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The first thing Ilya noticed, after the final horn had sounded and the roar of the crowd inside the Centaurs’ arena had settled into a thunderous, satisfied hum, was the way Shane looked at him across the ice.
It was not a look that cameras could easily capture, nor one that commentators could properly describe with their usual vocabulary of sportsmanship and rivalry and skill, because the look carried with it the quiet gravity of history, of years spent battling each other from opposite benches before fate, stubbornness, and a long overdue confession had shifted the course of their lives so dramatically that now they wore the same jersey, skated the same power play, and shared a locker room instead of a feud.
The entire world knew it now.
The secret that had once been so carefully guarded between hotel rooms, late-night messages, and moments stolen in the shadowed corners of arenas was no longer a secret at all; headlines had exploded when Shane had signed with the Ottawa Centaurs, the same team Ilya was captain of, and the news had grown even louder when they had confirmed—without shame, without hesitation—that yes, they were together, yes, they were engaged, and no, neither of them had any intention of pretending otherwise.
Fans had opinions.
Media had even more.
But the Centaurs had simply shrugged, handed them matching captain’s patches, and told them to go win hockey games.
And they did.
Tonight’s game had been brutal in the best possible way—fast, physical, relentless—and when the Centaurs finally closed it out with a decisive 5–2 victory, the arena erupted with the kind of celebration that made your bones vibrate.
By the time the players returned to the locker room, sweat-soaked and exhilarated, Bood had already started blasting music from a portable speaker, Dillon was still loudly recounting the goal he absolutely insisted should count as an assist for him somehow, and Wyatt had thrown an arm around Dykstra while declaring the night a mandatory celebration.
“Bar,” Haas announced, pointing at the group like a general issuing orders. “Everyone. No excuses.”
“Even the captains?” Harris asked, leaning casually against Troy’s shoulder while holding up his phone to record the chaos for the team’s social media.
“Especially the captains,” Troy replied with a grin.
Shane, who had been calmly unlacing his skates while pretending he had nothing to do with the sudden eruption of chanting that began the moment someone shouted co-captains buy the first round, looked up slowly.
Across the room, Ilya met his eyes and grinned.
And Shane knew, with the resigned certainty of a man who had been in love with that idiot for far too long, that the night was going to get out of hand.
The bar they ended up in was loud in the way only a post-game hockey celebration could be loud, filled with the kind of energy that came from adrenaline still lingering in the bloodstream, from fans recognizing players and buying drinks, from teammates shouting over music while retelling moments from the game with increasingly exaggerated enthusiasm.
Shane paced himself, as he always did.
It was not that he disliked celebrating—he simply preferred to remain aware of his surroundings, to observe rather than participate too recklessly, a trait that had earned him a reputation across the league as the calm one, the diplomatic one, the player who could defuse tense situations with a few carefully chosen words and a level stare.
Ilya, however, did not pace himself.
At first Shane merely watched with quiet amusement as Ilya accepted drinks from teammates and fans alike, his laughter growing louder, his shoulders looser, his Russian accent thickening in that particular way that always happened when he had more alcohol than common sense.
By the time Dillon challenged him to some ridiculous drinking game involving a stack of coasters and a very questionable set of rules, Shane was already fairly certain the night was headed somewhere chaotic.
“Careful,” Shane murmured when Ilya wandered over a while later, leaning one arm against Shane’s shoulder with the relaxed affection of someone who had absolutely forgotten that cameras might exist.
“I am careful,” Ilya said with great seriousness, before immediately stealing the drink in Shane’s hand and finishing it.
Shane raised an eyebrow.
“You see,” Ilya continued, grinning like a man extremely pleased with his own logic, “I save you from drinking too much.”
Across the table, Wyatt nearly choked laughing.
“Your fiancé is a hero,” Bood declared.
Shane sighed, though the fondness in his eyes betrayed him completely.
As the night stretched on, the team gradually spread through the bar in shifting clusters of conversation and laughter; Harris and Troy ended up near the back filming short celebratory clips, Haas and Dykstra argued about something hockey-related with passionate intensity, and Dillon attempted to teach Wyatt a complicated handshake that neither of them could remember five minutes later.
Through it all, Shane kept half an eye on Ilya.
Which was how he noticed the stranger.
At first the man was simply another figure in the crowded room, someone lingering a little too close to the group, watching with the kind of interest that was not unusual in a place where professional athletes had just arrived to celebrate a win.
But Shane had spent years reading opponents on the ice, and the instinct translated easily to crowded bars.
The stranger’s attention was focused almost entirely on Ilya.
And Ilya, who was currently explaining something loudly to Dillon while gesturing with a drink in his hand, did not notice.
Shane straightened slightly in his chair.
He told himself it was nothing.
People flirted with athletes all the time.
People flirted with Ilya all the time.
Most of the time Ilya handled it just fine, usually with an easy laugh and a casual mention of his fiancé that sent admirers retreating with sheepish apologies.
But tonight Ilya was drunk enough that his usual awareness had softened into something less careful.
And the stranger was getting closer.
It happened quickly.
