Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) (15 page)

“Later, honey. When everyone is drunk.”

“This will be the longest night ever. Ugh. I should try to smooth things over with Coach.” Alex patted her shoulder, trying to make it appear casual, but his hand remained too long and ended up caressing. As he walked to the other side of the room, Stephanie’s body urged her to follow. Instead, she grounded herself by drinking her cocktail and surveying the display table. She filled a plate with tortilla chips, salsa, and cheese and crackers, her attention a thread caught on him, her heart longing. No matter whom he was talking to, now and then he met her gaze across the room. Sometimes he winked. Sometimes he licked his lips in a way that let her know he was thinking of his face between her legs. Mostly, he held her stare for a few moments and smiled, and if the alcohol wasn’t making her giddy enough, those dimples were.

As the liquor flowed, the party loosened up. It didn’t take long for Alex to hit the ersatz dance floor, a space fashioned by the removal of some of the tables and chairs, encouraging others to do the same. Soon he had shed his blazer, rolled his sleeves, and broken a sweat. The puck bunnies were smoothing their hair and pulling the necklines of their dresses down to expose more cleavage. Never mind each of them was there with someone else. Stephanie tightened her grip on her glass.

“Look at him, showing off for you. He’s like Tom Hiddleston out there.” Nicole bumped her shoulder against Stephanie’s. “He is the cutest thing. He’ll be all over the internet tomorrow.”

“He always did like to dance.”

“He’s nimble for a guy his size. And I see he’s coerced my dear husband to join in. Have fun tonight.” Nicole flashed a sly smile before making another trip to the bar.

“Hi.”

Stephanie chomped a cracker. A young man around six feet tall, wearing a dark blue suit and with brown hair slicked back from his face, held out his hand.

“I’m Tyler. Couldn’t help but notice you. You’re, uh…tall.” His smile widened.

Tyler…Long? The one who was arrested with Alex at the strip club.
Oh God.
Of all the people who would talk to her. “Stephanie. Nice to meet you.”

“So who’s your date?”

“It’s a little complicated.”

“Interesting. Well,
someone
had to invite you. Let’s see if I can figure it out. You look too classy for most of these guys.”

Stephanie snickered. Fashion-conscious players like Alex were a rarity in a sport notorious for mullets and missing teeth. He’d landed on numerous best-dressed lists.

“Or you’re related to someone. Hmm.” Tyler tapped his cleft chin. “Let me think about this. In the meantime, can I get you another drink?”

“Please. I’d love a glass of merlot.”

“Coming right up.”

She caught Nicole’s attention as she and Jacob spoke with the general manager. Nicole pursed her lips, though a smile sneaked through. “Help me,” Stephanie mouthed. Nicole cocked her head toward Alex, who was dancing up a storm.

All too soon, Tyler returned with the wine. “So, Stephanie, what do you do?”

She might as well get used to the question. “I write for a local magazine.”

“Interesting. What do you write?”

“A little bit of everything. My main interest is sports.”

“Is that what brought you here tonight?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll all stay on our best behavior. Not like last year.” He chuckled and sipped his rum and Coke.

“What happened last year?”

Tyler set a hand on the small of her back and led her away from the table. Disregarding the rules of personal space, he stood shoulder to shoulder with her. Stephanie shied away, but he already reeked of alcohol and didn’t notice her attempt to escape. Across the room, Alex guzzled some water and snatched his blazer from the back of a chair. “I wouldn’t want any of the guilty parties to overhear. Anyway, so—”

“Hey, Stephanie.”

Alex. Jealousy shaded his features, but that too seemed to have escaped Tyler’s attention.

“Hey.”

“Sasha, have you met Stephanie?”

His suspicious gaze fell on her. “You could say that. Could you excuse us for a minute, Tyler?”

“Yeah. Sure. Just don’t try to steal her away.” Tyler grinned and drifted toward the gathering around Coach.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked.

“Talking.”

“Do you have to talk to
him
?”

“Is it him, or would it be any guy?”

“Why can’t we stop this bullshit? Even if you did lose your job, I can take care of you—”

“I need to take care of myself, Alex. And I happen to like my job. Don’t you understand that?”

Alex rolled his eyes and with a disgusted grunt banged his glass on the table. He stalked away.

