The Long Game (Game Changers, #6)

by Rachel Reid

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.

My heart can’t take this </3

“My beloved,” Ilya murmured, in Russian. “So beautiful.”

Sweetest boy in the world

“That’s my move!” Ilya said. The blanket he’d been wrapped in fell to the floor as he stood, one hand waving at the television, the other cradling his ice cream bowl protectively to his chest. “He did my move!”

He’s so baby

Ilya: Good boy.

I have nothing appropriate to say

“My impatient slut,” Ilya growled as he fucked him. “Could not even wait for me.”

oh wow

“I wish you’d tell me one thing you said.” “Why?” Ilya snapped, his voice loud and sharp enough to startle Shane. “Was boring. I could not say any of the things I wanted to say. I said you were a great hockey player. A nice guy. Very competitive. All of the shit that any of your teammates could have said.” Ilya sighed loudly, then continued in a quieter tone. “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 just wants to brag about his man😭

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

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.

Throwing up

He didn’t keep his photos very organized, but he had one album he’d named “Boring.” He opened it now, and scrolled through the six photos it contained. They were all more or less the same, taken years ago during the NHL Awards. Ilya and Shane had been presenting an award together, and the scripted banter had involved Ilya asking Shane for a selfie. Ilya had used his real phone, and he’d taken real photos. Six of them.

I KNEW IT

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

Hopeless romantics unite!

“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.

The closet is made of glass

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.”

😫

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

Ow ow ow ow ow ow

Shane realized that most of Ilya’s posts were, in weird cryptic ways, about Shane. His entire account was like a secret diary of their relationship, full of inside jokes and little references that only Shane would understand. And Shane hadn’t even bothered to look at it before. Not really. He looked now. He scrolled until his eyes were so blurry he had to give up and sob into his hands

Nobody talk to me. I’m in pain.

How could Shane have doubted for a second how fiercely Ilya loved him?

Yea Shane. How could you. Now look at all of us, crying.

“I would give up more,” Ilya said simply. “Anything for you.”

Oh he’s just like me fr

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.

Safe. In. Your. Heart. God fucking dammit. I’m balling.

Ilya only had vague ideas of the afterlife and any gods who may be waiting there, but he believed his soul would stay with Shane, however it could.

If they don’t love me like this, I don’t want it.

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.

Welp, there goes the last remaining pieces of my soul. Torn to bits.

He could tell right away that Shane had been crying. “Oh,” Ilya said softly. “Sweetheart. I am so sorry.”

Sweetheart 😭

“You have me, sweetheart.”

“So sweet for me,” Ilya murmured, in English.

Ilya already had three dogs trying to climb into his lap. “Yes,” he said. “All of my friends are down here.”

Me

Curious, and ready to fight. 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 fumbled for the phone he was glad he’d decided to shove in his coat pocket before leaving. He turned it on, took a photo, and sent it to Shane. Shane: Oh wow. Is that your neighbors’ house? Ilya: Yes. We are not so alone, I think.

They aren’t alone🥲🩷

“Ilya is my boyfriend. I love him, and I have for years. Don’t make it sound like...less.”

YEA JJ SYBAU

“He makes me happy. I know it doesn’t make sense, but he’s it for me. We’re getting married.”

My babies <3