Chapter Text
It’s something Hollander is already well-known for, his footwork and precision. Ilya’s done some cross training with figure skating himself–years and years ago now, when his mother used to sit on the sidelines and playfully ask him to show off for her at the end–so he recognizes it in Hollander, the balance, the fluidity. It’s contained, absent of flourishes, but there’s a grace in his movements that makes it hard to look away. Ilya’s already heard him be chirped a few times for being in the wrong arena, but even if he wasn’t able to see the envy in other people’s eyes when they say it, Hollander’s skating would speak for itself: no movement wasted, no movement unplanned, everything perfectly practiced and executed.
It really just adds to the urge Ilya feels to find out what Hollander looks like when he isn’t so in control.
*
Rozanov is almost obnoxiously confident in his movements on the ice.
He reminds Shane of a nature documentary, kind of, the way big cats move, all languid grace and coiled muscle. Rozanov moves with a deceptive sense of ease, like he barely thinks about it at all, but Shane’s seen enough of him at this point to know it’s just another part of getting in people’s heads, fooling them with false nonchalance just to surge into motion like a cheetah taking off, stealing the puck and getting the fuck out of dodge before the sucker has even begun to figure out what happened. It’s obnoxious. It’s effective.
It’s…wildly inconveniently hard to look away from.
“-ane, Shane?”
He startles slightly and looks over when his mom touches his shoulder.
“Were you listening to me?” She asks, like she already knows the answer is no.
Shane quickly tries to scramble and come up with whatever his ears might have been tuned into when his brain was busy elsewhere.
“Peanuts,” he offers, snatching at it as soon as it pops into his head. “No peanuts. On set.”
His mom’s look clearly says she knows he was distracted, but apparently she’s decided to take a brief rest on the momaging.
Thank God.
“Craft services said there was a miscommunication between them and the catering service they hired,” the look on his mom’s face says there’s about to be repercussions for this that would make God a little envious, “and they can’t guarantee there’s no cross-contamination with the food today.”
Immediately, Shane flicks back through his own memories, desperately trying to recall if he’s tried anything or not. He’d been a little too nervous when he first got here–half-expecting someone to pop out and say there’d been a mixup and where did he think he was going–to feel hungry, but he’s also been playing hockey at too high a level for too long to let a little thing like not being hungry stop him, especially on a set where for once he’d be able to enjoy the novelty of getting to eat any of it that he wanted. There were bagels, he remember he saw bagels, but did he-
No. He remembers now. He’d gotten distracted when Rozanov laughed at something, and then he’d gotten pulled into a chair to let someone put makeup on him. He’d had a protein bar his mom pulled out of her purse and tried not to feel like he was six years old and getting handed a juicebox again.
“So I can’t eat anything?” He asks, trying not to sound as annoyed as he is about it. His mom almost definitely has another protein bar in her purse, and he’s got a couple in his bag, but at a certain point even artificially sweetened cookies and cream has a ceiling in how appealing it is as a food option.
And he passed that ceiling approximately fifty bars ago.
“No, honey,” his mom says, and under the annoyance, he can see she feels bad for him.
He’d rather she just goes back to looking annoyed at other people.
“I can go get something for you,” she offers, but Shane’s already shaking his head.
“No, it’s fine.” It’s not–not really, it’s fucking annoying–but it’s not like being mad about it is actually going to change anything. He’d been doubtful that the rider his mom has started pushing for his brand deals was actually going to be obeyed anyway, even though she always comes along on the shoots to double-check. It’s extreme in a way that’s kind of annoying, the list of “hey, don’t bring this on set and kill me, please” items in his contract, and he worries it’s going to make him sound like a diva, especially when he’s still just a rookie, but the idea of it is nice, being able to walk onto a set and have actual options of what he’d like to eat.
He probably turned it into a pipe dream just by wanting it too much.
“It’s not a problem, honey,” his mom insists, already pulling out her phone. “I can probably even order something.”
“Mom, please don’t make it a thing,” he says, already feeling his ears go a little hot. He doesn’t know if anyone here knows exactly why they’re working on a nut-free set today, but whether they know it’s because of him or not, he’s going to look like a diva if he then has something totally different brought in just for him.
Especially if he has his mom go get it for him.
“I’m not even that hungry,” he lies, watching Rozanov make a beautiful goal, a trickshot delivered from halfway across the arena, impressive even when he’s the only one on the ice. He smiles afterwards, something small and private, like he’s pleased about it but not making a show of it. It’s a good smile, his mouth curving up just a bit higher on the right side, a mouth that Shane can’t help but wonder about, if it would feel good pressed to his-
“If you’re sure…” His mom says, clearly unconvinced.
Shane internally gives himself a shake, glad the low lighting of the arena hopefully won’t show his ears going red the way he can feel.
“I’m sure,” he says.
When a PA perks her head up and starts looking around, he’s already in motion to get back on the ice, away from both moms and thoughts about another player that he should not be having. Rozanov skates past him on his way off the ice. Shane doesn’t change his path even though they’re a little bit on a collision course, and at the last second, Rozanov adjusts just enough that their hands brush past each other, gloves hanging from wrists but not on.
Shane tries very, very hard not to notice that it makes his skin feel tingly where it touched Rozanov’s.
Just like he tries not to be as aware of blue eyes on him as he is as he gets in position to make a few impressive shots of his own for the camera. He doesn’t let himself glance up, doesn’t take the risk, but he can feel the weight of Rozanov’s attention on him like a hand on the back of his neck. It’s not unpleasant. It might even be ni-
It’s not unpleasant.
That’s all.
*
Hollander looks satisfyingly thrown when Ilya finally lets him in on the fact that he set the shoot up today, and he’s a little annoyed when Hollander is then immediately called away before Ilya can investigate what he might be feeling about it beyond surprised. It had been a gamble that his agent–an old friend of his father’s–would even allow it, always previously saying that modeling is for for bleach-blonde women and not men who have better things to do than sit and wait for someone to do their hair, but he’d taken the risk anyway, even knowing that his father might have questions about it. It had been risky, going to CCM himself and having them then ask his agent, and he still half-expects a phone call about it from his father any day now to remind him that these kinds of decisions aren’t his to make, but for the pleasure of getting to watch Shane Hollander in close quarters with limited witnesses, he’d taken it.
And if he possibly has other things he’d like to get in return for his risk, well. He’s still figuring out how to get to those things.
Hollander returns after a few minutes to let the workers set up for a new series of shots, and Ilya tries to take the fact that he immediately returns to stand right next to him as a positive sign. It’s a big rink, after all. Hollander doesn’t have to come stand right here, next to him.
