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The hotel room in Chicago was one of those expensive, anonymous spaces designed to make rich men feel like they could be anywhere in the world.
The curtains were heavy, the carpet thick, the minibar lit with an indecent blue glow. There was a bowl of green apples on the table that no one would eat, and a bottle of red wine opened by room service and abandoned after one glass because Shane didn’t like wine and Ilya liked it too much. Outside, the city was a confusion of wet lights through rain-streaked glass. Inside, the air conditioner whispered incessantly into the dark.
Shane was asleep on top of the duvet in sweatpants and a t-shirt, one arm bent over his face, his phone face down on the nightstand. He had arrived at eleven after a charity dinner downtown, bone tired and polite to the last possible second, then gone immediately into bed after kissing Ilya once, absentmindedly, on the mouth and murmuring, “You okay?”
Ilya had said yes.
It had not even sounded convincing to him.
Now it was almost two in the morning. The room smelled faintly of Shane’s soap, clean cotton, and the wine, and vodka Ilya had poured in a glass and then ignored after the first sip. He was sitting in the armchair by the window with his elbows on his knees, staring down at his phone, the blue light cutting his face into something ugly and sleepless.
There was a message thread open.
No new messages. That was not really the point.
The point was that earlier that evening, after too many hours of smiling at donors and retired players and women in silk dresses who said things like we’re all so proud of how far the sport has come, Ilya had gone downstairs to the hotel bar because he could feel his own skin becoming unwearable. Shane had still been trapped upstairs with sponsors.
Some physiotherapist, mid-twenties, pretty in a copy-and-paste, forgettable kind of way, one of those girls who looked born with a blowout, had approached him.
Rozanov, right? Huge fan.
Ilya had said, automatically, I know, and the girl had laughed as though she were the first person to find Ilya charming rather than exhausting.
After that, things had progressed with the surety of a fall you know is happening just before your body starts moving forward. Another drink, though Ilya had promised Shane he was being careful. A hand on his forearm. The particular warm, flattering look that asked for nothing much at all. The luxurious absence of consequence.
He had known what he was doing by the second drink.
By the time he was in her room three floors below Shane's, he had moved beyond not caring into something worse: a grim, lucid contempt. Not for Shane. For himself, maybe. For the whole architecture of his life. For happiness that still seemed out of reach even now when it was right in his hands.
Ilya wasn’t made for happiness.
He had kissed the girl because it was easy. He led her down to the bed, and unzipped her dress, because he could. Because for one thin, bright second he had wanted to smash his own life with a hammer, just to hear the sound it made.
It had not gone very far.
That, too, was almost insulting.
A mouth on his neck. His own hand under a shirt. Emily, or was it Amelie, he forgot as soon as she told him, whispering, “Fuck, I used to have such a crush on you.”
And then, very suddenly, Ilya had seen himself from a great distance: far from Russia's greatest fuck machine, or some glamorous heartbreaker, or a tragic hero. Just pathetic. Pathetic, in a hotel room with a woman he did not want, inventing disaster because he had not yet learned how to survive being loved without trying to poison it.
He had stepped back. Emily (Amelie?) had looked annoyed, then cautious.
“Everything okay?”
No, Ilya had nearly said. Nothing in my entire life is okay.
Instead he’d laughed a little and buttoned his cuffs with hands so steady he wondered if he wasn’t even drunk. If he didn’t even have that as an excuse.
“Sorry,” he’d said. “I have to go.”
The girl, at least, had not made it humiliating. She shrugged, Your loss, like they were both ordinary people and this was an ordinary thing, and Ilya had escaped into the hallway with his heart pounding so hard it made him feel sick.
He was still wearing the same suit pants, though he had taken off his jacket and tie. His hair had fallen into disorder. He could feel the imprint of her hand on his side still.
Shane shifted in bed, turning onto his back now, his face open in sleep.
Ilya looked at him and understood with a nauseating clarity that there would never be a better time to lie.
He could shower. Brush his teeth again. Slide into bed. Wake tomorrow. Be quieter than usual, then compensate by noon with some joke, some touch to the back of Shane’s neck, go out of his way to make him laugh. The thing would disappear. He could bury it in the same graveyard where he had put a thousand other shameful impulses and near-misses and private insanities. Shane would never know. There had been no sex. Barely even an event. A kiss, a hand, an ugly intention aborted halfway through.
It would be so easy.
That was why he stood up.
The carpet muffled his steps as he crossed to the bed. He stopped beside Shane and looked down at him for a long moment. Shane’s lashes were dark against his cheeks. His mouth was slightly open. Around his neck, the plastic childish wedding ring caught the faint blue light from the minibar.
For one absurd second, Ilya thought: maybe I should wait until morning. Let him sleep one more night in a world where I am not disgusting.
Then he sat on the edge of the mattress and put his hand on Shane’s ankle.
“Shane.”
Nothing.
He squeezed gently. “Shane. Wake up.”
Shane made a disoriented sound and yanked his arm off his face. He blinked up at Ilya, frowning, still half in sleep. “What time is it?”
“Late.”
“Okay,” Shane said, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Did something happen?”
Ilya looked at him. Shane blinked away the sleep, his whole face sharpening. Concern first. Always concern first.
“Yes,” Ilya said.
Shane sat up properly. “What happened?”
Ilya opened his mouth and found, to his disgust, that he could not immediately speak. He had imagined this part on the walk back from the elevator. I did something bad. I went to someone else’s room. I kissed her. I’m sorry. Instead he stood there with his hands useless at his sides, feeling sixteen and cornered and full of a bitterness so old he knew it better than he knew any other part of himself.
