The Pieces Of Us (The Firebird Trilogy Book 3)

by Jennifer Loring

  Noah’s pinched features softened, but he possessed nothing to heal her injury. The old nursery rhyme had it all wrong. Broken bones healed; words inflicted a lifetime of damage. “Anya…”

  She held up her hand to his face. “Canceled. I have nothing else to say to you. Ever.” Anya shoved past him so hard he stumbled into the lockers, where a couple of passing football players jostled him for good measure. She refused to let herself cry until she was in the car, alone as always. The tears were not for Noah’s hostility but the one thing no amount of wishing could return to her.

  She wanted her mother.

  ***

  Anya trudged down the stairs in Mom’s glittery former gown, tailored at her request into a cocktail-length dress. Anything strapless made her twitchy; she feared few things more than a public wardrobe malfunction, so she’d asked for straps too.

  Dad was waiting for her with his phone pointed at the stairs, but smiling proved impossible, and his shriveled in her shadow. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  “Nothing,” she mumbled. “I don’t even want to go.”

  “Is it because of Noah?”

  She crossed her arms and glared at him. “What do you think?”

  “Anya,” Dad snapped. “If that’s how you’re going to act, then don’t go. But you’ll be going straight to your room instead.”

  Her chin wobbled. “Fine.” She mounted the stairs. She’d rather spend the next eight months in her room than around other people. Abandon Dad the way he had her, emotionally if not physically.

  “Ey! You’re not getting off that easily. Come here. Talk to me.”

  “Now you care. I’ve needed you for the past year, and all you’ve cared about is your own pain!”

  The skin around Dad’s eyes bunched up as he fixed her with an anguished stare. The muscle beneath one eye was jumping.

  “She was your wife, but she was my mother!”

  A tear raced down each cheek, into the stubble shining with flecks of silver. “The day we went through her things, I thought we had gotten to a good place.”

  “It’ll never be a good place. She’s never coming back.” The reality of it crushed the air out of her lungs. She sank onto the stairs, head in her hands. “She’s missing my whole life.”

  “Nothing I say or do can make up for not being the father I should have been this past year. I should have put you first—you are absolutely right. But I can’t beg for your forgiveness more than I already have. If punishing me is what you need to work through this, then I accept that. I just need you to know something.”

  She raised her head when his voice broke.

  “You are everything to me, Anya, and you have been since the second I knew we were having a baby. I wanted to be a father more than anything. I’ve already lost my wife; I can’t lose my daughter too.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then limped into the kitchen, snatched his cigarettes and lighter off the counter, and unlatched the patio door.

  “Dad?”

  He gazed at her in gloomy silence.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It hurts so much, and I want her to be here.”

  Dad stuffed the cigs and lighter into his pockets. He shuffled back to the stairs and sat with one arm around her.

  “Please don’t be mad at me.”

  He tilted up her chin. “I’m not mad at you, baby. And if you don’t want to go, then don’t. But you look very pretty, and I’d hate for you to miss your last Homecoming.”

  “Yeah. I guess I should show up at least for a little while. Is my face all blotchy?”

  “A little. You were blessed with my Eastern Slavic skin, you know.”

  “Blessed.” She blew a raspberry. “I’ll fix it in the car.” Anya stood, adjusted her dress, and extended a hand to help Dad up.

  “Try to have a good time, milaya.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She hugged him, her pillar of strength in so many ways. He had grown so tall, she reasoned, to carry the immeasurable amounts of love stockpiled inside him.

  He kissed the top of her head and retreated to the great room. “I’ll probably be up when you get home. You can tell me all about it.”

  She watched him settle onto the sofa and switch on the TV, her heart weighted with his loneliness. After cloistering himself for a year, everyone powerless to drag him out of his sorrow, few people were left he counted as friends. He was too young, too talented to give up on his own life like this. She hoped the induction ceremony might spark something in him. Some recognition that what he offered the world meant something.

