Chapter 26 Nazar
Kai pushes the door open and pauses in the doorway for a moment before stepping inside— leaving it open behind him. Nazar takes it as an invitation. What else can he do?
Kai doesn’t look at him. He drifts over to a sleek kitchen island, his movements careful. His back stays firmly to Nazar.
“Coffee?”
“Yeah.”
Kai nods without turning. He starts pulling things from cupboards—the clink of ceramic on stone the only sound besides the hum of the refrigerator and the distant wash of waves outside.
Nazar stays by the door, his shoulders hunched slightly, feeling like an intruder. He needs to break this silence. Needs to say something that matters.
“My grandmother…” The words come out clumsy, unformed. “She likes you.”
Kai lets out a short, mirthless laugh. “She thinks Bonifazio is a reincarnated Ukrainian poet who died tragically young. She’s an easy woman to charm when you show up with a cat and basic conversational skills.” He sets a mug down with a sharp click. “So what are you doing here, Rykov?”
The espresso machine hisses, filling the silence. Nazar watches Kai’s back, the tension in his shoulders, the way he’s gripping the counter edge like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
“We needed to talk.” The words feel inadequate even as he says them. “Like an actual conversation. Not through reporters or—”
“Did we?” Kai’s voice is light, brittle. “I seem to recall our last conversation ending with you accusing me of grand-theft-grandmother. And me, very wisely, walking away before I said something I’d regret even more.”
The coffee machine stops.
Kai pours with precise movements, like he’s performing surgery rather than making drinks.
“That was…” Nazar searches for the right word. Stupid. Cruel. Unforgivable. He settles on something safer. “An overreaction.”
“Just one?” Kai finally turns, leaning back against the counter with a steaming mug in his hands.
Tea, Nazar notices. The armor is back in place—that sardonic smile, those cool eyes that give nothing away.
“You’re being far too modest. You’ve had quite a collection of overreactions where I’m concerned. ”
Nazar doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s true and they both know it.
Kai takes a sip of his tea, studying Nazar over the rim.
“You know, I remember when you first came into the league. You were this… silent force of nature. There were rumors about you—” He pauses, something flickering in his expression.
“About how you’d fuck your way through half the bunnies in every city and never say more than two words to anyone. Very efficient. Very you.”
Nazar feels heat creep up his neck.
He hadn’t realized Kai had been paying attention to him back then. That he’d even registered on Kai’s radar beyond being another player to compete against.
He hadn’t had sex before signing his first contract.
During his first two years in the league, he really did sleep with every female fan who wanted him.
He wanted sex; they didn’t mind spending time with a rising hockey player.
Then he cooled off, and eventually forgot what any of it even felt like.
“A lot’s really changed, hasn’t it?” Kai continues, his voice deceptively light. “Now you’re not fucking bunnies and you’ve started speaking in complete sentences. Character development.”
The barb lands, sharp and precise. Nazar forces himself to move further into the room.
“When did you start visiting her?” he asks, changing direction. “My grandmother.”
Kai’s expression shifts—just slightly, but Nazar catches it. Something softer bleeding through the sarcasm.
“Three months, maybe?” He sets his mug down. “Your coffee’s ready, by the way. You can actually come in. I won’t bite.”
Nazar moves to the island, picking up the mug Kai’s prepared. Black coffee, too hot, the way he drinks it during games. Kai remembered.
“Why?” The question comes out more vulnerable than Nazar intended.
“Why what?” But Kai knows what he’s asking. He’s just making Nazar work for it.
“Why visit her? You could’ve just… I don’t know.”
Kai shakes his head. “She was kind to me. In Vancouver. She treated me like a person instead of a headline. Do you know how rare that is?”
No, Nazar thinks. He probably doesn’t. He’s never had to deal with the constant scrutiny that follows Kai everywhere.
“So what do you even talk about?”
Kai picks up his tea again, cradling it between both hands. “Her garden, she’s growing these massive tomatoes, I guess? Stories about Ukraine before the family emigrated. Hockey, sometimes, but not about you.” He meets Nazar’s eyes. “I never bring you up. She doesn’t either.”
Something in Nazar’s chest tightens painfully.
“Does she know?” Kai asks suddenly. “About… this? Whatever this is?”
“No.” The answer is immediate, instinctive. “She can’t.”
