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By the time Shane got home, the anger had finally arrived.
It surprised him.
Fear, he understood. Anxiety, he understood. Panic, definitely. Those emotions were familiar territory. He had spent most of his life managing them, organizing them, containing them.
Anger was different. Anger was messy. Anger didn't fit anywhere.
The apartment felt unnaturally quiet after the chaos of the arena. Shane dropped his equipment bag beside the door and immediately regretted it. It landed crooked against the wall instead of parallel. He stared at it for several seconds before finally kicking it farther into the hallway.
The violence of the motion startled him. He wasn't someone who kicked things. He wasn't someone who lost control.
But today nothing seemed to belong where it was supposed to.
His phone had been vibrating almost nonstop since he'd left practice. Reporters. Social media. Management. His parents. Rose. Former teammates, most people he hadn't spoken to in years.
He ignored all of them.
The only messages he read were Ilya's.
Love you.
Call me when you get home.
Please call me when you get home.
Shane stared at the last one for a long time before tossing the phone onto the couch.
Not yet.
Because if he heard Ilya's voice right now, Shane wasn't entirely sure he would be able to hold himself together.
He should have gone with Ilya back to Ottawa. Or at least put up a bigger fight to keep him in Montreal.
The realization had been growing louder with every kilometer Ilya had driven away from Montreal, from Shane. At the time, staying had felt obvious. Necessary. There was practice. There was the team. There were obligations that couldn't simply be ignored because his entire life had imploded before noon. So he'd kissed Ilya goodbye in the front hall, promised he'd call when he got home from practice, and let Ilya get in his car.
Now all he could think about was how badly he'd miscalculated.
Two hours wasn't far. They'd spent years separated by road trips, away games, entire countries. They'd built a relationship around distance and stolen moments and saying goodbye. But this was different. His entire future had detonated sometime between breakfast and lunch, and Ilya was two fucking hours away. Two hours away while reporters picked apart their relationship online. Two hours away while the commissioner decided whether either of them would still have careers next week. Two hours away while Shane's teammates—his friends—looked at him like they'd discovered something shameful hiding beneath his skin. More than anything, he wanted Ilya here. Not on the phone. Not through a text message. Here. Close enough that Shane could touch him and remind himself that at least one thing in his life was still solid.
He crossed the living room and stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Snow covered Montreal in a glittering layer of white, reflecting the afternoon light until the city seemed brighter than usual, louder somehow. This city had been his home for over a decade. The team had been his home. His teammates had been his home. He'd arrived here as an eighteen-year-old kid carrying impossible expectations and had built an entire life within these streets. Three Stanley Cups. A Conn Smythe. A captaincy. More games than he could count. Every major accomplishment of his adult life was tied to this city.
And suddenly it felt like none of it belonged to him anymore.
The thought sat heavily in his chest as he looked out over the skyline. He had given this organization everything he had. Every injury, every sacrifice, every miserable workout and endless road trip. Yesterday he had still been the captain. Yesterday his teammates had listened when he spoke. Yesterday management had proudly attached his face to the franchise. Today he was the exact same person he'd been twenty-four hours ago. Nothing about him had changed except that people now knew who he loved.
And somehow that seemed to outweigh everything else.
For the first time since the day he'd been drafted, Shane found himself wondering if this would actually be the team where he finished his career. The thought felt almost physically painful. He'd never seriously considered another possibility. Retirement, maybe. But leaving Montreal? Never. His future had always existed in a straight line in his mind, each season leading predictably into the next until eventually he hung up his skates and remained part of the organization in some capacity. Now that future looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.
If he even had a future in hockey anymore.
The thought landed with enough force to make his stomach drop, nausea making his mouth water sickeningly. Roger Crowell wanted them benched. That much was already happening. But what came after that? Suspensions? Trades? Contract terminations? Sponsors pulling out? Shane had no idea. That uncertainty was perhaps the worst part. He could tolerate difficult things if he understood the rules. If there was a plan. If he knew what came next. But there was no plan anymore. Only chaos.
