Chapter Seventeen #2
He made a face.
“To silver.”
“That sounds depressing.”
“It is medal.”
“You wanted the other one.”
“Yes.”
Tessa touched her glass lightly to his.
“To the next puck, then.”
Matvei looked at her.
The phrase belonged to Sergei, though Tessa had already used it in the feature she filed two days earlier.
His expression softened.
“Next puck,” he agreed.
They drank.
The conversation came more easily than it had during their first visit. Neither attempted to learn the other from the beginning. They already knew which topics created silence and which answers contained something beneath them.
Matvei asked about her story.
“Which one?”
“Joona.”
“It’s good.”
“You always say.”
“I don’t always say.”
“You think good?”
Tessa considered the question seriously.
“Yes. I think it might be the best thing I’ve written.”
“Because goal?”
“Because of everything before it.”
Matvei waited.
She described the structure, how she connected Joona’s overtime goal to the moments when he once struggled to explain himself in English and the way he had looked toward the red light before celebrating both his first NHL goal and the biggest goal of his life.
“You are in it too,” she said.
Matvei frowned. “Why?”
“Because you helped him.”
“He scores against me.”
“Both are true.”
“What you write?”
“That you told him he belongs at every level.”
Matvei looked down at the vodka.
“You should use Joona.”
“I did. You’re near the end.”
“Good.”
“You really hate being in stories.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you keep doing interesting things.”
“I stop puck.”
“You also spend months helping a rookie who reminds you of yourself.”
Matvei glanced toward her.
“He does not remind.”
“He’s young, European and worried that people think his English means he isn’t intelligent.”
Matvei took a drink.
“Different.”
“Because he’s Finnish?”
“Yes.”
Tessa laughed.
Matvei’s knee pressed more firmly against hers beneath the table.
This time, she knew it was deliberate.
She allowed the contact to remain.
They talked about the tournament. Russia’s defensive adjustments, Finland’s home crowd and the way NHL teammates became opponents without truly becoming enemies. Matvei explained that the hardest part was learning the habits of defensemen he usually tried to exploit.
“You know weakness,” he said. “Then he is teammate, you cannot say his weakness.”
“Why not?”
“He knows yours.”
“That sounds like mutually assured destruction.”
Matvei frowned at the phrase.
Tessa explained it.
He considered the concept.
“Yes.”
Their second drinks appeared without much discussion. Tessa had finished most of the first, and the warmth sat pleasantly beneath her skin without affecting the sharpness of her thoughts.
They were not drunk.
Nowhere close.
She remained aware of every choice.
That mattered.
The conversation turned quieter as the bar emptied. Matvei asked when she planned to leave Helsinki. Her flight departed the morning of Jan. 3, giving her one full day to wrap up tournament coverage and attempt to see more than arenas, hotels and the streets between them.
“Russia leaves tomorrow,” he said.
The words changed the air around the table.
“What time?”
“Afternoon.”
“You’re going back to Halifax?”
“Russia to Montreal. Then Halifax.”
Tessa nodded.
Her own return would take her through Toronto.
Their routes would separate before converging again in Atlantic Centre.
“Are you ready to go back?” she asked.
“To hockey.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Matvei rotated the glass between his fingers.
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
Tessa looked toward his hand.
“Because of the tournament?”
“Some.”
“And the rest?”
His gaze lifted.
“You know.”
Her heart beat harder.
The bar, the walks and Christmas lights belonged to Helsinki. Halifax would return them to the locker room, press box and all the risks they had named before kissing anyway.
Tessa rested her hand on the table, palm down between them.
Matvei looked at it.
Then he covered it with his own.
His fingers curled around hers.
“We don’t have to solve Halifax tonight,” she said.
“No.”
“But we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“No.”
Tessa ran her thumb once across the side of his hand.
“I’m still scared.”
Matvei’s fingers tightened.
“I know.”
The response contained no impatience this time.
No demand that she explain again or reassurance that nothing bad could happen. He simply acknowledged the fear as real.
Tessa looked toward him.
“I’m not ashamed of you.”
“I know now.”
“I was afraid that’s what you thought.”
“It was.”
“I’m sorry.”
Matvei’s gaze held hers.
“You say sorry easy.”
“When I’m wrong.”
He looked as though he wanted to argue, then reconsidered.
“I was wrong too,” he said.
“About?”
“Thinking you can choose easy.”
Tessa smiled faintly. “That sounded almost like another apology.”
“No.”
“Close.”
“Bad reporting.”
She laughed softly.
Matvei lifted her hand and pressed his thumb against the inside of her wrist.
