The Pieces Of Us (The Firebird Trilogy Book 3)

by Jennifer Loring

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Anya, there’s something I need to tell you.” He stared straight ahead, into the dark trees bordering the lot, and clenched the dashboard as if to launch himself through the windshield. “I’m looking for another job.”

  The world plummeted out from under her.

  “I’m trying to get into a university. That way, this can’t happen again.”

  She gritted her teeth and battled the rising tears. If he expected it to happen again, she meant nothing to him after all. “But it is happening, Lucas. Running away doesn’t change it.”

  “I’m not doing this to hurt you. It’s the total opposite.” He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Five months from now, I’ll be the same mess, and you have such big dreams—”

  “My father’s dreams,” she hissed.

  “You love hockey.”

  “He doesn’t even know what I want to do if I don’t make a team, or I end up hating playing pro. And what are you even talking about, being a mess? You hit a rough patch.” Emotion dammed her voice. She hugged her shoulders, though she was no longer cold. “Everyone does.”

  The tension bled out of him, and he sagged back in the seat. “You’re too young to sign on for that kind of baggage.”

  “You’re too young to hold on to that kind of baggage.”

  “Maybe so.” He let out a wistful laugh.

  Anya closed her eyes. She laid her head on the window and wilted against the door. Dad had had a reason to put himself through this. Mom had always loved him. Deep in his heart, he knew it all along, no matter how he hated himself. “Why did you kiss me?”

  The words Lucas spoke in response possessed the power to save or condemn them, and she steadied herself.

  “Maybe it’s real,” he said after a protracted silence, “or it’s that you’re the first girl since my ex who’s made me feel anything. God knows I want to kiss you every time I’m near you.” His breath shivered. “Either way, I wish I could be what you deserve, but I can’t. I’m not.”

  She blinked. “What I deserve?”

  “Someone who doesn’t have to take fucking pills to sleep at night because the guilt keeps him awake. Who doesn’t have to take more in the morning just to feel like he isn’t the biggest waste of life on the planet.”

  “Guilt for what? You couldn’t have saved your sister any more than I could’ve cured my mother of cancer. And your ex? She’s a fucking bitch. Some people just are.”

  “Sure. But most of all, you need someone who isn’t—Anya, listen to me.” His eyes spat lightning. He grasped her wrists and held down the arms into which she’d buried her face. Hot tears seared her cheeks. Whatever else he said no longer mattered; the barrenness of separation had already settled into her bones. “Who isn’t a replacement for your father. And I need someone who can love me for my own sake.”

  “Fuck you!” She slumped against the door, her hair a tangle over her face, her palms wet and pressed to her eyes. “You wouldn’t even let me say it, and now you want it as long as it’s on your terms?”

  The passenger door opened and closed. The purr of Lucas’s car starting and then fading away infiltrated as vague background noise beneath her sobs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anya

  Anya stared at the digital clock on her desk. The changing of each red number fueled her queasiness. Her warmups lay beside her on the bed, though she should’ve been dressed ten minutes ago. Not a chance in hell she was going to this game, playoffs or not. Not as long as Lucas was their trainer.

  Dad knocked on the door. “Ready to go?”

  “I don’t feel well, Dad. I don’t think I should play.”

  The door creaked open. With one brow cocked and the other scrunched like a black caterpillar in mid-crawl, Dad peered in at her. “It’s just nerves, milaya. It’s the playoffs. It happens to everyone.”

  “No, it’s…” I can’t even tell him. I can’t tell anyone. She evaluated the contents of her room, this museum to her childhood. Stuffed animals, posters, the latest trends in nail polish, a diorama little changed over the past five years. Most of it destined to stay right here, or in the closets where Dad stashed Mom’s things he couldn’t bear to part with, until he moved to his eventual new home. No one in their right mind would carry so much emotional detritus with them when given an excuse to dispose of it.

  Dad strode in and sat beside her. “What is it, baby? It’s Lucas, isn’t it?”

  I’m just a stupid girl after all. “Just…please don’t make me go.”

  “You want to throw this game away because of him? Remember what I told you—show him he’s not getting to you.”

  But he was, he had, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Who was Dad to dole out advice, anyway? He’d let Mom’s death define him for almost a year and a half. It took another woman to pull him out of it—and not his own daughter, who should have given him the most sense of purpose.

  “Come on.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Put on those warmups and play the best game you’ve ever had.”

  “If it makes you happy.” She sighed and wiggled into the warmup pants.

  “It’s not about what makes me happy. Ey.” Dad grabbed her shoulders and compelled her to look at him. “I’m not going to force you to do something you don’t want to do. But think about this, okay? Think about how you’re letting him get to you. This could be the last game of your high school career, and you’re willing to throw it away over a boy?”

