Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2)(73)

Ilya glanced up at the television and saw the Stanley Cup being handed to a beaming Scott Hunter.

Jane: I’m happy for him.
Ilya: Of course you are.
He’d had every intention of ending things with Shane. He hadn’t been able to do that. Not yet. For now they could text each other and tease each other and pretend they were just friends or whatever.

Shane’s invitation for Ilya to come to his cottage still existed. Shane wasn’t pushing it, and Ilya wasn’t acknowledging it, but it was there. If it weren’t the worst idea in the world, Ilya would be on his way to Wherever-the-Fuck, Ontario, already.

Players on the television were kissing their wives and holding their children. It would be nice, Ilya thought, to have someone to kiss after winning the Cup.

Maybe that should be his goal for next year: forget about Shane, and find himself a woman he could like enough to keep around until the end of the playoffs.

Ilya reached for the remote, and was about to turn off the television when...

Holy shit.

Holy. Shit.

Scott fucking Hunter was kissing a man. Not, like, one of his teammates on the cheek in an “I love you, bro” kind of way. Scott Hunter was kissing a man wearing street clothes full on the fucking mouth. It looked like tongues were involved.

Ilya’s phone buzzed.

Jane: Holy shit.
Jane: Are you seeing this?
Jane: What the fuck?!!!? Is that his boyfriend???!!!!!
Ilya just stared at the television, at Scott Hunter and his probable boyfriend. Or Scott Hunter and the random cute man he had pulled out of the crowd. Ilya couldn’t process what he was seeing. How could it possibly be real?

But there Hunter was, smiling at this mystery man like he was the only thing that mattered in the world. And holding his face as he leaned in to kiss him again. Ilya felt like he was watching all the worst things about his life getting sucked up by a tornado.

Then the cameras cut away, and Ilya looked at his phone.

Jane: What is happening??!!! Did he really just do that???!!!
Ilya stabbed the call button.

There was only one ring before, “Holy shit, Ilya! Can you belie—”

“I’m coming to the cottage.”



Part Four




Chapter Twenty-Three


July 2017—Ottawa

Shane drummed his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel.

He wished he could have gone into the airport to greet Ilya properly, but one of them alone in the airport would turn enough heads; the two of them together would be pandemonium.

He pulled his ball cap down lower and watched the rearview mirror.

He was still in shock that Ilya had accepted his invitation, though he supposed he had Scott Hunter to thank for that. Hunter had come out, very publicly, the night he had won the Stanley Cup. He had also spoken about it openly in interviews that night, and even more openly in his speech at the NHL Awards last week. Shane had watched that speech...a few times. He wished he could have been at the awards to see it in person, but it seemed like an unnecessary burden on his freshly healed body to fly to Las Vegas.

But still, he would have liked to have shaken Hunter’s hand.

Instead, he had sent him an email. He had written several drafts of the email before sending one that simply acknowledged Hunter’s bravery. He had chosen his words carefully, because he didn’t have Hunter’s courage. Not yet, anyway.

But maybe Hunter would figure out what Shane was actually trying to say anyway.

Having an NHL player come out as gay for the first time was exciting, but a player on every team in the league could come out and it still wouldn’t help Shane’s situation. Being gay—or whatever—was not really the thing that would create a scandal. Fucking your biggest rival over the course of your entire NHL career was something that no one would understand. Not one person. Shane felt that even Scott Hunter, the NHL’s new poster boy for acceptance and tolerance, would be alarmed if he knew what he’d been up to with Ilya.

They would be a joke. If the world found out about them, that was all they would be: the depraved hockey players who secretly fucked each other. And Shane didn’t want to be that. At all. He wanted to be the best hockey player in the world, and he wanted to be in a relationship with the man he could finally admit he was in love with, without shame or fear.

But he couldn’t. All he could have were these two weeks alone with Ilya, hiding where no one would find them.

He heard the wheels of the rolling duffel bag before he saw Ilya in the mirror, crossing the parking garage.

Shane considered getting out of the car, but decided to stay where he was. Once they were at the cottage they would be safe, but there was no point in blowing it now. He just needed to make it out of Ottawa without anyone noticing that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were hanging out together in July.

As Ilya got closer, Shane saw that he too had his ball cap pulled low, and was wearing large aviator sunglasses. Shane wondered if anyone had recognized him inside the airport.

He popped the back of the SUV so Ilya could load his bag in. They didn’t say a word to each other until Ilya slid into the passenger seat. “What the fuck are you driving, Hollander?”

“A Jeep Cherokee.”

Ilya snorted.

“What? It’s practical!”

“You’re a millionaire.”

“What’s wrong with a Cherokee?” Shane asked, starting the engine. “It’s good in the snow. It holds lots of stuff. It’s a good car.”