Chapter Text
Shane didn’t notice it right away. In fact, it was almost a month into the semester when he finally looked up and caught the eyes of a blond, curly-haired man sitting several rows in front of him. The man smirked and turned back around after being caught. Shane glanced around automatically because he was sure the man hadn’t been looking at him. Everyone around him was focused on the professor who stood in front of the large lecture hall. Shane shook himself lightly before returning his focus to his professor.
Shane noticed the man looking back at him several times during the following class sessions. He always glanced around automatically to see if anyone was meeting the man’s eye before he would allow himself to. In that split second where their eyes met, the man would smirk and turn back around to face the professor again. It became a point of anxiety for him.
He had Understanding Stress Management three times a week; Monday and Wednesday’s classes consisted of fifty minutes of lecture with the most boring man on Ottawa University’s campus. Professor LeClare had a voice that almost put Shane to sleep several times. He was grateful when Jackie found him the first day of class and sat next to him. She always caught him before he fell asleep during lecture and would lightly poke him with the lead in her pencil to wake him back up. Jackie wasn’t in his lab session on Friday, but Shane was grateful that he had an over-eager graduate teacher assistant teaching those classes. It didn’t hurt that the graduate student in charge of his Friday lab was easy on the eyes.
On the third Wednesday after Shane first noticed the blond man staring at him, smirking, and looking away, he finally brought it up to Jackie. They were walking from a cafe on campus where they had been discussing one of the articles they read in Monday's class, and Shane felt that familiar anxiety before lecture begin to bubble in his stomach.
“Okay,” he spoke as they walked, “I have noticed something during class and I felt crazy, so I didn’t say anything, but I can’t ignore it anymore.”
Jackie looked at him with a brow arched, “What?”
“There’s a guy in class,” Shane started slowly, “and I keep catching him... looking at me?”
“You’re an attractive guy, Shane,” Jackie smiled before turning her head back to him. When she saw his expression, her smile dropped. “What? Why do you look upset?”
“I’m not upset,” Shane grimaced, “it’s just that... I don’t know. He might not even be looking at me. It just makes me paranoid. Like what if I’m doing something with my face that’s distracting and that’s why? What if I have something on my face? Remember that one time my pen exploded and there were, like, speckles of ink on my chin all day and I didn’t find out until I got home and Hayden told me?”
Jackie shrugged, “Okay, well, one, I’d notice if you had something on your face.” Shane opened his mouth to protest, but Jackie continued, “And I'd tell you, so it’s not that. Have you considered that maybe he just thinks you’re attractive?” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder.
Shane shook his head, “I mean I guess that’s possible, but—”
“But what?” Jackie cut him off. “Why hasn’t he said anything to you? Um, Shane, maybe he doesn’t know you’re into guys? Maybe he’s scared that he’ll offend you?” Jackie shrugged again. “You should talk to him.”
Shane dropped his mouth open, aghast. “No, absolutely not. The last time I put myself out there I got harassed so bad I had to quit hockey. I can’t even watch it now. Nope, no. Not happening.”
Jackie grumbled quietly, “Remind me to tell Hayden to beat up his teammates at his next practice.”
◌ 📖 ◌
During class, Shane was singularly focused on not seeking out the blond man several rows in front of him. He felt like he could almost see the man’s head turn back to look at him out of his periphery, but instead of looking, he resolutely looked down at his lecture notes and took several deep breaths.
After class, Jackie tugged on his arm as they walked back to Shane’s apartment near campus. “Okay, it’s not that I didn’t believe you,” Jackie started, “but I kept an eye out for your man.”
Shane groaned, “He’s not my man. I don’t even know him!”
Jackie laughed, “Right, okay, whatever, but Shane, you’re right. He was looking right at you. And like several times.”
Shane stopped in his tracks, “What?”
Jackie stopped a half-step later, “What?”
“What do you mean several times?”
Jackie smiled, “He was looking hard, Shaney. I caught him at least five times.”
“Five?” Shane asked incredulously. “I’ve only seen him once every few classes.”
Jackie smiled, “No, Shane, he was looking. In fact, he might have been pouting at one point.”
Shane looked at Jackie unconvinced. “Pouting? Why would he be pouting?”
“You didn’t look, did you?” Jackie asked.
“No, I was focued on the lecture, Jack,” Shane began walking again.
Jackie fell into step with him, “Exactly. He wanted you to notice him. He wanted to make eye contact. You didn’t. So he pouted.”
Shane glared at her, “You’re making this all up in your head. You have no way to know that’s true.”
Jackie laughed, “No, I only have been dating guys since I was a teenager, Shane. I have no idea what guys look like when they’re trying to catch someone’s attention. You’re right.”
