Chapter 7
Aaron
I can still feel his hand on mine.
Standing in the hotel elevator at seven in the morning, showered and dressed and holding a coffee I haven’t tasted, and all I can think about is Sasha’s palm pressed flat against mine under the covers. How his fingers curled around when he thought I was falling asleep too.
I booked it back to my room right away, not that I was going to be able to sleep after that.
The elevator dings. I check my reflection in the mirrored doors — dark circles, red ears, the general look of a guy who got three hours of sleep because he spent the other five staring at a hotel ceiling replaying every sound Sasha made when he came.
Stop it. I take a sip of coffee. Burn my tongue.
Diego’s assistant meets me in the lobby and walks me to the studio two blocks over, talking the entire time about lighting setups and shot lists and something called a “mood board” that apparently dictates the entire day. I nod in the right places. My brain is on last night.
The studio is a converted warehouse — high ceilings, concrete floors, equipment everywhere. Diego’s already set up camp in the corner, phone in one hand, iced latte in the other, looking like he slept nine hours and moisturized. He’s been here since dawn coordinating the whole thing.
“There he is.” He claps my shoulder. “You ready? This is going to be huge. The brand loves the concept — two rivals, same team, competing for the top spot. They want intensity, they want tension, they want —”
“Hate,” I say.
“Exactly. Controlled, photogenic hate.” He grins. “You and Sasha are going to crush this.”
Sasha isn’t here yet.
I let the stylist sit me down in front of a mirror ringed with lights. She’s got a whole rack of athletic gear behind her — compression shirts, track pants, everything in blacks and grays. She hands me a shirt and I pull it on. It fits like it was tailored to my body, which it probably was.
“Arms up,” the stylist says. She tugs the fabric, smooths it across my shoulders, steps back to look. “Good. Don’t move.”
She’s pinning something at my waist when I hear him.
Not his voice. His laugh. Coming from somewhere near the entrance, low and easy, followed by someone else laughing — the photographer, maybe.
Sasha has a way of making people laugh within thirty seconds of meeting them.
It’s annoying. It’s also the most attractive thing about him, which is saying something, because the bar is high.
He rounds the corner into wardrobe and my stomach flips.
He’s in a white compression shirt that’s doing something criminal to his shoulders. His hair is pushed back, still damp. Those blue eyes sweep the room, land on me, and hold.
Three hours ago I was in his bed. Three hours ago his hand was in mine and I was pretending to be asleep because I didn’t know how to be awake and that close to him at the same time.
His mouth twitches. Just barely. Then he drops into the chair next to mine and says, loud enough for the room, “Kelly. You look tired.”
His accent is always thicker in real life than when he’s doing his best to speak perfect English on camera. It hits different at eight in the morning, two feet away, when I can still feel his mouth on mine from last night. My hands tighten around my coffee cup.
“I slept fine.”
“Did you?” He stretches his legs out, arms folded behind his head like he’s posing for a catalog already. The stylist hands him a black shirt and he pulls it on without standing up, the fabric dragging across his abs before it settles. “I slept wonderfully. Best sleep I’ve had in weeks.”
And I know why.
“Great,” I say. “Happy for you.”
The stylist starts working on his hair and he submits to it with zero resistance — tips his head back when she asks, closes his eyes, makes a low pleased sound when she runs product through it. He knows exactly how charming he is.
“You have great hair,” the stylist tells him.
“I know,” he says. Not cocky. Just factual.
I watch her fingers in his hair and my hands clench.
He catches my eye in the mirror. One eyebrow lifts. The corner of his mouth curves.
I look away. My ears are burning.
The photographer is a woman named Jules who speaks exclusively in hand gestures and declarative statements.
“Fire. I need fire.” She positions us on the first set — a stark gray backdrop, dramatic lighting from above. “You’re rivals. You hate each other. Give me tension.”
Sasha’s jaw sets. His eyes go cold. Just like that — a switch flipped — and the guy who was flirting with the stylist five minutes ago is gone. In his place is Sasha Vorontsovsky, Number 91, the Siberian who stares down opponents and makes them flinch.
My pulse picks up. I’ve seen this face across the ice. I’ve seen it in the tunnel after games. It shouldn’t still do this to me.
I match it. Set my jaw. Narrow my eyes.
“Good,” Jules says. “Closer. Aaron, turn your shoulders toward him.”
I turn. We’re two feet apart now. He smells so good. Just like I noticed last night.
