The Long Game (Game Changers #6)(9)
Chapter Three
Shane asked Ryan to help him get some gear out of storage at the rink the next morning. Ryan, understandably, looked uneasy about it.
“I haven’t told anyone,” Ryan blurted out as soon as they were alone in the equipment room.
“I know. I’m not worried about that,” Shane assured him.
“Oh.” Ryan’s massive shoulders dropped away from his ears. “So what equipment do we need?”
“The mini-nets and some of those, um, things for, like, stickhandling practice. Y’know. The little...things?”
“Things,” Ryan repeated slowly, glancing around like maybe the things would reveal themselves.
“Listen, um,” Shane said.
Ryan’s attention snapped back to Shane.
“Your boyfriend’s in town with you, right? Fabian?”
“Yes,” Ryan said suspiciously.
“Cool. We were thinking—I mean, Ilya and I were thinking—that you guys might like to go out tonight. Get some dinner, maybe? With us?”
Ryan’s brow furrowed. “Like a double date?”
“Yeah, I guess. Sort of. Or, y’know. Yes.” Shane exhaled and tried to pull himself together. “We’ve never been out with another couple. Like, a gay couple. As a couple.”
“Um.”
Shane felt like a dam had burst inside him, and he unleashed a tidal wave of excited babbling on poor Ryan. “No one knows about us, I mean, almost no one, so it would be cool to, like, not have to hide. Well, we’d still have to hide if we’re at a restaurant or whatever. We wouldn’t, like, be obvious about being...anyway, it would be nice to spend an evening with people who won’t judge us. Unless you are judging us. Maybe you think what we’re doing is fucked up, because I guess it is kind of fucked up, but—”
“Other people know?” Ryan interrupted.
“What?”
“I’m not the only one who knows. Other people know?”
“Yeah. Sure. A few people. My parents. Hayden and his wife. My teammates know I’m gay, but they don’t know about Ilya. Except Hayden. But I just said that, so—”
Ryan closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. “Thank fuck. I thought I was the only one who knew or something.”
“It’s not just you. Sorry if we let you think that.”
“It’s okay. I should have figured.” He sighed. “Fabian was talking about a pizza place he wanted to go to tonight. You guys could come too, I guess.”
Shane’s current diet meant he could eat basically nothing at a pizza restaurant, but he nodded enthusiastically. “Sounds great. Let’s do it.”
“Okay.” Ryan turned to look at one of the piles of equipment along a wall. “So...can we get whatever we need and get out of here now?”
Shane realized that he’d basically trapped Ryan in a small space and unloaded a bunch of weirdness on him, which probably wasn’t an ideal situation for someone with clinical anxiety. “Yes. Sorry. Shit, Ryan. I’m being super fucking weird. I’m just...”
“Nervous?” Ryan guessed.
“Yeah. But excited too.” Shane laughed shakily. “I’m sort of glad you walked in on us last year.”
Ryan’s face told him that he was not glad that he’d walked in on them.
“And I’m really looking forward to meeting your boyfriend,” Shane said. “I didn’t get the chance to last year.”
Ryan finally smiled at that. “He’s nothing like me. No one can believe we’re together.”
“I know the feeling.”
The pizza place turned out to be more of a bar that served pizza. A gay bar that served pizza.
Shane hesitated as they approached the entrance. Ilya noticed.
“Problem?” Ilya asked.
Shane attempted to school his features into the face of someone who was chill and up for whatever. “Nope.” He walked confidently through the door.
He was on a date. With his boyfriend. In Montreal. No big deal.
His boyfriend who, incidentally, looked super fucking hot. Ilya was wearing a teal tank top with a faded floral print that showed off his muscular arms, as well as the loon tattoo near his left shoulder that Shane still couldn’t believe Ilya had gotten. He’d surprised Shane with it a couple of months ago and had blamed being bored while Shane was in the playoffs, but Shane knew it wasn’t something Ilya had gotten out of boredom. The tattoo meant something, to both of them. It represented their time together in the summers, at their home on the lake.
Ilya was also wearing loose-fitting gray shorts and black slip-on sneakers, and looked so relaxed and summery that Shane was tempted to drive them both directly to the cottage and make love to him on the grassy shore.
“Over there,” Ilya said, breaking Shane’s fantasy. He was pointing to a table against a wall where Ryan Price was sitting beside a much smaller man.
When they reached the table, Ilya immediately took charge. “I like that shirt, Price. Purple is good on you.”
“Oh. Uh. Thanks.”
“And you are Fabian, yes?”
“The one and only.”
Shane hadn’t really put any effort into imagining Ryan’s boyfriend, but he never would have pictured him looking like this. Fabian Salah was pretty. He had warm, golden skin and silky dark hair that was cut short on the sides, but long enough on top to fall into his dark eyes, which were decorated with makeup. He was wearing a black lace tank top that fit close to his slim torso, and had a heart-shaped diamond pendant hanging from his elegant neck.