His phone vibrated again on the couch.
Ilya.
Shane stared at the screen as it lit up and then faded dark again.
The thing that terrified him wasn't losing hockey. It wasn't losing Montreal. It wasn't even losing the respect of his teammates.
It was that when the worst day of his life had finally arrived, the person he needed most was two hours away. Fuck.
His mind kept circling back to the locker room, like it couldn’t find anywhere else to land. The silence had been the first thing—wrong in a way that felt almost physical, like stepping into a room and realizing the air pressure had changed. Conversations that were always overlapping, jokes that usually bounced off the walls, the easy chaos of a team that had done this routine a thousand times together—all of it had stopped the moment he walked in. Not gradually. Not awkwardly. Just… off. Like someone had hit mute on a world that was supposed to include him.
And then there were the eyes.
Or rather, the fact that no one could meet his.
Shane replayed it again and again. People he’d known for years—guys he’d bled with, flown with, sat beside through losses that felt personal—suddenly finding the floor, their stalls, their tape, anything that wasn’t him. It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t even surprise, not really. It was something sharper. Something colder. The kind of look you gave when you were trying to decide whether you wanted to be associated with what you were seeing.
Disgust.
The word didn’t arrive gently. It dropped into his mind fully formed and made his stomach twist so hard he had to press both hands against the glass in front of him, like the window could anchor him to something real. The cold from it seeped into his palms, but it didn’t help. Nothing felt stable enough to hold onto.
Because he couldn’t stop seeing JJ.
JJ laughing in his kitchen like it was nothing to be there. JJ sprawled on his couch after late games, eating whatever was in the fridge and acting like he owned the place. JJ helping him move apartments without complaining once, even though Shane knew he hated moving. JJ standing beside him at charity events, whispering jokes under his breath when the cameras got too bright. JJ arguing with reporters on his behalf when questions got too personal. JJ who had, without ever making it feel like a performance, stayed.
JJ who had known Shane was gay and had never once made it feel like it changed the way he looked at him.
That was the part that kept snagging.
Because JJ hadn’t looked at him today like that.
Today, JJ hadn’t looked at him like a teammate, or a friend, or even someone he didn’t know how to support. JJ had looked at him like he didn’t know him at all. Like everything they had built over years could be erased in a single afternoon because of who Shane was with. Not that he was gay—JJ had already known that. But who. The specificity of it. The implication of it. Ilya.
Like that detail changed something fundamental.
Like it made Shane different in a way that mattered more than anything else.
Like it made him… wrong.
The realization made something in his chest tighten so hard it almost hurt to breathe.
Another wave of anger hit him, sudden and dizzying, like his body had finally decided fear wasn’t enough to carry this anymore. Because it wasn’t just about him. That was the part he couldn’t get past. If they hated him, if they couldn’t look at him the same way anymore, if they needed space from him, fine—painful, humiliating, unfair in a hundred different ways, but at least it fit into something he could understand. People had always found reasons to dislike Shane. Too quiet. Too controlled. Too intense. Too successful. Too everything, depending on who was talking.
He could survive being the problem.
He always had.
But Ilya—
The thought tightened his jaw so hard it ached.
Nobody got to look at Ilya Rozanov like that.
Nobody.
Not after eleven years of watching him give everything he had to a sport that never fully rewarded him for it. Not after seeing the way he showed up for people when no one was watching. Not after every flight across continents, every injury he’d pushed through, every season he’d played like his body didn’t matter as long as the team needed him. Not after the way he loved Shane—steady and infuriatingly patient and completely unafraid in a way Shane still didn’t always know how to be.
