Page 28

STEFANOS

A lexei is asleep beside me on the pillow. Last night comes flooding back.

We must have been asleep for well over ten hours. It was just getting dark out when he crawled into bed with me.

Shit!

“Alexei!” I shake him, practically straddling him.

He startles awake, making a weird noise, which, in retrospect, now I know he’s not dead, is completely understandable.

“What?”

“Sorry.” I climb off him and cover myself with the comforter, suddenly feeling shy about the fact I’m completely naked and he’s still wearing his sweats and a t-shirt. “I thought you’d been asleep too long.”

He rubs his eyes through a laugh. “Just an FYI, not letting people with a concussion sleep is a myth, you just need to make sure they’re still breathing. And if I didn’t drop dead by now, so long as I don’t do anything crazy, I’m not gonna randomly die in my sleep.”

“Okay.” I cringe. “Good to know.”

He turns his head on the pillow, his gaze roaming greedily over all the parts of my body on show above the comforter.

“What?”

“You’re so fucking pretty.”

I scrunch my nose. “Pretty?”

“You don’t wanna be pretty?”

“I don’t know, I’d rather be handsome, like you.”

My face floods with heat, but he doesn’t seem to care. He keeps shuffling closer on the pillow until his mouth is really close to mine. I’m painfully aware of the fact I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, so I keep my lips clamped shut.

He puts his hand over his mouth and says. “You’re pretty, deal with it. And I need to brush my teeth.”

While he’s in the bathroom, I Google how long you should wait to have sex after getting a concussion. The general consensus seems to be a few days if you don’t have any lingering symptoms.

“Alexei, how long before you can play hockey again?” I ask when he comes back in. His expression clouds and I regret ruining his mood.

“I’ll probably be fine to get back to practice in a week, maybe less, but I won’t be able to play the next few games.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

My head snaps up, my heart leaping into my throat, but when I look at him, he’s smiling.

“You said you don’t want me to get hurt, and if I play hockey, there’s a good chance I’ll get hurt.”

He’s right, and I hate that.

Before I can think too hard on it, he’s bending down and kissing me. His breath like toothpaste and his face like a brunet Captain America.

“Alexei?”

“Yeah?”

“We should talk about last night.”

I half expect him to back away. Now I know him a little better, I see all that bristling when we first met as him acting like a cornered animal. Not the cocky asshole I worried he might be.

He doesn’t back away though. He takes a seat on the bed and starts rubbing my leg through the comforter. It’s such a weirdly familiar action, I forget what I wanted to say.

“What do you wanna talk about?” He asks.

“How do you feel?”

He answers without hesitation. “Good. How do you feel?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “Why am I the only one who needs to talk about my feelings?”

“Well… it wasn’t my first time so…”

He looks down.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, you don’t have anything to apologize about. It’s none of my business who you slept with before me.”

“I know it’s just…” I squirm under the blanket, but he doesn’t move his hand from my leg. “I don’t know. You didn’t look happy about it.”

“I’m jealous, sure.” He shrugs.

“ You’re jealous?”

He looks confused.

“Why would you be jealous of anyone? You’re like… Captain America.”

“Captain America?” His eyebrows shoot up, his eyes bright with amusement.

“Yeah, all chiseled jaw and high cheekbones and a body you could immortalize in marble.”

My face is burning, but mine isn’t the only one.

“Wow, well, thanks, I’m glad you think that. But maybe you didn’t hear me when I told you how beautiful you are like ten million times.”

I smile, dropping my eyes. I’m not used to all this praise. Sure my family praise my violin-playing, and Artemis and Mama always tell me I’m handsome, but I don’t think anyone has ever called be ‘beautiful.’

“But hey, that’s not the only reason why I did what I did last night, with you I mean,” he says.

“No?”

“No way. I like you. I like the person you are. You’re kind and you see the good in people, even if they don’t deserve it. And you’re patient, and honest and…”

A rush of blood drowns out whatever else he was saying after he calls me ‘honest.’ How can I be honest when I know I’m his online pen pal and I haven’t told him yet?

“Hey,” I feel him tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and snap out of it. “You okay?”

“Yeah just…” I look at him. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t do it. I’m selfish, I know, but I don’t want this to end.

“… a little surprised, about all this. When I moved in with a hot hockey player, I didn’t think we were gonna end up having sex.”

