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CHAPTER 14

EMERY

I expect to have a rough night of sleep, but to my surprise, I fall asleep quickly. Maybe having two locked doors between me and Alexei is enough to maintain the crucial distance I need to keep this relationship professional.

When I go upstairs in the morning, the house is still quiet.

I decide to make muffins for breakfast, because yesterday it was one of the pictures on Pinterest Inessa got excited about, and Maria has frozen bananas.

I set the oven to pre-heat, then dig out Alexei’s binder from the team with his nutrition plan. While I can’t read the Cyrillic writing on the Post-it notes Maria has added, I understand the basics of his needs. I have a lifetime of experience eating and cooking around and towards pro hockey players. This part, I can do with my eyes closed.

I pull the protein pancake batter I made out of the fridge and get a cast iron griddle heating up, too.

The muffins have just gone into the oven when I hear footsteps upstairs. Water runs. It stays on long enough that I picture Alexei in the shower— unhelpful .

After ten minutes, footsteps move from one end of the house to the other, and there’s low murmurs, off and on.

I hate how my heart rate picks up, anticipating seeing Alexei this early in the morning. I try not to imagine what his hair might look like fresh out of the shower, glinting like obsidian under the kitchen’s pot lights.

I have my professional private chef smile on when he finally shows up. He’s carrying a sleepy-looking Inessa, but he looks wide awake—and yes, freshly showered.

A white t-shirt clings to his shoulders as if he just saved its life, and he’s wearing black slim-fit team sweatpants that show off every inch of his long, powerful legs.

“Hi,” he says, his gaze raking over me.

That won’t do. He can’t look at me like that.

“Good morning,” I say briskly. “I’ve got breakfast under way.”

He murmurs something to Inessa.

“Morning,” she says, looking at me shyly.

I beam at her. “Remember the muffins we looked at on my phone?”

She shakes her head and buries her face in her dad’s neck.

“She’s better after some milk,” Alexei says, pulling open the fridge. With one hand, he manages to fill a cup for her.

For all the stress and chaos of yesterday, I think he’s a more capable solo parent than he gives himself credit for.

I return my focus to cooking the pancakes. These aren’t as fluffy as the ones I’ll make for Inessa, but they are macro compliant and pretty tasty.

He fires up the espresso machine, then asks, “Would you like a coffee?”

“I can get one for myself while you two are eating,” I say politely.

He doesn’t answer. He just makes a black espresso, puts a sugar cube in it, and sets it on the counter next to the griddle.

I’m so distracted by watching him that I forget about the pancakes, and the first four are a little dark on the bottom.

Those can be mine.

Taking a deep breath, I force myself not to look back at him again until I have a plate of perfect looking pancakes for my new boss.

I slide them onto the counter in front of his bar stool. “Here you go. Can I get you anything for on top of them?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll get raspberries.”

“Basberries!” Inessa gasped, her eyes going wide.

Alexei frowns. “Really?”

“Papa!”

He switches to Russian, and she pouts. You can practically see the storm cloud gather above her as she shakes her head.

He closes his eyes for a moment, then counts, out loud, backwards from five.

I try to hide a laugh behind my tiny espresso cup, but he notices anyway after he blinks his eyes open again.

“She had a tantrum because the raspberries were too soft two days ago. These are the same berries. They will only be softer today.”

“Bas. Berries! Papa!”

“Why is it when Baba tells you no, you listen to her? But if I say no, you just yell Papa louder? Hmm?” He crouches a little so he’s eye to eye with her in her highchair. “Why do you test Papa so much? You are making Emery laugh at me. That is not nice.”

Inessa swivels her head to me, her face suddenly soft and sad. Waterworks are on their way. “Basberries?” she asks me in the most plaintive voice I’ve ever heard. “Pwease?”

“That’s very polite,” I say, heaping praise into my tone of voice. “Can I show you all of the fruit options in the fridge?”

That seems to avoid the imminent crisis to both of their satisfaction. After considering the raspberries, the now very familiar blueberries, and a package of blackberries, she goes with the trusted blueberries after all.

Alexei takes a few enthusiastic bites of his own food, then puts his fork down. “Tell me about Switzerland.”

I move the mixing bowls to the sink and grab a cloth. “It’s a country in Europe. Lots of mountains.”

“Emery.”

I shrug. “It’s not Minneapolis.”

“You moved home after college?” He asks it like a question, but I think he knows the answer.

I shouldn’t be surprised. He did work with my brother for a year after our hook-up, and Forrest is a talker.

