“Just say it,” he grumbled.
“Say what?” Malcolm asked, leaning casually against the bedframe.
“Tell me I’m an idiot who screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m an idiot for letting her go.”
Colton shrugged. “I mean, yeah, that sort of sums it up well.”
Mack dragged his hands over his hair. “What happened last night after we left?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s going back to—”
“Russia. Yeah, so we’ve heard.” Mack shook his head. “But we also watched you lose your fucking mind over another guy even thinking about kissing her last night after you insisted you were at peace with the divorce, so maybe it’s time to cut the shit and just be straight with us.”
Vlad poked at his eggs. He wished he could hug Hazel again.
“You don’t want a divorce,” Malcolm said. “And neither does she.”
“That’s not true. She’s leaving.”
“Because you’re letting her.”
“No,” he said, choking on that damn emotion he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer. “Because I told her the truth, and it was too much for her.”
Mack groaned. “The truth about what? You keep talking in circles.”
Vlad shook his head. He knew how these guys worked. Once you started talking, it was all over. They wouldn’t let you stop until you had spilled your guts and were a weeping mess on the floor. The good thing about his friends is that they would be there to pick you back up again with some tissue for your snotty nose and a shoulder for your heavy head. The bad thing was, emotions were flying at him like a speeding puck across the ice. At least with the puck, he could visualize the scene and make the kind of split-second decision that had made him one of the best defensemen in the NHL. But right now, he was useless. The puck was going to hit him square in the face.
He scanned his friends, all waiting patiently, except for Colton, who had sunk to the floor to play with Hazel. Mack sat down on the narrow edge of mattress next to his hip. “Listen, man. We’ve all had to share our secrets before. You know how this works.”
Yeah. He’d just never been on this end of it before.
“You can do it, man,” Del encouraged.
Noah nodded. “Just tell us—”
“I’m a virgin!” He held his breath as his blurted confession settled on the group.
He expected an explosion.
He got silence.
“No shit?” That was from Noah. “Huh.”
He looked around the room, incredulous. “That’s it? That’s your only response?”
Malcolm shrugged. “So you’re a virgin. Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. I am an almost thirty-year-old professional athlete who has never had sex, even with his wife of six years. I’m a living, breathing—”
“Human being,” Mack said.
Vlad muttered obscenities in Russian. “You are missing the point. I told her I am a virgin, that I’ve waited my entire life for her, and she ran off saying she has ruined my life and she could never repay me and that it was a mistake to come here, and then she left me. Again.”
“Something tells me there was a little more to it than that,” Del mused.
Vlad’s cheeks grew hot and he looked at his lap. “She might have kissed me.”
“Wait, what?” Mack squawked.
Vlad lifted a single shoulder. “She kissed me.”
“Holy shit,” Colton breathed with a grin.
Malcolm lifted an eyebrow. “And then what?”
“I pulled away.”
And then came the explosion.
Mack swore and tugged at his hair. Malcolm pointed at Vlad, sputtering nonsense. Colton and Noah both stood at the same time and accidentally clunked their foreheads together. Del muttered, “I give up,” and started to leave.
Hazel squawked like she’d laid an egg.
“Why the hell did you stop her?” Mack seethed.
Del turned around and returned to the side of the bed. “I’m not leaving until I hear this. Not because I think it’s worth hearing, but because I want to file it away the next time we think we’ve met the dumbest fucker on the planet, and I can say, ‘Oh, no, remember the fucking Russian?’ ”
“I was confused, okay?” Vlad protested in his own defense. “One minute, she wants to go back to Russia. The next she is kissing me and looking at me naked and—”
“Uh—” Colton held up his hand. “What is the naked part?”
Noah smacked his arm. “He’s on a roll. Don’t interrupt him.”
Vlad sighed and ran a hand down his jaw to cover the sudden tremble of his lip. “I couldn’t do it. Not if she was just going to leave me. I couldn’t survive that. So I stopped her and told her to make up her mind, and that led to an argument, and I told her I was a virgin, and she left.”
Mack met Malcolm’s gaze, and together they shook their heads. Mack looked at the ceiling. “Jesus, you are so obtuse when you want to be.”
“What am I being obtuse about? I gave her a chance to tell me what she wants, and she left.”
Del leaned over and smacked Vlad upside the head. Vlad leaned away and rubbed at the spot that now stung from Del’s hand. “What was that for?”
“For being an obstinate ball sack.” Del bent forward and glared menacingly. “You didn’t give her a chance. You made her feel like shit. She took a huge risk in kissing you, and what did you do? You blamed her for your own choice to remain celibate.”
Vlad’s stomach lurched. “I didn’t blame her.” But he had. She’d even called him out on it. I didn’t ask you to wait for me. Don’t put that on me.
“And as an added bonus, you cemented in her mind her greatest fear, that she has fucked up your life, that you’re better off without her,” Del said. “No wonder she left.”
Vlad could barely hear anything over the roar of his own rapid heartbeat. “I’m going to be sick.”
