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“Holy shit we’re here. Like we are actually here.”
“Shane? Yes, of course we are here? We have been to Bood’s backyard many times? Are you ok?”
“Yes yes I’m fine it’s just, I never thought we would get here, to be happy, together, with friends and family and get to be us, god it’s just if you had told me 10 years ago -fuck last year- we would make it here I never would have believed you, I probably would have ran”
“I know I know me too” Ilya was trying to comfort him, probably thinking he was agonizing over his past self, but that isn’t the point Shane was trying to make.
“I mean, from our first time at the cottage, even those first days, hell through the full months, I never would have allowed myself to even dream of this, not even while planning, definitly not in that hospital room or in the weeks leading up to it or in Tampa or Moscow or on your couch, every text we sent, every game we counted down to, every time I told myself to end it, I never could have dreamed we would actually make it here, that it would even be possible”
Ilya’s been shaking his head but a small smile has made its way into his face, “not in any hotel room or apartment or awards or all stars or at shoot or draft or prospect… and yet here we are”
“I love you. So much. I am so thankful I get to be here with you.” His heart was beating hard, but there were no nerves, no adrenaline, no, it was just for Ilya.
“I love you more” as he kisses Shane’s freckled cheek, right under his eye, smiling, because it’s true all their planning, all their dreams that felt impossible, none of it ever lead here, none of it involved where they were now, out, at a team barbecue, together, accepted, supported, loved, happy, this wasn’t in their plans, it wasn’t just that they never dared to dream it, it hadn’t even occurred to them that it could be something they dreamed of, that it could be something they could have. God, Ilya definitely has tears in his eyes now, “fuck you, you are asshole, Solnyshko ”
“What?!” Shane’s definitely choked up now too, “how am I an asshole??”
“Because, your vows could never be better than this.” And suddenly they are both laughing and kissing on their friends back porch. Who could have known they’d even be here?
- - -
Later, when everyone is settled, eaten, found a chair or couch, cuddled with their respective significant other, someone finally asks, “so how long have you two been together?”
And they got to smile at each other, and look at their friends, and tell them, “every day of our careers, since we were just kids.”
“And here we are”