Chapter Text
Over the course of his NHL career, Shane Hollander had come face-to-face with Ilya Rozanov hundreds of times.
The very first time they had met, when they were seventeen, playing in the Youth Championships. When Rozanov had beaten Shane to be first in the draft, and then they had been rookies the same year. Every season since, the two of them framed as rivals, playing for Boston and Montreal, two teams with a hundred years’ head start on their own rivalry.
They were the NHL’s top players. Shane had three Stanley cups under his belt, Rozanov had two. They were frequently the league’s top scorers, and they were the captains of their respective teams. They had been chosen for the All Stars every year since they had been rookies.
And earlier this very day, Rozanov had scored the winning goal in this year’s All Stars game against Shane, making it 3-2 to his team, and he’d grinned at Shane as he skated away.
Shane had seen Rozanov on the ice, smirking at him and insulting him and winning the face-off, shoving him against the boards and stealing the puck and getting sent to the penalty box, unrepentant. He had seen him in press conferences, talking about their rivalry, charming and arrogant and pithy and still likable, acting in a way that Shane never could. He had seen him at award ceremonies, one of them winning and one of them losing. He had seen him at parties, flirting constantly with women, drinking and dancing and laughing, always laughing.
But in all of that time, Shane had never seen Rozanov like this.
Shane was heading along the corridor to his hotel room, tired and ready for bed. And in between him and his door was Rozanov, sprawled on the floor.
He was slumped against the wall, long limbs sprawled akimbo. His eyes were closed.
For one alarming moment, Shane wondered if he was dead.
But as Shane got closer, Rozanov’s eyes flickered open.
“Hollander,” Rozanov said, accent even thicker than usual.
Ah. He was drunk.
A flicker of exasperation shot through Shane.
The All Stars after-party had been its usual intense time. Drinks, food, friends and family. It was always draining, especially for Shane, who had only allowed himself one drink. He had spent time socialising with his teammates present and past, commiserating with his All Stars team, talking about the league and gossiping about other players. He’d had a good time on the whole, but he had been trying to leave for the past hour.
He had caught sight of Rozanov a few times throughout the evening, always with a drink in his hand, celebrating with his team or dancing with people’s mothers.
Shane hadn’t seen Rozanov leave, but then he hadn’t been looking. He had friends in the opposing All Stars team and he had spoken to them. Rozanov wasn’t one of them.
Usually, Shane would speak to Rozanov, when he saw him off the ice. But he hadn’t gone out of his way to speak to the man this time, not when Rozanov was likely pleased about his team’s win and his goals against Shane in particular.
Shane didn’t think it was arrogant to say that—he felt the same with his goals against Rozanov, and he felt he played better when Rozanov was on the other line, the fire of their rivalry spurring him on.
So he hadn’t noticed Rozanov leave. If he had spared it a thought, he would have assumed Rozanov had left to go to a club, like some of the younger players. He wouldn’t have expected Rozanov to have left to try to make it to bed, but he must have, to have ended up here.
Shane didn’t particularly like being around drunk people. Even those who didn’t get angry tended to get touchy, and clumsy, and when he himself was sober it wasn’t necessarily fun for him. He was not in the right frame of mind to deal with a drunk and happy Ilya Rozanov, lying on the floor outside his hotel room.
Although… Rozanov didn't actually look happy, now that Shane thought about it.
His slump wasn’t that of a sleepy, pleased drunk person, limbs loose and relaxed, head tipped back as if to nod off.
He looked sad.
His shoulders were hunched over, and for such a big man he looked small, even with his legs stretched out in front of him. There was just something about his posture that wasn’t the delight of a man who had won a game earlier today
“Your room is the next floor up,” Shane said, choosing not to comment on the strangeness of Rozanov’s mood. Rozanov blinked slowly up at him, as if trying to parse the words.
Shane only knew where Rozanov’s room was because when he had first arrived yesterday, he had ended up on the wrong floor.
Rozanov had been just entering his own room, and had laughed at Shane when he’d walked past and then had to double back on himself.
This should feel like some kind of karma, but Shane just wanted to sleep.
“Okay,” Rozanov said, a questioning lilt in his voice.
Shane rolled his eyes. “You’ll need to get up,” he said, trying to keep the edge of irritation out of his voice, but Rozanov just blinked up at him again. Shane had never seen him look so out of it. He must have consumed lethal amounts of alcohol to be this drunk.
