my own private ontario 😳

2. bbq bros (summer 2017)

Ilya stands in front of the barbecue. Probably he has seen one before... maybe. Marly had one, but Ilya spent every summer in Russia before this one. He missed all the cookouts.

"Do you know how to turn the grill on, Ilya?"

"Yes, of course I know," Ilya grumbles. He looks at the labels. If it was Russian he would already know what to do. It would be blazing, he would have a thousand hot dogs ready, Hollander would drown in them. A thousand burgers also, no recipe needed.

Shane's flip flops slap the deck behind him. "You have no idea how to deal with this, do you?"

"We do not have this in city," Ilya scoffs, stepping back. "We have oven, like civilized people."

"A grill is pretty fuckin' advanced technology, asshole," Shane says, and then he squats down to look at the propane tank and Ilya gets so hard he feels dizzy.

Shane stands up, turns the switch on—it was the one on the right, Ilya thought it was!—and lights a match—like a survivalist, Ilya thinks, remembering Shane building a fire for him last night—and then puts the match into the grill to ignite the flames.

Shane turns around. He looks at Ilya, smiles, and then looks down. "Are you... I'm..." and then, as if it isn't obvious, he asks, "What about this is turning you on?"

The fantasy of you with your sleeves rolled up, flipping meat, pumping gas, hefting up a propane tank on your shoulders with all your muscles bulging... Ilya feels like a WAG. If he ever went to a summer cookout he imagines that this must be what all the WAGs think about, looking out the kitchen window at all the men crowded around the barbecue. They must be ogling the men comparing dick sizes with their fucking metal spatulas and grill brushes.

Perhaps Ilya is giving straight people too much credit. Maybe women are not so turned on they get nosebleeds from American man gender roles. But Ilya... Ilya is an enlightened man, and Shane's cock is tenting his pants a little bit, and he looks so comfortable and muscular. "Doesn't matter," Ilya says, because he's not sure how to express this emotional journey to Shane. "Turn the grill off. Let me suck your dick."

"I just fucking turned it on," Shane complains, but he turns it off anyway. This is how Ilya knows Shane is a rest-of-his-life kind of thing.

3. breakfast (2019-2020 season)

They have never had breakfast outside the house before. Shane had set his jaw against a panic attack an hour ago, Ilya standing by the door, ready to surrender.

But it had been so comfortable earlier—Shane in his sheets, the sun on him. The smell of his armpit, salt and stale. Ilya's mouth on his jaw, his shoulder, his collarbone. Late March, when the season begins to open up, when winter retreats just a little bit, just enough, just an hour or a day at a time, until the weeks become May and June and summer.

This is looking too far ahead, though. It is March, still cold, still windy. No food in the house in Ottawa because Ilya had been too sad to even order groceries online—but this he didn't tell Shane. He was just forgetful, he said. I did not forget the lube, he said, and Shane had laughed, so it was all right last night.

This morning, there are not even eggs in the house, and Ilya will not let Shane—warm, comfortable, sleepy Shane—drink a protein smoothie for breakfast. Not in Ilya's house. So it was off to the cafe a 10-minute walk away from Ilya's house for breakfast. Ilya had been there before. They had a bowl outside for dogs to drink water, and some days Ilya would sit there for hours, no coffee left but enough eyesight and energy to watch dogs drink from the bowl.

So now, after the minor almost-panic, and the putting on of toques and gloves, they are at the cafe.

"I'll have a... do you have the high-fiber bread option for the breakfast sandwiches?"

Of course they do. This Ilya looked into the moment he thought of bringing Shane here, many many months ago.

Ilya sits down with his donut. He likes sweets for breakfast. Ilya drinks enough horrible smoothies just to up his caloric intake that sometimes he just wants something nice to eat.

"You're quiet," Shane says, and Ilya shakes himself.

"Yes," he says, and then smiles at Shane. "Just thinking of you. Only good, I promise."

Shane smiles back. There in the crook of his mouth is hope. The summer is coming soon. In June they will have the hockey camp. They will live in the same city. The loneliness will not eat him alive.

"I miss you when I'm not here," Shane says, and Ilya blinks. He turns his head to watch a pigeon. "You miss me?"

Ilya swallows. "Of course," he chokes out, and when he knows he will not cry, he looks back at Shane. He makes himself smirk, nasty. "No hole in Ottawa is as tight as you."

Shane flinches, but no one is around them. He settles, then blushes, smiling a little. Ilya watches that flush spill from his cheeks down his neck: his saving grace. If things were different, Ilya would hold his hand. He might kiss his knuckles. Everyone does this at cafes in the morning, young people on dates, old married people who have made an outing of the morning. Sitting next to each other, looking out at the world together, holding hands.

Ilya smiles back. Shane is here. It's not so bad, if Shane is here. It can still be breakfast, can still be a date. In ten years, Ilya might be able to hold his hand.

+1 laundry (2027)

"What are you doing in here?" Ilya asks, but of course he knows.

Shane is doing the laundry.

"I'm... you know what I'm doing, you fucker," Shane laughs. He doesn't turn around. "You're not gonna distract me this time."

"I distract you every time," Ilya murmurs, walking in to hold Shane and look over his shoulder. "Ah, very nice fold. Expert move."

"Shut up," Shane says, folding the next shirt. He is so terrible at it that all of Ilya's T-shirts somehow end up wrinkled, even though Shane folds them right out of the dryer. Ilya loves a wrinkled shirt because it means he hasn't had to do his laundry alone.

"You are like Marie Kondo," Ilya says, "folding expert."

"Who the fuck is Marie Ko— c'mon, Ilya—"

Ilya thumbs over Shane's hipbone, hand fully in his pants, skin on skin. "I distract you?" Ilya asks, mouthing behind Shane's ear. "Expert laundry man, you don't need your whole focus, yes?"

"Fuck off," Shane says, but his cock is getting harder, waiting for Ilya's touch. Valiantly, Shane tries to fold another shirt. Somehow, it ends up in a ball.

"I used to dream of this," Ilya says.

"What, fondling me while I try to fold your T-shirts?"

"Doing laundry together," Ilya admits, teeth against Shane's earlobe. "That our clothes might get mixed up. That I might wear your underwear by accident, because it was in my closet. Because my things were your things."

Shane sighs. "I hate when you do this," he says, but when he turns around, his smile is brighter than the sun and all good things in life. "I'm trying to fold the fucking laundry and you're saying the most romantic shit I've ever heard in my life to me."

"Yes, I am wonderful husband, I know," Ilya says, already kneeling.