Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
VANYA
I tapped a drumbeat on the steering wheel, trying not to let my anxiety get to me. I wasn’t normally an anxious guy. Well…I suppose that wasn’t always true, but things were better here.
I liked being in Canada more than Boston, but Boston was close. And it was a good compromise. I loved my team, I loved the guys I’d met on the PPHL teams, and the people around me had started to feel like family.
Which was great because they also got along with my blood family. My stepmother flew back and forth all the time from her flat in London to stay at a rental in Boston she and my father loved, and most of my brothers were around.
And my sister was staying with me, though for the moment, she was in Las Vegas working on contracts for her new company selling…something. Beauty things?
I had no idea. She talked, and I pretended to listen, and as long as I hummed and nodded every couple of minutes, Katya was happy.
She currently occupied the only other bedroom in my house, though now, with realizing everyone was probably going to want to stay with me more often, I was eyeing one of the larger, more expensive brownstones I still couldn’t believe I was able to afford.
If I wanted to spend the money.
Which also added to my anxiety.
My phone began to ring, and I nearly jumped out of my skin before looking at the screen and seeing my stepmother’s name. I felt a little breath of relief pass out of my lungs. I loved her like the mother I didn’t quite remember.
When my father brought her home, I’d been terrified. I’d grown up on fairy tales of evil stepmothers who tormented the children that came before their own. But she wasn’t like that.
Not once. Not ever.
“Mama,” I said as I answered.
“Ivanushka.” Her voice was raspy now, softer as she aged. It was a reminder I wouldn’t have her or my father forever. “Are you busy?”
“No. Just at the hotel.” My eyes scanned the front. I was looking for someone in particular—the man who had given me everything I’d been pining for for almost a year, then had hurried off like I had terrified him. “We had a game in New York last night, and I’m driving home.”
“How did it go?”
I wasn’t surprised she didn’t watch. She wasn’t much of a hockey fan. “We won. The season’s going well.”
There was a beat of silence, and then she said, “You sound different. There’s something wrong.”
She could always read me a little too well.
“I met someone. We had a good night, but…it’s complicated.”
“Tell me he’s not married,” she said.
I groaned. “Mama. No.”
Her laugh warmed me. “My good boy, of course he’s not married. What’s the problem, then?”
Closing my eyes, I thought back to the club. To the man with the copper hair and dark eyes and a smile that made me want to punch his teeth in. A man who was so worthless and yet had Micah so fucking scared.
“I think someone hurt him. And I think he likes me, but I don’t know if he’ll ever be ready to love me the way I could love him.”
“All you can do is have patience. And remember that you deserve to be happy. And sometimes what makes us happy is letting go of what we want.”
I hated when she was reasonable. “I don’t know if I can.”
She laughed again. “I’m not surprised to hear you say that. But I’ll be here to remind you if you ever need me to.”
I sat back and closed my eyes, smiling. “I hope you can meet him soon. You’ll like him.”
“I know you’d never bring home someone your father and I wouldn’t adore. And I think we might come down near the end of the season. Earlier, depending on how the playoffs go.”
I fully expected to make it through at least one or two rounds, but the cup felt far this season, and my gut was usually right about those things. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but across the way, I saw the first person with a white cane exiting the building and heading for the busses.
My heart leapt in my chest. “I have to go. Sorry, Mama. I’ll call you later. I love you.” I didn’t give her a chance to reply, and I’d probably pay for that through guilt later, but it didn’t matter.
Micah would be out soon, and if I was lucky, I’d get the chance to speak to him as I waited for both him and Alexio to appear.
Off in the distance, I could see the lobby doors of the hotel opening and closing again and again.
Most of the guys exiting were from the Fury.
A lot of them had very cute guide dogs I wasn’t allowed to pet while they were in the harnesses, and several of them had long white canes like Jonah and Micah carried around.
Fuck.
Thinking about Micah made my head spin. Last night had been…something. There were no words in any of the languages I knew, which was currently three.
Euphoric was a new English word I’d picked up. There was a similar word in Russian, which I whispered to myself as I remembered the way his tongue tasted in my mouth and the way his cock fit inside my palm.
And the noises he made when he came…
I shifted, trying not to get hard because Alexio would notice, and then he’d get pissed off about it. Though he was a lot less pissed off these days now that he was having regular, and I assumed very good, sex with Jonah.
