19. Mason #2
I held on to the warm, drive-me-crazy feeling Lilah ignited in me to steel myself against the penalty that came next. A thousand sprints, skating until I puked for the entire Thanksgiving break? Worth it.
After almost an hour, the office door handle clicked.
I straightened and braced myself. My father emerged from the darkened office.
“Sir.”
He looked through me, turning back toward the dead hearth of the fireplace he’d only ever lit once before—when he made me burn my Larson jersey.
“Bair, ensure you fit in your workout and the sauna before our flight.”
Bair walked from behind him and into the hallway. “I will.” He gave a sharp nod.
Always the obedient soldier.
I took a step closer and our father closed the door without another word.
So I was a ghost. Had he brought Bair back to prove to me how I wasn’t needed? If I failed him, he had another version that never seemed to fuck up a day in his life. I was the backup. Expendable.
Restlessness took hold of me. Not wanting to climb the stairs to my room, I headed to Lilah’s house, only to see her with Ryker at the kitchen table.
I wrestled the flood of jealousy that made me want to barge in there and punch him just for something to hit.
That wouldn’t add anything in the getting-Lilah-to-trust-me column though, so I backed away.
I hated how easily he got to be with Lilah. Didn’t she see how he looked at her? How he stared when she turned her back or looked away? I muted the feelings to keep myself from going crazy.
On the walk back to the house, I decided to go the long way, through the privacy fence around the pool and pool house. All the lights were on and a figure sat on a sun lounger at the pool’s edge.
Bair had a glass in his hand and stared at the ripples in the water. Steam rose from him in the frigid November air. His hair was still wet, maybe from the sauna or the shower after. But he wore a heavy sweater, no coat.
He was in my space. Invading the house that was supposed to be mine.
I hated how that shit got to me. I didn’t want him to ignore Zoe, but I hated that she thought of him as Bear Bair, which she’d started calling him when she was five.
I’d teased him with that nickname once and he’d slapped a shot at me so hard that he cracked my cup.
The way Bair had taken on his nickname was opposite to her calling our father—Daddy. He made it clear Dyadya was the only name she should call him. Why wouldn’t he just let her call him Dad or Papa? Not that Bair or I did either.
“Are you going to stand and glower, come and sit, or fuck off?” Bair held up his glass to the light, inspecting the ice.
“Drinking during the season? Is that why you’ve been shit this year?”
His metallic laugh clanked in my ears. “Have I? At least I didn’t freeze up on the ice.”
“Fuck you.”
He arched one eyebrow. “You came out here looking for a fight and I’m supposed to not swing back?” He picked up another glass from the tray of three and the two-liter glass bottle with Russian lettering on the front. “Sit. You can help me finish this.”
“Are you seriously drinking?”
He leveled a glare at me, poured the clear liquid, filling the glass, and shoved it toward me.
I took the glass and sniffed it. No burning, acrid alcohol smell.
He held out his glass to me. “May we both survive the year.”
“Ominous, no?”
He shrugged and clinked his glass to mine before taking a gulp and baring his teeth.
I tipped back the glass and took a hearty gulp.
The bubbling burn and salty taste registered as wrong, and my body rejected it, showering the patio with a fine misty sheen.
The liquid seared the back of my nose, bubbles trying to torch my sinuses.
I stared at the glass and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“What the hell is that? And why is it salty?”
“Only the best Russian mineral water.” Bair did his best Lukyan Petrov impersonation. “Our father swears by it, therefore it is as essential as breathing.”
“You’ve got to finish the whole thing?”
“We’ve got to finish the whole thing now. Let’s get this over with, little brother.”
I bristled at the title. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
“Better get used to it. When you show up at Rhode Island you don’t think that’s what they will call you? Bair’s brother? As it is, I’m Lukyan Petrov’s son, so take your pick. It’ll be one or the other.” With a grim set to his shoulders, he chugged down the rest of his glass and refilled it.
I did the same and held mine out for a refill. “This shit is toxic.”
With a grimace, he lifted the glass to his mouth. “He has it stocked for me in the team locker room.” A shudder racked him. “I’m still not used to the taste.”
“Does it help?”
“Who the hell knows. The last thing I want when I skate off the ice is the saltiest water known to man that also scalds the shit out of my nose.”
“It must do something.” I flexed my hand as if the healing properties of the water would immediately transform me.
Bair released a chuckle and shook his head. “Still thinking he only has our best interest at heart. Oh, to be so na?ve.” He tried to tap my head, but I knocked his hand away.
“You don’t think he pushes us because he believes we have it in us?”
“More like believes in himself. We are only an extension of him, so any extension of him needs to perform accordingly.”
A cold sweat broke out along the back of my neck. If there was anyone who could anticipate what might await me for my infraction, it was Bair. “And I got benched during my last game.”
He took another between-the-teeth swallow of his spicy seawater. “Why did you do that?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Rebellion.”
I jerked to stare at him.
“Not rebellion.” He smiled, a wide toothy one. “A girl then.”
“How—”
“We’re simple creatures, aren’t we? Did she want you to prove she was more important than hockey?”
“What? No, she’d never ask me to do that. It was punishment for me.”
“Cheat on her?”
“No, never.”
“Forget her birthday?”
“No, I got her cupcakes over the summer.”
“Called her another girl’s name during sex?”
“Why do I feel like these all come from personal experience? And no, we’re not even together.”
“Ah.” He clamped his hand down on my shoulder. “I hope it got you the attention you wanted.”
“Not exactly.”
He laughed, ice cubes clinking against the side of his glass. “I can’t imagine you won’t wear her down. You’re a relentless little shit.” He rubbed at the same spot on his ribs he’d been holding when we’d had our face-off.
I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a dig or not. We’d been adversaries from the moment we realized the other existed.
“Why’d he make you come here?” I asked.
“Who knows.” Bair waved at the night air like somewhere up there was the answer, but it was too far away for us to ever grasp. “I’ve learned the hard way not to ask questions.” He refilled both our glasses.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He leveled his gaze at me, green eyes sharp and skeptical. A single head nod.
“What was it like growing up with him? Like from the time you were little?”
“I’d imagine a lot like how it is for you now. A lot of travel. A lot of hockey. A lot of expectations.”
“Growing up in a house like this had to have its perks though.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “What makes you think I had anything like this growing up?” He sighed and looked out over the pool. “I lived with my mother until boarding school. And it wasn’t in a house like this.”
“I thought…”
“I had a silver-spoon childhood?” He grinned and faced me, eyes no longer flinty. “No, not even close.”
“But he taught you Russian.”
“My mom taught me Russian. She followed him. Left everyone behind for him.”
“Where’s she now?”
He drained the last of the bottle. “Not here.”
“I didn’t know.”
He gave me a sad, knowing smile. “I know.” He shoved up out of the pool lounger and walked off with the empty water bottle. He stopped and glanced at me over his shoulder.
“If you can find happiness outside of a Lukyan Petrov mandate, then don’t let it go, but you can’t risk your ticket to freedom for anyone—not even a girl who invites our father’s…disappointment.”
In seven years, that was the longest conversation we’d ever had with each other, and I couldn’t help but feel we were more alike than I’d thought.
Later that night, from my balcony, I stared at Lilah’s house.
All the lights were off. I wanted to go to her, but I couldn’t risk my father deciding to rediscover that I was alive.
When he left again, I’d keep moving toward that happiness and hope that I wasn’t risking everything I’d committed my blood, sweat and tears to for another brush of her lips.