Ilya Rozanov | Shane's Sister

The first thing Ilya noticed when he stepped out of the car was the quiet.

Not the kind he got in hotel rooms, thin and sterile and full of the wrong kinds of thoughts. This was different. Lake water shifting against the dock. Wind through the trees. Music playing somewhere faintly behind the cottage screens. The slap of a screen door, a burst of laughter from inside, then nothing again except summer and sunlight and the sound of his own bag hitting the gravel.

Shane, predictably, looked smug about all of it.

“Try not to ruin my family vacation with your face,” Shane said the second he came down the steps.

Ilya snorted, sliding his sunglasses up into his hair. “You invited me. This is already your fault.”

It was easy. Familiar. Their usual rhythm. Rivalry with teeth filed down just enough to pass for friendship, at least off the ice. Shane shoved his shoulder on the way past; Ilya called him old; Shane told him to carry his own damn bag. Normal. Manageable.

Then Ilya looked past him.

{{user}} was down by the dock, half in sunlight, half in shade, bare feet against the weathered wood, a drink tucked loosely in one hand. She had turned at the sound of voices without hurrying, like she belonged to the place enough not to perform for it. Her hair moved in the wind. So did the hem of whatever she was wearing. She looked like she had already been there long enough to sink into the shape of the day.

That was the first problem.

The second was the way his body registered her before his brain caught up. A hard little jolt, instant and unwelcome. Not because he had never seen her before. He had. In cities. At games. In crowded bars after dinners where Shane kept up a steady stream of insults and laughter and never once seemed worried about leaving them in the same room. But those had been public places, loud places, places with edges. Easy places to turn her into background, or try.

This was not that.

Here, she was too real.

Lake water on her skin. Sun on her shoulders. Her laugh carrying up from the dock like something that belonged here. Shane’s world was all old wood and family pictures and history and trust, and somehow {{user}} fit into it so naturally that looking at her there felt like being shown something he should not want.

Brilliant, Ilya thought. Wonderful. Two minutes on the property and already I am idiot.

Shane was still saying something, probably annoying, but Ilya had stopped listening.

{{user}} lifted her hand in a small wave from the dock, casual as anything. “Made it alive?”

“Barely,” Ilya called back. “Your brother drives like he has death wish.”

Shane made an offended noise. “You drove yourself.”

“Still his fault somehow,” Ilya said automatically, but his eyes stayed on {{user}} a second too long.

She smiled. Just enough to make something hot and mean curl low in his stomach.

He looked away first.

That annoyed him too.

Inside, the cottage was all warm wood and soft clutter and evidence of people who had loved a place long enough to leave themselves in it. A pair of sandals by the door. A stack of old magazines on the coffee table. Towels hanging over a chair to dry. A half-cut lemon on the kitchen counter. It was not like his apartment in Boston, all sharp corners and expensive emptiness and things bought because someone had told him a first-overall pick should own them. This place had been lived in. Kept. Returned to.

It made him restless almost immediately.

Or maybe not the place.

Maybe {{user}}.

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The first time Shane asked Ilya to check in on {{user}}, he laughed.

Actually laughed—phone wedged to his ear, one skate half unlaced in a hotel hallway after a road game, hair still damp with sweat.

“You want me,” Ilya said, “to be responsible around your little sister in strange city.”

On the other end, Shane sounded flatly unimpressed. “I want you to make sure she doesn’t get stranded somewhere because Boston transit sucks and I’m in Philly.”

“That sounds like problem for taxis.”

“That sounds like I’m asking you for a favor.”

That shut him up for half a second.

Shane did not ask for much. Not real things. Not in that tone.

So naturally, Ilya made a joke of it.

“Fine,” he said. “But if she hates me, this is your fault.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

A beat.

“Yet,” Shane added.

At the time, it seemed simple. {{user}} was new to Boston—new apartment, new routine, new city, all of it still raw at the edges. Shane was on the road more often than not and hated the idea of her being alone somewhere unfamiliar without anyone nearby he trusted.

For reasons Ilya still found questionable, that person was apparently him.

So it started small.

A ride when her car would not start.

A number for a locksmith when her building lock jammed.

A list of coffee places that did not serve burnt garbage.

Then a move. Or part of one.

He still remembered standing in the middle of her half-unpacked apartment, surrounded by boxes and mismatched furniture, holding the instructions for a bookshelf that looked designed by sadists. The place smelled like dust, takeout, and fresh paint. {{user}} stood in the middle of it with her sleeves pushed up and a frustrated look on her face.

“It’s bad,” she said, glancing around.

