Page 11

Night Cap

Mia

My ears were still ringing when Isabella, Glo, and Rina finally left my suite. We’d eaten dinner together, going over the show and the media attention and discussing all the next steps for album launch. I loved talking about it all, from all the appearances we had lined up to the music video shoots.

But I was still human, and I was tired.

The silence seemed louder than the screaming fans were earlier once I was alone. I could still hear the distant hum of the traffic and bustle of New York City, but the buzz in my ears was the loudest. I always had a bit of that after performing, after being in the throng of a big crowd.

It was nearly midnight, and we had an early wake-up call for a radio interview. I was ready to climb into bed when I got a text from Aleks.

Aleks: Think you could call your guard dog off long enough for a night cap?

I frowned, confused, before a picture came through. It was Aleks standing in the hallway of the hotel with an over-exaggerated pouty frown. He was posing next to Hunter, one of my security guards, who wore a stone-cold, unamused expression. In the hand not holding his phone, Aleks held a bottle of what looked like champagne.

And suddenly, all my fatigue was obliterated.

I cursed under my breath as I rushed to the nearest full-length mirror, wishing I hadn’t already scrubbed off my makeup and washed my face. At least my hair still had a bit of volume to it. I ran my hands through the dark strands, fluffing the roots as I turned left and right and studied my frame in the bicycle shorts and extra-large t-shirt I wore.

As if that would be flattering on anyone .

I wasn’t wearing a bra, and I debated throwing on the one I wore earlier, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Once my bra came off for the day, it stayed off. It was late, and I didn’t need to get ready to see Aleks. It was Aleks .

Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me like this plenty of times before.

With a shrug and an internal laugh at myself, I padded over to my hotel door. James was sitting on a chair in the corner reading a book. He snapped it closed and stood as soon as I wandered over.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “Just Aleks.”

He nodded, sitting back down, but he didn’t open the book.

“James, it’s fine. You can read. Hunter is on the outside and we have the rest of the team downstairs.”

“Never can be too careful, Miss Love.”

I smiled, though he knew I hated when he called me that. I much preferred Mia. Still, I’d learned with James that the formalities were a boundary he liked to set between us, and a reminder that he worked for me and I wasn’t his friend. He took me up on the offer to let him read or be on his phone when things weren’t hectic, but he took his job seriously, and he always wanted to remind both of us where his priorities lie.

My father had been the one to find James and Hunter, along with the rest of my security team. That man was always looking after me, even though I wasn’t his “little” girl anymore.

When I opened the door, Hunter turned, arching a brow at me as Aleks beamed from behind him. I chuckled at the sight.

“It’s okay, Hunter. He’s mostly harmless.” I stood aside with the door open wider, motioning for Aleks to come in.

“I like him,” Aleks said as he passed Hunter, a thumb hooked toward my beast of a bodyguard. “Him, too,” he added with a point at James. “They don’t fuck around.”

“I quite literally trust them with my life,” I said. “And you won’t be surprised to hear that Daddy is the one who hired them.”

“I like them even more.”

I followed Aleks as he traipsed into the penthouse suite, quick to make himself at home.

He didn’t whistle or make any comments about how grand or luxurious the place was. He was used to money like this, and a part of me was thankful for that. It was nice to be with someone who understood the money and fame without me having to explain myself.

Although, I could remember a time when something like this would have had him silent and wide-eyed, like he was the first few weeks after he moved to live with us in Chicago. Now, he was a professional hockey player with a big contract. He had more money than he ever thought he’d have in his lifetime.

Money wasn’t everything. My father had drilled that into me from the day I was born. He and Mom always made sure I understood how fortunate we were to be well off, and they made sure I knew I’d have to work hard for whatever I wanted in life. When I signed my first record deal, I remember Dad taking me aside and sitting me down with his signature serious face, the one reserved for the big talks.

