Page 132 of Heated Rivalry 1
“Is so annoying.” Ilya sighed, and Shane could see him fighting a grin. “Always I am with beautiful women. Wonderful women. Everywhere.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Yes. Listen. These women, they are so sexy and fun, but is no matter. I cannot stop thinking about this short fucking hockey player with these stupid freckles and a weak backhand.”
“A weak backhand?” Shane couldn’t stop smiling.
“Yes. And he is just so boring and he drives a terrible car and...that is my problem. All of these beautiful women and I am always wishing they were him.”
Ilya bent to take his third shot. “Is terrible problem.”
Fuck. Shane was going start crying right here in his games room. He swallowed and steadied himself. “Do you want the problem to go away?”
“No,” Ilya said seriously, looking Shane dead in the eye. “I do not want the problem to ever go away.”
“Don’t marry Svetlana,” Shane blurted out.
Ilya raised an eyebrow.
“Just...don’t. I know it wouldn’t be...for love or whatever. But don’t. I couldn’t—we can figure something else out, okay?”
Ilya looked surprised, but he nodded.
“Okay.”
“I was thinking,” Ilya said. It was late morning the next day, and they were sitting on the deck with coffee. “If I played for a teamthat was not Boston. Maybe in the west. The rivalry would not be such a big deal.”
Shane seemed to consider this. “That’s true. We’d only play against each other twice a year.”
He frowned and Ilya knew he didn’t like that idea any more than he did.We’d onlyseeeach other twice a year.
“Is...like, sacrifice. For future gain, yes?”
Shane brightened. “Future gain?”
“Yes. Our rivalry has been huge. But maybe we can help it to...fade away? A little?”
“Yeah...” Shane said. He was getting excited. “Yeah! I don’t like the idea of you being so far, but we could make people forget all about us as rivals and maybe no one would care about us at all one day.”
“One day. Yes.”
Shane smiled shyly at him, and Ilya grinned back, and they both sat there, smiling stupidly at each other while they thought about the possibility ofone day.
“I have another idea,” Shane said. He’d been thinking about what Ilya had proposed all day and he had come up with a plan of his own. He propped himself up on an elbow and poked the sleepy Russian in the shoulder.
Ilya rolled over. “What idea? About what?”
“What if you played for Ottawa?”
“Ottawa? Is almost as bad as playing for Boston. We would be rivals just the same.”
“Yes, but listen. First of all, Ottawa desperately needs a star center, so there’s an opening there. But what if you played there and we...changed the narrative a bit?”
“The what? What the fuck with these words, Hollander? I’m tired.”
“Sorry. I just mean...we would still be rivals on the ice, but we wouldn’t have to pretend to be enemies. I mean, lots of guys have friends all over the league. But we’re, like, the only guys who have this whole story built around them where we can’t stand each other and love nothing more than destroying each other every time our teams meet.”
“That story was kind of true, for a long time, Hollander.”
