement still on his face. Ilya feels a swell of affection that he tries and fails to stem.

"Come swim with me, city boy."

Swimming in this particular part of the river is more or less wading, which Ilya is more than happy to do with Shane. A few people pass by them on the trail above, but no one joins them, so they are free to splash, ogle, and kiss one another as long as they like without fear of disturbing others.

The sun looms high overhead as Shane leans in for one such kiss and deepens it, cool, wet fingers lacing in and pulling Ilya's curls. Shane's tongue slides along his lips, prying them open and exploring his mouth in a way that leaves Ilya breathless and wanting. He yanks Shane closer and has no warning when Shane loses his balance, crashing forward into him and toppling them both over.

They emerge from the water laughing in surprise, but Shane cuts them both off by pressing close to him again, mouth devouring Ilya's and one hand groping at Ilya's chest. Ilya's eyes flutter open to see a family on the trail overhead and he pushes back against Shane begrudgingly. Shane's eyes follow his gaze and widen, a flush settling prettily in his cheeks.

"We should go," Shane squeaks. Ilya chuckles, utterly besotted, glad Shane isn't seeing whatever his face is doing.

‿‿‿‿

Ilya drops Shane off at the resort that afternoon to pack; he's avoided learning the specifics, but he knows Shane's flight is early the next morning. He takes the few hours of solitude to go to the gym, still earthy with river water, showers, then starts on dinner.

The pot of stock has just started to simmer when he hears a knock at the door.

"Hi," Ilya greets Shane, dropping a chaste kiss to his lips, a rolling suitcase trailing behind him as he enters.

"Hi," Shane replies, blinking up at him with a soft smile.

For the barest moment, Ilya lets himself imagine that, instead of marking his imminent departure from Mexico and from Ilya's life, the suitcase marks Shane coming home to him after a time away, a business trip maybe. That he'd always come back to him. Fucking stupid, self-destructive imagination, Ilya thinks. He shakes away the thought.

"You are hungry?" Ilya asks without turning, dumping the plate of perfect dumplings into the now-boiling stock.

"Yeah," Shane confirms, wrapping his arms around Ilya's waist from behind and pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. "What are you making?"

"Pelmeni," Ilya answers. "Is Russian dumpling. These are filled with beef, onion, garlic, spices. We will top with sour cream and dill. I think you will like them."

Shane peers over his shoulder at the roiling pot.

"Did you make these from scratch?" He asks. "How did you have time?"

Ilya gives the pelmeni a stir and turns in Shane's arms.

"I made them, yes, but I freeze them," Ilya explains with a shrug. "Is too much to do often, so I make many at one time and save most of them." For special occasions, he thinks but doesn't add.

"Wow, they look so… neat," Shane remarks. "You must have very good hands." He lifts his eyebrows in invitation, and Ilya grins, squeezing at his sides.

"Yes, yes, you know this," Ilya waves him off, and turns to give them another stir. "Mostly I had good teacher. My mother made these. This is her recipe."

Shane's arms tighten around him wordlessly, his body pressed flush against Ilya's for a few long beats.

"Thank you, Ilya," Shane finally replies. "I'm sure they'll be delicious."

Ilya piles Shane's bowl high with pelmeni, dolloping on a generous amount of sour cream and topping with dried dill. He would have preferred to have the fresh stuff, but dried works in a pinch, and he hasn't exactly prioritized grocery shopping these past two weeks.

He passes Shane the dish nervously, settling in on the couch beside him, and waits for his verdict with bated breath. Shane scoops a spoonful of stock, pelmeni, and the smallest bit of the toppings into his mouth and chews tentatively for a moment. Then his eyes roll back and widen in quick succession, a closed-lipped smile stretching across his face as he swallows. Eventually, he meets Ilya's eyes.

"I love them," he says, more emphatic in his praise than Ilya has ever seen him. Ilya grins despite himself.

A few minutes later, his bowl notably empty and resting on the coffee table, Shane peers unhappily at his phone, feet resting in Ilya's lap.