“Wow, he’s pissed. You turn him down or something? I hear he’s not used to that.”

“Excuse me, Tyler.” Stephanie grabbed her coat, then circled the lobby and café and spotted Alex outside the front entrance, puffing on a cigarette. She pushed open the door. A gust of cold air pebbled her skin.

“I guess you probably don’t want my company right now.”

“That’s the funny thing.” He blew out a cloud of smoke. “It’s the only company I really want.”

“Why are you so jealous?”

“Really? Every guy in there was staring at you, even the married ones.”

“They were staring at me because I’m six-one in these heels.”

“Oh my God. That is both the cutest and most frustrating thing about you. You don’t know how beautiful you are. And do not—” he wagged a finger at her, “—say you aren’t.”

“You’re getting feisty again.” She kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Why can’t we tell everyone? You can do better than that magazine anyway. What are they going to do, fire you because we dated in high school too? As long as no one knows, guys will keep hitting on you.”

“Vice versa, Alex. And way more in your case. You do remember who you are, right? Do you think it doesn’t completely suck for me to see that?”

“Tell your boss, then. He can’t dictate your personal life, and it’s not as if I paid you to say nice things about me.”

“I’ll figure something out, okay?”

“I’m sorry for getting jealous. If it’s not already obvious, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” He scuffed his sole against the cement and took a long drag, then puffed out smoke from the side of his mouth. “I’m an idiot.”

“Far from it.”

Alex stubbed out the cigarette in a receptacle beside him. He flushed and stared at the pavement. “No, I am. I haven’t said it yet, have I? Not in English, anyway. God, I’m so in love with you, and I—ˮ

She pulled him by his woven silk tie closer to her. “I love you,” she said against his lips. “And there is no one else I want to be with.”

“Well that’s good.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Because you’re stuck with me.”

“Forever.”

“If you’ll have me.”

She kissed him gently, lingering. “Oh, I’ll have you. Come along, Mr. Volynsky.” She clasped his hand and led him across the parking lot.

Chapter Fourteen

Alex’s side of the bed was empty, the comforter rumpled and the sheets cold. The shower was running. His baritone drifted from the bathroom, over the shower noise:

“
Gori, gori, moya zvezda,

Zvezda lyubvi, Privetnaya!

Ty u menya odna zavetnaya,

Drugoy ne budet nikogda.
”

She put on his T-shirt and padded to the en suite, then poked her head into the bathroom so she could watch. At her angle, the glass pane in the center didn’t obscure her view of Alex’s body, a body the gods themselves would envy, deserving of its own religion.

“
Soydyot li noch na zemlyu yasnaya,

Zvyozd mnogo bleshchet v nebesakh,

No ty odna, moya prekrasnaya,

Gorish v otradnykh mne luchakh.
”

He pushed his hair back, his biceps flexing, the water cascading over his broad shoulders and chest, his abs and obliques and down his narrow hips, over his thighs, winding down his long legs and trickling off the sheathed head of his penis. He tipped his head back into the spray, his expression one of serenity. A rare moment to himself where he need do nothing but unwind and embrace it.

“
Zvezda nadezhdy blagodatnaya,

Zvezda lyubvi volshebnykh dney,

Ty budesh vechno nezakatnaya

V dushe toskuyushchey moyey.
”

Alex squeezed some body wash into his hands and soaped himself with unhurried strokes, as though he knew she was watching. He nudged his foreskin back, exposing the lustrous tip of his cock and thoroughly washing it. As he glanced toward the bedroom, Stephanie flattened herself against the wall.

When she peeked around the corner again, his gaze fell on her. He shut off the water. “You’re in for it now.” He laughed. Stephanie darted toward the bedroom door, but Alex caught her around her waist and carried her, squealing and flailing, to the bed. Still dripping wet, he slung her down and climbed on top, shifting his hips until he had worked himself inside her. “Going somewhere?”

She closed her eyes, reveling in his weight on her, the hardness inside her, and the swift and effortless rhythm to which their bodies submitted. His lips, his tongue, effecting their magic. The burning sigh of his breath across her skin. His was steamy from the shower, and water dribbled from his hair onto her neck, her shoulders.

“I love you,” she whispered.

