Chapter Text
The show goes on. Every day is full of girls; his nights are full of Ilya. He sends Becca home after a one-on-one date on Tuesday. He's on his knees afterwards sucking Ilya off on the couch of the rental while Ilya chastises him: "Hollander, she was too boring even for you, she was ruining my show, I cannot believe you did not get rid of her sooner," and Shane actually pulls off of him to say, "She was nice!" which makes Ilya growl and grab Shane by his hair until it hurts and hold him in place until Ilya finishes, which feels so good that Shane thinks he would push Becca into oncoming traffic if it meant he could suck Ilya's dick for a few seconds longer.
As the girls dwindle, they solidify, like the lines of a coloring book finally being filled in. They’re down to nine after Becca leaves, and Shane knows all of their names. He knows other things about them too. He knows Raquelle has a twin sister. Knows Kayla almost skied at the Olympics but missed the top 30 in the qualifier. The whole ragged mess of them have spent endless hours together, the cameras bearing down on them like hot rays of sun melting wax figures in the world's most fucked up museum.
It’s getting harder to leave everything behind when the cameras turn off. He catches himself making inside jokes with Ana and thinks that it's the sort of thing he would do with a friend. Shane doesn’t have that many inside jokes. Or friends. Ana is funny, and Shane believes she actually finds him funny, too. It's nice.
He films a confessional after a one-on-one date with Brooke. The directors don't need to be on hand for the confessionals since there's not really any moving around or shots to get right. It's just a tripod, a guy with a boom mic, one camera operator, and a producer. They rotate producers for this sort of thing, though everyone has figured out that Ilya gets the best footage from Shane. But it’s not always Ilya, so Shane tries not to expect that he'll be there. And Tyler told him when running through the shot list for today that he would be doing today's confessional with Roshni. They don’t have to tell Shane these things, but Tyler has intuited that Shane likes to know without having to ask.
So he’s expecting Roshni, after being sprayed and powdered and brushed and sat down in front of the camera. But the producer who comes to stand across from him, in dark jeans and a tank top that maybe, once, was a color, but is now just leached-out scrap straining against its own surface area, is Ilya.
The pleasure of seeing him shocks Shane like static on fabric. Shane feels him in his mouth, just from being close, thick like a storm. Air clogged with humidity, not offering the relief of a squeezed-out droplet of rain.
There’s no relief with Ilya. Every drop of him that Shane drinks leaves him thirsty. He’s living under the constant threat of inclement weather, a dry and caustic heat that heralds danger. Making Shane’s tongue tingle with the taste of ozone just by flashing the sharp plane of a jaw, the miles of skin Ilya is always putting on display at his fucking job.
Shane swallows. Remembers there’s a camera pointed at him.
"Hi."
Ilya smiles back at him and mouths, behind the camera where no one can see him, "Behave."
Shane sits up straighter in the uncomfortable folding chair. He hates this room. Every surface is covered in shiny, draped fabric that looks even cheaper in person than it does on the monitors, lit by the ugly chandelier and the hot stage light that's pointed at Shane like a weapon.
"How was your date with Brooke today?" Ilya asks him. He sounds professional. Shane tries to make his voice sound the same when he replies.
"Good?"
"Oh, are you asking me?" Less professional. But still brimming with an authority that’s making Shane a little hard.
Shane glares at him and tries not to get more turned on. "It was good. Brooke is really nice."
"Do you feel a connection with her? Do you like her more than anyone else? Maybe more than Raquelle, or Ana?"
"Um." Shane looks at his feet for a second. Ilya hasn't been that impressed with Brooke. She can be bratty and doesn't take direction well. She's always one of the last to show up to set, but she doesn't pick fights with any of the other girls, either. Her antics are a pain for the crew and not that interesting for the camera.
Brooke has a kid who is staying with his grandparents. Brooke talked about him a lot on their date that day.
"I guess I don't feel… that much? Of a connection? She seems like a good mom. But I don't know that she's…" Shane trails off. Swallows. He knows the packaged lines this show likes; they still make his skin crawl to repeat. "You know. The 'one'."
"Ah." Ilya nods. "And what are you looking for in the 'one,' Hollander?"
"Uh." Shane wishes Tyler would show up with some water. He's barely been talking for five minutes and his throat already feels parched. "I mean. If I knew that, I think I wouldn't be on this show."
"Cut," Ilya calls out, and the camera operator reaches over to the big tripod. The blinking red light in the lens shuts off.
Ilya walks up to him. "Hollander, this is not what you want to say."
"Oh."
Ilya lowers his voice. "The true things are the ones that get made into the biggest lies. Do not give them so much for free."
Just a few hours ago Shane was this close to Ilya, eye level with his hipbones. They weren’t wearing any clothes, then. He studies the way Ilya's waist twists when he bends down to ask, even softer, "Okay?"
Shane drags his eyes up to Ilya's face. "Okay."
"Good." Ilya backs up and resumes his spot behind the camera. "We are ready, Josh, let's roll again."
The camera turns back on.
"What are you looking for in a partner, Shane?" Ilya asks him again.
"I think—"
"Better if you repeat the question back when you answer," Ilya interrupts. "For the edit."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry. What am I looking for in a partner? Well, I have a high stress job. You know, I travel a lot. So I guess someone who doesn’t mind being alone, someone who is independent. Someone who enjoys the sport, obviously, because she'll have to go to a lot of hockey games."
"There is a word for these women, yes? The word is weird. ‘Wag,’ like a dog tail?"
"I mean—it's not a dog thing, it means—never mind. Yeah. WAGs."
"And what else do you want from your wagging dog?"
"Rozanov—"
"No, I am not here. Producer does not make it into the edit."
"Fuck, I know." Shane catches a glance of the boom operator—Shane isn't sure he's ever cursed in front of the rest of the crew. He bites his lip. "Sorry."
"It is okay. Try again. What else will your partner be like?"