I wondered for a very brief moment if Jonah was as intense and passionate as Micah, but that seemed wrong, so I stopped and instead stared at the doors again, and…
Oh. Oh. There he was.
The lobby doors slid open, and he appeared on Alexio’s arm.
I could see the two of them talking, Micah with his head tipped down, a very expensive-looking pair of sunglasses on his face.
He was holding his cane in a loose grip and letting Alexio guide him, which made me feel some type of uncomfortable way. I wanted to be the man he was touching.
I wanted to be the man he turned to.
It was an unfair thought.
Alexio spotted me right away, and his steps picked up, and a moment later, he was at the driver’s door, staring me down. I sighed and opened it, leaning one leg out.
“Yes?”
His eyes widened a fraction. “Vanya. Move your ass out of my seat. Also, we’re taking Micah to Salem on the way.”
I grinned. “Okay. But I can drive. Micah up front with me. Alexio, in back where you belong for playing so badly last night.”
“Uh, fuck you,” Alexio started. “We won the game.”
“Yes, thanks to me and my defense,” I reminded him. “You were very bad keeping the puck after first period.”
Alexio flipped me off.
“I don’t mind being in the back. I prefer it,” Micah interrupted softly. There was something heavy in his tone. Something a little darker than before.
Was he ashamed of what we’d done? Did he regret me?
“You’re not driving my car. Move. Your. Ass.” Alexio reached out and tugged me by the front of the shirt until my legs slipped out and I dropped to the ground. Huffing, he shouldered past me and then froze. “Were you drinking a fucking latte in my car?”
I frowned at him. “No. I have coffee like normal person. In the café.”
He gestured angrily at the dark seat, and my eyes widened when I saw the white smear. Oh. Oh shit.
That wasn’t from a latte.
“There’s goddamn dried latte foam on the seat, Ivan!”
Before I could say anything, Micah erupted into a coughing fit and turned his face away, and Alexio frowned over his shoulder.
“Yo. Hey. Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Micah wheezed. “Just allergies.” He quickly felt along the back door and fumbled with the handle until it opened, practically throwing himself inside and slamming the door.
Alexio groaned. “Fuck’s sake, will you please be careful with my baby. She’s delicate.” He spit onto the hem of his shirt and began to clear up the mess.
The not-latte mess.
“I clean it,” I told him quickly.
He waved me off. “It’s fine. Just…for the love of god, no food or drink in my car again, okay?”
I nodded. There was no point in arguing because I wasn’t about to tell him what the stain actually was.
My cheeks were hot as I moved around to the passenger side and debated for a minute about whether or not I wanted to get in the back seat.
But it was obvious Micah was asking for space, and I wasn’t going to be the guy who stomped all over the boundary he’d put up.
I climbed in beside Alexio and tried to calm myself down.
“Relax, dude,” Alexio said, reading my face all wrong. “I’m not going to rip your balls off for a milk stain.”
Micah choked again. “Maybe you should.”
I turned to scowl at him before remembering he couldn’t actually see that. “You mind your business, pretty goalie.”
His cheeks went rosy pink, and he sat back quickly, turning his face toward the window.
Alexio was more fixated on making sure I hadn’t left any random dust behind, and he took another ten minutes before he was ready to hit the road.
I’d spent half the night awake, thinking about Micah and his body and his mouth and his kisses. About the way he writhed against me and wordlessly begged me to make him feel good.
About the way he seemed to melt when I wrapped tightly around him. And the way he clung to me at the club.
I wanted to know more, of course. About the person who was making him look so afraid. The man who had stalked him and made me want to commit actual murder for having the audacity to breathe the same air as my pretty little goalie.
But it was obvious Micah had shared what he planned to already, and that had to be enough. He wasn’t an open person, and I had learned hard lessons about pushing people to do things they didn’t want to do.
Whatever friendship Micah and I had—and whatever else it was and could be—it was fragile. For the first time in a long, long time, I found myself wanting to be careful.
Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, I didn’t know—the gentle swaying of Alexio’s car mixed with my fatigue, and before we were on the freeway, I was asleep.
I woke what felt like a million hours later but was probably only two, as Alexio was pulling into a gas station. I frowned, scrubbing my face, then stretched with a loud groan.
“Jesus, you’re like a fucking bear.”