The Pieces Of Us (The Firebird Trilogy Book 3)

by Jennifer Loring

  “She should have been here for this. For so much.”

  “She is, Dad. She’s always with us.”

  He hoped such platitudes brought Anya peace. She was innocent enough that words alone palliated if not cured. She hadn’t—and he prayed she never would—watched her life unspool, felt each loss scoop out another measure of her soul until it left behind a scarecrow powerless to do anything but observe.

  “I know, baby.” He returned her embrace, stroked her long black hair. I have to save myself from drowning. I’m all she has, and she’s just a kid.

  He gazed at the tattoo on his forearm. The royal blue eyes. The smile more brilliant than the California sun. He had begun to search for her in everyone he met but found nothing to hold on to. It had taken a fraction of a second to fall in love with her, and there were not enough lifetimes in the entire universe to get over that love. If he granted Anya one gift, it was to protect her, prevent her, from falling so hard she never reassembled her pieces.

  Chapter Three

  Alex

  Anya was gnawing on a glazed donut when Alex came downstairs to start his morning tea. She shoved it into her mouth.

  “Anyechka!”

  “Sorry, Dad. It’s that time of the month. I need sugar.”

  He wedged his fingers into his ears and started singing.

  “Dad!” She giggled and bumped her hip against his. “Sit. I’ll make the tea. What did you think of Mercy Hill?”

  “Education-wise, it’s great. But I’m not sold on the hockey program. If you want to stay in Buffalo, shoot for Canisius.”

  “I will.” Anya brought sugar, lemon, fruit jam, and honey to the table, then poured hot water from the kettle into two cups. The samovar process of tea-making took too long for her.

  “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.”

  Anya arched one groomed eyebrow—Alex’s thick, black brows, the poor thing, on her mother’s heart-shaped face—and stirred sugar into her tea.

  “Maybe it’s time I thought about selling the house. Not until you start college, of course, but…”

  She let out a heavy, thoughtful sigh. “It’s too big for you.”

  “Da. Don’t you think? Five bedrooms, one guy.”

  “You’re staying in Buffalo, aren’t you?”

  The million-dollar question. Most of the guys from his playing days, aside from a handful of alumni, had scattered to all corners of the country and even to Europe. Jacob and Nicole White had lived here for two years before Jake was traded again, this time to Minnesota, where he retired. He and Nicole had moved back to Seattle not long after. Buffalo had been Alex’s home for so long, twice, he could think of nowhere else to go, not even Saint Petersburg, nor did he want to start over from scratch at forty-four. He’d endured enough, hadn’t he? Wiped the slate clean more times than he cared to count.

  “I plan on sticking around. And wherever I am, you’ll always have a room.”

  Anya surveyed the kitchen as though it were evaporating like morning fog around her. She’d known no other home. All that defined her relationship to Stephanie resided within these walls; in no other home would she be able to walk into a room and be reminded of something her mother had said or done there. The gingerbread cookies Stephanie had burned to a crisp, the dance-offs she and Alex held in the living room or the sing-alongs around the piano. Each major event celebrated or mourned in this house, and Stephanie’s essence ingrained in each tile, each piece of wood, in the atmosphere itself.

  Anya placed one hand over the other on the table and leveled her gaze at him. Wide-eyed, melancholy, but resigned to whatever decision he made, whatever might bring him serenity. It had been a year. He was no longer acting out of grief’s impetuous shock but the necessity of moving on.

  “You should do it, Dad.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with it?”

  She tilted her head, her gaze turning inward. “I can feel her everywhere here, and it’s…nice. Like she’s still with us. Sometimes I think she’s hugging me, or tucking me in at night.”

  Alex chewed on his lip. The chills on the back of his neck like a whisper of her breath; a touch on his cheek like a phantom kiss. Her ubiquity in the house’s molecules. Was that why people believed in ghosts? A memory so powerful it left a scratch in the fabric of time. Not something you could simply paint over and pretend it wasn’t there.

