Chapter 22 Bohdan
Bohdan
“I mean”—Jay leans forward, the chain around his neck lifting in the bubbles of the Jacuzzi, flush visible on his cheeks, eyes glossy and a smile tilting across his face—“it’s really about the tannins, isn’t it?”
It’s a sorry imitation of Talon carrying on during the wine tasting.
But it’s enough that we’re all laughing. Probably too loudly to be drowned out by the noises of the Jacuzzi and interrupting whatever sleep the neighbours on either side of our suite thought they’d be getting.
Talon makes a carry-on gesture, leaning back against the headrest. “Look, you can all laugh all you want. But I listened today. I learned.”
“I learned something, too.” Sloan sits up, straightening her shoulders.
Wisps of hair fall out of her ponytail, framing her face and sticking to her damp collarbone, the tie of her bathing suit doing nothing to cover her tattoo, on display like she doesn’t care who sees.
But that might have more to do with the wine than her sudden apathy towards the faded ink on her shoulder.
I think it might have been on purpose, actually.
I definitely think the blue string bikini—the exact same shade as her eyes—was on purpose.
I did my best to look away when she and Tia came out to join us because the idea of seeing that much of Sloan again, sitting so close to her, and being unable to touch her, made me simultaneously feel like jumping from the railings of this balcony into the depths of the ocean and dropping to my knees in front of all our friends and begging her to forgive me.
But Talon insisted on a soak after all that wine, saying it would help clear our heads, even though I’m pretty sure that’s scientifically proven not to be true.
“What’s that, Sloany?” Talon smiles encouragingly.
She raises her glass. “That you’re a douche.”
We all laugh again. But it’s not loud—everyone’s so quiet in their laughter because they can hardly breathe, and it should be a sound that echoes across the ship to annoy our neighbours and out onto the ocean to let the world know we’re all still here, and we can all still laugh.
Jay leans forward, ends of his hair falling into the water, clutching his side, practically wheezing. Tia can’t stop fanning her face, and Talon drops his head back before thumping a fist to his own chest when he chokes on a sip of wine.
Sloan smiles quietly, shoulders shaking, eyes scrunched up against the tears.
I’m not really making any noise, and I’m not really laughing either. I should be—it was a funny, too-stupid thing she said that reminded me of being in college. But she’s smiling in this real way I haven’t seen in over a year and a half, and I can’t really look away.
She looks at me, her lips turn down and her cheeks soften, and I can see it in her eyes—she’s looking for approval, waiting for me to laugh the way everyone else is.
She thinks I don’t love her and she’s looking for something, anything to tell her brain to shut up, that I still see value in her.
That she’s enough, even in some tiny, infinitesimal way.
There’s nothing about Sloan that’s infinitesimal to me.
Before I can think better of it, I wink at her.
Blue eyes go wide, her lips pillow and part before she blinks, swallowing slowly.
I can see the flush on her cheeks from here, on her chest, curves just visible above the water, and I hate myself for that a bit, but she bites down on her lip, wrinkling her nose with a smile no one else would ever see.
Talon claps a palm against his chest again, finally swallowing, pointing towards Sloan before he practically parkours out of the Jacuzzi, and pushes to stand.
“You’re funny. I’ll give you that.” He makes a show of checking his watch.
“Free time is officially over. Thank you all for your participation in day two of my Retirement River Cruise.”
“I don’t think you can classify this as free time. You made us get into the Jacuzzi.” Tia fiddles with the yellow tie of her bathing suit before pointing at her brother.
“Not a river cruise.” Jay nods, emptying his wine and hopping over the edge of the Jacuzzi to get out.
Talon starts, “What is an ocean if not a—”
“It’s not a really big river, I’ll tell you that for free,” I offer, cutting him off.
I think Sloan smiles again, and I feel bigger than I have any right to be.
He makes a yapping gesture with his hands before stretching each arm out with an unnecessary swing. “I’m going to bed. I might be retired, but I’m not going to get sloppy. I’m going to the gym tomorrow morning if anyone wants to join me. Big leg day.”
“I don’t think that’s on the itinerary,” Sloan says quietly, mouth tipping into a smile behind her wineglass.
Talon narrows his eyes, studying her, before he cracks another grin. “I’m watching you this week.”
He reaches out to ruffle her hair when he walks past the Jacuzzi, tracking water all over the balcony and back into the suite.
It’s not the first time he’s done it, and it probably won’t be the last, but I clench my jaw at the sight—the idea that he still gets to touch her like it’s nothing, without thinking and without consequence.
Jay reaches out, tapping her forehead, grinning at her. “Keep the jokes coming, Sloany. His ego needs deflating.”
A muscle in my cheek twitches.
“And what purpose do I serve then? I’m almost certain our parents only birthed me as a countermeasure for Talon.” Tia straightens her shoulders against the headrest, twirling the stem of her wineglass.
“You”—Jay pauses, elbows resting against the edge of the Jacuzzi before he takes her wineglass, bringing his mouth to the exact same spot as hers was and taking a sip—“are here to look good. And you’re doing a great job.”
I press a fist to my mouth, cringing.
He’s angled away from me, but judging by the way Tia starts giggling, slapping a hand to cover her mouth, and Sloan widens her eyes, he might try his hand at winking.
He’s terrible at winking.
But he doesn’t seem to care. Jay doesn’t care about much other than making sure his game day outfits are more interesting than anyone else’s and playing better than everyone else on the ice. Maybe that’s the kind of grace I used to carry myself with, too.
He catches himself right as he steps through the sliding door, fingers tapping against the frame. “Think I’ll work out tomorrow morning, too. You in?”
