Page 48

CHAPTER 47

ALEXEI

“How long do you think until he calls me?” I ask.

From where she’s curled up in the crook of my arm, Emery shrugs. “Either immediately or not for, like, two weeks.”

From the bedside table, my phone starts vibrating.

“Immediately it is,” she says, crawling over me to grab it.

Which puts her ass in the air.

“Let it go to voicemail,” I suggest, palming her bottom. “It’s nap time.”

She wiggles her hips. “Ooh, I like that, but—” She squeaks as I slip my hand up the loose leg of her shorts, squeezing the juiciest part of her ass just because I can, because it’s mine, she’s mine, and she’s starting to tell people.

“Hang on,” she gasps, laughing, then gasping when my fingers dip between her cheeks. “Alexei?—”

“Get off my sister.”

She hands me my phone, which she has answered and Forrest is on speaker—apparently.

“Hey bud,” I say casually.

“Don’t hey bud me. Why the fuck am I hearing about this from Emery?”

“Because she’s your sister.”

“And you’re my best friend. You need to face me like a man.”

Emery makes a gagging sound.

I put my finger to my lips. “Oh yeah? Why?”

“Because you can’t just… I mean, she’s going to kill me for this, but it’s Emery , you know? She’s sweet as fuck. And you’re…”

“A filthy hockey player?”

“Exactly.”

“But I have to respect her privacy, yes?”

That trips him up. “Well…”

“Forrest, I love your sister.”

“I know, but?—”

“Do you know? I’ve been in love with her for two years, man. And she wanted nothing to do with me. This isn’t something casual. I love her.” I’m talking to her brother, but I’m looking at Emery.

And she’s smiling back at me.

“I knew she was trouble as soon as we met,” I continue. “The best kind of trouble. And as long as she wanted that to be secret, it was going to be secret. Now, she wants you to know, so now you know.”

“But Mom and Dad don’t know yet, so you have to keep it secret with us,” she adds, crawling on top of me.

Taking my phone and hanging up on her brother.

Putting my hands back on her ass.

“Trouble,” I growl at her.

She gives me a smile that is brighter than the surface of the sun.

* * *

We go to bed early that night, because she needs to be at the airport in Toronto at four in the morning. My parents sleep upstairs, to be close to Inessa while I’m gone, in the room that was very briefly Emery’s, but her place is in my bed now, and nobody questions that.

At three, her alarm goes off.

I drive her to the airport. The highway is pretty empty at this hour, and it doesn’t take us long enough.

Before I know it, I’m holding her at the curb on the departures level.

And she’s holding me back, so tight it feels like she never wants to let go. I know the feeling.

“I wish we’d had more than a few weeks together,” she mumbles into my shirt.

“Sunshine.” I cup her face. “We will. We’re going to have the rest of our lives. Go. Text me when you’re through security, and when you get on the plane. And when you land. Keep me updated, all day every day.”

“No time for regrets,” she whispers.

“Only hope.”

“And anticipation…” She pushes up on her toes, kissing me one last time. And then another, a bonus kiss to last us through the next week.

A week.

That’s the same as me going on a road trip.

This is fine.

Hard, but fine.

“I love you,” I say as she puts her backpack on. “I love you so fucking much.”

She blows me a kiss, and then she’s through the doors of the airport, her own I love you echoing back at me.

Time for me to head home, and go back to bed. It won’t be long before Inessa crawls in with me, wondering where her Emmy is, because how do you explain to a two-year-old that her favourite person has something important to do somewhere else?

You can’t.

We just have to keep carrying on, and distracting her, the same way we do when I leave on a road trip—and the next one is around the corner.