"Um.” Shane tries to think about something that’s not total bullshit, and not boring, and won’t make him sound like a moron when this airs on TV for millions of people to watch and laugh at. “I have a—loud life. Tarmacs, arenas. I would like someone who makes things. You know. Quieter."
"Who calms you down," Ilya says. He doesn't sound professional anymore.
Ilya told Shane not to give a real answer, but Shane is having a remarkably difficult time lying to him. "I guess. And—someone who doesn't just care about all the—stuff, you know, that comes with hockey."
"You mean money?"
"Yeah, that. But also—" Shane is trying to think of how to say it. It's not something he's ever needed a PR script for. He exhales, then takes a deep breath in. Ilya’s eyes are on him, pinning him to the chair. When he lets out the breath again, the churning thing in his gut spills out.
"It's hard, right? Because this person—she needs to be able to deal with the sport stuff, the attention, the road trips, whatever. The long seasons. But eventually all that will change and life will look totally different, so she needs to be on board for that, too. It's like—I mean you're sort of asking someone to be two people for you, to change all of the sudden, and it's a change that has to happen pretty much only on one person's terms. Is that really fair to ask of someone?"
The way Shane says the last bit—it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s really asking Ilya.
"I don't know," Ilya answers, after a beat. "Maybe with right person it will not feel like a change."
"How?"
Ilya shrugs. "Because the right person is not marrying number twenty-four Shane Hollander or retired hall-of-famer Shane Hollander, either. Just," Ilya reaches his hands out and makes two L-shapes, touching his thumbs and index fingers to make a frame around Shane's face, "Shane."
"Oh." Shane's eyes burn a little. "Yeah. I guess that makes sense."
Ilya nods. "Yes, that was a very good sound bite. I am a genius. Okay, now you say back to me so we have for camera."
"Oh—right." Shane swallows again. Tries to remember the words. He hears them again in Ilya's deep, accented voice, and it’s almost enough to make his eyes drift closed.
Instead, he keeps his eyes open, and focused, and fixed on the camera, which is to the left of Ilya’s face.
He says, "Professionally, my life will change a lot. But with the right person, things wouldn't change. Because they're not—" number twenty-four, Shane Hollander, the 'r's rolling gorgeously across Ilya's tongue "—they're not marrying me for my jersey number, or for the Metros, or for whatever comes next. They're just marrying—" Shane, Ilya called him Shane. Shane can't remember him ever doing that before "—me."
"Lucky girl," Ilya says, and winks at Shane, and then calls cut. Shane waits until the camera blinks off and adjusts himself, just a little, in his jeans.
Ilya drives him home. The silence between them compresses the air out of Shane’s lungs. Shane should speak. Say something mundane about Ilya's car, which he still doesn't really understand how Ilya even owns, given the fact that Ilya does not seem to possess more than three shirts. Which are barely even shirts. Not a single one of them has sleeves. Shane knows it would be polite to say it's a nice car, but unfortunately Shane thinks it's both tacky and impractical. He doesn't want to lie.
"How long have you had this car?" he asks instead.
Ilya glances at him before looking back at the road. "You like cars?"
"Not really," Shane answers honestly. "This one seems… expensive, though."
Ilya laughs. "Oh my god, Hollander. Yes. This is a very nice, sexy car. I have a friend, she gives me a good deal on this one. I can lease from her dealership the cars that do not sell."
"Oh." He has never heard Ilya talk about his personal life. Shane feels oddly jealous at the mention of a friend. A female friend. Of course Ilya has girl friends who sell him sexy cars. Ilya is very good at talking to hot girls. He's teased Shane about the skill gap between them on that front dozens of times. "That's a nice perk."
"Perk," Ilya repeats, grinning. "I like this word. Yes. We have many perks, me and Svetlana."
"Oh," Shane says again stupidly. "Cool." He registers vaguely that this conversation is not going all that well. "Does she live in L.A.?"
"Yes, yes. She is the reason I move there."
The edges of Shane's vision are going dark. "You moved to L.A. to be close to her?"
Ilya changes lanes without signaling. "Because she found me this job."
"When?"
Ilya's bright eyes move quickly and then they roll sarcastically back, because he thinks Shane is being annoying. Shane can tell by now. "Six months ago, this time? I do not live there always, I am in Russia very much. And then sometimes New York, sometimes Vancouver. Wherever we can find the work for me."
"Oh. How does that work with—like, your visa?"
"Sveta is very good at visas, very good at finding me the right kind of work. She is friends with lots of Hollywood people through her job. She finds me this shoot, for The Bachelor. Because it is about a hockey player, she says it is…" Shane watches Ilya search for the right word. Find it. "…Critical that I am hired, because I know so much about hockey."
Shane snorts. "You're critical to a show about hockey?"
Ilya looks over at him and the intensity of his glare makes Shane shift backwards in his seat. "Yes."
"But—" Ilya had made it sound like hockey was just a childhood pastime. "There have to be other producers in the U.S. who played hockey as a kid?"
"What, you don't want me here? Don't worry, I will be leaving soon, Mr. Hollander."
"No, I just meant—"
"I know what you meant." Ilya sighs. "I was going to be drafted, yes? By Континентальная хоккейная лига." Shane recognizes the words, even though Ilya says them in a different language; the Russian professional league. "Or maybe even MLH. I was good enough."
"But you got hurt?" That's what Shane had kind of assumed, given how little Ilya had seemed to want to talk about it.
A long second passes, and then Ilya shakes his head. "Not really. I had to stop playing, though. I got in some—trouble.” He clears his throat. “And then someone in my family was very sick." There's a tiny pause, and then Ilya adds, "My father. And my mother was already gone. There was no one else in our family to care for a mean, sick old man. His second wife was smart, got out of there before he could trap her by losing his mind. And my brother is asshole. Useless."
