Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) (25 page)

You will, won’t you? You’ll always love me. And I’ll always love you too.

And I don’t know how to fix it.

***

Aleksandr

Alex lowered himself onto the couch and set his crutches against the wall. The security guard had helped him carry in the packages, letters, and cards he hadn’t bothered collecting for several days. Piles of fan mail, which he now had all the time in the world to answer. A package from his parents. Cards from damned near everyone. It exhausted him, as if PT wasn’t doing a good enough job now that the therapist intended to get him on a stationary bike and work his way to the treadmill. Not to mention the emotional exhaustion of his conversations with Dr. Reese. He’d cried more in the past month than in his previous twenty-five years combined. It had prompted another tattoo, below Stephanie’s name. A dove carrying a twig, once a common Soviet prison tattoo, a plea for deliverance from suffering.

He sifted through the mountain of mail until a return address from Buffalo snagged his attention. Alex tore into the envelope and cradled the card in his hands, afraid to open it, more afraid not to.

Noncommittal, with colorful balloons and
Happy Birthday
in a refined, preprinted script. A card one would send to a distant relative. An acquaintance. Not even a note inside.

She hadn’t responded to his email, and she had no reason to after he’d shut down her last attempt at conversation. A woman worth having didn’t wait around for a man to get his shit together. She got on with her own life. Stephanie deserved the dream they had built together but with someone who could make it a reality, because true love meant putting her happiness above his own. And that, perhaps, was the most important lesson she had taught him.

Alex checked the calendar on his phone. His doctor-ordered bed rest ended on June 28, two months from now.

He had to. Whatever happened, he had to see her one more time.

He booked a flight and a hotel room in Buffalo for that morning.

***

“Ten minutes, Aleksandr. Don’t try to go as fast as you can. Just pedal. We’re reeducating your tendons and muscles to do what they’re meant to do.”

Alex reclined on the bike seat and set his bare feet on the pedals. He pumped his legs in a slow cycle, wincing at the short, sharp jab whenever his right leg extended. He glanced at the timer. Five minutes down.

“You’re doing great. Keep it up.”

Two months. He had to be walking by then.

His thighs quaked with the effort, but with a determined grunt, he exhorted his legs to cooperate. Sweat rolled down his face, his neck. The clock ticked in slow motion toward the ten-minute mark.

“Excellent! You did it!”

He slumped back, his flaccid legs shaking and his tendons maxed out. He guzzled water from a plastic bottle. Pathetic for someone who less than six months ago was squatting over three hundred pounds.

Two months to look like the man she remembered. Not that he was out of shape; he’d invested too much time and effort into his physique to let it go to shit. But he’d lost weight, and he felt weaker. Psychosomatic, maybe, but he needed to step it up.

“You’ll be on the treadmill in no time. Great work today, Aleksandr.” The therapist patted his shoulder. “I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Yeah. See you.” He rubbed his calf, the muscle starting to reassert itself, to give his lower leg definition. He directed his willpower at his first two toes and insisted they wiggle.

They refused to move.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Stephanie

A summer league team sponsored by a local sports bar had indeed required a defenseman and signed Stephanie to the roster. Fourteen games, Saturday or Sunday nights from the beginning of May to the end of August. She’d begun working out four times a week in anticipation of selection, attended open skates to get her skating legs back, and whipped herself into her best shape since college. Only her lower belly refused to concede to her fitness regimen. Alex used to say he liked it. Probably something to do with babies. 

A hectic work schedule left little time for personal reflection, yet her thoughts strayed to the box at the back of the closet. She could not fathom why she hadn’t destroyed it except for the inevitable regret. It would be a moment’s pain, like getting a shot. She might look upon its contents with affection, until the memories became claws tearing her apart again. One day, she would care as little for those things in the box as she did the items she had sold off from her childhood bedroom. And forget them.

Tonight, she was having drinks with another substitute studio analyst, a handsome ex-center turned peewee coach named Brandon, who had retired last season at thirty because of post-concussion syndrome. Just drinks. Arriving separately. Not a
date
date.

She met him at a wine bar in walking distance of her condo. He was sitting at the bar, thankfully; the intimacy of a booth implied steps she wasn’t ready to take. Brandon greeted her with a chaste kiss on the cheek, then pulled out a high-top chair for her. They ordered a bottle of pinot noir. All the things that didn’t remind her of Alex became all the things that endeared Brandon to her. Sandy hair instead of black. Brown eyes instead of green. A Canadian accent instead of Russian. Four inches shorter.

“Nice to see you outside of work,” he said.

“Thanks for the invite. I’ve been here since January, but I haven’t had much time to get out and do things.”