Rozanov shifted his weight, getting his hands on the floor and trying to push himself up, to no avail, and Shane was just about to make another scathing comment when he looked properly at Rozanov’s face.
His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. He looked like he had been crying.
A bolt of sympathy ran through Shane, and he couldn’t stop his question. “Are you okay?”
Rozanov tipped his head up to look at Shane. “I am fine, Hollander,” he said, and he smiled, and that smile was one of the worst expressions Shane had ever seen on his face.
Shane had seen Rozanov’s usual smirk more times than he could count, when they were against each other on the ice. He’d seen him laughing with his teammates. He’d seen his smile after he scored, after his team won a game, after they won the cup.
This was not that.
This was empty and dull and it was worse than if he’d broken down in front of Shane. Even so drunk that he couldn’t stand up, Rozanov was pretending he was fine, and he was pretending badly.
The smile slid off of Rozanov’s face like butter as he saw Shane’s reaction, and his shoulders dropped even more. There was dejection in every line of his body.
If they were friends, Shane would have asked him what was wrong. But they weren’t.
So instead, he cleared his throat, and straightened up. “You should go to bed,” he said, hating how prim he sounded. “Sleep it off.”
“Yes,” Rozanov said, his eyes closing, making no move to stand up.
And honestly, Shane doubted whether he could make it to the elevator. He wasn’t even sure how Rozanov had made it here. And Shane certainly wouldn’t be able to help him—he was strong, of course, but Rozanov was a few inches taller than him and broader, too, dense with hard-fought-for muscle. There was no way they were getting to Rozanov’s room.
And so in the end he did do what he would do for a friend.
“You can sleep in my room,” he said, stepping over Rozanov’s legs to slide his keycard against the door lock. The door beeped, and he pushed it open before turning back to look at Rozanov.
The other man was looking up at him with naked shock and confusion on his face, but Shane couldn’t judge him for that, not when he himself was surprised at his offer.
He might come to regret his decision, but he could hardly leave Rozanov sitting on the floor in the corridor. They were sports rivals. They weren’t enemies, and as annoying as Rozanov was, he wasn’t a bad person. For once Shane didn’t let himself overthink it. There would be time for that later.
For now, there was the task of getting Rozanov actually into his room, which proved embarrassingly difficult. Rozanov was obliging but unhelpful, and his lack of coordination was such that he was essentially deadweight. They staggered awkwardly across the threshold, Rozanov’s entire weight on Shane’s shoulder, accompanied by several bursts of Russian that Shane had to assume were expletives. Shane gratefully deposited him on the bed and then left him there to get a glass of water from the bathroom.
When he emerged, Rozanov had successfully removed his shoes and was slumped back against the pillows. His suit jacket had already been missing, obviously a casualty of the evening, but now he’d loosened his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt, and he looked much more comfortable and relaxed. Shane’s gaze was drawn again to the redness around his eyes.
He was his usual handsome self, even as drunk as he was, even with that cloud of sadness. An irritating thought, but unavoidable.
Shane handed him the glass of water. Rozanov took it with a muttered thanks but made no move to drink it. Shane hadn’t meant to say anything—he’d helped enough, already more than he’d meant to—but he couldn’t help himself.
“I thought you’d be happy, after that game and your goals,” he said, trying not to sound too bitter. “I’m surprised to see you sad.”
“I am not sad,” Rozanov said immediately, and it was such an obvious lie that Shane almost laughed.
“Drink your water,” he said. “And yes you are.”
He was instantly annoyed at himself. He and Rozanov weren’t friends! Why was he prolonging this conversation when he didn’t care?!
But he did care.
Even in rough losses and agonising injuries, he had never seen Ilya Rozanov cry. A huge part of him wanted to understand the man, wanted to know what could have upset him today of all days.
The All Stars games were meant to be fun and they were, mostly. Rozanov had been clearly buzzed by his win, and he had smirked at Shane when he’d shaken his hand. This mood… Shane couldn’t account for it, and he wanted to.
Rozanov didn’t respond straight away. Instead he pushed himself upright, his movements slow and careful, and drained the entire glass of water, the long column of his throat moving as he drank.
He set the empty glass down on the side table, and then reclined back into the cushions, looking intently at Shane.