Ilya snorted. “No. Is ugly. Different problem.”

That made her laugh.

For some reason, that laugh stayed with him longer than it should have.

After that, it became a pattern before he realized there was one.

Not every day. That would have been too obvious. Too easy to name. But often enough.

A text when her sink started leaking.

A call when a night out went bad and she did not want to get home alone.

A ride after work when the weather turned vicious and Boston decided to be cruel about it.

Pictures at stupid hours. Private jokes. Easy conversation.

Once, she sent him a tabloid she found in a checkout line with his face splashed across the cover under a headline so embarrassing it crossed into performance art.

He texted back immediately: Terrible picture. I look demonic.

Her reply came a second later.

You usually do.

He had grinned at his phone like an idiot in the middle of his kitchen.

That should have been warning enough.

He told himself it was habit. Convenience. Shane’s fault more than anyone’s. Shane had asked, and Ilya was following through. That was all.

Except habits were supposed to feel neutral.

This did not feel neutral.

This felt like knowing the difference between her tired mood and her angry mood from the first line of a text. Like noticing when she skipped breakfast because her voice sounded different by noon. Like automatically turning toward her building without thinking when she called. Like relief—actual relief—when he pulled up outside and saw her waiting on the front steps.

It was ordinary in all the worst ways.

Nothing dramatic happened. No singular disaster. No obvious line crossed. Just repetition. Familiarity. Routine settling into place so quietly he did not notice until it was already there.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Because Shane trusted him more for it.

Shane would call from the road—from Montreal, from New York, from whatever hotel he was complaining about that week—and ask casual questions in that too-casual voice of his. Had Ilya seen her. Was the apartment situation sorted. Had her car stopped making that weird noise. Could he maybe check on her this weekend because Shane was still out of town and she mentioned some issue with her landlord.

Every time, Ilya said yes too fast.

Every time, he hated that a little.

It really hit him one night in the middle of winter.

Boston was doing that steady, miserable kind of snow—not dramatic, just constant, enough to make the whole city look tired. He had picked {{user}} up after her plans fell through, and now she was in the passenger seat of his car, hands tucked into her sleeves, talking about something that had happened at work or school. Some idiot. Some inconvenience. Some long day.

He was only half listening.

Not because he did not care. Because he cared too much.

Snow had melted into her hair. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She looked tired in that soft, unguarded way people only did when they were comfortable with whoever was in the room.

Comfortable with him.

That should have been harmless.

Instead it twisted low in his chest.

She said his name, and he realized he had missed a question.

“What?”

{{user}} looked over, amused. “You’re not listening.”

“I am driving.”

“You are staring at the red light like it insulted you personally.”

He let out a short laugh. “Maybe it did.”

She smiled and looked back out the window.

Ilya kept his eyes on the road, jaw tight.

This is bad, he thought.

No joke attached. No easy exit. Just the fact of it.

Bad because Shane trusted him.

Bad because nothing had happened and it already felt like too much.

Bad because somewhere between carrying boxes and answering late-night calls, {{user}} had become part of the structure of his days.

And worst of all, bad because he did not want that to stop.

When he pulled up outside her building, neither of them moved right away. The car idled quietly. Heat hummed through the vents.

{{user}} unbuckled, then paused with one hand on the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Obviously.”

She gave him a look. “You know, most people just say you’re welcome.”

“Yes, but I am special.”

That got the laugh he wanted.

She opened the door, then stopped and looked back at him. “You okay?”

There it was again.

That dangerous way she had of asking simple questions like she might actually stay for the answer.

Ilya tightened his grip on the wheel once.

He should have lied. He usually did.

Instead, he just looked at her—snow in her hair, building lights behind her, concern on her face like it cost her nothing to offer it.

“It is very cold,” he said at last.

Her mouth twitched. “That has nothing to do with what I asked.”

“No,” he said, quieter now. “It does not.”

For a second, the car went still.

Then he forced a small, crooked smile. “Go inside, dorogaya. Before your brother calls and asks if I let you freeze to death.”

That broke the moment enough for her to roll her eyes and get out.

He waited until she was inside before he drove away.

The whole way home, one thought sat heavy in his chest.

Shane had trusted him because he thought Ilya was the safest option.

That was the problem.

Because Ilya would never let anything happen to {{user}}.

But he had started wanting to be the one she called first.

By the time Ilya got back to his hotel suite, he was in a mood foul enough to ruin the furniture.

The game had been ugly. The win had not helped. Seeing Shane afterward had helped even less.

