Chapter Text
Chapter Two
The first thing Shane learned was that dating was exhausting. Not in the dramatic, soul-crushing way he’d always imagined. Just…logistically.
There were messages to answer. Schedules to coordinate. Restaurants to choose. Apparently people expected you to have opinions about brunch. He’d never dated before. Not really. Rose didn’t really count. There had only ever been Ilya, and whatever they had existed entirely outside the rules everyone else seemed to follow. With him, there had never been first dates or awkward silences. There had never been any dates at all.
With Ilya, everything had skipped straight to familiarity. Or what Shane had mistaken for it.
“So,” Rose said over breakfast after practice, “how’s dating? Shane nearly inhaled his coffee. “I’m not discussing this with you.”
Rose grinned. “So that’s a yes.”
“I hate all of you.”
“You don’t hate me.”
“I absolutely hate you.”
“You like me enough to answer.”
Shane rolled his eyes. Coming out had somehow made Rose simultaneously more protective and more insufferable. Mostly more insufferable. Rose leaned across the table.
“Serious question.”
“I already don’t like where this is going.”
“Have you actually gone on dates?”
“…Maybe.”
“Plural?”
Shane took another sip of coffee instead of answering. Rose laughed.
“Plural.”
“They’ve been…nice.”
“Nice is either very good or very bad.”
“They’re just…” Shane searched for the right word. “Different.”
“Different good?”
He thought about it. “Different honest.”
Rose nodded. “Good.”
That was it. No interrogation. No jokes. Just…good. The simplicity of it surprised Shane.
The second thing Shane learned was that people asked questions. Normal questions. What’s your favorite movie? Where do you go when you need to think? Do you cook? What’s your family like? What do you do in the summer when you’re not playing hockey? Ilya had ever asked him those things before. Not once.
He’d known Ilya’s coffee order. He’d known which shoulder got tight after road trips. He’d known exactly how to make him laugh after a bad loss. But he’d never known his favorite book. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever asked. The realization stayed with him longer than he wanted it to.
⸻
Evan was an architect. Thirty-two. Funny in a quiet way. The sort of person who listened without immediately planning what he was going to say next.
Their third date was a Saturday afternoon. No expensive restaurant. No attempt to impress each other. Just coffee, wandering through Kensington Market, and a bookstore neither of them needed to visit.
Evan disappeared into one aisle and came back carrying a cookbook. “I can make exactly three recipes in this.”
“You bought a cookbook for three recipes?”
“I bought it because the pictures made me optimistic.”
Shane laughed. “That’s…actually kind of adorable.”
“I prefer ‘aspirational.’”
“I’ll stick with adorable.”
They wandered another few minutes before Evan spoke again. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What did you do before hockey?”
Shane blinked.
“…Before hockey?”
“You know. As a kid.”
“I played hockey.”
“I assumed.”
“No, I mean…” Shane frowned. “That was kind of it.”
“No hobbies?”
“I read.”
“What did you read?”
Shane opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He couldn’t remember. There had always been practices. Games. Training. Travel. Everything else had fit around hockey until eventually there hadn’t been an everything else.
Evan watched him for a second before smiling gently. “That’s okay.”
“It feels like I should have an answer.”
“You don’t have to impress me.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“I know.”
That somehow made it worse.
“So what do you like doing now?”
Shane laughed. “You’re assuming I know.”
“Most people do.”
“I don’t think I ever had to figure it out.”
Evan studied him for a moment.
“Well,” he said with an easy smile, “that’s kind of exciting.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. Most people don’t get to reinvent themselves at thirty.”
⸻
Over the next few weeks, Shane went on more dates. Not just with Evan. With a teacher who spent twenty minutes explaining the history of sourdough. With a lawyer who was funny over text and painfully awkward in person. With a graphic designer who turned out to be exactly as obsessed with hockey as everyone else.
Some dates were good. Some were disasters. One ended after forty-five minutes because they both realized they had absolutely nothing in common. It wasn’t disappointing. It was…informative.
For the first time in his life, Shane wasn’t trying to make something work simply because it existed. He was allowed to decide. He was allowed to leave. He was allowed to want more.
⸻
The Metros played the Raiders again ten weeks later. It was the first time Shane had seen Ilya since the hotel room. The first time since he’d walked away. They lined up for warmups. Shane caught sight of him across center ice.
For one ridiculous second, muscle memory took over. He almost smiled. Ilya looked at him. Held his gaze. Then skated away. Nothing happened.
The game started.
⸻
It should have been easier. That was what Ilya kept telling himself. Shane had wanted something impossible. Ilya couldn’t give it to him. End of story. Simple. Except nothing about the weeks afterward had been simple.
Shane was everywhere. Not physically. Digitally. Interviews. Team videos. Pictures after wins. A charity event. An autograph signing. A photograph someone had taken outside a café. Another outside a bookstore.
Sometimes Shane was alone. Sometimes he wasn’t. There was one man who seemed to appear more often than the others. Dark hair. Glasses. Always smiling at something Shane had said. Ilya hated him immediately. Which was unreasonable. He knew absolutely nothing about the man. Maybe he was terrible. Maybe he chewed with his mouth open. Maybe he put ketchup on steak.
Instead, every picture showed the same thing. Shane looked…Happy. Not the carefully practiced smile he gave reporters. Not the captain’s smile. This one reached his eyes. It looked effortless. Ilya closed the app. Opened it again an hour later. Closed it.
He told himself he was only curious. The lie sounded less convincing every time.
⸻
After the game, the hallway outside the locker rooms was crowded with equipment staff and media. Shane almost made it all the way through before he heard—
“Hollander.”
His feet stopped before his brain had decided whether they should. He turned. Ilya stood a few feet away. Hair damp from the shower. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“You played well,” Ilya said finally.
“So did you.”
Another silence. One that used to feel comfortable. Now it just felt unfinished.
“I heard…” Ilya began, then stopped.
“Heard what?”
Another pause.
“Nothing.”
Shane waited. Ilya looked like he wanted to say something else. Instead he nodded once.
“Good game.”
“You too.”
That was it. Ilya walked away. Shane watched him disappear around the corner before letting out a slow breath. Eight years, and somehow that thirty-second conversation had been the hardest one they’d ever had.
⸻
The next night, Shane sat on his balcony overlooking Montréal. His phone buzzed.
Evan: Dinner Thursday? I found a place that supposedly has the best pasta in the city.
Shane smiled.
I’d like that.
The reply came almost instantly.
Great. Looking forward to seeing you.
No guessing. No wondering. No waiting to figure out whether the silence meant anything. Just someone who wanted to see him. It still felt wonderfully strange.
Shane set his phone down and looked out over the city.
For years, he’d believed that love was overwhelming. Complicated. Like something you had to fight to keep. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe love wasn’t supposed to leave you wondering where you stood. Maybe it was supposed to make room for the rest of your life.
And somewhere, in another city, Ilya sat alone in his apartment. His phone rested in his hand. Shane’s latest interview was playing, and he was laughing. Without thinking, Ilya hit replay. This time he wasn’t listening to the questions. He was watching the spaces between them. The way Shane smiled before he answered. The way he looked lighter than he used to. For the first time since they’d met, Shane carried the quiet confidence of a man who knew what he wanted.
Ilya stared at the dark screen after the interview ended. The apartment was painfully quiet.
“Fuck,” he whispered to no one.