Page 174 of The Long Game
Ilya only huffed in response. He copied and pasted Farah’s statement, made sure all four photos were lined up, and hovered his thumb over the post button.
“Ready?” he asked.
Shane blew out a breath. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
They posted it.
Shane got a call from his coach shortly after Ilya left, gruffly letting him know that he was to be at practice tomorrow morning. It was a relief, and Shane was definitely looking forward to getting back on the ice, but he was nervous about facing his teammates again.
He still hadn’t heard from J.J.
He tried to push it out of his mind by filling the rest of his day with exercise, meditation, and rest. He wasn’t particularly successful at any of those things, especially rest. His body hummed with energy. He felt excited and terrified and a million other things.
He waited two hours after the post went up to check the replies. There were already over fifty thousand likes, and way more comments than he could read. A quick scroll showed thatthey weren’t all positive, but a lot of them were.Mostof them were.
Maybe things really would be okay.
His doorbell rang just before ten o’clock at night, while Shane was sitting on his bed texting Ilya and Rose separately, and checking the Instagram replies for the fifth time that day. The security camera app on his phone showed J.J. standing on his doorstep.
Shane bolted down the stairs and yanked the door open.
“Hi,” he said.
J.J. was scowling, clearly still angry. But he was there.
Shane stepped back and J.J. silently entered the house. They stood in Shane’s front hallway, staring at each other, for several tense moments. Then J.J. said, in French, “You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? You let me keep trying to find you dates, you—”
“To be fair,” Shane interrupted, “I kept telling you to stop doing that.”
“You fucking lied to me. After the Centaurs plane thing I said all that shit about you having one-sided feelings for Rozanov and you lied to me.”
“I—”
“You could have told me. You told Hayden!”
“He...guessed.”
“I felt sorry for you! I thought you were carrying a broken heart around but the whole time you’ve beenfucking Ilya Rozanov!”
Anger shot through Shane. He stepped toward J.J., which meant he had to tip his head back to see his face. “Ilya is myboyfriend. I love him, and I have for years. Don’t make it sound like...less.”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” J.J. said sarcastically. “Obviously I should have known about your epic love affair with Ilya fucking Rozanov because you’ve told me so much about it! You’re one of my best friends, Shane. What the fuck?”
“Maybe,” Shane said tersely, “I thought you wouldn’t exactly be supportive.”
“Of what? Sneaking around with your fucking rival?”
Shane tipped a hand toward J.J. “See?”
J.J. turned his back to him, the rage obvious in the rise and fall of his shoulders. Shane folded his arms, and waited.
“Look,” J.J. finally said, in English. “I don’t think this is okay. It’s fucked up that you’re dating the captain of the team we’re probably going to be facing in the playoffs.”
Shane immediately got angry. He couldn’t help it; he’d had enough of people being grossed out by his relationship for one day. “Thanks for your fucking input. You think maybe that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you?”
