Chapter 20
Sasha
Lily Rafferty laughs the way she does everything — with her whole body, head tipped back, one hand pressed flat against her chest like she’s trying to hold the sound inside. Dark curls against bare shoulders. The deep red dress she did not have to wear tonight but absolutely did.
She’s stunning.
I am not blind. I have never been blind.
“Stop,” she says, still laughing, reaching for her wine. “You did not say that to the ref.”
“I did. In Russian. He had no idea. He just looked at me and blew the whistle, and I skated away very calmly.”
“What did you actually say?”
“I told him his mother was disappointed in his career.”
She laughs again — harder this time, the kind that makes her eyes water — and I pour her a second glass of the Malbec.
The restaurant is quiet. A steakhouse in downtown Boston — dark wood, white tablecloths, heavy silverware.
She’s home from her ballet program in New York for the Christmas break, and when she texted me asking if I wanted to get dinner, I said yes because I like Lily and because the alternative was another night in the dorm staring at my phone waiting for someone to text me back.
Someone specific. Someone who would be afraid to be seen having a romantic dinner in a restaurant with me. Aaron.
“I watch every game, you know.” She sets her glass down and tilts her head, and her dark brown eyes hold mine with a steadiness that is not casual. “Online, when I should be studying. My roommate thinks I’m obsessed.”
“Your roommate is observant.”
“She thinks I’m obsessed with hockey.” Her smile sharpens. Just slightly. Just enough. “I haven’t corrected her.”
The heat of that settles somewhere low in my chest. She is not subtle, and she is not trying to be. The red dress. The heels. The perfume I’ve been catching in waves every time she shifts in her chair. She wants me to know she’s interested. She wants me to look.
I am looking. And I’m thinking about green eyes.
“Tell me about St. Petersburg,” I say, because I need to steer this somewhere I can control. Her semester abroad is safe territory. Or it should be.
She tries out her Russian on me — imperfect, too careful with the consonants, too American in the vowels — and it’s endearing. She studied. She practiced. She learned my language, and I haven’t heard Russian from a beautiful woman in longer than I want to admit.
“Your accent is better than Coach said.”
“My accent is terrible and you’re being generous.”
“I’m always generous.”
“You’re always charming. That’s not the same thing.” She takes a sip of wine and her lipstick leaves a faint crescent on the rim. “My dad warned me about that, actually. He’s charming, Lily. Don’t let him charm you.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Here I am.” She sets the glass down. “To be fair, he also said you’re the best player he’s ever coached. So maybe his judgment isn’t as reliable as he thinks.”
“He said that?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. He also said you’re impossible to coach and you argue with every call.”
“I argue with the bad calls. The good ones I accept graciously.”
“Dad says there’s no such thing as a good call in your opinion.”
“Your father is a wise man.”
Her knee brushes mine under the table. It could be an accident. It isn’t.
She’s telling me about her ballet recital — Giselle, second act, a role she’s been working toward for two years — and her eyes light up the way athletes’ eyes light up when they talk about the thing they love.
I know that look. I see it in the mirror.
I see it in Aaron when he talks about a perfect cycle play or a face-off he won clean.
Aaron.
“How close are you to becoming an American these days?” She says it casually, cutting a piece of steak. “Dad told me they’ve been dragging their feet on your paperwork. He says you’ve been stressed about it.”
Coach talks about me to his daughter. Interesting.
“It’s moving. Slowly. The lawyers are expensive and the government is designed to make you give up.” I take a sip of wine. “But I’m not giving up.”
“Good.” She sets her fork down. “Because you belong here, Sasha. Anyone can see that.”
She means it. And the thing I’ve been keeping in the back of my head since the library — since Aaron’s jaw locked up and his highlighter snapped — shoves its way forward.
I could marry her. Ask her right now, over steak and Malbec, and she’d listen.
She might even say yes. A quick legal marriage.
A more certain path to citizenship, instead of just a work visa after graduation.
No more lawyers bleeding my account dry.
No more waiting for a government that couldn’t care less about one more Russian hockey player.
She’s handing me the opening. All I have to do is take it.
My fingers tighten on the wine glass.
Do it, you idiot. What are you waiting for?
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
She’s watching me with those dark eyes, and I can’t turn this dinner into a proposal she didn’t ask for. She wore the red dress for me, not for my paperwork. She deserves better than being useful to me.
“Excuse me for a moment.” I set my napkin on the table. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t be long.” She says it lightly. But her eyes say something else.
The men’s room is marble and dim lighting. I stand at the sink and look at myself in the mirror. Dark blue shirt, top button undone, my hair doing the thing it always does in dry winter air. My face is flushed from the wine.
I pull out my phone.
Five texts from Aaron. Stacked on top of each other — timestamps spanning the last forty-five minutes. He’s been typing while I was pouring wine and laughing at my own jokes.
The first one: Aaron: I know you have your dinner with Lily tonight.
The second: Aaron: And I know I have no right to say this.
The third: Aaron: But I don’t want you to do anything with her. I know that’s selfish. I know I’m the one who can’t even hold your hand in public. I know I haven’t earned the right to ask.