Mack backed up. “For real? Like, you’re going to puke? Or just, like, you’re going to be figuratively sick?”
Vlad wasn’t sure.
Colton pretended to study his fingernails. “Hey, guys? Do you think now might be the right time to put him out of his misery?”
Noah crossed his arms. “Yeah, we’ve probably tortured him long enough.”
Vlad glowered. “What are you talking about?”
Colton shrugged. “She hasn’t left.”
Vlad’s heart stopped. “What?”
Colton grinned. “I happen to have it on good authority that Elena is currently just a few blocks away at Michelle’s house.”
A small blood vessel burst in Vlad’s brain as an overload of conflicting feelings fried his nerve endings. She was still here. She was still here.
Mack grinned. “Ooh, look at that. Plot twist.”
“You knew this all along?” Vlad growled.
Del shrugged. “We like Elena. We weren’t going to tell you until we were sure you deserved to know.”
“I am going to break your balls.”
Mack crossed his hands over his heart. “Is that any way to talk to the friends who are going to help you get your wife back?”
Vlad’s hands shook as he moved the tray to the nightstand. “I—I do not know what to do.”
Mack picked up Hazel and plopped her back on Vlad’s lap. “Well, I might not be a writer, but I would think your next chapter ought to include you making sure she knows you want her to stay.”
Colton laughed and ruffled Vlad’s hair. “Drink your poop tea, little butt. Because you just got your midpoint moment, and you have to decide if you’re willing to start rewriting your own story.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Michelle’s bedroom was broken into three parts—the bedroom part, a sitting area, and a closet the size of a Starbucks.
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They told Elena to wait while they disappeared into the coffee shop.
“What are you doing?” she said after five minutes. She had to raise her voice to be heard.
Michelle came out loaded with a pile of clothes so high that Elena could barely see her face. Michelle dumped the pile unceremoniously on the other chair in the room. She leaned a hand against the wall to pant. “Lucky for you, I have way too many clothes.”
“Lucky for me?” Elena asked. “What is going on?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am going to burn that sweatshirt,” Michelle said.
“This is my school,” Elena said, looking down at the word MEDILL emblazoned across her boobs.
“You’ve worn it every day that you’ve been here.”
“I didn’t have a lot of time to pack.” Of course, even if she had more time, most of her wardrobe looked exactly like what she’d been wearing. Leggings. Sweatshirts. Ripped jeans.
“Well, you also don’t have any time to go shopping, so you’re going to shop in my closet.”
“Shop for what?” She was afraid of the answer, especially when Michelle laughed.
“What else? For seduction.”
Linda and Andrea came out then, also loaded down with clothes. They dumped them next to the stack that Michelle had unloaded. Only Claud came out empty-handed. Apparently, she’d been the manager.
“Seduction?” Elena squeaked. “No. No, no, no, no. I can’t do seduction. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. I haven’t even talked to Vlad. He might just throw me out.”
Michelle held up a black dress with a deep V-neck. “Not if you’re wearing this, he won’t.”
Elena looked down at herself and made eye contact with the mounds of her generous breasts. “No way. I’ll look like a pool floatie.”
Four sets of hands grabbed her at various joints and forced her into the bathroom. Michelle handed over the dress. “Try it on.”
Five excruciating minutes later, Elena walked back out. Michelle and the Loners adopted the same expression—openmouthed and wide-eyed.
“I told you this was a mistake,” Elena said, turning back around.
Once again, everyone grabbed her, but this time they dragged her to the full-length mirror by the closet door.
“Look at yourself,” Michelle said. “You look ah-may-zing. I would never look this good in that dress.”
“I look like the women who used to hang out at the ice rink after the men’s senior competitions.”
“Well, I don’t know what that means, but if those women looked like this”—Andrea emphasized the word with a wave that gestured vaguely to Elena’s body—“then they were some hot women.”
Michelle laughed. “Vlad is going to faint.”
Heat that would rival Mount Vesuvius blazed across her cheeks. “This dress is way too obvious.”
Claud snorted. “Men don’t do subtleties, honey. You have to hit them over the head with things, and even then, you have to give them an explanation why.”
“Yeah,” Andrea said, pulling the V-neck even lower. “So, make sure you show these off.”
“Oh yeah,” Michelle said, nodding. “Those are the goods. Show ’em off.”
“I can’t do this.” Elena crinkled her nose. “I—I don’t even know how to seduce someone. I can’t just show him my boobs.”
Claud snorted again. “It’s like you’ve never met a man in your entire life.”
“I’ve met Vlad. He won’t even touch me without permission.”
“Even a gentleman can lose his mind over a pair of fleshy boobs.”
Elena laughed. “Why are you all helping me?”
“Because we want Vlad to be happy.”
“But what changed your mind about me?”
Claud came to stand in front of her. “Because you came to Michelle’s to offer your blessing even though it clearly broke your heart. Only a person who truly cares about a man would do something that selfless.”
“I am not selfless. I . . . I hurt him.”
