34. April 4, Monday #3
“So, I told them my part. My choices. My hope. I told them nothing about your heart, or your plans, or fostering, or Jayden. Those are yours.”
Her expression shifted. Not forgiveness exactly. Just a loosening around the edges. But it was better than the stubborn scowl from before.
“I also made a therapy appointment,” he said.
Zoey blinked.
“Tuesday,” he clarified. “Tomorrow.”
“With someone who is not Kayla?”
“She sent a name.”
“Of course, she did,” Zoey murmured, wrinkling her nose.
“She told me not to talk about hockey and pregame rituals.”
Zoey’s mouth twitched. “Smart woman.”
“I will try very hard not to argue with him about superstitions.”
“You absolutely will argue about them.”
“Probably,” he admitted.
A tiny, painful laugh escaped her before she caught it. It felt like sunlight through a cracked door.
“I did not call the foster agency,” he said, more quietly. “I wanted to. Very badly. I wanted to ask what I needed to do so my relationship with you wouldn’t slow down your process.”
Zoey’s mouth opened.
“But I didn’t because that’s your process. Your license. Your dream. If you want me anywhere near it, you invite me. If you forgive me.” Ilya’s throat tightened and he forced the rest out. “And if you don’t, I will still cheer for you from whatever distance you choose.”
His hands curled at his sides before he could stop them. He forced them open again, like letting go was something he had to practice.
Her eyes glittered, which only emphasized how red they still were from last night. “Oh,” she whispered.
“I did text Babs though,” Ilya added, then rushed on when Zoey stiffened.
“Nothing about Jayden. Nothing about your file. Just general information. How someone starts the fostering process. Background checks. MAPP classes. I probably used the wrong words and made Babs worry about my reading comprehension.”
Zoey’s face softened.
“I enjoyed reading your class materials with you. I like volunteering here. These kids remind me of me. Of Kira. Even if nothing ever heals with you, I think…I would like to do more with the older kids after I retire.”
Her mouth trembled.
“I’m not saying that because I think it earns me anything. Not because it magically fixes what I broke. I just want you to know where I am. Where I’m trying to go. You…you inspired me.”
Zoey looked at him for a long moment. Then she whispered, “You’ve been busy.”
Ilya shrugged—a small, useless motion that didn’t match how frantic his morning had been.
“I love you, Zoey,” he said, simple and bare.
“I’ve loved you since you debated a campus cop into letting a terrified freshman go with a warning instead of a citation.
Since you stapled posters for my charity broomball game at three in the morning because the copier jammed and I nearly set it on fire.
Since you walked into this place and made kids believe the universe wasn’t mad at them. ”
He exhaled, feeling something unclench for the first time in weeks.
“I’m tired of pretending I don’t. And I want everyone to know it. Especially you.”
Silence hummed between them.
Zoey’s eyes shone wet. Her expression was still hard for him to read.
“I can’t ask you to forget what I did,” he said softly.
“Or to trust me right away. I don’t expect this speech to erase the hurt.
But I am asking you for a chance to show you with actions, not just words, that I can be the man you saw when you looked at me on the ice with Jayden.
Not a fantasy version. This one. Scared, sometimes wrong, but willing to try again. ”
He held his hands slightly out to his sides, open.
“If you tell me to leave you alone,” he said, throat tight, “I will. If you tell me you’re done, I won’t chase you through your job, or your clinics, or your cases.
I won’t guilt you. You deserve peace. If that peace doesn’t include me, I’ll live with that.
But I wanted to put it out there and let you choose. ”
Ilya’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
“And if any part of you still wants what we almost had, I’m here. No more half measures. No more secrets. No more me deciding for you. Just me. Loving you as best I can and learning the rest along the way.”
Her breath hitched. For a long, suspended moment, Zoey said nothing. Ilya could almost see the gears turning in her brain; every wound, every hope, every practical consideration lining up like a row of kids waiting for their turn on the ice.
Then she looked down at the drawing in her hands. Her thumb ran over the awkward plus sign between the two stick figures. “Me plus Ilya equals team,” she murmured.
Ilya swallowed hard.
