Before they’d left for Shane’s parents’， Ilya had grumbled something about giving Shane his present later, and Shane didn’t know what that meant. Ilya hadn’t seemed excited about it, that was for sure.
There were things, Shane suspected, that Ilya wasn’t telling him, which made Shane anxious and a bit angry. Why would Ilya keep anything from Shane? He’d thought they were beyond that. If Shane didn’t know better, he’d think Ilya was cheating on him or something. Or that he wanted to break up.
But, Shane kept assuring himself, he did know better. Maybe Ilya’s mood was purely hockey-related. Shane would certainly be in a pissy mood if his team sucked as much as the Ottawa Centaurs.
Whatever it was, Shane was getting tired of it. If Ilya had a problem with Shane, or with anything, he should talk to Shane about it. Not dig into him about his diet or his friends or whatever else Ilya decided to make fun of him about.
Ilya entered the kitchen as Shane was irritably extracting seeds from the pomegranate. “Need help?” he asked.
Shane sighed, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. Maybe he was being annoyed with Ilya for no reason. “I’m good.” He pinched a seed between his finger and thumb and held it out. “Want one?”
Ilya opened his mouth, and Shane slipped the seed inside. Ilya closed his lips around Shane’s fingers for a second, which made Shane smile. He really did love Ilya so much.
“Good,” Ilya said when he’d swallowed the seed. “Not as good as the cookies, but good.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Ilya opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggnog. He glanced at Shane as he made his way to the cupboard where the glasses were, as if waiting for him to say something about the nutritional horrors of eggnog.
“What?” Shane asked testily.
“No lecture?”
Shane slammed the pomegranate half he was working with down on the cutting board. Juice flew everywhere. “Would you please fuck off? I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else eats, Ilya.”
Ilya snorted. “This is not true. You bitch at me all the time.”
“Because you always start it!”
Ilya didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled a large glass from the cupboard and poured himself about a gallon of eggnog.
Shane’s pomegranate-stained fingers curled into fists. He was not going to say anything.
Ilya raised the glass in a toast, and took a long haul of eggnog, which was disgusting to watch. Shane stared him down anyway.
Ilya finished with a loud, obnoxious “Ahh,” then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Shane turned his back to him, grabbed a dishcloth, and began cleaning the spattered pomegranate juice from the counter.
“Your parents want to exchange presents now,” Ilya said.
“Okay.”
“Come to the living room when you are done, yes?”
“I know where we exchange presents on Christmas.” God, Shane knew he sounded like an absolute bitch, but he couldn’t help it.
He could hear Ilya leave the kitchen as Shane continued to aggressively wipe the counter.
The tension followed them home, neither man saying much to the other. Shortly after they got back, Ilya thrust a neatly wrapped present at Shane, then plopped himself grumpily on one end of the couch.
Shane sat on the opposite end, glanced at Ilya with a mixture of apprehension and apology, and carefully unwrapped the gift.
It was a framed photograph that he’d never seen before. He knew immediately when it was from, though. It was an outtake from their first ad campaign together, the one they’d shot in the dingy rink in Toronto the summer before their rookie seasons. The day when they would eventually hook up for the first time. Kiss for the first time.
In the photo they were nose-to-nose in full hockey gear, cropped close from the shoulders up, simulating a face-off. Unlike the intense, serious photo that ran in the campaign, however, in this one they were both laughing. Shane’s nose was scrunched up, and Ilya’s eyes were crinkled, but they still held each other’s gaze.
“How’d you get this?” Shane asked quietly.
“I found out the photographer’s name and his email. I asked if he still had those. He sent me some and that one was my favorite.”
Shane traced a finger over his own giddy face in the photo. At the time he’d felt embarrassed and unprofessional about not being able to keep a straight face. But now he felt a thrill shoot through him as he remembered all of the details of that day: the heat between them, the civil war that had raged inside Shane as he’d fought to ignore his attraction to Ilya. The cliff they’d been just about to jump off together.
“It never occurred to me that these existed,” Shane said now.
“I have always wondered.”
Shane pulled his gaze away from the photograph to look at the present-day version of Ilya. He looked effortlessly beautiful, as always, but also anxious, and a bit sad.
“Ilya,” Shane said. He set the photo carefully on the coffee table, then held his arms open for his boyfriend. Ilya came to him immediately.
“Thank you,” Shane said into Ilya’s hair.
“You are hard to buy for.”
“I know. I love this, though. I’ll bring it to the cottage.”
Ilya stiffened slightly in his arms. “The cottage. Yes,” he said quietly.
Shane felt like he needed to explain why it might be risky to display photos like this one in his Montreal home, which was ridiculous. Of course Ilya knew the reasons. So instead, he kissed him, and it escalated as it usually did. They went up to the bedroom and had sex, but Shane still felt like they’d become dry kindling, waiting for the spark that would destroy them. Like there was something important that wasn’t being said, and they were both waiting for the other person to say it, but neither of them knew what it was.
Ilya spent most of Boxing Day working up the nerve to ask Shane a single question. Finally, early in the afternoon, he broached the subject.
“Bood is having a party tonight.”
Ilya said it casually, as if there were no particular reason he was letting Shane know. As if his stomach wasn’t a mess as he anticipated Shane’s reaction.
“Zane Boodram? He’s having a party on Boxing Day?”
“Yes. Not a big party. It will be chill. Mostly just the team and partners. Bood has fun parties.”
“Oh.”
Ilya held his breath.
“Did you want to go or something?” Shane asked, clearly confused. “I could stay here, I guess. Or head back to—”
“I want you to go too,” Ilya said. “I want you to come with me to the party.”
Shane twisted around so they were facing each other on Ilya’s couch. “You want me to go to a party with your teammates? Why?”
So they can fucking meet my boyfriend, Ilya wanted to scream. But instead, he kept his tone light and said, “They are cool people. You might have fun.”
“But…wouldn’t it be weird, if we showed up together?”
Ilya shrugged easily, as if this was a normal thing for him to suggest. “They know you would be in Ottawa for Christmas. We are friends, so I invite you to a party. No big deal.”
Shane’s face scrunched up in confusion, then he shook his head. “Too weird. I don’t think so.”