Page 126 of Heated Rivalry 1
“What the fuck bird makes a noise like that?”
“A loon!” Shane said again. Then he doubled over in hysterics. Ilya wanted to push him into the fire.
“Fuck you and your loon!” Ilya said. “Stupid Canadian wolf bird.”
Shane looked up at him, still laughing. His whole face was crinkled up: eyes, nose, freckles. Ilya wanted to grab embers from the fire and smash them into his own eyes because he could not bear to look at this adorable, crinkled, happy face.
“Look,” Shane said. He made a tunnel out of his hands, brought them to his mouth and...
Made the wolf bird noise.
No human should be able to make that noise.
“You speak bird now too?” Ilya asked flatly.
Shane cracked up again, and shoved him. Ilya fought like hell not to, but he started laughing too.
“I speak fluent bird. No accent!” Shane gasped.
“I fucking hate you.”
Shane leaned against him. “No you don’t.”
Ilya sighed. No. He didn’t.
He picked up his can of Coke that was resting on a chunk-of-tree table next to the bench and took a sip. He handed Shane his ginger ale.
They sat in comfortable silence for a long time.
“Have you talked to your family in Russia at all?”
The question came out of nowhere, which meant it was something that had been on Shane’s mind for a while. Also, it probably wasn’t therealquestion that Shane wanted to ask.
“No. Is just my brother there now. And he sucks.”
“Oh. Right.”
A much less comfortable silence fell between them.
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, for no reason at all.
“Why?”
“Your family. My parents are so great. I just...wish you had that too.”
Ilya shrugged. “My mother was great.”
He knew he shouldn’t have said that, because it was only going to lead to—
“How did she die?”
It had been fourteen years, almost, but a lump formed in Ilya’s throat anyway.
“An accident,” he said sardonically. He said it because that was what his father had told everyone. It was what Ilya had been told, very sternly, even though he had known it wasn’t true even at the age of twelve.She had an accident, Ilya. You understand, yes?
“An accident?” Shane asked. His hand was on Ilya’s arm now, squeezing him through the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt.
“Yes,” Ilya said, with a tight, humorless smile. “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills. Oops.”
