Chapter Twelve #6
He breathed warmth into her hands again.
Tessa’s heart beat hard enough that she wondered whether he could feel it through her fingers.
“Better?” he asked.
“A little.”
Matvei continued rubbing her hands between his.
The skin began to sting as feeling returned.
“You should have taken coat.”
“You would still be talking about that if I had.”
“Yes.”
His breath warmed her fingers again.
Tessa looked at his mouth.
Only for a second.
Long enough to know she had.
Her gaze lifted.
Matvei was watching her.
Neither moved.
The space between them seemed to narrow without either stepping closer.
Tessa became aware of everything she should remember.
He was a player.
She was the reporter assigned to cover him.
They had walked together because she missed a shuttle, not because either of them arranged to spend Christmas Eve alone. The cold had created an excuse for contact that would disappear the moment they entered the hotel.
Matvei’s thumbs moved once across the backs of her hands.
His voice was lower when he spoke.
“Still cold?”
Tessa swallowed.
“No.”
It was not entirely true.
His gaze remained on her face.
For one suspended second, she thought he might lean closer.
Or perhaps she wanted him to.
The realization frightened her more than the possibility.
Tessa eased her hands from his.
“I’m better.”
Matvei did not attempt to stop her.
He looked toward the hotels ahead, then bent to retrieve the gloves she had not realized had fallen onto the snow.
He brushed them off and handed them back.
“Put on.”
Tessa did.
Neither mentioned what had almost happened, if anything had almost happened at all.
They resumed walking.
Matvei placed his arm around her shoulders again after several steps.
This time, Tessa did not pretend it was only about the cold.
Their hotels stood opposite each other on a quiet street near the waterfront.
Russia’s was larger, its entrance marked by a row of dark vehicles and a temporary security desk inside the lobby. Tessa’s hotel glowed warmly across the road, the front windows decorated with simple white lights and a small Christmas tree near reception.
They stopped at the corner where they would separate.
Matvei’s arm fell from her shoulders.
Cold entered the space immediately.
Tessa turned toward him.
“Thank you.”
“For walk?”
“For not leaving me at the arena with an app I couldn’t read.”
“You would still be there.”
“I would have figured it out.”
“No.”
“I’m capable.”
“You miss bus.”
“One time.”
Matvei’s mouth moved.
The familiar dry amusement had returned, though something else remained beneath it.
“You need better coat,” he said.
Tessa shook her head. “I knew you were going to end with that.”
“I am right.”
“Good night, Matvei.”
He looked across the street toward her hotel entrance.
“You go inside.”
“I was planning to.”
“I wait.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
The answer echoed the first time she had asked why he walked instead of taking the bus.
Tessa crossed the street.
At the entrance, she turned.
Matvei remained beneath the streetlight, hands inside the pockets of his coat. Snow collected lightly across his shoulders.
She lifted one hand.
He nodded.
Tessa entered the hotel.
Warm air surrounded her, bringing another sharp sting to her fingers and face. She stepped beyond the glass doors but did not continue toward the elevator immediately.
Through the window, she watched Matvei cross the street toward Russia’s hotel.
He did not look back.
That should have made the moment easier to classify.
It did not.
Tessa rode the elevator alone and unlocked her room. The radiator clicked softly beneath the window. Her laptop remained open on the desk where she had left it that morning, the tournament schedule still filling the screen.
She removed the coat and touched her fingers together.
They were warm now.
She could still feel his breath between them.
Across the street, lights glowed in several windows of Russia’s hotel. Tessa did not know which belonged to him.
She closed the curtains before she could begin wondering.
Then she leaned against them, shut her eyes and allowed herself to admit what had changed.
Matvei was no longer only the player she found attractive despite herself. He was no longer only the difficult subject she had spent months trying to understand.
For thirty minutes, he had simply been a man walking beside her through the snow.
A man who remembered why she became a journalist. Who had read enough of her work to decide she was good. Who liked the cold because it made cities quiet and had watched her favorite romantic comedy despite claiming to hate it.
A man who had held her hands between his and looked at her as though the professional boundaries between them were not invisible at all.
Tomorrow, she would return to the arena.
She would hold a recorder, ask questions and write whatever happened on the ice. Matvei would answer carefully in English and pretend the walk had altered nothing.
Tessa would have to do the same.
Tonight, in separate hotels across a narrow Helsinki street, neither of them had to pretend yet.