Whatever Happens

Ilya was celebrating the win like it was his first. Which, honestly, wasn’t that far from the truth: all season the Centaurs had done nothing but fuck up and lose. Then fuck up again. Then lose again. And now? Great shape, sharp teamwork, and a 5-1 blowout! Well, they hadn't beaten the Voyageurs, or even the Admirals yet. But you can't have everything at once, right? Tonight's game against Carolina gave them more than just a point in the standings—it reminded them what it felt like to be winners. Some of them were experiencing that for the very first time. Heading up the airstairs, Ilya almost crashed into the back of Haas, who'd frozen dead center on the stairs. "Haasy. Please don't tell me you've got a bad feeling and won’t fly." Luca flinched and stared at Ilya as if he’d seen a ghost. "Did we really win?" he said, not budging an inch. As if he hadn't pulled off half the saves in tonight's game. A wave of tenderness toward his team washed over Ilya so suddenly that he almost had a heart attack. So he hurried to slap on the mask of a heartless asshole. "Win?" he echoed, mocking. "Sorry, Haasy, but actually you hit your head and fell into coma. And now you're hallucinating in a padded cell." Luca's jaw dropped, clearly at a complete loss. "Rozanov, for fuck’s sake!" Bood bellowed from somewhere below. "Stop bothering the kid and get on the plane!" "I can't! Your kid is having a sudden mental crisis and thirty inches across the shoulders!" "It's not thirty," Luca mumbled, finally continuing up. "Twenty at most." "Damn, if it were thirty… imagine, you wouldn't have to do anything, you'd just block the net with your shoulders!" Ilya could swear Luca picked up the pace, fleeing from his bullshit. And that he was beet-red as he greeted the flight attendant. Ilya watched him go, grinning, until he caught an elbow to the ribs from Bood. "What, you having an existential crisis too?" "Don't call my crisis bad names," Ilya tossed over his shoulder, and covered the remaining steps in two huge strides. The flight attendant at the cabin door gave him a megawatt smile. "Great game, Captain." She clearly wouldn't have minded congratulating him on the win personally. But Ilya was waiting for congratulations from exactly one person, and this beauty wasn't him. And Shane still hadn't sent him a single line Ilya shoved the S-name into the deepest corner of his brain and very loudly thought that he could fuck the entire crew of this plane. If he wanted to. But he didn't. So he politely thanked the woman and just walked past her. *** Half an hour into the flight, Ilya regretted sitting in the back. He'd hoped to fall asleep fast, drained from the Carolina game, but the Centaurs were too hyped up to let him close his eyes for a second. The front rows were joking loudly, despite the late hour, and periodically bursting into laughter. It wasn't like Ilya had never slept in conditions like this, but tonight… Tonight even Harris, sitting across the aisle from him, was banging away at his work laptop ten times louder than usual. And also… Shane could've congratulated him on the win He didn't have time to check the score. He had a game himself tonight. That's how it goes when your boyfriend is the best player in the NHL. And when hockey matters more to your boyfriend than you do Ilya shook his head furiously. The unwanted thoughts pissed him off to no end—and kept coming back, no matter how hard he tried to shove them away. Because, in the end, the serious talk was inevitable. Troy walked over to Harris and loomed over him, filling up all the space. Ilya didn't listen to what he was saying. He was very happy for them. And he was very, very jealous. The plane shuddered, and Troy tumbled right onto Harris, letting out a comical squeak. Ilya turned away to the window, unable to watch this fluff-fest six feet away from him. He, too, wanted to show up on a plane next to Shane and pretend to fall on him. Ilya squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead against the icy window. He'd won the game tonight. What the hell more did he want? Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane The plane shuddered again, and the Coke from the tray table flew to the floor, splashing across Ilya's shirt on its way down. But he didn’t even have time to curse under his breath, because a moment later there was a terrible roar that rattled through his chest—and the plane was suddenly plummeting. A few rows ahead of Ilya, Chouinard yelled, "Engine's on fire! The fucking engine is on fire!" Sure enough, there were sparks visible through the window. Ilya's breath caught. They had an engine failure. They were in trouble. They were falling. He yelled with everyone else and squeezed his eyes shut, as if the whole shitstorm could just disappear. End like a bad dream. Suddenly, Ilya’s insides lurched, and the plane leveled out a little. The speakers crackled, and the pilot's voice came on. Ilya made out the words “fire,” “landing,” and “on the water.” The flight attendant appeared in the aisle. The same one who'd flirted with Ilya at the cabin door, only now pale as ice. She was shouting something in English, and no matter how hard Ilya tried, his brain refused to translate the words coming out of her mouth. But logic suggested that if they were going to land on water, they were probably going to need life vests. He bent down and pulled his out from under the seat in front of him. He pulled it over his head. He tied it at the sides. And while his hands were busy with this mechanical work, it really hit him. The plane’s engine is malfunctioning. The plane is falling. Falling into the Atlantic Ocean. Ilya might die—die without ever talking to Shane again. The fucking life vest got in the way of pulling his phone out of his pocket, and Ilya cursed out loud, scratching at the plastic case with his nails. But in the end he won that battle and opened Instagram. ‘Shane,’ he started, and stopped. What should he write? What could anyone possibly write when they’re about to be smashed into the surface of the Atlantic? Time seemed to stop. The engine blazed in the window. The flight attendant kept shouting about life vests like a broken record. The nose of the plane was pointed down. Ilya was being torn apart by the realization that he wouldn't see Shane again. ‘You're the best thing in my life,’ he typed, and realized it was the absolute truth. The flight attendant shouted something new, but Ilya had no idea what "brace" meant. Possibly something he was about to die from. ‘I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.’ His heart was pounding out of his chest. The cabin smelled of smoke. Time was slipping through his fingers. ‘Whatever happens, I’ A terrible impact knocked the phone out of Ilya's hands. *** Ilya was thrown forward. The seatbelt slammed into his stomach, knocking all the air out of his lungs, and his forehead smacked into the back of the seat in front of him. Oh. So "brace" meant "curl up." Got it. This extremely timely thought was almost drowned out by the wild metallic shriek of the plane skidding across the surface of the water. It lurched left, then right, and at one point Ilya was slammed against the window so hard his vision blacked out. For several long seconds it was painful, loud, and unbearably terrifying. And then the plane stopped. For ten heartbeats there was absolute silence. "Hey, everybody alive?" came Wiebe's hoarse voice from the front. And the silence shattered against him like a wave against a breakwater. The cabin filled with coughing, sobbing, swearing. Ilya could clearly hear Bood repeating "fuck, fuck, fuck" like a skipping record. Did they really survive? Ilya raised his head. The cabin was dark, lit only by the orange strips of emergency lighting that ran along the floor and around the emergency exits. It smelled of jet fuel—like a gas station, but a hundred times stronger. Black water sloshed against the window. They'd ditched. They'd fucking ditched. Ilya unbuckled. His legs felt like jelly, his head was spinning, something warm was running down his cheek. He touched his temple and hissed at the burst of searing pain. His fingers came back bloody. Ilya wiped his face with his sleeve and stood up, gripping the seat in front of him. Wiebe was already standing in the aisle, yelling across the whole cabin: "Vests on—everybody to the exits! Don't grab your shit, don't inflate your vests, do whatever the flight attendants tell you!" Troy stumbled into the aisle to Ilya's left. "Harris, leave it. Harris, please, babe… Fuck. Harris, dude, we have to get out of here!" he was rambling, not moving an inch. Ilya didn't catch what Harris answered. He seemed to be fumbling under the seats, frantically searching for something, while Troy hovered over him like an idiot. When he should be grabbing him by the fucking scruff and dragging him to the exit. The gears in Ilya's head started turning. There was