Shane’s voice changed.
“Ilya.”
“I went downstairs,” Ilya said.
Shane waited.
“I was at the bar.” He laughed once, without humor. “This is maybe not surprising part.”
“No,” Shane said quietly.
“There was some girl.” He forced himself onward because if he stopped now, he would start lying. “Young. Hot, probably. I do not know. She was talking to me.”
Shane did not move.
Ilya could hear the air conditioner, the rain against the window, the blood in his ears.
“I went with her to her room,” he said.
Shane’s face fell. “Did you -”
“Yes,” Ilya said, before he could finish. “Not-” He swallowed. “Not everything. I kissed her. She touched me. I touched her. Then I left.”
The silence after that was total. It seemed to absorb even the sound of the rain.
Shane’s hands were motionless in his lap. He had gone very still and for a long moment he didn’t say anything.
Ilya stood beside the bed, waiting.
Finally Shane spoke.
“Okay,” he said.
The word landed softly in the room.
Ilya blinked.
“Okay?”
Shane looked down at his hands. He reached up to the ring around his neck, turning it slowly with his thumb.
“You stopped,” Shane said.
“Yes. I stopped”
“And you came back here.”
“Yes.”
Shane let out a slow breath and leaned back against the headboard, dragging one hand over his face. When he looked at Ilya again his expression had settled into something careful and deliberate.
“Why are you telling me now?”
Ilya frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“You could have gone to sleep,” Shane said quietly. “You said it yourself. Nothing really happened.”
“That is not true.”
“I know,” Shane said. “But you could have told yourself it was.”
Ilya didn’t answer.
Shane watched him for a moment longer, and something in his expression softened slightly—not forgiveness, exactly, but recognition.
“You look like you’re about to throw up,” he said.
“Maybe I will.”
“You can't. The league would make me pay the housekeeping bill.”
A short, helpless sound escaped Ilya before he could stop it. It wasn’t laughter, not really, but it was close enough that Shane’s mouth twitched in response.
Then the moment passed.
Shane’s gaze drifted toward the window, where the city lights smeared across the wet glass.
“Did you want to sleep with her?” he asked after a moment.
“No.”
“Then why go to her room?”
Ilya considered the question.
“I do not know,” he said finally.
Shane raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not a great answer.”
“I know.”
The truth was sitting in his chest like something poisonous, heavy and difficult to name. He searched for words that would not sound melodramatic or pathetic, which eliminated most of the ones available to him.
“It felt…” he began, then stopped.
Shane waited.
“Like I had no choice,” Ilya finished.
Shane looked back at him.
“She forced you?”
“No, no. What I mean is it was not decision. I just did it. I did not think.”
“You didn’t think?”
“Yes, It felt easy.”
“Easy compared to what, Ilya?”
Ilya gestured vaguely at the room, the bed, Shane himself.
“This.”
For a second something like pain passed across Shane’s expression before he smoothed it away.
“That’s a terrible explanation,” Shane said.
“Yes.”
“But I think I can understand.”
Another silence settled between them.
The rain tapped quietly against the window. The air conditioner hummed.
Shane rubbed his eyes.
“You kissed her,” he said, as if confirming the details for himself.
“Yes.”
“And…?”
Ilya hesitated.
“I took off her dress.”
Shane’s mouth tightened slightly.
“And then?”
“She touched me. I touched her.” He swallowed. “Then I left.”
Shane nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
He sat there for another few seconds, staring down at the blanket.
Then he said, very calmly, “I think we should ignore it.”
Ilya stared at him.
“What?”
Shane looked up.
“You heard me.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Probably,” Shane said. “But here’s the situation as I see it: you got drunk, you made a terrible decision, you stopped before it got worse, and then you came upstairs and woke me up to tell me about it.”
“That does not make it fine.”
“No,” Shane agreed.
Ilya crossed his arms.
“You are not angry.”
“I am angry,” Shane said.
“You do not look angry.”
“I’m very tired,” Shane replied.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Shane shifted forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees.
“You don’t get to do that again,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Shane studied his face.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Something in Ilya’s voice must have convinced him, because Shane nodded once.
“Okay,” he said again.
The word still sounded strange in the room.
Ilya exhaled slowly and sank down into the chair by the window, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. His heart was still beating too fast.
“I thought you would throw me out,” he admitted.
Shane snorted softly.
“Back to your own hotel room?”
“Yes.”
“Tempting,” Shane said.
Instead they sat there in quiet for a while, the tension in the room slowly settling into something less sharp.
Eventually Shane slid back down under the duvet.
“You should probably sleep,” he said.
Ilya didn’t move.
“You’re just going to," he pulled at the fabric on his shirt, "You will just go to sleep?”
“Eventually.”
Shane reached for the bedside lamp but paused before switching it off.
“Ilya.”
“Yes?”
Shane hesitated, searching his face.
“You really left? Before anything happened?”
“Yes.”
Shane held his gaze for another second, as if measuring the truth of that answer.
Then he nodded and flicked off the light.
Darkness folded around the room.
After a moment Shane said quietly into it, “Come to bed.”
Ilya sat in the chair for a few seconds longer, staring at the faint outline of the city beyond the window.
Then he stood, crossed the room, and slipped under the covers beside him.
Neither of them touched the other.
But after a while, in the quiet darkness, Shane’s foot nudged lightly against Ilya’s ankle. Ilya didn’t move away.
Outside, Chicago glowed wet and distant beyond the glass, and the rain kept falling long after both of them had stopped pretending to sleep.