The touch was small.
It made breathing more difficult.
Neither ordered a third drink.
They left the bar before midnight.
The bartender wished them good night as Matvei helped Tessa into her coat. His hands settled briefly near her shoulders, straightening the collar before he put on his own.
Outside, the snow had stopped.
The pavement gleamed beneath the streetlights, patches of ice visible where foot traffic polished the surface. Tessa looked down at her boots.
Matvei followed her gaze.
“Careful.”
“I have learned.”
“No.”
“I made it here.”
“With me.”
“That sounds incredibly arrogant.”
“It is true.”
He held out his hand.
Tessa placed hers in it.
They crossed the street slowly, fingers joined between them. Matvei walked closest to the road, adjusting his grip whenever they reached ice. The hotels stood directly ahead, but neither released the other once the pavement became clear.
At the corner, Russia’s entrance waited behind them.
Tessa’s hotel stood across the final stretch of street.
The Christmas lights remained hanging above it, the same warm strands that had framed their first kiss.
Tessa felt the recognition pass through both of them.
Matvei slowed.
His hand remained around hers, but some of the certainty left his body. He looked toward the hotel doors, then back at her.
The hesitation surprised her.
He had kissed her carefully the first time, but without doubt about what he wanted. Now he stood close enough that she could feel his warmth and seemed unsure whether he had the right to move closer.
“You’re thinking too much,” Tessa said.
Matvei looked at her.
“You say this to me?”
“Yes.”
He glanced toward their hands.
“You are scared.”
“I am.”
“I do not want push.”
The words softened everything inside her.
Tessa stepped closer.
Matvei did not move.
Snow remained caught in the shoulders of his coat, though none fell now. The Christmas lights reflected faintly across his eyes.
“You waited for me tonight,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You walked with me.”
“Yes.”
“You came back to the cute bar.”
His mouth shifted. “Old bar.”
“Cute.”
“Yes.”
Tessa smiled.
Then she lifted her free hand and touched the scar along his jaw.
Matvei’s breath changed.
She traced the familiar line once, the skin warm beneath her fingers despite the cold.
“I’m still here,” she said.
His gaze lowered toward her mouth.
He leaned closer slowly enough that she could stop him.
Tessa did not.
The kiss began more hesitantly than the first one had.
Matvei touched her mouth with his, paused and waited. His hand released hers only to settle at her waist, but even that contact remained careful, as though he expected her fear to appear between one breath and the next.
Tessa gripped the front of his coat.
She kissed him again.
The hesitation broke.
Matvei drew her closer, one arm wrapping around her lower back while the other hand moved to the side of her face. His mouth became warmer, deeper and less controlled. Tessa rose onto her toes and felt him bend toward her, surrounding her without making her feel trapped.
The street disappeared.
There was only his hand against her cheek, the pressure of his body and the quiet sound he made when her fingers moved beneath the edge of his hat and into his hair.
He kissed her until she forgot the cold. His breathing was uneven. So was hers.
“Tessa.”
The way he said her name sounded like both a question and a warning.
She understood.
If she entered the hotel alone, they would return to Halifax with two kisses and a night they could still stop from becoming anything more. If she asked him inside, neither could pretend they had not chosen the risk.
Tessa looked toward the lobby doors.
Then back at him.
Matvei’s hand remained at her waist, but he made no attempt to move toward the entrance.
The choice stayed with her.
Tessa lowered her hand from his hair.
For a second, Matvei’s expression closed, bracing for the separation.
She found his hand instead.
His fingers curled around hers.
“Come with me,” she said.
Matvei went completely still.
“You sure?”
The question was quiet.
Tessa’s heart beat hard enough that the answer felt lodged beneath it.
“Yes.”
She led him toward the hotel.
The lobby was almost empty.
A receptionist sat behind the front desk, attention fixed on a computer. Two guests spoke quietly near the elevators, carrying winter coats over their arms. Nobody looked toward Tessa and Matvei when the automatic doors opened.
Tessa became aware of every visible detail anyway.
Their joined hands.
His height beside her.
The Russia team jacket visible when his coat shifted open.
Her credential buried inside the laptop bag but still present.
She released his hand before they crossed the lobby.
Matvei did not react.
The elevator arrived quickly.
They stepped inside alone.
The doors closed.
For several seconds, neither moved.
The silence was entirely different from the one outside. The elevator was too warm after the street, too bright and too small. Tessa could hear the faint mechanical hum beneath them and Matvei’s breathing beside her.
She pressed the button for her floor.
Matvei watched the numbers above the door.
Tessa wondered whether he had changed his mind.