Page 3 of The Long Game (Game Changers #6)

“Ugh. Bad. Camp Rozanov is better. I am Ilya, and this is my friend Shane.”

“Hi,” Shane said.

“Everyone knows that me and Shane like each other a lot and always get along,” Ilya said.

The kids laughed more. Some called out protests.

“But in case we... disagree...we have brought more friends to help. For the goalies, your coaches will be Wyatt Hayes, who plays with me for your favorite team, the Ottawa Centaurs.”

Some of the kids were brave enough to boo.

“We’re all on the same team this week,” Wyatt said, grinning. “Save the booing for the winter.”

“And also, Leah Campbell, who has more medals and awards than anyone else here, I think.”

“By two,” Leah said cheerfully. “Not that anyone’s counting.”

Ilya tapped his stick on the ice as applause, and the kids and other coaches all did the same. “For defense players, the coaches will be Ryan Price, who is the very tall and handsome man over there...”

“Uh, hi,” Ryan said quietly as he shuffled his skates.

“...and J.J. Boiziau, the tall and sort of handsome man next to him.”

“Watch it, Rozanov,” J.J. said, and Shane knew he was only partly kidding.

J.J., one of Shane’s alternate captains and closest friends, had not been impressed when he’d first learned that Shane and Ilya were friends.

He’d mostly gotten over it but, like Hayden, had never quite warmed to Ilya.

Shane certainly wasn’t ready to tell J.J.

that he and Ilya were more than friends. Not yet.

Despite Ilya’s teasing assessment, J.J. was undeniably handsome, though he and Ryan Price couldn’t look or be more different from each other.

Ryan was pale with nervous hazel eyes, red hair, and a beard that, at the moment, was more trimmed than when Shane had seen him in the past. He also suffered from anxiety, which was one of the reasons he had retired early at age thirty-one.

J.J., at six-six, was nearly as tall as Ryan, and just as broad, but he had dark skin, short hair, a Quebecois accent with a bit of a Haitian Creole lilt from his parents, and all the confidence in the world.

The other major difference between them was that Ryan Price did know Shane and Ilya’s secret.

He’d walked in on them kissing last year at the end of the first day of camp.

Shane still barely knew the guy because he was too embarrassed to even look Ryan in the eye.

But Ryan was gay himself, and he wasn’t much of a talker.

He’d kept their secret, as far as Shane could tell.

“And for the forwards,” Ilya continued after the kids had stopped scolding him. “We have me and Shane, and also Max Riley, who you know from Team Canada. And from being Leah’s husband.”

Shane was pleased by the enthusiastic stick tapping for Max.

Ilya had suggested inviting him to be a coach, and Shane had quickly agreed.

Max had been in the media spotlight quite a bit over the past couple of years after coming out as a trans man.

He’d played with his wife for Team Canada for years, including in two Olympics but, since coming out, had been without a team.

He was a vocal advocate for trans rights in sports, and Shane was glad both he and Leah were part of their staff.

Not only because they were activists, but because they were both incredible hockey players.

“And also Hayden Pike,” Ilya said quickly. “Okay! Let’s get started.”

Shane was, Ilya had to admit, a pretty terrible coach. But in an adorable way.

“Okay,” Shane mumbled to a group of forty young hockey players.

“So, you start at the goal line, and you receive a pass when you hit the blue line. I mean, there’ll be a whistle and then you go.

And the puck is coming from the next person in line.

No. Wait. It’s coming from the next person in line, but the opposite corner.

Um...there’s two groups. One in each corner, and, uh. ..”

Ilya felt like he’d somehow walked into one of Shane’s nightmares. Like he was being forced to present a lecture on a topic he knew nothing about.

Likely also noticing the confusion and panic on the kids’ faces, J.J. took over. As he explained the fairly simple drill with his cheerful, booming voice, Shane retreated to stand next to Ilya.

“Very good job, Coach Shane,” Ilya teased.

“I suck at this,” Shane said.

“Yes, but the rest of us are good, so no problem.”

It was true. Even Ryan Price, who was one of the shyest and most socially awkward people Ilya had ever met, was remarkably good with kids.

“I’m supposed to be in charge, though,” Shane said unhappily.

“You’re supposed to be in charge of your team too, but we all know J.J. is the real Montreal captain.”

Shane nudged him in the ribs with the butt end of his stick. “I’m a great captain.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Shane jabbed him again, harder this time. “Knock it off.”

The drill began, and Ilya watched as the kids took passes and skated around pylons with the puck.