no time to panic, they had to get out of this plane immediately, and that was the only thing that mattered. "Barrett!" Ilya barked, barely recognizing his own voice. "Move! To the exit!" "But—" Troy turned around, eyes shining with naked panic. "I said move your ass to the fucking exit!" Ilya grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him in the right direction, automatically registering that water was sloshing in his sneakers. "I've got him!" Whether Troy obeyed or not, Ilya didn't know. The second the aisle was clear, he dove between the seats and hauled Harris up by force—the man was bent double over the floor. "My laptop!" Harris shouted, trying to pull free, but Ilya held on tight. "All my materials are on it, everything I worked on, everything I—" "And you know what else on it?! Fucking water! Because we're sinking in a goddamn two-hundred-ton tin can in the goddamn ocean! So forget your fucking job and get your ass to the exit if you don't want to die!" Harris stared up at him, stunned. But he stopped resisting, and Ilya finally managed to shove him into the aisle. The water underfoot had risen. The tail seemed to be pulling the plane down, because moving toward the emergency exit felt like running uphill. Ilya grabbed onto the next seat and suddenly found someone else's hand under his fingers. Dykstra was frozen in an unnatural pose, gripping the seat so hard his knuckles were white. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes were absolutely empty. "Dykstra," Ilya called. No response. "Evan, hello! Dude, look at me!" Nothing. Dykstra's glazed-over stare went right through Ilya, like they were in different universes. Ilya took him by the chin and slapped him. Dykstra flinched—and finally saw him. "I can't. I have a daughter, I can't die, I have a daughter," he managed, barely audible. "No one will die, Evan. Especially if you get yourself together and walk along orange light on the floor. You can do that for me, Evan?" "I can't—I can. I can. Yes, I can." Dykstra forced his fingers off the seatback and almost toppled sideways, but Ilya caught him and steered him up the aisle, staying right behind him. At the emergency exit itself, Wiebe intercepted Dykstra, gave him a quick once-over, and practically hurled him out onto the wing. "Sixteen, seventeen… Great work, Captain," he said, clapping Ilya on the shoulder, barely pausing his count of the Centaurs who'd made it out. "Come on, Rozanov, help the rookie with his vest!" Only now did Ilya notice Haas, frantically trying to pull a life vest on over his hoodie. His hands were shaking like a freshman's during finals. "Haasy," Ilya called. "Let me." Luca froze instantly, like obeying his captain was an instinct, but didn't stop shaking. "There wasn't a v-vest under my seat," he was explaining, while Ilya pulled the vest down over him and tied the sides. "Or maybe I just didn't find it. Coach gave me a different one, but I got so s-scared I… Hey. Ilya. You're b-bleeding." Ilya automatically reached up to his temple—what for? He already knew there was a cut there, and he already knew it was nothing. "Don't give a shit, Haasy, I've had worse." "That's because you get into too many f-fights." Ilya finished with the ties and looked up at Luca. The kid was smiling crookedly, fully aware that he'd just made a joke. Yeah, this kid was going places. "Russians don't get into fights, Haasy. Russians finish them. Now, time to go swimming." Ilya sent Haas out onto the wing. "Eighteen," Wiebe muttered. "Move, Rozanov, you're last!" Ilya cast one last look around the empty, dark cabin. Somewhere in there were Harris's laptop, and Bood's sneakers, which he always took off mid-flight, and his own phone. Without letting himself think about what that meant, Ilya climbed out onto the wing. ‘Nineteen,” Wiebe counted, and the flight attendant who in a previous life had wanted to fuck Ilya helped him climb onto the inflatable raft. *** His hands were shaking. More precisely, his entire fucking body was shaking. In his defense, Ilya could say that it was cold as shit—sure, they were in Florida, but a) they were in the middle of the ocean, b) at night, c) in January. Maybe fifty degrees Fahrenheit, the fucking wind, soaked feet… The slowly sinking plane. Okay. His hands weren't shaking from the cold. At the edge of the raft, the flight attendant—formerly of the seductive smile—was speaking into a radio. Ilya was sitting only a few feet from her, but couldn't