“I haven’t met her yet,” Mrs. C said, smiling at Svetka.
“He’s hiding her from everyone,” Mrs. Petrov translated in Russian. “Maybe he’s embarrassed because she’s in a wheelchair.”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “That’s not what she—”
Svetka swatted my hand like I was a naughty boy sneaking sweets from the kitchen and hoping she wouldn’t notice. “You shouldn’t hide your girlfriend. Let your friends meet her. Let your Svetka meet her. Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” How the fuck was I supposed to take her around and introduce her to my friends when, until the night before we’d left on this road trip, she hadn’t even allowed me to see her?
Mrs. Petrov wasn’t helping at all. I glanced over and noticed both Drago and Petro were snickering at my situation.
“You went to her last night instead of bringing her to me,” Svetka pointed out.
“London is in a wheelchair. My house is full of stairs.”
She gave me a look that plainly said she didn’t think that was a good enough excuse, and that Mrs. Petrov was correct in thinking I was embarrassed and hiding London.
“She’s not even my girlfriend!” I argued, then immediately wished I hadn’t. Especially once I realized that Mrs. Petrov was “translating” some more for both Razor and Mrs. C, and both Petro and Drago were adding commentary here and there. Lord only knew how they were spinning this, but I doubted it was good.
“You spend all night with a woman who’s not your girlfriend?” Svetka said. “You’re better than that, Dmitri. Your papa would roll over in his grave if he thought that—”
“I don’t know what we are. I want her to be my girlfriend.” I wanted London to be a hell of a lot more than just my girlfriend, actually. That night had opened my eyes to just how deep my need for her went.
Deep enough to scare the shit out of me.
“But she’s not?” Svetka asked, suspicion running rampant in her tone.
“Maybe?” Not my best answer ever.
“Why isn’t she your girlfriend?”
I shifted, more uncomfortable than I’d ever been on the team plane. I suddenly felt like I was too big for my seat by half, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to make myself smaller. “She says I need to get into counseling or something,” I bit off, glaring at Mrs. Petrov as she hurried to tell Mrs. C, “She won’t be girlfriend because he’s crazy man. Completely mad. Woo-woo bonkers.” The woman even added some arm waving and over-the-top facial expressions to emphasize her point.
“What do you need counseling for?” Svetka asked. “Because of the wreck?”
I shrugged. “She thinks I still blame myself for what happened to Sergei.”
Svetka patted my hand, looking at me the same way she had when I was a little boy who’d never known a mother’s love. “She’s right.”
“I know she’s right, but—”
“No buts. She wants you to let it go? She wants you to move on with your life? She wants you to look forward, not back?” Svetka didn’t wait for me to respond. Those were questions that clearly didn’t need a response. “She’s right, Dmitri.”
“I know she is.”
“But you don’t like it. You don’t know who you are if you’re not blaming yourself for something you did wrong.” She gave me a sad look. “Do you remember the first time Sergei brought you to my house? That was the day you told me you didn’t have a mama of your own because you hadn’t been a good enough baby. She left, and it was your fault, you said. You couldn’t blame her, even though she was the adult who’d made the decision. One time you told me something almost the same about your papa dying. You said if you’d only been less of a burden for your papa, he wouldn’t have had to work so hard, and he wouldn’t have gotten cancer from the paper mill. Now you blame yourself for Sergei losing his leg.”
“That one really is my fault, Svetka,” I argued.
“It’s his fault, too. He didn’t have to get in the car with you. He knew you’d had too much vodka.”
“But I was the one behind the wheel.”
“You were. But my Sergei, he has a wonderful life. He lost a leg, but he’s not letting it stop him from living.”
I slumped back in my seat, sulking like an overgrown child. Then Mrs. C caught my eye and gave me a look I didn’t want to interpret.
“She won’t be with you?” she asked.
“Kind of. She wants me to change.”
“Is she willing to change, too?”
Until that night before we’d left for this road trip, that would have been an easy question to answer. It had all been about me making changes up until then, but now London had gone out of her way to stop being so controlling. Something that wasn’t easy for her. Something I’d never thought she’d do.
“She’s making changes,” I muttered.
“But you’re still not?” Mrs. C said. “Sounds like you need to get over yourself. If you really want to be with her, that is.”
Damn all these women, thinking they knew what was best for me.
Svetka reached into her carry-on bag and dug out the last piece of the bread she’d baked the morning we left. “Here,” she said in Russian, passing it into my hands. “Eat this. You’ll feel better. You’re too skinny.”
JACK’S WORDS FROM this afternoon were still ringing in my ears hours later, as I sat on my couch eating an overfull bowl of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream and watching the Thunderbirds game. He’d stopped me on my way out of the office, wanting a word because I seemed to be in a funk.
Yeah. A funk. I supposed he could say I was in a funk, if that was what he called being pregnant, in love with a surly Russian who didn’t want to face his demons, and falling apart at the seams because I’d finally allowed myself to feel things again.