And yet he did.
Ilya casts around for something new to offer, something both more interesting than the weather but unlikely to wander past the limits of his proficiency in English. It’s gotten better rapidly since the move to the US, but he still finds himself wrong-footed at odd moments, conversational partners suddenly dropping words too fast and too unclear to catch, so sometimes he’s not sure if he doesn’t know the word or if he just doesn’t know the pronunciation of the word. Either way ends in the risk of looking foolish, and asking for clarification or repetition usually just gets him louder, slower words, like he’s stupid instead of bilingual. Finally, something dawns on him, a way to handle two goals simultaneously. He’d seen Hollander’s mother flipping through papers rapidly when they first got here, seeming calm and in control and more than a little frightening in a way that made Ilya mildly glad he wasn’t one of the people responsible for a clipboard. If anyone can tell him if the long list of “Prohibited Items” he’d been sent in his email a few days ago is just standard practice for big shoots, it would be Yuna Hollander.
Or, hopefully, her son.
“Crazy we cannot even have peanut butter, eh?” He asks. “You also got giant list?”
Hollander stiffens, almost imperceptibly, and Ilya tilts his head, just slightly, confused, wondering if he’s stumbled somewhere unexpected. He’d thought it could be something they could commiserate over, maybe, silly rules for what are almost certainly liability reasons, like people who play contact sports need to be careful about what might be in a cookie.
“What?” Hollander asks, looking only at the ice. “Didn’t get to pick the catering when you set this up?”
Ilya knows he’s missing something here, knows he’s offended him somehow, but he can’t even begin to guess why. Is Hollander that mad about it? Does he think Ilya did this as some weird power play?
“Is a lot of rules for food,” he offers, hopefully shifting some of the blame off of himself here. Maybe he should have been a little slower in letting Hollander know he was the one who set it up, or maybe he should have made it clear that that’s where his involvement stopped.
He hadn’t thought Hollander would get touchy about nothing with coconut allowed with him for a few hours, but he supposes everyone has their quirks.
“Yeah,” Hollander says, still not looking at him. “Seems like they kind of half-assed it, though. Apparently the catering fucked something up.”
This is an interesting tidbit for Hollander to know and also explains Yuna Hollander making two grown men look like they were about to fall at her feet and beg for forgiveness earlier.
It’s nice to have the confirmation, honestly, that these rules for food are how the set is supposed to go. It makes sense in a way, he supposes. Advertising agencies probably hate liability, and he’s seen the labels on menus here by now, bold font labels for allergen warnings. They’d even announced on a flight he was on once to not eat any peanuts because someone on board was allergic. It must be a cultural thing, maybe, more common over here.
“Eh,” he says, “not big loss, I do not think. The–what is the word? The thing, you spread on bagel?” He mimes swiping a knife over something and then immediately feels like an idiot, but Hollander doesn’t appear to think much of it.
“Cream cheese?” He offers.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “This. You tried?”
Another look from Hollander, halfway to a scoff before he looks away, like Ilya’s taken a shot at him somehow with this inane smalltalk while he finds something actually interesting they can talk about instead. Christ, he hadn’t known food would be such a fucking sensitive topic. He’d heard at the World Junior Championship before that Hollander apparently had a special diet–why he hadn’t eaten with everyone else at the restaurant in the hotel they were at–but he hadn’t known he was this particular about it.
“Not good,” he offers. “Very, mm, like sand? Bad texture.” He is feeling more stupid by the moment and wishing he’d let this topic drop after he’d gotten his answer. Jesus, he manages to set this entire thing up, and now he’s going to fuck it up talking about fucking cream cheese? Svetlana will laugh herself sick if she ever hears about this shitshow.
Hollander, though, seems strangely appeased by the comment.
“Are the sandwiches any good?” He asks, and Ilya feels a stupid amount of relief at being thrown a bone here.
“Eh,” he says with a shrug. “Just okay, I think. You have not tried?”
*
Shane feels the tension leaving his shoulders as they talk. He’d thought Rozanov must have heard about his allergies or something and was taking a shot at him, but it seems like he was instead just complaining about lack-luster catering. Shane is feeling more than a little vindicated, honestly. If he can’t have it, it might as well be shitty for everyone else, too.
(It probably makes him a bad person, but he’s also currently a hungry person, so he thinks he should get to be a little shitty as payment for his suffering.)
“If you do a shoot for Reebok, their catering is pretty good,” he offers, and it’s true. He hadn’t had all of crafty for himself, but they’d had a special table with sealed, allergen-free food that he’d been able to have his pick of. He’d even gotten the recipe for the granola to add to the recipe binder his dad made him and gave him as a gift when he and his mom helped him move into his new place in Montreal.
“Reebok, wow,” Rozanov says, letting out a low whistle. “Fancy fancy.”
“Don’t worry,” Shane says, deciding to take the risk on a soft chirp to see if Rozanov will get mad or chirp back, always a gamble, “they work with a lot of the really good athletes. If you work really, really hard, you might get there one day.”
To his delight, Rozanov laughs, and Shane grins, pleased and feeling absurdly flustered at the sound of the laughter, immediately wanting to make it happen again.
“Wow wow,” Rozanov says, and despite himself, Shane sounds out the shape of the words in his mouth without speaking or moving his jaw, saving them to repeat when he’s alone later, liking the sound of them. “They know they hire bully?”
“Just some friendly career advice,” he says.
“‘Friendly,’” Rozanov repeats. “Sure.”
Shane hesitates, just briefly, not sure if he should say what comes to mind or not, unsure if Rozanov will think it’s too mean or if he’ll tell someone and fuck up the image his mom is always working so hard to build for him. Still…
“Friendlier than that one NHL photographer,” he says. “Did you have to work with him at the draft? Glasses and the weird pocket square?” He traces the shape of a pocket square on his chest and then immediately feels like an idiot for doing it.
“‘Can we serve some friendly?’” Rozanov says in what’s clearly an attempt at imitating an American accent, voice pitched high.
Shane laughs, delighted that he both didn’t say something he shouldn’t and that at least one other person found the guy annoying with his frustratingly abstract instructions.
“‘Let’s invite some playfulness into the space,’” Shane says, matching Rozanov’s pitch on the impression.
“‘Soft eyes, soft eyes.’”
“‘Serious face, sweet energy.’”
“‘Camera loves you, love her back.’”
Their imitation of the obnoxious photographer carries them all the way through the resetting of the props on set, and when they line up for more pictures, Shane finds it harder not to smile.