“This is your money,” he’d told me. “I will not police you, but I will advise you to be smart with it. Get a team together whom you trust, and know that it can all be gone just as easily as it came. And at the end of the day—”

“Money isn’t what matters,” I’d finished for him.

He’d smiled then, beaming with pride that I understood that. And I did. I loved our house. It was fun to hang out in our pool or take the boat out. I enjoyed the vacations we took.

But at the end of the day, it was time with Mom and Dad that made me happy. It was lazy summer days and long winter nights with Aleks. It was laughing with my friends at a sleepover. It was writing music, performing, spending time with my team.

That was why I searched until I found a financial advisor who understood my feelings. I was safe with my money, investing and saving and living well within my means. I paid my team well because that mattered to me. I also gave at least twenty-five percent of what I made to charity — because there wasn’t a lifetime in which I would ever need to spend all that I was making.

I was fortunate, and I liked to pay that fortune forward.

“It’s late,” I pointed out to Aleks, though the way I followed him to the living area like an eager puppy betrayed my attempt at being annoyed by that fact. The truth was I was happy he was there. I was excited. I hadn’t spent time with him in so long, especially not just the two of us.

And after today, I wondered what was going through his mind.

It was our first appearance in the public eye, and it’d taken only hours for every photo and video snapped of us together to be all the Internet could talk about. Isabella and Giana were thrilled, the first step in our plan carefully laid to perfection.

I hadn’t had much time to process it all, not with us launching right into work as soon as we got to the hotel. But now that Aleks was here, that we were alone…

All I could think about was how it felt to have his hands on me earlier.

The way he gripped me tight, how he sheltered me under his arm, how it felt to see him get so angry on my behalf. It had scared me as much as it thrilled me, to witness him threatening that asshole within an inch of his life for getting near me.

Aleks had always been a sort of protective older brother to me.

Except I did not see him as a brother — not even a little bit.

And everything about today reminded me how hot this man was.

It wasn’t like I’d forgotten; it was just that I’d been busy. And distant. When I had another man with my focus, or music to write, or a tour to run, I didn’t have time to think about Aleks Suter. And with him living in Florida, playing for a professional hockey team that he traveled with for most of the year… well, it wasn’t exactly like we could just hang out.

We texted each other. We kept in touch. But being reunited with him today…

It reminded me how much I’d missed him.

He looked cozy right now, the way he used to after a game when we were kids. He’d come home, take a shower, and throw on the same pair of sweatpants and matching sweater. They were from the team he played on, the fabric a deep maroon with the gold logo over his left pectoral.

Now, he wore something similar, but the sweats were black — and if I had to guess, a luxury brand far better than the set he wore back in school. His short hair looked a little damp, his jaw freshly shaven, and his eyes were bright with mischief instead of filled with exhaustion the way I knew mine were.

I watched him as he perused the space, clearly not hurried by my comment about the time. When he hit the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, he looked out at the view for only a moment before he spun in place, holding up the bottle he’d brought with him.

“Care for some bubbles?”

I smiled. “So much for those rules we put in place.”

“Hey, you said I couldn’t be a drunk idiot,” he pointed out. “Not that I had to be completely sober. And besides,” he added with a flourish, already popping the bottle open. “It’s cider.”

“Cider?”

“Good ol’ fashioned sparkling apple cider,” he said.

There were four champagne glasses on the coffee table in the living area, along with an ice bucket made for champagne. Our suite attendant had filled it just in case when he’d delivered our dinner. Aleks poured two glasses of the amber gold bubbly liquid before he put the bottle in the bucket and handed one of the glasses to me.

It was like he was looking at me for the first time.

He’d barreled in so quickly, severing the space and commenting on my security team. But now, his dark eyes dragged the length of me from my heated neck all the way down to my bare, pink-painted toes. His nostrils flared a bit as his gaze lazily trailed back up to meet mine, and he tilted his glass in my direction.

“Cheers,” he said. “To a brilliant album debut performance.”