You know how it is, he’d said to me that afternoon. Counselors, therapists…we think we’ve got it all figured out. But that’s a load of crap. The truth is, we try to fix other people so we can avoid fixing ourselves. So if you want him to fix himself, maybe you should start by taking a hard look in the mirror.
I already had taken a hard look in the mirror. That was the problem. Now, all I could see was that Dima, Wade, and Gray were all right about me: I was a bitch who had to control everything around me at all times. It was my way or no way at all. Take it or leave it. I never allowed for any gray to fall between my black and white.
I hadn’t always been like this, either. Oh, sure, I’d grown up with a serious stubborn streak and the determination to prove I could do anything I set my mind to, but this went beyond simple confidence. It was arrogance. And it was ugly.
And I didn’t like it.
Jack had left me with a few choice things to ponder after our impromptu counseling session, the most difficult of which had to do with how far back this cocky attitude and need to be in control of every aspect of my life had started. I’d been thinking back the whole time I’d been watching this game, trying to pinpoint a time in my life when my attitude had changed.
The easy answer would be when my accident happened and I’d lost the use of my legs. But honestly, I didn’t think that was it.
The harder I thought, and the deeper I delved into my memories, the more likely it seemed it was a point a few months later. I’d been struggling to come to terms with my new disability. I’d gotten through much of the grief and anger and heartache that comes with such a drastic change in life. And then one day, I was able to stand up.
Which gave me hope.
False hope, much like any I might have harbored about Wade overcoming his PTSD and being able to live a normal, happy life.
False hope. No wonder it was enough to crush me.
But was any hope I might hold out for Dima also of the false variety? Or was I just scared because of so many things in my own past?
I watched him on the TV, stirring my ice cream until it was smooth and silky like soft-serve, trying to get out of my own head long en
ough that I could see the truth of the situation with him.
He’d been having a good game, but the team as a whole was struggling just like they had been on the rest of the trip. But Dima managed to knock the puck off the stick of a Sharks defenseman and push it out into the neutral zone. It was the end of a long shift, so I expected him to shoot it into the other end of the rink and head off for a change, but he surprised me, chasing after it and skating in on the San Jose goaltender.
He deked a couple of times and shot the puck high, glove-side. It just barely went in.
The camera switched over to a shot of the guys’ mothers up in one of the suites, all of them on their feet and cheering. They zoomed in on one who was so overjoyed that she had tears in her eyes.
“That’s Svetlana Mironov,” the commentator said. “She’s the mother of Nazarenko’s good friend and former teammate, Sergei Mironov, and she tells me she might as well be Nazarenko’s mother, too. And I can tell you from personal experience, she makes excellent bread.”
I chuckled to myself and took another bite of my ice cream, but my doorbell rang before play could start up again.
I glanced up at the clock. It was almost eleven o’clock. Who would be coming over to my house at this time of night?
Then they pounded on my door, so I gave up any thought of pretending I wasn’t home and hoping they’d go away.
I set my bowl on the coffee table and transferred myself into my wheelchair. The bell rang a few more times before I got there and could peek through the peephole. Wade Miller was standing on my stoop, looking like hell.
This couldn’t be good.
At all.
I opened the door, and the scent of whiskey on him nearly drowned me.
“What…” I shook my head, trying to get my brain to catch up to the present. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you. Had to try one more time.” His words were slurred. Thick. Full of so much pain they brought tears to my eyes.
“Wade, you’re drunk and you’re not thinking straight.”
“I haven’t thought straight since I met you.” He came through the door, stumbling over the threshold but somehow managing to stay upright.
I backed up so I wouldn’t be in his way if—or maybe when would be more accurate in this situation—he fell. The whole time, my mind was racing a mile a minute. With him being in this condition, I couldn’t let him stay, but I couldn’t let him drive, either. If I tried to take his keys from him, though…
“London,” he said, his voice rough and ragged. His eyes were red, bloodshot.
“How much have you had to drink?” I asked, trying to redirect him from whatever line of thinking had brought him here.
“Enough.” He shrugged. “Lost count after about a dozen shots.”
“Please tell me you did that at home and not at a bar, because if any bartender sold you—”
“They’ll sell me whatever I want. I’m a fucking hero, remember?”
I nodded, trying to figure out what pocket he had his keys in. Probably on the right. “I remember,” I said cautiously, trying to inch my way closer to him at the same time as I knew, without a doubt, that I couldn’t possibly get away with what I was thinking. Not safely. But I had to try, even if it meant getting hurt, because the alternative was Wade getting himself dead, or someone else getting hurt or killed, or God only knew what else could happen, but it wouldn’t be good.
The pocket on his left side looked heavier, though. More weighed down. Like something bigger than his keys was in it.
He wouldn’t be stupid enough to have a handgun sitting in his pocket, would he? Probably not if he were sober. But considering the circumstances, anything was possible.
“I still love you, you know that?” he drawled, trying to lean back against the wall, but he was farther away than he’d realized, and he crashed back into it instead.