*
The rest of the shoot goes by quickly. They both end up in trouble more than once for making each other break and laugh–Hollander even getting a “Shane, come on, honey, just a few more, okay?” from his mother, delivered after a helpless little gesture from the photographer towards her but with a lack of conviction that makes Ilya suspect she wasn’t exactly sharing the frustration in the light of her child laughing–and Ilya then uses their shared shower time afterwards to set up trouble of a different kind.
Which he’s pretending he’s not counting down the minutes towards.
From spending time with Hollander, he didn’t end up eating much from craft services, and he decides to walk to the restaurant he picks for dinner mostly just to eat up some more time. He doesn’t even necessarily like peanuts, really, but something about being explicitly told he couldn’t have any all day gave him a strange craving, and he gets Thai food as the easiest option to satisfy it, some noodle dish he absolutely butchered the pronunciation of despite his best efforts when ordering and some spring rolls with peanut sauce. He wonders, idly, as he eats in his room after walking back with it, if it was similar for Hollander, if he might also be scratching an itch with a taste of the previously-forbidden up in his room. It’s an oddly pleasing idea, both of them in parallel. He hadn’t seen Hollander eat on set today beyond a few protein bars, but it’s possible he just hadn’t liked the options from catering, maybe, and he’d heard Hollander and his mother making plans to go get dinner right after the shoot wrapped. It had filled Ilya with something he’d refused to think about further, the idea of Hollander getting to go out and have a meal with his mother, and he shuffles it out of his head now, glancing at the clock again to see if he can finally stop lingering in his room like a jumpy ghost or not.
Right before the clock tells him he can finally leave and be just slightly fashionably late, he pops a few mints in his mouth. Going through the full process of brushing his teeth and using mouthwash would feel too much like admitting to being nervous in a way that would be ridiculous, but if this night is going to go the way he hopes it does, he would like to be at least a little minty fresh.
It’s only polite, after all.
*
It’s not that making out and doing some form of sex with Ilya Rozanov has become less of a terrible idea since it first came up, but it’s surprisingly easy to push reason and logic away when he has a hot guy pressing him against a wall and kissing him.
It’s even easier when he has a hot guy naked and on a bed in front of him.
…it does become a little less easier when he is also on the bed and doesn’t know what the next step here should be. He’s watched porn before because of fucking course he has, and the guys at this stage are usually already moving to blowjobs and smacking dicks on each other’s faces, but even if the desire is there inside him, the boldness most certainly fucking isn’t. He’s painfully aware of looking like the inexperienced virgin he is, his only previous foray into sex a high school girlfriend grinding on his thigh under the bleachers at a dance his junior year while they made out. She’d seemed to enjoy it, but when she’d asked if he wanted her to return the favor, he’d politely declined, kissed her on the cheek, immediately regretted kissing her on the cheek, and all but fled back to the safety of crowds and chaperones. He’s not going to find a Mrs. Turner from history class to save him from the awkwardness here, though, not when Rozanov clearly has plenty of experience and expectations that Shane isn’t fulfilling and-
“Soooo,” Rozanov ventures, when the moment has stretched into something both mortifying and painful, “what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, half-bracing himself to get laughed at. He’s heard enough to know porn is rarely reflective of real life, so he’s not willing to try and pull any of those moves here, but without that to lean on, he’s kind of depending on Rozanov to drive the bus here.
Which he finally–thank fucking God–does, getting a hand on Shane’s dick, which feels so unbelievably good that he almost misses being asked if it’s okay altogether and just barely manages to make himself nod.
He hadn’t realized his chest was so sensitive until Rozanov’s lips are on it, and he’s torn between pressing up into that and pressing up into the pressure around his dick. The glide isn’t smooth, really, not without something to ease the glide, but that doesn’t even fucking matter under the reality that a gorgeous man is touching him, his strong, hockey-calloused hand where only Shane’s hand has been before.
His arousal goes quite suddenly from a flagging five to a pedal to the metal one hundred, and he has Rozanov on his back before he’s even consciously thought about wanting him to feel the same pleasure.
He’s glad for the guiding hands on his head during his second attempt at giving a blowjob. It’s nice, bumper rails for this new thing, Rozanov controlling the glide and the depth, letting Shane focus on keeping his teeth out of the way and trying to work out how to move his tongue along the shaft while hopefully not making a stupid face. It’s even hotter than he’d imagined it would be in his shameful, late-night fantasies, but he hadn’t known it would make his throat feel strange or that it would feel harder to breathe while doing it. Logically, he knows there’s now a–very large, which is annoying because he just knows Rozanov is absolutely full of himself about it–dick in his mouth, which means he can’t get much air that way, but it’s not like he’s a mouth breather normally. He tries to focus on breathing through his nose more, but it’s like having his mouth open is making his throat go tigh-
No.
No no no no no no no-
Shane tries to sink back into the sensation of his head being guided, but he finally tugs away, letting Rozanov’s cock slip from his mouth in a way that isn’t remotely graceful or sexy, leaving it to slap back down against his stomach. Rozanov doesn’t try to tug him back to work, but he doesn’t let go, either, a thumb moving to rub gently behind Shane’s ear. Shane shuts his eyes tight, begging this to not be happening to him. He must have just taken Rozanov’s dick deeper than he thought. That’s all. It just hit the back of his throat, and now that’s why it feels like it’s swelling shut and not-
“Hey,” Rozanov says, and now the hands at his head are tugging, but only to try and pull him up the bed. “Is okay.”
Shane, eyes still shut, just shakes his head, feeling his heartrate increasing steadily even as the sudden shakiness he feels says his blood pressure is dropping rapidly. His stomach rolls as his mouth waters, and he tries desperately to pull a breath in, trying to make it all stop.
“No,” Rozanov persists, still trying to pull him up the bed, now sitting up and getting a hand under Shane’s bicep, trying to tug him onto the bed more. “Is okay. Is your first time doing this. Is okay to try something and not like it. If you-”
Shane tries to draw a breath on reflex to speak, to tell Rozanov that not liking it is not the fucking problem, but all he manages is a tight, painful wheeze.
*
“Hollander?” Ilya checks, more than a little alarmed now by what’s happening, wondering how he could have missed Hollander winding himself up into this much of a panic. “You are okay?”