I smiled, clinking my glass against his and taking a sip. The cider was crisp and sweet, and I found I was much happier to have it in my hand than a glass of champagne. The last thing I needed was to wake up in the morning with a headache.

“How in the world did you even know this existed?” I asked.

“That would be an Otis special.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“Otis is my neighbor. Prickly old man and a season ticket holder for the Ospreys. Not sure how it happened, but he’s sort of become like a pet. He just shows up at my place sometimes, eats, brings me treats, settles in for conversations that can last all night.”

“I think that’s called a friend , Aleks.”

“You know I don’t have friends.”

I flattened my lips, pinning him with a look that told him I hated that little fact about him. We both knew Aleks could have friends, if he wanted. But it was him who was prickly.

“Anyway, he’s the one who introduced me to this.” He held up his glass. “Have to say, I thought it was shite the first time he made me drink the stuff, but it grew on me.”

“Kind of like Otis did, it sounds.”

“Oh, he grew on me, alright. Like a fungus.”

“You like him,” I said with a knowing smile.

“He’s tolerable.”

“Maybe I’ll meet him one day.”

“Oh, God. He’d be hitting on you within sixty seconds.”

“Good. I could use someone hitting on me.”

Aleks smirked at me then. “What, my forehead kisses weren’t enough for you today?”

“That was fake,” I reminded him.

“I almost got in a fight for you. That wasn’t fake.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. You were an absolute caveman.”

“The Internet seems to love it,” he pointed out with a grin.

“I better warn your coach. Your head is going to be too big to fit in your helmet soon.”

Aleks let out a loud bark of a laugh, and then I was gesturing to the kitchen, telling him to help himself to any of the provided food. It was hard not to laugh as I watched him tear through the snacks like he was a kid on a field trip with a free mini bar in his room.

We fell into easy conversation when he returned with his haul, Aleks kicking back on the couch while I sat in one of the leather chairs opposite him. I asked him how he liked living in Florida and what his new team was like. He asked me about the new album and what songs I was most proud of.

Before long, we had almost finished the bottle of cider, the time creeping past midnight and into the early morning. New York City was still bright with life outside the windows, and even though I knew I needed to get some sleep, I didn’t want to. It felt like being a kid again, like Aleks had snuck down to my room after Mom and Dad went to sleep so I could tell him gossip and he could pretend not to care while we played Uno.

“That was pretty intense today,” Aleks said when he poured the last of the bottle into our glasses. “All the fans, the screaming, the flashes from the cameras.”

“Like you don’t get that, too.”

“I do,” he said, handing me my freshly topped-off glass. “But not like that.”

I shrugged. “It’s not too bad. I’m used to it, I guess.”

“Does it ever feel like too much?”

I frowned, considering. “Sometimes,” I mused. “But I asked for this, you know? I dreamed of it. Prayed for it. This is what I’ve always wanted, and only a tiny fraction of musicians ever get to experience this. It’s a privilege.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to love every aspect of it,” Aleks pointed out. “No way in hell do you find it fun to have horrific names screamed at you from crazy fans.”

“I don’t love that part,” I admitted. “But did you see the happy fans? Did you see the ones crying because I took a picture with them, the ones who couldn’t speak as I signed their albums? Did you see the little girls all dressed up to see me?” I shook my head, heart filling with wonder over those statements just like it had the first time they happened. “ That’s what I focus on. That’s what I see more than the bad.”

I took a sip of my cider on another shrug.

“Honestly, what bothers me more than anything is the comparison trap in my own mind. The fans are wonderful. It’s me who beats myself up.”

Aleks frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s hard not to let things like that article from Garrett Orange get to me.”

“Fuck that guy.”

I smirked. “Yeah, but also… people listen to him. They respect his opinion. And that makes me wonder sometimes if all the shit he says about me is true, and I’m just surrounded by people who love me and are paid to build me up, so I don’t see it.”

“Your team would build you up even if you didn’t pay them. You don’t pay me or your parents, and we love your music.”

“They’re my parents,” I said, deadpan. “And you don’t listen to my music.”

