Chapter 16 Sloan #2
“Especially in a European league,” Talon parrots, his middle finger flicking up when he inches his feet back together.
He raises each knee to his chest in turn before seemingly deciding he’s done.
He shrugs, considering. “I dunno. I was bored of it, I guess. Time for the next great adventure and all that.”
It’s not a bad thing to say. Talon’s always known who he is, even when he didn’t know what he was doing.
But it’s ill-timed, because he says it right as Bohdan steps out onto the deck.
Another white linen shirt lifting, pushing against his chest and abdomen in the breeze, doing nothing to conceal the ridges of muscle stretching across his stomach.
Tan linen shorts practically moulded to the muscles of his thighs, golden-brown hair tousled just so, eyes hidden behind impossibly dark black sunglasses that look like they’re prescription, and the S scrawled across the cords of his forearm muscle stark against his skin.
Talon pales, one shoulder lifting and a cringe settling on his face. “Sorry, Novo.”
Bohdan shrugs, but a muscle ticks in his cheek, dusted with stubble, cutting down his jawline and making him look like one of those statues you’d probably find in any museum just beyond the port.
“Bohds? You okay?” Tia sits up, frowning and tugging on a loose curl before she points at his sunglasses. “Those are your prescription ones.”
I can’t see his eyes, the frames are practically opaque to block out as much of the sun as possible, but there’s a small, hopeful part of me that imagines his eyes flick to me before he answers.
It’s squashed, trampled on, and tilled into the earth by my brain reciting the only fact it knows when he speaks, the shrug of one shoulder, like it’s all nothing. “Yeah. Just didn’t sleep, that’s all.”
Not enough, not enough, not enough.
Bright red tomatoes spill out from vines tumbling along the garden path, winding along crumbled stones that line the hillside giving way to the ocean. I’m careful not to step on any as I trail behind Talon, Tia, and Jay, the skin splitting open on some, tiny seeds visible just underneath.
Dishes and glassware rattle from the open kitchen in the restaurant behind me. The hosts sent us out here to collect our own ingredients from the garden, and Talon, the self-proclaimed vegetable expert, ran ahead.
Tia followed, because she’s nothing if not competitive, and probably didn’t want to be bested by a pepper picked by her brother. Jay seemed more interested in whatever he was doing on his phone, following them without much care to notice the garden path.
Bohdan seemed more inclined to spend his afternoon studying the rocks jutting out of the restaurant wall, one thumb trailing over the rough edges with a reverence I recognized all too well.
But I know his footsteps without having to look.
He’s always had this way of shortening his strides to match mine that never made me feel like he was slowing down so I could keep up, but like that’s just how it was supposed to be my whole life: him and me, side by side forever.
I do look, because I can’t help it.
He’s beautiful, sunlight sketching across the sharp planes of his face, full lips set in this serious line that makes you want to know what he’s thinking.
It turns out I don’t have to ask because he takes one handout of his pocket, and he extends it, the ropes of muscle stretching down his forearms tensing when he does.
“Hi,” Bohdan says, voice low and one side of his mouth kicking up like the ghost of a grin sits ready and waiting. “I’m Bohdan.”
I stop, the edge of my sandal catching on a stray rock lining the dirt path of the garden. “What are you doing?”
“Introducing myself.”
“Why?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself more out of habit than anything.
“You seem like someone I’d want to get to know.” He does smile now, a slow, lazy thing that stretches across his face, stealing all the sharpness painted there by time and by the shining sun, and he almost looks like the boy I used to know.
I give him a flat look and pretend my heart, still half asleep, doesn’t stir in my chest.
One brow lifts with the shrug of a shoulder. “You said to act like we didn’t know each other.”
I blink, before a scoff sounds from the back of my throat, and I stab my finger towards his still outstretched hand. “This is not what I meant. In fact, I actually think this is in violation of one of the other rules: no touching.”
“You count a handshake as touching? It’s our palms, Sloan.”
“With you?” I narrow my eyes, jabbing my finger at the offending appendage again. “Yes. Trust me, any contact counts.”
The smile shifts into a grin, and Bohdan shifts with it.
Back to the person he was before that scar I can barely bring myself to look at stole from him.
This too-serious, stoic boy who became this driven, endlessly patient, steadfast, obstinate man with this secret playful side, who wanted nothing more than to be the best at the only things that mattered to him: hockey, and me.
And when that scar became a thief, it took his first love, and it made him forget about his second.
I forget that, though, that he forgot how to love me, because he angles his head down, one wave of hair flops forward onto his forehead, and those lips form rough words that skitter down my spine and make me shiver under the sunlight.
“How do you know? We don’t know each other.” He still has his sunglasses on, but I can feel his eyes all over me. “If you want to test out what contact with me feels like, I can think of a few more interesting things we could do other than shake hands.”
“Indecent.” I tip my chin up, but my stomach twists and I feel the blush on my cheeks.
The Bohdan I knew loved when I blushed. He said it made the three freckles—the only constellation he cared about—stand out even more.
I press my palms to my cheeks, not because I’m flushing, but because I’m not sure he deserves to see those freckles anymore.
“You used to like that,” he says, words heavy with far too much meaning than appropriate for the public garden at a family-owned restaurant.
“How do you know?” I shriek, waving a hand between us. “We don’t know each other!”
Bohdan leans forward, full mouth curving into a different kind of smile—one that tells me he wants to devour me, the way he used to.
But he doesn’t. Whatever he’s about to say—or do—gets interrupted by a shout from Talon.
“Look at this tomato!”
I glance sideways towards Talon, standing probably right where he shouldn’t—in the middle of the vines tangled across the ground, holding what’s objectively a giant tomato in his palm.
Tia stands to the side with Jay—who looks like he’s a second from dropping to his knees and begging whatever God might be listening to please, please save him from this—and she widens her eyes at me, tapping her fingers against her bicep. “Hurry up. It’s time to make the dough for pasta.”
Talon holds his tomato up in the air.
Bohdan doesn’t look away from me. “Cool.”
I give a tiny shake of my head, and I’m about to step around him, to take the path back to the restaurant, when he tips his chin towards his hand, still there, still waiting for me. “I’ll wait all day, Sloan.”
“Fine.” I roll my eyes, meeting his hand with mine.
He’s right, by technicality. It’s just our palms touching. Not even particularly sensitive skin.
But it is.
Because he’s him and I’m me, and my heart might have gone to sleep when he left, but it’s wide-awake when he touches me.
His hand in mine—not the way he used to hold me, but holding me for the first time in too long, out here in this garden.
And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think the vines were conspiring with the earth, twisting around our feet, ready to tie us back together because even after all this time, I think we’re still two halves of one whole.
Bohdan breaks away first, and it’s a kindness really.
I blink away the tears that snuck up on me like he did all those years ago, and he presses a fist to his mouth, a bit like he’s in pain, before he jerks his head towards the restaurant.
“Come on. I’ll make your dough for you.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice so much smaller and sadder than it should be. We’re just talking about pasta, after all.
But we’re not, not really.
Because Bohdan looks at me, this sad smile tugging at his lips, and he shrugs before he says, “You seem like the type of person who wouldn’t like the feeling of the flour all over their hands.”
The only thing I’ve ever really liked all over me was him.
I sniff. “You can guess a person’s sensory issues just by looking at them? What a talent.”
“Only ever really worked with one girl. I knew enough about her to fix just about anything. But it went where all my other talents ended up going: to waste.” He says it with this awful sort of finality, and he turns, walking back towards the restaurant, leaving me surrounded by split tomatoes and the ghost of someone I used to love.