23. March 4, Friday
Chapter twenty-three
Zoey
This San Jose hotel carpet had no right to be that ugly with how much they charged per night. Zoey padded down the hallway in bare feet, heels dangling from two fingers, badge swinging on her lanyard.
Her brain kept overlaying memories on the anonymous doors as she passed.
That corner suite had held a disastrous WAG wine night where someone cried because their dog had more Instagram followers than they did.
The third door on the left was where she’d hidden with a laptop, answering charity emails while Mitch celebrated in a bar across town.
Tonight, at least, the story was different.
She’d spent the game crouched in cramped camera wells and pressed against plexiglass, chasing angles instead of cocktail dresses.
The Cyclones had stolen two points on Mitch’s old ice, and some of her shots were objectively fire.
Her phone was full of crisp one-timers and Ty’s manic celebrations, but under the professional glow her nerves still hummed. This city had claws.
Male voices floated down the hall ahead; laughter, the low rumble of a group riding the high of a road win. The elevator bank sat at the far end, a knot of players in going-out attire. Someone said Rocco’s and three guys groaned in unison.
Of course, they wanted Rocco’s.
She shifted her shoes to the other hand and kept walking for the blessed anonymity of her door when a familiar figure stepped out of the knot of bodies.
Jeans, a button-down, damp hair and the same movie-star grin that had once lit up her whole world. Mitch.
He peeled away from the guys and cut across the hallway, intercepting her like a forechecker. “Zo,” he said. That easy, familiar nickname landed between them. “Perfect timing.”
She stopped, toes curling into the carpet. “Hey,” she managed, neutral.
He jerked his head toward the elevator cluster. “We’re gonna grab a bite. Little celebratory thing. Rocco’s—remember?” He spread his arms. “Full circle. We go, we toast, we make fun of how I used to order the same thing every time…”
Her chest tightened; the carpet suddenly felt spongier under her feet. Down by the elevators Ty and Ian watched with open curiosity. Farther back she picked out Ilya’s silhouette, taller than the rest, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“You’re here with your team,” she declined, trying again. “I’m here for work. I’ve got stuff to finish.”
He blinked, as if that answer didn’t compute. “Come on. It’s our old spot.”
Something in her snapped. “We’re divorced, Mitch.” Her voice came out cooler than she expected. “That’s not our place anymore. There is no we to toast. You go with your team. I’m here for work.”
For a second his face was naked; hurt, surprise, something like guilt. Then, the charm-mask slammed down. “Rejected in my own house, boys,” he called, forcing a grin. “Brutal.”
Weak laughter rippled out of obligation. Mitch clapped Ty on the shoulder and jerked his chin to the elevators. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”
Bobby grabbed Ilya’s biceps, expression calculating in a way that encouraged her to get out of Dodge. “Go on, boys. I forgot I needed to touch base with Serge. We’ll find you.” He nodded toward the elevator, a clear command to his teammates to ‘get gone’.
As the doors closed and the men’s laughter faded, the hallway suddenly felt twice as long and three times as quiet.
“Sooo…” Bobby pursed his lips and looked between Ilya and Zoey, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.
“I’m just gonna…call Thea and get my post-game review or something.
” He punctuated the declaration with a quick double snap and a tap to the back of his opposite hand before retreating down the hall and disappearing into his hotel room.
Oh shit.
Unable to take Ilya’s unwavering gaze, Zoey turned to her door, keycard fumbled in a hand that wasn’t as steady as she liked. She was acutely aware of Ilya’s presence, the itch between her shoulder blades that started in the garage when he’d called her exquisite and then pretended nothing happened.
Focus. Door. Inside. Shower. Pajamas.
Her keycard flashed green and she pushed the door open. “Good night, Captain. Congrats on another win.”
She’d almost made the threshold when his voice stopped her. “Why’d you say no?”
Her hand tightened on the handle. “To what?” she asked even though they both knew.
He stepped closer, still technically in the hall but not giving her the out of pretending she hadn’t heard him. The light haloed his hair, and for a ridiculous second he looked like a broody Slavic archangel. “Dinner. With him.”
Her fight-or-flirt reflex misfired. “Since when is that your business?” she shot. “Put my social calendar on your clipboard? Miss a memo that you’re entitled to answers?”
His mouth tightened. “I just…wanted to know,” he said, somehow an apology and an accusation.
