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ALEXEI

“One last stop,” Miller says on our way to meet up with the girls.

He gestures at a tattoo shop on the main street of Silver Falls. The place is actually nice. Maybe Georgia and I will come back next year.

If we’re still together , I remind myself with unease. If I can make this thing real.

She hasn’t sleepwalked once this week, because I haven’t been playing hockey. I rub my sternum, swallowing hard. I don’t know what to do about that. Watching me get hurt causes her stress, but I can’t give it up.

I can’t give her up, either.

Miller smiles at a tattoo shop, and I remember last year on Boxing Day, when he and Hazel were still in the pretending phase of their relationship but Miller was head over fucking heels for her. He got very, very drunk, and then got a tattoo for her.

“I’m going to get another one,” Miller announces.

Owens rubs his jaw. “Yeah, what the hell. I’ll get one, too.”

“I’m in,” Streicher adds.

“Shit, really, Streicher?” Miller grins at him.

Streicher nods again. “I was already thinking about it.”

The guys look to me.

“You okay to wait, buddy?” Miller asks .

“No.” I straighten up, squaring my shoulders. “Because I’m getting one, too.”

Owens crows, trying to put me in a headlock, and I shove him off, but I’m smiling.

Hours later, we leave the tattoo parlor.

Streicher got a minimalist outline of a guitar, identical to the one he bought Pippa the first year they were together. Her dream guitar, that she wrote and recorded her debut album with.

Miller got another dragon. That’s what he calls Hazel, his tiny fire-breathing dragon.

Owens got a sword up the back of his calf, from The Northern Sword book series he and Darcy love.

I shift my shoulder back and forth, sore from keeping still for so long. My tattoo took a lot longer than the others, but they were happy to wait, talking and laughing and keeping me company while I lay on the table.

“What do you think, Volkov?” Owens asks. “You feel like you made the right choice?”

It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, maybe because I thought about my wife the entire time.

“Without a doubt.”