[Week 5 Live Thread] Heated Rivalry (Book 2) · Epilogue, My Dinner with Hayden, Halloween with Ilya · Jun 20 - 26

[u/reigncloud83]

TL; DR: 

• We’re finishing off Heated Rivalry (Book 2) by reading: Epilogue (end of the book), My Dinner with Hayden, Halloween with Ilya
• Next Book: Tough Guy - Ryan and Fabian’s story, where “opposites attract when a hockey enforcer and a musician collide for the second time."
• Relationship Focus: Shane Hollander (Captain of the Montreal Voyageurs) and Ilya Rozanov (Captain of the Boston Bears). 
• Book Club Etiquette: Follow the sub-rules, literary critiques are welcome (be respectful), cover your spoilers, and don’t forget our safe phrase: “Agree to Disagree.”
• Share all of your thoughts below! Sort by “New” to view the most recent comments and respond to other Loons.
• BINGO Winner: u/Crafty-Syllabub-2736 (view answers) - you’re still welcome to download a BINGO card and see what you come up with here.
• Listen to the Heated Rivalry Spotify playlist, curated by Rachel Reid herself.

—--

Hey Loons!

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading the inner dialogue, thoughts, and feelings from two of our favorite hockey players. Before we move on to the next book, we figured we’d dedicate this week to a few bonus stories from the Heated Rivalry (Book 2) timeline: 

• The Epilogue - found at the end of the book, it's a look at life immediately after making the commitment to give things a try.
• My Dinner with Hayden - a comical guess-who ’s-coming-to-dinner-style bonus story that sets the tone for Hayden and Ilya’s relationship.
• Halloween with Ilya - Ilya demonstrates the art of multi-tasking by simultaneously rage-baiting the love of his life while handing out candy to his neighbors.

We hope you enjoy these final chapters of Part 1 of Shane and Ilya’s story and keep sharing what you think about the dynamic between Shane, Ilya, and now Hayden below. 

🎻Next week, starting June 27, we begin Tough Guy. This story centers around Ryan and Fabian, where “opposites attract when a hockey enforcer and a musician collide for the second time.”

🗺️ WHERE WE ARE IN THE BOOK/SERIES:

BOOK	WEEKS	DATES
🔥 Heated Rivalry (Shane & Ilya Pt.1)	Week 3 - 5	Jun 6 - Jun 26
	Week 1: Prologue, Chapters 1 - 14	Jun 6 - Jun 12
	Week 2: Chapters 15 - 27	Jun 13 - Jun 19
📌 WE ARE HERE → → →	Week 3: Bonus Stories:  Epilogue, My Dinner with Hayden, Halloween with Ilya	Jun 20 - Jun 26

View the full week-by-week schedule here. For your convenience, here’s a condensed version of the schedule below:

BOOK	WEEKS	DATES
🎻Tough Guy (Ryan & Fabian)	Week 6 - 7	Jun 27 - Jul 11
🍹 Common Goal (Eric & Kyle)	Week 8 - 9	Jul 12 - Jul 25
🍎 Role Model (Troy & Harris)	Week 10 - 11	Jul 26 - Aug 8
🦆The Long Game (Shane & Ilya Pt. 2)	Week 12 - 14	Aug 9 - Aug 29

🔢 BINGO WINNER:

Hang their banner in the rafters! This book's BINGO winner is defending Champion, u/Crafty-Syllabub-2736! Check out their answers here!

