Page 83 of Heated Rivalry 1
Shane turned his head sharply to look at Ilya. “Would you want to be? If we could?”
“We can’t.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Ilya stood up and set his Coke can down hard on the dresser. “It doesn’t fuckingmatter!”
Shane flinched and fiddled with the can of ginger ale that he hadn’t even opened. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t like you,” he said finally.
“Youdon’tlike me,” Ilya argued.
“I do. I... I maybe like you too much.”
Ilya’s heart clenched. “Don’t,” he groaned. “Don’t fucking do this, Hollander. I’m not...”
“Worth it?”
Ilya glared at him. “Gay. I’m not gay. And I can’t be...anything close to it, okay?”
Shane laughed. “Well, you’re doing a shitty job of that!”
“Not in public. I can’t... I would not be able to go home.”
“Your family?”
“Russia.I could not go home to Russia.”
Shane looked horrified. “What would happen to you?”
“I do not want to find out.”
He seemed to consider this. “Would your parents...help?”
Ilya shook his head and sat himself on the floor against the wall. “My father is a cop.”
“Oh,” said Shane. “Jesus.”
“Mybrotheris a cop.”
“What about your mother?”
“Dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was young,” Ilya said, waving a hand as if his mother’s death was of no consequence to him, which was far from the truth. “I have a stepmother. She is...very young for my father.” He snorted. “Mymotherwas very young for my father.”
“Oh.”
Ilya exhaled slowly. “My father was not ever an easy man to live with. He is very...set in old ways. Very strict. My brother, Andrei, is much like him. But now...my father is sick.”
“Sick? Like...cancer?”
Ilya shook his head. “No. Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry.”
Ilya nodded. There. Now someone knew.
