Chapter Fourteen
The bar was warmer than Tessa expected.
Heat met her at the door with the smell of old wood, citrus and something sweet simmering behind the counter.
For several seconds, she stood just inside while her eyes adjusted to the dim amber light.
Brass lamps hung over the tables, each one casting a small circle across dark, scarred wood.
Black-and-white photographs covered the walls in mismatched frames, most of them showing Helsinki streets buried beneath decades of snow or men standing beside fishing boats with expressions that suggested smiling had not yet been invented.
The building felt older than the hotels across the street. Older than the tournament, the arena and perhaps several versions of the city outside.
Cute, Tessa decided.
She did not say it again.
Matvei remained behind her with one hand resting against the heavy door until it closed. Warmth had begun melting the snow along the shoulders of his coat, leaving small dark patches in the fabric. He removed his hat, revealing hair flattened along one side and curling unevenly around the other.
Tessa had seen him fresh from the shower, sweaty after games and half-dressed in a locker room often enough that the sight should not have felt intimate.
It did.
Perhaps because no credential hung visibly from her neck. She had tucked it inside her coat before they crossed the street, though the hard plastic still rested against her sweater as a reminder of why they should not have entered together.
A bartender looked up from polishing a glass and greeted them in Finnish.
Matvei answered in English.
“Two.”
The bartender gestured toward the room.
Only a few tables were occupied. An older couple sat near the front window with mugs between them, speaking quietly.
Three men gathered at the bar beneath a television showing muted tournament highlights.
Somewhere near the back, a woman laughed and the sound disappeared beneath low music playing through speakers mounted above the shelves.
Matvei looked toward Tessa.
“Back?”
She followed his gaze to a small table partially hidden beyond a wooden divider. It was more private than the others, positioned beneath a photograph of the harbor in winter.
Tessa should have chosen one near the door.
“Sure.”
Matvei allowed her to walk ahead of him.
She slid into the chair against the wall and set her laptop bag near her feet. Matvei took the seat opposite, though the table was narrow enough that their knees nearly touched beneath it.
Neither removed a coat immediately.
Tessa looked toward the bar. “Do we order there?”
“I think.”
“You’re the one who invited me.”
“I say drink. I do not own bar.”
“That would have been useful information.”
Matvei’s mouth curved.
He stood and shrugged out of his coat, hanging it over the back of the chair.
Beneath it, he wore a black sweater that stretched across his shoulders and made him look less like the Russian goaltender she had spent the afternoon interviewing and more like the man who had walked beside her through Helsinki.
That distinction was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.
Tessa removed her coat more slowly. Her sweater had shifted during the walk, and she tugged the hem straight before sitting again.
Matvei noticed.
She knew because his eyes followed the movement before returning to her face.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Something Finnish.”
“Why?”
“For the experience.”
“You are in Finnish bar. Experience is already Finnish.”
“I want the full effect.”
“You do not know drinks.”
“That is why I’ll ask.”
Matvei looked skeptical, though he walked toward the bar without arguing.
Tessa watched him.
There was no practical reason to. The bar was small, and she could see him without turning her head much.
He stood near the counter with one forearm resting against the wood, listening as the bartender explained something.
His body occupied space differently outside the rink.
He was still large enough to make everything around him appear smaller, but without equipment, cameras or a stall framing him, the size seemed more personal.
A woman at the bar looked toward him twice.
Tessa noticed that too.
Matvei ordered vodka for himself because, she assumed, being Russian had created certain obligations he had no interest in resisting. He returned carrying a short glass filled with clear liquid and a taller one containing something pale and cloudy over ice.
He set the taller glass in front of her.
“What is it?”
“Finnish long drink.”
“That’s the name?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in it?”
“Gin. Grapefruit.”
Tessa lifted the glass and smelled it. “You asked?”
“No. I know.”
“You do know Finnish drinks.”
“One.”
She took a cautious sip.
The grapefruit was brighter than she expected, slightly bitter beneath the sweetness. It tasted easier than a gin drink had any right to.
“That’s good.”
Matvei sat. “You sound surprised.”
“I thought you might order me something terrible because it would be funny.”
“I can next.”
“There isn’t going to be a next.”
“One drink.”
“One.”
They lifted their glasses in the closest approximation of a toast either seemed prepared to initiate.
