The Long Game (Game Changers #6)(69)

“Ilya...”

“I have to go.”

The call went dead.

Shane slumped against his kitchen counter and started thinking about all the ways that conversation could have gone better.

Ilya didn’t call Shane after practice. Instead he took a nap, ate dinner, and got ready for his game that night against the New York Admirals. The Admirals were the best team in the league, so Shane would understand why Ilya would need to focus.

Not that he cared if Shane understood. Shane certainly hadn’t understood why it had been important for Ilya to tell someone—anyone—that he was bisexual. And why it had felt so good to have his teammate come out to him. How good it felt to be making a new friend, and to have earned that friend’s trust so quickly.

Maybe Ilya shouldn’t have told Shane. Maybe he should have saved all this for his next session with Galina. Not that he would out Troy to his therapist, but he would find a way to talk about it. Galina would understand why this was important to Ilya. She knew how lonely he was.

Jesus. Ilya hadn’t even told Shane that Troy had almost guessed that he and Shane were a couple. It was alarming how quickly Troy had started to put the pieces together in his head once Ilya had told him he was bisexual. If Shane knew about that he’d probably lose his shit completely.

Ilya carried his bad mood onto the ice that night for the match against the Admirals. At first, his anger seemed useful, pushing him to battle hard and even open the scoring early in the first period. But as the game went on, and as New York kept scoring, Ilya’s anger caused him to take stupid penalties and make costly mistakes.

After the game he’d been quiet and sulky. He hadn’t talked to anyone in the dressing room, and no one had talked to him. Probably because they didn’t want to get snarled at.

That night, there was an unexpected knock on his hotel room door.

“Hey,” Troy said when Ilya opened it. “Thought you might wanna watch a movie or something.”

Ilya took in Troy’s uncertain expression, aware that gestures of friendship were probably outside Troy’s usual comfort zone. Ilya nodded, and stepped back to let him in.

Twenty minutes into the climate disaster action movie Ilya had found on television, Troy said, “Even when I played for Toronto, we hardly ever beat the Admirals.”

Ilya just grunted.

“I wish Scott Hunter wasn’t such a decent guy,” Troy continued. “I’d love to just hate him, y’know?”

“You wish he wasn’t hot,” Ilya said.

Troy’s eyes widened in surprise, as if he’d forgotten that he’d come out to Ilya already. Then he huffed out a laugh and said, “Yeah. That too.”

Ilya smiled for the first time in hours.

They watched the movie in silence for a while, then Ilya blurted out, “I am a shitty captain.”

“What? No you’re not.”

“Anyone on the team would be a better captain than me.”

“As if,” Troy scoffed. “I’ll bet you’ve been captain of every team you’ve ever played for.”

Well. Yes. “Does not matter. I am a bad captain for this team. Now.”

“No way. You’re a fucking legend. All the young guys idolized you growing up, and they still do. I fucking idolized you, man.”

This time Ilya scoffed. “I am not so much older than you, Barrett.”

“I just mean, when I played junior, everyone wanted to be like you. Guys like Hunter and Hollander, they’re amazing, but you look like you’re having fun out there, y’know? You’re a leader, but you’re also, like, cool.”

Ilya’s eyebrows shot up. “Cool?”

Troy’s lips curled into something that was almost a smile. “Compared to Hunter and Hollander.”

Ilya laughed out loud, which made Troy laugh. “Wow,” Ilya said. “Is that a compliment?”

“Totally.”

“I am hotter than them too.”

Troy raked his gaze over Ilya appraisingly, and for an uncomfortable moment, Ilya thought he may have come here to seduce him. Then Troy wrinkled his nose and said, “Meh. I wouldn’t say that.”

They both laughed again, and Ilya hit him with a pillow.

“I am no Harris,” Ilya teased.

Troy’s cheeks darkened. “Shut up.”

“Why? Is cute.”

“It’s embarrassing. I can’t believe you know about that.” Troy buried his face in the pillow Ilya had hit him with.

“Harris should know about it,” Ilya said.

“No way. Never.”

“That is dumb. He is nuts about you.”

“Well, then he’s dumb.” Troy settled the pillow in his lap, then started nervously kneading it with one hand. “You think he likes me, though?”

“I am never wrong about these things.” He wasn’t lying. Ilya had always been an expert at detecting when someone was attracted to him, or to anyone else. Harris was definitely crushing on Troy.

Attraction, sex. Those things were easy. Relationships, feelings, love. Ilya was still working on how to navigate that stuff.

Troy left when the movie ended, which was far later than either of them should have been awake with a game to play in New Jersey tomorrow, but again, Ilya was a bad captain.