  ***

  Anya passed through an archway constructed of white balloons she assumed were meant to represent bubbles in the Homecoming dance’s undersea theme. More balloons inside the gym, the lights all tinted to shades of blue, green, and white. Darkness cloaked the gym’s perimeters, directing those with aspirations to make out in semi-privacy to those shadowy corners. A DJ at the far end, adjacent to one of the basketball hoops, was spinning the latest pop noise. While she hadn’t inherited her father’s eclectic tastes, she recognized the commercial inanity of popular music, required through its safe blandness to appeal to the largest possible audience.

  She spotted Noah at the table where the punch bowl sat, no doubt already spat in, and ducked into the darkness.

  “Hiding from someone?”

  Her heart slammed on the brakes. She whirled around. “Oh. Mr. Donovan.”

  “Lucas. I’m twenty-two, Anya. Please don’t ever call me ‘mister.’” He winked and sipped punch from a plastic cup. Hopefully pre-spit. She was not paying attention to the sheen left on his lips when he licked them. At all. “You look nice, by the way.”

  Heat rushed into her face. Her knees trembled. “Lucas. Sorry. And thank you. Um, yeah. Kind of. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m the new guy. I get to do all the fun shit like chaperone a school dance on a Saturday night. I guess I can suck it up for fifty grand a year, right?”

  “Don’t they let you bring your girlfriend?”

  He wet his lips again. Pressed them together. “Yeah, don’t exactly have one of those. Broke up before I moved here for work.”

  No girlfriend? She restrained herself from cartwheeling across the dance floor. “So what’s with the bracelet?”

  Lucas lifted his wrist. “Oh, you thought…It’s from my sister.” His face shuttered. Another story there, and she was prepared to read every page if he let her. “Do you want a drink?”

  “No, I’m fine for now. Thank you.” Anya chewed on her lip and gazed at the clusters of her friends on the floor. Anywhere but at Lucas and how well he wore his gray, slim-fit suit.

  “You don’t have to stand here and keep me company, you know. Not that I mind.”

  “I, uh—it’s not that. Sorry. I just…”

  “Want to be here about as much as I do.” Lucas laughed, not one of those unvoiced, huffing etiquette laughs but a genuine, full-bodied chuckle that quickened her pulse. “Well. Here we are. Want to dance?”

  The DJ had contrived one of those moments obligating everyone to pair up or commit social suicide. There were, of course, the kids who didn’t dance: the condemnatory goths and punks draped on the bleachers, pale-faced and black-garbed, who reeked of clove cigarettes and whose parents forced them to attend because they were sick of the neighbors stink-eying their potential school massacres. The stoners, who didn’t care what anyone thought and wandered off to light up in the parking lot. The underprivileged, wanting to be there even in their ill-fitting, made-in-China Family Dollar ensembles or hand-me-downs, but whom no one asked.

  “Is that allowed? I mean…between us.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.” Lucas wound one arm around her waist and with his other hand clasped hers. He was almost as tall as Dad was. “What?” He cocked his head.

  Anya blinked. She’d zoned out again. Daydreaming. God, she was worse than a middle-schooler. She laid her free hand on his shoulder. “What?”

 
; “Did I sprout a second head or something?”

  She giggled and hated herself for it. “You’re taller than me. It’s a relief.”

  “I’m six-three. On the short side for a competitive swimmer, believe it or not.”

  “You’re a swimmer?”

  “Well…I was.” Lucas offered a hurried smile. Layers upon layers, each word goading her to solve his mysteries. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.” He inched closer to her. Dad had taught her the proper, traditional ballroom-style positioning, with the caveat that any man dancing with his daughter had better leave at least a foot of space between them. Lucas hadn’t gotten the memo. “I don’t know why guys like shorter girls. Me, I’m a leg man. The taller the girl, the longer the legs. That’s bordering on inappropriate, isn’t it?”

  “It may have crossed the border.”

  “Wouldn’t want your dad kicking my ass. So what is it like, being the daughter of a famous athlete?”

