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Shane wakes to an empty bed.
Usually this wouldn’t be noteworthy. He spends most of the year alone, and if there’s someone else in the room on roadies it’s usually Hayden in the other bed. He’s gotten used to a life made for one, full of empty beds and empty dishwashers and echoing empty homes, and he’s never let himself imagine that anything is missing.
In the past week that he’s spent at the cottage, he’s learned how comforting another presence can be.
He usually wakes up before Ilya, goes for a run or some yoga, comes back to wake his boyfriend up with a kiss—and usually something more than a kiss, if he’s being honest. He cooks for the both of them, as new of an experience as that may be, and he finds himself breathing along with Ilya, his body falling into the rhythm easily.
Shane wakes up alone, the way that he has woken up most of his life, and he misses the life he’s already let himself get accustomed to.
Yawning, he slides out of bed, adjusts the sheets on his side of the bed so they match the ones on Ilya’s side. Not quite made, but that doesn’t exactly matter. The bed’s probably going to get messed up again before they go to sleep tonight anyway, and Shane doesn’t try to bite back the smile that thought brings him.
There’s a noise coming from out in the living area and Shane leaves the bedroom to follow it, stretching and popping his back as he goes. Sunlight shines through the walls of glass, warm and bright and turning Ilya’s hair gold where he stands in the kitchen. His head bobs along to the music playing tinny from his phone, curls bouncing, and the smell of cooking meat drifts through the air.
Feet quiet against the cool floor, Shane makes his way to the breakfast bar. Ilya doesn’t look up from his task, humming along with the music while he pokes at the ground meat sizzling away in a frying pan. There’s something tangling in Shane’s stomach as he watches, some bottomless well of greed yawning wide at the sight of his boyfriend, standing in his kitchen like he belongs there.
“You’re up early,” Shane says, draping himself along the line of Ilya’s back and hooking his chin over his shoulder.
To his credit, Ilya doesn’t jump, just gives a pleased hum and leans back against Shane’s chest. “Morning.”
Shane rests one of his hands on Ilya’s hip, thumb brushing over the skin where his tank top rides up. Ilya’s warm, smells like sweat and sunlight when Shane tilts his head into the crook of his neck, and he can feel every breath moving through Ilya’s chest each place they touch. With the hand not busy cooking, Ilya gently grabs Shane’s wrist and pulls it, wrapping Shane’s arm around him until his palm rests against the rise-and-fall of his sternum. “Smells good,” Shane says, and his free hand comes to wrap around Ilya as well.
“Make a good kept man, yes?” Ilya’s voice is low, roughened by sleep, and Shane’s grip tightens on him without thought.
He does want to keep Ilya, more than anything he can think of. He wants to keep him like this, warm and soft and perfect. He wants to keep him in his arms, in his home, far away from anyone or anything that wants to take precedence. He doesn’t say any of that, however. “I’ll have to see how it tastes before passing judgement.”
Shane feels Ilya’s laugh more than hears it, a rumbling pressed directly into his chest, and his own smile is pressed into the skin of Ilya’s neck. “Big words,” Ilya says, and he leans back into Shane’s hold. “Pretending you will not eat whatever I feed you.”
Shane feels himself flush, tucks his face tighter against Ilya. “I don’t know, I’ve got pretty high standards.”
“Oh, I know this,” Ilya says, patting Shane’s hand where it holds him. “Is why you picked best player in league to fuck.”
Now it’s Shane’s turn to laugh. “Looks like you’ve gotta keep up your point average, then.”
“Ranking is not that close.” Ilya moves towards the fridge and Shane shuffles along with him, clinging even as he bends to grab the carton of eggs. There’s something childish to the feeling, making a nuisance of himself because he doesn’t want to let go for even a moment, but Ilya doesn’t seem to mind. “Do not even need to worry about second-best player.”
“Yeah?” Shane asks, thumb rubbing against Ilya’s chest as he pulls down a bowl from the cupboard to crack the eggs into. “Why’s that?”
“I am already fucking him.”
“Fuck you,” Shane says, another laugh bubbling up within him. There’s a lightness in his chest, warm and bright as the morning sun, unfamiliar enough that it almost scares him. Stress is his constant companion, but as he stands in the kitchen of his cottage with the man that he loves in his arms, he doesn’t feel any shoe waiting to drop.
Ilya hums consideringly, leans back against him as he cracks another egg into the bowl. “After breakfast, maybe.”
“What’s for breakfast, then?”
“Eager,” Ilya says, turning his head to drop a quick kiss on Shane’s temple. “Using leftover meat from Mr. Eight Burgers to make scrambled eggs.” He cracks a last egg into the bowl, adds its shell to the pile on the counter next to him. “Would add milk to eggs to make fluffy, but someone does not keep dairy in refrigerator.”
“Not my fault I’m lactose intolerant,” Shane says, stepping away just long enough to throw the eggshells away while Ilya grabs a fork. He wraps himself around Ilya again a moment later, shifting to the side so that he can beat the eggs without jabbing his elbow into Shane. A splash of water goes in, then salt and pepper from their containers on the counter. Shane half-expects the anxiety of eating off-program, the voice in his head telling him that he’s slipping, but it doesn’t come.
It’s the off-season. Eggs are nourishing, and they've been doing a good job of staying active, burning calories. Most importantly: his boyfriend is making him breakfast, and that feels like a good enough excuse for anything.
Shane rests himself against Ilya and lets himself imagine that this can go on forever.