“What, the push-ups and dips off a hundred-year-old wine barrel this morning weren’t enough for you?” I deflect, grinning. Doing things with my best friends just like we used to probably ranks third on the list of things I want more than anything on the planet.
It goes: Sloan, hockey, mundane things like being stupid in the gym with your stupid best friends.
Jay rolls his eyes, and I don’t have the heart to tell him that sometimes working out is fine, but sometimes it leads to so much pressure in my head I think my eyes might explode.
He looks at me for a minute like he might want to ask, but he gives a jerk of his chin. “Let me know in the morning.”
I nod, emptying the rest of my wine even though I shouldn’t. I’ve had too much, and I was in the sun all day. My temple aches, and my neck feels tense.
Sloan waits, craning her neck to make sure he’s gone before turning to Tia. “Why is he flirting with you?”
“I have no idea.” Tia raises her palms, shaking her head. “I’m going to bed. Love you.”
I watch the whole thing. It’s like an exact repeat of the other night: Sloan smiling tightly, making a faint noise of agreement in the back of her throat instead of throwing out words she used to say all the time, Tia’s face collapsing before she shoots me a look to make sure I know it’s all my fault.
She even whispers about the dictionary again when she passes me.
She leaves us out here, alone in a Jacuzzi, like it isn’t a horrible idea.
I rub at my chest—it aches there, too, it always does.
“Why don’t you—” I start, but Sloan beats me to it.
Her words come out all rushed, in one big breath like she’s been sitting on them all night. “Have you been with anyone else?”
I don’t tell her that counts as a strike. I don’t tell her no, that the thought of someone else makes me physically ill, that I doubt I’d even be able to get hard for another woman, and that I’ll be ruined with her for the rest of my life.
My lips curl back. “Jesus Christ, Sloan. I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”
I debate asking her if she thinks that little of me.
I wouldn’t blame her. But her shoulders sag, she slumps just a bit lower into the water with an exhale of a breath I think she was holding so tightly it hurt, relief all over her face, lips parting and eyes slowly closing while her cheeks go pillowy.
And then she blinks at me, and even though I know she’s lying through her fucking teeth, I still hate the words that come out of her mouth more than I think I’ve hated anything in my entire life.
“Well, I date.”
Leaning across the expanse of water, I cock my head. “Oh yeah? And what are the boys like that you date?”
Her chest flushes, and not from the temperature of the water, when she catalogues how much closer I am to her. She tries to give me a hard look, but the apples of her cheeks go pink. “They’re not boys.”
“Oh, I think they are.” I nod, pushing off the edge of the seat and dropping to my knees in the centre of the tub. I can think of a million and one things I could do to her from here. She blinks up at me. I grin down at her. “Are they what you think about?”
“Inappropriate,” she mutters, pursing her lips.
I shift forward, the outside of my thighs brushing her under the water.
Sloan squeezes her legs together, like she’s trying not to touch me, but the tiny breaths she’s taking tell me something different.
I’ve been reading her mind and her body since I was twenty—it’s my favourite book, I’ve read it cover to cover.
I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t say it. But I’ll live under her skin for the rest of my life because it’s better than nowhere.
“Because I know what I think about,” I start, voice low and rough, and I lean forward, mouth moving over her ear while I whisper the rest. “Only ever you.”
She pulls back, eyes wide, heat creeping across her cheeks, fingers tightening around the stem of her wineglass, and her teeth coming down on her bottom lip.
I let myself look at her mouth for longer than I should, how she sits, so straight and all tied up in knots I’d love to untangle. I know how.
She knows I know how.
But I stand, her eyes rove over my chest, tracking the droplets of water, and the way I can feel all my muscles contract when I hop out of the tub. My eyes never leave her, heart still with her where she sits, and I walk backward towards the door. “Night, Zlatí?ko.”
She’s what I think about when I get in the shower later.
I wasn’t lying.
Always her.
Only ever her.
It’s not even the way her lips part, the way her teeth come down on the centre of the full bottom one and I wish they were mine, how she blinks those blue eyes at me, the way her eyelashes flutter and her hair tumbles around her shoulders, showing me glimpses of me there, on her skin.
How when she breathes the curves of her chest expand and I know exactly what she feels like under my hands.
What her skin feels like when I scrape my teeth over her collarbone, that I know what it’s like to take her in my mouth, tongue swirling over beautiful, perfect peaked nipples.
The noises she makes, head tipped back with impossibly loud, breathy moans, fingers digging into my shoulders, my name on her lips asking for more when I’d move to bury my head between her thighs.
What it’s like to slide inside her afterwards, tongue tangling with hers so she can see how good she tastes.
How it feels when she comes, tightening around me.
It’s none of those things—even though they’re all enough to make me see fucking stars and forget my own name.
It’s her laugh that has me wrapping my hand around my cock, one palm gripping the tile wall of the shower, jaw clenched and all the muscles of my neck tense down to my shoulders until I come with her name on my lips.
I can’t open my fucking eyes.
I think there’s an ice pick digging into my temple.
Or maybe it’s the weight of loving her so much and breaking her heart that sits right on the crown of my head and crushes my brain.
It could be the fact that I have no right to think about her anymore at all, but especially not like I did last night.
I hate myself with every leaden fucking step I take to the bathroom to throw up.
Dawn inches across the carpeted floor through the windows, the curtains pulled open, swaying in a phantom breeze.
I know I should close them—that the sun’s going to crack my skull in two when it finally rises in the sky.
But I left them open last night because I was thinking about Sloan, looking up at the stars, trying to see all the way to one of those universes out there where I still have her.
I leave them like that—it’d be a fitting punishment—press a triptan nasal spray to my nose, swallow a different pill with a sedative, and hope I fall asleep again even though I don’t deserve it.