Page 17

Tornado

Aleks

Fuck , I was so gone for her.

The realization hit me as if it hadn’t always been a present fact in my life, as if my ignoring it for years could do anything to erase it. My brain seemed to chant a mocking duh as I reluctantly released my hold on Mia, separating enough for us to turn toward the person who’d interrupted us.

We pulled apart, but I still held her to me, one arm snaking around her waist and hooking at her hip. I smoothed my thumb over the bone there, wondering if the shiver that touch elicited from her was just for show.

“I think you’ve rendered our man here mannerless with that kiss,” Jaxson said, his smile bright as ever as he turned it from me to a breathless Mia. “Not that he had much in the way of manners before this. I’m Jaxson Brittain, one of the unfortunate souls who has to put up with your boyfriend’s attitude on the ice.”

He shook her hand politely before gesturing to Grace, who seemed a little starstruck where she was nestled into his arm.

“This is my girlfriend, Grace Tanev.”

“I’m so sorry,” Grace said on a croaky voice before clearing it. “I swear I’m going to get my shit together and be cool in like, five minutes, but right now can I just freak the fuck out that you are Mia fucking Love?! ”

Mia’s resulting smile was dazzling, her laugh so light and sweet it was like honey. “Wait, I am?” She turned to me wide-eyed. “Shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And you’re funny, too?” Grace groaned a little. “It’s official. I’m surrounded by the baddest bitches to ever live. All of you are so hot and smart and funny and ugh !” She clapped her hands together and turned to grab Maven, pulling her over to us next. “Here. You have to meet everyone.”

Grace launched into full-blown introductions then, and I stood idly by with one arm still around Mia’s waist and listened. It took everything I had in me to decline the drinks as they were offered to us on passing trays, but I promised Mia I’d be good.

And I was just nervous enough that I knew if I had one drink, I’d have ten.

I almost laughed at myself at the realization. I didn’t get nervous even one night of playing in the Stanley Cup Finals, but put me in a house full of music industry people and fans with their phone cameras pointed at me, and I had the stomach of a teenager before a driver’s license test.

This felt like a test of some kind — one I knew I needed to pass with flying colors.

“It’s so nice to meet all of you,” Mia said when the introductions were through.

She’d met Jaxson and Grace, Vince and Maven, Will and Chloe, and Carter. Livia had apparently taken Will’s daughter, Ava, to the bathroom as soon as they got here and would be joining us soon.

“I have to admit, I didn’t realize you had so many friends,” Mia teased with a brow arched in my direction.

“Oh, he’s made it crystal clear more than once that we’re not his friends,” Will chimed in. “Unfortunately for him, we’re the kind of team that doesn’t take no for an answer when it comes to building a family.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of been suckered into it,” Carter added. “We put up with his outbursts of rage on the ice and, in return, he makes all of us look like Scottie Scheffler on the golf course compared to him.”

I wiped a hand over my smile before slugging Carter in the stomach — not enough to actually hurt him, though he doubled over and played it off like I had.

Vince went on with the jokes, telling Mia about my first week of practice on the team and how I’d butted heads with everyone. She watched me curiously, her eyes understanding and smile light because she knew me better than anyone.

She knew I kept people at a distance because I knew I had nothing to offer them in terms of friendship, nothing to give in the way of kindness or generosity or care.

I stuck to myself because I knew I was the only one I could count on, and that if I didn’t get tangled up with anyone else, my actions would only impact me.

That was how I wanted it.

Livia sauntered over to us with Ava’s hand in hers, and the normally feisty little girl was wide-eyed and slack-jawed, hiding a bit behind Liv when they joined the circle. Livia introduced herself, and then she and Mia proceeded to gush on each other for so long I wondered if I should get them a room.

“And who’s this?” Mia asked, bending down to Ava’s level.

“This,” Livia said, running a hand through Ava’s hair. “Is your biggest fan — Ava Perry.”

Ava flushed harder, hiding more behind Livia’s legs. I realized then that she was shaking.

“Hi, Ava, it’s so lovely to meet you. I am dying over that skirt,” she added, nodding to the sparkly lavender thing Ava wore.

“It’s like the one you wore in the ‘Do My Own Thing’ music video,” Ava said, her voice soft.

