“Wait wait wait, hold up,” says Rose. She leans toward Ilya with the personal boundaries of someone on their third mimosa. They are gathered on the deck of the cottage and the drinks have been flowing. “What do you mean ‘clear and direct’? What is not ‘clear and direct’ about a guy looking you up and down, giving you the flirty eyes AND the flirty smile, and saying that dessert is, quote, ‘on me if you’re interested.’ That’s pretty fucking clear and direct if you ask me.”
Hayden snorts and looks at Shane, who has his face buried in his hands.
“Seriously?!? You think that’s just a guy doing his job?”
“I didn’t want to assume!” Shane protests. “You know how often service staff get harassed on the job. I’m not going to be one of those people.”
Hayden scoffs. “Yeah, dude, I get that, but there’s making assumptions and then there’s missing a huge fucking billboard that says ‘Do You Want to Fuck, Yes/No’.”
Shane groans and Ilya sniggers, eyes bright with amusement.
“No no, you see, Shane is tricky to flirt with,” Ilya explains, rubbing a hand over Shane’s back fondly, “because he will make up all these reasons why he might be misunderstanding, a million excuses why maybe you aren’t really flirting with him, because he doesn’t want to make a mistake and get embarrassed. So you have to make it so he has no chance for misunderstanding.”
Shane leans into his side and buries his face in Ilya’s shoulder, hiding, but Ilya can feel his smile pressed against his shirt, so he knows Shane’s feeling embarrassed but not mortified.
Rose grins in delight and says, “Then how did you do it, Mr. Clear and Direct?”
Hayden catches on as well. “Yeah, actually, you never did say exactly who made the first move and where and how. You just said it was the summer before rookie year.”
Shane stills. Ilya’s pretty sure they’re both thinking about the same moment all those years ago. He drops a light kiss on top of Shane’s head, part question and part reassurance. After a moment, Shane relaxes, settles himself more comfortably with his temple pressed to Ilya’s shoulder, and gives Ilya a light squeeze on the leg in assent.
Ilya grins at Hayden and Rose, permission granted.
“Technically Shane approached me first, outside the rink at World Juniors, flirting in his very polite Canadian way.”
“Yes, you were flirting, solnyshko, clear as day. You smiled at me with your cute freckles and you shook my hand twice.”
“I was showing good sportsmanship! It’s polite to introduce yourself to the other players.”
“Ah, so you introduced yourself to my teammates as well? All of them. Whole team.”
Shane paused. “Well, no, but you were obviously the best player on the team and the media was already talking about us as rivals, so it makes perfect sense to introduce myself to you but not your teammates.”
Ilya gives Rose and Hayden a look as if to say, “you see what I have to deal with?”
Rose laughs. “You are lucky, because I had to go up to Shane and introduce myself.”
Hayden snorts. “I had to do that too, and I wasn’t even trying to date him. I just wanted to get to know him better as a teammate.”
“You guys…” Shane groans and shakes his head.
“Okay, so Shane makes the first move,” says Rose, turning back to Ilya, because she is like a bloodhound when it comes to good gossip. She ignores Shane muttering “no, I didn’t” and presses on. “But obviously nothing happened then, because I cannot picture Shane getting down and dirty on the first date”—she ignores his “That wasn’t a date” as well—“What did you say to actually get through to him?”
Ilya glances from Rose’s eager face to Hayden’s I’m-curious-but-I’m-kinda-afraid-of-what-I’m-about-to-hear expression and shrugs nonchalantly.
“I did not say anything.”
He sees both of their scrunched expressions and forces down his grin.
“What? What do you mean?” says Rose, eyebrows creased in confusion.
“I did not have to use any words,” Ilya says, casual as can be.
“Oh my god,” says Shane, hiding his face again.
“But—but you just said that you were very clear. How did you, um—“
Rose has the most expressive face, Ilya could completely see why she was an actress.
“I did not need words to be clear. We were in the shower after a photoshoot at a rink, and I see that Shane is interested in me, so I turn to him and show him that I am interested too, is very clear that I am interested. I put on a little show for him—a big show, actually—look him in the eye, and baby teenage Shane says ‘okay yes, I want that for rest of my life.’ See? Is easy.”
”Oh my god,” Shane repeats.
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