Chapter Text
On Thursday morning, Ilya arrives at the office determined to forget about Shane. Last night was nothing more than a relapse, a slip-up Ilya had always been willing to make. Shane would never turn him down for an appointment, and Ilya would keep paying—draining his savings—for nights with Shane that, deep down, would never mean anything, because Ilya would still be just another man Shane gave himself to once the transaction was complete.
Not that Ilya believes the presence of money means there can’t be feelings involved. It’s that he can’t stand the idea that those feelings might never make it past the barrier Shane has built around himself and, consequently, around Ilya too. And Ilya understands why Shane needs to protect himself: he can’t turn every client into a potential man he might want to see outside the boundaries of their arrangement.
That’s why Shane hadn’t asked him to stay once their time was actually up; that is perfectly clear now.
And even if last night was incredible, even if Shane cleaned out the city’s entire stock of Christmas lights, even if he learned a sentence in Russian—a sentence he apparently practiced for at least two weeks—none of that changes the fact that it all happened during the hours Ilya had paid to spend with him.
Which means there’s no solution to his problem.
Shane can’t ask him out, trapped behind the boundaries he’s put in place for himself. And Ilya isn’t going to cross those boundaries either, because he has no fucking idea how much Shane would actually want him to.
It’s all fucked up. And not in a good Shane-plus-Ilya-fucked kind of way.
The office slowly fills up as the morning goes on. Sometime around ten, Ilya heads to the kitchen to refill his coffee. When he comes back, the usual little group is already crowded around Cliff’s desk, doing Ilya knows perfectly fucking well what. Ignoring all of them as he walks past, he heads for his desk, and a second before he sits down, Troy lets out a shout.
“Ha!”
Ilya pretends he didn’t hear it, that it has nothing to do with him—because it doesn’t—and that nobody in this office is reading OhNSFW. In fact, it’s been quite a while since anyone made a single comment about Shane’s website, so Ilya scowls and pretends not to care.
But it’s really fucking hard not to care when everyone starts whispering and letting out low, very meaningful whistles.
“This is… crazy,” Hayden sounds genuinely shocked.
“I can’t fucking believe it. Why would he say—” Rose whispers a little too loudly, then turns to look at Ilya with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, Ilya. We’ll keep it down.”
Hayden, Troy, and Rose huddle even closer around Cliff, still whispering among themselves in obvious disbelief. Ilya silently appreciates their attempt to contain the disturbance they’ve already caused. After all, they’ve already made him curious enough that, at this very moment, he’s opening up the website to find out what the fuck caused all the commotion.
He doesn’t have to scroll at all, because the second the website loads, there it is.
What Shane thought he owed him—but properly done this time.
THE MENACE — ★★★★★
The best I’ve ever had.
“Someone actually managed to get five fucking stars out of Shane,” Ilya hears Hayden whisper loudly enough that they probably heard him on the fucking moon.
“I’m done with this. The guy… is in love,” Cliff says, sounding genuinely pissed off by this new development.
And Ilya—fuck, Ilya was expecting anything but… this. Anything but five stars. He wasn’t even expecting another review whatsoever. At this point, Ilya was perfectly—okay, not perfectly, but reasonably—fine with the idea of never being reviewed by Shane again. He was actually going to think about coming to terms with the fact he might never even see Shane again.
But this is impossible to ignore. By breaking his own terms and rules and fucking protocols, Shane managed to tell Ilya that Ilya meant something more to him—through the language he knew would get to Ilya the most.
Because Ilya went looking for Shane in the first place because he wanted a review. And now he’s gotten the only one that totally broke the pattern. That has to mean something.
No Looks. No Personality. No jokes about his dick or his endurance. There wasn’t even a category Ilya could fit into; Shane removed everything that could reduce Ilya to anything other than exactly what he wanted to say.
The best I’ve ever had.
Shane doesn’t lie in his reviews, but he sure as fuck leaves things out.
“The best what, Shane?” Ilya mutters.
He spends the next five minutes plotting because Shane has found a way to reach Ilya from behind the boundaries he’d built for himself. Ilya would just have to find a way to reach back.
**********
Thursday evening, and Shane is sitting in his apartment waiting for his next appointment.
It’s been almost twenty-four hours since he posted the most important review on his website. The one that announces, to anyone who cares to read it, that some guy called The Menace was the best he’s ever had. A bold move, if he does say so himself. Who the hell is going to want to book Shane after finding out he’s already had the best there is? Or maybe it’ll fuck with the male ego instead, which always seems willing—and ready—to prove it can do better than the next guy.
