Heated Rivalry

by Rachel Reid

  Because he would have to walk away. This thing was already getting too complicated.

  March 2017—Boston

  It was full speed ahead now.

  Boston and Montreal were neck and neck for the top spot in their division, and the playoffs were only a month away.

  Shane wanted a third championship ring as much as Ilya wanted a second one. Winning the Stanley Cup the past two seasons hadn’t lessened his drive at all. There was always a bigger goal to reach for.

  The record for most Stanley Cup wins by a single player was eleven. Shane knew that number might be a little lofty, since that record came from a time when there were far fewer teams in the league. But winning six would put him with some of the repeat champions of the ’90s, so that was his secret goal.

  No. His actual secret goal was seven.

  Shane was focused. He had been playing very well all season and was leading the league in scoring by a narrow margin over Rozanov. He knew that must be bothering the shit out of Ilya.

  Shane had been trying not to think about Rozanov too much. Usually that was their unspoken agreement this late into a season. They would fool around whenever they were in the same city up until March or so, then they both focused on hating each other until next season.

  Which was why Shane had been surprised to get a text from Ilya that morning.

  Lily: What time do you fly out tomorrow?

  Shane stared at his phone, dumbfounded. He certainly hadn’t expected to be seeing Ilya before or after the game tonight.

  Shane: Early. Why?

  No reply. Shane felt kind of bad about the “why.” That was needlessly bitchy. He knew why.

  A few minutes later, Ilya wrote back. What are you doing now?

  Now? Now was one o’clock in the afternoon on a game day. Against Boston.

  Shane: Nothing. I’m in my hotel room.

  He stopped himself from writing “why” again.

  Lily: Come over?

  Shane’s heart stopped. Come over? Come over? Now?

  Shane: I can’t! Don’t be stupid.

  Lily: Come over. Not for long. An hour?

  Shane actually let out a surprised laugh.

  Shane: No. Come on. We both know that’s a bad idea.

  Lily: Everything we do is a bad idea. Come over.

  When Shane didn’t reply, Ilya added, It will be worth it. I promise. ;)

  Shane shook his head. There was no way he was going to go over there. He could list a million reasons why he couldn’t go over there, and he ran them through his head as he grabbed his jacket and left the hotel room.

  * * *

  “I thought you were not coming,” Ilya said with an annoying little smirk.

  “Yeah, well...”

  Ilya’s smirk grew into a genuine, warm smile. Shane’s heart lurched. And then they were kissing and pulling at clothing and stumbling toward the bedroom, not breaking contact.

  They had to be quick. Shane not only needed to leave soon, he shouldn’t even have been there in the first place. Ilya pushed him down on the bed and went to work on him with his mouth.

  Shane watched him as he licked and sucked his cock, and allowed himself a moment to wonder at Ilya’s desperate need for this before a game. Why was he so hungry for Shane that he had broken their sacred rule?

  God, he was good with his mouth.

  Something is wrong with Ilya. The thought hit Shane suddenly.

  He should ask him about it.

  After.

  For now, Shane reached a hand down and caressed Ilya’s face. He let his fingers drift into his soft hair. He played with it, gently, and Ilya looked up at him. His eyes were dark, but there was more than lust there. Shane nodded at him, and Ilya turned his gaze down and focused on getting Shane off.

  Shane came quickly, and Ilya swallowed it all with an encouraging hum. When he was done, he kissed his way up Shane’s body until he reached his mouth. Shane kissed him hungrily, and then he flipped them both over and slid down to return the favor.

  In the wake of his own release, Shane could feel himself starting to panic. This was weird and bad and weird. They should a thousand percent not be doing this.

  Which was, like, one percent more than the usual amount that they should not be fucking doing this!

  Except Ilya was breathing Shane’s name—his first name—like a prayer and gazing at him like he was just as close as Shane was to saying something truly embarrassing and stupid and definite.

  Shane dug his fingers into the hard muscle of Ilya’s thighs as he took his cock deeper into his mouth. If he kept his mouth busy, he wouldn’t be able to use it to ruin everything.

  Ilya warned him, because he knew Shane didn’t always like to take it in his mouth. But this time Shane did want it, and he sucked harder until Ilya cried out in a mixture of Russian and English and came down Shane’s throat.

  Shane flopped beside Ilya on the bed. Ilya started laughing.

  “What?” Shane asked.

  “Fuck.”

  Shane didn’t reply, but he felt the same way.

  “I have to go,” he said, after a quiet minute.

  “Yes.”

  Shane sat up, and moved to leave the bed, when he remembered. “Hey, um. Are you...all right?”

  “Hm?”

  “Are you okay? I mean... I know we don’t really...talk. But if you need to—”

  “I’m fine,” Ilya said. He said it calmly and easily. Shane didn’t buy it.

  “Is it...is your dad...”

  Ilya sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over his face. “My father is dying. But that is not the problem.”

  “Oh.”

  “It is Polina. My stepmother. She is...” He twisted his hand around in the air, searching for the word.

