Page 69 of Heated Rivalry 1
Her smile let him know she knew exactly what he was really asking.
At the end of the night, they exchanged contact info, and made loose plans to meet for dinner whenever both of their schedules permitted. Shane left the restaurant with a little spring in his step. It had easily been the best connection he had made with a woman...ever. He liked Rose. He wanted to get to know her better. He was excited by the idea of spending more time with her.
And she was very pretty. Obviously.
But mostly Shane just loved talking to her. She was funny and she asked a lot of questions, but none of them had made Shane uncomfortable.
Shane liked a girl!
In the car, driving home, he laughed at how ridiculously high his standards were.
December 2016—Detroit
Ilya woke alone in his hotel room in... Detroit? Yes. He was in Detroit.
He glanced over at his roommate’s abandoned bed, and then at the clock. Eight thirty.
He exhaled and scrubbed his eyes before he sat up. It was no surprise that Carmichael was already up and out of the room. That guy was such a morning person, it was gross.
Ilya threw on some sweats and made his way to the Starbucks in the hotel lobby for some coffee and a breakfast sandwich.Two of his teammates, Cliff Marlow and Victor St-Simon, were sitting at a table.
“Roz! You gotta see this. You’ll shit, man!” Cliff called out.
Ilya couldn’t imagine what the hell would be that interesting to him. He made his way over to the table and Victor held out his phone for him to see. There was a headline that read,Is Rose Landry dating NHL star Shane Hollander?
“No,” was Ilya’s immediate reaction. He hoped it sounded more dismissive to his teammates than shocked.
“Right?” Cliff laughed. “She’s, like, a super-giant movie star! How the fuck did he even meet her during the hockey season?”
“She’s been filming a movie in Montreal,” Victor read. “They met at a mutual friend’s party...according to unnamed sources.”
Ilya snorted.
“There are pictures,” Victor said. “Look.”
He held his phone out again, and Ilya grabbed it. He scrolled through four paparazzi photos of Shane having dinner with the gorgeous, dark-haired movie star. In one of them Shane was laughing.
Ilya scowled and handed the phone back to Victor.
“Probably nothing,” he said.
January 2017—Boston
It wasn’t nothing. As the weeks went on, more and more paparazzi photos of Shane and Rose Landry together were hitting the internet. Photos of the two of them walking together, smiling at each other, leaving restaurants together,kissingeach other.
On the cheek. Just on the cheek. It could still be nothing.
Ilya turned up the resistance on his stationary bike. What did he care, anyway? Why shouldn’t Hollander be dating a beautifulwoman? Rozanov had slept with a beautiful woman two nights ago. And another one the night before that.
The thing was... Hollander didn’tdothat. Ilya assumed Hollandermusthave sex with people who weren’t him, but there was no evidence of it. He didn’t want to think about it too much either way.
He had definitely never known Hollander to go on consecutive dates with a woman. To be seen with a woman often enough for the press to notice.
Hollander had a girlfriend.
Maybe Hollander was inlove.
Ilya pushed himself on the bike until his thighs screamed in protest. He stopped, and took a long haul from his water bottle.
