Chapter 6 #2
I nod. “Yeah. Thought I’d go down to Harbor House.”
He nods because he already knows.
Harbor House is a domestic violence shelter. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t take gala money. It’s brick and worn and stubbornly still there even without all that, which is half the miracle.
My mother worked there when she was young as a social worker. She met my father there during one of his first PR-facing donations, back after Dad got divorced and had decided to jump in with both feet to expand Fairfax PR to Fairfax Media. He needed credibility as badly as capital.
He gave a speech. She corrected him afterward.
They fell in love in a way that only works when you don’t know what’s coming. From what I was told, he proposed in a week.
She moved into his Greenwich apartment, which he rented after the divorce, and Linda got the house in Darien, Connecticut. She kept working at Harbor House part-time because she refused to be absorbed whole. He used to drive her in sometimes, sit and wait while working in his car.
She died in an accident outside Greenwich when I was still small enough that my memories of her feel borrowed.
After that, we moved to the city, and he worked nonstop.
I go there enough to remind myself that some things existed before Fairfax, before boards, before damage control. The place where they fell in love.
Matteo nods once. “Want a car?”
“I’ll walk,” I say. “Clear my head.”
He watches me for a beat. “You okay?”
I think about the wine glass. The fork. Bianca’s whisper.
“I will be,” I say.
He steps aside to let me pass. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
I pull my coat tighter as I step inside.
“Hey Sofie. I wasn’t sure we’d see you today.” Rita, who has been the director for as long as I can remember, smiles as she buzzes me in.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I smile. “Dad’s other daughters are in town.”
“How are Anastasia and Drizella?”
I smile genuinely, “I missed you.”
“You do know the holidays aren’t the only days we’re here.”
“I know. Things are—”
“I’m messing with you. Go ahead in. We have some rambunctious kids still awake.”
“You’ll be here when—”
“I’m pulling the night shift,” she nods.
I head through the next set of locked doors and hear it first. Laughter. The full-bodied kind, the kind that can’t be curated.
I turn the corner and stop.
Aleks Kilovac is sitting cross-legged on the floor near the far wall.
No suit, no tie. He’s in black training pants and a dark gray Henley, sleeves pushed up, ink showing.
He’s surrounded by a small group of kids who have very clearly decided he belongs to them now.
He speaks softly, shifting his tone with ease, serious one second, animated the next.
Between sentences, he taps notes into his phone and shows them the screen.
One girl leans over his shoulder, her braids brushing his arm as she looks at it. A boy sits leaning in, shoulder pressed to Aleks’s chest.
He looks different here. Not guarded like he is in public, not assessing or brutal like he is on the ice, not menacing or filthy like he has been to me lately. Just present.
The room itself is worn but warm. Scuffed floors but scrubbed clean.
Mismatched chairs pushed against the walls.
Crayon drawings pinned crookedly to a corkboard, cities and suns and stick figures of families holding hands.
A radiator clicks in the corner, too loud, too old, one that will probably need to be replaced soon.
Rita passes by with a box of donated scarves balanced on her hip.
Her hair is pulled back with a pencil. There’s flour on her sleeve, probably from the bread she insists on baking herself every Tuesday, ‘They need to learn real-life skills, too. ’ She catches my expression and smiles like she’s seen it a hundred times.
“He comes every month,” she whispers. “Good with them. Listens.”
Interesting.
Aleks looks up like he feels someone looking. His eyes flick to the door, lock on mine, and for half a second, he freezes too.
Then he stands. Easy. Unhurried. Like this is exactly where he expected us to meet.
“Sofie,” he says softly.
The kids groan. “You’re leaving?”
“Just moving for a minute,” he says, crouching back down to their level. “I’ll be back.”
One of them squints at him. “You say that every time.”
He smiles. “And every time, I return.”
He steps toward me, voice low now. “You lost?”
I think about what he said last night. The way he said it. The fact that I let it live rent-free in my head. Enjoyed it… too much. I should probably thank him for the thirty-second reel that absolutely played in my memory during my ‘extended bath’ last night, but that is never happening.
“Why are you at my shelter?”
His head tilts. “Your shelter?”
“I didn’t know you came here.” I scowl.
“I didn’t know it was yours,” he shoots back. “Or I’d have avoided it.”
Flustered, I shake my head. “My parents met here. It’s…” I stop. “It’s where I come.”
Something about that makes his mouth twist, brief and amused. Then I catch it.
“What are you, twelve?”
He shrugs. “Ten. Sometimes ten and a half.”
“You’re in America,” I say, walking past him. “We measure in inches, not centimeters.”
I damn near trip when he laughs. Actually laughs.
“What’s so funny?” one of the girls asks.