Shane huffed a breath but walked in silence the rest of the way. When they arrived to his apartment, Hayden and J.J. were in the living room playing video games.
Hayden glanced back when he heard the door open, “Hey Jacks! Hey Shane!”
“Hey,” J.J. called out before he aggressively tapped buttons on his controller which caused Hayden to glance back at the screen and let out a curse.
Jackie laughed as she kicked off her shoes. She walked over to stand next to where Hayden was on the couch before she leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek, “I’m here for Shane, babe. He’s having a boy crisis.”
“Really?” J.J. perked up at that and glanced back at Shane. “You like someone?”
Shane groaned and walked to the living room where he dropped down in the armchair beside the couch. “No, it’s not a crisis.” He glared at Jackie. “There’s a guy in our lecture that keeps looking at me, but when I make eye contact with him, he just smirks and looks away.”
“You didn’t tell me he was smirking, Shane!” Jackie gasped from her spot on the arm of the couch. “Oh, he totally wants you!”
Shane glared at her, “Again, no he doesn’t. Looking at me and smirking when we make eye contact does not mean he wants me.”
“Yes, it does,” J.J. and Hayden chimed in at the exact same time. They both chuckled and glanced at each other before fist-bumping.
“Whatever,” Shane stood, “I’m not talking about this anymore. I have work to do on that research paper for lab on Friday. Jackie?”
Jackie stood and exhaled, “Right. Okay, Hayden, I’m going to be in Shane’s room, but we can get dinner when I’m done.”
“Yeah,” Hayden smiled up at her, “of course babe.”
Jackie patted him on the shoulder before following Shane into his bedroom. Shane dropped his bag on the ground before he flopped back onto his bed.
“Woah,” Jackie dropped into the chair at his desk. “Outside clothes on the bed. That’s how you know it’s serious.”
Shane sat up and glared at her, “I’m stressed about this research paper. That’s all. I have no idea how to write it.”
Jackie laughed lightly, “Isn’t it kind of ironic that you’re stressed about a paper for your stress management class?”
Shane fixed his eyes on her with an unamused expression. “Yeah, hilarious,” he deadpanned.
Jackie huffed a laugh before pulling her notebook from the class out and laying it out on his desk in front of her. “Okay, I’m not going to lie, this prompt makes no sense,” she paused as she read over it. “I mean, does Professor LeClare even know what he’s asking us to do? ‘Write a research paper detailing a stressful situation that many university students face. Analyze why it’s stressful and decide on stress indicators that can signal known stressors.’ Like is that not just gibberish?”
Shane dragged a hand down his face as he read the prompt from his own notebook. “Maybe it’s a trick question?” he asked before he looked up to meet Jackie’s eyes.
“A trick question in Understanding Stress Management? That sounds like a social experiment.”
Shane laughed. “Ugh, I don’t know. I guess let’s brainstorm some stressful situations that we face as university students and just go from there,” he shrugged as he pulled a pencil out and flipped to a clean sheet in his notebook.
Jackie nodded before doing the same, “Okay, what is stressful about being a university student?”
Shane thought aloud, “Time management, right? A lot of university students are learning how to live on their own, they have jobs, and they’re juggling coursework.”
Jackie nodded as she wrote it down. “Interpersonal relationships?” she asked. “A lot of people moving out, finding new friends, discovering who they are?”
Shane nodded slowly. “Yeah, I like that. That’s good.” He wrote it down in his notebook. “Do you think we’d be able to have the same topic? I mean you’re in a different lab than I am, so Kip is going to grade mine.”
Jackie shrugged, “I don’t think we’d get in trouble if we had the same topic. I mean several people probably are going to have the same topic. We have a class of what? 100 people?”
Shane nodded, “Okay, any other topics you can think of?”
Jackie’s eyes sparkled and she smirked, “Dating.”
Shane looked at her and exhaled. “You can do dating. I’m not going to.”
Jackie groaned, “Oh my god, Shane. You’re really not going to talk to him, are you?”
Shane looked at her again, “What part of ‘no, never’ did you not understand?”
Jackie hummed. “But he’s cute, right?” she lifted her brows expectantly.
Shane flushed, “I don’t know.”
Jackie turned around in her chair to fully face Shane, “Oh yes, you do. Is he your type?”
Shane looked back down at his notebook, “I’m not talking about this anymore. You’re welcome to stay and draft your paper, but I’m done talking about a stranger in our lecture.”
Jackie pouted, “Fine.”
They worked in silence for over an hour before Hayden finally pushed into the room and swept Jackie away.
Shane sat on his bed and worked on his outline. He did not think about the attractive blond man in his Understanding Stress Management lecture.
◌ 📖 ◌
On Friday morning, Shane woke up late. He stayed up until two in the morning finishing his research paper for his eight o’clock stress management lab. He must have turned off his seven o’clock alarm in his sleep because he woke with a start at seven-thirty and jumped out of bed before he was even cognizant of what he was doing.
