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Ilya shrugged easily. “She probably knows already.” The panic alarm that lived inside Shane started blaring. “Why would she?” “We are together at your cottage. You are gay. I am hot.”
moy lyubimyy.”
“Leave the cheese off my salad, okay?” “I know.”
“Your mom is the one making dinner at the end of a long day while you sit on your butt and mope. Come help.” “I’m helping,” Ilya couldn’t resist pointing out. “I know you are.” Yuna patted his cheek. “That’s why you’re my favorite son.”
“I am Ilya. This is my... Shane.”
Kiss me, Ilya wanted to say. Kiss me and hold me in front of all these people. Pull me onstage and do it. I don’t care anymore. Please. I’m dying. “Nothing,” Ilya said, and stepped away. “Nothing.”
Ilya loved hockey, but he lived for the summers now.
“When you watch it, this is what you will see. Me saying nothing. I wanted to say you are fucking everything to me. Everything. Okay?”
“Thank you, moya gazonokosilka.”
I love hockey, and I deserve to have the career I want for as long as I want it. I’ve earned that. But if I had to choose...I’d choose him.”
“Yeah. For yoga and meditation. Two things you don’t do.” “But you do them. So I have lights that dim. For you.”
Quietly, in a voice that couldn’t disguise his pain, he said, “I already chose you, Hollander.”
ALL I KNOW IS PAINNNNNN
text, but all he had access to was Wi-Fi. Fuck it. Ilya opened Instagram and started typing a new private message to ShaneHollanderHockeyPlayer. Shane, he wrote, then stopped. He had no idea what to say. There was no possible way to put everything he needed to tell Shane into words. But the plane was on fire, and Ilya didn’t have time to think. He wrote what was in his terrified heart: You are the best thing in my life. His eyes were blurry, making it hard to type. He quickly swiped at his eyes and kept writing. I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.
“I choose you, Ilya. I promise I will always, always choose you.” Shane’s eyes began to shimmer. He took a deep breath and said, “Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov, will you marry me?”
“It’s okay,” he said to Chiron in Russian. “My day is coming.”
It was after ten o’clock at night when Ilya’s phone finally lit up with a text from Shane: I ate a Snickers bar.
Then Shane stood and said, “I choose him. Come on, Ilya.”
“Is good, probably,” Ilya sighed. “I am too soft with her.” Shane rested a hand on Ilya’s cheek. “You’re soft with everyone you love.” Ilya’s lips curved up. “Don’t tell anyone.”