  “But I can see how much it’s hurting you. How it’s holding you back. As long as you’re here, you’re going to look at that bedroom door and keep reliving the day she died.” Anya pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and fingered the ends of it. Her foot bounced beneath the table and every few beats, she banged her knee on the underside, jiggling the tea cups. “She wouldn’t want that, Dad. She’d want you to go in there, clean it up, and get on with life.”

  “I know,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “We need to go in and do what we have to do. You need closure. And if selling the house helps, then you should do it. I’ll miss it, but I miss you more.”

  Alex swirled some jam into his tea. “Have I really been that distant?” A stupid question. Each day he performed a thousand acts of basic maintenance just to keep going, hoping for something to break the monotony of his sorrow. His life had fallen apart, and no one else was available or prepared to help clean up the mess. It was not Anya’s to cleanse.

  “You’ve been sad. And you’re so wrapped up in it, you don’t see what’s going on around you. I miss the dad who went to the rink and practiced with me. Who laughed and sang and wanted to go out and do things.” The gravity of her expression, her unwillingness to meet his eyes, broke his heart. “Not the guy who sits on the deck chain-smoking, when he’s not locked in the gym or the guest room.”

  He stared at his tea. Pawed at his hair, smoothed his shirt, and dropped his hands to his lap. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you like I should have been, and I hate that you feel like you have to take care of me.”

  “I love you so much, Dad. You don’t have to go in there alone, okay? We’ll do it together. And we’ll say goodbye together.” She reached across the table. He took her hand in his.

  “You are the most amazing little girl—young woman—I could have ever hoped for. I’m so proud to be your father.”

  Anya smiled and squeezed his fingers. “Let’s do it this weekend.” She pushed away from the table, then grabbed her backpack dangling from the chair. “I better get going, or I’ll be late. See you tonight, Dad.” She kissed his cheek and trotted out to the driveway.

  Alex watched from the window as he did each school morning, making sure she backed out safely in Stephanie’s last BMW. No matter how old she was, and especially after the trauma of losing her mother, he couldn’t be protective enough of his baby girl. But Bog, how he admired her strength, the inner fire that like her mother’s burned brightest when all around her was in flames.

  ***

  Anya

  “Noah’s all pouty today.” Hailey, Anya’s other best friend, stuck out her bottom lip. She pressed two books to a bounteous chest clad in a polyester cheer sweater with metallic inserts, as if the cheerleading captain didn’t draw enough attention. Every boy that walked by stared at the matching skirt and the ass within it, but there was no competing with her boyfriend, a college freshman and baseball player.

  “Well, I kind of…canceled him.” Anya scanned her books for her fat calculus text and after several tugs dislodged it from the locker.

  He was standing a few feet away at the intersection of two hallways, outside the school store. Hailey hissed at him, and he skulked away. “When is he going to let it go? God, such a sad little puppy. I’ve never liked him, you know. And yeah”—she waved her hand to dismiss him—“I know you two grew up together. So what? He’s high-key weird when it comes to you. And ugh, gingers. Gross.”

  Anya laughed as she tucked the book into her bag. “Yeah, I know. I just
…What?” She followed Hailey’s slack-jawed stare into the adjoining hall.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  He was tall, whoever he was. Graham-cracker brown hair, buzzed on the sides, rose in a wave from his forehead. A round diamond stud sparkled in each ear. Hard to see his face when he was staring at a map of the school, until he glanced up to dodge students.

  “Um.” People that beautiful did not exist in real-life high schools. Or in real life.

  “Right? He’s almost as hot as your dad is. You should go help him.” Hailey grinned and shoved Anya into the pedestrian traffic.

  Someone dropped their books. More than a few people cursed at her.

  “Hailey! I can’t! I…”

  He’d already rounded the corner and vanished.

  Anya dashed back to the lockers. “Almost as hot as my dad? Really?” She fake-vomited.