“Sasha, chin down. Aaron — hold that.” The shutter clicks. “More intensity. Like you want to destroy each other.”
Sasha’s eyes lock onto mine. Full performance mode. Cold, competitive, lethal.
Then his pinky brushes my hip. Just once. Light enough that nobody could see it.
I fight back a grin.
“That smirk — Aaron, keep that,” Jules says. “That’s perfect.”
It’s not a smirk. It’s me trying not to smile because my alleged rival just touched my hip like we’re passing notes in class.
“Now back to back.” Jules waves us into position. “Arms crossed. Look away from each other.”
We turn. His back presses against mine — shoulder blades, spine, the warmth of him through two layers of fabric. I cross my arms. Stare into the light.
“This is very dramatic,” Sasha says quietly. Only I can hear him. His accent rolls through the whisper, low and warm against the back of my neck, and every hair on my arms stands up. “I feel like an action movie poster.”
“Stop talking.”
“Coming this fall. Two men. One team. Unlimited sexual tension.”
I cover my mouth with my hand so I don’t lose it. “I swear to God, Sasha.”
“What? This is the tagline Diego would write if we let him.”
“Aaron, you’re losing the intensity,” Jules calls out. “Bring back the jaw.”
I clench my jaw. Sasha’s spine vibrates against mine. He’s laughing. Silently, but I can feel it through every vertebra.
“Aaron, perfect. Sasha, give me more edge.”
Sasha shifts against my back. Drops his voice to a whisper. “She wants edge. Should I tell her about last night? Very edgy.”
“I will kill you.”
“See, that is the energy she wants.” His shoulder blades press into mine. Full professional, full performance, while his voice stays just for me. “I think you are a better actor than you think, Kelly. Your ‘I hate you’ face is very convincing. Almost hurts my feelings.”
“Your feelings are fine.”
“How do you know? Maybe I am sensitive.”
I try not to snort as I laugh. Jules clicks the shutter three times fast.
“Beautiful. Whatever you two are doing, keep it.”
We’re standing in a room full of people and cameras while Sasha Vorontsovsky whispers stupid things against my spine and I try not to laugh so hard I ruin a six-figure campaign.
They change the setup. New backdrop, new lighting, a bench between us. Jules wants us sitting, leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring each other down from opposite ends.
“Aggression,” she says. “Competitive edge. I want the viewer to feel the rivalry.”
Sasha delivers. He leans forward, jaw tight, those blue eyes burning into mine like I owe him money. It’s good. It’s really good. The camera loves him — I can tell from how fast the shutter’s clicking.
Then, right before a take, he mouths a word at me.
Please.
My entire body goes hot. My face, my neck, my ears, all of it — because please is my word. Please is what I said on my knees last night when his hand was in my hair and I wanted —
“Aaron?” Jules lowers the camera. “You okay? Your face just did something.”
“I’m fine.” My voice is too high. I clear my throat. “I’m good.”
“Take five, everyone.” Jules waves a hand. “Reset the lights on the left.”
Sasha stands up and stretches and doesn’t look at me, but his mouth is doing the thing where he’s biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.
He walks toward the craft services table and I wait a full thirty seconds before following him.
Because I have self-control. I have discipline.
I am a top college hockey athlete and a premed student and I do not chase a six-foot-two Russian hockey player across a room because he mouthed a word at me.
Thirty seconds. Then I follow him.
He’s pouring coffee near a rack of lighting equipment, partially hidden from the rest of the studio. I stop beside him and pick up a bottle of water I don’t need.
“You’re going to get us caught,” I say.
“I didn’t do anything.” He takes a sip. Totally calm.
“You mouthed —” I look around. Nobody close. “You know what you mouthed.”
“I was mouthing the word freeze. Jules says it a lot. I was practicing.”
“That’s not what you —”
“My English is not perfect, Aaron.” He blinks at me. Innocent. Absolutely, completely full of it. “Perhaps I got the word wrong. What word did you think I said?”
I stare at him. He stares back. His eyes are enormous and blue and sparkling with barely contained joy.
“You think this is funny,” I say.
“I think this is the funniest day of my life.” He puts down the coffee cup. “Diego out there saying ‘competitive fire’ every five minutes. Jules telling us to look like we hate each other. And you —” He gestures at my face. “Turning colors like a traffic light every time I look at you.”
“I’m not turning colors.”
“Aaron. Your ears are the color of a fire truck.” He reaches out like he’s going to touch one and I smack his hand away.
“Don’t.”
