The Long Game (Game Changers, #6)

by Rachel Reid

He would do anything for Ilya. He’d told him, once, that he was willing to play the long game when it came to their relationship and he’d meant it.

He was terrified that one day Shane would realize he could be with someone who wasn’t a dark secret. That it could be easy to love someone.

oh ilya :(

“Oh god,” said a voice from the doorway. “Not again.” Ryan Price was filling the doorway with his massive body, looking mortified.

LMFAOO

He closed his eyes and focused on how good it felt to be with Shane, alone in the dark, and tried not to wish it could be the same in the light.

“We are very good at pretending to not be in love. Maybe we are bad at showing it when we are allowed.”

Sometimes Ilya was so starved for touch he felt like screaming. He felt it most when Shane was close, like he was now, but off-limits.

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 smiled at him in that crooked way that had been making Shane feel crazy for over ten years.

He landed on a competition reality show about strangers hooking up in some tropical location, which basically was a horror movie as far as Shane was concerned. He kept his thoughts to himself, though, and let his friend be comforted by toned young women in bikinis.

bro is watching love island

“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?”

He’d been an idiot then. He still was, really, when it came to Shane Hollander.

Quietly, in a voice that couldn’t disguise his pain, he said, “I already chose you, Hollander.”

“I can’t do this if I am going to feel worse. I have to focus on hockey, and I have to be a good boyfriend, and I can’t do either of those things if I’m this fucking sad.”

oh ilya

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 am thinking only about you right now. A million memories. Thank you for those. Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.

“The good news is, you can do way better than Rozanov.” Shane pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

“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?”

“I liked it better when you couldn’t talk.” “Then make me forget how to.”

“My whole body just shot out of my dick.” “Do we count that as a lower-body injury?”

Ilya passed his neighbors’ house—the one where Willa and Andrew lived—and stopped dead in his tracks. There was a large hand-drawn sign attached to the tree near the end of their driveway: We love you, Ilya! Underneath the sign was a little shelf that held two Funko Pop figures: one of Ilya, and one of Shane.

oh man

Shane grinned up at him, all flushed skin and freckles and bright eyes. Ilya wanted to, like, crawl inside him somehow.

“You have a chain now?” Ilya asked quietly. “Yeah,” Shane said. “And a ring.” Ilya smiled, and totally lost the face-off.

“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.”