“I missed it,” I hear myself admitting. “Boston was great, but it never felt like home, so I didn’t really want to stay there. And my closest friends on the team and in my program all scattered on the wind.”

“And you went to culinary school.”

“Yep.”

“And now…”

I laugh as he leads me right back to Switzerland, in between bites of pancakes. “And now I want to do more culinary school. The first program was really about the basics. Learning to work on a line, get the foundational knowledge. Skills, techniques, etc.”

“What will you learn in Switzerland?” He pushes his plate away and leans forward.

I go to grab the dish and he waves me off, standing.

“I mean, I’ll learn a lot—plating, recipe development, refinement of skills—but going to Europe is more about the access to a different level of on-the-job training, too.”

He brings his plate around to the dishwasher, then leans his hip against the counter right next to me.

A subtle, warm note of coconut and something else tropical meets my nose, and a memory of unbuttoning his shirt washes over me. How eager I was to get at his bare skin, how out-of-this-world hot he was that night.

Still is, even in basic athletic wear.

“On the job training?”

I jerk my head up.

He’s looking at me, really intently. His hair has mostly dried now, just a few strands still damp. Less obsidian and more like a warm, deep ebony. Very, very touchable.

“Pardon?”

“What kind of on-the-job training can you get there that you can’t get here?”

“It’s…” I swallow hard. “Staging,” I manage to say.

“Stah-zhing?” he repeats, stretching out the unfamiliar word.

“It’s French for like, apprenticing. Short internships or observationships in high-end restaurants. Harder to get as an American without some European training.”

“That’s a new word for me.” Inessa bangs on her tray and he glances over his shoulder, holding up his finger to her. One minute . “Is that what you want to do, work in high-end restaurants?”

“Not forever.” Not exactly, but I’ve never said exactly what I want out loud to anyone. First steps first.

“But it’s the next step.”

I nod.

“And you start that program in July?”

Another nod.

“Good.” He searches my face. “That’s exciting.”

I inhale slowly, pretending it’s simply to steady myself, and not at all to catch another whiff of that coconut scent. “Thank you.”

“So can you stay with us until then?”

“Pardon?” Surely I misheard him because I was sniffing him. Until when?

“I’d love it if you could help us out until the summer.”

“I can definitely stay for a few days. But…”

“A few days?” he frowns. “I need you longer than that.”

Oh, the way he says that is dangerous. I could misconstrue that so easily. “A week, then. I have a flight back to Minneapolis the day after Forrest’s team comes to town.”

“Flights can be rebooked. I will pay you an advance for two weeks up front. Or whatever you need.”

“It’s not about money.” I try not to sound desperate, but I just thought?—

“Do you have a job? I can speak to your boss.”

“It’s not— I’m saying, I can only give you a few days. A week at the absolute most. Just until you hire the right people.”

Alexei’s eyes glitter darkly. “I agree that I need to hire the right people. I think you are the right people.”

“I’m not?—”

“I know you say you are only an EBUG. But you are very good with Inessa.”

“Well, I know how to distract?—”

“Do you think I should hire Ms. Petrova instead?”

I shrug. “If you think she is the best option for watching your daughter, I can’t argue with you.”

His brows slam together. “You can argue.”

“Not my place. But I know she doesn’t approve of me, so that’s a good reason for me not to stay very long. I can cook some meals in advance and stock your freezer, though.”

“How could she not approve of you? You spent what, ten minutes together?”

I shrug again, casually, as if I couldn’t care less what she thinks of me. As if I haven’t been annoyed since yesterday. “Maybe she could sense that I will be a terrible influence on your daughter.”

The storm cloud reaction is genetic. Alexei glowers about this exactly the way his daughter did about the raspberry standoff. “Nonsense.”

“You don’t want to know how I bribe her to stop crying. Your nanny would never approve.”

“That person is not my nanny. Unless you abandon me in a few days. Then I will need to hire her.”

He says that silkily, like a threat. As if he knows I don’t want him to do that, and I hate that he can see me that clearly.

“You should hire someone,” I say as neutrally as I can manage. “Maybe I could help you find some better nanny options.”

His eyes light up. “I would be so grateful.”

I don’t want him to be grateful. I want…

I want to be able to help him, and Inessa, without it getting too complicated. Except it already feels complicated.

You have choices, I remind myself.

I could have gone to Toronto with my parents. A few days of being told I’m a bad friend would have been the worst of my punishment, and then I wouldn’t have two or three months of this .

I could call up Shannon or Kiley, and they would come rescue me in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

So why I am considering staying for two weeks, or however long he needs me for?