Ilya was funny in a way that caught people off guard, sharp and quick and impossible not to laugh with once you stopped trying to resist it. He was generous in a way that never asked for credit. Loyal in a way that didn’t bend just because it would be easier. Loving in a way that had, over time, worn down every one of Shane’s defenses until there had been nothing left to hide behind. And brave—braver than Shane had ever fully admitted, because it was easier to think of Ilya as reckless than to acknowledge how often he simply chose honesty when Shane chose caution.
And now his teammates—people who didn't know Ilya, people who had never spent five minutes with him outside of a hockey rink—were looking at their relationship and acting like it was disgusting.
Like loving Ilya made him less than what he was.
The thought turned in Shane’s chest, hot and ugly and disorienting.
For the first time all day, fear didn’t lead the emotion. It was still there, still humming underneath everything, but something else cut through it sharper.
Outrage.
How dare they.
How dare they take eleven years of something real and reduce it to something they could flinch at. How dare they look at the man Shane had chosen, the man he intended to marry, and treat him like a mistake. Like something to be hidden. Like something dirty.
His vision blurred before he even realized what was happening.
He blinked hard, but it didn’t stop it. The tears came anyway, sudden and frustrating, like his body was betraying him by refusing to stay contained the way he needed it to.
“Fuck,” he whispered, the word breaking halfway through.
Then his phone rang again.
Ilya.
Shane stepped away from the window and moved toward the couch, fingers combing through the cushions until they finally brushed against his phone. He pulled it free, stared at the illuminated screen for a beat, then closed his eyes and swiped his thumb across it.
"Shane, moya lyubov."
The relief in Ilya's voice hit him like a punch to the chest. And suddenly Shane couldn't hold it together anymore. He sank onto the couch and covered his eyes with one hand.
A sob escaped before he could stop it. He scrubbed his hand down his face, moving it to cover his mouth instinctively, as though he could somehow shove the sound back inside himself, but it was too late. The silence on the other end of the line was immediate.
Then Ilya exhaled.
"Oh, Shane."
Everything in his voice changed.
Concern. Alarm. Love.
"That bad, hm?"
Shane folded forward on the couch, one elbow braced against his knee as he pressed his palm against his eyes. The tears that had started before he answered the call were now coming in constant succession, his nose starting to water with the weight of his distress.
"Oh, sweetheart," Ilya murmured. The rare nickname only made things worse. "I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
For a few moments neither of them spoke. Shane concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. The exercise felt pointless. Nothing about today was responding to logic.
"Are you home?" Ilya asked quietly.
"Yeah,” Shane choked, the word breaking in two.
"You made it home okay?"
The question shouldn't have hurt, but it did. Shane could hear what Ilya was really asking.
Are you safe?
Are you alone?
Did anybody hurt you?
"No," Shane said automatically before immediately correcting himself. "I mean—yes. I'm home."
"Okay."
The silence stretched between them.
"Tell me."
Shane let out a laugh that sounded broken even to his own ears.
Where the hell was he supposed to start?
With his coach?
With being benched?
With the repulsive, homophobic comments from his teammates?
With the reporters camped outside the arena?
With the possibility that his career had just ended?
Or with JJ?
Somehow, JJ hurt worst of all.
"They looked at me like I was disgusting."
The words came out before he could stop them.
On the other end of the line, Ilya didn't immediately respond. Shane knew that silence. Knew it well. Ilya was listening. Giving him room.
"My coach wouldn't even let me speak, try to explain," Shane continued. His voice shook with fresh anger. "He said they’ll decide ‘what to do with me’, that I’m not allowed to post anything until this gets ‘dealt with’."
"That's bullshit."
A humorless laugh escaped Shane.
"Thank you."
"He actually used those words?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Shane said quietly, "JJ was horrible. He called me a liar."
The silence that followed felt different.
Heavier. Ilya understood how much more painful these types of comments would be, coming from one of Shane’s close friends.
"JJ knew I was gay," Shane said, though this was not news to Ilya. "He didn't care, not really anyways. He stayed my friend. He stayed..." Shane swallowed. "He stayed JJ."