  “Sad?” Shane guessed.

  Ilya laughed darkly. “No. She is...planning. For her future. My father does not have any money left.”

  “Oh.”

  “She has been calling me.”

  “Ah.” Shane understood now.

  “She wants money. They all want money. My brother. My father before he...”

  Shane reached over and took Ilya’s hand. “Will you give them any?”

  “I already have. Plenty of it. They want more.” He laughed again. “They don’t give a shit about me or my career. They just know I make a lot of money.”

  “I’m sorry.” Shane brushed a thumb over Ilya’s knuckles.

  “The last time I talked to my father on the phone was a couple of weeks ago. He asked if I could pick up some bread on the way home.”

  Shane didn’t know what to say. It was truly heartbreaking.

  “The worst part is...” Ilya said quietly, “I like talking to him better. Like this. He was a real fucking asshole when he was...himself.”

  “Are you going back to Russia this summer?”

  Ilya shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Do you...have to?”

  “You should leave,” Ilya said abruptly. He didn’t sound annoyed or angry. Just tired, and maybe a little sad. He pulled his fingers away from Shane’s.

  “I know. But...”

  “Go. I didn’t ask you to come over to talk.”

  “Well...you can. If you ever want to. I mean, you can just call me. Or text. Or if we’re in the same city and you want to just talk instead of...”

  Ilya cracked a crooked grin at that. “Instead of?”

  “As well as?”

  “I like that better.”

  He leaned forward and kissed Shane. It was as soft and sweet a kiss as Shane had ever received from anyone.

  “I apologize in advance for tonight,” Shane murmured. “We’re gonna destroy you guys.”

  “Dream on, Hollander.”

  * * *

  Ilya m
ade sure that Boston won the game. Not a trouncing, but a respectable two-goal lead when the final siren rang to end the game. Ilya scored twice, Shane had scored once. Ilya’s favorite kind of game.

  He had every intention of meeting up with Hollander tonight, even though they’d already stolen an hour together that afternoon. He still knew, in the back of his mind, that this thing with Shane needed to end. That it couldn’t be more than sex. But somehow it had just evolved on its own, and suddenly he no longer worried about looking too eager. He could admit to himself that he wanted to see Shane as much as possible, and he found that he wasn’t worried about letting Shane know it anymore. For now, at least. The day would come when they would have to end it, but for now Ilya was happy to steal as many moments as possible.

  He said goodnight to his remaining teammates, and left the arena. He was looking at his phone as he walked out of the players’ entrance, trying to decide what obnoxious jab he should text to Hollander, when the phone started ringing.

  It was his brother.

  Ilya almost didn’t answer, but he could think of one reason why his brother might be calling that had nothing to do with money.

  He answered.

  * * *

  Shane had been expecting a text from Ilya. He was sitting alone in his hotel room—Hayden had left to call his wife—trying not to let the mistakes of that night’s game haunt him.

  He’s not going to text, he told himself. You already saw him today. Why would you see him again?

  But he thought maybe Ilya felt the same way about their...well, not relationship, but...arrangement? That maybe Ilya liked spending time with Shane. That they weren’t just doing this because it was, in its own complicated way, convenient. Or dirty, or wrong, or irresistibly hot. That maybe Ilya’s stomach fluttered with excitement too, every time their teams were scheduled to meet. That maybe Ilya was also sometimes randomly struck by a memory of a teasing remark, or a smile, or of gentle fingers stroking his hair, and would have to hide his giddy little smile.

  That maybe he watched Shane’s games and was secretly proud when Shane did well. Because that’s how Shane felt when Ilya had a good night. Which was ridiculous.

  Shane waited until midnight and Ilya still didn’t text him. He thought about being the one to make contact, but decided against it. Wanting to hook up with Ilya twice in one day was nuts. And it was way too late at night now anyway. They were flying to Detroit in the morning.

  Shane lay awake for a while, staring into the darkness, wondering if it was that Ilya hadn’t wanted to see him again, or if maybe something had happened that had kept Ilya from texting.

  He decided that he was making a big deal out of nothing, and eventually fell asleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day—Detroit

  “Did you hear about Rozanov?”

  Shane stopped tying his skate and looked at the bench across from him, where Gilbert Comeau and J.J. were chatting in French.

  “What about Rozanov?” Shane asked, also in French.

  They both looked at him, surprised, no doubt, by the slight panic in his voice. Comeau shrugged. “He didn’t fly to Nashville with the rest of his team today.”

  “He flew separately?” Shane asked stupidly.

  “No,” Comeau said, looking at Shane like he was a little bit dumb. “He isn’t in Nashville.”

  “He didn’t get hurt last night,” J.J. said. “Not that anyone noticed, right?”

  “I don’t think so,” Shane said, quickly replaying the last few minutes of the game. Ilya had seemed fine. He hadn’t left the ice in pain at any point during the game.