Hollander shakes his head and starts to pull away, and Ilya is torn between letting him go and pulling him close to let him know that there’s no ill will here. Really, he’s cursing himself for apparently missing that Hollander wasn’t feeling the blowjob and continuing to move his head anyway. Hollander had initiated it when Ilya had meant to signal he was fine with just handjobs as the thing Hollander would most likely at least have some solo experience to draw from, but it’s not like he would be the first person in the world to discover that something can be hot in theory but not to their taste in reality. It did feel good, so it would suck if they were off the table forever if they ever have a repeat of tonight, but he won’t push Hollander into som-
Hollander all but launches himself off of the bed, and Ilya moves automatically to follow him before he pauses, one foot on the floor but his knee still on the mattress. He doesn’t know what caused what looks like absolute terror out of nowhere, but clearly he misstepped somewhere, missed a sign that he needed to tap the breaks, didn’t check in enough to see if Hollander was comfortable. He feels like the world’s biggest asshole now as Hollander pulls in labored, painful-sounding breaths and starts digging through his suitcase. He wants to get up and offer Hollander his neatly-folded clothes, wants to let him know it’s totally okay if this is over tonight, and he can get dressed and Ilya can get dressed and they can talk or Ilya can get lost or-
Instead of clothes, what Hollander emerges with is a yellow plastic tube, and the way he stops searching immediately says it’s what he was looking for.
Ilya blinks.
Hollander staggers back over to the bed and all but drops back down with a bounce that almost sends him right back off until Ilya on auto-pilot gets an arm around him, tugging him back up. Hollander doesn’t shrug him off even though Ilya immediately moves to hover his hand over him instead of holding when he’s already freaking out so badly.
“Hollander, what is happening?” He asks. On complete impulse, he moves his hand to gently squeeze at Hollander’s shoulders, where he’d felt before to gauge the tension in them, to know exactly how careful he needed to be moving forward based on how nervous Hollander was.
Based on what’s happening now, though, it doesn’t seem that the technique is totally flawless.
“Is okay,” he says again, daring to rub his hand over the bare skin of Hollander’s back. “Okay? I am not mad. Is oka-”
His reassurance is cut off when Hollander does the deeply bizarre thing of flicking the cap off of the tube and then jabbing it against his thigh.
Ilya is really, really wondering where the fuck this night went wrong to be going so weird right now.
*
Against the anticipation of the relief of being able to breathe again, the faint sting of the needle in his thigh barely registers, though he twitches reflexively, just in response to the sensation.
The movement makes Rozanov’s hand rest over his back again, gentle but present, warmth from his palm radiating into Shane’s skin.
“Hollander?” Rozanov asks, and Shane opens his eyes to find Rozanov leaning over his shoulder, looking more than a little alarmed.
Oh fuck, Shane thinks, mind clearing enough as the tightness in his chest eases to let other things come to the front.
Like complete fucking mortification.
“Shit,” he hisses out, dropping his head forward, desperately telling himself that this is just a really, really, really weird dream. He definitely didn’t just explore gay sex for the first time and somehow have an allergic reaction to dick. That cannot be what just fucking happened to him.
Please just let anaphylaxis take him before that is the thing that happened here.
“Hollander,” Rozanov says again, and now there’s a strain in his voice, both of Rozanov’s hands on him now. “What is happening? What is wrong?”
“I’m-” Shane cuts himself off, breathing a few more times until the last of the painful tension in his chest has eased. He only registers when Rozanov half-wrenches the comforter from under them to wrap it over his shoulders and starts chafing his hands along his arms gently that he’s shaking now in the aftermath of the reaction, trembling in a way he knows looks alarming from the outside. “I’m not cold,” he says, still sounding a little breathless but not wanting Rozanov to think he’s suddenly delicate enough to be getting cold in a perfectly warm room.
“Okay,” Rozanov says. “Then what the fuck are you?”
Startled by the question, Shane laughs, unable to help it. Trying to will himself into stillness and failing, he reaches up to rest his hand over one of Rozanov’s on his arm, a little overstimulated by so much movement happening on him even through the comforter. Rozanov stops immediately, but when Shane goes to drop his hand, Rozanov instead keeps hold of it, warm and steady around his. It’s…strangely soothing. Shane doesn’t bother to pull away.
“Fuck,” Shane hisses, knowing now how this night is going to end.
Namely, in a hospital bed and not in an orgasm.
Fuck his fucking life.
“Hollander,” Rozanov says again, squeezing his hand in a way that seems like it’s a little tighter than he means for it to be. “What just happened? You are okay? What is-” He leans over, reaching to grab the epipen, and Shane leans back, stopping him by pressing back against his chest.
“Careful,” he says. “Don’t stab yourself.”
“What?” Rozanov asks. “Stab what? What is happening? Hollander, what the fuck is this?”
“Um,” Shane says, “it-fuck. Can you get my phone, please? It’s-” He glances up, trying to remember where he put it, but Rozanov is already in motion, tucking the comforter around him a bit more securely before he crosses to the desk in the corner of the room, unplugging Shane’s phone and returning to the bed. Shane surveys his very enticing naked body with no small amount of regret.
“Here,” Rozanov says, handing him his phone and then sitting down next to him again, bringing an arm up to rest against his back again. “Hollander, please, what is…this?”
Shane has another moment of wishing the anaphylaxis had just killed him and saved him from this entire experience.
“I’m allergic to…a lot of stuff,” he confesses, feeling stupid and miserable and embarrassed. “Food, mostly. That’s what the list was. For the shoot. That’s why there were so many random rules about stuff.”
“Fuck,” Rozanov says, sounding like he just realized something. “Peanuts.”
Shane turns to him slightly, finding Rozanov looking chagrined.
“I had peanuts with dinner,” Rozanov says, like he’s confessing to a crime. “It hurts you even if you did not eat them? If you kiss?”
“Apparently,” Shane says, feeling his face go a little hot. It’s not something he’s had reason to consider before, honestly. He’d never really wanted to kiss the girls he’s gone on dates with before, so kissing any of them had always been sporadic.
He hasn’t previously had reason, then, to wonder if tongue to tongue contact might be enough to set off his allergies.
He can’t say he’s really enjoying the new discovery.
“And yellow…thing,” Rozanov says, “this is medicine? For you?”
“Epipen,” Shane offers, knowing he has to call an ambulance now but really, really not fucking wanting to. Jesus, how the fuck is he even going to explain this? “And yeah.”
“You are okay now?” Rozanov asks. “Epipen,” he pronounces the word carefully, “this fixes you?”
“Uh, kind of,” he says, “I still have to go to the hospital, so-oh fuck.”
“What?” Rozanov asks at once, leaning forward. “What is happening? Is happening aga-”
“Can you grab my clothes?”
Rozanov blinks.
“What.”