I flinched at the racket but did my best to stay in the moment. “I know you do, Wade. I’ve never doubted that.”
“I could be a good father for your baby. Better than that son of a bitch who knocked you up and left you to deal with it on your own, that’s for sure.”
“No one doubts you’d be a good father,” I said, creeping closer. Could I possibly get close enough to remove everything in both his pockets? And even if I could manage it, what the heck was I going to do after that? He might be drunk beyond belief, but he was still stronger and faster than me.
The crowd at the game erupted, and Wade turned his head toward the TV.
“You can’t fucking let him go, can you? You can’t admit that he’s no fucking good for you.”
“There are a lot of things I apparently can’t let go of,” I said. I was close enough I could reach for his pockets. But there was no chance I could empty them both before he stopped me. None at all. I had to make a decision. Keys or gun? Right or left?
“I can’t let go, either,” he said. “Of you. Of the idea of us. You’re good for me, London.”
But he wasn’t good for me, a fact that had never been clearer in my mind than at this very moment. I took my chance and lunged for him, digging my hand into his pocket and curling it around the warm metal barrel. He was too stunned and too drunk to react right away, so I was able to come away with it in my hand before falling out of my chair from leaning too far.
“The fuck are you doing?” he shouted, reaching for me like he was going to either hit me or grab me, I wasn’t sure which.
I turned the Beretta around in my hand until it was pointed directly at him. “Why did you have a gun in your pocket?” I demanded. “Why did you come to my house, drunk off your ass, with a damned gun in your pocket?” Hands shaking and nerves flying through the roof, I checked the chamber. “It’s fucking loaded, Wade. You brought a loaded gun and had it sitting in your pocket. Have you lost your mind?”
“Apparently.” He reached for me again, like he was going to try to wrestle the gun from my hands.
If I let him do that, we were both screwed. Tears burning behind my eyes, I disengaged the safety. “Don’t. I swear, I’ll shoot you.”
He laughed. He actually laughed, like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard, before the laughter turned to tears. Probably because he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I could ever follow through with that threat. But then he shocked me.
“Do it. Please.” He spread his arms out to the side, giving me a huge target.
“Give me your keys,” I choked out through my own tears. “Give them to me, and we’ll get you some help—”
“There is no help. That’s just it.”
“There is, if you’ll let there be. Come on. Give me your keys.”
“Are you going to shoot me or not?” he shouted.
I blinked back more tears, praying he would toss the keys my way so I could call…someone. I didn’t know who. One of the other vets from the Para-Pythons, probably. Those guys had a much better idea of what Wade was going through than any of the rest of us. And maybe the cops, too. But I had to get those keys from him.
He pushed himself away from the wall, somehow standing upright. “Just shows where I stand with you if you won’t even help me end it when I fucking beg you to.” Then he stepped over me and left.
I turned the safety on again and dropped the Beretta like it was on fire, sobs exploding out of me. The tires of his pickup squealed outside as he drove off, reminding me that he still wasn’t safe, even if he didn’t have his stupid gun. I pulled myself together enough that I could right my chair and climb back into it. Then I wheeled over to my phone and called nine-one-one, praying that the cops could get to him before he hurt himself or someone else.
I WAS STILL shaking when, hours later, my phone rang. I hoped it was Dima. This was the time of night he would call me if he were going to, and hearing his voice right now would soothe me more than anything else I could think of.
Instead, it was the officer who’d come to take a statement from me after Wade had left.
> “I’ve got good news and bad news for you, ma’am,” he said.
“I was afraid it would all be bad news.”
“You and me both. The good news is that we found your friend and he’s alive.”
Alive. Which meant he was probably hurt, or else the officer would have said something like he’s fine. “And the bad?”
“He’s in the emergency room right now. Wrecked his pickup about two miles outside of town. Wrapped himself around a tree. No one else was involved.”
I pressed my eyes closed as more tears silently fell. “Is he okay?” I asked, but my voice was so soft I could barely hear myself.
“Too soon to know. It was ugly, ma’am. I won’t lie to you about that. He’s lucky to be alive based on the look of that pickup. They had to use the Jaws of Life to pry him out of there. Is there any family we should contact? His parents or a girlfriend?”
“No, I… I’ll take care of it. At this time of night, it should come from someone they know.”
“If you’re sure,” he said. He spent a few more minutes giving me all the information he could, and we hung up.
I called Wade’s parents and filled them in with as many details as I had. They lived in Alabama, though, and wouldn’t be able to get out to see him until tomorrow at the soonest. I assured them it would be fine, that I’d make sure he wasn’t alone.
But I’d already changed into my pj’s, even though I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be getting to sleep very soon after that, so I had to put my clothes on again. Then I drove up to the hospital and parked outside the emergency room entrance.
When I wheeled in, the woman at the desk directed me to the waiting room. “He’s in surgery right now,” she explained. “I’ll have one of the doctors come out to talk to you as soon as possible so they can explain everything.”
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 23