Everyone seemed to understand what to do, so J.J.

had done a good job. Ilya glanced at the far end of the rink, where Wyatt Hayes and Leah Campbell were working with six young goaltenders.

Max was also assisting by taking careful shots on the goalies.

There was a lot of laughter and whooping coming from that end of the ice.

“This is going well,” Ilya said.

“You think so?”

“Yes. The kids are having fun. The coaches are good. And I think Number Twenty-Two has a crush on me.” He nodded in the direction of a girl whose eyes went wide behind her mask, and she quickly looked away.

Shane scoffed. “Who doesn’t have a crush on you?”

“Hayden.” Ilya paused, as if deep in thought. “Unless...”

“Hold on a sec,” Shane said. Then he skated toward a boy who had just finished the drill.

He bent at the waist to talk to the kid, then began showing him something to do with the angle of the boy’s stick blade.

Ilya felt a lot of things at once, both from the way Shane’s track pants pulled tight against his thigh muscles, and from the warmth that bloomed in Ilya’s chest whenever he watched Shane interact with children.

“Are you actually going to do some coaching, or are you just here to shoot heart eyes at Shane?”

Ilya blinked and turned his gaze away from his boyfriend to look way down at Hayden Pike. “Are you here for any reason at all?”

Hayden tapped the brim of his Montreal Voyageurs Stanley Cup Champions ball cap. “Here to represent the winning team, buddy.”

Well. Ilya couldn’t argue with that. His own team wasn’t going to be winning cups anytime soon. He made a mental note to wear Shane’s identical ball cap tomorrow, because it would make Hayden furious, and said, “You lead the next passing drill. You are good at passing.”

Hayden’s eyes narrowed, as if he was analyzing Ilya’s words, searching for the insult. Finally, cautiously, he said, “I am good at passing. I lead Montreal in assists.”

“I know. That is why I said it.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”

Hayden studied him another moment, then nodded and skated away. Ilya hadn’t realized how much fun it would be to confuse Hayden with compliments. He would have to do it more often.

Ilya couldn’t help but notice that the reporter guy Shane was talking to was very.

..attractive. Ilya tried to keep his focus on the kids he was coaching, but his gaze kept drifting back to where Shane was standing just behind the glass in one corner.

Even from here, Ilya could see the flirtatious smiles the man was giving Shane.

Or maybe they were just regular smiles and Ilya was being ridiculous.

“Mr. Rozanov?”

He dragged his attention away from his boyfriend and the handsome stranger and looked down at the girl in front of him.

“Ilya,” he corrected her, warmly. “Is something wrong, Chloe?”

“No. I just, um...” She glanced down at her skates, which she was shuffling nervously.

Ilya crouched down. “Yes?”

“I keep missing backhand passes. Not just in the drill, but, like, all the time. Do you know what I’m doing wrong?”

Ilya smiled. “We will try some and see what the problem is.”

He spent the next fifteen minutes sending passes to Chloe, and correcting her stick placement when she was receiving them. By the end of it, she was beaming with pride as she easily accepted a bunch of consecutive passes from him, and Ilya had barely glanced in Shane’s direction.

As Chloe joined the group that J.J. had called to center ice, Ilya took a peek and saw the handsome man laughing with Shane about something. And then the fucker placed a hand on Shane’s arm.

There was no good reason for Ilya to skate down the ice with one of the pucks and fire it at the glass behind Shane’s head, but he did it anyway. He could hear Shane scream, and Ilya laughed when he whipped around, eyes flashing with fury.

“Asshole!” Shane yelled.

Ilya gestured with his stick toward the children on the ice and shook his head. “Language, Hollander.”

Things were tense between them for the rest of the day. Ilya couldn’t even apologize because Shane wouldn’t talk to him. Not that he felt like apologizing; he just wanted Shane to stop being mad about it.

And Ilya wanted to stop feeling embarrassed about doing it. It had been immature and petty and unprofessional. He still didn’t want to apologize, though.

They had a debriefing, of sorts, at the end of the day with Yuna in the room they all used as an office. Shane didn’t even look at Ilya for the entire conversation. When Yuna left, Ilya braced himself for Shane’s fury.

The storm started with Shane loudly shuffling papers for no reason. Then he crossed his arms, huffed, and stared at the wall opposite Ilya.

Ilya couldn’t stand it. He’d rather Shane unleash whatever anger he had inside him so they could move on. Fortunately, he was an expert when it came to making Shane unleash his anger.

“What is the problem?” Ilya asked.