No but their whole time at the cottage is basically them to just playing one big game of chicken about who’s going to say I love you first. Like Ilya goes to the cottage KNOWING he loves Shane, and knowing that Shane wouldn’t have invited him if he didn’t at least feel something back. And Shane knows he feels strongly for Ilya, is fairly certain Ilya reciprocates those feelings because otherwise he wouldn’t have accepted his invitation. Shane says let’s be honest about how we really feel :)))) and Ilya is like ok I’ll try :)))) They sleep in the same bed and wake up together, something that six months ago even the prospect of caused the crash out of all crash outs. And then they start upping their game. “I like you” and “I like you too” becomes a practice run, and when Ilya says “I hate you” and Shane GRINS as he says, knowingly, “no you don’t”…. It’s like they’re slowly working their way up to being able to say it, whilst simultaneously trying to bait the other into saying it first. They know they feel, they have a pretty good idea how the other feels, it’s just been said out loud yet. And only being at the cottage together allowed them that space to be able to finally say it.