“Merry Christmas,” Tessa said.
Matvei looked at her over the rim of his vodka.
“Not Russian Christmas.”
“You’re in Finland.”
His expression changed with recognition.
“You use my argument.”
“It was a good one.”
He touched his glass lightly to hers.
“Merry Christmas.”
Tessa drank.
The moment felt too much like the beginning of a date.
She placed the glass back on the table.
It was not a date.
A date involved intent. Planning. Someone asking and someone agreeing while understanding what was being offered. This had begun because she missed a media shuttle, continued because she waited outside an arena and ended in a bar because neither of them wanted to return to separate hotels yet.
That did not make it a date.
It only made it something more difficult to explain.
“So,” she said, “do Russian players always order vodka, or are you performing a national stereotype for me?”
Matvei looked at the glass.
“I like vodka.”
“That is very convenient.”
“You order Finnish drink.”
“For the experience.”
“I order Russian for experience.”
“You’re already Russian.”
“Full effect.”
Tessa laughed.
Matvei took a drink, clearly pleased with himself.
Without the walk occupying them, the awareness between them grew louder. At the table, they had to look directly at each other or look away. Tessa crossed one leg over the other and accidentally brushed his shin.
“Sorry.”
Matvei glanced down.
“For what?”
She uncrossed her legs.
“Nothing.”
His attention stayed beneath the table for a second before returning to her face.
Tessa picked up her drink.
She needed a topic with less potential to become physical.
“Did you talk to your family today?”
Matvei’s expression changed, though not enough to close completely.
“My mother.”
“What time is it there?”
“Late.”
“And your sister?”
“She was with friends.”
“You have one sister?”
“Yes.”
“Younger?”
Matvei nodded.
“Does she play hockey?”
“No.”
“Does she like it?”
“No.”
Tessa smiled. “That sounds supportive.”
“She likes when I win. Does not like game.”
“Why?”
“Too nervous.”
He rotated the vodka glass slowly between his fingers.
“My mother too.”
“They get nervous watching you?”
“Yes.”
“I would think they’d be used to it by now.”
“No.”
“Is that why they didn’t come?” she asked. “Because they get nervous?”
“Some.”
Matvei’s eyes moved toward the glass.
Tessa waited.
She had learned the difference between silence that meant he would not answer and silence that meant he was deciding how much to give.
This was the second.
“My mother does not like fly,” he said. “Long trip. My sister has work.”
“And your father?”
Matvei’s fingers stopped against the glass.
Tessa immediately wished she had not asked. The question had seemed natural, an extension of the family discussion. His reaction made it clear the omission had not been accidental.
“He does not come,” Matvei said.
There was nothing in the tone to invite more.
Tessa could have left it there.
Instead, she asked gently, “Are you close?”
“No.”
The single word landed with the finality of a locked door.
She nodded and reached for her drink.
Matvei looked toward the photograph above her shoulder.
“He leaves when I am young.”
Tessa stopped.
Matvei did not appear to be looking at her anymore. His gaze remained on the wall, though she doubted he saw the frozen harbor in the photograph.
“Not all at once,” he said. “First he works somewhere else. Then comes home less. Then new family.”
“I’m sorry.”
Matvei shrugged.
The movement looked practiced.
“He calls sometimes when I play good.”
The bitterness was quiet enough that Tessa might have missed it if she had not spent months learning the variations in his voice.
“And when you don’t?”
“No.”
Something inside her tightened.
“That’s awful.”
“He is like this.”
“That doesn’t make it less awful.”
Matvei looked at her then.
Most people, Tessa suspected, accepted his dismissal because it gave them permission to move on. She could see the moment he realized she would not.
“He wanted goalie son,” Matvei said. “When I am drafted, he tells people he teaches me.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
His mouth twisted slightly.
“He takes me to rink some. My mother does everything else. Money, driving, equipment. But he tells story.”
Tessa could imagine it too easily. A father appearing in the polished version after someone else endured the difficult years.
“Do you talk to him now?”
“Sometimes.”
“Because you want to?”
Matvei considered the question.
“No.”
The honesty sat between them.
“Then why?”
“My mother says he is still father.”
Tessa traced one finger through the condensation on her glass.
“She wants you to have a relationship with him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
There was no uncertainty this time.
Tessa nodded.