"What is it?" Ilya asks, squeezing the arch of Shane's foot. He lets out a low groan, so Ilya takes that as an invitation to rub them. Shane locks his phone and lies back against the armrest, the picture of relaxation.

"It's nothing," Shane rejoins. "Just trying to decide if my layover is long enough to go to the nice airport lounge at O'Hare or if I'll have to go to one of the smaller, less nice lounges closer to my gate. Now that I'm saying it out loud, I hear how annoying I sound." He offers Ilya a sheepish grin.

"Ah, yes," Ilya chuckles. "Is very serious problem. Can you get prime rib sandwich and signature cocktail or just cheese and crackers with a beer. No one has ever had harder life than you."

"Hey, I already said I know I sound like an asshole, you asshole." Shane glares at him, every bit the angry kitten, and lobs a throw pillow at his face. Ilya bats it away easily, and leers back, releasing Shane's foot to crawl on top of him.

"Speaking of assholes, I have big plan for yours," he declares, coaxing a hand up Shane's shorts. Shane slaps at it without heat.

"Don't say it like that, Ilya," Shane chides, but he's grinning underneath Ilya and opening his thighs for easier access.

Ilya takes Shane apart slowly that night, hoping his body can say everything he can't—please stay, we can figure it out, I don't know if I can pretend this never happened, I think I'm falling in love with you—and puts him back together. As he drifts off to sleep, Shane wrapped up in his arms, he wonders if he could hold on tightly enough that he'd never have to let Shane go.

‿‿‿‿

Ilya wakes at the chime of his own alarm, groggy and confused. Shane was supposed to wake him. If Shane didn’t wake him, that means he’s overslept too, and he could miss his flight. As much as Ilya would like that, to keep Shane here forever if possible, he knows that isn’t what Shane wants, or at least it's not something he'd ever admit to wanting. With a displeased groan, Ilya rolls over to jostle Shane by his perfect shoulder and face the moment that he has been dreading—but Shane isn’t there, and the sheets are cool to the touch.

Ilya lurches to his feet, suddenly wide awake.

"Shane?" Ilya calls into the living room.

"Ilyusha, it’s six in the morning," Svetlana groans in Russian, emerging bleary-eyed from her room. "Why are we yelling?"

"Have you seen Shane?" There’s an edge to Ilya’s voice that he doesn’t often hear and doesn’t care for, but he does nothing to try to conceal it.

"No, but I heard the door close about half an hour ago," Sveta replies. "What’s going on?"

"He was supposed to wake me up if I didn’t hear his alarm," Ilya sputters, "I didn’t—I didn’t get to say goodbye."

Ilya can feel his heart beat hard against his ribcage, raking his hands through his hair. Finally, he crouches and lets himself fall to the ground. He hears more than sees Svetlana settle in beside him.

"It’s okay, Ilya," she consoles, palm rubbing wide circles on his back. "It's not forever, right? You will see him again? He probably just didn’t want to wake you and make it a bigger deal."

"No, Sveta," Ilya replies, dejected. "We will not—this was it. He says we cannot be together, that I am too young. This was just sex."

The room is silent for a few long beats.

"That is bullshit," Svetlana declares, rising to her feet. "Come on."

Ilya looks up at her dumbly, brow furrowed. She’s extending her hand to him.

"What do you mean?" Ilya asks, blinking. Sveta scowls in response.

"Idiots," Svetlana mumbles to herself, turning back to her room, leaving Ilya to pull himself off the floor. "Be ready to go in five minutes. You have a plane to catch. And bring your passport."

Ilya is ready in two.

Once he’s strapped into the passenger seat of Svetlana’s car, his first order of business is buying a plane ticket. Rather than booking one to Ottawa or even for Shane’s first leg to Chicago, Ilya finds the cheapest possible departing flight out of the international terminal, a short route to LAX. Even so, he grimaces as he submits the booking, making a mental note to check his balance later and to pray he doesn’t overdraft.

The second is to figure out what exactly he’s going to say. He isn't sure how it happens, but once he starts writing, it's hard to stop. He has just finished his draft when Svetlana abruptly brakes, throwing the car in park.