“It is , isn’t it? Well, I think it looks even better on you.” She waited patiently, in no hurry to get back to the party as she calmed Ava with an attentive smile.

“She loves to wear it when we make up dances to your songs,” Chloe said.

“We?” Mia asked with a chuckle.

“Oh, yes. And I’m their very unwilling audience,” Will growled. “Not that I don’t appreciate your music, Mia, it just isn’t exactly my usual go to.”

“Don’t let him lie to you,” Chloe said. “I overheard him blasting your last album during his jump-rope workout the other morning.”

Will turned as red as his daughter, and when he didn’t deny it, we all burst into laughter.

Well, everyone else did, anyway.

I was too enamored with Mia to laugh.

It didn’t matter what she wore, didn’t matter if she had on a full face of makeup or had just washed it clean. Mia was the kind of breathtaking that actually lived up to the namesake. She could steal your breath away — literally — and all with just a flash of her smile and that little dimple on her left cheek.

Tonight, she was a vision of warm colors that matched the cover of her album. The golden tones were set ablaze when combined with the natural tan shade of her skin, her eyes an even more striking blue than usual.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but for some reason, she seemed… off. Unlike when I’d ridden next to her on the way to the Daisy Kent show, when I’d known she didn’t have an ounce of nerves about the performance, I couldn’t say the same tonight.

She looked the same, sure — poised, confident.

But she was coiled tight, her breath a little shallow, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

I wondered if anyone else could see it but me.

“Ava, I have a question,” Mia said. “Would you maybe want to see my little recording booth that I use here at the house?”

Ava’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding?”

Mia outstretched one hand until Ava took it, and I thought she was going to pass out when she did. “I would never joke about something so sacred. Come on, I’ll even show you where I hide my favorite snacks for when late-night inspiration hits.”

Ava turned to look at Will and Chloe with saucer-sized eyes, bouncing a little on her toes.

“You, too, Mom and Dad,” Mia said, ushering them to join. And though Chloe wasn’t technically Ava’s mom, I didn’t miss the way she lit up with pride and happily followed to that title, Will’s hand finding hers as they went.

“Gotta say it, man — that woman is even spicier in person. Those legs…” Carter whistled with that, one hand on my shoulder as he shook his head in appreciation, watching Mia go.

He turned to look at me like I was going to join in, but I was stone-faced, jaw twitching.

That made Carter go white.

“Right. I’ll just, uh… fuck off over here somewhere,” he said, pointing across the pool deck to where a bar was set up.

Livia rolled her eyes and shook her head before following him and telling me to have fun.

The crew dispersed, and while I wanted to stay glued to Mia, I was happy for some reason that she was spending some time with Will and Chloe. When Giana had told me to bring a group with me, I had laughed. Who the fuck was I supposed to invite? I’d mentioned it to the guys on the golf course as a joke, and then been promptly surprised that every single one of them were down.

They showed up for me at the drop of a hat, no questions asked, no favors to return.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, other than it was a new sensation.

Giana bounced over to me as soon as I was free. She gave me a big hug before I was shaking the hand of her husband — Clay Johnson, star safety for Denver and one hell of a philanthropist. We chatted for a bit before Giana was being pulled away, and then Isabella was there, giving me a quick hug and telling me that my kiss with Mia was already going viral.

She no sooner got the words out before she was rushing off, something about having to talk to the chef, and I was alone.

For two seconds.

“So, is this how it’s going to be? You get a little rich and famous and suddenly there’s no more Christmas in Chicago?”

I turned with a smile at the familiar voice, finding a petite woman who looked so much like Mia beaming up at me. Holly Conaway was as bright and beautiful as ever, and I swept her in for a bear hug, savoring her laugh when I did.

“Hey now, I was just there for the Fourth of July.”

“That was two years ago!”

“You know we have games around Christmas,” I pointed out.

“Yes, well, I also know you can fly anywhere you want at any time. And you can make as many excuses as you want to, but until you’re in that house for Christmas morning, I’m not listening.”

I smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled in victory, and I tried to ignore the way my stomach tightened a bit at the real reason I hadn’t been to visit them in years.

Because the last time I was there, so was Mia.

And she was there with Austin.

Suffering through just two days of him having his hands all over her and seeing how happy she was with him had made me want to pitch myself off the roof. I’d flown back to Seattle hellbent on finding any and every excuse I had to never return to Chicago again. Even after Mia and Austin broke up, I wanted to stay away.

