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“See you in Boston,” Shane murmurs in the handshake line.
Rozanov smiles, though it is a pinched expression. Shane can relate; it’s never easy to come second, though it serves Rozanov right, considering he’d relegated Shane to exactly this place – second – twice: once at this very tournament a year ago, and then again at the draft.
Time to taste his own medicine for once.
Shane doesn’t think more of it until later, after he’s been doused in Champagne and showered and finally manages to make his excuses to go talk to his parents.
It’s not even a lie. His mother probably does want to congratulate him, and Shane urgently needs a minute to breathe, and nobody actually notices – or cares – anyway.
Outside, he leans against the wall, closes his eyes, and just exists for a moment, away from the raucous cheer of the locker room.
His peace and quite lasts exactly two minutes forty-seven seconds out of the five minutes he’s allotted himself, before a quiet but unmistakably upset voice cuts through it.
The voice is faintly familiar, and Shane is still trying to place it as Ilya Rozanov strides past him, cell-phone pressed to his ear and lips pressed flat. He doesn’t even hesitate before pushing outside through one of the fire escape doors, heedless of the fact that he’s still in his UnderArmour and slippers in Ottawa in December. The door falls shut behind him with a thud.
Shane blinks, but before he can make sense of the situation, his mother shows up and sweeps him into a hug.
“That was amazing!” she gushes. “That goal – wow, that must have been the prettiest goal I’ve seen you score.”
Shane grins at her, basking in the praise. “Felt pretty good.”
His mother laughs, and it’s easy to fall into their well-worn routine to decompress from a game of dissecting the high- and lowlights. Not even the Russian team filing past them, subdued and unhappy, can distract Shane, though there is one thought that niggles at the back of his mind.
“Rozanov,” he blurts out, right into his mother’s critique of the Russian defence, when the thought finally resolves.
“What?”
“He wasn’t with the team.” Or had Shane just missed him? But no, it’s been habit for the past week to check the other teams, keep track of the players he knows, the players he thinks are worth watching. Rozanov definitely counts among those.
His mother’s mouth twitches. “Maybe he went ahead,” she suggests.
“No, he –” Shane glances at the fire escape. They’re easy to open from the inside, of course, and usually locked from the outside. How long has Rozanov been out there? “I think he was on the phone. He brushed past me earlier, and –” He shakes his head, already moving towards the door at the other end of the hallway. “I’m not sure he came back inside.”
His mother draws in a breath, because – it’s about minus twenty outside and Rozanov had only been wearing his stupid UnderArmour, and –
“Go and grab a jacket,” his mother tells him. “For yourself, and a spare one if you have one. I’ll go check if he’s just waiting on the other side.”
“Thanks,” Shane says, and pivots to run back to the locker room.
Guys must notice, but for once, it’s a godsend that he has a reputation of being a bit weird, because no one stops him as he grabs his own puffer jacket from his stall and then two of the spare Team Canada fleeces that he’s pretty sure belong to one of the guys injured in one of the round robin games. Either way, no one’s going to miss them right now.
In record time, he’s back in the hallway, where his mother has propped the fire escape open with a piece of gear. Shane has no idea where she got it from, but he doesn’t stop to ask as he brushes past her. Outside, it’s pitch-black and bitterly cold, but there’s an easily followed trail towards the side of the building – where you’d guess the path would wrap around to the front doors, if you hadn’t been at this arena before. Because it’s a trap. The path leads to a fence, and while a hockey player in good shape could probably climb it with a little help, Rozanov has just played a gruelling set of games and is outside without gloves or proper gear.
God, Shane hopes he hasn’t tried to climb the fence, because losing those mitts to frostbite would be a shame.
“Rozanov!” he calls out as he follows the path, his mother right behind him. She’s using her phone as a flashlight, and Shane had scoffed when she’d gotten the latest Blackberry with an integrated camera and flash, but now he’s pathetically grateful. “Rozanov!”
No answer. Maybe they’re doing this all for nothing and Rozanov has long since turned around, gone back the other way – except there hadn’t been any foot prints leading back.
Only this single path going towards the dead-end that is very much not obvious to the uninitiated.
“Rozanov!”
They’re almost at the fence when the thin, weak beam of light catches on something. A person.
Shane’s heart lurches. “Rozanov!” he shouts again.
The person moves, and – yes, it’s Rozanov, appearing pale as a ghost as he’s standing there, arms wrapped around himself. Within moments, Rozanov is moving towards them, movements stiff. He’s still moving, though.
“Hollander?” Rozanov asks, his voice scratchy.
“What the fuck, man,” Shane says, and it’s a testament to the situation that his mother does not admonish him. “Are you trying to kill yourself out here?”
Rozanov gives him a tired look. “Yes, I am so sad after losing stupid game I go out here to die.” He scoffs and stops. His gaze flicks to a point behind Shane, and then Shane’s mother says, unimpressed, “Back to the rink, boys.”
Rozanov frowns but he doesn’t argue, moving to brush past Shane. Which – right. “Hey,” Shane says, already juggling his precious cargo so he can strip out of his puffer jacket. They’d planned on giving Rozanov the fleece, but looking at him now, Shane is pretty sure he can bear the cold a lot better with the fleece than Rozanov, who’s been out here for almost twenty minutes. And Russian or no, humans are not built to withstand these temperatures for that length of time.
Shane almost expects Rozanov to argue, but his mother must glare him into submission or something, because he slips into the jacket without resistance. When Shane looks closer, his lips are blue already, and he doesn’t really think it’s just the light. Damn.
“So, why were you trying to freeze to death?”
Rozanov scoffs again. “Is very dark,” he admits after a moment. “And… very cold. My phone dies. Because cold. And everything is same in dark.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Shane,” his mother admonishes, still herding them back towards the rink.
“Clearly, I am,” Rozanov says, and even Shane can pick up on the bitterness in his voice. “My team leave?”
“Yeah. But we can probably –”
“You’ll see a trainer first,” Shane’s mother cuts him off. “One of ours if your staff is all gone, but the cold is very dangerous, so –”
“Gimme vodka and I am fine,” Rozanov grumbles, but his teeth start chattering at that moment.
Which is a good sign, Shane knows – shivers after prolonged exposure to the cold usually are – but he still has to stuff his hands into the pockets of his fleece before he does something stupid like try to hug Rozanov.
Shane has had a growth-spurt recently, but he’s still shorter than Rozanov, and he does not need the reminder.
“I’m a mother, Mr. Rozanov, so you will need to forgive me that I am not inclined to listen to you in this.”
Again, uncharacteristically – not that Shane knows him well enough to really judge this, of course – Rozanov drops his head instead of arguing, and doesn’t put up a fuss all the way back to the propped-open fire door.