"Jesus, Sveta," Ilya bleats, flinging his arms out to brace himself though the car is no longer in motion.

"Oh shut up, Ilyusha." She gives him a withering look and makes a kind of shooing gesture. "I got you here in one piece. Go get your man. I’ll be in the cellphone waiting lot, calling your employer and telling them that you have explosive diarrhea and couldn’t possibly make it in today."

Ilya spares one final moment to offer his oldest friend a parting smile, something grateful and small and suggesting more confidence than he feels, before closing the door behind him.

‿‿‿‿

Shane did the right thing. At least, he’s pretty sure he did the right thing; nothing good could have come of waking Ilya this morning, of looking into his sad hazel eyes and saying goodbye forever.

He’s crossed a lot of lines in the past couple of weeks—he’s had (great) sex, enthusiastically and repeatedly, with someone twelve years his junior; he’s taken drugs that are illegal in his home country to try to hook up with someone else to get over said much younger man; he’s done fucking wedding night roleplay with someone he could never marry, in what was supposed to be his honeymoon suite; he ate Ilya's dead mother's dumplings. In the process, he’s broken his own heart for the second time in a matter of weeks, and probably broken Ilya’s too. The least he can do is try to minimize the wreckage left in his wake.

Ilya is happy here; he said so himself. He likes his work. If it seems menial to Shane, that’s his problem, not Ilya’s. He likes the people, the weather, living here with Svetlana. He doesn’t need saving, and he isn’t Shane’s to save. Shane will just have to take solace in that when he remembers this time with Ilya.

Shane isn’t religious or even particularly spiritual. It’s always seemed to him that the universe is a vast, impartial thing, that the hand you’re dealt in life has nothing to do with fate and everything to do with luck. Sure, Shane had to work hard to get to where he is, to be the best at something, but it’s not lost on him that luck played a huge factor in that too.

But maybe, just in this one instance, Ilya was the universe’s way of helping Shane come back to himself after Michael. Maybe Ilya was a great, cosmic reminder that Shane could love again, if he let himself. That he’s pretty sure he was falling in love with Ilya is… incidental. At least he knows it’s possible now.

The gate agent has just announced that zone one is now boarding, pulling Shane from his reverie, when Shane hears the familiar sound of approaching footsteps landing at a rapid clip, something ever-present in airports. He doesn't think anything of it as he stands and hoists his personal item onto his shoulder and makes his way to the back of the short line.

"Wait," a voice calls out. The line turns in unison, but Shane knows exactly whose desperate cry that was and for whom it was intended. On instinct, he steps out of line, stopping a few paces away from the man before him. Ilya looks frazzled, his hair still soft and sleep-mussed and his outfit haphazardly thrown together.

"Ilya?" Shane exhales. "What are you doing here?"

"You were supposed to wake me," Ilya pants, chest still heaving from exertion.

"I know," Shane grimaces. "I'm sorry, I just—"

Ilya cuts him off, waving his hand dismissively. "Does not matter. I write something to say and I need you to listen, da? It is Google Translate, so I am sorry if it is wrong. Cannot write everything I need to say in English."

Shane nods, faintly aware of the growing crowd of curious onlookers. He supposes it's not every day that you get to watch a grand romantic gesture happen in real time. Ilya unlocks his phone and inhales deeply before beginning.

"Shane, I am not great with words in any language, but I am going to try to get this right. It has not been long since we met, but I could not let you leave without a plan to see you again. I know all the reasons that this is complicated. But we can figure out the distance, I know we can, if you can get over my age." Ilya takes in a shuddering breath.

"I know it is scary right now because I am young and you are famous, and people might say stupid things, but think about ten, twenty years from now. Twelve years won't matter when you are forty-five and I'm thirty-three, when you are fifty-five and I'm forty-three. I hope it does not sound crazy, that I am thinking that far ahead, but it is how I feel. I think this could be it for me, and I want the chance to fall in love with you. I think it would be very easy for me to fall in love with you."