“I don’t know how long it’ll take them to get here, and I’d rather not have my ass out when they do,” Shane says, feeling a little bitter now at the only discovery in this room tonight being Rozanov learning Shane Hollander’s Weird Ass Medical Stuff 101.
God, he’ll be lucky if this isn’t all over the NHL by tomorrow, spread along the grapevine as a golden chirping opportunity.
Or worse, he thinks, stomach going a little tight, thinking of the more vicious of the messages he’s gotten on social media since the draft and not able to not think about what the type of person who would send those messages would do with such convenient information about him.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” he says, as Rozanov starts to get off the bed. Shane grabs him by the wrist. “Okay? Please don’t-”
“You think I would do this?” Rozanov asks, sounding almost hurt by the accusation. “I am getting your clothes like you asked, Hollander. I am not running off to tell news.”
In an instant, Shane feels like an asshole.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as Rozanov grabs his clothes and returns, setting them on the bed beside him before turning to start collecting his own clothing. Shane shakily starts pulling his underwear and then his pants back on, standing up as briefly as he can when he still feels a little dizzy. “It’s just-I don’t want people to know, you know?”
“Why?” Rozanov asks, shimmying back into his jeans and securing the zipper and button before leaning down for his shirt.
“Just…it’s private,” Shane says, unwilling to get into his entire medical history and how he’d prefer to not have to get into it for public consumption moving forward. He pulls his shirt over his head, looking to Rozanov when his head pops through. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Rozanov says with a shrug. “Sure.”
“Thanks,” Shane says, starting to dial for emergency services before something occurs to him. “Um,” Shane asks, before pressing call. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Rozanov lifts his eyebrows in what Shane is choosing to read as a “go ahead.”
“Can you help me get down to the lobby?” He can feel his face heat with the abject humiliation of it, of having to ask this of someone who is essentially a stranger who just happens to have touched his dick and had his dick touched in return before this night went completely to shit. “It’s just…less of a scene, if they can just pick me up there.” Really, he isn’t sure even that is going to be enough to not have this end up on the news somewhere, but he’d like to minimize the chance where he can.
“Yeah,” Rozanov says, like it’s not a problem at all. “Sure.”
Strangely, the immediacy of his agreement makes Shane feel just a bit better as he hits call.
*
Hollander is a shaking, mildly stumbling weight against him on the way down to the lobby, and Ilya is half-amused thinking what this must look like from the outside, the polite, golden boy of hockey appearing wasted and needing help from him, who the media is already starting to push the bad boy angle for.
Hollander tripping over absolutely nothing and then immediately apologizing for it takes some of the levity out of the moment, though.
“No problem,” he says, not the first time he’s said this. Really, if he couldn’t tell how genuine it was, he would be almost amused by how apologetic Hollander is about this, as if he chose to have Ilya accidentally poison him.
The thought makes Ilya feel guilty again.
He gets Hollander out of the front door and settled on a bench by the entrance, waving off a bellboy who perks up as if about to come over and ask if they need something. Really, he thinks anyone else jumping into this night might actually be enough to send Hollander over the edge, and he looks like he already has enough problems.
“Do you want me to text your mother?” Ilya asks, and Hollander shakes his head immediately, still trembling in a way that makes Ilya want to shrug out of his jacket and wrap it around him even though he’s been informed it’s not because Hollander is cold.
“She’s getting a drink with a friend from college,” Hollander says, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. “I don’t want to bother her.”
“I do not think she will mind,” Ilya observes dryly. He pulls out Hollander’s other epipen from his back pocket–grabbed at Hollander’s request and kept in his custody because Hollander looked likely to drop it if Ilya handed it over–before sitting down, leaning enough for their shoulders to touch, a silent offer of some support to lean against if Hollander wants it.
“No,” Hollander, says, shaking his head and resting just a bit more of his weight against Ilya. “She hasn’t seen Kimmy in over a year. She was really excited.”
“I think she will be less excited if she-” But his objection is cut off by flashing lights as an ambulance pulls into the parking lot. He’d heard Hollander request them to keep their siren off when they came, but it’s almost disorienting, a silent but flashing ambulance.
With Hollander still pale and shaking, it doesn’t even take Ilya standing and waving to have them pulling right up, Ilya stepping back when the paramedics hop out and start tending to Hollander. He feels a little at loose ends, honestly, trying to stay out of the way but still be in sight, not wanting Hollander to think he just dumped him and left.
But also not knowing if he’s supposed to stay at this point.
Really, of the hookups he’s experienced, this is novel in several new ways that he can’t say he’s really enjoying.
“Just you coming with us for a ride today?” One of the paramedics asks Hollander as her partner finishes checking him over.
Ilya doesn’t know if he’s necessarily even welcome in this, but it feels wrong, the idea of a shaking Hollander having to ride to the hospital by himself, especially when it’s Ilya’s fault he got sick at all. They don’t really know each other yet, but Ilya is at least not a total stranger, is at least someone who could make phone calls or get a nurse for him if he needs it, especially when he’s so strangely insistent on not interrupting his mother’s night, even though Ilya is fairly certain his mother is going to be more upset if she finds out she was not interrupted.
“I can come,” he tells Hollander, as a paramedic helps him up.
Hollander looks to him, appearing slightly startled.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says. “It’s late. You can…enjoy your night, or whatever.”
Ilya doesn’t point out that this kind of was his plan for enjoying his night.
“I don’t mind,” he says. “Besides, I have not yet been in ambulance before. Sounds fun. We get to run red lights and police cannot get mad about it, yes?”
There’s a flicker of a smile on Hollander’s lips, and then he nods, still looking a little unsure.
“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. If you want.”
When Hollander is safely secured inside, Ilya obeys the wave of the other paramedic’s arm and climbs in as well.
*
Shane is learning that Rozanov is strangely good company.
“Try again,” he says now, adding an arm to Shane’s perilously-close-to-death hangman figure. He’d somehow managed to get hold of a notepad from a nurse and at Shane’s invitation because the chair looked awful, toed his shoes off and climbed up to sit at the other end of the bed, legs folded. “You are really terrible at this game,” he says cheerfully. “Your man is dead very soon.”
“Fuck off,” Shane says, but without heat. He stifles a yawn. He’s exhausted the way he always is after a reaction, but if he falls asleep now, there’s a chance he might sleep through a call from his mom if she tries to check on him in the hotel, and he’d rather not worry her by not responding. He’d said as much to Rozanov when he’d offered to turn the lights off for him earlier, and his refusal had prompted Rozanov to go hunting for something for him to stay awake with.
Thus Shane getting his ass kicked at hangman.