“You just wanted to know. Right. Because you care about my dinners but not enough to act like that kiss in the garage ever happened.” The word landed like she’d thrown something that hit harder than she meant.
He’d given her a couple of toe-curling kisses and then backed off like a total chicken. She understood. Mitch. But his indecision gave her whiplash.
She stepped fully into the room but left the door open, a literal hinge between them. He stayed outside, one hand braced on the frame like an overgrown vampire who needed an engraved invitation to cross.
“You kissed me. You called me…” her throat worked “…exquisite, then went back to safe, distant Captain Sergechev.” She tossed her shoes on the floor, the soft thud undercutting the brittle words.
“Meanwhile, Mitch’s charm offensive is in full bloom.
I’m the one saying no to my ex, and I’m supposed to be okay with you acting like you don’t want to know who I go out with? ”
Something in his expression cracked. He stepped into the doorway, bridging the last foot of space. “I don’t think you’re a bad idea,” he said quietly. “I think he is.”
She snorted. “That’s not your choice.”
His jaw clenched. “You deserve more than being the thing he runs back to when he feels nostalgic and lonely.”
The truth punched her in the gut. She’d said it before to Kayla in harsher words, but hearing it in his low, accented voice made it feel painfully real.
She curled a finger in her lanyard. “And what do I deserve with you, Ilya? Some kisses and a professional brush-off? Help with lost dogs and then radio silence?” Words tumbled, faster.
“If you think you’re protecting me, congratulations.
Mission accomplished. I’ve never felt more protected.
I’m oh-so protected in my cone of alone. ”
His hands flexed at his sides, wanting to reach but not trusting himself. “You think this has been easy?” he asked, voice low and rough. “You think I wanted to go back to pretending nothing was there?”
“You didn’t hesitate. You made a choice,” she fired back. “You chose him. You chose guilt. You chose not to ask what I wanted. Again.”
She saw the hurt in his shoulders and the flicker in his eyes. “I chose not to blow up my best friend’s life and your job and your foster process before it even starts,” he shot back. “If Mitch still loves you and you still love him—”
“Don’t you dare tell me who I love.” Heat burned behind her eyes. “You forfeited that privilege when you kissed me and then acted like I was suddenly bad for your image.”
“I am not worried about my image,” he bit out. He took another step; the door eased almost shut behind him. Their breathing felt loud.
“I’m worried about you. About him. About this.” He gestured between them, a helpless sweep that encompassed a decade of shared history and two weeks of awkward niceties. “And yeah, I thought if I stepped back hard enough it would go away. It hasn’t. It just made you think you didn’t matter.”
Tears prickled. Part of her wanted to collapse into that admission, to be soothed. She tried not to want it. “So what,” she managed, “now you swoop in because Mitch struck out? You don’t get to police my choices if you’re not willing to be one.”
His gaze locked with hers, blue and intent. “I don’t want anyone to be your choice. Just…me.” The word hung there, terrifying and impossible.
“Then stop pretending. Stop running,” she whispered. “Stop acting like avoiding me is protecting me. Because it’s not. It’s hurting me.”
Silence stretched. Their chests brushed with every breath. She felt everything; the hotel mattress behind her knees, the hum of the AC, the knowledge teammates in rooms on either side had no idea.
“It would get messy,” he said finally.
“It’s already messy. The only question is whether we keep pretending.”
The last excuse snapped. He lifted his hands slowly, afraid a sudden movement would spook her, and cupped her face. His thumbs hovered at her jaw, offering a final out.
She didn’t take it.
She surged up, fingers fisting in his sweatshirt, and kissed him.
This wasn’t the hesitant exploration of a cold garage. It was hot and wild and a little unhinged—the want and frustration they’d dammed up crashing through. He made a low sound, one hand sliding into her hair, the other gripping her hip. He kissed her back like he’d been starving.
He walked her backward, careful even in his urgency. Her calves bumped the bed; she sat down hard, bringing him with her. They laughed against each other’s mouths, jittery and breathless, then the laughter dissolved into something softer, needier.
Clothes went in a blur, no rom-com choreography, just controlled chaos. Her hands shoved his quarter-zip up; he tugged her polo over her head. Pants peeled down in a messy scramble; his sweats and briefs hit the floor in one impatient tug.
He touched like he was trying to map her, memorize every reaction as evidence that this was actually happening and wasn’t just a dangerous corner of his imagination.