“You’re gonna have to stop with the compliments, you’re giving me a big head.”

“I think you could do with an ego boost. You’re a lot better in every way than you think.”

He gets up, backing off finally. All it took was a compliment.

“So I know you have to go to practice and classes and everything, but maybe you wanna hang out in-between, I don’t have anything to do until I’m signed off to go back to practice except study.”

“Sure, of course I wanna hang out with you. On one condition.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ll stop watching TV and stay off your phone, because it’s bad for your concussion and Google said so.”

His cocks his head. “That was two conditions.”

“Okay, I’ll amend it – no screens.”

His smile lights up the room. Dimples popping and brown eyes shining.

“What are you gonna do to entertain me?” He asks. His voice dripping with inuendo.

“No sex either.”

“I could just give you blow jobs.”

My face flushes. “As much as I’d love that, it would be incredibly selfish.”

“Yeah well, I think you deserve a little selfishness sometimes. But if you don’t want me to do that, there is something you could do for me, something I’d like and that probably isn’t against Google’s concussion rules.”

“Oh yeah?” My heart pounds at the prospect of being able to do something for him. Something to make him happy.

“You could play the violin for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“You don’t have to pretend to like my playing, I know it’s not to everyone’s-”

“Who said I was pretending? Stef, you were incredible at the restaurant that night. I wish I’d been to see one of your performances earlier. I can’t get enough.”

Something familiar and unpleasant churns in my stomach. “I’m glad you haven’t seen my performances.”

“Why?”

“Because, I feel comfortable when I perform at the restaurant, but when I perform with the orchestra, I’m a mess.”

He sits back down, zeroing in on me.

“You don’t like playing with the orchestra?”

“It’s not that. I enjoy rehearsals, and I love playing music with all those amazing musicians, especially Alice. It’s the performing I hate. The pressure. The stuffiness of the setting. It reminds me of-” I trail off, feeling my palms start to sweat and my fingers tingle.

“It reminds me of my audition for Julliard.”

He nods. Waiting for me to go on.

I take a deep breath and wipe my sweaty palms on the comforter.

“I spent my whole life, or - as long as I can remember - prepping for my Julliard audition. I had posters and all kinds stuck up on my side of the room I shared with Ari. It’s all me and my mom could talk about.

While we were riding the subway to lessons, or while she was making dinner, or supervising my homework.

A day never went by without us talking about Julliard.

It started to be like a family saying. It’ll be good preparation for Julliard.

A couple of weeks before the audition, I couldn’t sleep properly.

I had the symptoms of a stomach bug, but the doctor said there was nothing wrong with me.

I was getting palpitations and hyperventilating.

My music teacher told my mom it was normal to be this nervous and I’d get through it.

But then the audition came and I couldn’t stop puking.

My hands were sweating, my fingers tingling.

My hands starting to cramp up.” I try to show him by making claws with my fingers.

“I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe.

But I’d waited my whole life for this, and I knew, if you blow your chance at Julliard, you don’t get a second one.

I went out onto the stage, sweat dripping down my face, barely able to breathe, and I fucked it up. I choked.”

Alexei reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“I walked off the stage and I just collapsed in a heap. I thought my life was over. Everything I’d worked towards, gone, in a couple of minutes.”

The memory makes my throat feel tight and my eyes sting with the threat of tears.

“Fuck Stef, I’m sorry that happened.”

I wipe my face, sniffling up any rogue tears that might want to make an appearance. “Aren’t you gonna tell me it just wasn’t meant to be?”

“Nope. People say that to me all the time about my injury. It wasn’t meant to be.

Well, is that supposed to make me feel better?

Because it doesn’t. My life ended that day on the ice, and I’m never getting back my shot at the NHL, or the ability to take care of my family easily for the rest of my life, or the chance to live out my dreams. So I know how you feel.

It’s not easy to get over, but you’re so much better than Julliard Stef. ”

Hearing Alexei talk about his life ending like that puts what happened to me that day at Julliard into perspective a little.

“Your life didn’t end Alexei.”

“Didn’t it? Now instead of playing hockey and retiring in my thirties, I have to go to work for some evil bank for the rest of my life.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He tightens his grip on my hand before letting go. I think I’ve pushed it too far. That he’s gonna back off again, but he stays sitting where he is, his face softening a little.