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Shane doesn’t realize he’s still wearing Ilya’s clothes until he’s back in his hotel room. It’s only then he remembers they have to play each other the next day.
How can he face Ilya on the ice? How can he shake his hand when the last time they touched it felt like…
He’s jittery before the game, sloppy during. He can’t look at Ilya during their face offs and it costs him the puck twice. He doesn’t care.
The game ends and Shane is vibrating out of his skin. He feels like someone is holding an electric sander against his ribcage.
He keeps his head down, trying not to see whose hands he’s shaking, but his eyes betray him, flicking up in time to see Ilya three people away.
Two.
One.
When it comes to it, Ilya’s hand misses his by a mile.
Somehow, that only makes it worse, the grinding anxiety replaced by a pit that won’t stop growing, sucking at the edges, threatening to swallow him whole.
“Hollander, did Ilya Rozanov reject you there at the end?”
Shane can’t answer, walks straight past toward the locker room.
No, he thinks, vision tunneling to a point. It was me.