"Oh." It's an overwhelming amount of information about Ilya Rozanov to process in the space of a few seconds. Shane has been collecting everything there is to know about him, hoarding the knowledge. His first name, then his last. The number of moles on his neck, then his back. The parts of Shane's body he likes to hold. Shane already felt like he was spilling over with it, and now Ilya has flooded him with so much at once: a friend, a sick father, absent mother, useless brother. Shane's embarrassed by how much Ilya's shown him.
Ilya watches the road, his mouth tight and thin. Shane feels for the edge of the conversation, the right place to pull it back further. The right thing to say.
“Is your father—” he starts to ask, but Ilya interrupts him.
“Dead.”
Shane automatically says, "I'm sorry.” It feels comically insignificant to offer, but he can't think of any other words in English that could approach an approximate counterbalance against the weight of losing your parent.
Ilya shrugs. "I was stupid.”
Shane opens his mouth, confused about what that has to do with Ilya’s father dying, and then realizes that Ilya doesn’t think Shane is saying sorry about his dad. He thinks Shane meant sorry about the KHL, about not going pro. Shane wants to correct him, but Ilya is already going on. “Made too many mistakes. Loyalty is very nice, but you cannot spend it. Money is better, and I don't have any now."
Shane wouldn’t have said sorry about not being drafted, about losing the opportunity to play. You don't offer condolences for something like that, for the agony of watching your dream die before it was even born.
Ilya is stronger than him, or he never cared about the sport the same way Shane does. Shane knows that in Ilya’s position, he wouldn’t have survived the loss.
“Do you…” Shane feels sick, thinking about it. Being drafted, being cut loose. “Do you miss it? Hockey, I mean.”
Ilya glances at him. Shakes his head, and Shane knows he’s said the wrong thing. Maybe if he could speak Ilya’s language, they’d have a better hope of understanding one another. “This would be pointless. Hockey cannot miss me. It is stupid to love things that will not love you back.”
Shane remembers flying across the ice with Ilya a few weeks ago, racing, breathless, grinning. He wonders, not for the first time, how often Ilya lies to him.
“Sure,” Shane says.
Ilya’s jaw twitches. “This is a good job. Field producer on the Bachelor, and I am producing the Bachelor himself. If this season goes well, I will get many more jobs. I will maybe make a new show, my own. This is where you can earn real money."
Shane stares at the dashboard. In a car this small you can practically feel the engine vibrating underneath you. It is impractical, and flashy. Built for going fast and looking good doing it. The comparison his brain wants to draw is painfully obvious. Unnecessary, beautiful, dangerous. Something his life really can't handle and something he badly wants anyway.
It's fine. It's a temporary lease. Everything is going back where it belongs in a few short weeks. To Montreal, to the team. To Los Angeles, and, apparently, to someone named Svetlana.
"So that's what you'll do next," Shane says. "Make your own show?"
"Yesli Bog dast," Ilya says, and Shane doesn't understand him.
“And that’s what you want?” Shane presses, knowing, like he knows the beat of his own heart, that he shouldn’t be pressing on this bruise. Unable to stop, unable to unclench his hands from around the few shards of himself that Rozanov has handed to him, even as they’re making him bleed.
“I always get what I want,” Ilya answers, as if that means anything. They're pulling into Shane's driveway. “I want to not talk about this. I should not have said anything.”
“But–”
“Enough, Hollander,” Ilya says sharply, and Shane, finally, shuts up.
The only sound now is the quiet hum of Ilya’s fancy car idling in front of Shane’s house. After a moment, Shane unclips his seatbelt.
"Late call time tomorrow." For Shane that means eleven. For Ilya it will be earlier. Shane lets out a breath and asks, "Will you come in?" It sounds pathetic. Sort of like he's begging; which, Shane supposes, he is.
Ilya turns off the car. "Yes. Get inside, Hollander. I want to fuck you."
Shane showers, and Ilya tells him not to bother getting dressed. All Shane has to cover himself with is one of the scratchy towels that came with the rental. The room is pleasantly cool, frosted currents pumped through the central air system and making the hairs on Shane’s naked skin stand alert and attentive, obedient and awaiting instructions. Ilya tells him to get on the bed and Shane stumbles for it, eager and waiting for the reassuring warm press of him. The hot, heavy, too-much of Ilya’s body, the slow way he finds the latch of Shane’s need and coaxes it open. Spreads its contents thick between them.
It’s not what happens. Ilya shrugs out of his shirt and unbuttons his jeans, every gesture unhurried. Shane feels every centimeter of his own nudity, every atom of distance between his body and Ilya’s. Ilya’s just staring at him. His eyes aren’t smiling. Shane’s mouth is dry and empty and he wants to tell Ilya to hurry. He wants Ilya to put all his fingers in Shane's mouth until he can't breathe. He wants Ilya to lie on top of him and crush him until he passes out.
Shane doesn't say any of the crazy shit he's thinking out loud, but the need is too big to keep inside of him, with Ilya right there, and a whine forces itself out of his throat. His hands are heavy on either side of him, the covers of the bed cool under his sweating palms, the magnetic force in his blood wanting to paw at Ilya’s bare chest and pull him closer.
“Stop,” Ilya says, firm and soft. Shane’s mouth snaps shut, another whine aborted on its way to the surface.
"You will do whatever I say," Ilya murmurs, and it sounds half like a promise and half like a threat. "Won't you?"
Shane closes his eyes. "Yes."
"You will keep your mouth shut unless I ask you a question, and let me do what I want to you."
"Yes,” Shane repeats.
"Good. Get rid of the fucking towel."
Shane's hands are numb when he grasps for the towel he still has wrapped around his waist; he doesn't look where it lands when he throws it on the floor. It won't dry properly now, he'll have to tell the house cleaner to wash it with vinegar to get the mildew smell out.
Ilya finally leans forward, arm outstretched in the endless space between them, and pinches Shane's nipple, hard. Shane’s brain rapidly evacuates all of his thoughts. The room’s temperature, the sparse details of Ilya’s life, the rough texture of the towel all flood away. All that Shane can see or think or feel is the calloused pads of Ilya’s fingertips.
