Page 120 of The Long Game
Shane checked them now.
The messages were...intense. Romantic, certainly, but weird.
“Whoa,” J.J. said. “The Centaurs’ plane had to make an emergency landing.”
Shane turned to where J.J. was sitting across the aisle. “What? Is everyone okay?”
J.J. thumbed at his phone screen. “Sounds like it. Must have been scary, though.”
Shane read the messages from Ilya again. Holy shit. Those were meant as, like, hislast words.
“But they’re okay?” Shane asked again, panic rising even though he knew Ilya was okay. He had the evidence right there in his hand.
J.J. looked at him with amusement in his eyes. “Yeah. I said they’re fine. Landed safely.”
But dread had already clawed its way into Shane’s heart, filling his head with horrific alternate outcomes. What if those messages had been Ilya’s last words? What if they’d been all Shane had left?
He texted Ilya.I heard about the plane. Are you ok?
Ilya replied right away.Yes. Can I call you?
Shane glanced around the bus at his teammates. A lot of them were wearing headphones, but there was no way Shane was going to be able to sound calm about this.
Shane:I’m almost at the hotel. I’ll call when I’m there. Sorry. I can’t do this with my teammates around.
Ilya texted back a heart emoji.
Shane read his Instagram messages a third time.
Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.
But he wouldn’t have been. He would have been fuckinggone. Who was Ilya’s next of kin, even? The brother he never spoke to? Would Shane have been allowed to spread his ashes somewhere that Ilya would have liked? Maybe at the cottage, or maybe he’d prefer to be buried in Moscow with his parents. God, they’d never talked about this sort of thing.
Anger flared through Shane’s body, hot and sudden. They had lots of reasons to keep their relationship a secret, but those reasons seemed extremely unimportant now. What if Ilya haddied? What if he had fuckingdied?
Shane would have died too. Alone, and secretly, and for the rest of his life.
He clutched his phone to his chest, and turned his head to face the window so his teammates didn’t see the way his lip was trembling.
Ilya knew, as team captain, that he should be at one of the tables in the hotel bar with his teammates. He should be making the rounds, checking in with everyone. Especially the rookies.
But he just...couldn’t.
The adrenaline had worn off quickly, and now he was standing alone in the parking lot outside the lobby, smoking a cigarette. Sure, his New Year’s resolution had been to quit smoking for real, but he’dearnedthis cigarette.
His phone rang when his lungs were full of smoke. He exhaled too quickly, which made him start coughing.
“Hi,” he said, and then coughed again.
“Ilya. Jesus. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Fine.” He coughed again, and thumped his chest with his fist.
“Where are you? What’s going on?” A pause. “Are you smoking?”
“No,” Ilya said, and stamped out what was left of his cigarette on the ground. “I am in Tampa. At the hotel. The team is all together in the bar.”
“It must have been terrifying.”