  His mouth was too close. Dangerously close. It smelled like peppermint. But if she turned her head, she caught the light, sweet notes of his cologne. The scent was driving her insane. “A lot of pressure. And my mom died a year ago, so…”

  “Oh, wow. I’m so sorry.” He gave her waist a little squeeze, and her knees quivered. She and Lucas step-touched in a slow circle, so close she felt his heartbeat through his shirt. “It’s not exactly the same—I mean, I can’t imagine losing my mom—but, uh, my sister…” He rotated his wrist until the beads clacked together. “She was killed in a car accident before her senior year of high school.”

  No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”

  “Tragedy. The great uniter.” His blue eyes glimmered like far-off galaxies. “Uh-oh,” he whispered into ear. His breath enflamed her skin. “Cue the fun police.”

  The tenth-grade history teacher, Mrs. May, was marching toward them with calamitous disapproval twisting her features. “Mr. Donovan, this is not at all appropriate behavior. I’m sure you’ve read the handbook.”

  “Busted.” He smirked and let Anya go, a loss her body took as hard as an amputation. “My apologies, Mrs. May. I meant no harm.”

  “Don’t let it happen again.” She strode away, back arched and ass clenched as if she had a stick jammed up it, to ruin someone else’s night.

  “She called you ‘mister.’” Anya snickered.

  “Now she’s on my shit list. Anyway.” Lucas straightened his tie, the smirk lingering, softening. “Thank you for the dance, Ms. Volynsky. I’ll see you in a couple weeks for team meetings, if not sooner. I hope.”

  “Me too. Um, team meetings. Right. I should, uh…” She jerked her thumb at the dance floor, or the punch bowl, it didn’t matter. Her feet had glued themselves to the hardwood floor.

  “Yeah. You probably should.” Lucas, yanking his gaze from her, cleared his throat and combed his fingers through his hair. “Have a good night, Anya.”

  “You too.” She scurried away to the table, her mouth parched and her heart a stampede. The plastic cup slipped against her sweaty palm as she filled it from a bowl one of the chaperones had just replenished.

  “Are you insane?”

  She tightened her fingers around the cup, crunching it, when what they wanted to do was teach him the Russian fistfighting Dad had learned from his grandfather, who’d spent time in a Soviet gulag.

  “You do know he works for the school, right? He’s your trainer? Ring a bell?”

  “We danced, Noah. It’s not like he asked me on a date. Besides, it’s none of your business, and I thought I made it clear I never wanted to speak to you again.”

  Noah’s expression collapsed. “I’m sorry.” His voice rose almost to a whine. So not attractive.

  “It’ll take a lot more than that. Now leave me alone.” She didn’t spare him a second glance as she headed for the doors and the relative peace of the hallway to clear her head. A few girls were milling about, some in tears as per every school dance ever, friends consoling them with assurances the boy in question had always been an asshole, but you’re my friend so I didn’t want to say anything, and so it went as it had since the invention of high school.

  Lucas had stared at her as she passed, and she wondered what those beautiful eyes looked like when he was in love.

  “Anya!” Hailey was scurrying toward her, the clip-clip of her heels rebounding off the tile floor. “You were dancing with him!”

  Anya slumped against the wall beneath a bulletin board announcing the rest of the fall’s important upcoming activities. Mainly anything that involved the football team, destined as they were to make their perennial state championship appearance. “Hey. Yeah.”

  Hailey crouched beside her. With a rack like hers, she never missed an opportunity to show it off. Tonight it was in a strapless, sapphire A-line dress, her breasts billowing from the sweetheart neckline like two scoops of vanilla ice cream. Hard not to stare even when you were straight. “Tell me everything!”

  Anya shrugged. “I don’t know. We were standing around talking, and he asked me to dance.”

  “What did you talk about?” Hailey’s mouth fashioned into the grin of a living emoji.

  “Well…” She tingled at the memory of his firm body against hers, his breath on her ear. “He was a swimmer. He lost his sister in a car accident. And he likes women with long legs.”

