The Long Game (Game Changers, #6)

by Rachel Reid

Ilya winked at him before speeding past him like a cartoon character.

Shane loved Ilya so much it physically hurt to contain it some days. He didn’t want to be a gay icon, or deal with any of the attention they would get from the hockey world—both good and bad—if they ever disclosed their relationship, but he wished he could love Ilya openly without dealing with any of that.

Ilya gazed at his mother while he waited, knowing that this wouldn’t last. He would wake up, she would disappear. But still he wanted her to meet Shane.

“I will get McDonald’s breakfast on the way.”

There was no good reason for Ilya to skate down the ice with one of the pucks and fire it at the glass behind Shane’s head, but he did it anyway.

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.

He’d never expected to have this domestic comfort in his life. Not with anyone. He’d never expected to be part of a family, and have parents again.

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.

“I am Ilya. This is my... Shane.”

I like your glasses.” “Oh. Thanks.” “He thinks they are a disguise,” Ilya quipped. “Like Superman.”

He’d always imagined that the hockey world’s reaction if he and Ilya were ever found out would be the biggest nightmare to deal with, but maybe the bigger challenge was hiding. Maybe keeping how he felt about Ilya a secret was more draining than facing the backlash.

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

Ilya glanced at the end of the table, where Shane was sitting. As Ilya had suspected, Shane looked confused and uncomfortable. Hockey had never made Shane sad for a minute of his life. Ilya couldn’t pretend to know how it felt to be let down by the game he loved—not in the way Max or Ryan had been—but he was more aware of hockey’s flaws than Shane was. He’d been paying more attention, over the past few years, to the darker side of his sport.

Shane rested his head on Ilya’s shoulder, breathing him in and trying not to wonder how things would be different if Shane hadn’t been unable to control his dick that day in the showers. Would Ilya be holding him now, more than a decade later, with a tattoo of a loon on his arm? “I’m glad you’re such a show-off,” Shane said. Ilya patted his back. “I am glad you get hard so easily.” “Shut up,” Shane said, but smiled into Ilya’s neck, relieved that they were both thinking the same thing.

Ideally Ilya would be behind Shane with his arms wrapped around him, holding him close against his chest. Ilya would rest his chin on Shane’s head, and kiss his hair whenever he felt the urge.

He glanced at his own boyfriend, who was watching Fabian intently with his arms folded. He may not be onstage, looking like a glittering diamond, but he was achingly beautiful. The sharp line of his jaw and straight slope of his nose in profile were more fascinating to Ilya than anything else in the room.

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.

“What?” he asked. 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.”

Except the summers, when they were together almost every day, and Ilya’s soul lightened as he soaked up Shane’s proximity the same way his golden-brown hair lightened in the sun. Ilya loved hockey, but he lived for the summers now.

Ilya grinned. “You are on speaker phone by the way.”

“I have a better team now,” Ilya said. “Well, better for me. The team is bad.”

Ilya shook his head. “What is the point of life if you are not eating chicken parmesan and ice cream?”

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

It could be because I’m depressed. No. He was fine. Normal. It’s not like he ever stayed in bed all day crying. Neither did Mom.

Shane: Did you eat breakfast? Ilya huffed. Shane worried about the weirdest things. Ilya: Might go to McDonald’s for a McGriddle. He’d mostly written it to annoy Shane, but now he really did want a McGriddle. Shane: You shouldn’t be eating that shit. Ilya: Should I be eating hay for breakfast like you?

“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?”

“Is he your husband?” Ruby asked.

Just wait. The words rang in Shane’s ears as he made his way to the kitchen. He believed in their relationship, and was confident that they would have everything they wanted when the time was right. But sometimes he wished the right time was now.

“The kids didn’t care.” “About what?” “About us. They knew, and they did not care.” “Yeah. That was a surprise.”

He was maybe a little bit drunk. And a little bit high. A distant, annoying voice in the back of his brain—a voice that sounded a lot like Shane Hollander’s—suggested that he might not be setting the best example for the younger players at the moment, as team captain.

The next morning, when the sun had just begun to rise, Ilya watched Shane drive away. He stood on his front step for several minutes after, staring in the direction the car had gone, and shivering in his gym shorts and T-shirt. Then, he went inside, closed the door, and burst into tears.

He didn’t think he could tell Shane about therapy. Not yet. But he was worried Shane would notice how raw Ilya was. He didn’t want to tell Shane the truth: that he’d felt off for a while now, and that it was getting worse. That the things that used to help weren’t helping anymore. That he was worried this was how it had started for his mother. That some days he missed Shane so much it felt like claws were digging into his heart.

“How could they not know?” Shane said. “How could anyone have seen this—seen you—and not known about us?” Ilya had displayed his heart so openly, smashed against the ice as unmistakably as Shane’s broken body.

“Whatever,” Shane sighed, and went back to making his smoothie. He didn’t want to see what Ilya added next. Probably sprinkles. Or onion rings.

“Worst-case scenario,” he said slowly. “Actual, realistic worst-case scenario: our NHL careers are over, but we can get married, and live a quiet life together in Canada.”

“Angry that we would have our careers cut short like that. But also... I don’t know. Relief, maybe. Sometimes I feel like I might scream, it’s so hard keeping this secret. 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.”

“Everything is someday. I am tired of waiting for someday.”

It wasn’t a video call, so he closed his eyes and let his boyfriend lull him to sleep with words that Shane mostly didn’t understand, but made his heart flutter all the same.

Shane’s voice nagged him in his head as he took his first drag. He smiled as he exhaled, welcoming the company. Maybe he only ever smoked so he could hear that voice in his head.

The dismissal, though expected, irritated Ilya. No, irritated was too small a word—it infuriated him. For a moment, Ilya didn’t react. He stared at Shane, stony-faced, while anger scorched through him like lava. Then, before he said anything he may regret, he stood up and walked out of the living room.

“What’s wrong?” Shane sounded so genuinely clueless about why Ilya might want him to meet his friends that it only angered Ilya further. “What isn’t wrong?” “What does that mean?” Ilya spun around to face him. “It means I have a boyfriend who doesn’t want anyone to know I am his boyfriend.”

“You wouldn’t even choose me, would you?” Ilya said. “If it is between me and hockey.”

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

It would be ridiculous to say this was their first fight—their entire relationship seemed like one unending fight sometimes—but this was the first one that had left Shane feeling terrified. Obviously he had fucked something up. He hadn’t been paying attention to Ilya, or to what Ilya had given up for him, and he now realized that Ilya had given up a whole fucking lot for Shane. For them.

“Yes, well. We didn’t discuss. I asked him, he said no, and I got angry.”

He didn’t expect their impending conversation to be easy, but whatever was said, he needed Shane to know he loved him. That he was still willing to do whatever it took to be together.

We’re going to crash. I’m going to die. I’ll never see Shane again. We were going to have dogs and kids.

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.

It was entirely possible that Ilya had lost his heart in that moment. It took his brain a long time to catch up, but his heart had known right away.

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.