The truth is, I know it’ll be six weeks, at least, and maybe eight or ten depending how deep they go in the playoffs.

You’re leaving for good in the summer. What does it matter if you stay here through to the end of the playoffs? There are two locking doors between you and the man you once begged to suck his cock.

Maybe I didn’t beg. Maybe that’s just a distortion of time and fucked-up nostalgia. Because I think about that night way more than I should. I twist it into all sorts of fantasy outcomes, including when I take him deep in my mouth and he finishes so fast I feel like a triumphant conqueror.

It would be good for me to let Alexei hire me for as long as he needs a family chef. I can help him find proper childcare, too. This could be a form of exposure therapy to drum that nostalgia out of my heart and my mind and my memories.

He’s a father now.

He’s staring down the possibility of being a starting goalie in the NHL playoffs.

He needs childcare, and Nanny Nyet is not an option.

I hold up my phone. “What is your email address? I have a standard contract and a website you can pay me on.”

His eyes light up. “You will help us?”

Heart pounding in my chest, I nod. “If you already have a grocery service, I can do an hourly rate for my labour. I prefer to bill two weeks ahead, and there’s a standard retainer which I itemize the receipts against and carry forward?—”

“Emery. I don’t care about the details.”

“But I do. They matter.” I take a deep breath. “This will be easier for me if we make this as formal as possible. You are my boss. I am in your employ. The nanny search I’ll do for free, because I want the best for Inessa.”

His brows furrow and a new tension tightens between us. Understanding. Recognition.

If this is going to work, he can’t misread my kindness as anything other than human decency.

In the two years since we met, I’ve grown. A lot, no matter what my parents might think. And in this moment, all that matters is that Alexei knows what I’m offering—and what I’m not.

I am now very clear on who I am and what I want. What I will do, and what I won’t do. Who I won’t do.

Finally, he nods and holds out his hand. “May I?”

I let him put in his email address and ignore the little jolt of heat that races up my arm when our fingers brush as he hands my phone back.

There will be more of that. More nostalgic reactions to incidental contact, more fleeting moments of basic physical chemistry. They can be ignored. Or at least, I can learn to ignore how they make me feel.

I change the subject. “What is your plan today?”

“I need to skate. They have a training plan for while the team is away. But first, I want to take Inessa to the hospital. My mom would like to see her.” He shoves his hand in his hair. “She might be a little bear if I bring her back and then leave again. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it. Of course she doesn’t like it when you leave. You leave a lot.”

He blinks at me, clearly surprised.

I shrug. “I was her, remember? My dad was in the NHL when I was a toddler. My earliest memories were of him always leaving for road trips.”

“Yes, it’s exactly like that.” He growls in frustration, and I have to laugh.

He meets my gaze.

Oh.

Ignore those feelings, Emery.

“Would you come with us to the arena?” he asks. “You can skate, too. If you want to? Might be fun.”

“I don’t have my gear.”

He shrugs. “What size skates do you wear?”

* * *

They go to the hospital without me, which gives me some quiet time to further familiarize myself with the kitchen and start to make a shopping list for groceries for the next week.

And then I get changed for skating. I have limited clothing options since I packed light for the Granger Road Trip—a situation I will need to rectify, but can’t fix in this moment—so I go for my thickest black leggings and my Buffalo hoodie that I was going to wear to that game. I snap a picture of me in it and send it to the Granger sibling group chat and tag Logan so he can see that I was thinking of him.

Emery

Wearing this to skate at the Hamilton barn today.

Logan

That’s my baby sister! Yes! Represent. Get Ty Connor to sign it. He’s from Buffalo.

The team isn’t there, sorry.

Wait, so who are you wearing it for, then?

I frown.

You, you dummy! For this photo! And I have limited clothes here.

What’s going on?

OMG, doesn’t anyone in this family talk about anything other than hockey? Alexei Artyomov’s mom had a heart attack. I stayed in Hamilton to help their family.

Oh shit. That’s nice of you. Maybe don’t rile him up with a division rival sweatshirt, though.

He can handle some riling, don’t worry

Forrest

Catching up… be nice to Alexei, he’s not a brother stand-in

Oh, if Forrest only knew just how true that is.

I take another picture, this one flipping them both off, just before I hear the front door open upstairs.

“Emery?” Alexei calls out. “We’re back.”

“Coming!”

He’s waiting at the door when I emerge from the basement. His quick sweeping gaze takes in my sweatshirt, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

Inessa is excited when I get in the passenger seat. She waves at me in the lightweight mirror attached to the headrest in front of her rear facing car seat and babbles at me in Russian at first, until Alexei reminds her to use English.