“Not even to the Falls?”

“Sadly, no.” Niagara Falls was something you saw with family. With your lover. Not alone while people whispered theories to each other as to why anyone would do something as pitiful as visit one of the most romantic places on Earth by themselves.

“Hmm. We should fix that.”

“Are you asking me on a real date?”

Brandon laughed. “I hope that didn’t sound pushy. I get the sense you left something behind. I recently got divorced myself, so yeah. No pressure, eh? Seriously. Rebound relationships are so unfair.”

“That’s the perfect word for it.”

“High praise from the writer. I’ll take it.”

Stephanie smiled and sipped the rich, robust wine. He enjoyed her company because he could not see the ghost haunting her, because she managed to trap it long enough while in the presence of others to pretend she was a normal human being. Because no one normal was plagued by the spirit of someone very much alive. “No, it would be nice to see. Thank you.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I did leave something behind. You’d think moving across the country would make it easier, but in this particular city? Not so much. Couldn’t turn down this opportunity, though.” She stole a glance and saw him putting two and two together. Alex’s quiet haunting had become a poltergeist crashing around her brain and her heart, her heartbeat not a beat at all but the ghostly two-syllable murmur of a name, and if Brandon were ever to get that close, he would know she had betrayed him long before.

“Volynsky. I saw some of the stories. Tabloid garbage. I mean, I feel for the guy. I know what it’s like to have to leave hockey because of an injury, but—”

“We
did
have a relationship. Alex—Aleksandr—and I were high school sweethearts, and we reconnected in Seattle, and…Ugh. God.” She chugged the wine and poured more. “Whatever.”

“I didn’t mean to—ˮ

“No, it’s fine. Really. It’s way past time to move on.” Stephanie rubbed her forehead. “After what he did,” she mumbled. Reconciliation served no purpose except to re-entangle them in each other’s webs. Both the spider, both the fly.

“I’m sorry. It’s obviously a sore spot. Lucky guy, though.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“You still care about him.”

“Aleksandr is…” Stephanie chewed on her lip. “He was my first love. We were young and stupid. But it became very clear we couldn’t have a future together.”

“It’s still hard for me to talk about my ex too. But look how well we’re doing now, eh? Without them.”

“Cheers to that.” They clinked glasses.

Another bottle later, plus a shared slice of Southern pecan pie, they were with great reluctance calling it a night. Outside the bar, Brandon placed his hands on her shoulders and brushed his lips over her cheek. “You’re lovely company, Ms. Hartwell. Let’s do it again sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

“Excellent. I’ll call you.” He hailed a cab. “Sure you don’t need a lift?”

She entertained the idea of inviting him back. She was lonely, and more than a little horny. No sense in messing up a good thing, though. “I live two blocks away. I’m good.”

“All right. See you soon.” He waved from the window as the cab pulled away.

Stephanie, grateful she’d worn flats, walked to her building in the deliberate, conscientious way of the intoxicated. She staggered into her condo, then poured a large glass of milk and gulped four pain relievers, a hangover preventative Rhonda had taught her.

She stumbled to the rooftop deck and gazed toward the west, at a sky speckled with stars. Inherently sad things, billion-year-old memories of light traveling backward from a future of darkness and decay. A remembrance of the way things were and would never be again. No wonder Alex loved them.

“Please, Alex,” she begged the sky in some pathetic attempt at exorcism. High above, several meteors blazed and vanished. “Let me go.”

***

The Gladiators’ season had ended during the quarterfinals. Many were surprised a team once again grappling with its identity after the loss of its captain and star, and its general manager’s guilt for trading him in the first place, had made it that far. The media asked repeatedly if he regretted it, if Aleksandr Volynsky would have suffered his career-ending injury had he not done so, as though by some quantum violation he could predict a future that never was. He began offering a terse ‘thank you’ and walking away whenever the issue arose.

Stephanie had expected Alex’s name to dominate those types of conversations in the first playoffs since his injury. The what-ifs and could’ve-beens. She had to ask those questions herself sometimes, with a professional’s composure, and try not to wonder if like Brandon her readers had heard the stories or read online about her connection to their hero.

A week before the first game, her league held a kickoff party on the upper level of the sports bar inside the rink complex. Stephanie recognized a few faces from the studio but not many others, though the fact women accounted for about twenty percent of those in attendance encouraged her. One day, she hoped, they’d see women in the NHL. Maybe Alex’s daughter, if someone ever granted his wish.

She ordered a signature cocktail, a blood-orange margarita, and wandered the VIP area set to one side of the thirty-eight-foot video screen viewable from both floors. The complex was about five years old and aside from the state-of-the-art bar featured two NHL-sized rinks, a training facility, and retail space.