  “You’re biased. Ask any girl in this school—your dad is a total FILF. I mean, he’s so tall, and he’s got that body, and that accent…that hair…” Hailey rolled her bottom lip into her mouth, a simple and innocent act that seduced a hundred guys a day. “He must have a huge dick. Have you seen it? You must’ve walked in on him once or twice.”

  “Oh my God.” Anya clamped her hands over her ears. She’d entertained enough fears that after Mom died, Dad would dive headfirst into a midlife crisis and start screwing every teenaged girl in Anya’s social circle. She hadn’t expected his descent into near-total hermitry, which led her to the disturbing hope that a good fuck from some nubile schoolgirl might jumpstart him out of his inertia. As long as it was someone from another school. Whom she never had to see again. And yes, she had walked in on him once or twice, when she was too young to consider that one day her friends would be dying to know his penis size. Thank God, he’d never worn one of his Speedos by the pool. “So gross.”

  Cackling, Hailey transferred her books to one arm and used her free hand to pry Anya’s away from her ears. “Seriously, though. You think he’s a student?”

  The mystery man was young, but not young enough for high school. New teacher, probably. Like most of the new ones, he’d spend a year here and move on the greener pastures, far from Buffalo’s wintry wastes. “No.”

  “Well then, since you’re single, you’re on a mission. Find out who that snack is. And report back to me immediately!” Hailey pasted on the most serious expression available to her. Given the natural pout of her mouth, it was more comical than somber, and she saluted Anya.

  “Aye-aye, Captain. But please—no more fantasies about my father!”

  “Let me know when he stops being hot.” She winked and bounced away, her tiny miniskirt skimming the hem of the red compression shorts beneath, and dozens of eyes charting her course.

  ***

  Another month until rules meetings began, and practice started two weeks later. Anya had participated in off-season strength and conditioning training both through her high school’s program and at home, under Dad’s guidance on the rare occasions he brought himself out of mourning for an hour or so. Her school had hired an athletic trainer to take some pressure off the director, and Coach Landers had sent a letter advising all prospective team members to stop by the new trainer’s office when they had a few free minutes to verify paperwork. Study hall it was, then.

  She strolled the desolate hallway, all classroom doors closed and muted teachers’ voices carving through the silence along with the squeak of her new Skechers on the scuffed tile floor. Past the empty cafeteria and the trophy case, skirting one edge of the auditorium and the gym. In the back of the fitness room, she reached a tiny office with the one open door in the whole school.

  A young man hunched over a chaotic array of papers on his desk, the inbox already overflowing. Diamond studs twinkled in his ears as he swiveled from the papers to his computer and back again. The guy she and Hailey had ogled in the hall was the new trainer? She did not have this kind of luck.

  Anya stole a few seconds to reapply her lip gloss, pushed away the strands of her hair that stuck to her mouth, and laid a hesitant knock on the door.

  “Come on in.” He didn’t look up. His voice was gruff yet sweet. Young.

  She frowned at the pile on the chair. The file cabinet behind him was half-open and stuffed with more papers.

  “Set them anywhere. Sorry for the mess. I’m evaluating all the physicals. ‘Athletic trainer’ sounds so glamorous until you realize it’s ninety percent paperwork.”

  She stacked them on the end of the desk like Jenga blocks and sat down. Barren cinderblock walls enclosed the space, its sole decoration a US swim team calendar.

  “So. What can I do for you?”

  He lifted his head, and Anya forgot how to breathe. Much like her father, she was a sucker for a pair of gorgeous blue eyes, though blessed with them herself. And up close, Mr. Trainer was even more stunning than she’d first thought, as if his beauty was too incredible to be processed in one viewing. Even in this hellacious fluorescent light, he glowed like some kind of angel.

  “Hello?” He waved as a smile crept over his lips. Closed and lopsided, the smile of mixed emotions. Constrained. Cautious. Sexy as hell. He’d likely met with her four other female teammates already and, ignorant of his own hotness, encountered the same drooling stupidity. “Anybody in there?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Didn’t I see you in the hall a little while ago?”

