Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2)(64)

“It’s nice. Pretty basic. I mean, it’s enormous. Big windows. But not much in it.”

“What color is your bed? The blanket?”

“Blue. Like, navy blue.”

“I knew it.”

Shane smiled and sat on the bed.

“Do you have books? In your room?”

“A few.”

“What are you reading? What one is beside your bed?”

“A book about the 1972 Canada/Russia series, actually.”

Ilya laughed. “Do you read books that are not about hockey?”

“Sometimes,” Shane said. “I mean, no. Not very often.”

“You are obsessed.”

“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“Maybe. In a different way.”

Shane picked up the book and flicked the end of the bookmark with his finger. It had been nestled between pages forty-one and forty-two for over a month. “Hockey has always been everything to me. For as long as I can remember.”

“It has been for me as well. But...more as like...an escape. Is that right to say? My brain is not good right now.”

“Yes,” Shane said quietly. “An escape. That’s right. It was never an escape for me. It was just what I loved to do.”

“I love it also,” Ilya said. “Hockey is...fun. And I am very good at it.”

Shane laughed. And Ilya laughed.

“Is wild how much money they pay me to play this game,” Ilya said.

“Tell me about it,” Shane agreed.

“I don’t want to come back here.”

Shane was confused by the sudden topic change. “To Russia, you mean?”

“Da. I want to become American. Or Canadian. But I am in America, so...”

In that moment, Shane wished like hell that Ilya played for a Canadian team.

“You should,” Shane said. “Have you looked into—?”

“We should get married,” Ilya said.

“What?” Shane flushed right down to his toes.

“Not to each other,” Ilya said. Then he started laughing and couldn’t stop.

“I knew you didn’t mean to each other,” Shane lied.

When Ilya finally stopped laughing, he said, “I can marry an American girl. You should get married, Hollander. You want children, yes?”

“I’ve already told you... I don’t want to marry...anyone.”

“There is a nice Russian girl in Boston. American, I mean. But from Russia. Svetlana. I like her. I could marry her, I think.”

“Oh.”

“She is...what is word?...sensible. Marriage would be like business deal, yes? Just until I am citizen.”

“You don’t love her, then?”

“No,” Ilya said quietly. He sounded like he was falling asleep. “Not her. No.”

Shane knew he should end the call, let Ilya get some sleep. But instead he blurted out, “You should come to the cottage this summer.”

“Cottage? What are you talking about, Hollander?”

“My cottage. In Ontario. You’re not going back to Russia, so...come to my cottage with me. It’s quiet, and beautiful and...private.”

For a moment, Ilya didn’t say anything, and Shane thought he really had fallen asleep.

“I will think about it,” Ilya said finally.

“Okay.”

“I am tired.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Get some sleep, all right?”

“Yes. Goodnight, Hollander.”

They ended the call and Shane sat on his bed for a while after, not moving. It occurred to him that they’d just had an entire conversation that hadn’t been about sex at all, and was barely about hockey.

It also occurred to him that his heart was beating like he was in the middle of a run, and his mouth was dry. He had actually just invited Ilya to his cottage! The fact that he had even done that was absurd, but what if Ilya actually accepted?

What if he had Ilya all to himself at Shane’s favorite place in the world? If there was no one to interrupt them, no one to hide from, no one to remind them of all the reasons they shouldn’t want each other...

It would be too much. Shane would never be able to hold back everything he had been trying to pretend he didn’t feel. He would blurt something out that he would never, ever be able to take back.

He’s never going to be your boyfriend, Shane.

Oh god. That was what Shane wanted, wasn’t it? He didn’t just want to be Ilya’s dirty secret. He didn’t want their relationship to be nothing but sex. He wanted to comfort Ilya when he was sad, and talk to him on the phone, and snuggle together on the couch and watch movies. He would take the short phone call they had just shared over any of their sexual encounters.

Well, almost any of their sexual encounters.

Shane groaned and fell back on his bed, covering his face with his hands. He was super fucked.



Chapter Twenty


The next day—Moscow

Ilya would fly back to Boston tomorrow.

Andrei was the executor of their father’s estate, what little of it there was, and Ilya had fulfilled his duties as a son. He was done.

He’d realized, over the past few days, that he truly had no reason to return to Russia. He probably would, someday, but he couldn’t see spending another summer here. Any obligation he had felt had died with his father.