I hated to see her heartbroken even more than I hated seeing her happy with another man.

“She’s right, you know,” came a loud voice, shaking me from my thoughts. “Holidays aren’t the same without you there.”

“What, no one to let you beat them in pool?”

Charlie Conaway let out his signature boom of a laugh at that, clapping me on the shoulder before he wrapped me in a fierce hug.

“Keep telling yourself that you let me win ,” he said. “You and I know the truth.”

“That you taught me how to play so you had someone to beat up on when you had hard days at the office?”

He smiled wide at that. “Hey, you paid me back when you got me on the ice.”

“Oh, that’s a day that lives rent free in my head. The way your arms windmilled like a cartoon before you went down…”

“Alright, now,” Holly said, patting both our chests, but Charlie was still beaming at me like I was his son. In many ways, he’d treated me as such.

But when he stared a moment longer, that beam took on a more warning tone.

He loved me. I knew that like I knew the Earth was round. But he was also wary of me, especially when it came to my intentions with Mia.

He’d asked me to call him after the beach stunt, and then, he’d proceeded to grill me for twenty minutes straight. It didn’t matter that I assured him this was her publicist’s idea, that I was just playing along in whatever they asked me to, that I was still true to my word that I would never do anything to hurt Mia.

It was clear he didn’t believe me — not entirely.

I couldn’t exactly blame him, since the last time I’d been to his house in Chicago, he’d caught me in my old bedroom just moments away from tossing back an entire bottle of Xanax.

I shivered at the memory, remembering how dark everything was then, how a pill prescribed to me for what the Seattle team doctor saw as anxiety had made everything worse. It was so easy to take those pills and make everything feel better. It was so easy to take more than I was prescribed, too.

And on that night, I’d had a thought.

What would happen if I took the whole bottle?

I’d been two seconds from finding out when Charlie found me.

I wished I could tell him that I was good now and know it was true. I wish I could tell him I wouldn’t have actually gone through with it, that I was better now, that I’d never give in to those impulses again.

But I could never be sure, could I? Not with my bloodline.

If only Charlie knew the lengths I’d gone to to keep my promises to him over the years, how I’d resisted his daughter in the most tempting moment of my young adult life.

Then again, I’d be a lying sonofabitch if I said I wasn’t taking this fake relationship thing and running with it while I could. Hell if I wasn’t going to make the most of the short period of time where I could touch her, hold her, kiss her, and pretend she was mine.

Maybe that was why her father still eyed me a bit warily as we drifted into easy conversation with Holly. He cocked a brow when I turned down the passing trays of booze, too, like I was playing some game and he was on to me.

“She’s already been hurt so badly…” he’d said to me on our phone call after the beach stunt, his voice thick with emotion. “I can’t pick her up off the bathroom floor again. I can’t stand by and let another man wreck her like that.”

“You know I would never hurt her.”

“Not intentionally. But she cares about you, Aleks.”

“I care about her, too.”

“Just… don’t take this thing too far, okay? She trusts you. I trust you.”

But did he really?

The way he was staring at me now, my gut told me otherwise.

I’d grown up. Both of us had. But to Charlie Conaway, I was still trouble. I may not have been a hormonal teenage boy from another country with a troubled past living under the same roof as his teenage daughter, but I was a menace in a new way. I was a professional athlete, a fighter on and off the ice, a playboy, a drunken mess, an addict, a tornado wreaking havoc and leaving behind a trail of debris.

And the saddest thing was that I couldn’t even argue with that — not when it was the truth.

I didn’t come from a great family. I didn’t have a family at all anymore, not since Annaliese died. I’d never had a serious girlfriend, or even a relationship that lasted more than one night. I didn’t give to charity or spend my free time volunteering with a bunch of kids.

I wasn’t the warm and fuzzy kind of guy that Mia usually fell for, the kind who could give her everything she’d dreamed of since she was prancing around in tutus.

The truth was that…most days? I was barely hanging on.

I was numbing myself with whatever was in reach — hockey, alcohol, women.

Charlie may have respected my game, but that was where it ended. That was where everyone’s respect for me hit a dead end. Past that, what did I have to offer?

Nothing.

And that was just the truth of it all.

I’d never be good enough for his little girl.