make out a word over the wind. Over the wind and the deafening chatter of Hayes's teeth on his left. Hayes was soaked to the bone—must have fallen into the water climbing onto the raft—but wasn't complaining. He'd been first to receive a thermal blanket from the second flight attendant, and Ilya had helped wrap it over his inflated vest. The others were doing better: Barrett, on Ilya's right, sat quietly with his arms wrapped around his knees; Haas had pulled up his hood and was rubbing his forearms; Harris was trying to switch on the light on his vest. Ilya let his gaze drift over them, mentally checking off the list of names in his head. Dykstra, Bood, Holmberg, Chouinard… nine, ten… fourteen, fifteen, sixteen… Reaching eighteen, Ilya almost lost his shit, because there were supposed to be nineteen of them! And Coach had counted nineteen. Where was the other one? Who was the other one? And only after counting them all twice more did Ilya realize he'd forgotten himself. Someone touched his temple, and Ilya flinched. "Easy," Terry commanded. He was crouching in front of Ilya with a first aid kit beside him. "Need to clean it up." "It's nothing." "Why don't we let the team doctor decide if it's nothing?" Terry unceremoniously tilted Ilya's face into the most uncomfortable angle possible and dabbed at the cut with something stinging. "Yeah, it's nothing," he confirmed. Ilya snorted. "Like I said." "You say a lot of things. Dizzy?" "No." "Nauseous?" "No." "Vision normal?" "Terry, I'm healthy as a horse, okay?" "I haven't met any horses who survived plane crashes." Despite the skepticism in his voice, Terry stuck a bandage over the cut and finally left Ilya alone. A second later he was bothering Bood—who was apparently also bleeding, and was apparently also saying it was nothing. The sexy flight attendant pushed her way to the center of the raft and cleared her throat for attention. "The Coast Guard is on its way," she announced, to a chorus of relieved exhales. "Twenty minutes max. Don't stand up, don't lean over the side, don't drink the water…" Ilya tuned out after he heard that they'd be rescued in twenty minutes. Everything was fine. Their plane could sink under the weight of its own tail, their things could be irretrievably lost, the cut on his temple could pulse with every heartbeat—they were all alive. His messages to Shane hadn't been necessary. Fuck. Shane. Ilya jerked toward his pocket to grab his phone, but remembered that it, too, had been lost. Fuck! Had Shane already read them? Already seen the news about the crash? God, he must be terrified. Why, why had Ilya written all that?! "Anybody has a phone?" He could call and delete the call from the call log—but, of course, he couldn't remember the last digits of the number. Or he could log into his account and write back and log right out, and no one would notice… "No signal," Chouinard called back. Fuck. How much time had passed since he'd sent those messages? How much more would pass before he got his hands on a working smartphone? God, please let him not be on Instagram, please let him not be watching the news, please let him— "What an absolute shitshow," Bood echoed Ilya's thoughts. "I texted Cassie such things… she'll kill me herself if I survive." Oh yeah. Ilya understood him perfectly. "Texted what?" Dykstra asked flatly. "Fuck off." "Come on, tell us." Bood buried his face deeper in his hands. "That I love her," he confessed, muffled by his hands. "And that I should've said it more often. And that I want kids with her. And that I always wanted to name our son Milo and our daughter Sophie." A sound suspiciously like a sniffle came from under Bood's hands. "Turns out you're a real softie, huh, Bood?" Hayes said, smirking, his teeth almost no longer chattering. "Fuck off," Bood growled. "Come on, Bood, we already kind of knew," Chouinard said, patting him on the shoulder. "Ever since Di showed us that picture of Susie at her recital," Haas confirmed. "No, ever since Harris brought Chiron in for the first time," Troy stated authoritatively. Bood sniffled again. Then he sat up resolutely, shaking off Chouinard's hand, and wiped his eyes furiously. "I never told you guys this, but you're the best fucking team in the NHL." A ripple of quiet laughter went around the raft. Ilya smiled in spite of himself. Honestly, he agreed with Bood. "You sure you're not mixing us up with someone, Bood?" Dykstra snickered. "I bet on our team every single game, and