  “Maybe he’s sick,” Comeau said. “I’m sure we’ll find out. Right now ESPN is just saying that he didn’t go to Nashville.”

  “Right,” Shane said quietly.

  He ran through a number of alarming scenarios in his head before he finally stood up and grabbed his phone off the shelf above his head.

  Are you ok? he texted.

  He didn’t get a reply. There was still no reply by the time the team left the dressing room to go warm up. When he returned to the dressing room afterward, he quickly checked his phone. Still nothing.

  Forget about it, he ordered himself. It’s game time.

  He’d probably learn what had happened after the game. He was sure it would be mentioned during the broadcast of the Boston vs. Nashville game.

  Shane did not play the best game of his life. Probably one of the worst games of the season for him, but his team managed to win anyway. Shane couldn’t remember ever being so eager for a game to be over. When they got back to the dressing room, he shucked his gloves off and immediately checked his phone.

  Nothing.

  Shane sat down hard on the bench, staring at his phone. He opened his web browser and searched “Ilya Rozanov Nashville” to see if any more information had been released. He found fans speculating on social media, and he saw an official ESPN story that just said “undisclosed reasons” and that there was no word whether Rozanov would be joining his team in Tampa Bay for their game in two days’ time.

  This whole thing was very strange. Shane couldn’t sneeze in public without the hockey sites reporting that he was deathly ill and how that should affect your sports betting. Ilya Rozanov, one of the biggest stars in the league, just disappeared with no explanation and no reporters seemed to be digging very hard. Or offering possible reasons.

  Which meant...they must know the reason. And they were respecting Boston’s likely request for discretion.

  Which meant...absolutely nothing good that Shane could think of.

  Shane got showered and changed faster than he ever had in his life. He found a private corner of the hallway outside the dressing room and did something he’d never done before: he called Ilya Rozanov.

  He wasn’t expecting him to answer, but he wanted the missed call to at least be recorded on Ilya’s phone. He wanted Ilya to know he was concerned.

  But Ilya did answer.

  “Hollander?”

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Are you okay?” Shane asked finally.

  He heard Ilya huff out a humorless laugh. “I don’t know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “In Boston? Are you sick?”

  “No. Home. In Moscow.”

  Shane wasn’t expecting that.

  “Moscow? Did something happen? Oh, shit. Your father?”

  “Yes. Dead.”

  “Ilya, I—”

  “What are people saying about me?”

  “Nothing! The media has been very secretive about it. The Bears must have—”

  “Good. I will be back by end of week,” he said stiffly.

  “You should take more time.”

  Ilya snorted. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Stop. I’m being serious.”

  More silence.

  “I’m so sorry, Ilya.” He didn’t know what else to say.

  Ilya didn’t reply, but Shane could hear a sharp sniff, and then a tight, throaty noise.

  “Ilya—”

  “I will be back in a few days. I should go.”

  “All right.”

  “Goodbye, Hollander.”

  “Wait,” Shane said, way too loudly.

  Ilya waited.

  “Just...call me, all right? If you need to talk. Or text me. Whatever. But... I’ll listen. I want to help, if I can.”

  Ilya was silent for a moment. “You did. Thank you.”

  He ended the call.

  Shane leaned back against the wall and blew out a breath.

  Two days later—Buffalo

  Shane hadn’t really been expecting to hear from Ilya again. He was surprised when, after his game in Buffalo, he
received a text.

  Lily: Are you alone?

  Shane stood up, mumbled a hasty reason for leaving to Hayden, and went out to the stairwell.

  Shane: Yes.

  Lily: Can I call you?

  Shane: Yes.

  His phone rang and Shane answered it immediately. The stairwell was silent and empty. He leaned against the wall of the landing below his floor.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, not even bothering with hello.

  “I feel like... I don’t know. Bad.”

  “How’s your family treating you?”

  Ilya gave a dark laugh. “Like I should not be here.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He was your father.”

  “Yes, well.” There was a pause and Shane waited. “I am paying for everything, so that makes me...of use.”

  “How’s your—I mean, how’s his wife?”

  “Upset. But not about my father. Everybody thinks so, but no. She is scared for herself.”

  “Because there’s no money?”

  “Yes. That.”

  “What about you? Are you...upset?”

  Ilya sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe about the wrong thing.”

  “You wish things could have been different?” Shane guessed.

  “I wish... I wanted him to... I don’t know.” He sighed again. “English is too hard today.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I spoke Russian.”

  “You could probably learn it in a week,” Ilya grumbled. “Perfect. No accent.”

  Shane laughed. “I don’t think so.” He was about to ask if Ilya had anyone there in Moscow that he could talk to, but it was pretty obvious that he didn’t. Why else would he be calling Shane?

  “Where are you right now?” he asked instead.

  “Walking. A park. I needed to get out.”

  “Cold?”

  “Fucking freezing.”

  Shane was suddenly struck by a ridiculous idea. Or maybe it was a brilliant idea. He decided to share it before his brain had a chance to figure out which.