As Ilya slides his phone back into his pocket, Shane meets his gaze; he looks somehow both hopeful and resigned, as though he has accepted that this is his final opportunity to right the ship before capsizing.

Fuck it, Shane thinks as he closes the distance between them and pulls Ilya in. He threads his fingers into Ilya's wild curls as Ilya deepens the kiss, tongue hot and probing. Shane only notices the applause as he pulls away reluctantly, twenty or so onlookers whooping and clapping for them. Ilya laughs, and it's a delicious sound in Shane's ears.

"Do you think Svetlana would mind if I stayed a little longer?" Shane bites his lip, stifling a smile. Ilya grins back with all twenty-eight slightly crooked teeth.

"I think she will be very pleased," Ilya answers, dropping only one of Shane's hands and tugging him forward with the other. "I'll tell her to pull around."

They exit through the airport doors without Shane's checked bag or a plan, and, to Shane's surprise, he finds he doesn't mind at all.

‿‿☼‿‿

Epilogue

Two Years Later

A few days into Shane’s extended stay in Puerto Vallarta, the airport not-quite-love declaration went viral on TikTok. The poster, a teenage girl from Illinois, didn't know who Shane was, but it didn't take long for him to be identified from the footage.

The media shitstorm and subsequent public reaction was neither better nor worse than Shane anticipated. There were a few headlines about it—about Shane Hollander’s "younger beau," or, much to Shane’s chagrin and Ilya’s amusement, Shane Hollander’s "mail order Russian groom," which, Shane pointed out, didn’t even make sense; they clearly met in Mexico, and they weren’t engaged. But the truth didn’t seem to matter, anyway.

Public sentiment was split three ways: Those who were supportive, those who were jealous and/or upset that Shane did not choose someone closer to his age, and those who took the video as an opportunity to relitigate Shane’s sexuality. Everyone who mattered to Shane fell into the first camp, even if his mother was initially a little surprised at, yes, Ilya’s age, but also how quickly Shane found someone after Michael broke off their engagement.

Naturally, of course, Michael saw it too; for someone who left Shane weeks before their very expensive, mostly non-refundable wedding and honeymoon, he was shockingly angry. If Shane didn't know any better, he'd say Michael was jealous, maybe because he wanted Shane for himself or maybe about how much hotter Ilya was than Michael #2. He couldn't say. The Michaels broke up shortly after that, and, to the best of Shane's knowledge, his ex is still single. He doesn't really keep tabs on him, though.

All told, by the time the season rolled around, even the opposing players had mostly forgotten about it, and the Centaurs were too happy for Shane to chirp him about the age gap. Shane privately thinks that the speed at which the entire thing became old news could be largely attributed to the romance of it all, but Ilya still swears up and down that it was the supportive Instagram post from some actress named Sarah something with a much older partner whose name Shane can never remember. Something geographic, maybe.

It took all of three months for Shane to come to grips with the fact that he was in love with Ilya, and another three that they could not live on opposite sides of the continent indefinitely. It took six months to secure a visa for Ilya that allowed him to remain in Canada, at least for a while, and, in an unexpectedly stubborn wrinkle, an extra three months on top of that to figure out how to move Anya across international borders.

The numbers being what they are, it's been three months since Ilya and Anya arrived in Ottawa via chartered flight, all of two suitcases in hand; Ilya’s extensive linen wardrobe would have been of little use in Canada, so he donated most of it before he moved across the continent.

Ilya is in Canada on a student visa, for the moment; as it turns out, a multilingual applicant with a personal connection to the field makes for a compelling candidate to social work programs. Ilya doesn't know it yet, but Shane hopes Ilya will soon be able to apply for a fiancé visa, if the contents of the velvet box stashed in his home safe has anything to say about it.

At the present moment, Ilya is returning home from his first day of classes. Alerted by Anya’s excited yips, Shane pads over to the doorway by the mudroom and looks on contentedly as Ilya shrugs off his messenger bag and toes off his shoes, cooing at Anya in Russian.

"Hi baby," Shane says, leaning casually against the doorframe. Ilya looks up at him from where he’s knelt to greet Anya properly and grins before rising to his feet.