She looked back up at him, tears spilling over now, unapologetically. “I was so mad at you.” Her voice shook. “For deciding I couldn’t handle the risk. For making me feel like I was asking for too much just because I wanted honesty. For not trusting me to be a teammate.”
“I know,” he rasped. “You had every right to be.”
“I don’t need you to be fearless. I need you to stop making your fear my cage.”
Fuck.
Fuck him for being so stupid.
He squeezed his eyes shut for one second, then nodded through the pain. “I know.”
“I don’t want to bring a kid into a life built on someone else’s fear,” Zoey said. “If I’m going to fight for a family, I want a partner. Not a martyr.”
He winced but stayed silent.
Her expression softened, but only slightly. “And I meant it. I cannot do this with a man who disappears every time life gets too big. I already had that marriage. I already rebuilt from that.”
“I know.”
“If we try again,” Zoey said, voice thickening, “you don’t get to break my heart for my own good.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get to decide absence is safer.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get to hear bad news from me and immediately turn it into proof you should leave.”
Ilya’s throat tightened. “I might need help with that,” he said honestly. “But I will ask for it instead of running.”
Her eyes searched his. Good. Let her search. Let her see the fear. The damage. The want. The man underneath all of it, trying.
“I don’t know yet what my life is going to look like,” Zoey said.
“Hanna made me really take a step back. The hours I work. The support I don’t have yet.
The way I pour myself into everyone else’s emergencies before my own.
I don’t know if Jayden will ever sleep in that extra room.
I don’t know what kind of mom I’ll be, or when. ”
Her chin lifted. “But I do know I’m done building my life around someone else’s comfort level.”
Ilya loved her so much in that moment it felt almost violent.
“So, if we do this,” she said, “we do it as partners. You don’t get to protect me by leaving. I don’t get to fix you by erasing your fear. We talk. We screw up. We talk again. We show up. Even when it’s messy.”
It sounded like the most beautiful contract he ever heard.
“Yes,” he said immediately. “Please.”
A watery laugh slipped out of her. “Okay then,” she said. “We can…try.”
Try. The word was cautious. Earned. Not a door thrown open, but one…unlocked. He would take it. “Anything,” he agreed.
Zoey’s face crumpled into something soft and aching.
Hope surged through him, bright and fierce and terrifying. He took one step closer. Slowly. Because the old him wanted to swoop, and the new him knew better.
“Can I—” Ilya gestured vaguely, suddenly aware they were still in full view of half the team, the kids, and a porch-full of nosy teenagers.
Zoey rolled her eyes and tugged the front of his shirt. “Yes, you idiot.” And she pulled him down.
The kiss was not cinematic.
A smattering of people—players and kids—yelled, “Ew!” from the yard.
He didn’t care.
Her mouth was warm and familiar and sweet.
But as familiar as it was, this kiss was different. It wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t secret. Which was terrifying, because now that he said the words out loud, there was so much more to lose.
He kissed her anyway. Careful at first, then firmer when she leaned in. One hand came up to cradle the back of her head, the other settling at her waist, steady and real.
When they broke apart, both of them were breathing harder.
“Did we just make an inappropriate scene at a group home event?” she whispered, half mortified, half delighted.
“Maybe.” Ilya grinned, forehead resting against hers. “We’ll buy them ice cream. It will be fine. I already warned HR.”
She huffed out a laugh and swiped at her damp cheeks.
Madison clapped once, slow and sardonic, from the porch. “Took you long enough,” she yelled.
A series of other whoops and hollers came from the yard.
Zoey groaned and buried her face briefly in Ilya’s chest.
“This is going to be a nightmare to explain to Nina,” she muttered. “And the kids.”
“I’ll ask Babs,” he said, grinning into her hair. “She’ll know what to say.”
“Please don’t,” she replied, laughing for real now.
He held her a second longer, letting the feel of her sink in. The weight of the choice he made—that they had made—settled where it belonged.
Ilya eased back enough to see her face.
“I want to help,” he said. “With whatever comes next. Not take over. Not fix. Help however you need me to. Even if that means changing how I do this job. Talking to management. Taking fewer events. Saying no more. I’m not asking you to contort your life to make mine easier. I want to bend too.”
Her eyes softened in a way that made his knees feel unsteady.