моя любовь

Ilya exhales smoke into the dark courtyard, tries to school his features into something nonchalant. “Okay.”

He takes another drag.

It’s nearing ten, and the party in the University’s ballroom is in full swing. Some kind of alumni event; they tend to blur for Ilya. He’s the captain of McGill’s men’s hockey team, the Redbirds, and the fact that his visa and his tuition relies on his hockey scholarship means the faculty are all-too-comfortable pulling him out for events like this.

The scholarship itself is worth pennies; sure, his tuition is covered and his athletic gear, but that says nothing for rent, and textbooks, and the cost of living in Montreal. The Veterinary Sciences program is a six-year course, and Ilya is on year four, classed a mature student at age twenty-five. It’s intensive, and the high study load plus his responsibilities as team captain, plus games and practices, leaves little room for a part-time job. Not if he wants to sleep.

But that’s fine; Ilya is creative. He always has been. Ask him to draw you a picture and you’ll get little more back than a stick man or a squiggle, but ask him to come up with a month’s rent in three days and he’ll do it with a flourish.

This is what’s on his mind when Shane Hollander plucks the cigarette irately from between Ilya’s lips, and grinds it into the pebbled walkway.

“Trust me, kid, I’m doing you a favour,” Hollander says, shaking his head. Ilya doesn’t miss the way his gaze lingers on his lips and takes advantage of the moment, wetting his bottom lip slowly with the tip of his tongue. “You don’t want to fuck your lungs up so early in your career.”

Ilya quirks a brow, still leaning against the redbrick wall. There a windows either side of him, golden light spilling out onto the courtyard, onto Shane Hollander’s gorgeously cut jaw and playing with the honey tones in his deep brown eyes.

“You are interested in my career, Mr. Hollander?”

“I’m interested in hockey,” Hollander corrects. Ilya watches the flush creeping up and over his cheeks like a predator waiting to pounce. Interesting. “And I’m interesting in not burning down the whole fucking courtyard.”

“This is your school?” Ilya asks, knowing well and good that it isn’t. It’s his father’s school, David Hollander; Shane Hollander was too good for university, drafted as soon as he turned eighteen. “You went here?”

“Oh, no. No, I never did the whole, uh, college thing. I’m here with my dad.”

“Raising money for a school you didn’t go to? Very generous. Mr. Charity, ah?”

Hollander bristles, narrowing his eyes behind his glasses. A single lock of black hair has escaped its meticulous styling, dropping over his forehead very romantically, like one of the bare-chested heroes from the covers of Svetlana’s bodice-ripper novels. The thought of Hollander in a similar position, shirtless and holding some kind of sword or pistol on a rocky shore, is enough to make Ilya’s stomach tighten.

He watches Hollander shake his head, and then turn to leave; a thread of panic shoots through Ilya’s chest, and he blurts out: “You are retiring this season, yes?”

Hollander stops dead in his tracks, and Ilya has to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

It’s not a confirmed thing. It’s not even a insider rumour; there have been constant headlines about Shane Hollander’s retirement, every season since he turned thirty-five. He’s almost forty, now, and the rumours aren’t slowing down. Ilya stuffs his hands into the pockets of his burrowed suit, but he doesn’t drop Hollander’s gaze.

“Do you think I’m retiring?” Hollander asks, tone low. Not exactly dangerous, more… Curious. Which is fine. He makes Ilya curious, too.

“I don’t think you should,” Ilya shrugs, honest. He doesn’t think that Hollander should retire. He’s still powerful on the ice, and where he’s losing speed he more than makes up for it in strategy, in scoring opportunities, in leadership. “But, you know. People talk.”

Ilya licks his lips again. He’s not sure when, but Hollander has taken a step forward, at some point, the both of them hidden in the shadow of the wall.

“You’re an amazing player to watch,” Hollander says. “We caught the game last week.”

“We?”

“Me and my dad. It was a solid win. You should be proud.”

Is Ilya imagining the return of that flush? No, surely not. Standing so close he can see every freckle on Hollander’s cheeks, and the way some of them disappear beneath his blush. Maybe he’s been drinking, or maybe he’s just sick of being fucking boring. Either way, Ilya isn’t complaining.

“Is a big honour, to have Shane Hollander say such nice things.”

Ilya knows he’s laying it on thick, but he’s done this kind of thing before; older men, sometimes older women. They like pretty, young things, and Ilya checks both of those boxes. They like good sex, and so does he. They like showing off how much money they have, and how it means nothing for them to spend it.