"Hi solnyshko," Ilya replies, slowly closing the distance between them. Shane loops his arms around his boyfriend's neck and tilts his chin up for a quick kiss.

"So, how was it?" Shane asks casually, though he feels anything but, giving Ilya's pec a parting squeeze as he pulls away and resumes his prior task of unloading the dishwasher. Ilya pulls out a counter-height stool at the vast marble kitchen island and sits.

"Was good," Ilya answers, tone considering. "Is weird to be one of the oldest students." Ilya offers Shane a wry smile. "Just the two classes today, but I will like it, I think."

"That's great, baby," Shane replies, drying the last few drops of water from the bottom of a glass. Ilya must be able to hear something in his voice, though.

"Shane," Ilya begins, ducking his head down to meet Shane's down-set gaze. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing." Shane turns abruptly, putting the glass in the upper cabinet, lining it up exactly with its matchers. Finally, he sighs. "Just. No one was weird to you?"

It's not outside the realm of possibility; while the pearl clutching about their relationship was short lived, Shane Hollander's live-in boyfriend matriculating at the University of Ottawa has become a bit of a human interest story, an oddity for local media and residents alike to latch onto. Ilya has become a sort of celebrity in his own right, at least in Ottawa and some specific corners of the hockey community. From Ilya's expression, it's clear he isn't telling Shane everything. He nests his face in one broad hand, leaning against the island.

"No one said anything, no, but I got some looks walking across campus," Ilya concedes, grimacing. "Is not a problem, Shane. There are no cameras, journalists. My classmates don't seem to give a shit about hockey. No offense."

Shane laughs despite himself, putting away the last of the dishes. With a sigh, he closes the dishwasher and ambles around the island, settling between Ilya's spread knees, nearly eye-to-eye. He places a chaste kiss on Ilya's lips, then pulls away to meet his gaze.

"You're sure you're okay?" Shane prods, searching Ilya's expression for any misgivings. "You know you could do this online."

He would add or not at all, if he weren't aware of how poorly that would land with Ilya. Shane is so fucking proud of him—that Ilya wants to help people badly enough to go to school for something thankless and under-compensated, that he never considered the possibility of doing anything less. Shane brought it up before the move, that he would happily work with their immigration attorney to navigate how to use marriage to secure Ilya's visa.

Ilya did not speak to him for two horrible days. At the time, Shane thought that it was only because he was offended at the prospect of being proposed to for immigration purposes. Now, Shane thinks he was also upset that Shane didn't appreciate how much he wanted to go to school.

"Da," Ilya answers, a crooked grin stretching across his face. Ilya's hands find Shane's hips and pull him closer. Shane leans into him, his breath hitching as his groin meets Ilya's and finds he's already half hard. "Now, do you want to show me what I have been missing all day?"

"You've been gone, like, five hours," Shane says mildly, rolling his eyes.

"Five hours too many away from this ass," Ilya replies, punctuating his response by grabbing a handful over Shane's joggers.

Oh, to be twenty-five, Shane thinks fondly, wordlessly pulling Ilya to his feet. By now, Shane knows to expect this, so at least he's prepared.

Ilya works him open slowly in his bed, their bed, atop a soft cotton bath sheet and white, fluffy bed linens. They don't have sex every day, but after so long being together long-distance, they do most days; Shane knows that, soon, preseason games will start, and they will be separated again a lot of the time, their sexual encounters relegated to their phone screens. As such, Shane doesn't intend to waste a single moment.

"Come on, Ilya," Shane whines, squirming as though he can prevent Ilya's fingers from making such direct contact with his prostate by rolling his hips and finding that it only makes it worse, the relentless coaxing motion made all the more intense with the tilt of his pelvis. "I'm ready."

"Mm, no," Ilya hums, grinning up at him wolfishly. "That is not my name right now."

"Baby," Shane cries, frantic and desperate. "Please, fuck me."