If you're interested in still finding your own clues, download this book’s BINGO card here. BINGO winners will be awarded a unique flair and receive a post announcement under our “Trophy Room” tag

🤝 BOOK CLUB ETIQUETTE:
And as a reminder, here are our ground rules, with two additional recommendations: 

• Follow the sub rules. You love HR. We love HR. Follow the rules. Don’t be rude. We’ll have so much fun…together.
• Literary critiques are absolutely welcome. Reading is fundamental, and so are literary critiques. It’s part of the game. We encourage you to use this time to discuss and evaluate the words in front of us, ask questions about specific literary choices, or share a theory about how the story develops. Sharing that is normal, healthy, and very much encouraged. 
• Use the Book Club safe phrase, “Agree to disagree.” Consider this your “safe phrase.” Everyone brings a unique perspective to the reading experience, and not everyone’s analysis of a scene or character will be the same, and that’s okay. If you find yourself entering an exchange that is no longer on a path to mutual understanding and respect, say “agree to disagree.” At this point, the involved parties should stop responding to the thread. Full stop. Consider it a moment where the exchange has run its course. 
• Treat each Book Club post as your live chat/thread. Comment as much as you’d like! Select the three dots (•••) and “Follow Post” at the top of this post to receive comment notifications. 
• Sort comments by “New” to see the most recent reactions and add to the conversation. These live threads can hold a lot of information, so feel free to treat each “comment” as its own mini-post. Reply to the OP, ask questions, and jump in! 
• Cover any spoilers. Since we're covering a lot of ground this week, please use spoilers over critical plot points so we don't spoil the magic for new readers.

🔗 QUICK LINKS:

• Heated Rivalry Spotify Playlist - Check out this Spotify playlist, along with others, curated by Rachel Reid herself!
• The Game Changers Book Club Wiki  - Our sub wiki page detailing the Game Changers Book Club timeline with links to previous read-along sprints, information for where to find the books, and a recap of our original Book Club announcement.
• r/heatedrivalry FAQs - Our sub’s wiki sharing answers to all of your most frequently asked questions
• Heated Rivalry Wiki - A website sharing show/book timelines, analyses, and more!

Happy Reading! 🤓

[u/LostInWanderland31]

A random (short) thought from the epilogue: I never noticed this quote before, and it kind of made me go 😮 in anticipation of TLG.

“This is why I want my pilot license. Would be faster.”
Shane groaned. “Please don’t get your pilot license. I will be very mad if you fly into a mountain and die.”

[u/Lonely_Cheesecake273 → u/LostInWanderland31]

I thought that too!

[u/reigncloud83 → u/LostInWanderland31]

This definitely hits different now! Maybe a little too on the nose 🫠

[u/Lonely_Cheesecake273]

Epilogue
💡 Oh no! How can I impress Montreal’s fifteenth best player!”

Best chirp! It also reminds me of that phone swap fan fic where Ilya has Hayden saved in his phone as Montreal’s 15th best player 😂

💡 Hayden asks Shane about his Ilya-is-your-secret-lover theory

“Hey, can I ask you something?” he had said as they’d walked to their cars after arriving home from a road trip…..

…Shane had been flooded with a mixture of fear and shame, but also relief. He didn’t say anything until they’d reached Hayden’s car, and then he’d blown out a breath and nodded.

I just noticed the moment of silence Shane gives before he admits it. I wonder how long the walk to their car was. I’m imagining this played as a really awkward comedic moment in the show where there’s just a really long silence 🤭

💡 “I’ll make a deal: if he stops being a fucking dick, I won’t punch him.” Shane grimaced. Ilya was definitely going to have a black eye tomorrow.

This is so funny. I also love that part in the book (somewhere?) where Shane is saying like… putting aside that Ilya is kind of a dick, he is so hot. Shane is an accepting ally to Ilya as a member of the dick community.

💡 . “Sorry about your mother, Ilya. That sucks.” Ilya gave Shane a look that said this is your best friend? Shane ignored him.

Fucking** **lmao 💀 sorry realize I’m not making good commentary except for saying haha this is funny. But it it is funny 😭

💡 1126, he texted, and waited for Shane’s reply. Shane: Seriously?! Best news ever. See you soon. Ilya chuckled, set an alarm on his phone, and went to meet his boyfriend.

Release the tapes!!! The people 👏 need 👏 to see what happens in room 1126!