Either way, Shane took the risk because Ilya is someone worth taking risks for. With any luck, Ilya saw the review. And with even more luck, he understood what Shane really meant underneath those five little words.
I want to be with you outside our arrangement.
I want you when there’s no money and no clock between us because you’re more than a client to me.
I don’t know how to ask for that, so this is me trying.
His thoughts are interrupted by the intercom buzzing.
He’s here.
Shane adjusts his robe even though it definitely doesn’t need adjusting, then runs a hand through his hair until it looks appropriately, effortlessly messy. When the notification comes through downstairs, he buzzes his client into the building and sets his phone down on the coffee table.
Then he waits.
The elevator in the building is slow. Shane knows that. Still, after maybe thirty seconds, he checks the time on his phone, puts it back down, then picks it up again for absolutely no reason. He hears the elevator somewhere down the hall, followed by the faint sound of its doors sliding open. Footsteps come closer and, a few seconds later, the doorbell rings.
He opens the door, already prepared to deliver his usual greeting.
“Hi, Nate—”
His heart nearly jumps out of his chest, because the person standing on the other side of the door is definitely not the client he was expecting.
Ilya.
Beautiful, his hair messy from the wind, panting like he ran a fucking marathon to get here, looking at Shane with something close to reverence.
The right person.
…at the completely wrong fucking time.
“Hi, uh, Shane.”
Ilya looks Shane up and down like he might throw himself at him at any second and devour him right there in the doorway. For a moment, Shane wishes—and hopes—he would, but Ilya stays exactly where he is, one arm braced against the doorframe and the other on his hip, taking deep, gasping breaths.
All Shane wants to do is invite him inside.
“Ilya, you don’t have an appointment.”
Ilya nods vigorously. “Yeah, I know, but—”
He stops, his mouth falling slightly open as he looks at Shane, very obviously aware that he’s practically eating him alive with his eyes and damn near drooling all over Shane’s doorstep.
“—fuck, you look beautiful.”
Torn between his job and how badly he wants to just take the compliment, Shane chooses the harder option, because there’s no way he can cancel on a client this last-minute.
“You don’t have an appointment, but I do, Ilya.”
“You do?” Ilya looks visibly disappointed.
Shane nods. “In ten minutes.”
Ilya smacks a hand against the doorframe and scowls like he has no idea what Shane does for a living. He’s probably about to ask Shane to cancel, offer to pay for the time he’d lose, ask for a replacement—
“Can I wait?”
Shane frowns. That is not the reaction he was expecting. “Wait? Here?”
“No, Shane. Of course not here,” Ilya looks at him like Shane just said something incredibly stupid—which, to be fair, he did. “There’s a café around the corner. Can you meet me there after… you’re finished?”
“Okay, Ilya… I’ll meet you there.”
And with an almost agonizing ache in his chest, Shane closes the door to his apartment, hoping like hell that Ilya will actually be there waiting for him.
Two hours later, Shane walks into the café and finds Ilya—thank fuck—sitting at a table with two cups of coffee in front of him and a third in his hand. There’s also a plate with a few crumbs left on it—evidence that he ate something while he waited—and his phone on the table with OhNSFW open on the screen.
“Are you trying to drown yourself in coffee?” Shane asks as he approaches the table.
Ilya looks up, visibly relieved to see him, and gestures toward the chair across from him.
“I might never sleep ever again,” he smiles. “Hi, Shane.”
Shane smiles back. “Hi, Ilya.”
Something settles right in his gut, telling him this is the first time in a long time he isn’t the one taking the lead. Shane came here to listen to whatever Ilya has to say, free from the obligation to please him, free from having to follow a script he prepared beforehand. His throat goes dry and his breathing picks up slightly. He’s feeling nervous and exposed. Two things that, ironically, he hasn’t felt in a very long time.
But he isn’t the only one. Ilya looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust.
“Thanks for… being here,” Ilya says.
“What is it, Ilya?”
Ilya takes another tiny sip of coffee, sets the cup down on the table, and turns his phone around so Shane can see his own website staring back at him.
“Your last review.”
“What about my last review?”
Shane doesn’t need to look; he knows exactly what his last review of Ilya said.
Ilya takes a deep breath. “Is it true?”