"You want it so badly. Slut.” Ilya leans his head down and licks a line up Shane’s neck, not touching him anywhere else.
Shane blinks up at him. Even in the darkness of his bedroom, Ilya's eyes look predator-bright.
"Yeah," Shane echoes back. Maybe this is a test. Shane does well at performance reviews. He just has to learn the rules. Figure out what Ilya is evaluating him on.
"You want so much, but you will only get what I want. Maybe I want to watch you. Maybe tonight I will not do any work. Maybe I will not touch you at all."
It sounds like fucking torture. But if Ilya wants that—Shane can do it, he'll do it. He can do it.
Ilya's hands are still on Shane's chest where he pinched him. He runs a sharp, scraping fingernail around Shane's nipple and Shane tries not to gasp. Ilya has beautiful hands, his nails are always trimmed and clean, even though he smokes and carries camera equipment and probably lives out of a suitcase. Though of course Shane doesn't know anything about how Ilya lives. All he knows is the clean feel of his hands on Shane’s naked skin, the blunt edge of every fingernail, the way they catch on the flimsy shroud of Shane’s life and rip it in half.
Ilya watches Shane through the cameras every day. He sees him in the privacy of the home he's borrowing at night. Shane has opened up his chest and invited Ilya to study him down to the bones of his ribcage. Shane couldn't even drive to Ilya's apartment, or hotel, or the car he sleeps in—whatever it is.
He doesn’t let himself follow the gnarled roots of that trail of thought. He listens for the way Ilya’s breath sounds against the stillness of the room until his own lungs are chasing after the same rhythm. Then Ilya's nails scratch the sensitive peak of his nipple and Shane groans.
"You have beautiful tits," Ilya says. "Strong and so soft. Too sensitive, like a girl's. I want them ruined. Make them all purple with bites."
Shane is so hard. He's exposed and raw and Ilya can see it all. His whole body feels like a nerve; it's more than being naked. It's like his skin has been flayed from his bones. He wants to die. He wants Ilya to bite his fucking tits.
"Do it, then," Shane rasps.
Ilya bends forward at the waist and the warm, clothed press of his body pushes Shane further into the too-soft mattress. Ilya shakes his head.
"No. You will have to do jacuzzi scene soon, you cannot wear my teeth marks on camera."
Shane's dick jerks violently "Fuck."
“In a bathtub, surrounded by sexy women all touching you and rubbing themselves on you. Will you like that, Hollander?” The edge of the question is mean. Ilya already knows what Shane likes. Ilya decides what Shane likes and what he gets.
Shane closes his eyes. “I—I don’t know…”
Ilya reaches down between them to grab Shane’s dick and squeeze it hard enough that it almost hurts. It does hurt, a little. It feels so good.
"No, Hollander, I know the only thing you want is to be fucked. All these women want to give you pussy, all your fans want to give you their money, but the only person who can give you what you need is me."
Shane squeezes his eyes shut and doesn't move. He wants to say yes, he wants to say insane shit that he can't even look at without the glinting glare of need that's pouring off it blinding him.
"Maybe I can mark you up, after. Maybe in Fantasy Suite Kendall or Ana will give you a little hickey. A sweet little girl hickey. And then I can put one on top."
"Fuck, Rozanov." If Shane comes just from Ilya whispering in Shane's ear he's going to die from shame. If he doesn't come soon he's going to die anyway. His resolve snaps in half like brittle bone. "Fuck, I want—can you please fuck me, please—"
"Greedy. You are such a greedy little brat." Ilya kisses him, runs his teeth over Shane's chest and his neck. Gets the skin between his canines. It's too gentle, he's not biting down. "We are not doing what you want, Hollander. You do what I say."
"Fuck, I know, I'm sorry—oh, fuck—"
Ilya fingers are rougher than the last few times they've done this and he moves faster than Shane's mind can keep up. Shane wants Ilya to fuck him, he told him he wanted that, but now Ilya is going too fast, stretching Shane's body open while his breath gutters out of his body. More fingers are inside him before he's used to the first. It’s too much, too quick, melting time down and stretching it out like chewed taffy. He's lagging behind Ilya, again, and instead of showing him where to go Ilya is running ahead of him.
And then all of the sudden Shane is there; he's ready. He's too empty; it's too much. He needs more.
Shane whines, "Enough, Rozanov, enough, I'm ready, please—"
"No talking," Ilya hisses, cock big and bruising and perfect against Shane's ass.
“I’m sorry, Rozanov, fuck, I’m sorry—”
“Stop,” Ilya growls again. Shane feels drunk, confused. Lost. Stop what? Stop wanting this so badly he can't stop begging for it? Shane can't. Shane can't even think, he needs it inside him, he's never needed this badly before, not even to win. This isn't something he wants, it’s more important than air, than anything else.
"Rozanov—"
Ilya slams into him all at once. Shane's teeth rattle in his skull. "I told you before. Call me Ilya when I'm fucking you."
Something short-circuits in Shane's brain. What's left must be on fire, a smoking mainframe that won't ever function how it's supposed to again.
"Ilya." It comes out like a sob. His eyelashes are wet; but Shane can't be crying. He can't ask for what he wants, but he does anyway. "Ilya, fuck, fuck me, Ilya, please."
Ilya does, and Shane comes apart.
Ilya leaves afterwards, because even a late call time means he has to be back on the set before sunrise. It would be insane for him to stay here with Shane. Ilya gets dressed and leaves and Shane's brain is still melted all over the sheets, so he just lies there in the bed, naked, and watches Ilya go.
Shane should take another shower before he falls asleep. He should change the sheets before he leaves tomorrow. His cleaning lady comes on Tuesdays and she shouldn't have to deal with the mess he's made of the bed. Of his whole fucking life.