“Right.” Kai’s smile is bitter now. “Of course not. God forbid anyone know that Nazar Rykov is capable of wanting something messy and complicated that doesn’t fit into his perfect narrative.”
“That’s not—” Nazar stops, frustrated. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
The question hangs between them. Nazar doesn’t have an answer. Or he does, but it’s too complicated to articulate, too tangled up in his own fears and Derek’s ghost and the weight of expectations he’s been carrying for so long he’s forgotten what it feels like to be without them.
“I think about you constantly.” The admission is raw, unplanned.
“It’s fucking ridiculous. I’ll be in the middle of a game and suddenly I’m wondering what you’re doing, if you’re watching, if you saw that pass.
Or I’ll hear some song and think you’d probably hate it because it’s too mainstream or whatever.
Or I’ll see someone order some pretentious coffee drink and—”
He stops, realizing he’s rambling. That Kai is staring at him with an expression he can’t read.
“You think about me,” Kai repeats slowly.
“All the fucking time.” Nazar sets his mug down harder than intended. “Since Vancouver. Since before Vancouver, if I’m being honest. Since that draft combine when I fell on you and couldn’t breathe properly for three days afterward because I couldn’t stop thinking about—”
He cuts himself off, but it’s too late.
Kai’s eyes have gone wide. “You couldn’t stop thinking about what?”
Nazar feels his face heat. This is not how this conversation was supposed to go. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“No.” Kai sets his own mug down and takes a step closer. “Say it. You’ve been thinking about me since the combine? Since we were eighteen years old?”
“Nineteen,” Nazar corrects automatically. “I was nineteen. You were eighteen.”
“Jesus Christ.” Kai runs a hand through his hair.
“But I’m done running from it.”
“From w-what?”
“From this!” Nazar gestures between them.
“From wanting something I couldn’t have.
From needing someone who represented everything I was supposed to hate.
Your father destroyed my brother’s career.
Did you know that? My brother played for Toronto.
For your dad’s team. And Doyle Callahan made sure he’d never play professional hockey again because my brother had the audacity to stand up to him. And now my brother is dead.”
Kai’s face has gone pale. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your brother. "
“Why would you?” The bitterness in Nazar’s voice surprises even himself. “You were busy being the golden child, getting everything handed to you.”
“Handed to me.” Kai’s voice goes flat. “Is that what you think?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“That maybe I worked my ass off despite my father actively trying to sabotage me at every turn? That maybe having his last name made everything harder, not easier? That I spent my entire childhood proving I wasn’t just some rich kid playing at being an athlete?
” Kai’s hands are shaking now. “You want to hate me for things I didn’t do, fine.
But don’t you dare accuse me of not earning what I have. ”
The silence that follows is electric, charged.
“I’m sorry,” Nazar says finally. “For that. For a lot of things.”
“I visited your grandmother because she was lonely,” Kai says after a long moment.
“And because I was lonely. And because for one hour every two weeks, I got to be in a place where no one expected me to perform or explain myself or be anything other than a person who likes cats and bad Ukrainian TV dramas.”
“She makes you watch those?”
“I make her watch them. There’s this one about a vampire who runs a restaurant in Kyiv—it’s terrible and I’m obsessed with it.”
Despite everything, Nazar feels his mouth twitch into something almost like a smile.
Kai notices him and abruptly turns away, shoulders tight. He lifts the mug again, knuckles whitening around the ceramic. “Your coffee’s getting cold,” he says.
Nazar forgets how to breathe.
He steps forward before he can think better of it. One arm slides around Kai’s waist, then the other, pulling him back against his chest. He feels the sharp inhale Kai takes — feels it under his palms.
Nazar lowers his mouth to the warm skin of Kai’s neck. A shaky exhale escapes him. Damn. Damn.
He can’t believe it’s finally happening.
He can smell him and the scent makes Nazar’s head swim.
Kai turns in his arms, and then they’re kissing.
Nazar catches his mouth, deep and rough, and Kai lets him. The permission alone makes Nazar’s knees nearly buckle. He can’t stop.
Kai’s breaths are hitched and uneven against his mouth, soft sounds slipping out that make heat surge through Nazar so fast it’s almost unbearable.
He’s terrified he’s going to come right there, still half-dressed. He’s waited for this, for any second like this. Any way he could have it. Just to touch him again. To feel him.
They move toward the bedroom in a blind rush, shedding clothes, leaving a trail across the rental’s floors.