The memory made his chest ache. JJ had never treated him differently after finding out. If anything, he'd become more protective. More loyal. He'd run interference with reporters. Covered for Shane when necessary. Teased him mercilessly but never cruelly.
JJ had known.
And today he'd looked at Shane like he didn't.
"Now suddenly it's different," Shane continued. "Because it's you."
The words hung between them.
"They looked at me like there was something wrong with you. Or something wrong with me for loving you."
The line went completely silent, even Ilya’s heady breathing halting.
Shane stood abruptly and crossed the room again. He couldn't sit still. Couldn't think while sitting still.
"And there isn't," he said fiercely.
"Shane—"
"There isn't." His voice cracked. "They don't know you."
The tears were back now, mixing with the anger until he could barely separate one from the other.
"They don't know how good you are. They don't know what you've done for me. They don't know anything."
"Moy dorogoy malchik," Ilya murmured, a fond, disbelieving sigh escaping him. It sounded a little like exasperation, a little like affection, and a lot like someone who had just realized that even in the middle of a complete emotional collapse, Shane was somehow more upset on Ilya's behalf than his own.
Shane cut him off before Ilya could say anything more.
"They don't get to do that." He was pacing now, too agitated to stay still, the phone clenched tightly in his hand. "They don't get to look at you like you're something shameful. They don't know you, and they don't get to decide what kind of person you are."
For several seconds all Shane could hear was Ilya breathing.
When he finally spoke, his voice was even softer than before.
"You don't have to protect me right now."
A strangled laugh escaped Shane.
"Too bad."
To his surprise, Ilya laughed too. Briefly. Softly. The sound made something inside Shane loosen.
Only a little.
Not enough.
"I miss you."
The confession slipped out before he could think about it.
The line went quiet.
Then, very gently, Ilya said, "I know."
"No." Shane scrubbed a hand over his face. His thoughts felt tangled. Frantic. Impossible to organize. "I need you here." The words were embarrassingly honest., but they were true. More true than anything else he'd said all day. "I should have never let you leave."
"Shane—"
"Or I should've gone with you back to Ottawa." The thought had been circling his brain for hours. "We're benched anyway. What difference would it have made?"
He stopped pacing and stared out at the city again.
"What was the point of staying here?" More tears filled his eyes as the discomfort of being in this city, belonging to this city, hit him. "What was the point of staying here, alone, just to find out none of them want me here anymore?"
The silence that followed lasted long enough for Shane to regret saying it.
Then he heard Ilya inhale.
"Do you want me to come back there?"
The question shouldn't have affected him as much as it did. It was practical. Simple. But the moment the words left Ilya's mouth, relief washed through Shane so intensely that his shoulders physically loosened.
"Yes," he admitted immediately. Then he looked back out the window at the city sprawling beneath him and felt another wave of exhaustion. "But honestly, I think I want to be in Ottawa more. I want out of this fucking city."
The confession surprised him. Montreal had been his home for more than a decade. He'd built an entire life here. Championships. Friendships. A career. But right now every street seemed contaminated by what had happened today. Every memory felt tainted. He could still see the locker room. The silence. The looks. JJ's face.
He wanted away from all of it.
He wanted Ilya.
"I'll just drive there," Shane continued.
"Absolutely not."
The response was so immediate that it actually cut through some of the fog in his brain.
"What?"
"No."
"Ilya—"
"You're not getting behind a wheel."
"I can drive."
"Shane."
The tone stopped him. Not because it was harsh. Because it wasn't. It was the voice Ilya used when he was completely serious and entirely unwilling to be argued with.
"You missed three of my calls."
"I… I wasn’t driving then. I was home." It was a lame excuse, but Shane was pulling at straws.
"That isn't my point."
Shane looked away.
"You cried so hard just now you couldn't breathe."
Heat crept up his neck despite everything.
"I can still drive."
"No, you can't."
There was no criticism in the words. No judgment. Just certainty. The kind that came from being known too well.