It was hard to care about any of this when Ilya was here. Shane can admit to himself that what Ilya does to him feels good in a way that nothing else in his life has ever felt good before. He loves the way Ilya talks to him, even when he sounds like shitty porn. Even when he's praising Shane's tits and calling him a slut. It doesn't matter what names he calls Shane; it feels good. Shane likes it. He likes all of it.
Shane has everything he wants from his life. He is setting his career up for its second act while getting regularly dicked down by an inhumanly hot man who isn't asking Shane to change anything about his life or make any concessions for him. Who has no desire to tell anyone else about what they’re doing, who Shane believes will keep his secret.
There is no reason for his body to be shaking like this.
Maybe it’s the air conditioning. Shane debates getting out from under the covers where Ilya left him to turn it down, but he's shivering too much and he can't really feel his hands. It seems impossible to move aside the covers. He should have asked Ilya to turn off the air on his way out. But no—Shane can't ask Ilya for anything. Ilya doesn’t have more to give. Ilya doesn't even own that ridiculous car he drives. Shane has everything. He's rich and he's famous and he's probably two weeks away from getting engaged.
He'll shower tomorrow. He'll throw the sheets in the laundry before he goes to the gym. Tomorrow, any evidence of the night will get washed away.
Just for tonight, he can keep it.
Shane’s trainer pushes him hard enough the next day that he doesn’t have a chance to think about how hard it was to fall asleep the night before. How, even though he couldn’t sleep, he didn’t feel like he could move. Maybe he has sleep paralysis. Maybe he’ll start seeing a demon—that happens to people when they need to sleep but they can’t, doesn’t it? Maybe Shane’s will look like a d-man ready to check him into the boards. Maybe it will be a skinny girl in a sparkly dress holding out a long-stemmed rose.
When he gets to set, Tyler isn’t there to greet him. He parks his car where the crew does outside the mansion and, unclear about where he’s meant to go, heads for the green room. Maybe, his traitorous brain whispers, Ilya will be there. Maybe he’ll brush his hand against the back of Shane’s wrist, and the residual tremors that have been wracking him since last night will calm the fuck down.
But Ilya isn’t in the green room. A few PAs are clustered around a monitor. No one looks up when he walks in.
Shane sees what they’re looking at and he feels a bit entranced, too. Ilya’s voice fills the room. He’s out of frame and the camera is tight on Kendall’s face. She’s been through hair and makeup and she’s wearing her usual good-natured Rust Belt grin. Somehow, though, it looks heavier, like the megawatt power of her own pretty face is, finally, a little exhausting to cart around after all these weeks.
Ilya’s voice asks, “Looking forward to your date with Shane today?”
Kendall beams bigger. It looks like it hurts. “Of course! I can’t wait. You know, this is so silly because I know I saw him yesterday, but I miss him."
"That is so sweet," Ilya says. He sounds so much like he means it. Does he mean it? "What do you miss about Shane?"
Kendall sighs. It’s a cute, happy noise that makes Shane feel embarrassed for her. "He’s so great. I know he’s like a big scary hockey player or whatever but honestly he’s such a sweetie. He reminds me of a little… kitten, or something. He’s a really shy guy, but I think I’ve gotten him to open up. I feel like he really trusts me to show me parts of himself he doesn’t usually share. And I’ve let him see parts of me that I haven’t shown anyone else, too."
A kitten. Surely that won't be good for his brand. And fucking shy. “Shy” is a word Shane knows girls use when they’re too nice to say “sexually disappointing." Maybe he can talk to Ilya about editing that out. Does Ilya even decide things like that?
The way Kendall’s describing how she feels about Shane is the opposite of the way he feels about Ilya. The more he gets to know him, the more he feels like he’s pulling vines off an impossibly tall wall and realizing how much further it stretches into the sky. And Shane, idiot that he is, is like the fairy tale princess being held captive by the castle. Ilya is the garden and the wall. The sharp teeth guarding it, too.
"Kendall," Ilya’s voice says, and it just proves everything Shane was thinking. Hearing Ilya say someone else's name makes Shane want to get on his knees. "Do you believe in ghosts?
"Maybe," she answers genially. "I like to believe in a higher power. That's a random question. Why?"
"Ah. Shane told us that you and him talked about ghosts. Tells us that you are a believer. Maybe one day you will make him believe in many things. He likes you very much, Kendall."
Shane never said that. Well, he had said most of those things, but Ilya is taking the pieces and putting them together wrong, upside down and backwards. Ilya is still talking.
"He says he likes the way his head goes quiet around people he cares about. That they block out the noise. He could see a wife doing this for him when he is playing games, or doing the things famous hockey players do. All the things he needs a partner to do. He said that maybe that could be you."
It's like watching Frankenstein assemble the monster: tilling dead ground and stitching Shane's words into something grotesque. The true things are the ones they can twist into the biggest lies. When they actually had this conversation, Ilya compared the girls to dogs. Now he's using the word partner. What the fuck is happening?
Kendall is smiling. She looks expectant and affirmed. "Wow. That's—wow. Yeah, I mean, I really feel a connection with him. Like I said. He's a really good person, you know? I think—I think he deserves someone who will take care of him."
"So," Ilya says. His voice sounds just a whetstone-pass sharper. "You believe in ghosts. Is this because of your mother?"
Kendall’s shellacked-on, white-tooth grin falters. "What?"
Ilya keeps his tone even and soothing. "Losing your mother—does it make you feel better to believe that she is still here, maybe, watching over you?"
Kendall's pink mouth trembles a bit before she arrests the tremor with firmly pursed lips. "Um. I don’t really want to talk about that."
"It's okay," Ilya says quietly. "I lost my mama too, Kendall. It is a horrible thing, to lose your mother. It is the hardest thing, I think."
On-screen, she softens. "Oh. Yes. It's—it's been three years. God. I still can't really believe she's gone."
"Fifteen for me," Ilya says. "Some things get easier, the longer it has been. Some things have not, yet. I am hoping that maybe one day they will."
