Smoke Signals (17 page)

Petro was another of our teammates, Alexei Petrov. He was the prototypical
enigmatic Russian
that the North American hockey media was constantly talking about. The kid had mad skills, but he wasn’t much of a team player. He partied too hard and didn’t put forth much effort most of the time. He had the potential to be so good that no one could touch him. He just didn’t care enough to play like that all the time. If he actually worked as hard as the rest of us did, it was scary to think how good he could be. Instead, he was playing third-line center on the shittiest team in the league.

Dima, however, wasn’t anything like most people expected Russians to be in this league. He had been a skill guy once. But that was before he’d had a car wreck that had nearly killed him and his best friend. After a bunch of surgeries and PT, he’d come back to the league, but now he was more of a grinder. He didn’t have the same speed he once had, and his shot had never been the same. But he was as surly and determined as they came. He’d worked hard to turn himself into a hard-nosed defensive forward, a penalty-kill specialist, and a guy who got sent out to take on the toughest situations.

On this team, he was still on the top line, somehow. Just went to show how bad we were. It was like the Island of Misfit Toys around here, with guys plugging holes in the lineup out of necessity more than them being the right fit.

The ways Dima was atypical in terms of Russian hockey players didn’t end with the way he played the game, either. Most Russian guys I’d ever played with were confident, maybe cocky, sometimes goofy, and always the life of the party. In fact, maybe they were a lot like me. But Dima was sullen and kept to himself, other than going out with a different woman at every turn, almost never hanging out with the guys, and he rarely had more than three words to say on a given subject.

Considering that, what he’d just said to me might have been the longest string of words I’d ever heard him utter. I always felt bad for the media guys when Dima got sent out for interviews. They’d be lucky to get enough out of him to fill half their column.

He glared at me and grunted, and then he bumped up the speed on his treadmill. “She’s ballerina?” Beads of sweat trickled down into the wild mass of his beard, making it glisten like it was filled with glitter.

I was almost positive he was only talking to me because Tori was Russian. He’d never been this talkative before. Granted, the fact that there were only three of us around might have played into it, too.

“Yeah,” I said. I added some weights to my barbell. “She’s a ballerina.”

“Why she leave Russia?”

“Same reason as you,” I hedged, lying down on the bench press. “She came to the US to dance. You came to play hockey.”

Hunter came over to spot me.

“Good ballet in Russia. Better than America. Make no sense.” Dima scowled. Not that anyone could tell from his mouth. His beard prevented that. The crease between his eyebrows was what made his expression clear. “She lying to you. Try to take your money. See dumb American hockey player, trick him into marry her, run back to Russia and be richest girl around.”

Hunter snorted and took the bar off the rack, placing it in my hands.

“Something funny?” I ground out, lowering the bar to just above my chest.

“Not funny. Just agreeing that you’re a dumb American.”

“I’m as Canadian as you are,” I grumbled.

“Then why are you always playing for the Americans in international competitions?” he shot back.

I pressed it up until my elbows locked, then I exhaled, glaring at Hunter. Guys always knew just where to poke. He was right—I did play for Team USA in international competition. I was good enough to get a spot on that team, usually. The chances of me ever making the Canadian team were slim to none, so I’d hedged my bets early on and I hadn’t looked back. But I didn’t want to get into that now. “She’s not after my money,” I said, redirecting the conversation.

“She’s lying,” Dima huffed. “Russian women all after something. Maybe she’s not ballerina. Maybe she wants sugar daddy. Better sign bigger contract next time, keep her in diamonds.”

“If you believe Koz, she’s a porn star,” Hunter said. “I might believe him, based on how she was dressed at Babs’s wedding.”

I did another rep, glaring at him. “She is. Or she was. Now she’s my wife, and she’s still dancing.”

“She’s porn star?” Dima laughed, a deep, gut-busting sort of laugh that I’d never have guessed was coming from him if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. “She’s after money. You’re fucked, Razor. So fucked.”

I kept doing my reps and ignored him.

“I don’t think she’s after money,” Hunter said. “Tallie’s been hanging out with her. She likes Tori. I think Tallie’s going to adopt her as her next project.”

“Project?” I ground out.

“Like she did with my brother. Tallie’ll hound her until they’re essentially BFFs, and then she’ll hound her some more until Tori spills her guts and agrees to do seven thousand things to improve herself. Maybe it won’t be so intense for Tori, though, since the baby’s coming soon.”

I couldn’t make up my mind about if I liked the idea of anyone else doing the same thing I was doing with Tori. The last thing she needed was people coming at her from all sides. It had been hard enough to convince her she needed to see a doctor. Getting her to talk about her life, her past, was like pulling teeth. Every time I made some headway, she dug in her heels and refused to go any further. I didn’t mind the idea that Tallie was insisting on being Tori’s friend, but I hoped she wouldn’t push.

Too much.

A bit of a nudge here and there wouldn’t be too bad. Like when she’d offered up the suggestion of a counseling center without prompting. That was good. I hoped that Dr. Rodriguez would make a similar suggestion when we visited her next week.

“Russian ballerina porn star,” Dima said, bumping his speed up again, still laughing. “Fuck, Razor. How you do this? How you marry her?”