Ilya drops a parting kiss to Shane's hip and comes to loom over him, golden curls longer and softer than they have ever been, falling around his face like a halo. Shane watches, rapt, as Ilya slicks himself and breaches him. Shane sighs as Ilya's pelvis meets his own like he's sliding into a hot bath or sinking into śavāsana or climbing into bed after a game, total relief flooding his body.

He is, for all intents and purposes, willingly trapped underneath Ilya, legs and arms wrapped around his boyfriend like a vice, Ilya buried to the hilt and thrusting into him in hard, fast, tiny movements. Ilya's face is tucked into his neck and Shane's cock is sandwiched between their bodies, hot and wet and hard.

"So good for me," Shane hears distantly. His mind is elsewhere, on vacation perhaps.

Shane is used to avoiding places and experiences that will overwhelm his senses. Sure, there is a certain degree he has to tolerate to play hockey—the locker room is perhaps a uniquely smelly place, pungent beyond belief after a practice or game as he and his teammates strip off pads, and hockey arenas are loud and raucous, and he isn't bothered by the physicality of the game, at least not for that reason—but outside of his professional life, he tries to avoid loud noises, strong scents, being touched.

This, on the other hand, is sensory overload in the best way. Ilya is all he can feel, taste, hear, and oh, that smell—the remnants of this morning's grapefruit shampoo mixed with the same musky sweat scent Shane has known for years and the faint, residual mint from nicotine gum. He smells like home. Shane smiles to himself blissfully, the only tangible, graspable thought in his head ilyailyailya.

Without warning, Ilya peels his torso away from Shane's, and Shane immediately misses the contact, though the cool air feels nice against his sweaty skin.

"I am not going to last like this, moya lyubov'," Ilya warns, voice wrecked. "What do you want?"

Shane pries his eyes open, feeling a tiny, fucked-out smile still on his face.

"Mm, want you to come," Shane answers.

There was a time when he'd want to drag this out, to switch positions four times and go again as soon as Ilya's stupidly short refractory period would allow. Maybe he'll feel differently soon, when his time with Ilya is more limited again by travel for games. But for now, he knows there's always tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Ilya looks down at him, eyes lidded and dark and desperate.

"Where?" Ilya manages.

"Inside me," Shane replies airily, clenching himself around Ilya to eliminate any ambiguity.

"Blyat!" Ilya's eyes widen in surprise, almost panic, and he takes Shane in hand, his other clinging onto the back of Shane's thigh.

Ilya is babbling at him, a flood of rapid Russian that Shane suspects might not be intelligible even if he did understand the language, and Shane rides the wave of ecstasy with him. He hears it crest before he feels it, Ilya's choked cry evolving into quavering wails as his cock convulses and pulses inside Shane.

"Thank you, thank you," Shane exhales. One, two more quick pumps, and Shane's orgasm crashes over him too, spilling into and over Ilya's hand as he writhes under his ministrations.

Among the many things Shane appreciates about sex without a condom, perhaps his favorite is the lack of urgency to separate afterwards. Ilya covers Shane's body with his own, and Shane wraps him up in his arms and legs like a big, hockey-player sized barnacle, or perhaps a tick. Shane giggles at the thought, and Ilya stirs, pulling away just enough to meet his eyes.

"What is funny?" Ilya is close enough that Shane can see his gaze flit between Shane's eyes, never focusing on one for more than a moment.

"Nothing," Shane replies. "Just happy."

"Me too." Ilya grins back as he slowly extricates himself, pulling a corner of the bath sheet up to wipe the still-tacky come from their abs, Shane's and then his own in turn. Then, instead of using the cotton to clean gingerly between Shane's legs as he expects, Ilya is moving backwards, knee-walking with a smirk, and settles in with Shane's thighs on his broad shoulders.

"What are you doing?" Shane asks dumbly, blinking. It's not like he's not getting his ass eaten at least weekly—something Michael did exactly once and said 'grossed him out'—but doing it after is… well, it's new.

"I think you know," Ilya answers, running a finger underneath his hole, something cool slipping through his open rim and sending a shiver up Shane's spine. Without more ceremony, Ilya plunges in, tongue hungrily lapping up his own spend, swirling against Shane's sensitive walls and groaning as if he's never tasted anything better.