"You drove to the arena because you had to," Ilya continued more gently. "You're not getting back in a car tonight. If you want out of Montreal, fine. I'll come get you and we'll drive back together in the morning."
The offer hit Shane harder than it should have. Not because it was dramatic, but because of how immediate it was. No hesitation. No discussion about logistics. No consideration of how tired Ilya must be after the day they'd both had.
Just I'll come.
As though there had never been another option.
"I don't want to be here," Shane admitted quietly.
The words sounded pathetic the moment they left his mouth, but he couldn't take them back. "I don't want to see any of them– my teammates, management, coaching staff. I don't want to see the arena. I don't want to see Hayden. Or JJ."
The last part cracked on the way out.
Ilya was silent for a moment. "I know."
"And I don't want to sit here wondering if my career is over, if our careers are over."
There it was. The thing he hadn't said directly yet. The fear beneath all the others.
"What if it is?" Shane asked, staring blindly at the city lights. "What if that's it? What if Crowell gets his way? What if they're done with us? What if sponsors leave? What if the league decides we're not worth the trouble?"
"Shane."
"What?"
"I think your brain is currently trying to solve every possible disaster between now and next June."
Despite himself, Shane huffed out something dangerously close to a laugh.
"Very insightful."
"Thank you. Years of experience."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
The answer came so quickly that Shane actually smiled.
"You don't get to tell me what I feel."
"Actually, after eleven years, I think I have earned partial custody of your feelings."
That pulled a real laugh from him.
Small and exhausted, but real.
"There he is," Ilya said immediately.
"Don't."
"I'm serious. That's the first time you've sounded like yourself in twenty minutes."
Shane shook his head and sank further into the couch.
The silence that followed felt different. Easier.
Then he heard movement through the phone. Drawers opening. A zipper. The unmistakable sounds of Ilya throwing things into a bag.
"What are you packing?"
"Clothes."
"You don't need clothes."
Ilya laughed. "Interesting argument."
"I'm serious. Just come, you literally own clothes here. Or you can just wear mine."
"First of all, your clothes are very boring. Second of all, if this becomes a hostage situation and you refuse to let me leave for a week, I need options."
Despite everything, Shane laughed again.
The sound seemed to please Ilya immensely.
"Good. Keep doing that."
"I'm having a nervous breakdown."
"And yet somehow you're still judging my packing decisions."
"I've always judged your packing decisions."
"Yes, okay, this is true."
The teasing faded, but the warmth lingered.
Finally Shane said quietly, "I need you."
The vulnerability of the admission immediately tightened his throat.
For a moment there was only silence.
Then Ilya's voice softened completely.
"I'm coming."
The certainty in those two words nearly undid him.
The commissioner still existed. The league still existed. Tomorrow still existed.
But suddenly Shane didn't have to survive any of it alone.
"We'll do this together," Ilya said. "Okay?"
Shane closed his eyes.
"Okay."
A few moments passed before he spoke again and Shane sensed Ilya may be preparing to end the phone call.
"Ilya... I need to say something."
The movement on the other end of the line stopped.
"What?"
Shane stared at the ceiling.
He knew this mattered.
Because underneath everything else—underneath the anger and fear and humiliation—he knew there was another wound being poked at today. An old one. One he'd helped create.
For years, Shane had been the cautious one. The hesitant one. The one asking for more time. More privacy. More certainty. Every request had come from fear, but Shane knew fear didn't always look different from rejection when you were on the receiving end of it.
And if their positions were reversed, if Shane had spent the day watching the person he loved break apart under the weight of being outed, he knew exactly what he'd be afraid of. He knew how easily panic could be mistaken for regret. The thought that Ilya might be carrying that fear right now made something twist painfully in his chest, an echo of the nausea from earlier curdling in his gut.
"Nothing happened today that makes me wish I wasn't with you."
The words landed heavily between them.
The line went completely silent.