“See? Intensity.” He grins again. “Diego is right. Very hostile.”
A production assistant rounds the corner with a clipboard and we separate — him back to the coffee, me to the water bottle I’m not drinking. The PA doesn’t look twice. Two rivals refueling between takes. Nothing to see.
Sasha catches my eye over the PA’s head. Mouths something.
Fire truck.
I have to turn around and face the wall.
The afternoon is worse. Or better. I can’t tell anymore.
Jules wants us in a face-off setup — chest to chest, staring each other down, so close our foreheads are almost touching. She keeps saying closer and nobody on the crew seems to realize that closer is a terrible idea because every inch disappears another layer of my ability to function.
I can see his freckles. I can see the lighter ring of blue-green around his pupils. I can feel his breath on my mouth.
“Incredible,” Jules says from behind the camera. “The tension is unreal. Diego, are you seeing this?”
“I’m seeing it.” Diego sounds like he’s witnessing a religious experience. “This is the campaign right here. This is the whole brand.”
Sasha’s hand comes up. Grips the front of my shirt. Pulls me in half an inch, like he’s about to shove me. Rivalry. Aggression. Controlled, photogenic hate.
His thumb moves against my chest. A tiny circle. Hidden by his fist.
My breath catches.
“Hold it — hold it —” The shutter fires rapid. “That’s the shot. That’s the ad.”
Sasha lets go. Steps back. Adjusts his shirt like nothing happened.
Diego is practically levitating. “Boys. Boys. The chemistry reads as pure rivalry. This is going to blow up.”
Pure rivalry. Right. That’s what this is.
I excuse myself to the bathroom and stand at the sink for two minutes splashing cold water on my face.
When I come back, Sasha is leaning against the wall outside the bathroom door. Arms crossed. Waiting.
“You went to splash water on your face,” he says. “To regain your composure.”
“I went to use the bathroom.”
“Your face is wet, Aaron.”
I shove past him. He falls into step beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost brush.
“For the record,” he says, low and amused, “I also think the campaign is going well. Very natural. Very authentic.”
“Shut up.”
“I am complimenting your acting. You are very talented.”
“Sasha.”
“What? I am being supportive.”
I look at him. He looks back. And I can’t help it — the laugh comes out before I can stop it. A real one. Not the polite version I use on reporters and coaches and my mother. The stupid kind that makes my eyes crinkle and my shoulders shake.
His face changes. Just for a second. Then it’s gone and he’s Sasha again, easy and casual, already walking back toward the lights.
“I hate you,” I tell his back.
He doesn’t turn around. “Face it. You like me, Aaron. A lot.”
My heart does something I don’t have a name for.
We wrap at five.
Jules shows us some of the shots on her laptop and they’re good. Really good. We look like two guys who want to rip each other apart. The lighting picks up every sharp angle of Sasha’s jaw, every hard line of my shoulders.
Diego calls it “franchise-level content” and sends six texts before we’ve left the room.
Sasha shakes Jules’s hand, thanks the crew, charms the stylist one more time. I watch him do it. The ease of him. The way he makes everyone feel like the most important person in the room and then moves on to the next one without it ever seeming calculated.
He’s good at this. He’s good at all of it.
The crew starts breaking down lights. Diego’s on a call in the corner. The studio is emptying out.
Sasha ends up next to me by the door. Close enough that our arms almost touch. Not close enough to raise questions.
“You laughed today,” he says. Quiet. Just for me.
“You kept trying to make me laugh. That’s different.”
“You laughed.” He looks at me knowingly. The performance is gone. No cameras, no bravado, no Russian menace. Just Sasha, looking at me like I’m the interesting part of a day he spent in front of cameras. “You don’t do that enough. The real one. Not the one you use on other people.”
My throat tightens.
“I like making you laugh,” he says. Simple. No weight on it. He pulls on his jacket and pushes through the door into the Chicago afternoon like he didn’t just gut me.
I stand there. Door swinging shut. Chest tight.
Diego appears at my shoulder. “Flight’s at four. Car’s out front in twenty. You good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m good.”
He claps my back and walks away with his phone already at his ear.
I’m not good. I’m standing in an empty studio in Chicago and my hands are shaking because a guy who is supposed to be my rival told me he likes making me laugh.
I pick up my bag. Follow Diego to the car.
The whole ride to the airport, I sit behind the driver and stare out the window and think about Sasha’s face when he said it.
He’s going to ruin me.
I think I’m going to let him.