tonight was, like, the first time I won?" "Are you fucking serious—" "You bet on our team?!" "Why?!" "Are you stupid or what?!" The raft erupted in a mix of outrage, admiration, and a whole lot of stuff that was the polar opposite of fear and shock. Ilya cracked up at the dumbstruck faces of the Centaurs. "Seriously, Di," he joined in. "How much money you blown?" "Hmm…" Dykstra seemed to genuinely consider it, scratching the back of his head, squinting. "Forty grand? For the season?" For a second there was silence. "AMERICAN DOLLARS?!" "Holy shit." "You're insane. He's insane!" "What is this, charity?" "Don't you need to save up for Susie's college?" Ilya had never seen Dykstra so red. "I believed it would work eventually! And don't tell me it's stupid, Troy puts his left skate on first every single time, and Hayes won't change his gear if he made a good save in it!" "Bullshit," Hayes parried instantly. "You told me yourself over beers!" "In secret, Evan. Do you know what 'in secret' means?!" "Why not… I spit on my stick before stepping onto the ice," Haas admitted quietly. "I kiss a lucky charm in my car," Holmberg joined in. "I don't have sex before games," Chouinard threw in. "Holy fucking shit, gentlemen," Bood managed through laughter. "I learned more about you in ten minutes than in six years on this team!" Everyone laughed, and the wave of unexpected confessions kept going. So Ilya learned that Boyle had always pretended in interviews to be a Sidney Crosby fan, that Hayes had wanted to be a vet as a kid, and that Haas drooled in his sleep. It was warm and uncomplicated and sweet. And Ilya really, really wanted to join in. To say that he slept with a man. With one single man for a fucking century now. To admit that he was faithful to that man, that he was sick to death of hiding their relationship, that he wanted to scream to the whole world that they were together. To say his name. Ilya was sure they'd understand. At worst, they'd call him a softie for those weepy messages from a falling plane. But more likely, they'd just be blown away by the kind of man he'd landed and be happy for him. Ilya took a deep breath and opened his mouth— "I'm gay," Troy Barrett said quietly. Ilya closed his mouth. And put a hand on Troy's shoulder. "My condolences," Harris beamed. "Thanks for telling us, dude," Bood saluted. "I just lost twenty bucks to my wife," Dykstra complained. "You and your wife had bets on my orientation?" "Well, not just yours." Troy groaned. "Whose else?" "Bood, Roz, Hayes, Boyle, Haasy…" "So basically the entire team?" "Um, Bood has a wife?" "You'd have to be a complete moron to bet on Roz's orientation…" "Di, you have a problem, you know that?" Ilya pulled Troy in close. He hoped Barrett could feel how proud he was of him. And couldn't feel how disappointed he was that someone had stolen his moment of truth. Probably for good. Because it wasn't only his secret. And Shane wasn't ready yet. Shane wouldn't have stayed mad for long—definitely not after Ilya had nearly died—but it would have hurt. And Ilya wasn't quite hurting badly enough to hurt Shane. He was alive, and Shane was alive, and Shane was the best thing in Ilya's life. *** The helicopters arrived quickly. By the time the rescue swimmer was lowered onto the raft on the cable, Ilya was already pushing Hayes toward him—wet hypothermia cases first. Then Haas and Dykstra. Then everyone else God hadn't blessed with a C on their jersey. Ilya left the raft last. Except, of course, for Wiebe—he had coached the most dysfunctional team in the division for years, he could outstubborn anyone alive. Probably for that same reason, the entire staff of Tampa General decided that they were duty-bound to check every single Centaur—no matter how visibly fine—for hypothermia, concussion, internal bleeding, and a fucking endless list of other things they absolutely did not need checking for. Ilya was poked with thermometers, had penlights shined in his eyes, was asked what day it was and who the president was. But they couldn't find Ilya a goddamn phone. "If you need to make a call, sir, there's a hospital landline over—" "How am I supposed to do that if I don't remember the number?" Ilya was explaining for the tenth time to yet another nurse. "I need a normal modern smartphone with internet access and Instagram!" "I'm very sorry, but we don't lend patients our personal devices." "I'll pay. How much?" "Mr. Rozanov—" "Thousand dollars?" "I'm so sorry." Ilya