"Jesus fuck, baby." Shane's soft cock gives a valiant twitch against his abdomen, and just as it's teetering over into too much territory, Ilya relents, the chorus of squelches and moans falling silent.

This time, Ilya does use the corner of the bath sheet to dry the mixture of spit and lube and come from Shane's spent hole, cleaning up after himself, before flopping down beside Shane, his front pressed hard to Shane's side. One massive arm wedges under Shane's neck and another drapes across his body, the weight warm and pleasant and welcome. He sighs contentedly.

"How long do we have?" Ilya asks, running his fingers up and down Shane's flank.

Shane's brow wrinkles like his neurons are trudging through a sea of sludge as he tries and fails to remember what Ilya could possibly be talking about. He's made it a point to minimize their social obligations since the move, mostly limiting them to weekly dinners with his parents, who Shane has a sneaking suspicion might have a new favorite son. Then he remembers.

"Ugh, no," Shane whines, scrubbing his hands over his face, then continues begrudgingly. "Like, two hours."

"In that case, I think there's time for one more."

‿‿‿‿

"Look who decided to join us," Bood calls over his shoulder, working diligently over the smoking grill.

"Hey, it's our favorite Hollander," Dykstra intones, bringing Shane in for a bro-hug.

"And Shane's here, too," Wyatt adds with a wink, patting Ilya on the shoulder so hard it actually kind of hurts, but Ilya would never admit to that.

"No, no," Ilya interjects, bending to let Anya off leash. "Don't give him credit for that. He hasn't made an honest man of me yet."

That yet is load-bearing, but they don't know that Ilya found a little red Cartier box in Shane's safe last week when he opened it to get his passport details for an upcoming flight. He didn't look, as tempted as he was; something should be a surprise, after all.

Ilya loves team cookouts. It was a little bittersweet at first, being around so many men who got to have what he didn't, but it's become easier over time. It helps that they're such good guys. There's Bood, of course, the long-serving team captain who'd been humble enough to offer to step aside when Shane joined the team but happy enough to stay on when Shane refused; there's Wyatt, funny and geeky and weird but smart enough to marry a doctor even if he wasn't smart enough to become one himself; there's Luca, who worships Shane and follows him around like a puppy in a way that would be threatening if Ilya weren't completely confident that he's a bottom.

There's also Troy, who, after a few stilted interactions, slowly became one of Ilya's best friends, and his husband Harris, who is one of the friendliest people Ilya has ever met. Ilya was especially grateful to have Harris around at the end of last season when the Centaurs took home the Stanley Cup for a second time and Ilya wasn't alone in needing a commemorative WAG jacket in men's sizing; no matter how much Harris begs and pleads, though, Ilya is perfectly content to be called a WAG rather than Harris's preferred, inclusive SAP.

Troy and Harris are also doting parents to two dogs—a failed service dog named Chiron and an adorable, scruffy girl who showed up at the Drover family apple farm several years ago, and is, as such, named Honeycrisp, or just Honey for short.

At the moment, Ilya is sitting in a Muskoka chair with the WAGs in a roughly circular formation, sipping a hard cider while Lisa, Wyatt's wife, tells the group a particularly harrowing story involving a child's nose and some magnetic beads.

"If you leave them like that, they can put a hole in the septum," he hears. Ilya shudders and tunes out the conversation, focusing instead on the bucolic scene around him. Chiron, Honey, and Anya are playing fetch with one of the younger players, a Russian kid who nervously approached Ilya last season to tell him he'd seen him play and he was sorry about the accident. Ilya had gotten a little misty over the whole thing and still has a soft spot for him because of it. 

Shane is caught up in conversation with Harris—or, more likely is just on the receiving end, listening to Harris talk. He's holding a non-alcoholic cider like a lifeline and nodding along like the active listener he pretends to be. Ilya shakes his head, wryly amused and disgustingly in love. He'll go save him in a minute.

For now, just for a moment, Ilya closes his eyes, breathes in the fresh, Canadian air, and grins.