Shane realised that he was just awkwardly standing in the middle of the room and he turned to pull over the chair from the dresser, and all the while he could feel the weight of Rozanov’s gaze on him.
It seemed that even appallingly drunk, Rozanov wasn’t one to blurt out his life story. He seemed to be thinking, and Shane was about to say something himself when Rozanov spoke up.
“Is three years since my father died,” he said, slowly.
Shane winced. He vaguely remembered this—it had been reported in the news that Rozanov had flown separately from his team after a game of theirs, and later been reported that he had returned to Russia for the funeral. Shane had awkwardly given his condolences at the next game where they had played each other, and Rozanov had been understandably but uncharacteristically solemn and withdrawn for his next few appearances.
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, feeling stupid. “That must be difficult.”
“Yes,” Rozanov said, and then he hesitated. His sadness made complete sense, now that Shane knew it was the anniversary of his father’s death. In fact, it made him feel like an ass for questioning him.
“I am not sad because he is dead,” Rozanov said, suddenly, enunciating the words extremely clearly. Shane stared at him, startled by the words and by the honesty he could hear in Rozanov’s voice.
“I—” Shane started, not knowing what he was going to say, and he was strangely glad when Rozanov cut him off.
“I hated him. He hated me. We did not get along. Was nothing good about what we had.”
Shane didn’t say anything. What could he say?
“But… is three years since he died. Only three. Is seventeen years since my mother died. She should have had longer. I am sad because of her.”
Rozanov’s voice was thick with emotion and his accent was much stronger than usual. He wasn’t slurring, but he seemed to be concentrating very hard on the words he was saying. It was as if now he’d started talking he wanted to keep going.
“Your mother?” Shane asked, quietly. He hadn’t known anything about Rozanov’s mother.
“Yes,” Rozanov said, and his face softened into a sad little smile. “Irina. She was lovely. She deserved better.” He moved his hand up to touch the gold cross that was ever-present around his neck. Shane had noticed it before, but he had never thought about it.
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, and this time he meant it even more, wishing that he could express himself better. He had two living parents who both loved and supported him. His heart ached for the other man, to be that young when his mother had died.
Rozanov shrugged, an oddly graceful movement. “It was a long time ago.” His thumb was rubbing along the edge of the cross.
Shane just looked at him.
He was very still, other than the movement of his thumb. He could be sleeping, except for how he was staring off into space, gaze unfocused.
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov had spent time together in the past. They were rivals, but sometimes that just made the league want them to spend more time together. Photoshoots, press conferences, award ceremonies where they were made to co-present a sportsmanship award, because someone had a sense of humour.
They had spoken about the cities they’d travelled to while they were waiting to be called on stage. They had talked about the Olympics while the cameraman changed lenses. They had spoken about hockey, always hockey, while they had make-up applied and hair fixed.
They had never spoken about anything serious, never about anything real. But Shane had thought he had known him.
Rozanov was self-assured and confident. He had an arrogance to him that would have been unfounded in anyone else. But he was talented, and he knew it, and that arrogance was earned. He was hated through the league on the ice, and well-liked off of the ice. Women loved him, men respected him, his team fought for him and cheered for him, and even Shane had to grudgingly admit that he was good.
But this…
Shane had never seen Rozanov like this, and it was forcing him to think that perhaps the public persona that Rozanov presented was just that—a persona.
His fingers were still resting lightly on the cross at his neck. Shane wondered if it had been his mother’s.
“I was happy to win today,” Rozanov said suddenly, his eyes snapping back to meet Shane’s. “Is always good to beat you.”
Shane scoffed. “You were lucky,” he said, instinctive, as if they were on the ice, and he was relieved when Rozanov smirked, looking a little more like his usual self.
“It can’t always be luck, Hollander,” Rozanov shot back, voice very level and reasonable but eyes lit up with mischief, and Shane resisted the urge to stick his tongue out childishly.
It was quiet for a moment. Shane looked around his room, critical, as if he was a stranger here. He was glad that it was tidy. He was used to a series of constant hotel rooms, a decade in the NHL making it feel normal to him, but he still missed the controlled comfort of his apartment. Keeping his hotel room neat was the closest he could come to that.
The only thing out of place was Ilya Rozanov, lying on Shane’s bed, eyes glassy and limbs loose. Shane forced aside another extremely inconvenient thought about how handsome he looked. His cheeks were flushed now and his hair was tousled, curling around his ears.