cursed in Russian. The nurse, who clearly wasn't hearing this for the first time tonight, gave him an apologetic smile and moved on to her next perfectly healthy patient. Every failed attempt was another minute that Shane was spending in the dark. If Ilya hadn't gotten emotional on the raft, he'd have a phone right now, and he could be joining everyone else who was now frantically calling their families. "…No, Mom, everything's okay. Everything's okay. I'm in the hospital but I'm fine, Mom, I swear—" "…Cassie, baby, listen to me. You need to immediately delete everything I texted you in the last… let's say four hours. Don't read it! …Deleted? You're sure you deleted it? God, Cass, you're the smartest woman in the world, I love you—" "…Dad, tell Mom not to watch TV today or tomorrow… maybe disconnect the cable, like, say it broke?…" Ilya put his name down for every available phone, but it didn't look like he'd ever actually get one. He was slowly losing his mind. He was just about ready to go all-in and use every ounce of his straight-guy charm to beg for a phone, when—a second before he could grab a passing nurse by the sleeve—Wiebe came up to him. And in Coach's hand—oh holy fucking shit, hallelujah—was a phone. "Heard the scary Russian Centaur is eating the nurses alive if they don't give him a phone," Wiebe smirked. "I've got one free." "Coach, I'm gonna kiss you," Ilya warned, but instead snatched the phone out of Wiebe's hands and opened Instagram. Only to realize he hadn't typed his account password in at least two years. "Fuuuuck," Ilya groaned and dropped back against the pillow. "Coach. What's my password?" "'Jane dot Montreal dot onelove exclamation mark fuck and the numbers eighty-one'?" "Very funny." Ilya had once had a very similar password. But that was before he'd changed it for the second-to-last time. He couldn't just shrug it off. God knew how long they'd keep him in the hospital, and how long it would take to get his phone number back and all the accounts attached to it—and finally call Shane. Shane would have lost his mind by then. Without much hope, Ilya went into Wiebe's contacts and typed "Hollander" into the search bar. The result, naturally, was empty. Because what would the head coach of the Centaurs be doing with a top Montreal player's personal number? Why, why the fuck hadn't he memorized Shane's number?! Ilya slammed his fist into the bed. Someone laughed from the next bed over. "Rozanov, does this hospital stand any chance of surviving your visit?" "Fuck off, Bood." Breath in. Breath out. He remembered Shane's number almost completely—except the last two digits. That was only a hundred combinations. That was, well… solvable, right? He sincerely hoped Coach wouldn't need this phone for the next two hours. *** "Sorry, wrong number." "Ilya? Who's Ilya? Is this some kind of prank?" "Vous avez joint le répondeur de Sophie, laissez un message…" "I don't care what you're selling, I don't have time!" "Hi, this is Margaret, leave a message after the beep…" By around the tenth call, Ilya thought maybe he should be writing down which digits he'd already tried. By the twentieth, he started a note in Coach's phone with a layout worthy of an actual lunatic. By the thirtieth, a woman told him to fuck off in two languages. By the thirty-fifth, Ilya was, frankly, about to start crying. Instead, he wrote down one more combination of digits in the note and dialed the thirty-sixth number. "Hello," answered a nervous voice, and Ilya's heart stopped. "Fuck. Shane," he breathed. The line went very quiet. "Ilya…?" Ilya pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes were burning, there was a lump in his throat. Everything unsaid was clawing its way up, but he couldn't make a single word come out. "Ilya? Ilya, is that you? Hello, answer me!" "It's me," Ilya finally managed. "It's me, Shane, it's me. I'm alive, okay? I'm in the hospital, I have cut on my head, but it's nothing, and I'm fine. I'm sorry, I tried to call you all this fucking time, but I lost my phone in the plane, and I forgot your number, and, and, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for those messages, I—" Ilya choked on the words and stopped. He took a deep breath. "Shane. Honey. How are you?" "I… Ilya, I’m here," he said quietly. At first Ilya didn't understand what he meant. Then he raised his eyes and saw him. At the far end of the emergency department, in the doorway, stood Shane. Phone to his ear, in a