You know what they say— Find something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. Ilya is good at finding arrangements and keeping them until they’re boring, or unnecessary, or not working out. It’s work, yes, but it’s work he enjoys; he’s not a prostitute, or anything. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Sometimes he doesn’t even sleep with them, just hangs off their arm at an event or sends some tasteful nudes or goes to dinner and listens to them talk and talk and talk.

Hollander scoffs a little, shaking his head and turning his eyes to the sky. Calling Ilya on his bullshit, immediately. Maybe he took Ilya’s blatant flirting as sarcasm.

“Y’know, when I was your age, I already had two Cups.”

“And this was, what, one hundred years ago?”

“Rozanov.”

“Hollander.”

“You said when you were my age,” Ilya raises an eyebrow again, “You know how old I am?”

Hollander nods, unashamed. “Twenty-five, Russian national. Leading the team on assists but second on goals. Your shooting percentage is pretty fucking high, but it’d be higher if you didn’t spend so much time in the box.”

Ilya can’t help the grin that stretches over his features as Hollander rattles off his statistics. He’s heard the rumours, of course, about hockey robot Shane Hollander; never married, or married to the game. Rumours that he’s gay, all but confirmed. Apparently he came out to his team years ago, but he’s never made a public statement, never been seen with a man.

Questions, questions. Ilya never really cared all that much. But now, inches between them. in the face of Hollander and his awkwardness and his freckles, Ilya finds himself caring a whole fucking lot.

He takes another step forward. Inappropriately close; their chests almost touching.

“I take a lot of penalties,” Ilya admits; he can feel Hollander’s breath ghosting against his cheek. “I take risks. I like to be bad.”

Hollander’s brown eyes, so impossibly deep, drop to his lips again. It’s easy, then, to take the risk before he can think better of it; Ilya grabs Hollander by the lapels of his suit, dragging him and slotting their mouths together.

He’s a fucking amazing kisser, and he tastes like spearmint. Hollander’s hand comes up, twisting into Ilya’s styled curls, and Ilya can’t stop the moan that rises up from his throat when Hollander tugs, just slightly. It’s not a sweet kiss, but it’s hungry; Ilya swipes his tongue against Hollander’s, walking them back until his back is pressed against the wall.

Shockingly, Ilya doesn’t even realise he’s fucking hard until he feels Hollander’s knee pressing between his legs. And it would be embarrassing, getting hard over a fucking kiss, if Hollander wasn’t also clearly tenting his dress pants. A shot of giddy adrenaline runs through him, and he bites on Hollander’s lower lip to keep from laughing. Fuck. He’s making out with Shane fucking Hollander, captain of the best team in the sport, the guy who built a fucking dynasty. Patron Saint of Montreal.

And then, as suddenly as it had happened, all the solid warmth of Hollander is gone. He steps back, breathing heavily, eyes wild with something Ilya can’t quite decode. It could be arousal, or panic, or both.

“Fuck,” He mutters, running a large hand through his hair. Ilya can still feel the imprint of that hand on the back of his head, warm and strong and guiding him exactly where he wanted him. “Fuck. I’m sorry, that was— I— That was inappropriate. I’m sorry.”

“I kissed you.”

“Don’t— Don’t say it like that.”

“What, you think the fucking grass and pebbles care? No, Hollander. They saw it all happen anyway.”

Hollander scowls, his hands in his pockets. He’s still hard, though, which makes Ilya irrationally smug. He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t leave, either. Ilya sighs.

“Give me your phone.”

“Not a fucking chance.”

“Give.”

Hollander blinks, but complies, and Ilya swallows the sickly feeling of victory. This could be very, very fun. He waits for Hollander to unlock it, and very quickly adds his number to his contacts.

“College is expensive, Mr. Hollander,” Ilya sighs, handing his phone back. “And you seem like someone who cares about hockey’s future.”

“Look, are you some kind of— I don’t know, like, a hooker, or something—”

“No, I am not a hooker,” Ilya laughs, a little sharper than necessary. “I don’t care how other people make their money, but, no. You have my number. You want to talk about it a little more, you can text me. Call me. I don’t know what old people like to do.”

“I’m not old,” Hollander says, but he’s smiling again, tucking his phone away in his pocket. “Scott Hunter is old.”

“You are both old. You were on Noah’s ark together, I think.”

“Fuck you, Rozanov.”

Ilya pushes up off the wall, brushes his shoulder against Hollander’s as he passes. “I hope so. You have my number, Hollander. Use it.”