“V,” he throws out.
“Wrong,” Rozanov says, sounding like he’s enjoying himself. “This is in your language and you are killing this man like this?” He tsks, shaking his head.
“Like you did any better,” Shane scoffs.
“Better than you,” Rozanov taunts. “And this is not my language. Embarrassing for you.”
“Go fuck yourself, Rozanov,” Shane says with a grin.
“Ilya,” Rozanov says absently, adding a bowtie to Shane’s hangman because he’s apparently taking some mercy on him under current circumstances.
“Huh?” He asks, thrown for a moment, probably because his brain is currently working under less than optimal circumstances.
“Ilya,” Rozanov repeats, looking up when Shane’s hangman has been appropriately made ready for a formal event with his new accessory. “You can call me Ilya, if you want. I have almost killed you. I think you can use my name if you want.”
Shane huffs a laugh.
“Not on purpose,” he offers.
“Still,” Roz-Ilya says with a shrug. He glances around and then leans in. “You have sucked my cock and I have been in ambulance with you. I think this maybe makes us friends, da?”
“Shut up,” Shane hisses, looking up like someone with a recorder is lurking in a corner. When Ilya just grins, clearly finding himself so fucking funny, Shane rolls his eyes, sitting back. “You’re such an asshole. T.”
“Ah, finally,” Ilya says. “You were running out of letters. Very sad.” He adds a T to the second to last space, holding the paper up for Shane’s inspection. His handwriting is surprisingly neat, Shane thinks idly, especially compared with his own chicken scratch.
_ E A N U T _. What could-
“Motherfucker,” Shane says, extending a foot under his blanket to kick Ilya’s knee. He’s been spared the indignities of having to change out of his clothes and into a hospital gown, but he had accepted the extra blanket Ilya had grabbed for him when he went to get the notepad after a passing comment from Shane about how cold it is in here. It was oddly…touching, the thoughtfulness of it. “Peanuts, asshole.”
Ilya grins, filling in the blanks.
“Congratulations!” He says. “Your man lives! Stay of execution. Banishment to Siberia instead.”
Shane laughs, accepting the notepad when Ilya flips the page to a fresh one and hands it over.
“You’re such a dick,” he says, thinking of a word of his own and then smiling slightly when one comes to him.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
“Okay,” he says, drawing a gallows and then turning the page for Ilya to look at it.
“A,” Ilya says, and Shane nods, adding it.
A _ _ _ _ _ _
“This is what Canadians do for fun?” Ilya asks, leaning back slightly, his elbow on the footrest. “Wow. Very sad. E.”
“Hey, you were the one in charge of entertainment,” Shane says as he adds the letter to the last blank. “Could have gotten an Xbox or something.”
Ilya snorts.
“From where?” He asks. “There is big video game industry in North American hospitals I do not know?”
“Just saying, dude,” Shane says, turning away to yawn. “Don’t blame me for your choices.”
“You do this often, then?” Ilya asks. “Spend time in hospitals?”
More than a little of Shane’s levity deflates.
“Sometimes,” he says shortly.
“And the best you can come up with is violence against poor stick man?” Ilya asks, and Shane smiles slightly.
“My mom started keeping UNO in her purse,” he offers. “And my dad bought a sports trivia gameboy thing when I was younger.” It’s something he feels conflicting ways about, the adaptations his parents have made over the years to try and make hospital visits suck less, to make them have a fun element.
It hadn’t really worked because nothing about sitting in a hospital is fun, but he knows the gestures have come from a place of love.
And it has made him really good at sports trivia, so. It’s something at least.
“You didn't tell me before,” Ilya says. “I?”
“Tell you what?” Shane asks as he writes I on the side of the page in the penalty box and gives Ilya’s hangman a head.
“That the set had rules to keep you safe.”
Shane runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth, not exactly pleased by the phrasing, like he’s some delicate little flower who needs a special enclosure.
“I don’t need other people to keep me safe,” he says, and it comes out harder than he means for it to. “It doesn’t have to be a whole fucking thing.”
Ilya tilts his head slightly, expression curious in a way Shane wishes it wasn’t.
“You are embarrassed,” Ilya says, and it doesn’t sound like a question.
“No,” he says, internally wincing when it comes out as a snap. “No,” he repeats, more even this time, “I just don’t like people making a whole fucking production out of it.”
“Hm,” Ilya says. “O.”
Shane adds it to the letters. A _ _ _ O _ E.
“You did not eat on set today,” Ilya observes, because apparently he’s really determined to not drop this.
“From what you said, I don’t think I missed out on much,” Shane says lightly.
“U,” Ilya says, tsking in disappointment when it gains him a body for his hangman. “They had rules, though. This was not so you could eat?”
“Catering fucked up,” Shane says. “It happens.”
“And your very scary mother did not make them cry and then go buy new food you could eat?”
This could be taken as an insult against his mom, Shane considers, but Ilya’s tone sounds more admiring than anything else.
“She offered,” he says, because he doesn’t want Ilya to think he has a bad mom or anything. “But it’s not a good look, making everyone read a bunch of rules and still making my mom go get me food.”
“Hm,” Ilya says with a shrug, tucking his feet under the edge of Shane’s blanket. “Well, next time, let me know. We can both order better food than sad bagels and wet sandwiches and be divas together.”
“What?” Shane asks, smiling slightly. “You trying to take advantage of my allergies to get better catering?”
Ilya shrugs, looking entirely unapologetic.
“At least one of us should get something out of it, yes?”
Shane rolls his eyes.
(But he also graciously gives Ilya’s hangman biceps to give him some extra chances.)
*
This might not necessarily be how Ilya planned on getting more time with Shane Hollander, but it has at least been effective. He’s hoping any future hookups can be done without the allergic reaction first, though, if possible.
At least he’s gotten more pen and paper games than he ever wished to learn out of it.
“A5,” he throws out, knees propped up like Shane’s so they can both hide their grids from the other person.
“Miss,” Shane says, sounding more than a little smug about it. Ilya grumbles under his breath but marks off the square on his own grid. “D7.”
“Hit,” Ilya says resentfully, flipping Shane off when he looks up and grins before he yawns for approximately the three hundredth time in the past hour. Ilya breathes through the one he catches immediately. “Stop,” he orders afterwards.
“Sorry,” Shane says, immediately yawning again because he sucks at hangman and following instructions. “Can’t help it.”
“It makes you tired? The medicine?” He asks, nodding to the IV attached to Shane’s arm.
Shane shrugs.
“I think it’s all of it,” he says. “It’s not…fun.”