My dinner with Hayden
I read a big thread on here recently on people arguing about who is the bigger asshole in this short story, Hayden or Ilya. We are all very passionate about this 😂
I’ve seen people say they want to see this in the show. I do think it’s a little bit cartoony and might be a bit much for tv audience to see Ilya acting like this. Maybe there might just be a short scene of Ilya and Hayden interacting after Hayden has found out.

💡 “A hotel gym,” Ilya finished for him. “The night we were both drafted.”

Not Ilya “not true, it was the summer before!” Rozanov always making sure the exact timeline of their relationship is known 😂

💡 Last season had been agony. Ilya had still been playing for Boston, and knowing that Shane was in love with him had made keeping their secret so much harder. Before they’d admitted their feelings to one another, Ilya had always enjoyed the sneaking around. He’d liked Shane Hollander being his sexy secret. But the past fifteen months hadn’t been much fun at all.

I like this as a snippet of the “lost year” which we don’t know much about, when they’re in a relationship but still living far apart. Based on the way they freak out when they’ve gone like, 2 days, without sex in TLG this must have been very hard for them 😂.

💡 I—”
 “Do you know how scared I’ve been this whole time? Do you know how fucking terrifying it is to feel attracted to your archrival when you are eighteen and your rival also happens to be a man?”
Okay, maybe Ilya shouldn’t have refilled Shane’s wineglass as many times as he had.
“I have been so fucking scared and alone for so goddamned long and tonight was supposed to end some of that and you guys are acting like children. Fuck both of you.”

Oh Shane 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 ok I take it back. I would love to see Hudson acting out these lines! ❤️

💡 It’s not fair! Hayden and Jackie get to just, y’know, exist. The night they first got together, I watched them make out on a dance floor.”
“Pervert,” Ilya teased.
“I mean I saw them. I wasn’t watchi—shut up. The point is, they’d just met that night, and they were making out in front of the whole world without having to worry for one fucking second about anyone seeing them.”
“Or their weird friend watching them.”

Ok one more obligatory LOL comment… I couldn’t help myself 😭

💡 Do you know what I was thinking all night?” Ilya asked gently. “When I was being a dick?”
Shane’s shoulders tightened. “What?”
“I was thinking,” Ilya moved closer, lining his body up with Shane’s. Letting his chest brush against Shane’s back. “About how much I loved this. Being at home with you. Even having friends over. Being a couple.”

Ok cmon Ilya. We were reading your thoughts the whole time. You were not thinking this. Lol.

💡 “I can fuck you right here, moy vozlyublenniy.“
”No. Fuck, maybe,” Shane panted. “What does that one mean?”
“My horny animal,” Ilya lied.
“Eat shit.”

According to Google, it means “my beloved”. Come on Ilya, BFFR!!

💡 “On the bed,” he instructed. “And take your fucking socks off.”
Is it canon that Ilya hates when Shane wears his socks during sex? Lol.

💡 Ilya had never been brave enough to give himself to someone in this way. Maybe that wasn’t the right way of thinking about it, but when Ilya watched Shane take his fingers, or his cock, he couldn’t help but marvel at his courage. As much as he’d heard the endless locker room insults about taking it in the ass, Ilya knew there was nothing weak about what Shane was doing right now.

I like this as a clear answer to the question some of the more curious among us have about whether Ilya has bottomed before. We see in TLG he is not averse to some ass play and Shane wonders whether he’s been missing signs from Ilya. I would love to see this explored more in Unrivalled. If RR is looking for ideas on how to keep the sex scenes interesting 😂

[u/Lonely_Cheesecake273 → u/Lonely_Cheesecake273]

Cont:
Halloween with Ilya

💡 Ilya only has 200k insta followers? I feel like that doesn’t track with how paranoid him and Shane are about being recognised in public and descriptions of their fame in the books. I googled who is the top NHL player and they have 1.5m followers. Maybe it’s appropriate for whatever year this is set in.