Shane feels like he can't move. Ilya is speaking so gently. Shane's only heard him talk like this when Ilya is inside him. Kendall is quivering on the monitor and her movie-star eyes are shining with tears. It's a nice shot: she looks good, Shane can almost hear the swell of the soundtrack. Ilya told Shane his mother was gone, which Shane interpreted to mean she'd run out on their family. Not that she was dead. Is he lying about this, to get a reaction out of Kendall? Shane knows that they lie all the time to the contestants. Maybe they lie to him, too.
Shane's gut twists. Ilya might not be lying. He doesn’t have to lie to Shane to keep things from him. Ilya just has to look at Shane to make him fall to his knees. Shane hasn't asked for much else.
He doesn't even know where Ilya sleeps at night. Shane doesn't know anything about him.
Fat tears are escaping Kendall's eyes now, bulbs of glassy shine speckled with flecks of mascara that roll down her cheeks and leave ugly black streaks on her face.
"I miss her so much.” She chokes a little on the end of the sentence, her vocal chords pinching the sob she’s trying to swallow down. "It's—I've been thinking about her more since I got here. I think she would have liked Shane. He's such a nice guy, he's so polite. He talks about his mother a lot, for a jock. He seems like he'd be great with moms."
"He does," Ilya agrees. "He is a very good guy. And if he proposes, you will get married. Does this make you think about your mother, too?"
Kendall's whole body quakes with her next arrested whimper. "I don't want to do it without her."
"Want to do what?" Ilya prompts. It's better when you say the whole sound bite, Shane thinks.
"I don't want to get married without her," Kendall hiccups. "I don't want to have a wedding day without her there. Oh my god, can we take a minute, I just need—"
"Of course, of course," Ilya says soothingly. He steps into frame, his big body eating up the whole shot. Then he kneels next to Kendall and rubs her back. He hasn't yet called cut, Shane notices. "It is okay to cry, Kendall." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled packet of Kleenex, peels one out and hands it to her. It looks like a tiny dead bird in his huge palm.
"Thank you," Kendall wheezes into the tissue, blowing her nose in it. "God. Did I ruin that whole take? Do we have to do it again? I can touch up my own makeup, it won't take me very long—"
"No, no," Ilya croons. He's still rubbing circles on Kendall's back. Shane feels like he's going to be sick. "That was perfect, Kendall. You did great, sweetheart."
"Thank you," she says, "for telling me about your mom. I'm so sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Ilya repeats back to her, blinking at her with his beautiful bright eyes. "It is not a fun club that we are in, no?"
Kendall gives a wet laugh, and shyly gives Ilya a look. Shane knows that look. It's how everyone looks at Ilya, when you're lucky enough to have him looking back at you. Maybe she knows she's being played, and she doesn't fucking care either, because it's worth it for him to pay attention to you even if it won’t last. Maybe it's worth carving your heart out of your chest and putting it on a plate for him to eat if you get to watch his mouth while he does it.
Rozanov still hasn't called for the cameras to cut. Shane makes himself leave the room before he empties his guts on the floor.
Shane makes it through his date with Kendall with his head buzzing like someone's jammed a radio tower’s worth of feedback inside his skull.
They break for lunch and Shane doesn’t think, just goes to find Rozanov where he knows he’ll be smoking outside. Sometimes he can’t find him, but Shane knows him well enough to know that he likes to have a cigarette after things get intense. Work. Sex. The things that Shane has come to think of as theirs.
The mansion has a stupid little tool shed in the back that’s never on camera and production never bothered to freshen the paint. It looks grimy. Peeling. Rozanov is there, lips wrapped around a cigarette, scrolling on his phone. Like the shed, he’s not camera-ready either. No makeup, curls a fluffy mess, devastating anyway.
“Put that out,” Shane says testily.
Rozanov looks up and startles a little. Then he smiles. "Why?"
"I have to talk to you. In private." Shane means not out in the open, not where anyone could find us, somewhere I can say what I fucking mean and maybe you will, too.
Rozanov rolls his eyes but he does what Shane says and follows him into the shed. It smells like mildewed cloth and rusting metal, like the cheap pine they built this whole ugly house with.
As soon as the door shuts, Shane pushes Rozanov against one of the flimsy walls.
"What the fuck was that?" he demands.
Rozanov looks genuinely confused. "What was what?"
"I saw Kendall's confessional."
Rozanov fucking grins. "Ah, you did?"
"Yeah. Why—why did you do that?"
"Why did I do… my job?"
"You… destroyed her. She was crying. And you lied."
"When did I lie?"
"You told her—all that shit I said to you about what I wanted, you told her I said it about her—"
Rozanov cocks his head. "Did I?"
Shane ignores that. He doesn't want to play semantics—what Rozanov said to Kendall was fucked up, and it was a lie, even if he'd couched it in truthful technicalities. Shane knows a fucking dirty player when he sees one.
"And what the fuck was that about—is your mom even dead?"
Something hard slams down on Ilya's beautiful face. "Yes, Hollander, my mother is dead."
More angry words had been rushing to the tip of Shane's tongue. The desire to unleash them shutters so suddenly that he feels like he almost gags on all the unsaid things he has to cram back into his throat. "Oh. I'm—sorry. But—"
"But?" Ilya interrupts, voice low and dangerous. "But nothing. You are, what, angry that I am good at my job? Angry that I tell Kendall what you want from a wife? That I am telling her the things you told me that were filmed for television?"
Shane hates getting angry. Whenever he gets this angry it turns liquid in his eyes. His body can't hold it, it all leaks out.
"No—stop. You're making it sound—"
"And because I am very good at this," Ilya continues, "I get this valuable footage of Kendall being a mess, pretty face all snotty, and we can use that shit for anything. Maybe we will take that footage and use it for something else, not about her mama. Make it look like she is crying about you, or about some other stupid girl being a cunt, or something else better than hasn't even happened yet."