Shane swallowed and continued before he lost his nerve.
"I know my reaction probably isn't helping."
"Shane—"
"No, let me finish."
His grip tightened around the phone.
"I know what this probably looks like. I know I've spent years being scared of this exact thing happening."
He paused.
"Maybe part of you thinks I'm freaking out because it's you."
The silence that followed told him enough. Because the fear had existed long before today. Because no matter how much trust they had built together, there had always been a small part of Ilya that worried Shane's fear of the world might someday become bigger than his love for him.
Shane felt fresh tears sting his eyes.
"It's not."
His voice cracked.
"If I could go back and start over, knowing exactly what today would be like, knowing exactly how bad this feels, I'd still do it. Every second of the last 11 years, I’d do it all again."
"Shane..."
"I would."
He could tell the conviction surprised Ilya, even without the ability to see his face.
"I'd still choose you."
The silence on the other end of the line became absolute.
"I'd choose you every single time." Shane's voice softened, emotion catching in his throat as he struggled to articulate something that had long ago become too big for language. "The worst day of my life still isn't worse than a life without you in it."
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Ilya made a sound that was suspiciously halfway between a laugh and a sob.
"Jesus Christ, Hollander."
"What?"
"You spend eleven years emotionally constipated and now you decide to become a poet during a nervous breakdown."
A watery laugh escaped Shane.
"I am not emotionally constipated."
Ilya barked out a laugh, his humorous disagreement clear.
"I'm serious."
"Shane, you spent ten minutes explaining the ring’s warranty the night you proposed to me," Ilya said, a faint, incredulous amusement threading through his voice. "And if I recall correctly, this was while you were covered in my cum. And your own, for that matter.”
"I thought that information was important."
"It was not."
"It absolutely was."
Ilya’s laughter filled the line, warm and familiar and impossibly precious.
The laughter faded slowly, not snapping off so much as dissolving into something quieter, something that stayed in the space between them. Shane still had his hand over his eyes, still sitting forward on the couch like his body didn’t quite trust itself to relax completely, but the sharpest edges of the panic had begun to dull. Across the line, Ilya was still there—breathing, present, real in a way the rest of the day had refused to be.
“I’m coming,” Ilya said again, like a promise he intended to keep even if Shane stopped believing in anything else.
“Okay,” Shane managed.
The silence on the line didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt occupied—like something had shifted into place that neither of them quite knew how to name yet.
And then, for the first time all day, something unfamiliar flickered at the edges of Shane’s mind. Not fear. Not anger.
Possibility.
It came quietly, almost carefully, like his brain didn’t yet trust itself to go there. But once it started, it didn’t stop.
Because today wasn’t only the end of something.
It was also—suddenly, impossibly—the beginning of something else.
It would not be easy. Shane knew that. He could still see the locker room, still feel the weight of the silence, still hear his coach’s voice—flat and procedural, as if his entire life could be reduced to a problem to manage. This wouldn’t fix itself just because the world had learned the truth. It would get worse before it got better. There would be headlines, consequences, meetings, decisions that weren’t theirs to control.
But there was another truth now, too.
They didn’t have to hide anymore.
The realization didn’t come with fireworks. It came with something quieter. Like air returning to a room he hadn’t realized he’d been suffocating in.
For the first time, he could imagine it without flinching.
Restaurants. Not late at night, not in cities where no one knew them, not with hats pulled low and conversations cut short the moment someone looked twice. No longer ordering in just to avoid being seen. Just… restaurants. Sitting across from Ilya in public without calculating exits or angles or distance from the door. Letting their hands rest on the table if they wanted to. Letting someone see.
Grocery stores, Shane thought suddenly, and the absurdity of it almost made him exhale something like a laugh.
No more one of them waiting in the car while the other “quickly ran in,” like they were trying to avoid suspicion for something as simple as buying milk. No more splitting lists and timing exits and pretending it was normal to coordinate something so stupidly domestic just to avoid questions. They could just go. Stand in an aisle together. Argue about what kind of bread Ilya insisted was “not that unhealthy” while Shane silently, or decidedly less so, judged him for it.