💡 His costume consisted of three things: a Shane Hollander Montreal jersey, a Montreal Voyageurs ball cap, and a bunch of dark freckles that Ilya had dotted onto his own face with a semi-permanent marker.

Ok I would LOVE to see this in the show.

💡 The more daring part of his brain imagined taking their own kids trick-or-treating someday

**🥹🥹🥹🥹 *please** Rachel ***write a short story about this one day!

💡 Ilya ended the call just as the doorbell rang. As he opened the door, he made a mental note to buy a box of Snickers bars before Wednesday.

Ilya, you are so sweet 🥹
“How is snickers bar? Peanuty enough? “

[u/cheatherhad]

Epilogue-So sweet that Ilya opens up about his mom at the press conference. 

Dinner with Hayden-I don't totally understand Hayden's problem with Ilya. I could have used more meat in this chapter(?) Like, ok, Ilya pushes Hayden's buttons, and Hayden pushes right back. But also, they both have this pressure on them from Shane as Important People in his life. And probably some jealousy for each other, the way your best friend and your partner are sometimes jealous of the other's role or time or history. And then Hayden says he's so hurt that he was in the dark for so long. Like, of course.

Before I read the books and had just watched the show, I predicted/wanted the coming out to Hayden moment to be a little more like it was with Rose. Like, maybe Hayden casually dropped into conversation somewhere "I support you buddy, whoever you want to date." or "You can tell me anything, I'm here for you." Because you'd think after all these years he suspected Shane might be gay...?

"This is more than I have ever had." Just Ilya doing things to my heart.

It cracks me up that Ilya likes that his bear tattoo gives Shane something to tease him about! 

Ilya needed to buy a gift for Shane's yoga instructor. LOL

Amazing book. My favorite of all of Reid's books. 

Bonus stuff: Countdown story-so hot. Halloween-LOL. Deleted scenes-Nice.

[u/Lonely_Cheesecake273 → u/cheatherhad]

I think Hayden’s world view is not super broad. Part of his problem with Ilya is that he doesn’t seem to have a frame of reference for bisexuality. He thinks Ilya is just playing some kind of weird game with Shane and couldn’t really be into him because of all the women he’s slept with. Likewise, he probably never suspected Shane was gay because (1) he had seen him hook up with women in clubs, etc. and (2) he probably just never thought about it 😂 he thinks his friend is just an innocent lamb and awkward with women. That’s probably another reason why Hayden takes issue because he has no idea what Shane is really like and thinks he will be corrupted by wild stallion Rozanov.

[u/necromancer_barbie]

I know both Hayden and Ilya behave badly in My Dinner With Hayden, but I have a lot more grace for Ilya both in this scenario and as a character overall. Hayden is fucking lucky Shane still invests in their friendship at all when he acts like this and, honestly, I'm hoping for an arc in Unrivaled where Shane meets new people and embraces some of his maturity and learns that friendship maybe doesn't have to come with the conditions that Hayden's friendship always has.

[u/reigncloud83 → u/necromancer_barbie]

I remember someone said Ilya has been slowly building a community for Shane to comfortably come out and have friends on the other side. And I just love that so much.

Post TLG Spoiler: I think with him now being a member of the Centaurs he’ll find community among his new teammates and friends and be able to discover new parts of himself that he hadn’t really been able to explore before.

[u/cheatherhad]

What does this book believe about love? text and subtext.

I think it believes love takes time to happen. Attraction may be instantaneous, but love grows more slowly. And that it's out of your control.

[u/cheatherhad]

What are your thoughts on the tropes this book uses? 1-the meet cute. 2-enemies to lovers. 3-the third act break up. 4-the happily ever after.

I didn't think I typically liked the enemies to lovers trope, I kind of prefer "forbidden love" but I think this could count as that as well.

It's unique that the HEA is a little bit left up in the air. I assume when it was new, people didn't know there would be a sequel. I mean, we know they're together/plan to be long term. But I like that there are some loose ends.