When he’d finished crying, Ilya felt empty and so fucking tired. Shane took him up to bed. Anya followed.
“No,” Shane said firmly when Anya jumped on the bed. He pointed to her dog bed in the corner. “She kept trying to sleep with me. I think she hates me because I won’t let her.”
“Is good, probably,” Ilya sighed. “I am too soft with her.”
Shane rested a hand on Ilya’s cheek. “You’re soft with everyone you love.”
Ilya’s lips curved up. “Don’t tell anyone.”
They both got undressed, freshened up, and got into bed. Shane gently kissed Ilya’s cheeks and forehead, and finally the corner of his mouth. “I missed you so much,” he whispered.
“Yes. Me too.”
They gazed at each other, a few inches apart on the bed.
“I like seeing the playoff beard again,” Shane said, stroking his fingers over the thick hair that now covered the lower half of Ilya’s face. “Been a while.”
“Should I leave it?”
“Maybe for a bit. It’s sexy.”
Ilya closed his eyes and enjoyed the soothing brushes of Shane’s fingertips. “Shane,” he said quietly after a couple of minutes. “If we are getting married—”
“If? Of course we are.”
Ilya swallowed. “You need to know, then.”
“Know what?”
Ilya opened his eyes. “I am not okay.”
“With what?”
“I am...maybe like my mother. Depressed. Sometimes. And it is not fixed. It might not be something to fix.”
Shane looked surprised, but he covered it quickly. “Okay.”
“You cannot blame yourself, if it...gets bad.”
Shane propped himself up on an elbow. “Ilya. Are you saying you think about, like—”
“No. Not really. I don’t know. I feel like I could think about it. Okay?”
Shane blinked a few times. “Okay,” he whispered.
“The therapy helps, and we have talked about maybe trying some medication. And how that might be hard at first, with side effects. Is hard to find the right pills, the right amount. I need a doctor for the pills, though. I think I will talk to Terry—he is the team doctor.”
“You think he’d be okay with prescribing antidepressants?” Shane asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
“I think our team doctor would be weird about it.”
“Then your team doctor is bad.”
“Yeah,” Shane sighed. “Maybe.”
He stroked Ilya’s hair, and Ilya’s eyelids began to droop.
“I hate that you feel like that sometimes, Ilya,” Shane said softly. “I hate that you have to fight yourself. But you’re never going to scare me off, okay? And I’m never giving up on you, or on us. So whatever you need, I’m right here.”
“What if there is nothing you can do?” Ilya asked in a small, scared voice. “What if you can’t help?”
Shane’s features shifted into his Hockey Captain face—determined and fearless. “Then I’ll be standing by until I can.” He kissed Ilya’s forehead. “I’m marrying you, Ilya. I want to have kids with you. I want to be your date when we’re inducted into the Hall of Fame. I love you so much.”
They kissed, and Shane said, “What do you need right now?”
“Sleep,” Ilya answered honestly. “In the morning, probably coffee.” He grinned impishly. “And maybe five or six blowjobs.”
Shane smiled so wide his eyes crinkled. “Blowjobs aren’t a cure for depression, Ilya.”
“Are you a doctor now?”
Shane laughed and kissed him again. “Go to sleep, idiot.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
May
Shane turned thirty in May, with very little fanfare. He celebrated at the cottage, with his parents, Ilya, and Anya. His dad barbecued hamburgers, and Shane ate two of them, washed them down with beer, and finished it all off with a big slice of chocolate cake. He’d decided he was done with fighting the future, and with trying to be perfect. He’d been an outstanding hockey player his whole life while also eating the occasional cheeseburger, and he could keep on doing that.
He was also, he’d decided, done with being a Montreal Voyageur. J.J. had apologized for even suggesting that Shane had tripped on purpose, but none of his other teammates—or his coaches—had. The media in Montreal had been vicious to Shane, and he didn’t think he could ever feel good about representing that team again.
Now, a week after Shane’s birthday, he and Ilya were just waiting until July, when the free-agent season started, to see what would happen. Shane had told Farah that Ottawa was his first choice. She hadn’t been surprised at all. Whether he ended up in Ottawa or somewhere else, whoever signed him would have to accept that they were signing Ilya Rozanov’s husband.
They’d sent out wedding invitations. It was short notice, but it wouldn’t be big and they’d hold it in Ilya’s backyard in July, a week before their charity camps started. Whoever happened to be in Ottawa could come. No pressure.
At the end of the summer, they were taking a honeymoon to Spain, because neither of them had been there and because, when Shane had worked up the nerve to ask him for vacation suggestions, Scott Hunter had enthusiastically rattled off a bunch of places there that were “gay as hell.” It would be another giant step outside of Shane’s comfort zone, but he was ready for it.
And he knew Ilya would be effortlessly spectacular in Ibiza.
Shane found Ilya in the hammock behind the cottage, gently rocking as the sun set spectacularly over the lake. It was, Shane was pretty sure, what photographers called “the golden hour.” Ilya was bathed in warm light, making his skin glow and picking out every bronze strand in his mop of curls. The playoff beard had been shaved down to his usual lazy stubble, and the ring and crucifix around his neck glinted against his bare chest. Shane wished he’d had his own phone on him so he could take a picture. No one had the right to look that perfect.
“Comfy?” Shane asked.
Ilya smiled sleepily at him. “Very.”
Shane hugged himself and rubbed his bare arms. “It’s getting cold, though.”
“Mm.” Ilya reached out his hand, and Shane took it.
“You never use this hammock,” Shane said.