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Shane hardly even remembers to grab his jacket in his haste to get the fuck out of Ilya’s house.
Rozanov’s house. To get the fuck out of Rozanov’s house.
It’s all he can do to shove his socks and shoes on, make sure he has his wallet and phone, and then dash out onto the street. If Rozanov follows after him, Shane doesn’t hear it. Every time he blinks, he sees that look on Rozanov’s face, the question in his eye. The slight edge of fear, the same fear that ricochets around inside of Shane’s chest as he calls for a ride.
He contemplates walking, but it’s a long way back to the hotel, and he doesn’t want to risk being recognized. Harassed by a Boston fan, asked for a photo by a Metros fan— it doesn’t matter. Shane doesn’t even want to be looked at right now.
“Hollander?” Ilya had said. His face still soft, but hardening a little as if trying to protect himself, trying to take it all back, his hand outstretched on the couch.
I’m sorry.
So now Shane’s climbing into the back of a cab, his legs a little shaky, and it dawns on him that he’s still wearing Ilya’s shirt.
Rozanov’s shirt. Whatever.
It’s a little too big on him. As the cab starts to move, Shane shuts his eyes and tries not to recall the way Rozanov had pressed his hand inside of the shirt collar, his palm firm and soothing and…
Shane’s eyes shoot open again. He left his other shirt, the white one, on the floor of Rozanov’s bedroom. He’ll probably never see it again. Probably never see Rozanov again, except for games, which is ultimately a good thing. He’ll see Rozanov tomorrow, but it won’t be the same, and the realization lodges itself in his throat like a rock.
Because he wanted to stay. Because Rozanov had said his name, his first name, mumbled against his mouth like a prayer, and the word still feels like it’s racing through Shane’s veins, a sugary buzz he just wants to flush out.
When he gets to the hotel, he stumbles into the shower and sets it as high as it can go, like the boiling water can soothe the frigid anxiety that’s settling in his lungs. He feels cold all over. Panicked. His mind reminds him, unhelpfully, of how warm he had been in Ilya’s arms, in Ilya’s bed—
When he gets out of the shower, the mirror fogged over, he blinks at the offending item of clothing on the counter and wonders what to do with it. Would Rozanov want it back? It’s a nice shirt, thick and sturdy the way Shane likes them. He had liked wearing it, sleeves loose around his elbows, while he sat on one of Rozanov’s kitchen stools and watched him cook, while he curled into Rozanov’s couch and laughed at something he said about an annoying sports pundit, while he’d laid on Rozanov’s chest on the couch afterward.
If Hayden notices that Shane gets out of the bathroom and proceeds to spend a solid minute folding a plain black t-shirt as small as it will go and stuffing it deep into the corner of his duffel bag, he doesn’t say anything about it.
Montreal wins the game.
Shane and Rozanov hardly look at each other on the ice. Shane scores twice, and he should feel good about that, but his chest feels so heavy every time he catches a glimpse of Rozanov’s jersey that he can hardly muster a smile.
On the plane ride back to Montreal, Shane leans his head against the seat and tries to distract himself with a shitty comedy movie. It doesn’t work. Every time he lets his eyes shut for too long, his mind flashes to the too-pleasant weight of Rozanov’s arm wrapped around his waist, the teasing way he’d laughed and pressed a kiss to the back of Shane’s neck before he slotted in behind him. It was the most comforted Shane had felt in a long time, and it was taking everything in him to tamp that memory back down. It felt, strangely, like Shane was mourning. Like he was missing something.
It’s only while Shane is unpacking, tossing his dirty clothes into the laundry hamper, that he’s forced to confront the t-shirt again. It’s the very last thing in his bag, and it almost blends into the lining. Shane might have forgotten it was there at all, if not for the fact that he’d been constantly aware of its existence in his bag for several days.
Hesitantly he picks it up, and, like an idiot, crumples the fabric to his nose.
It doesn’t smell like Rozanov, which makes sense. Rozanov hadn’t been wearing it— hadn’t been wearing a shirt at all, actually, the whole time Shane was there. He’d pulled the t-shirt from a dresser drawer and tossed it onto the end of the bed while Shane was still lying there blinking sleepily, soaking up the warmth of the sheets before he got out of them.
So it didn’t smell like him, that sharp addictive cologne he liked to wear sometimes, but there was something. That faint citrusy smell that must be whatever Rozanov used as laundry detergent, the same citrusy scent Shane picked up sometimes when he was nosing at Rozanov’s chest or his thigh, pressing kisses to his clothed erection.
That thought was enough to get Shane to drop the shirt. He blinked miserably at it for a second before he picked it up again and shoved it into one of his drawers, the same drawer where he kept hoodies that he hardly wore.
If it were even two weeks earlier, before all this had happened, before Rozanov had whimpered Shane’s name into his mouth and pressed that intimate kiss there, Shane might have smiled at the knowledge that he’d accidentally stolen an article of Rozanov’s clothing. Used it as an excuse to text him, maybe, which Shane couldn’t admit he always wanted to do.
Instead, Shane sat on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. In the other room, he could hear his phone start vibrating on the table, and after a moment, he took a deep breath and stood to collect it.
“Hollander! What the fuck are you doing right now?”
It was JJ. There was a party happening downtown. Ordinarily, Shane would never go.
But Shane isn’t feeling like his usual self. He glances around his sad apartment and pictures another night spent uselessly flipping through a book on hockey, pretending he wasn’t wishing his phone would buzz.
So Shane puts on his coat. He slips his keys into his pocket. He leaves the apartment and tries very hard to forget that anything had happened at all.