i love you like a sandwich

ilya, all of 18 years old, is a thrillseeker who is already habitually picking up women, already living so fast that the clubs and parties and people and bodies are blending together in his memory. there's a monotony developing there and he's itching to raise the stakes: to take bigger risks, claim bigger rewards. and what could be a bigger risk than hooking up with his golden-boy hockey rival? it would take effort, but the high he'd get from pulling this off just once (and of course it would only be once) would be unlike anything else.

so he puts in the effort. the leadup to his hookup with hollander is entirely off-script for him, a deviation from the patterns and routines he's developed around sex. he premeditates it, he thinks about how good it will feel if this works, fantasizes about what might happen, and plans the joint CCM shoot. the day arrives and he feels electric, takes a real risk in the showers, feels the rush of his risk paying off when hollander says "not here" instead of "no" and, later, offers his room number.

ilya shows up at room 1410 and immediately launches into seduction: this part is more on-script, more familiar to ilya, but still heightened because it's hollander, and heightened again when he confirms it's hollander's first time with a man, and again because it turns out hollander is starving for this, devouring ilya with his eyes and his hands, all intense and urgent and wanting. it's so heady. everything up to this point has already been enough to make this night live in ilya's memory forever. they move to the bed, he tells hollander to take his clothes off and he does -

and he takes the time to fold his clothes. in the middle of a hookup. what?

i love the laugh that connor storrie does in the show at that moment. just, his whole face lit up. ilya isn't bemused, he's not making fun of hollander for doing this. he's genuinely delighted.

because this. this is something that he's never seen before. it surprises him. he is hooking up with shane hollander and this is a uniquely shane hollander thing to do and it burns into his brain. its personal and intimate, it's terribly endearing. he already knows he will remember this moment specifically, will return to it when he thinks about this night in the future, like a bookmark placed in a well-loved book.

he had hoped to walk away from this experience feeling exhilarated and satisfied that he pulled off a hookup with the most dangerous person he could think of. he did not expect to walk away from this with a warm, fond memory of shane hollander - not just his hockey rival in that moment, but a real, knowable man who surprised him in a way that he liked.

i think the next time ilya has sex with someone and she carelessly drops her clothes on the floor, he thinks about hollander. thinks about how he would have never thought that was careless, before. maybe he smiles a little to himself and catches it, has to shake the memory off, feels a little bad for losing focus on the woman he's with. tells himself it won't happen again. but of course that's not how it works, and the memory only digs deeper into him. it happens again the next time, and the time after that.

I don't deserve you. Yes, you do.