“Baba sleeping,” she says.

He backs the car out of the driveway before expanding on that. “Yeah, my mom is pretty tired. She did wake up briefly, which was nice to see. The nurse said she’s responding well to medicine.”

“That’s great.”

He nods. “And more great news—your mom was right. There’s a season ticket holder who lives half a block from the hospital and has a short-term rental suite in their basement. So, my dad has a place to go to have a shower and sleep that is walkable to the hospital. I booked it for him for a week. Hopefully, by that point she’ll be able to come home.”

His voice cracks on the last few words.

My fingers ache to reach across the centre console and squeeze his arm.

“We’ll make it easy for her once she does come home,” I promise.

“Thank you.” He exhales and taps his head back against the head rest. “It’s hard to see her in a hospital bed.”

“I bet.”

We come to a red light at the exit from the subdivision, and as he checks traffic on the busier road we’re about to turn onto, I twist in my seat to wave at Inessa in the mirror.

She laughs and covers her face with her hands.

“Do you want to listen to music, malyshok?” Alexei lifts his voice, but he doesn’t look back at the mirror. He carefully keeps his eyes on the road, which means I can slide my gaze back and forth between them as he drives.

She claps her hands and asks for something I don’t catch, but he understands clearly. He taps his phone screen to find a playlist called Inessa’s Tracks, and then drops his hand to the console between us.

His long fingers curl around the edge, invading the space where my knees are. His knuckles press against the outside of my thigh as his thumb presses on the volume control button on the console.

Why would Mercedes put that button there ? Do they not understand how weird it feels for Alexei to casually rub his hand against the outside of my knee?

If he is affected by nudging me, he doesn’t show it.

His hand returns to the steering wheel and I pour all my attention into watching Inessa dance in the mirror.

Neither of us say anything else for the drive to the arena.

By the time we get there, the equipment team have skates set out for me. They’re brand new, right out of the box, and I suspect someone was sent out to buy them.

“What do you think, Inessa? Should we skate some laps while your dad practices?”

“No,” she says very clearly. “Jump?”

Alexei responds in Russian, and again she shakes her head.

He looks at me. “Do you understand jumping couch?”

I throw my head back and laugh. “Yep,” I say. “That’s upstairs in the front office area. I’ll take her up to see Shannon.”

“I’m sorry. I thought she would like skating with you. I know I would have.” He finds me a keycard that will get me upstairs, and hands it over.

“Another time, maybe.” I offer my hand to Inessa, and she slides her fingers into my grip. “Let’s go, baby girl.”

But we’ve barely made it to the elevator before we run into Kiley. She has her dog with her on a lead, and when she sees Inessa, she tells Puck to sit—and Puck does, immediately.

“Doggie,” Inessa whispers, her grip tightening on me.

“Do you want to pet her gently?” Kiley asks.

We move closer, and Inessa tentatively reaches out.

“We’re heading up to find Shannon,” I explain. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s an indoor dog park upstairs. And it’s wet outside, so…we’re here to burn off some energy. Becca and Charlie are coming, too. They just got a puppy who needs some lessons in how to play from Puck.”

“Charlie?” Inessa yells the name. “Charlie!”

Puck, to her credit, doesn’t even flinch.

As if summoned by the full force of a demanding toddler, there’s yapping in the distance, and thundering footsteps. Charlie runs into view with Becca and an excited puppy right behind.

“Hi Nessa,” Charlie says.

“Jump,” she says.

He gives her a wicked little look, immediately knowing what she means.

Becca greets me and I tell her about our mission.

“Maybe Inessa wants to come with us to the dog park instead,” Becca offers. “So we’re not jumping on the furniture while people are trying to work.”

From down the hall that Inessa and I just came, I hear Alexei call my name. “Emery? Are you still there?”

He comes jogging around the corner holding Inessa’s diaper bag. “Oh!” He takes in the other people who've joined me. “You found friends.”

“We're all going up to the dog park,” Becca says. “Today it is going to double as a preschool playground because it’s raining outside.”

“Great.” Alexei goes to hand me the backpack but then stops. He looks at me, he looks at Becca, he looks at Inessa, and then he says, “Can you take Inessa with you? I promised Emery she could skate today.”

“It’s okay,” I protest.

“It’s not,” he says firmly. “You are helping me. I owe you some fun.”

Kiley reaches for the diaper bag. “I’m happy to be on Inessa duty.”

“I don’t mind—” I start to say, but Alexei has already grabbed my hand.