One moment Ilya was leaning against the bar while Wyatt tried to explain the rules of some absurd game involving napkins, and the next moment the stranger had stepped directly into his space with the bold confidence of someone who believed proximity alone could create familiarity.
Shane rose from his seat almost instinctively.
He was not close enough to hear the beginning of the conversation, but he saw Ilya’s polite smile—the one he used when strangers approached him—and he saw the slight confusion that followed when the man leaned closer.
Then the stranger reached out, grabbed the front of Ilya’s shirt, and kissed him.
It was abrupt, invasive, unmistakably unwanted.
For a heartbeat the entire world seemed to freeze.
Ilya stiffened immediately, hands coming up in surprise as he shoved the man back with a sharp curse in Russian, his expression shifting from confusion to anger in an instant.
But Shane was already moving.
People often described Shane Hollander as calm, controlled, endlessly composed.
What they did not understand—what very few people had ever witnessed—was what happened when that composure finally cracked.
He crossed the room with the focused intensity of a storm breaking open.
The stranger barely had time to register what was happening before Shane’s hand closed around the collar of his jacket and slammed him back against the nearest wall with enough force to rattle the glasses on the bar.
The music faltered.
Conversations stopped.
And the entire Centaurs roster turned to stare.
Shane’s voice, when he spoke, was low and dangerously precise.
“Don’t,” he said, each word sharp as ice, “ever touch him again.”
The man sputtered something—an excuse, maybe, or an attempt at bravado—but Shane’s patience was already gone.
Years of restraint, of carefully measured responses, of choosing diplomacy over aggression because it was the right thing to do had evaporated in the single moment he had seen someone put their hands on Ilya without consent.
The stranger tried to shove him.
It was a mistake.
Shane reacted with the speed and power of a professional athlete who spent most of his life colliding with other men at full velocity, and within seconds the stranger found himself very firmly pinned against the wall again, this time with absolutely no room for misunderstanding.
Across the room, Dillon whispered, “Holy shit.”
“Is he—” Wyatt started.
“Yes,” Bood said quietly, watching with wide eyes, “he is absolutely losing it.”
Haas folded his arms with something suspiciously close to approval.
Dykstra nodded once, as if confirming a long-held theory.
At the bar, Ilya simply watched.
There was a small bruise forming on his lip where the stranger’s mouth had collided with his, and his expression was a complicated mixture of lingering anger, surprise, and something else entirely as he observed Shane’s usually calm demeanor transform into something fierce and unyielding.
“Apologize,” Shane said coldly.
The stranger did.
Quickly.
And when Shane finally released him, the man disappeared into the crowd with the speed of someone who had absolutely no intention of lingering anywhere near the Ottawa Centaurs ever again.
For a moment the bar remained silent.
Then Wyatt exhaled loudly.
“Okay,” he said, “that was terrifying.”
“Hot, though,” Harris muttered, still filming.
Troy elbowed him.
Shane turned slowly, his chest rising and falling as adrenaline still burned through his system, and his gaze immediately found Ilya.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The question came out softer than the rest of his words had been.
Ilya nodded once.
“Da,” he said.
Then he stepped forward, grabbed Shane by the front of his shirt, and kissed him.
The entire team erupted.
Later—much later—when the celebration had finally wound down and the Centaurs had stumbled back to the hotel in various states of exhaustion and amusement, Shane found himself standing in the quiet hallway outside their shared room while Ilya leaned against the wall beside him with a grin that suggested he was still very entertained by the events of the evening.
“You punched him,” Ilya said thoughtfully.
“I did not punch him,” Shane replied.
“You wanted to.”
“That’s not the point.”
Ilya hummed.
For a moment he simply studied Shane’s face with an intensity that made Shane shift slightly under the weight of it.
“You were very angry,” Ilya said.
Shane ran a hand through his hair.
“I didn’t like the way he touched you.”
“I noticed.”
There was a pause.
Then Ilya stepped closer.
Shane had seen that look before.
It was the same one Ilya sometimes gave him after particularly intense games, or after long separations during their earlier years of secrecy, a look that carried with it a certain unmistakable spark of desire.
“You are very attractive when you are jealous,” Ilya said quietly.
“I wasn’t jealous.”
“Protective, then.”
Shane opened the door to their room with the firm intention of ending this conversation before Ilya could continue saying things that would make his pulse do ridiculous things.
But the moment they stepped inside, Ilya pushed him gently back against the closed door.
“You should get drunk more often,” Ilya murmured.
Shane laughed under his breath.
“You should get less drunk.”
“Maybe.”
Ilya’s hand slid up to rest against Shane’s chest, his fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
“But tonight was good night.”
Shane looked down at him.
“Yes,” he admitted quietly.
And when Ilya kissed him again, it was slower this time, softer but no less intense, the kind of kiss that carried with it years of rivalry, affection, frustration, and devotion woven together into something steady and unbreakable.
Somewhere down the hallway, the rest of the Centaurs were still arguing loudly about the fight.
Inside the room, Shane pulled Ilya closer.
And the door stayed firmly closed.