“Really?” Ilya asks dryly. “And it looked like such fun party from the outside.”
“Fuck off,” Shane says, shifting slightly.
“You are okay?” Ilya checks.
“Fine,” Shane says. “I just hate hospital sheets. They always feel weird.”
“Hm,” Ilya says. “One day you will be big, rich hockey star. Then maybe you can afford fancy hospital with silk sheets. C8.”
“Hit,” Shane says, grudgingly. “Did you already get your signing bonus?”
“Yes,” Ilya says shortly, unwilling to elaborate when it would mean saying that it was gone almost as soon as he had it, sent back to Russia.
“Buy anything fun?” Shane asks.
“No,” Ilya says, knowing he’s being a little sharper than he means to. “Also is your turn. Try to hit my ships.”
“C8,” Shane says.
“Cheater,” Ilya complains. “Hit.”
“Could have just kept quiet and your ship would have been fine,” Shane taunts. “Are you in your own place in Boston, or are you staying with someone else?”
“I am staying with player for now,” Ilya says, glad for the conversation to turn away from questions he doesn’t want to answer. “Cliff Marlowe. You know this guy?”
“I know he could probably knock a house over if he felt like it,” Shane says, sounding admiring about it. “Is he a good roommate?”
“Yes,” Ilya says. “He is nice. I am going to get my own place soon, but is easier for learning the city, staying somewhere first. You are with someone?”
“No,” Shane says. “I got my own place.”
“Wow wow,” Ilya teases. “You have, what is phrase? Bachelor place?”
“Bachelor pad?” Shane asks with a small tilt of his head. Ilya shrugs, unsure. “I mean, I guess. I don’t really have people over, though. My mom stays with me if she’s in town for brand stuff, but that’s about it.”
Ilya could chirp him for this, but it’s something he wishes he had, the ability to host his mother in his own house, to give her a place to be, away from his father’s criticism.
In another life, he thinks, not for the first time, maybe he could have gotten them both out if she’d just held on a little longer, waited for him to-
“Hey,” Shane asks. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Ilya says shortly. “E3.”
“Miss,” Shane says. “Must be hard, moving to a whole new country. Do you have any family here, or are they all still in Russia?”
Even if he sucks at finding pencil-marked battleships, apparently Shane Hollander has a talent for finding the exact things Ilya doesn’t want to fucking talk about.
“All in Russia,” he says flatly. A glance up at Shane, though, makes him soften. It’s kind of hard to stay mad at someone he’s put in a hospital, after all, especially when the questions are annoying but not ill-intentioned. “No more talk about family, okay?”
“Okay?” Shane echoes. “Is it…not good? With them?”
“Is…” Ilya trails off, feeling a little cornered. “No more talk about family.” A beat. “Please.”
“Okay,” Shane says. “Did you already get your uniform? For your team?”
“Yes,” Ilya says. “You?”
“Mhm,” Shane agrees. “It’s pretty fucking crazy, huh?”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees, smiling, glad to be back on easier ground. “It still feels…fake, almost, yes?”
“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “I feel like I spent my whole life waiting for it and now I got it. It’s like…like I think I’m going to wake up and find out it wasn’t real, you know? Oh, C5.”
“Hit,” Ilya says, graciously ignoring Shane’s victory fist pump into the air. “Your team is good?”
“I think so,” Shane says. “I don’t think I really know anyone yet, but everyone seems pretty nice. What about you?”
“Da,” Ilya says. “I think I will be happy.”
“The press kind of sucks, though, huh?” Shane asks. “I feel like they’re always trying to trick me into saying something shitty.”
“Try doing it in another language,” Ilya says wryly.
Shane makes a sympathetic noise.
“Very good for getting girls, though,” Ilya observes, watching Shane’s reaction carefully.
“Yeah,” he agrees, with absolutely no conviction in the word at all.
“Or do they not get to go to Shane Hollander’s special alone apartment?” Ilya teases, sensing that he’s stepped into territory he’s not wanted in and backing up slightly.
“I mean is Marlowe cool with you bringing random people back to his place?” Shane teases back.
“I don’t think he notices,” Ilya says. “He is too busy with his own girls.”
Shane glances up, checking that there’s no one at the door, even with it closed.
“Is it just girls for you?” He asks quietly. “When you’re in Boston?”
“Mm,” Ilya says with a shrug. “F6.”
“Hit.”
“I have not found anyone interesting yet, so for now, just girls. The future? I do not know.”
“But I’m interesting?” Shane asks, sounding pleased.
“Hm, no,” Ilya says, grinning when Shane scowls at him. “But you are very hot, so you have this at least to make up for how boring you are.”
“Thanks,” Shane says dryly. “J3.”
“Hit.”
*
“Is that why you set up the shoot?” Shane asks. “Just because I’m hot?” He’s strangely pleased by the idea, by the effort of setting up an entire ad campaign just to see him. It’s kind of overwhelming, honestly.
But also not…unpleasant.
“Is like I said before,” Ilya says. “You make me curious.”
“Yeah, well,” Shane says. “Tonight being curious means you get to hang out in a random hospital for hours, so maybe take that as a lesson about curiosity.”
“Eh, there are worse things,” Ilya says. “H9.”
“Miss.” Shane says. “And are there? This isn’t exactly a wild night in Boston picking up girls.”
“Hm,” Ilya hums thoughtfully. “No, but the company isn’t terrible.”
Shane feels his face get a little warm.
“Mostly because you suck at winning more things than just hockey, which is very fun for m-”
Shane hits him with a pillow.
But he also smiles.
*
Apparently even Shane’s inherent boring-ness can only take so many games played on paper before even the appeal of pretend battleships loses his interest, so the night has progressed to watching whatever happens to be on the TV mounted in the corner for the last hour they’re here until Shane is released.
For his part, Shane lasted approximately three and a half minutes before he started drifting off.
Ilya bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling when he sees Shane’s head start bobbing forward again only a couple of minutes after the last time he jerked himself back awake. He has his doubts that Shane is going to last even ten more minutes, but he certainly seems determined to-
Shane’s head settles against his shoulder.
Ilya holds very, very still, wondering if he should nudge him back upright.
Shane’s head gets a little heavier.
Careful not to move his shoulder, Ilya turns enough to look at him, getting a dangerously good angle to look at his freckles like this. Shane makes a small noise but doesn’t stir, and Ilya can see him slowly relaxing into the sleep he’s been fighting so hard. He should probably wake him. He’s wanted to stay awake, and they’re probably going to get side eyes if anyone walks in to see them like this. Ilya had moved to sit at the top of the bed with him for the sake of arguing about what to watch on the television from a better vantage point, but this seems…noteworthy, were anyone to see it happening, something creeping past the bounds of behavior between two people who are colleagues, especially colleagues for whom the media is already pushing a rivalry angle. Ilya should wake him up.