Just… be there.
Together.
He swallowed hard.
A park came next, unbidden.
Not the way it had been before—always careful, always late, always dark enough that no one really lingered. Always a few steps apart, just in case. Always acting like they’d coincidentally ended up in the same place rather than walking there together.
Now—
Now they could just walk.
Side by side.
Anya trotting ahead of them like she owned the entire world, leash tangling and untangling and tangling again, Ilya complaining about her pulling while Shane pretended not to be amused. Sitting on a bench in actual daylight without scanning faces. Without the low-level hum of don’t be seen, don’t be seen, don’t be seen.
They could just exist in it.
Together.
Shane exhaled shakily.
Even leaving places—
That one hit harder.
Leaving events had always been its own choreography. Separate exits. Staggered timing. One of them lingering for photos while the other slipped out through a service corridor. Or worse, leaving alone entirely and pretending it was normal to go home without the person he’d spent the entire night thinking about.
Now they could just… stand up.
And leave.
At the same time.
In the same car.
Walk out of a building together like it meant nothing more complicated than two people going home.
No more pretending not to know each other in hallways that were already too familiar. No more brushing shoulders like it was accidental. No more choosing between honesty and optics every time a door opened.
Even the smaller things started piling up now that he’d let himself look.
Hotels.
Not separate check-ins under different names. Not arriving at different times and pretending not to know who was following behind. Just walking in together and asking for one room like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Press nights where Ilya didn’t have to stand just out of frame while Shane smiled for cameras that never told the whole story.
Even something as small as sitting in a car together in daylight—no more one of them ducking into the passenger seat only after making sure no one was watching from the street.
He could have a picture—one of the few he kept in a folder that would no longer have to be password protected—on his phone. On his screensaver. For anyone to see. For anyone to ask about.
He could say Ilya’s name out loud without changing his voice.
The thought hit him so sharply it almost made him dizzy.
Because that had always existed in a private language between them—spoken in their apartment, whispered in hotel rooms, held carefully behind closed doors like something too fragile for the outside world. Now it didn’t have to be.
He could say it to a stranger. To a reporter. To a teammate who didn’t know what to do with it.
He could say it and not apologize afterward.
It all just… stopped being complicated in the same way.
Not because the world had become kind.
But because they didn’t have to lie to survive it anymore.
Shane’s throat tightened again, but this time it wasn’t suffocating. It was overwhelming in a different direction entirely.
Across the line, Ilya was quiet for a long moment, like he was letting Shane have all of it without interruption. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than anything Shane had heard from him all day.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” he said.
A weak laugh escaped Shane before he could stop it. “Yeah.”
“Good thoughts?”
Shane hesitated. Then, honestly, “Scary ones.” A pause, then quieter, “And good ones too.”
Shane swallowed, eyes still closed, because that was the thing he couldn’t quite wrap his head around yet. Today had taken a lot from him in a matter of hours. But it had also given something back. Not cleanly. Not fairly. Not without cost.
Still—
For the first time, he could imagine a version of their life that didn’t require disappearance to function.
A life where loving Ilya didn’t have to be minimized to survive.
“I love you,” Shane said again, because there was no other place for it to go.
Ilya didn’t hesitate this time either.
“I love you too,” he said simply. Then, after a beat—softer, almost amused again, but gentle in a way that made Shane’s chest ache: “We’re going to have to learn how to do all of this in public now.”
Of course Ilya had known exactly what he was thinking.
Shane let out something like a breath and a laugh at the same time.
“Yeah,” he said. “We are.”
And for the first time since everything had exploded that morning, the idea didn’t feel like another loss.
It felt like something that might actually, eventually, become a beautiful life—one not built for the world to witness, but so honestly rooted in love that the world would have no choice but to accept it anyway.