Michelle gave her a sympathetic look. “You gotta give yourself a break. Nothing about your marriage has been normal. Neither one of you has made wise decisions. He is as much to blame for things as you are.”
Elena returned to the mirror and tried to see herself, see things, in a new way. She smoothed her hands down the fitted curves, tried to imagine his reaction, tried to imagine him taking it off her. A tug low in her gut made her sweat. “You’re absolutely sure about this dress?”
Michelle nodded. “Yes, and now we need shoes.”
“High ones,” Andrea said.
Claud smirked. “Fuck-me pumps.”
Dear God.
An hour later, Elena had enough borrowed clothes for a month of outfits, but her Medill sweatshirt was mysteriously missing. She changed into a pair of white jeans Michelle loaned her—she had to roll up the legs because Michelle had a good three inches on her—and a sleeveless black T-shirt that was slightly too tight in the chest, because Elena had a couple of inches on Michelle in that area. She returned to the kitchen, where the Loners waited for her with fresh coffee.
“Look at you,” Michelle said, shaking her head. “Look what you’ve been hiding beneath that sweatshirt.”
“Speaking of which, I can’t find it.”
Michelle whistled and looked away.
“Time to make a plan,” Claud said.
“A plan for what?”
Claud eyed her like a teenager trying to explain TikTok to her. “For getting your man back.”
Elena looked at the floor. “I never really had him.”
“Yes, you did. He’s always been yours. You’re just two very stubborn people.”
There was a knock at the front door. Michelle got a quizzical look on her face. “I have no idea who that could be. It’s too early for the girls to be back.”
She excused herself, and Elena held her breath as momentary panic imagined Michelle opening the door to find Vlad there to ask her out finally. She hid in the kitchen and ignored the quiet murmur of voices.
The door closed, and a moment later, Michelle reappeared. Her grin was as wide as her face, and she carried an envelope the size of a greeting card. She held it out to Elena. “This just arrived for you.”
“For me? From who?” Elena took the card from Michelle’s fingers just as Michelle answered her question.
“Seeing how it’s written in Russian, I have a pretty good idea.”
Елена
Her name was scribbled on the front of the envelope in Vlad’s unmistakable script.
Elena’s hand fluttered to her lips. “But he doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Well, he actually probably does by now,” Andrea said. “I sort of told Colton.” She did a little giggle and dance then. “I can’t believe I have Colton Wheeler’s cell number.”
“Well, are you going to open it or not?” Claud demanded.
“Maybe she wants some privacy,” Linda suggested.
The pounding of her pulse in her ears drowned out their voices as Elena slid a finger beneath the seal of the envelope. It flipped open with a simple tug, and her fingers shook as she pulled out a card with a spray of Russian sage on the front. She’d carried a bundle of it at their wedding.
Inside, in his masculine scrawl, was a poem she knew well.
“Well?” Claud demanded.
Elena could only whisper. “ ‘I still recall the wondrous moment when you appeared before my sight . . .’ ”
“What the hell does that mean?” Claud asked.
Elena looked up from the paper to find her unexpectedly new friends watching her closely and waiting for an explanation. “It’s a poem.”
“Awww.” Andrea clutched her hands to her chest. “He wrote you a poem?”
“H
e didn’t write it,” Elena said. But it wouldn’t have meant more even if he had. She looked down at the words again, but this time they swam through a watery lens.
“Does it mean something important?” Michelle asked quietly.
Yes, it meant something. It meant everything. It was a Pushkin poem about a man who fell in love with a woman but lost her, only to find her again years later.
It was a poem about second chances, about forgiveness and starting over.
It was, Vlad seemed to be saying, a poem about them.
At the bottom, Vlad had written a note. It was a wondrous moment when I woke up in the hospital and saw you there. I don’t want you to go. Will you have dinner with me tonight?
“So?” Claud prodded impatiently. “That’s it? Just a poem?”
“No,” Elena said, looking up again. “He wants me to have dinner with him tonight.”
Michelle squealed and did a little dance before pointing at Elena with an I told you so expression.
“What did I say? That man would die for you.”
“I don’t want him to die for me. I want him to be happy.”
“And he will be if you get over your stubborn self, put the past behind you, and give your marriage a chance at a real future.”
“But what if I can’t make him happy? What if—”
She swallowed the rest of the question, but it remained a loud voice in her head. What if she was too broken after all this time? What if it was too late to overcome all the mistakes, the misunderstandings? What if her past was just another anchor destined to drag their future into a dark well of water?
“No more what ifs,” Claud ordered. “It’s time to decide, once and for all. Happiness is the harder choice, but you’re strong enough to risk it. I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t believe that.”
“I still have things to tell him,” Elena whispered, her voice weakening along with her resistance.
“And you’ll have plenty of time for that later,” Michelle said. “But for now, you just have to take the first step.”
The first step toward a new future. Was it really that simple?
Elena swallowed and sucked in a breath. “Okay,” she said with a fortifying nod. “What’s the plan?”
Isn't It Bromantic? Page 21