“Was brave of you,” Rozanov said, out of the blue, turning his head to look at Shane. Shane blinked at him, thrown off by the change of subject.
“What was?” he asked, somewhat stupidly. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done that was brave.
“Telling everyone,” Rozanov said. He pushed himself up, slowly and awkwardly and still a little unsteadily, to lean back against the pillows and look at Shane with seriousness in his gaze.
Shane must have still looked confused, because Rozanov sighed, an exasperated expression much more like his normal one sliding across his face.
“When you told everyone that you were gay,” Rozanov said, steadily and carefully.
Even now, there was a tiny part of Shane that flinched to hear him say it. A part of him that heard the word gay and expected it to be followed by slurs, by sneers. Part of him braced for it every time.
But Rozanov was still looking at him, still with that strange fragile seriousness in his eyes.
Shane managed a smile. “I wasn’t that brave,” he said, pleased with how level his voice was even as his heart-rate had picked up. “Scott was the brave one.”
Rozanov scoffed. “Only one man can be brave?” he said, and then scoffed again, even louder. “Scott Hunter. Stupid American with his handsome face and his handsome boyfriend.”
Shane couldn’t stop his surprised laugh. He’d met both Scott and Kip. They were good people, even if Shane had never quite forgiven Hunter for beating Canada in the Olympics in 2014.
Rozanov’s eyes still had that glassy drunken sheen, and he was staring at Shane with that intensity that drunk people got. Shane found he didn’t mind it so much coming from Rozanov. He forced himself to hold his gaze.
“Scott Hunter had someone to be brave for,” Rozanov said. “You were brave for yourself, yes?”
Shane shook his head, his chest feeling tight. “I don’t—” he said, and then he cleared his throat.
He still didn’t feel comfortable being complimented on coming out, not when he hadn’t done anything like what Scott had done. Being first, that was the hardest thing of all.
When Scott Hunter had won the Stanley Cup and then in that moment of victory, kissed his boyfriend, something had shifted within Shane.
Perhaps part of him had always known he was gay. But he had never allowed himself to consciously think about it, never allowed himself to address that side of himself. Maybe he had hoped he would never have to, hoped he could be happy without knowing. Hockey players weren’t gay, and he was one of the best hockey players there were. So he couldn’t be gay. He wasn’t.
He had had girlfriends, he had slept with women, and it had always been just fine. He had expected that one day he would get married to a woman and have kids just like his teammates did, and that would also be fine.
But then Scott Hunter had kissed a man on live TV with millions watching, and everything had changed.
Suddenly Shane felt like his reasons for not letting himself think about it were pointless and stupid. He had watched the clip of the kiss over and over again, and had watched Scott’s post-match interview clip over and over as well. Hunter had been calm, and thrilled by his win, and pleased to have come out. He had looked like a weight had been lifted. He had been someone to admire, and he had looked happy.
And Shane had realised that he himself was not happy. He wasn’t happy with the women he dated. He wasn’t happy with his life.
So he had finally allowed himself to think. He had spent that summer having a private and very intense freak-out in the comfort and privacy of his cottage. In fact, he had spent most of the following year having a private and very intense freak-out, which hadn’t quite been fully fixed by an illuminating hook-up with a very discreet man who didn’t follow hockey.
It turned out that even when he’d been stressed out of his mind and worrying about every aspect of the hook-up, sex with a man was infinitely better than any sex he’d ever had with a woman.
That had pretty much answered his last question.
Shane’s actual coming out had taken him time, and had been a lot less climactic than Scott’s.
He had come out first to his parents. He had cried, his mom had cried, and then she had been so quick to reassure him that she was so happy for him. His dad had hugged him so tightly he had felt like a child again.
He had told Hayden, his best friend and teammate, and then J.J. Boiziau, his other close friend on the team. They had both taken some time to accept it, but they were good people, and it wasn’t long before J.J. kept trying to set him up with a seemingly endless array of hot men that he knew.
It was easier to come out to the team knowing that Hayden and J.J. were firmly in his corner, but it wasn’t easy. The team had been much slower to accept it.
The locker room had been awkward for weeks after, as if men who had known him for years were suddenly worried he was ogling them. But Shane didn’t change how he played, or how he acted, and they kept winning games, and gradually, gradually, they thawed. He didn’t think it would ever be exactly the same. But they respected him as their captain and their teammate, and that had to be enough.
