The Long Game (Game Changers #6)(102)

Ilya’s front door opened as Shane approached. Ilya stood there wearing sweatpants, a loose T-shirt, and an enormous smile.

“What’s the big surprise?” Shane asked.

Then he heard a curious bark behind Ilya. A second later, a smallish fluffy dog trotted out between Ilya’s legs.

“Who’s is this?” Shane asked, eying the dog warily. He wasn’t great with animals. “You dog-sitting for someone?”

“No,” Ilya said, then bent to scoop the dog up in his arms. He cuddled her close to his chest, and the dog licked his cheek lovingly. “This is Anya. She is my dog.”

“You—what? How?”

“Someone abandoned her. In the cold. Monsters,” Ilya growled. Then he kissed the top of Anya’s head. “She needed a home. I needed a dog.”

There was a list of reasons as long as the Rideau Canal why this was not the best time in Ilya’s life to become a dog owner. Shane was about to start listing them, but Ilya’s mouth was stretched wide in one of his rare unguarded smiles, and it made all the reasons float away.

Shane reached out a tentative hand and stroked one of Anya’s ears. “Man. She’s so soft.”

“She just had a bath,” Ilya said. “I took her to the dog spa. Full treatment.”

Shane smiled. “She’s going to be so spoiled.”

“Oh yes. Terrible. Come see all her toys I bought.”

It was not a small amount of toys. As soon as Shane reached Ilya’s living room he spotted at least a dozen brightly colored things on the floor, and on the couch, and there was what looked like a chunk of rope on the coffee table. There was also a luxurious dog bed near the fireplace.

“So, um,” Shane said. “When did you get Anya?”

“Yesterday.”

Shane laughed. “Glad you didn’t go overboard shopping for her or anything.”

“The dog spa sells toys.”

Ilya set Anya on the floor, and she immediately ran over to a stuffed seal and began chomping on it happily. Shane didn’t know much about pets, but he would have expected a dog that had been abandoned to be more timid and rough-looking. Shane hugged Ilya from behind. “I love you, but I have to ask this: Are you sure you didn’t steal someone else’s dog?”

“No! Listen.” Ilya told Shane about how Anya had been found out in the country, and how Harris’s family had looked after her. They’d continued to look after her after Ilya decided, more or less immediately, to adopt her, until he had enough downtime to properly get her used to his house.

They spent the rest of the morning playing with Anya on the living room floor. She was tireless, joyfully chasing after anything they tossed and proudly returning it to them. When they took breaks, she would wiggle her way into one of their laps for pets, completely shameless and adorable. Shane realized he was more into dogs than he’d thought. They took her for a walk, which meant strolling around Ilya’s neighborhood together, but that was okay. Shane smiled at the little red boots Ilya put on Anya’s feet.

“Is to protect from the salt,” Ilya explained. “And keeps her little paws warm. At the spa they said she does not need a sweater because her hair is long. Too bad because there was a sweater that looked like a strawberry and was so cute.”

“They didn’t have one in your size?” Shane teased.

They walked beside each other on salt-crusted sidewalks. Shane itched to hold Ilya’s hand, so he kept his own hands stuffed firmly in his coat pockets. Soon, he reminded himself. Soon they’d be...well, a family, he supposed. Now that Anya was in the picture.

“So,” Shane asked carefully, “when you’re on the road...”

“There is a place that can take her,” Ilya said. “Like a hotel for dogs.”

“A kennel?”

“A hotel for dogs. I have already talked to them, booked time. I went a few days ago to tour it. Very nice. She will be okay there.”

That seemed like an easy enough solution. Although Shane suspected Ilya would worry about Anya whenever they were apart. “Does the hotel have a live camera so you can watch her?”

“Of course it does,” Ilya said.

“You know you can’t use the coaches’ iPads to check on her during games, right?”

Ilya was silent a few seconds too long, then said, “I know.”

They didn’t have sex that night because when Shane had tried to get things started, Anya had started whimpering outside Ilya’s bedroom door.

Shane paused in the middle of the trail he was kissing up Ilya’s inner thigh. “Go get her,” he said, smiling and sighing at the same time.

Ilya bolted out of bed and opened the door. “Anya, sweet girl. What is wrong? Are you lonely?” He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

Shane was sure this was setting a bad precedent, but Ilya was lying on his back with Anya’s head resting on his bicep and it was really hard to care about rules.

Shane lay on his side, perpendicular to Ilya, and rested his head on Ilya’s stomach. He joined Ilya in petting Anya, enjoying the soothing feel of soft fur and warm dog under his fingers. He put a hand on her back and felt the soft rise and fall of her tiny body as she breathed.

The room was quiet, and so full of love it was almost suffocating. And if someone had told Shane that morning he’d rather pet a dog until she fell asleep than have sex with his boyfriend, he never would have believed them. But life was full of surprises.