The fourth: Aaron: But I don’t want to share my boyfriend with anyone else.
I stop breathing.
My boyfriend.
He’s never said that before. Not once. Not out loud, not in a text, not in the dark when it would have been easy. And he just typed it into his phone and hit send.
My hands are shaking. I’m standing in a restaurant bathroom with my phone in my hands and my pulse is hammering and a beautiful girl in a red dress is waiting for me at the table and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything except these four texts and the boy who sent them.
The fifth message: Aaron: So. Just. Please don’t.
Three words. No hedging. Just please don’t.
I read them again. All five. Then a third time.
And the fourth one. My boyfriend. Not us. Not this thing. My boyfriend.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. There are a hundred things I could type — something funny, something that would make him blush and delete the conversation, something in Russian that would make his ears turn red.
But he said please. And he said boyfriend. And those two words together, from Aaron, are worth more than anything Lily’s red dress is offering.
I put the phone in my pocket. Wash my hands. Splash cold water on my face until my pulse comes down to something manageable. Run wet fingers through my hair. Look at myself in the mirror.
I know what I’m about to do. I’ve known since the third text.
Lily is checking her own phone when I sit down. She puts it away quickly, smiles, and the smile is the same one she’s been giving me all night — warm, a little daring, full of invitation.
“I was starting to think you’d climbed out the window.”
“The window was too small. I considered it.”
She laughs. The wine is still half full. The candle between us has burned down to a low, steady glow. She reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine.
“I’ve had a really great time tonight, Sasha.”
Her fingers are warm. Her dark eyes are steady. I know what she’s asking.
I turn my hand over. Hold hers. She inhales — just slightly, just enough to tell me she thought this was going one way.
“I have to tell you something,” I say. “And I should have said it before you put on that dress.”
Her smile wavers. Not gone, but uncertain. She’s reading me, and she already knows.
“As beautiful and fun as you are to be with — and you are, Lily, genuinely — I can’t let this go any further.” I hold her gaze because she deserves that. “I’m seeing someone.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Her fingers don’t move inside mine. Silverware clinks. A kitchen door swings shut.
“Someone at Ashford?”
“It’s complicated.”
She nods. Slowly. Her fingers squeeze mine once, then release.
“I appreciate you telling me.” She picks up her wine. Pauses. “I hope she knows she’s a lucky girl.”
I pick up my glass. Take a long sip. The Malbec tastes different now. Warmer.
“Can I drive you home?”
“You don’t have to —”
“I want to. I want to hear more of your Russian.”
She smiles. Smaller this time. Sadder. But real. “Okay.”
I pay the check. Help her into her coat. Hold the door and walk her to my car. The cold hits as soon as we’re outside — December in Boston, the kind that aches in your lungs.
She’s quiet on the drive to Coach’s house.
The radio is playing something soft and American that I don’t recognize.
Her hands are folded in her lap, and in the dashboard light her face looks younger.
More like the girl who showed up at the rink sophomore year with her dad’s whistle around her neck and a copy of Anna Karenina in her bag.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, about halfway there. “She’s got good taste.”
“In what?”
“In men.” She glances at me. “Obviously.”
I almost smile. “Obviously.”
“And if it doesn’t work out —” She pauses. Chooses her words. “You know where to find me.”
“I do.”
When I pull up to the curb, the porch light is on.
“Thank you for dinner,” she says. Her hand rests on the door handle. “And for being honest with me.”
“Thank you for the Russian. Your accent really is terrible.”
She laughs. Short, warm. “Merry Christmas, Sasha.”
“Merry Christmas, Lily.”
She gets out. Walks up the path. The heels click on the pavement and she pulls her coat tighter against the cold.
The front door opens and I catch a glimpse of Coach’s silhouette in the doorway — big shoulders, that stance he has, the one where he’s always half-watching even when he’s not coaching — before the door closes and the porch light stays on, steady and warm against the dark.
I sit in the car. The engine is running. The heat is on. The windshield is fogging at the edges and the radio is still playing that soft American song I don’t know.
I turn it off.
I pull out my phone.
Aaron’s texts are still there. All five of them. My boyfriend. Please don’t.
I type slowly. Carefully.
Me: I didn’t. I told her I’m seeing someone.
Send.
Then:
Me: Book a flight to New York. Arrive December 22nd. I’ll send you the address. Don’t ask questions.
Send.
Then:
Me: I’ll take care of everything.
I put the phone on the passenger seat. Lean back against the headrest. Close my eyes.
The car is warm and the street is quiet and somewhere in Aaron’s rented house off campus in Hartley, Aaron Kelly is reading my texts with his jaw clenched and his heart hammering and that stupid worried crease between his eyebrows.
My boyfriend. He said it. Finally.
My phone buzzes. I look down.
One text: Aaron: December 22nd. I’ll be there.
I start the car. Pull away from the curb. The Raffertys’ porch light shrinks in my rearview mirror and the road back to campus is empty.
December 22nd. New York. A whole night together — no sneaking, no alarms, no lies. I’m going to wake up next to Aaron Kelly, and this time, neither of us is leaving.