wrinkled hoodie, hair a mess. He was staring straight at Ilya with the eyes of a wounded fawn. And everyone else was staring at him. "Holy shit, Shane Hollander!" Ilya heard Boyle's voice from somewhere far away. But Shane just kept staring at him across the entire emergency department, as if he didn't even register what kind of scene he'd caused. "Shane." "I'm here." "It's not too late to apologize and not be here." Even from sixty feet away, Ilya saw Shane's shoulders drop, saw him look down, surely regretting his stupid, stupid impulse. "I… I figured something out when I read your messages," Shane said quietly, and looked back up. "Fuck it. As long as I have you, I'll keep choosing you." Ilya was speechless, blindsided by it. "Can I hug you?" Shane sniffled. Ilya's jaw clenched against the desperate need to break down sobbing. He couldn't bear the twenty seconds it would take Shane to cross the emergency department, so he leapt off the bed and rushed at him himself, not caring about outraged nurses or the dumbstruck Centaurs. Ilya crashed into Shane and clung to him like a lifeline, like a last inflatable vest, like a rope ladder from the heavens. Hot tears were streaming down his face. "I'm so glad you're alive," Shane whispered. And that was it. That broke Ilya for good. He sobbed like he'd never sobbed in his life. In his howl was the screech of the plane hitting the water, and the cries of two dozen athletes certain of their imminent death, and the hurt of his boyfriend not congratulating him on his win, and the weight of their shared secret, and the pain of moving to Canada, and the fear of judgment back home, and rage at his brother, and guilt over his father, and grief for his mother. And so, so much love. Shane whispered something soothing and rocked him in his strong arms, and Ilya just couldn't stop. As if he were trying to cry out a lifetime's worth of tears all at once. He cried so long that he started laughing through it. "Not how I… pictured… our coming-out," he managed against Shane's neck, hiccupping and giggling at the same time. "Hey, Rozanov," came Bood's voice. "You trying to suffocate Hollander?" Ilya flipped him off in the general direction of where Bood seemed to be. "Fuck off," he said. "And turn around." "Excuse me?" A soft female voice. "Mr. Rozanov? You're still in shock—let's give you a sedative, okay?" "No," Shane said, half a second before Ilya, and his voice came out remarkably firm and remarkably sexy. "Ahem… No, thanks, let's just… is this his bed…?" Ilya let himself be led to the bed and sat down on it. Hollander crouched in front of him and took his face in his hands. "Ilya, sweetheart. How are you?" "Like I fell out of a plane into the Atlantic. And then into the arms of the sexiest hockey player with the most embarrassing backhand." Shane smiled, brushing the rest of the tears away with his thumbs. Ilya kissed him on the mouth. *** When they pulled apart, the Tampa General emergency room was silent as a morgue. Shane went red all the way to his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked like he was about to spontaneously combust. Ilya swept his gaze over their audience. Bood was openly staring with a meaningful smirk. Troy, catching Ilya's eye, nodded with a huge grin. Haas—the only decent person in this herd of hooligans—politely turned away. But mostly, everyone was just gawking with the same dumbstruck expression. "What?" Ilya threw out, defiant. "Rozanov, fuck you," Dykstra groaned. "I just lost a hundred to my wife!" "What does he mean?" Shane asked uncertainly. "That he's a fucking gambling addict who needs help," Ilya snapped, and yanked the curtain shut. He pulled Shane in and kissed him again, deeply and passionately. Hollander pressed against him like it was the last time, his shoulders trembling like they were on a raft in the middle of the ocean and not in a room full of friends. "They won't tell anyone, my love," Ilya breathed against Shane's lips. "They're idiots, but they're the best fucking team in NHL." "I believe you," Shane answered, pressing his forehead to Ilya's. "Congrats on the win, by the way. Even if it was just Carolina." "Oh, fuck off, Hollander. Did you even win tonight?" "Rozanov, I read that your plane was crashing and I ran to the airport in my skates." "So that's a no." "That's a yes," Shane said, kissing his forehead. "Yes," kissing his left cheek. "Yes," kissing the corner of his mouth. And it was the best win of his career.