I finished my reps and handed the bar off to Hunter, who returned it to the rack. I sat up and reached for a towel to dry the sweat off my face. “Luck, I guess.” I winked at him as I traded places with Hunter. “And give it a rest about Tori doing porn, eh? She did it. It’s in the past. That’s that.”

Dima could think it was just about sex all he wanted. Not that sex was the same thing as love, but letting him believe that would be a hell of a lot better than letting him think it was all about getting Tori a green card and nothing else.

GREG CALLED ME
back later that afternoon, while I was driving home from the gym.

“It’s not good,” he said first thing after I answered.

“Well? What?”

“I’ll get the paperwork started right away. You need to overnight me copies of absolutely everything you can get your hands on. Her passport and student visa. The official marriage certificate. I’ve got copies of your documents here already, but anything and everything related to Tori, you need to send me. Anything the school gave her when they kicked her out of the program. Whatever she’s got about her parents. Names and phone numbers for people she knew while she was going to school—preferably not people in the porn business. We’re going to have to be upfront about that, but I’m thinking more friends she might have had, classmates, other dancers…”

“Okay, so it’s going to be a lot of paperwork and red tape,” I said.

“That’s just the beginning. Once I’ve got the process in motion, it’s going to be a huge ordeal. They’ll interview you both, plus other people in your lives. There may be a few hearings you’ll have to take part in. Even if I get the Thunderbirds involved in this, it’s likely not going to be finalized for at least a couple of years. And throughout the entire process, she can’t leave the country. Not for any reason. I’m not sure if she can work or not. There might be a special dispensation we can arrange for. I’ll have to check on that. But the two of you are going to have to put on the act of your lives if you’re going to pull this off. The fact that you got married within hours of meeting each other is going to make this next to impossible to manage.”

That was one of the very few things I’d spent much time thinking about for almost a week now. “We’re already working on making sure it’s believable to everyone. They can ask questions, but they’re not going to unearth anything other than the fact that we’re crazy about each other.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re right.”

We talked about my preparation for the upcoming season for a few minutes, but then I turned onto my street and got off that call. When I came through the garage door into the kitchen, it was to find Tallie and Tori together in front of the stove, both wearing aprons. They spun toward me when I came in, Tori holding a bowl against her belly and a whisk in the other hand.

Tallie’s apron read, “Remember, as far as anyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family,” and it barely covered the huge swell of her belly. But the one Tori was wearing stopped me short: “Finger Lickin’ Good.” It made me want to lick her fingers to discover for myself how good it was.

“What are you two up to?” I asked.

“Bakin’ cupcakes,” Tallie said. “I was thinking about red velvet, because I love them, but I wasn’t sure that was appropriate for the baby shower, you know? So we’re doing plain vanilla, and we’ll spruce them up with colorful frosting.”

“You’re already making cupcakes now?”

“Practice,” Tori explained. Just a single word. I doubted she’d ever be one to overshare.

“You’re planning to bake cupcakes for your own shower? Shouldn’t someone else be doing that?”

“They probably are, but that doesn’t mean I can’t, too. And I want to. Because I’ve got a major sweet tooth right now. So I am.”

I had to laugh. “Is it any good?”

“You should come take a taste,” Tallie said. Then she gave a wink-wink-nudge-nudge sort of look to my wife.

The next thing I knew, Tori let go of the whisk, letting it settle against the edge of her bowl, dipped a finger in the batter, and held it up for me.

There wasn’t a chance in hell I wasn’t going to take her up on that offer. I crossed over and sucked her finger into my mouth, never taking my eyes off hers. I took my time, making sure I cleaned off every drop of batter before releasing her. Then I licked my lips, almost mimicking the way she’d so often licked hers for me. “Yum,” I said. “I think your practice is going well.”

“Oh, would you look at the time?” Tallie said, overselling her shock. “I bet Hunter’s at home wondering where I am. I need to get back so I can start his dinner.”

“Don’t want to keep him waiting,” I replied with a wink.

“Should I take that with me? I should,” she said before either Tori or I could answer. She reached for the bowl and covered it with some plastic wrap. “I’ll get these baked off tonight, and tomorrow we can play around with icing them. If you two aren’t too busy, of course.”

“Not busy,” Tori said. Half smiling again, I noticed. All my worries about her time spent with Tallie were for naught. This was something Tori needed. “We can make cupcakes.”

“Good,” Tallie said. “And then we can
eat
them, which is even better.”

Within a couple of minutes, she’d gathered up all her things and headed out the door, leaving me and Tori alone.

“I like your apron,” I said.

She gave me a shy look and reached behind her back to undo the ties.

“Let me.” I moved behind her and tugged the strings loose. While I was back there, I slipped my hands beneath the material covering her belly and hugged her back to my front. I kissed the spot on her neck just beneath her ear, and she shivered. Her familiar vanilla scent tickled my nostrils, and I buried my nose in her hair.

“You could take more off,” she said, her voice rich and husky. She rocked her hips back, her ass grinding against my cock. “You’re hard.”

“I’m always hard around you. But that doesn’t change anything.”

With every day that passed, it was becoming more and more difficult to hold to my convictions. But Tori deserved to be handled with care, whether she agreed with that or not.