“You already know I don’t lie in my reviews,” Shane says, because Ilya has the annoying habit of asking questions he already knows the answer to.
“I’m the best what, Shane?”
And that’s the question he actually means to ask, and Shane doesn’t have a fucking clue what the answer is. There are so many ways Shane could answer it, which is exactly why he didn’t want to commit to any of them. Any definition he added would put Ilya into a category Shane already knew could never fit everything he meant.
Shane answers knowing perfectly well that Ilya isn’t going to be satisfied.
“I don’t know, Ilya…,” he says honestly. “Just… the best.”
Sure enough. “The best what? Man, fuck, cock, person…” Ilya says, frustration and curiosity practically pouring out of him. “I need to know, Shane. I need you to say it.”
“Why does my opinion still matter—”
“Because I’m in fucking love with you,” Ilya says, barely stopping to breathe.
What the fuck?
Shane just stares at him.
“You’re what?”
Ilya looks at him from across the table. He seems like he’s trying to say this the right way, but whatever careful version he might’ve planned, that definitely wasn’t it. When he speaks again, his voice cracks.
“In love with you. Which is incredibly fucking stupid—”
“Because I’m a sex worker?”
Of course, that has to be it. He’s going to say it was a mistake. That he never should’ve let his heart get involved. That he could never actually fall in love with someone like—
“No, Shane,” Ilya lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Because I’m a fucking loser who couldn’t put two and two together. Maybe I’ll have to quit my job…,” he shakes his head. “But I was already in love with you before I even walked out your door after our first appointment.”
What the fuck is Shane supposed to do with that? Since their first appointment? That was weeks ago. Before the first review, before The Menace, before the stupid game and the arguments and Ilya standing in Shane’s apartment insisting he wasn’t in love with him. Before Shane had spent days trying to convince himself that he’d imagined everything between them because Ilya had looked him dead in the eye and told him otherwise.
And now Ilya is sitting here telling him he’d been in love with Shane before any of that even happened. Shane wants to believe him. Fuck, he wants to believe him so badly…
“Are you serious, Ilya? Because the last time we talked about this, you made it pretty fucking clear that you weren’t in love with me.”
“I know what I said, Shane, and—”
“I’m not going through that shitshow again, where you mistake sex for love,” his blood is boiling under his skin. “That happened once and it was bad enough, Ilya. I’m not doing it again.”
“Shane…”
Shane is about two seconds away from getting up and walking out after all this bullshit. “What?”
When Ilya speaks again, his voice is quiet and steady.
“Would it be just sex if I knew your favorite soda is ginger ale even though you never told me that?”
Shane rolls his eyes. “Anyone who’s read my website could find out shit like that.”
“But you’ve never said you like ginger ale in any of your reviews, have you?” Ilya asks defiantly.
“You’ve read through them all?”
Ilya nods. “More than once.”
“You’re fucking obsessed. Stalker.” Shane laughs.
It comes out easier than it should. A joke is easier than dealing with the fact that Ilya apparently went through every single review Shane has ever written. He wonders what Ilya had been looking for in all those reviews—if he'd been reading about the other men at all, or looking for Shane between the lines.
Ilya leans across the table, resting his elbows on it, but when he speaks, his voice is low and controlled.
“Obsession can’t explain why I want to take care of you every time I walk through your door…”
Heat immediately creeps into Shane’s cheeks, because he knows exactly what Ilya means by taking care of him. He never allowed himself to think too hard about those sweet moments they had together or examine them too closely; it would’ve meant admitting they felt different because they came from Ilya.
“It doesn’t explain,” Ilya continues, “the way my whole body fucking reacts when I think about that dimple and your freckles…”
“But—”
Ilya glances around the café before looking back at Shane. His eyes are shining now, and he blinks hard once, like he’s determined not to let that interrupt whatever he came here to say.
“…and it doesn’t fucking explain why I couldn’t have sex with you without kissing you.”
“I guess not.”
“Maybe the obsession explains why I thought that, somewhere in the middle of all of it, you were somehow feeling the same way,” Ilya finally admits, and Shane’s stomach twists. “And that’s why I always came back for more. And that’s why I’m an idiot. Because I think you never actually felt—”
“You’re wrong,” Shane says before he can stop himself.
Ilya freezes. “What?”
Shane’s heart is pounding so hard it hurts. But there’s no fucking way he’s going to sit here and let Ilya finish that sentence. Not after what they had to go through to finally get here. Not when Ilya is sitting across from him, practically handing Shane his heart while he still believes he’s the only one who brought one to the table.