“His face,” I say before I can stop myself.
That does it. He laughs harder. The kids laugh too. And yeah, fine, I laugh with them.
One of the boys huffs. “Stop flirting with the pretty girl. You said you’d help me learn German.”
“I will,” Aleks promises, glancing back at me as he passes. “And I don’t flirt.”
A little girl tugs on my sleeve. Her hands are warm, her stance confident. “You good at math?”
“I am.”
“Wanna help me?”
I kneel beside her, already reaching for the pencil. “I would love to.”
He offers a ride, I refuse, of course I do.
“It’s not even nine, I’ve walked this path a million times, and I will a million more.”
“Don’t be a pain in the ass. It’s not safe.”
I fix my buttons, which I fastened incorrectly, because I’m annoyed. My gloves are gone, traitors. My pride is doing most of the work.
“I’m fine,” I say, lifting my chin.
Aleks stares at me. Not angry. Just assessing. Like he’s lining up a hit.
“It’s cold,” he states.
“I noticed.”
“It’s late.” He repeats.
“I have eyes.”
“Where is your driver?” He seethes.
“It’s Thanksgiving. He has the day off.”
He nods once, sharp. Decision made.
I step off the curb, nose pointed skyward, boots crunching over salted concrete. I don’t make it half a block before I hear the engine.
This one doesn’t purr. It rumbles.
A black Chevy Tahoe Z71 pulls up beside me, tall, squared off, sitting on the street like it owns it.
Mud-ready tires, no shine, no excess. The kind of vehicle you drive when you don’t care what others think.
It’s about the roads and the weather. The fact that I find it sexy offends me in a way I cannot explain, nor do I care to.
The window drops.
“Get in,” Aleks says.
“No.”
He studies me for a beat, then his mouth curves slightly. Not a smile. A warning.
“Fine.”
The window goes up, the engine growls, and he guns it, swings ahead of me, and turns right onto 6th.
“Thank God,” I grumble as I dig in my pockets searching for my gloves again to no avail. “I have pockets.” I remind myself and keep walking.
When I get to the corner and head right, I cannot believe my eyes.
The damn fool has hopped the curb like it’s nothing. The SUV settles there, solid, blocking my path completely, and the passenger door opens.
“Get in,” he says calmly. “Now.”
“You cannot drive onto the sidewalk.”
“I can,” he replies. “And I will again if you don’t stop being so stubborn.”
I stop short, arms crossing, breath fogging. “You’re a complete asshole.”
“Yes,” he agrees easily. “And you’re cold.”
The interior light spills out, and I see black leather, thickly stitched. Everything in his vehicle is cold and built for winter, and Aleks Kilovac matches that vibe.
I push back that offensive feeling that I couldn’t explain, the one that has turned into a knot that is tightening real low in my belly, and I realize how this looks, and it’s not good.
I quickly climb in, “If this situation ends up on the internet after that damn near viral video of you being all gooey with Savannah, it will piss me off.”
“My what?” he asks.
I grab his phone, “Password.”
“I don’t have a password,” he grumbles as he tries to snatch his phone. Tries. He may be big and strong and yummy looking in that I want to fuck the bad boy way I have avoided all my life, but when I’m in stealth mode, I’m unstoppable.
“That’s completely irresponsible,” I say as I turn, blocking him and opening his IG.
“Killer and baby,” I say as I type it into the search.
“I would highly advise you not to type shit like that in my phone.”
“Worried it’ll fuck up your FYP? That pro hockey bad boy with a filthy mouth looking for hook up won’t pop?” I gasp when I see—
“I told you.” He snaps. “No one needs to see that shit, not even you.”
I turn and hold the phone up, smiling, “You went viral.”
He snarls, teeth bared, the whole works. “That’s nearly as bad.”
“You have no idea what kind of work it takes to make something like that happen and how this little tantrum could mess it all up.” I put on my seat belt, “Now go before this stunt goes viral and muddies up the good that post did.” He just looks at me. “What?”
“Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable in the back,” his lips curl again. “Tsarina.”
Fuck it and fuck him I think as I climb over the console and into the back. “Huh, you’re right. It’s much comfier back here.” I cross my arms and sit back smugly. “Fairfax Media building, please. And driver, please pull around to the back. The private resident’s entrance is there.”
“Of course you live in a tower high above the world.” He huffs as he pulls off the curb and onto 6th.
“Exactly, it makes it much easier to look down on everyone around me from my place of privilege.”
As he spits obscenities under his breath and the beast of a truck powers over the curb and back onto the road, I realize I have Aleks Kilovac’s phone in my hand.
I shouldn’t peak, but then again, he shouldn’t have been such a dick.