Page 66 of The Long Game
“Are you hungry?” Shane asked.
“Yes.”
“I have a premade lasagna. I just have to bake it.”
Ilya’s face lit up with interest. Then, just as quickly, his face fell. “What are the noodles?”
“Zucchini.”
“No!”
“It’s good, I swear. You won’t even notice the difference,” Shane lied. He turned on the oven, and decided not to tell Ilya what the stand-in for the cheese was.
Ilya grunted as he sat on Shane’s sofa, and Shane glanced over with concern. “How’s your knee?”
“It fell off,” Ilya said dryly, clearly done with Shane asking the same question over and over.
“Let me look at it.”
“You saw it this morning.” Ilya had his sore leg stretched out on the sofa. “Is still just bruised.”
Shane was already at his side. He tried to slide Ilya’s pants leg up, but the tapered cut of the fancy jogging pants made it impossible. “Pull your pants down.”
“You are terrible at foreplay,” Ilya said, but he lifted his hips and slid his waistband down to his shins. The outer part of Ilya’s left knee was entirely dark purple and swollen.
“Jesus,” Shane said. He brushed his fingers over the bruise. “Maybeyoushould have seen a doctor today.”
“I saw the team doctor last night. Is bruised. Have you not ever had a bruise?”
“I’m getting you some ice.”
Ilya made a vague grunting noise that Shane translated asIce would feel amazing but I am absolutely not going to admit that.
Shane left and returned with an ice pack, some ibuprofen, and a glass of water. He carefully placed the ice on Ilya’s knee while Ilya took the pills.
“Thank you, moya gazonokosilka.”
This was a game Ilya liked to play where he used random Russian words as pet names, to test Shane. Shane thought hard for a moment, trying to guess the word’s meaning, but ultimately surrendered. “No idea what that one means.”
“Is, um...for cutting the grass.”
“Lawnmower?”
“Yes.”
“Weird.”
Shane felt something digging into his hip when he bent to kiss Ilya quickly, then remembered the plastic heart rings that the kids had insisted he and Ilya keep. He took them out of his pocket and placed them on the coffee table, and was about to return to the kitchen when Ilya said, quietly, “The kids didn’t care.”
“About what?”
“About us. They knew, and they did not care.”
“Yeah. That was a surprise.” Shane had no idea how Ruby and Jade had been so certain that Ilya and Shane were a couple—he was sure their parents hadn’t told them, it would be risky giving young children that information—but they’d known and accepted it and had insisted on making honest men of them both.
“Maybe more people would not care,” Ilya said. “If they knew.”
“I think most people would care way too fucking much,” Shane said dismissively.