“I did feel the same way, Ilya.”
“When?” Ilya asks.
Shane swallows. “Since that first appointment too.”
Ilya just stares at him.
“Which is also incredibly fucking stupid on my part, by the way, but…,” Shane lets out a shaky breath. There’s no point hiding behind anything anymore. “Yeah. I did.”
“You…” Ilya blinks at him. “You fell for me during our first appointment?”
Shane’s mouth twitches despite the way his heart is trying to beat its way out of his chest.
“Gotcha.”
Ilya doesn’t laugh; he barely moves. For long seconds, they just stare at each other across the table, and Shane watches the realization slowly settle over Ilya’s face.
They had both walked away from that first appointment already fucked. Not because of the sex. Well, a little because of the sex. But mostly because of each other.
Ilya finally leans back in his chair, looking almost dazed.
“I didn’t post a review after that first time because I kinda had a feeling you wouldn’t come back if I did,” Shane looks down, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his T-shirt, like they always do when he gets nervous. “And I really wanted you to come back, Ilya,” he confesses. “The more you came back, the less I wanted to post one. Until that day you stayed an extra hour… I had to. The professional in me won out. But I also needed to find some way to make you come back.”
“You manipulative little brat.” But Ilya is smiling.
“You work with what you’ve got.” Shane presses his lips together and places his hands on the table, mirroring Ilya’s position. “And when I finally posted one, look at the fucking mess that review got us into. I wanted to know if you were actually feeling something too, or if it was all in my head.”
“So you suggested the game.”
Shane nods. “I thought at some point you’d finally bend and break…”
“But I was too fucking proud and stupid,” Ilya shakes his head. “I’m not going to say I was scared. I wasn’t scared, Shane. For days, I missed you…,” he reaches across the table.
“I missed you too,” Shane says with a shy smile, taking Ilya’s hand.
“And then I saw a fucking ginger ale ad on TV and… Wow.” Ilya shakes his head. “Luckily, you had an opening yesterday, so we could—”
Shane smiles softly. “Not luck, Ilya.”
There’s no fucking way Ilya has actually believed it was luck this entire time.
“What do you mean?”
“I always rearranged my schedule to fit you in. You never noticed how fucking long it took me to answer?” Shane asks, his eyebrows raised.
“I thought you were trying to come up with an excuse to turn me down,” Ilya squeezes his hand.
“Totally the opposite,” Shane brings his other hand over, holding Ilya’s between both of his. “Well done. You completely messed me up.”
Ilya lifts one of Shane’s hands to his mouth and presses a kiss to it. “The same way you messed me up.”
“And I know that my job—”
Ilya interrupts him. “Let’s not talk about that right now. You owe me something.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, Ilya. I posted the review.”
“I’m not talking about the review,” Ilya says with a devilish grin. “You owe me an answer.”
“An answer?”
“Yes.” Ilya laughs. “To a question you can’t veto.”
Shane remembers immediately. The game. The question. Of course Ilya has been holding on to that question this entire fucking time, just waiting for the chance to use it.
“But you were only supposed to get that question if you admitted—”
“For fuck’s sake, Shane. I am in love with you. I just told you.” Ilya breaks into the biggest, brightest smile.
“Fair enough. Go ahead.”
Ilya takes a breath, and there’s something almost teenage in his expression, like he’s finally worked up the nerve to hold his crush’s hand and talk to him after months of silently wanting to. Despite everything they’ve already said, all that nervousness still seems to be there, accumulated somewhere inside him.
Shane feels it too.
“Do you have an opening tomorrow night, same time?”
“For an appointment?” Shane asks, suddenly a little uncertain.
But Ilya surprises him one more time.
“No,” he says. “To have dinner with me.”
Shane is so stunned by the audacity of it that he doesn’t answer right away. The invitation still seems to be floating somewhere inside his head, slowly making its way down to settle right in the middle of his chest, warming his heart from the inside out.
But then Ilya completely undoes him.
“You have thirty seconds to answer or your invitation will be…”
“Cancelled?” Shane laughs, recognizing the reference.
Ilya looks at him very seriously. “Never.”
Shane looks down at their four hands tangled together, then back at Ilya smiling at him. There’s only one answer he could ever give.
“Dinner with you tomorrow, same time?” Shane smiles. “That sounds fucking amazing.”