With a hand on her thigh, he thrust deeper. He bowed his head to hers, his mouth open a little, and with a husky moan came. They kissed again. He moved off her but left his thigh between her legs and one arm around her waist.

“You have to get ready to go.” She laid her cheek against his chest, his skin still damp and warm. Complete in his arms, their molecules resolving into a final form. Stronger together.

“I know. I did most of my packing last night. Just want a few more minutes with you.” He kissed her shoulder. She traced her fingertip over his lips, and he kissed that too.

“Sometimes I think I must be dreaming this whole thing. You’re too perfect to be real.”

“I know this combination of wit, charm, and stunning good looks is hard to believe.”

She snickered and pushed his chest. “That’s my favorite thing about you.”

“What?”

“The way you make me laugh.”

“It’s my favorite sound. Well, one of my favorite sounds.”

“Oh? What’s the other?”

He gave her a wicked smile and said in her ear, in a high-pitched mockery of her voice, “Oh, God…Alex…
haaarder
.”

“You are absolutely filthy. Now get dressed before they leave without you.”

Alex hugged her and with a playful growl kissed her neck, then rolled out of bed and opened his dresser’s top drawer. He stepped into a pair of boxer-briefs that clung to the curves of his ass and to the bulge at his crotch.

“And do it before I need to have my way with you again.”

Grinning, he entered the walk-in closet. Stephanie started a pot of coffee in the kitchen. Twenty minutes later, Alex walked into the living room, wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a red tie and wheeling his suitcase behind him. He snapped his fingers and, leaving his luggage by the door, doubled back to the hallway. Then he pressed something metallic into her palm. When she opened her hand, she found a set of keys.

“My spare set. You’re welcome to stay while I’m gone. The housekeeper comes on Tuesdays and Fridays, and my dry cleaning is delivered on Thursdays. Just so you’re not surprised. On my way out, I’ll let security know who you are so you don’t have any issues. So make yourself at home, and I’ll call as soon as I can. How do I look?”

“Ridiculously handsome as usual.”

He set his suitcase in the hall, then kissed her, and she assured herself a week would pass in no time.

“Good luck. I’ll be watching.”

“I love you.” He pulled her into a sudden hug, his arms strong and so tight around her in a moment from which time pried her fingers all too quickly. Then he was gone.

Her attention fell to an envelope sticking out from under the prom photo on the table by the door. The housekeeper’s check, probably. She tugged on it and saw her own name printed on the front. Inside, a card depicting a man and woman’s interlocked hands and the words:

To My One and Only
.

She opened it.

Though time

can change so many things,

I know one thing is true—

Time will never change

the love I feel for you.

And beneath the verse, in Alex’s meticulous block letters:

Thank you for making my wishes come true.

XOXO,

Alex

***

Six days later, in the earliest hours of morning, the front door opened and clicked shut. Rubber wheels rolled over hardwood. The bedroom door was already ajar. Stephanie, half-asleep, pried her eyes open to see a dark shape move through the room. The rustle of a bag being set down, of clothes being removed. The covers lifting and a warm, powerful body curling around hers. With a serene sigh, she relaxed into his arms, and he nestled his cheek between her neck and shoulder.

“My one and only,” he whispered.

She shifted to her other side, facing him. Her mouth sought his in the darkness. Intuitive and inevitable, their bodies entwined. And afterward, she slept at last.

***

Stephanie wrapped herself in Alex’s bathrobe and, carrying a box of tissues, trudged into the living room. She tried to force air into her clogged nostrils and coughed until her throbbing eyes watered, then sank onto the couch and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to alleviate the pain.

Alex set his soccer ball on the breakfast bar and kicked off his sneakers before noticing her splayed on the couch. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks. I think I have the flu. I was supposed to fly to LA this afternoon for Thanksgiving weekend.”

“You can’t go like this. I don’t know why you put yourself through that, anyway.”

“To see Matt. Obviously.”

“Someone’s cranky when she’s sick. Why are you even out of bed?”

“I can’t sleep, you have no medicine, and I’m bored.”

Alex glanced at the clock on the stove. “I’ll get you some medicine on the way home. I have to get to practice. Can you survive until then? Want me to make you some tea?”

“Please.”