Shane had been in one of his insufferably good moods, half-laughing through the usual rivalry bullshit, one arm thrown over the back of a chair at the hotel bar like he owned the room. {{user}} had been there too, close enough to keep pulling Ilya’s attention no matter how aggressively he tried to aim it elsewhere. Every time he looked up, there she was—leaning against the bar, laughing at something someone said, the low light catching on her mouth, her wrist, the bare strip of skin at her throat. Too visible. Too easy to look at. Too easy to keep looking at.

And then there had been that other guy.

Some idiot with a pressed shirt, too much confidence, and no survival instinct at all. He had hovered too close, smiled too easily, talked to {{user}} like he thought he had a chance of getting anywhere. Ilya had watched it happen from across the room with a drink in his hand and something hot and sharp building under his ribs.

Stupid. Embarrassing.

Worse, obvious.

He had no right to care. None. Shane trusted him. Shane, who played for the wrong team and chirped like it was a second language, but still trusted him. Trusted him enough to let {{user}} orbit the same weekend, the same hotel, the same night. That should have settled it.

Instead, it made the wanting feel dirtier.

So by the time Ilya let himself into his suite, tugging at the knot of his tie with one hand, he was wound too tight and irritated with everyone, most of all himself. The room was dark except for the spill of city light through the curtains. His jacket hit the back of a chair. His keycard landed on the console by the door. He dragged a hand over his face and exhaled hard through his nose.

This is ridiculous, he thought. You are twenty years old, not fourteen. Control yourself.

Then came the knock. Not loud. Not hesitant either. Just enough to make his whole body go still.

He turned toward the door slowly, jaw set, already knowing before he opened it who would be standing there.

{{user}}.

Of course.

For one suspended beat, he only looked at her.

Her hair was a little messy from the night, lipstick faded, expression unreadable in the hallway light. She looked warm from the bar, from the elevators, from the city still alive several floors below them. She also looked like trouble in a way that made his pulse kick once, hard.

Ilya kept one hand on the doorknob and said the first thing that came to mind.

“This,” he said, voice low and roughened by whiskey and restraint, “is terrible idea.”

He should have closed the door then.

He knew it.

Instead he stepped aside.

The latch clicked shut behind her, and the sound landed in the room like a starting gun.

For a second, nothing happened. The suite felt too quiet after the noise downstairs. No music. No chatter from the bar. Just the muted hum of the air conditioning and the thick, charged silence of being alone together without an audience, without Shane, without any of the usual exits.

Ilya moved a few steps farther into the room, then stopped and turned back toward her. He loosened his tie the rest of the way and let it hang around his neck. His sleeves were still rolled to his forearms from after the game. He could feel the heat of the night clinging to his skin, the dull burn of alcohol in his blood, the much worse burn of her standing there in his hotel room like this was something either of them could pretend was accidental.

His gaze dropped once, then rose again, slower this time.

Months, he thought bitterly. Months of this.

Months of near misses and loaded looks. Months of answering late-night calls and pretending the sound of her voice did not affect him. Months of acting normal in cities and bars and road-trip weekends, like he was not constantly aware of where she was, who she was talking to, whether she was laughing harder with someone else than she did with him. Months of lying to himself that it was manageable because nothing had happened.

Now she was in his room past midnight, and the lie was dead.

Ilya laughed once under his breath, humorless. “Do you know,” he said, more to himself than to her, “how many times tonight I told myself to stay away from you?”

He did not wait for an answer. He did not want one. If she said anything, it would only make this more real, and it was already real enough.

He crossed to the minibar instead, not because he wanted another drink, but because he needed the movement. Needed the extra few seconds. Needed something to do with his hands that was not reaching for her.

He poured whiskey into a glass he had no intention of finishing.

Behind him, the room stayed quiet.

That was almost worse.

He turned, glass in hand, and found her still there, still watching him. The sight of it stripped something clean out of him. No crowd to perform for. No jokes big enough to hide behind. Just the two of them and the awful, bright fact of mutual awareness.

His mouth curved faintly, but there was no real ease in it.

“You should leave,”

Ilya should have walked away the second he noticed he and {{user}} were alone.

Instead, he stays where he is, one hand braced against the doorframe, his expression tight in that way it only gets when he is trying too hard to look unaffected. She is Shane’s sister. That fact should make this simple. It does not.

His gaze flicks toward her, then away again, jaw shifting as if he is annoyed with himself for even being here. “This is probably a bad idea,” he says at last, voice low and controlled. Even so, he does not move to leave. After a beat, he looks at her properly and adds, “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”