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

“I suck at this,” Shane said.

“Yes, but the rest of us are good, so no problem.”

It was true. Even Ryan Price, who was one of the shyest and most socially awkward people Ilya had ever met, was remarkably good with kids.

“I’m supposed to be in charge, though,” Shane said unhappily.

“You’re supposed to be in charge of your team too, but we all know J.J. is the real Montreal captain.”

Shane nudged him in the ribs with the butt end of his stick. “I’m a great captain.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Shane jabbed him again, harder this time. “Knock it off.”

The drill began, and Ilya watched as the kids took passes and skated around pylons with the puck. Everyone seemed to understand what to do, so J.J. had done a good job. Ilya glanced at the far end of the rink, where Wyatt Hayes and Leah Campbell were working with six young goaltenders. Max was also assisting by taking careful shots on the goalies. There was a lot of laughter and whooping coming from that end of the ice.

“This is going well,” Ilya said.

“You think so?”

“Yes. The kids are having fun. The coaches are good. And I think Number Twenty-Two has a crush on me.” He nodded in the direction of a girl whose eyes went wide behind her mask, and she quickly looked away.

Shane scoffed. “Who doesn’t have a crush on you?”

“Hayden.” Ilya paused, as if deep in thought. “Unless...”

“Hold on a sec,” Shane said. Then he skated toward a boy who had just finished the drill. He bent at the waist to talk to the kid, then began showing him something to do with the angle of the boy’s stick blade. Ilya felt a lot of things at once, both from the way Shane’s track pants pulled tight against his thigh muscles, and from the warmth that bloomed in Ilya’s chest whenever he watched Shane interact with children.

“Are you actually going to do some coaching, or are you just here to shoot heart eyes at Shane?”

Ilya blinked and turned his gaze away from his boyfriend to look way down at Hayden Pike. “Are you here for any reason at all?”

Hayden tapped the brim of his Montreal Voyageurs Stanley Cup Champions ball cap. “Here to represent the winning team, buddy.”

Well. Ilya couldn’t argue with that. His own team wasn’t going to be winning cups anytime soon. He made a mental note to wear Shane’s identical ball cap tomorrow, because it would make Hayden furious, and said, “You lead the next passing drill. You are good at passing.”

Hayden’s eyes narrowed, as if he was analyzing Ilya’s words, searching for the insult. Finally, cautiously, he said, “I am good at passing. I lead Montreal in assists.”

“I know. That is why I said it.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”

Hayden studied him another moment, then nodded and skated away. Ilya hadn’t realized how much fun it would be to confuse Hayden with compliments. He would have to do it more often.

Ilya couldn’t help but notice that the reporter guy Shane was talking to was very...attractive. Ilya tried to keep his focus on the kids he was coaching, but his gaze kept drifting back to where Shane was standing just behind the glass in one corner. Even from here, Ilya could see the flirtatious smiles the man was giving Shane.

Or maybe they were just regular smiles and Ilya was being ridiculous.

“Mr. Rozanov?”

He dragged his attention away from his boyfriend and the handsome stranger and looked down at the girl in front of him.

“Ilya,” he corrected her, warmly. “Is something wrong, Chloe?”

“No. I just, um...” She glanced down at her skates, which she was shuffling nervously.

Ilya crouched down. “Yes?”

“I keep missing backhand passes. Not just in the drill, but, like, all the time. Do you know what I’m doing wrong?”

Ilya smiled. “We will try some and see what the problem is.”

He spent the next fifteen minutes sending passes to Chloe, and correcting her stick placement when she was receiving them. By the end of it, she was beaming with pride as she easily accepted a bunch of consecutive passes from him, and Ilya had barely glanced in Shane’s direction.

As Chloe joined the group that J.J. had called to center ice, Ilya took a peek and saw the handsome man laughing with Shane about something. And then the fucker placed a hand on Shane’s arm.

There was no good reason for Ilya to skate down the ice with one of the pucks and fire it at the glass behind Shane’s head, but he did it anyway. He could hear Shane scream, and Ilya laughed when he whipped around, eyes flashing with fury.

“Asshole!” Shane yelled.

Ilya gestured with his stick toward the children on the ice and shook his head. “Language, Hollander.”

Things were tense between them for the rest of the day. Ilya couldn’t even apologize because Shane wouldn’t talk to him. Not that he felt like apologizing; he just wanted Shane to stop being mad about it.

And Ilya wanted to stop feeling embarrassed about doing it. It had been immature and petty and unprofessional. He still didn’t want to apologize, though.

They had a debriefing, of sorts, at the end of the day with Yuna in the room they all used as an office. Shane didn’t even look at Ilya for the entire conversation. When Yuna left, Ilya braced himself for Shane’s fury.