“Text me if you think of anything else you need.” Alex disappeared into the hallway and brought back an extra blanket. He draped it over her and tucked it around her shoulders, then set the remote control on her chest. He kissed her forehead. “Running a fever. Make sure you stay hydrated.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

He fixed a cup of tea and set it on the coffee table. “On that note, I really have to go. See you in a couple hours.”

After a few minutes of watching daytime television as awful as she remembered, she succumbed to the heaviness in her eyes and dozed off into strange dreams. Far away, someone was screaming.

“Baby, wake up.”

The scream expired in her throat, though its raw echo haunted her semiconscious mind. After a succession of rapid blinks, she craned her neck. Alex’s arms formed a protective coil around her.

“Bad dreams?”

The images were dissolving, and her efforts to snatch from them the memory of why she’d been so frightened encouraged them to break apart that much faster. Perhaps for her own good. “Are-are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine. You’re the one who was screaming in your sleep.”

“Yeah, I…don’t remember why. But you were there. Something…” She rubbed her head, her hair damp with sweat. “How long have you been home?”

“Just a few minutes. Oh, I got you some medicine.” Alex pulled two bottles of syrup from a plastic bag. “A non-drowsy kind and a kind that will help you sleep. And more tissues. And some soup.”

“You’re adorable.”

He smiled and poured a dose into the plastic cup that came with it. “Drink up.”

She shuddered. “Cherry-flavored” her ass. “Blecch. Tastes horrible.”

Alex bit his lip to keep from laughing. He glanced at the clock over the mantel. “I better get ready.”

“You’re up to something.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Humming, he strolled down the hall to his room, into the en suite. The sound of the shower lulled her back into a half-sleep, his baritone permeating the lethargic haze.

Alex had dressed in a red cashmere crewneck sweater, along with chinos and brown suede derbies. She stared at him despite the congestion forcing fluid from her eyes and nose. He stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled. “What?”

“Most men our age can barely dress themselves. Then there’s you, looking like you walked out of
Esquire
.”

“I’ve been in
Esquire
.” He winked.

She had bought a copy each time he’d appeared in it, even if it was just one small photo in a list of the magazine’s ten current style heroes.

“Need more tea,
devochka
?”

“Yes.”

As he set the kettle on the burner, the intercom hummed. No one said anything on the other end. Alex buzzed them in anyway. “Your surprise is here.” He rubbed his hands together and skirted the breakfast bar.

“My—wait, what?”

A knock. Alex stepped out, the door open enough for her to see him shake someone’s hand. “Good to see you! Thanks for doing this. It’ll mean so much to her.” He walked back in, his smile a supernova. Someone was behind him. A halo of blond hair over Alex’s shoulder. Cornflower-blue eyes sparkled above a toothy smile.

“Matt!” Forgetting her misery for a moment, Stephanie scrambled off the couch, tangling herself in the blanket, and flung herself into her brother’s arms.

“Hey you.”

Alex, smiling, attended to the tea. “Can I get you a drink, Matt?”

“Water for now, but you and I definitely need to have a drink later.”

“That we do.” He brought a tumbler of ice water and a cup of tea into the living room. “I’ll put your bag in the guest room. I need to run an errand, so I’ll let you two catch up. Make yourself at home.” Alex carried the bag and Matt’s coat into the extra room, then grabbed his keys from the breakfast bar. “See you guys in a bit.”

“He doesn’t run errands,” Stephanie said when he’d left. She sank onto the couch, Matt into the matching armchair. “He’s up to something else. What are you doing here?”

Matt jerked his thumb toward the door. “That guy lives to make you happy.”

Her cheeks warmed, and not from the fever.

“I was going to have a short layover here before my flight to LA. He called me this morning and said you had the flu and couldn’t make it to LA tonight. He offered to pay for a flight tomorrow morning if I’d spend the night here.”

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

“I’ll assume you haven’t talked to Dad, which means you don’t know.”

She dabbed at her nose with a tissue. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Esophageal cancer.”

“From the drinking.”

“Yeah. Stage three. He’s doing chemo, but…” He looked out the windows and uttered a soft “wow.” Struggling to act in the socially sanctioned way one ought to when faced with a parent’s impending death. To care. They both had so little reason to do so. Matt combed his fingers through his wavy hair. “He has about a twenty percent chance at this point.”