All of Shane’s hot anger comes surging back and stings his eyes. "Wow. And you're bragging about this?"
"I am doing my job.” Ilya walks forward. Now it’s Shane who has his back against the wall in the tiny, gross shed. “I don't think you are angry about Kendall, Hollander. I think you are angry—" Two more steps. Ilya’s breath is warm on Shane’s face. He smells like cigarettes "—because you are jealous that there is someone else who I can make do my little tricks. Because you are not the only fool on this set who wiggles their little nose at me so I will pull you around by it."
"Fuck you," Shane spits.
Ilya leans even closer to him, smile stretching over sharp teeth.
"Here, Hollander? If you want."
Shane's so fucking angry. He feels like he’s going to deck Ilya in the face. Ilya deserves it. He’s asking for it. He looks a little feral, like someone who wants to be punched. Shane doesn’t fight much, but he knows what it looks like when someone’s wearing that kind of desire.
Shane balls his hands into fists, grabs the front of Ilya’s stupid shirt, and kisses him.
There's not much distance to close. Both of them have been drawing nearer with every word exchanged between them. Ilya doesn’t let Shane control the kiss for long. He slams Shane into the wall, encloses Shane’s throat with a fist. He’s heavy and insistent on him. Shane can’t breathe and doesn’t fucking need to.
"Fuck you," Shane pants into Ilya's mouth. He wants to feel Ilya’s tongue at the backs of his teeth. "That was so dirty—you used her, and you're gonna put that on television."
"Yes," Ilya snarls. He bites the skin at Shane’s neck, leaves a wet smear of spit behind. "I will. Fuck, Hollander, it's going to be so good, these girls wanting you, crying for you, people are going to lose their minds."
"Shut up,” Shane hisses. He’s gotten one hand inside Ilya’s jeans.
"And no one but me will know. That you want none of them. That you have only cried for my cock, for me."
"Fuck off," Shane moans. His eyes are wet and his face is hot and he isn't crying, he's angry, but Ilya can't tell the difference and Shane can't make Ilya see anything he doesn't want to see. Ilya leans back in, trying to capture his mouth, and then a voice carries from outside—a PA, or a sound engineer, maybe, and reality slams into Shane’s chest like a cannon.
He’s letting Ilya drool on him, and he’s touching Ilya’s dick, and they’re at work, there’s cameras a few feet away from them. Shane recoils. He hisses, "No. Stop. Not—maybe later. God. This is so fucking stupid."
"Sure, stupid," Ilya says. He sucks on Shane's ear. "Okay, Mr. Hollander. We go to your big, empty house, then."
"I have a yoga instructor coming over later," Shane says weakly. Before he can stop himself he adds, like an idiot, "For my flexibility. Cross training."
Ilya exhales sharply. "Yoga. Fuck, Hollander. Not tonight then, fine. No need to wait til later, then. I can fuck you just as good in your car."
Shane shakes his head violently. "There are people everywhere."
“I want you now.”
“Too fucking bad,” Shane snaps. He feels insane. He’s still so mad but his dick doesn’t seem to care. If anything he’s harder because of it, the rage turning in his blood to hot syrup. He wants Ilya too, is the problem. He thinks, wildly, that he could watch Ilya fuck one of the girls and not feel jealous at all but watching Ilya make Kendall cry made Shane want to dig his nails into Ilya’s skin and carve his own initials there.
“Hollander,” Ilya whines against his cheek. “Fuck them all. Let me fuck you. We can do it here. No one will come to this shitty little shed.” His voice sounds higher, reedy. Shane presses his palm against the front of Ilya’s pants. He’s already hard, god. He gets so hard and so big and Shane doesn’t understand how he’s meant to go back to not having this. He needs this.
"We're not fucking here and we're not fucking in my car," Shane says, pulling back to stare at him. He hopes his face is more convincing than his obvious hard on. "What the fuck are—you'll get yourself fired, Ilya."
Ilya's eyes flicker for a second. "We will not be caught," he insists.
"No. Tomorrow, or something. Or after my teacher leaves, if you want. If it’s not too late."
Ilya studies him for a moment. Exhales. “It will be too late,” he says. His tone has changed. He sounds professional again, his Producer Voice stern and cutting through in the air between them, dousing the hot coals that were there moments ago. “No big deal. If you don’t want to fuck, we don’t fuck.”
Desperation flares in Shane’s chest, because he hates dishonesty and of course he wants to fuck. He’s not stupid enough to say that, but Ilya must see it on his face because he adds, “You cannot be upset about this, Hollander."
"I'm not upset.”
Ilya looks him up and down, gaze lingering on Shane's face. Shane isn't crying, though. He definitely hasn't cried.
"Okay," Ilya says. "You are not upset. And I will not fuck you tonight."
It's all the things Shane said he wanted, so why does it feel like he's losing this argument? "Right."
"And you will stop worrying so much."
"I—"
Ilya shakes his head, mouth in a thin line. "Hollander. No. Kendall is a big girl, she knows what she signed up for."
That, Shane supposes, is true. It’s true and it still settles like sickness in Shane’s stomach.
"Everything is okay. It is not a big deal. I am doing my job. Kendall is doing her job. You will do your job, which I am going to make very easy for you."
And that, Shane knows, is still true. Ilya has made all of this so easy for him. He’s made these weeks, which Shane thought were going to be torture, which should be torture, pass by faster than any time he’s ever spent off the ice.
With that, all the fight goes out of Shane. He breathes in, lets it out. "Okay."
Ilya closes the distance between them again. "I am going to make it good for you. Okay, Hollander?"
Shane's shoulders relax. Ilya puts his hands on them, and with the barest pressure, pulls Shane’s lips to his neck. Shane breathes him in: nicotine, sweat, the weird European cologne, the metal aftertaste of film equipment. His heart rate slows. He drifts a little in the current of Ilya; he doesn’t know why he bothered to fight it at all.