He quickly brushed his teeth, splashed some water on his face and in his hair, used his fingers to comb out his hair, changed, and raced out of his apartment to his class.
His lab was in a dingy classroom on the far side of campus. He sped walked most of the way, but as the small Human Health building came into view, he slowed his pace to steady his heart.
He worked out regularly, so he wasn’t exhausted from the exercise. No, he was anxious. His paper turned out okay; he wasn’t necessarily proud of it, but he spent too long working on it to backtrack and start all over again. He also hated feeling like he was running late. Even though he still had five minutes until class was set to start, he liked to be fifteen minutes early. He entered the small building and climbed one flight of stairs to find his small lab classroom. He found his way to the back of the room where there were only a few open seats left. His normal seat was on the other side of the room, but someone had already stolen it in his absence.
He huffed out a frustrated breath before pulling out his notebook and finished paper. He set up his desk space and then Kip started class.
“Hey everybody,” he smiled at the class, “happy Friday! Okay, you all had research papers due today, so if you could, please pass them up and I’ll get them graded and returned to you next week.”
He stood in the front of the room expectantly, but no one moved. Someone coughed while the person next to Shane shuffled awkwardly in their seat. Shane looked around the room. No one made a move to turn their paper in.
Kip looked around the room as his smile dropped, “How many people finished the paper?”
A few hands went up, Shane’s included. Most of the class glanced around while their hands remained by their sides or perched on their table in front of them.
“Okay,” Kip smiled again, “that’s no problem! How about this? Get into groups of three with someone who did finish it. Pass your papers around your group and everyone can read it and give feedback. Sound good?”
Shane huffed out a breath. He had stayed up all night working on this paper and it wasn’t even going to be turned in today because almost everyone in his class didn’t do it. He wanted to get up and leave; instead, he slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
The girl sitting to his left looked at him with a small smile, “Can I be in your group?”
“Sure,” he shrugged.
The guy sitting directly in front of him turned around with his paper in his hand. “Can I be in your grou?” he looked expectantly between Shane and his table mate.
“Yeah,” Shane nodded. At least someone else did the assignment so he wouldn’t be sitting there bored the whole time. Just as he sat up to hand his paper over to the guy in front of him, the person sitting on the left of the guy turned around.
An involuntary breath escaped Shane. How had he not noticed the golden curls on the head at the table in front of him?
“Can I join your group?” the man drawled with an accent — seemingly Russian. “I did the assignment, but it’s probably not very good.” He flashed a sheepish smile to Shane’s group.
Shane opened his mouth to respond that they were already in a group of three, but the girl next to him had already started nodding.
“Yeah,” she smiled at him, “of course.”
Shane glared at her but handed his paper to the guy in front of him regardless. The blond man with an accent handed his paper to the girl next to Shane while he accepted the paper from the guy next to him.
Shane was left without a paper, so he looked back to his notebook. He fiddled with his pencil absent-mindedly while stealing glances at the blond man. His group finished reading, provided their feedback to each other, and then traded papers again. This time, Shane had the blond man’s paper.
He read the name at the top of the paper. Ilya Rozanov. Definitely Russian. Shane settled back in his chair and began reading. The paper was... alright. There were minor grammatical mistakes that made some parts confusing, but Shane figured if he was writing in a second language that was as confusing as English, he would probably make grammatical mistakes. He spoke French fluently, but he wasn’t very good at writing it, so he read on.
Ilya wrote about the stress of familial relationships. Shane frowned as he read the thesis statement which centered around the shift of family dynamics when children moved away from home. The research was compelling but pretty vague. Shane made a mental note to tell him that. Shane concluded that overall, the paper was good. It answered the prompt, as confusing as it was, and actually introduced interesting research that Shane wanted to write down so he could read it later.
As an only child, Shane had faced a lot of stressful family dynamics growing up, but it was definitely different when he left for university. Even though he stayed in his hometown, his mom acted like he was moving across the world when he told her that he wanted to live on campus for his first year and then get an off-campus apartment with J.J. and Hayden after that.
So, yeah, family dynamics adding stress to his life was definitely relatable to Shane Hollander as a university student. Shane finished reading the paper and looked up at Ilya to speak. Ilya was already staring at him.
“You are Shane?” Ilya’s blue eyes pierced Shane’s.
Shane swallowed, “Yes. You’re Ilya?”
Ilya smiled, “Yes. Your paper is very good.” He lowered the paper in his hand and tilted it slightly so Shane could see. It was Shane’s paper.
Shane laughed nervously, “Oh, thank you. I wasn’t very happy with it. Stayed up way too late finishing it.”