Winning the Stanley Cup had helped, of course. He’d come out publicly shortly after—just in a small press conference, with much less pizazz than Scott. But he couldn’t deny that Scott’s own announcement had inspired his own—he had paved the way, opened a dialogue, and, as annoying as it was, he had changed Shane’s life.
Shane had expected the league and the public to react poorly. There had definitely been pushback from the fans, but there had been support as well, so much that it had made Shane cry. There had also been some strangely veiled threats from the league commissioner, and Shane had been convinced that he wouldn’t be chosen for the All Stars this year.
But the stats didn’t lie, and excluding the captain of the current Stanley Cup holders, who’d been the top goal scorer in the entire NHL last year and was looking to be the same this year… It was clearly a fight that the league didn’t want to have.
And so Shane was here, post-All Stars game, with Ilya Rozanov lying drunk on his bed and telling him he was brave.
“Thank you,” he said eventually, sure that the pause had been stupidly long, and Rozanov just looked at him.
There was still a sadness in his gaze, underneath the sheen of alcohol, but there was something else there too.
“I didn’t do it to be courageous,” Shane said, feeling stubbornly that he had to disabuse Rozanov of this notion, while still not really knowing why he valued the man’s opinions. “I just… I’d had enough of hiding.”
“I understand,” Rozanov said. “I wish—” and then he cut himself off, looking away. His eyelids were drooping—he looked tired now. He said something in Russian very softly under his breath, as if barely aware he was saying anything, and then he switched back to English.
“You are braver than me,” he said, quietly.
Shane stared at him. It almost sounded like… but surely Rozanov wasn’t…
He opened his mouth to say something, but Rozanov’s eyes had closed.
He’d fallen asleep.
***
Shane dithered for longer than he’d like to admit about what to do.
He didn’t want to wake Rozanov up. He clearly needed the sleep, and Shane couldn’t bring himself to disturb him, never mind try and get him upstairs. But Shane wasn’t selfless enough to sleep on the floor of his own hotel room either, not after playing a hockey game today.
In the end, he brushed his teeth and changed into his pyjamas and then, too tired to overthink it, slid into bed beside Rozanov, who had started snoring quietly.
Rozanov was on top of the covers. Shane was underneath. They were big men, but it was a king-sized bed. The chances of them touching at any point was unlikely.
If Rozanov kicked up a fuss about it, Shane would simply highlight that it was Rozanov’s own fault for getting so drunk that he couldn’t make it to his own bed, and he would maybe emphasise how Shane could have left him on the floor, or kicked him out of the room.
But… Rozanov had never been the homophobic type. The NHL had, for the entire time Shane had played in it, been rife with homophobia, casual and automatic and almost constant. Slurs flung as insults on the ice, jokes in the locker rooms, it had simply been a part of Shane’s life. But for all the time that Rozanov had spent insulting Shane’s hockey, his hair, his face, his country, his personality, he had never hurled slurs the way so many other players did.
He didn’t seem like the type to not want to be in the locker room with a gay man, to not want to touch him casually on the ice and off, and surely to not want to share a huge bed platonically and chastely.
And then there was the way he had spoken, right before he fell asleep…
It had sounded like the start of a confession. It had sounded like he wanted to say more.
Shane wouldn’t read into it. No matter how curious he was, how much he wanted to wake Rozanov up and ask him what did you mean by that?, he wouldn’t. He would give Rozanov that grace—the man had been drunk beyond his usual limits, and by his own admission he had been grieving, and most importantly he and Shane were not friends.
They were rivals on the ice, acquaintances off of the ice, occasional All-Stars teammates. They were not friends. If Rozanov had intended to confess something to someone, it certainly wouldn’t be to Shane.
Beside him, Rozanov made an odd snuffling sound, and then shifted his weight.
Shane thought that the presence of someone beside him and the thoughts burning around his brain would make it hard for him to drift off, but he was asleep within minutes.
***
Shane was woken up by a groan.
He opened his eyes blearily, blinking awake, sunlight streaming into the room.
It took him a few moments to work out where he was, to place the sound, to remember what had happened.
And then he did remember.
Rozanov.
Beside him, there was another agonised groan, and a muttering of confused Russian, and then Rozanov was levering himself upright.
