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“Thank you,” Ilya said, gazing at the ceiling of the plane. “I won’t waste it.”
They had lots of reasons to keep their relationship a secret, but those reasons seemed extremely unimportant now. What if Ilya had died? What if he had fucking died? Shane would have died too. Alone, and secretly, and for the rest of his life.
He could tell right away that Shane had been crying. “Oh,” Ilya said softly. “Sweetheart. I am so sorry.”
“You’re not allowed to die, Ilya. Not before I do.” “Do you have to win everything?” “I have to not lose you.” His voice cracked on the last word.
Except he did know. He knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to reach the other side. He wanted that life together. Not in ten years, but now. Because ten years suddenly seemed like an impossible wait.
“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?”
He was staring at Ilya’s chest, and Ilya glanced down to see the ring there, glinting in the light of a million candles.
After several quiet minutes, Ilya said, “You have tomorrow off, yes?” “Mm.” “I am skipping practice.” “Is it optional?” Shane murmured sleepily. “I don’t care.”
“Which poster was it? Did I look handsome?” “You always look—” Luca’s cheeks flushed bright red. “It was just a hockey picture. With all your gear.” Ilya mentally filed that slip-up under Interesting.
Ilya grinned. “Hollander told me you want to coach our camps.” “One of them, maybe. Yeah.” “What are your qualifications? We have a boring guy already: Hollander.”
“You are a better hockey player than me.”
Ilya’s heart twisted, partly with happiness, partly with jealousy. He was thrilled for Harris and Troy, but at the same time he knew he’d never get a locker room full of hockey players cheering for his and Shane’s relationship.
“It’s okay,” he said to Chiron in Russian. “My day is coming.”
Ilya smiled to himself, feeling like he’d gained back a piece of himself, as he waited for his own car.
“Maybe we could combine our names. Hollanov. Rozander.”
When Shane went back to the living room, he found Ilya staring at his phone with one hand over his mouth. “Are you watching the video?” Shane asked. Ilya nodded. “Is it bad?” “Terrible. Hayden needs to write down what he is going to say in these videos. He is all over the place.”
The ice shelf that Ilya had built up in his chest began to crumble and slide away. “I love him,” he said quietly.
For a long moment, he stood, frozen, just inside the door while everyone in the room—the men he loved like brothers—stared at him with obvious disgust. He felt sick. Or like his heart might explode.
“But that weirdness goes away, and then you’re going to have to live with how shitty you were to Shane when he needed his fucking boys the most. So think about that.”
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.
Ilya would fucking hate it, but he’d agree to it, if it was what Shane chose.
Because there was choosing Ilya over hockey, and then there was looking Crowell dead in the eye and basically telling him to go fuck himself. He never would have asked that of Shane, but Shane had done it anyway. Hadn’t even hesitated.
He reached for Shane’s hand and they walked, fingers tangled together, down a busy street in downtown Montreal with their heads held high.
“Uh-oh,” Ilya said. “Are we getting a lecture from Dad?”
“I thought when I came out that would make a difference for other queer hockey players.” “I think it did,” Shane said. He glanced at Ilya. “It did for us, anyway.”
Scott blew out a breath. “Jesus. This is really weird. Sorry.” “Why?” Ilya asked. “Because we are both men?”
Even with so much to be happy about, he was almost hoping for the plane to crash for real this time.
“What I’m trying to say, and Yuna’s always been the better speaker, is I’ve always felt so lucky to have a son as wonderful as Shane that I never expected to be blessed with a second one.”
“This was not the real wedding,” Ilya assured Ruby as they both enjoyed some cake. “The real one was the one you did. This was just for show.” Ruby smiled at him, then nudged her sister Jade. “I told you.”
He heard Shane’s name being called, then the roar of a packed house cheering for the hometown superstar they could finally claim as their own.