“Yes, I do.”

I laughed, but when I looked at Aleks, his jaw was set, eyes serious as they held mine.

The laugh died in my throat.

“Mia, I’ve listened to every album you’ve ever released, front to back, at least a hundred times.”

I opened my mouth, but my throat was too dry to respond.

He listened to my music?

“I don’t know why that surprises you,” he said, reading my expression with a grin. “Like I wasn’t your test dummy for every song you wrote in high school.”

“Yeah, but that was different. You lived with me. I forced you to be my test dummy.”

Aleks threw back the last of his cider. “Well, now you know you didn’t have to do much forcing.”

Something about that made my stomach flip, and I smiled to myself, taking another sip of my cider. It felt so nice to be with him again, to just sit together and talk. It’d been so long since we’d done this.

And the last time I’d tried…

I lifted my eyes from my glass to Aleks, thinking about the Fourth of July two years ago when we were at my parents’ house. I’d been with Austin then, and Aleks had been…

Not himself.

Or maybe too much of himself.

He had been destructive, sad, lonely. I’d watched him drink himself into a stupor, and when I’d gone to talk to him, he’d been shut off, cold.

It’d scared me a little, the way he acted that night.

It was the first time I believed what he’d always told me, that some of his mom and dad lived in him. It was the first time I thought addiction really could take him, if he let it.

“How are you?”

The words spilled off my tongue before I thought better of them, so I doubled down.

“How are you really?”

Aleks’s eyes flicked between mine a moment before the corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m good, Strings.”

“Really?”

“I’m not debating taking a bottle of pills like I was the last time we were alone, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

I cringed a bit, dropping my gaze.

“It’s okay,” he said on a laugh. “I… I’m sorry you had to see me that way. I was…”

Aleks quieted, not finishing the thought. And I knew without pushing that he didn’t want to talk about it more. It wasn’t often Aleks fell into his really bad nights, but when he did, I knew it hit him hard. I knew he hated it. I knew it made him feel like he was one breath away from the life his parents lived, and he hated it.

“Do you ever think about going back to Switzerland?” I asked, changing the subject.

Aleks took my now empty glass, carrying it with his over to the sink in the kitchen. “Sometimes. I thought it might be fun to play on the national team there someday.”

“That would be amazing,” I told him, smile genuine. “And maybe you could meet up with some of your foster siblings.”

Aleks snorted at that.

“What? I bet they’d love to see you.”

“And I bet they wouldn’t even remember I existed,” he shot back. He didn’t say it with an edge, though. He said it as a joke, his smirk climbing. “It’s okay, Strings. Not everyone needs friends.”

I hated that so much, I couldn’t help but show it on my face. Because I knew what he meant by that statement wasn’t that he didn’t need friends, it was that he didn’t believe he deserved them.

He had always been afraid of who he was deep inside, of his genetics, of what he perceived as his destiny. And part of me had always felt like I had no right to speak on it. I couldn’t imagine going through what he had, and I didn’t want to pretend like I could ever fully understand.

But I knew him better than he thought, better than anyone else.

And I knew his heart was good.

I popped up with mock offense, sticking out an exaggerated pouty lip. “Wow. So what does that mean for me? I’m not your friend?”

“Nope,” he said instantly, skipping over to where I stood. He shoved his hands in his pockets and did a little shimmy side to side with his shoulders like a little kid. “You’re my girl friend.”

I rolled my eyes, trying and failing not to smile.

And then Aleks mirrored my grin, sweeping in swiftly to kiss my cheek. “Get some sleep, Strings. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

I flushed when he pulled away, thankful his back was to me as he made his way toward the door.

“Thank you,” I said when he was next to James. “For the nightcap.”

He winked. “Anytime.”

Aleks tipped an imaginary hat at James before letting himself out.

And I stood there in a daze, my hand on my cheek where he’d kissed it, wondering how that boy still had so much of my heart in his hands after all this time.