Between kisses he murmured fragments, “Tell me if you want to stop. You deserve…better than…” followed by lines in Ukrainian, unintelligible but fierce.
She didn’t want to stop. Not even a little.
He eased her onto the pillows, braced above her, and moved in slow, careful thrusts that narrowed the world to a single consuming line of sensation. For a moment they both stilled. She felt him tremble, an almost imperceptible shudder that betrayed how close this slipped to a fault line inside him.
Then he moved.
It was intense, a little frantic at the edges, but grounded in presence.
He didn’t disappear into himself. He stayed with her, eyes on hers, mouth finding her temples when she couldn’t meet his gaze.
He listened to her body like a language learned from afar.
When she arched he adjusted. When she gasped his hand tightened where it held her hip, grounding her.
He whispered comfort and fierce little curses in Ukrainian as she climbed, fell, and climbed again.
Old comparisons flickered unbidden; Mitch distracted, sometimes already thinking about the next trip or endorsement. Ilya was here. Entirely, devastatingly present.
When she came it was with a startled sound she barely recognized.
The world went white around the edges, then blurred into color again as she clutched his shoulders.
He waited her out, jaw clenched, breathing harsh, then his control slipped.
He thrust once, twice, buried his face in her neck, and groaned her name like a confession.
After, they lay tangled and panting. The room smelled of sex, hotel air freshener and whatever industrial cleaner the chain used. Muffled sounds seeped through the walls; a door closing, a TV laugh track, the distant ding of an elevator.
Zoey stared at the speckled ceiling, then rolled to see his profile. His hair was a mess, one bicep tucked under his head, the other arm draped across her stomach. His wide hand rested warm on her hip, finger tracing lazy circles.
He was watching her. Of course, he was.
“We…probably need to be careful,” he said finally, softer than she’d ever heard.
A laugh bubbled out, weak but real. “That’s your big post-coital speech? We should be careful?”
His mouth curved. “You ruined me. I had a better one prepared.”
He reached for the water bottle on the bedside table and handed it to her, thumb brushing her knuckles. The small, practical gesture felt enormous.
“I mean it,” he muttered. “No one can know. Not Mitch. Not the team. Not Nina.” He hesitated. “Not yet.”
Those words should’ve scraped. She’d sworn never to contort herself to fit someone else’s comfort.
Her rational brain listed tidy objections: risky, messy, unfair. The part of her that crossed the country to stop shrinking around other people’s needs raised a skeptical eyebrow.
But lying there with his body half-wrapped around hers and San Jose humming beyond the glass, a guilty relief washed through her.
“So, what is this then?” she asked, hating how tentative it sounded. “If it’s not a mistake and not nothing, but no one’s allowed to know…what do we call it?”
He threaded their fingers together on her stomach, his hand dwarfing hers.
He stared at their joined hands like they were something fragile he’d just been handed.
“This is…ours,” he said slowly, tasting each letter.
“I don’t know what we name it yet. We just…
don’t lie about it to each other.” Ilya paused.
“Unless you’ve thought of a way we can be public without your ex exploding, Nina relishing your firing, your foster application going up in smoke, or the media eating you alive? ”
His voice was hopeful in a way that made her heart give a rebellious lurch in her chest.
Oh…right.
Her heart, the inconvenient organ that it was, had already gone ahead and picked out curtains.
She inhaled and nodded once. “Yeah. I can’t imagine Mitch taking it well. And that would be nothing compared to Nina finding out we started something right before playoffs.” The thought of Nina’s wrath made her skin prickle.
She wasn’t that good at her job. Nina would have her fired in a heartbeat.
And that would look very bad to the foster agency.
So, yes, keep it quiet. At least for a bit.
Which wasn’t what every little girl dreamed about when picturing her future heart-stopping romance.
But as his thumb traced slow circles and the city she once shared with another man buzzed outside like a distant storm, it felt like the first thing in a long time that was exactly, dangerously, what she wanted.
Even if it wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined it.
Somewhere down the hall a teammate shouted about room service. The real world, irritatingly persistent, pressed its nose to the glass.
Zoey rolled onto her side to face him, tucking closer even as her pulse sped with the knowledge of how this could blow up.
Later, she told herself. They’d deal with it later. For now, she stayed pressed against the man who’d just complicated her life beyond recognition and tried not to think about who might walk past their door, wondering where their captain had disappeared to.