  Hailey pinched her lips together before proclaiming, “He’s totally smitten with you!”

  “Hailey.” Anya lowered her voice and fixed her with a “You’re being ridiculous” glare. “We’ve talked exactly twice, counting tonight. Also—hello? School employee?”

  “Remember that hot substitute history teacher we had in tenth grade? Mr. Collings?”

  How could she not? Every girl in class had failed to learn a damned thing about history that week. He must’ve been about Lucas’s age at the time. Enthusiastic and as-yet unsullied by the realities of teaching, he’d presented a module on the Civil War, but all Anya remembered were dark chocolate eyes, light brown skin, and a smile that put George Clooney to shame.

  Hailey swiped a tendril of blond hair from her face and smirked. “I had a very sweet sixteen.”

  “You didn’t!” Anya tented her hands over her mouth.

  I won’t look like this forever, Hailey once told her, with a pragmatism few girls their age possessed. Might as well use it to my advantage. She was smarter than she let most people believe, and unapologetic about her love of sex. “Oh my God, he was fantastic.” Hailey rolled her eyes back in imitation of an orgasm. “It’s always the shy ones.”

  “Okay. This is stupid. And I have to get back home anyway—Dad is mopey.” Anya pushed herself up. “See you on Monday.”

  “I read your parents’ book!” Hailey called behind her. That explained why she was so enamored with Dad. “Love at first sight does exist!”

  Anya waved her off and strode on achy feet toward the red Exit sign. Lust at first sight existed. But love? All she had to go on was her parents’ stories, and they’d been in love too long to remember it any other way.

  ***

  The TV flashed a rapid succession of whites and blues from the great room, the lights off and Dad asleep on the couch. Anya retrieved a blanket from the closet, though the electric fireplace was crackling beneath the flat-screen, and tucked it around him. His eyes fluttered open.

  “Oh. Ey, milaya. I guess I dozed off. How was the dance?”

  “It was…fine.” God. She sounded like she was hiding something, and Dad was no idiot. How to explain Lucas? What was even the point? A stupid crush, doomed from the start.

  Dad pushed himself up with a weary groan and wrinkled his nose. “I suspect there’s more to it than that.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow. Go back to sleep.” She clicked off the TV and its components and started up the stairs, stopping halfway. “Dad?”

  “Da?”

  “If something was wrong because other people said it was, but it felt righ
t to you, would you do it anyway?”

  The couch creaked. “Honey, what’s going on?”

  “I was just curious. It’s nothing, really. Good night, Dad. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” His shadowy form was sitting upright now. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah. G’night.”

  She already knew his answer, because Dad obeyed his heart above all things. And the more she listened to hers, the louder its insistence she was in fact falling in love, whether she wanted to or not.

  ***

  Alex

  “I’m free tonight if you are,” Brandon had said an hour earlier, to Alex’s astonishment, and so they had agreed to meet at Mr. Goodbar for fifty-cent wings that sat untouched on the table while Brandon gulped his second craft beer before either of them said anything of substance.

  “Okay, then.” Brandon downed another hefty gulp. “Out with it.”

  Alex appraised him as he assembled his thoughts. He was still good-looking, if grayer than Alex was. Had a great job. No reason to be alone, except one. “Were you in love with my wife?”

  Brandon leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “She said Russians didn’t bullshit people. One of the many things she loved about you.” He wrapped his hand around the shaker pint as though it provided emotional support. “I never had a chance with her, you know. Not even if you hadn’t shown up here that summer. She would’ve always wanted you.”

  Alex took a long sip of ice water to force down the lump in his throat. If he’d needed to hear it from anyone, it was from the enemy himself. An ego stroke; he admitted it. There was little else left to bolster him.

  “You see me—always saw me—as a rival. Thing is, Aleksandr, you’ve never had rivals. Not in hockey, and not for Stephanie’s affections. You might as well have been the only man on Earth. Does that make you feel better?”

  “This isn’t about me; it’s about—”