Ilya looked stricken. “No, be happy with it. It’s very good,” he looked down at his own paper in Shane’s hand. “You probably think mine is horrible. Sometimes my English is not so good, but it’s my second language so...”
A small smile spread across Shane’s face. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Wait, no, sorry,” he shook his head, “I meant— your paper was good. Yeah, there were a few minor mistakes,” he glanced down at the paper in his hand, “but yeah, no, it’s good. I liked it.”
Ilya smiled at him again. Shane felt heat creep up his neck. He was gorgeous. “Well, thank you, Shane,” he almost whispered.
Shane nodded.
“Well, Mark,” the girl next to Shane spoke, and Shane jumped slightly. He forgot the rest of his group was present. The girl gave her feedback to the guy in front of Shane — Mark, apparently — and the group switched papers one more time.
Shane tried to read Mark’s paper with the same attention he gave Ilya’s paper, but he found his thoughts drifting back to Ilya’s kind smile and the way he said ‘Shane.’
Shane glanced up at Ilya only to find Ilya’s eyes fixed on him again. Ilya flashed a soft smile before looking down at his hands resting on the table.
Shane exhaled through his nose and returned his attention to Mark’s paper.
After they finished their rotations and feedback, Ilya and Mark turned back around and Kip returned to the front of the room.
“Okay, I heard some good conversations happening,” Kip smiled at the class. “I’m going to let you guys go a little early today, so please use that time to finish your paper if you have not already. If you have done it, please consider the feedback you received today and make any necessary edits to your paper. Your final paper will be due next Friday when you get here. If you do not have it at that time, you’ll receive a zero. Everyone understand?”
People nodded. Murmured sounds of agreement rang out in the room. Kip smiled again, “Okay, well, you all enjoy your Friday! See you in lecture on Monday!” He waved before he returned to his podium.
Everyone in the class moved immediately, shuffling papers back into bags and standing up from their tables. Shane placed his paper into his class notebook and shoved it back into his bag. He glanced at Ilya from the corner of his eye and watched him put the paper loosely into his bag.
Shane wanted to stop him and tell him that he should put it in a folder or notebook so it wouldn't get crumpled, but he didn’t want Ilya to know that he had been watching him. He stayed silent.
Shane stood up and walked out of the room. He nodded to Kip as he passed, and Kip smiled and gave a small wave as Shane pushed out into the hallway.
Shane made it down half of the stairs before he heard his name behind him. He glanced back and Ilya was racing down the stairs.
“Hey, Shane,” Ilya caught up to him in a few steps, “where are you going?”
Shane frowned, “My next class?”
Ilya huffed out a laugh, “Yes, I know, but where is next class?”
Shane flushed in embarrassment, “Oh, sorry, uh, it’s a few buildings over. What’s up?”
Ilya nodded, “Okay, want me to walk with you?”
Shane shook his head on instinct, “Oh, no, that’s okay. You probably have class to get to. I’m fine, thanks though.” He nodded and walked off in the direction of his next class.
“Wait,” Ilya called after him and rushed to catch up again. “Sorry, that’s not what—” he exhaled loudly, “I meant I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Oh! Sorry. What is it?”
Ilya chuckled quietly, “Well, my English is not so good, yes? And your English is very good — you are very good writer. I was wondering if you would help me fix my English in my paper?”
Shane froze. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t that. “Uh,” he responded. “I mean, yeah, sure. I’m not the best, but I could help. Want to meet at the library some time next week and we can work on it?”
Ilya hesitated, “Ah, well, I would, but I am very busy next week. I am on hockey team, so practice schedule keeps me busy.”
Shane nodded once. “I see. My roommates are on the hockey team, so...” He glanced over to the building for his next class, “What about this weekend? I have some time on Sunday. You can come over to my apartment? You probably know Hayden and J.J., so they’d be cool with it.”
Ilya grimaced. “I do not think this is a good idea. Sunday works, but I do not think Hayden and J.J. will like me in their apartment. We can meet at cafe close by? I will send you address.” He held his hand out expectantly.
Shane looked down at it and then up at Ilya. Ilya raised an eyebrow and grasped at the air with his open hand.
“Phone,” Ilya said.
“Oh,” Shane pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, opened it to a new contact, and handed it to Ilya.
Ilya smirked as he typed his phone number in. “Here,” he handed it back to Shane. “I have texted myself so I have your number too. I will see you later, Shane.”
“Yeah,” Shane glanced down at the message on his phone to Ilya. It was just a message that said ‘Shane’ with a winky face. “I’ll, uh, see you later,” he nodded and turned to walk to his next class.
He fought every urge in his body to look back at the spot he left Ilya on the sidewalk behind him. When he finally made it to the building for his next class, he allowed himself to look, but Ilya was already gone.