Page 143 of Heated Rivalry 1
“I know,” Shane said miserably. “Weknow. It’s not something we can announce.”
“I have to say,” Dad said, “I’m surprised about you, Ilya. You’ve always had such a reputation as a, you know, aladies’man.”
“Is not untrue,” Ilya said.
“Ilya likes both,” Shane said.
“Oh,” Mom said. His parents exchanged a concerned look. Shane was about to change the subject—because this waswaytoo uncomfortable—when Ilya spoke.
“I have been with lots of women. That was not...fake. But...” He looked at Shane, and Shane held his breath. “I have only been in love with one person.”
And suddenly Ilya looked very blurry through Shane’s eyes. Shane swallowed down the urge to cry, and said, “Me too. Just one.”
Shane’s mother covered her mouth with her hand. She tapped her fingertips against her upper lip, and Shane knew she was about to go full Yuna Hollander on this situation.
Sure enough, a moment later she clapped her hands together and jumped up from her chair. “All right, so what’s the plan?” she said. “We’ve got a problem, let’s solve it.”
Shane glanced at a bewildered-looking Ilya. He gave him a small smile. They had Yuna on their side now, and Shane couldn’t imagine a better ally.
“First of all,” Yuna said, “have you talked to Scott Hunter?” She said the name like it physically pained her to speak of the evil man who had stolen Olympic gold from her beloved son.
“I have,” Ilya said. “But not about...us.”
“I emailed him,” Shane added. “I just, y’know, said I appreciated his bravery, or whatever. I didn’t tell him about me. Or about Ilya.”
Yuna was tapping her lip again. “He probably couldn’t help. Not with this situation.”
“He would probably be very confused about us,” Ilya said.
“Confused is a word for it,” Dad said. His shock seemed to have ebbed completely, replaced by something that looked a lot like amusement.
“I will say that, what Scott did, when he, um, kissed his boyfriend?” Shane couldn’t believe he was saying this. He hadn’t even toldIlyathis.“That changed something inside me. It was...huge. It made me...want to try. Made me want to be braver, and to let myself try to be happy.”
He looked at the floor until he couldn’t bear it anymore, and then he glanced over at Ilya. Ilya’s eyes were softer than he’d ever seen them.
“Yes,” Ilya said. “Me too.”
Shane cleared his throat. “We have one idea.” He told his parents the Ottawa/Montreal plan he’d outlined for Ilya the night before.
“That,” Dad said, considering, “isn’t bad.”
“You would leave Boston?” Mom asked, stunned. “For Shane?”
Ilya didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
She frowned, as if she couldn’t believe anything he was saying was real.
“Oh my god!” Shane exclaimed. “You’re actually conflicted, aren’t you, Mom?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re bothered by his lack of loyalty to his team!”
“Well!” Mom said, as if that was a perfectly reasonable way to react to the fact that Ilya was so madly in love with her son that he was willing to throw his whole life into upheaval.
Shane turned to Ilya. “My mom, by the way, cares about hockey alittle too much.”
Ilya snorted. “Now I know where you get it.”