"Okay."
"Good." Ilya smiles. "Now back to set, Mr. Hollander."
Ilya doesn’t come over that night. They have a group date the next day: Ana, Kendall, Tiffani, Mikayla. It goes well. At least Shane hopes so. They ride bikes on a waterfront trail, have a picnic. They talk about nothing. Shane gives out three roses and sends Mikayla home. Shane takes a break, and watches Ana’s confessional on the monitors. The part of him that would feel bad about invading the girls’ privacy is a part of him that Ilya took from him in the shed with his mouth.
Ilya and Roshni are both doing the interview this time, but it’s Roshni who first takes up the gauntlet of manipulative questions and starts slapping Ana with it.
"So," Roshni says. "How would it make you feel, Ana, to know that on Shane's date with Kendall, they talked about their future? Marriage? Intimacy?"
Ana blinks. “Well. We’re on a dating show. So I kind of expect that Shane would be, you know. Dating other people.”
“I think we just want to know if it’s any different for you, Ana, because, well… your ex cheated on you, right?”
Ana inhales sharply before recovering, but Roshni and Ilya have scented blood. Shane knows how the rest of this will go. They’re going to get their sound bite. There will be blood on its teeth.
"Need a break?" Tyler asks from next to him. “We could go get some air? Water?”
"No," Shane replies, eyes on the monitor. "I'm fine."
The fifth Rose Ceremony cuts it down to five girls. Kendall, Tiffani, Raquelle, Ana, and Amy all remain.
Shane finds the car after the ceremony and tells the driver to go home. Then he goes to find Ilya.
"I don't have a ride," he tells him, and Ilya says, “Okay.” They leave together.
Shane climbs into Ilya’s passenger seat. It’s so clean on the inside. Shane’s car is fine. He’s a tidy person, obviously, and he has someone to clean his car for him. But Ilya keeps his car clean the way Uber drivers do. Does he vacuum it out every week himself? Does he buff out all the scuffs himself and scrub the paint shiny? It feels wrong to Shane, to imagine Ilya, who is careless and loose and casual and flighty, being fussy about his things.
But Shane doesn’t know Ilya. Maybe Ilya treats the car Svetlana got for him like it’s precious because it is precious to him. Maybe Ilya is only casual about the things he doesn’t really care about.
It’s late, the road is dark, interrupted at infrequent intervals by yellowy, hazy traffic lights. Shane’s house, all of the sudden, feels too far away. Shane wants to do something now. He wants to make a mess on the inside of this stupid car. Something Ilya will see and not be able to walk away from after he’s done with it.
There’s an exit off the highway with a sign for a single gas station. There aren’t many cars on the road. Shane knows all at once that he is going to do something really fucking stupid.
“Get off here,” Shane barks into the silence.
Ilya glances at him, eyebrow raised, but does what Shane says.
“Turn here,” he instructs, when he sees a road that looks like it goes nowhere. Ilya does, and then Shane says, “Pull over.”
The car idles to a stop. Before Shane can think better of it, he reaches across the console and puts his hand inside Ilya’s pants.
“Hollander,” Ilya hisses. “Fuck.” He’s surprised. Good. Shane can surprise him, too.
“Shut up,” Shane says, pawing at him. He’s got to get Ilya’s dick out. He’s got to put it in his mouth.
“Okay, okay.” Ilya helps Shane undo his fly, and then there’s a click and a whir and Ilya's seat falls back, which gives Shane much better access to Ilya’s lap. He devours the distance between them instantly and gets his mouth on Ilya, takes him all the way to the back of his throat so fast they both wince with it. It feels so good.
He can’t linger. He can’t make it last, even though this has become one of Shane’s favorite things in the universe to do and he wants it to take forever. It’s fine, they’re going to his house. There will be more of this later. He’s not going away yet.
It doesn’t matter that it’s true, it doesn’t matter that he’ll get it again in twenty minutes. Shane is still so greedy for it, so desperate to take more than what he’s given. Desperate for proof, for something. For Ilya to tell him that Shane is good, that he’s better than anyone else, that what Ilya does to Kendall is different from what he does to Shane. Shane can make Ilya come and he can make Ilya look good at his job and he can do more. He’ll do whatever Ilya asks.
He feels Ilya’s stomach tense, palms his balls and knows that he’s close. He pulls off, leaves him wet and dripping with Shane’s spit. Ilya grabs at his head to pull him back, but Shane meets his eyes and shakes his head.
It doesn't matter. It can't matter. But Shane has to know.
"Is this all the fucking same to you?"
Ilya’s eyes are glazed with the cresting orgasm. “What? Hollander, you cannot make me speak English right now, your mouth, fuck—”
“Just fucking—tell me. Is it all the same to you? Me, Kendall, whatever? All just—the job?"
Ilya looks at him like he’s stupid. "I do not think you are the same as Kendall."
"Obviously I'm not the same as Kendall." Shane is the fucking star of this show. He is the reason they're all here. He's allowed to have a cell phone, he spends hours every day with his trainer. The girls are locked in a pen like zoo animals. Shane is allowed to be free.
"But—" He doesn't know how to ask, is the problem. He doesn’t really understand what he's asking for.
A few seconds pass. It’s so quiet on the road. It’s dark and the car is getting hot with the air conditioning turned off and Shane is crawling out of his skin and he doesn’t know what he needs.
But Ilya knows.
"You are not the same to me," Ilya says, and it shouldn't mean anything to Shane, but something unlocks in Shane's chest. “Fuck, Hollander, no one is as good as you, do you not know this? There is no one else who could be so good, yes?”
Shane nods. His eyes are wet again.
Ilya puts a hand on the top of Shane’s hand, and gently forces him down. He says something to Shane in Russian, and then in English says, “Now you do what you are so good at, Hollander, and suck my fucking dick.”
Shane’s lungs expand, and then he swallows Ilya down.