  He noticed? “Yeah. I just didn’t know who you were, and…Um…hi. I’m Anya Volynsky.” She had dropped the Russian patronymic “Volynskaya,” to Dad’s dismay. “I play center.”

  “Right. Aleksandr Volynsky’s daughter. Hell of a reputation to live up to. I’m Lucas Donovan. Pleasure to meet you.” He stuck out his hand. Smooth and dry. The way it felt around hers launched a flotilla of pleasant chills. “I just reviewed your physical, actually. Healthy as a horse. Not surprising.”

  “Thanks.” She unwillingly released him.

  “So you’re a senior. College?”

  “Yep. Still deciding, although I’ve already gotten an early acceptance to Boston College.”

  “And you haven’t told them yes?” Lucas scoffed. “Can’t imagine what the hell you’re waiting for. What are you planning to major in?”

  “Slavic studies. I wanted to get to know that part of my culture better. My father doesn’t talk much about what it was like growing up in Russia.”

  “You didn’t say ‘communications.’ Refreshing.” Lucas drummed his pen against the stack of papers, and against flawless teeth that provided a lustrous complement to his skin’s golden undertone. “I graduated with my master’s in May. Almost all the athletes major in communications because it’s easy. Write a three-minute speech once a week, maintain a one-point-five GPA…The funny thing is most of their athletic careers are over as soon as they play their final collegiate game.”

  “You sound bitter.”

  His eyebrows shot up; then he laughed, and he might as well have been serenading her with those golden notes. “You’re…direct. I like it. But I’m not bitter. I had my shot, I didn’t take it, and I did something else with my life.”

  Intriguing. And she had no time for anything male, or anything employed by the school district, to intrigue her. Her gaze fell on a bracelet of black onyx and obsidian beads around his left wrist. That settled it. Guys only wore jewelry for their significant others.

  But holy crap, he was adorable.

  “Anyway”—Lucas shuffled the exams, a classic move to get rid of unwanted company—“I shouldn’t keep you.”

  I want you to.

  “But feel free to stop by any time. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  The world’s biggest butterfly, imprisoned in her stomach, flittered against its walls. She rose and extended her hand for another shake, desperate for touch. Lucas stood up as well and adjusted his gray marl sweater. His grip on her tightened as he angled himself toward her over the desk, his gaze candid where the rest of his expression was not.

&n
bsp; “See you soon, Anya.”

  She tossed her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and wanted to punch herself. What a bullshit girly move, and at her height, she resembled nothing so much as a show pony. “Yeah. See you soon.”

  Anya fled the office before she further humiliated herself. Ten minutes until the end of the period. She plodded toward the opposite end of school, her brain impassioned with chastisements. She’d just met the guy—who worked for the school and had a girlfriend. Dad’s lack of attention hurt so badly that she latched on to any hot guy who smiled at her, which had worked out so well with Mike.

  The bell rang, and she rerouted to her locker for her AP European history book. As her mind wandered during a droning lecture on the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, she allowed herself to doodle Lucas’s name on the inside flap of her book’s paper cover before scratching it out with deep, angry strokes.

  Chapter Four

  Alex

  “Ready, Dad?”

  Deep, centering breath. Alex clenched Anya’s hand. “Let’s do it.” He twisted the key in the lock and opened the door.

  As he’d expected, the smell hit first: stale, unventilated air in which dust motes hovered, dislodged from the nightstand and dressers with the gust from the door; a ghastly stench of old urine, dried puke, and sweat soaked into the rumpled bedding gone yellow from neglect. Anya rushed to the windows and, nostrils pinched between her thumb and forefinger, waved in the fresh air. Alex stared in from the threshold as though the room were armed with landmines.

  “Sorry, baby.” He should have been man enough to confront this on his own rather than making her endure it. Alex caved into himself, his body sucking his limbs back in, his soul collapsing beneath the weight of his regret. His shoulders hurt with the encumbrance of ghosts.