Shane looked up at him, squinting in the sunlight peeking through the curtains he hadn’t fully drawn closed. Rozanov looked distinctly worse for wear. In fact, he looked like he was going to throw up.
“Bathroom’s there,” Shane said, extricating an arm from the covers to point, and Rozanov shot him a grateful look before pushing himself to his feet. He stumbled across the room, veering unsteadily but moving fast, and the reason was obvious as soon as he closed the door behind him.
Shane grimaced as the muffled sounds of vomiting reached him, and he was glad Rozanov had woken when he did. He didn’t regret helping Rozanov last night, but vomit on his bed might have slightly changed his outlook on that.
While Rozanov made miserable noises, Shane pulled on some of his workout clothes and started taking himself through one of his easiest daily stretching routines, feeling the sweet ache of it, allowing Rozanov the privacy to throw up, by the sound of it, everything he had eaten the previous day.
Eventually the sounds subsided, and the toilet flushed, and Shane folded himself out of his lotus pose and knocked gently on the door.
“Are you alright?”
There was the noise of running water, and then Rozanov emerged from the bathroom. His curly hair was a lank mess, his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and his face was wet as if he’d just splashed water on himself. His dress shirt was appallingly crumpled, and his cheek was creased from how he had been lying on the pillow.
He looked terrible.
“Yes,” he answered, belatedly and drily, and Shane couldn’t stop his laugh at the very obvious lie.
“How’s your head?” he asked, and Rozanov rolled his eyes and then winced.
“It feels,” he said, contemplating, “as if someone is skating in it. But they are very bad skater, keep crashing into the sides.”
Shane laughed again, and was rewarded by a tiny weak smile from Rozanov. His voice was hoarse, which wasn’t surprising, but despite how bad he looked he didn’t appear to be about to throw up again.
“Do you want painkillers?” Shane offered.
“No, thank you,” Rozanov said, “I will go back to my room and sleep for several more hours.”
“When’s your check-out?” Shane asked, rather than asking any of the other questions that he wanted to ask.
Have you ever properly grieved your mother? Why did you and your father not get along? Do you have any family left? Why do you think it’s brave that I came out as gay? What were you going to say before you fell asleep? Are you…
But he couldn’t ask. He wouldn’t ask.
One night of Shane looking out for Rozanov, one oddly honest conversation, didn’t break down years of them being opponents. It wasn’t Shane’s place to ask any of those questions, no matter how much he wanted to know the answers. No matter how that one night had left Shane feeling oddly compelled by this new side of Rozanov.
Rozanov shrugged. “Late,” he said.
“Good,” Shane replied, feeling suddenly and horribly awkward. They were both just standing there, and while Rozanov had an excuse for monosyllabic non-answers, Shane did not.
“Well, I hope you feel better,” Shane managed, but Rozanov still didn’t move. He was looking at Shane with something odd in his eyes.
“Give me your phone,” he said suddenly, and Shane blinked at him.
“My phone?” he said stupidly, and Rozanov sighed.
“Phone, yes,” and he reached out his hand impatiently.
Shane moved to pick it up from the bedside table and hand it across to Rozanov, who shook his head and gave it back. “Unlocked,” he demanded. Still confused, Shane followed the directions.
Maybe he was being too trusting. Maybe he just wanted to see what Rozanov wanted.
Rozanov was quick, and when he handed Shane back the phone it was open to his contacts, and there was a new number there.
Best hockey player in NHL, it said, and Shane scoffed.
“Strange of you to add my own number to my phone,” he said, and Rozanov smirked at him, that oh-so-familiar smirk.
“Good one, Hollander,” he said, and then he was moving, stooping to get his shoes, not bothering to put them on.
Shane just watched him, his hand curled tight around his phone. Rozanov turned at the door to look back at Shane. “Thank you,” he said.
“Anytime,” Shane replied, and he found to his surprise that he meant it.
Rozanov nodded, smiled, seemed about to say something else, and then let himself out of Shane’s room without another word.
Shane just watched the door for a moment, feeling foolish and mind buzzing, before turning his attention back to the phone in his hand and his new contact.
Rozanov had made one brief outbound call to his own number. So he would have Shane’s, Shane realised, unsure how he felt about that. He had given Rozanov his phone, he had trusted him.
He could delete the number if he wanted.
Instead, after a moment’s hesitation, he changed the contact name simply to Rozanov.