He carefully reaches to slip Shane’s phone out of his lax hand and rest it on his own thigh so he can keep an eye out for any calls from Shane’s mother.
He lets him sleep.
*
Shane wakes up to a disorienting amount of noise and movement happening in the room suddenly, blinking his eyes open just in time for his mom to make it across the room to him.
“Shane,” she says, his name more an exhale of air than anything else.
Beside him, Ilya unobtrusively slips out of the bed to stand, moving to where he left his shoes earlier.
“Honey,” his mom says, cupping his face in a way that is humiliating in front of a witness. He pulls his head back.
“I’m fine,” he complains. “Why aren’t you at the hotel?”
His mom gives him a look that has him quailing slightly.
“I got back to the hotel and the front desk agent stopped to ask me if you were okay, which was more than a little alarming when I didn’t know why you wouldn’t be.”
Shane tries to sink into the bed a little bit more.
“It’s not a big deal,” he mutters. “I’m only here for like thirty more minutes anyway.”
“Yes, after coming here in an ambulance with-” His mom seems to remember that they’re not alone in the room at this point, turning to face Ilya, who stands up from slipping his shoes on and looks a little awkward under the attention in a way that Shane would laugh at if he wasn’t very busy trying not to draw his mom’s attention back to himself. “Hi,” she says. “For the second time tonight.”
“Hi,” Ilya echoes.
When his mom turns back to him, he sees the question coming even before she asks it.
“We were watching a game,” he says, the first thing that comes to him.
“Together?” His mom asks, frowning. She doesn’t say I thought you couldn’t stand him, but Shane knows she’s thinking it. It’s something more and more people have been saying to him, and it’s just been easier to agree than to try and say he doesn’t think he knows Ilya enough to not be able to stand him.
After tonight, though, he kind of feels bad about it.
“The gym was closed for the night,” Ilya offers, and Shane’s mom turns back to him. “We both went to workout, but…” He shrugs. “So we decided to watch a game instead. Shane thinks San Jose has potential, but I do not agree. I thought maybe we should watch together so I can show him how he is wrong.”
“Uh huh,” Shane’s mom says slowly, turning to him.
His first lie was kind of all he had in him, though, so he really wishes she wouldn’t do that.
“I had a reaction and Ilya was already there,” he says, which is enough of the truth that he doesn’t think he has to embellish on it.
He just also will not be expanding on it.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you going out with Kimmy, and he said he’d come with me.”
“What did you react to?” His mom asks. “I thought you were fine at dinner.”
This is…not something Shane knows how to answer.
“Is my fault,” Ilya says.
Shane feels his entire fucking world stop.
“I drank from his water bottle and did not notice,” Ilya says apologetically. He gives Shane a faux-annoyed look. “Though I would have been more careful if I knew my dinner would have consequences.”
Shane, having just had a near-death experience in this recovery period from his earlier near-death experience, just shrugs, hoping the heart rate monitor isn’t telling on him too badly right now.
“Pay attention to what water bottle you’re drinking out of, dude.”
Ilya rolls his eyes.
“Well, your mother is here now, so…” Ilya says, leaning towards the door. “I will go, yes?”
“Yeah,” Shane agrees, feeling almost…regretful? Time in the hospital is never fun, but having a few hours of Ilya keeping him company during it was almost nice, kind of.
Ilya pauses at the door, though.
“Will you text me?” He asks. “Tomorrow? To let me know you are okay?”
*
Ilya feels stupid about it as soon as he’s asked it, but this night feels incomplete now that he isn’t going to see it to the finish line, ridiculous as that is. Seeing Shane fine enough to play games and then take a nap on him has helped him feel a little less guilty about accidentally putting him in the hospital, but he’d also wanted to hear for himself from a medical person that there won’t be any lasting harm.
But he also doesn’t know how to make an excuse to stay long enough for that to happen now that Shane’s mother is here.
“That’s sweet of you,” Shane’s mother says, and Ilya almost laughs. Of the adjectives he’s heard people use for him in recent memory, “sweet” hasn’t come up even once.
(It feels…nice, kind of, to hear it now.)
“Sure,” Shane says, reaching for his phone. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you so you have mine.”
Ilya pulls his phone out.
“617-”
*
Shane feels almost regretful when Ilya leaves. Ridiculous as it is, it kind of feels like they didn’t finish a group project they started together.
Even if he is glad he’s not going to have to answer for accidentally falling asleep literally on him.
“Rozanov?” His mom asks after the door is shut and enough seconds have passed for Ilya to not be in earshot anymore. She brushes his hair back in a gesture of fussing he allows now that there aren’t any other witnesses. “Since when are you two buddies?”
“We’re not buddies,” he says quickly. “He just didn’t want me to have to go to the hospital alone.”
“Which you wouldn’t have had to if you had called your mother,” his mom says pointedly. “Still, that was kind of him.”
“He’s…nice,” Shane offers with a shrug. “We played some games and stuff. Talked. He was pretty good company.” He forces himself to stop talking.
“Hm,” his mom says, glancing back to the door. “Maybe you two should get dinner or something the next time you’re in the same city.”
“Mom,” Shane complains, recognizing the tone from the other times his mom has tried to arrange friends for him.
“What?” She asks. “You two do the same job, and you just said he’s nice. He might be a good friend to have. You guys are both the biggest names in your draft year. Advertising being friends would probably be good for publicity. Obviously the rivalry is profitable, but friends who are also rivals might-”
“I don’t think that’s usually how people decide to become friends,” he observes dryly.
“I’m just saying,” his mom says with a shrug, moving to sit on the bed next to him, their arms resting together. “If he’s willing to go to a hospital with you in the middle of the night, he sounds like he’s probably a good friend.”
“Yeah,” Shane says, looking at the door. “Maybe.”
He glances down at his phone when it buzzes with a text from a currently-unsaved number.
next time? 😏
He turns his phone screen-down before his mom sees it.
Later, when his mom goes to retrieve his paperwork to sign out, he pulls up his texts.
Depends.
on?
Are you going to try and kill me again?
does making you choke on my dick count?
Shane feels his face flush immediately before he taps the text and presses delete, almost dropping his phone in his haste.
Don’t send stuff like that!
hm, you are right. probably bad idea.
we will just find out in person
No.
❌🚢
miss
Shane grins.