“Stephanie Hartwell?”

She pulled her gaze from her ruby-colored drink. A pretty, auburn-haired woman several inches shorter than she was held out her hand.

“I’m Jessica Daniels. I’m the assistant director of programming at SWN. I’ve seen—and read—your Gladiators coverage.”

“Oh! Oh my gosh. It’s so nice to meet you.” She pumped Jessica’s hand. Hopefully not too hard. Or too weak.
Is my hand sweaty?
“So you play?”

“Right wing. Played for Syracuse University.”

“Division One. Nice. I went to USC. It was a fun club when people showed up.”

“What team are you with?”

“I signed up as a free agent, and the Chippewa Icemen fortunately needed a defenseman.”

Jessica held up her hand for a high five. “Glad to have you. You should play on our tournament team next year. We do three-on-three, and good defensemen are hard to come by.”

“Sounds like fun. Count me in.”

“So you moved here from Seattle, right? You wrote that story—ˮ

“Yep.
That
story.” She gulped the margarita. Now her hands
were
sweating. “My claim to fame.”

Jessica frowned with concern. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Trying to forget that part of my life. I’m sorry.” Stephanie dispelled the ghost with a wave. “Things have been great here.”

“I didn’t mean to bring up a sensitive subject. Believe me, I’ve been there. There’s a reason I wanted to talk to you, actually. We’ve been tossing around the idea of a sports-oriented morning show with a focus on opinion and social media, so we’re looking for younger co-hosts with a solid grasp of both local and national sports. Is that something you might be interested in?”

“I…Wow. Yes. Very much. Thank you. I don’t even know what to say. I’ll sound much more intelligent on-air, I promise.”

Jessica laughed. “We’re still figuring out the format, co-hosts—probably four—and whatnot, but I think you’d be perfect for this. Do you have a card? I’ll contact you when we get everything sorted out.”

“Yes.” Stephanie rooted around in her purse and handed one to her. “Thank you again. I moved here to pursue this kind of opportunity. I spent over three years in Seattle spinning my wheels.”

“We should hang out sometime.” Jessica offered her a perceptive smile. “I feel like you’ve got a very interesting story to tell.”

“I don’t know how interesting it is, but yeah. We should.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to mingling. If I don’t talk to you beforehand, I’ll see you next week.”

“See you then.” They shook hands again. When Jessica had disappeared into the crowd, Stephanie did a private happy dance without even spilling her drink.

***

Aleksandr

Alex stared at the enormous black contraption that belonged in a science-fiction movie.

“This is an AlterG antigravity treadmill.” The therapist assisted him into the chamber that secured around his waist, leaving his legs free to move. “It reduces your body weight and impact, and the risk of injury. We’ll start at the lowest speed and go for a quarter-mile.” He punched something into the screen. “As you get stronger, we’ll increase the body weight, speed, and distance.”

“I haven’t walked in months.”

“You’re ready.”

Alex clutched the bars, though falling inside the chamber was impossible. He’d merely drag his legs over the tread and make an utter fool of himself. “I guess.”

The therapist pressed the Start button, and the tread began to move at a snail’s pace. Where his unused leg was concerned, Alex might as well have been running a marathon.

“You have to adjust to not using those toes. You’re not going to walk the way you used to, but you’re going to do it.”

He stumbled along, each step with his right foot a sort of hop-limp as he struggled to acclimate to walking without two toes. Particularly his big toe, the rudder, without which his steps floundered.

Think of Buffalo.

And he walked.

***

Stephanie

This had to be a joke. Some kind of cosmic fucking prank.

Already outfitted in the rest of their equipment, the team donned their new jerseys, their helmets and gloves, and hit the ice for warmup. Stephanie remained on the bench, tracing the numbers. One. Nine. If they had been reversed, at least.

“Steph, are you okay?”

It was just a number.

She glanced up at Jessica. “Yeah. I’m good.” She pulled the sweater over her head, popped on her helmet, and stuffed her hands into her gloves, then grabbed her stick and bounded through the gate.

Just a number.

***

Aleksandr

Despite an infinite number of ways it could happen, two possible outcomes existed. Yes or no. Together or apart. They both must get on with life, with or without each other. And this time if she refused him, he would bow out. Allow her a chance at happiness, even if it meant the forever good-bye he’d once pledged they would never say.

If she had moved on, he might love again too. He might do any of the things she’d suggested after his injury. Or cut his ties with hockey altogether and focus on music for a while. Infinite probabilities. But he could not accept the regret that would come with not knowing what her answer might have been, if only he had been bold enough to ask.