  Way to make her feel even worse. She shoved off the bed with a huff and snatched her warmup jacket. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  ***

  Anya, barely uttering a “hello” to anyone, headed straight for the locker room. As she stripped off her clothes and put on her equipment, she considered the potential exits. With a handful of girls on the team and most of them in the fitness room, she could sneak out undetected. Sure, she’d have to change again somewhere and find a way home, and Dad would wonder why she wasn’t on the ice…

  Too late now. Coach was summoning them. Anya fell into line last, trudging toward the rink, lagging behind everyone else.

  “You didn’t come in for taping.”

  She stopped herself from whacking Lucas’s head off his neck with her stick blade. Anya marched through the tunnel, head held high and eyes fixed straight ahead. “I didn’t need it.”

  “We need to make sure your ankle is stabil—”

  “Shut up.”

  He yanked her out of line. “I’m sorry, all right? What do you want me to do?”

  “Leaving me alone would be a good start.”

  “Donovan. Volynsky. Is there a problem I should know about?” Coach was walking backward so he could evaluate them from the head of the line. “Keep moving, everyone.”

  “No problem,” Lucas said. “Just making sure our captain wasn’t having any ankle issues, since she decided against taping today.”

  “Fuck. Off,” she mouthed.

  “Well, finish it up quick. You’ve got five minutes.” Coach led the rest of the team and his assistants through the tunnel.

  “I’m trying to do my job, Anya.”

  “And I’m trying to do what you wanted me to. Moving on.”

  Lucas planted one hand on the tile wall, next to her head, assuring physical contact if she tried to escape. Her many advantages—the stick, for example—did not intimidate or discourage him. Her hands were sweating inside her gloves, and his soft yet candid gaze raised the hairs on her nape. “Good luck out there.”

  “Go to hell.”

  He hung his head and moved aside so she could go. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “No, that’s not the way I fucking want it. It’s the way you want it.” Anya trooped through the tunnel to catch up with her team, who had taken to the ice for warmups. She sensed Lucas close behind, though he left her alone. What else could he do in front of everyone?

  Her ankle complained, but she ignored it and s
kated back to the bench for Coach’s last-minute pep talk before the anthem. In the stands above them, she glimpsed Dad, who knew better than to wave and instead gave her a wink and a grin. Fine—she was pissed he’d found someone, that he was happy again, while she remained mired in this swamp with Lucas and had neither the means nor the ambition to extract herself from it. Hang in there, suffer enough, and you’ll get what you want. Worked for Dad.

  By her third shift of the second period, the pain had become strident in its contention that her lack of tape was sheer pigheadedness and not a gutsy display of resolve. It didn’t improve the more you skated, but plenty of guys played through strains, sprains, and even fractures. You took one for the team when it counted, the captain more so than anyone else. And she aimed to do just that, until her ankle rolled over, popped, and she crashed to the ice like a bag of pucks. Her breath hissed through her teeth. She chucked her helmet and gloves away, spat out her mouth guard, then scrabbled at her skate laces, able to feel without touching it the swelling and the abnormal looseness in her ankle.

  Anya lifted her head in search of Dad, but Lucas was blocking her view. Prodding her with the lightest pressure—even that was too much. “Get away from me. Ow!”

  “Tender, huh? Feels like a grade two sprain. You’re coming with me.” Lucas draped her arm over his shoulders and roped his around her waist. “Don’t put any weight on it.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Then you should’ve let me tape it, or at least done it yourself. What the hell are you trying to prove?” He helped her hop on one foot toward the bench—to the applause of attendees and players alike—through the tunnel, and into the fitness room, where he boosted her onto a trainer’s table. She struggled with the urge to kick him.

  “Just get me some ice and ibuprofen.”

  Lucas peeled away the tape from around her sock and rolled the fabric down her leg, taking extra care over her ankle. He squeezed, shook, and applied an instant ice pack to Anya’s ankle, which she held in place while he retrieved the ibuprofen and a cup of water. “Twenty-four to forty-eight hours of rest. Ice packs for fifteen to twenty minutes, three to four times a day for the first twenty-four to seventy-two hours.”

  “I know.”

  “Elevate your ankle higher than your torso two to three hours a day to limit swelling.” Lucas wrapped an elastic bandage from the base of her toes to the top of her calf. “Leave this on for the first twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Here.” He maneuvered her into an air brace and strapped it into place. “Make sure you wear it when you’re walking.”

  “I will.”

  “You need to get out of your equipment and back into your warmups.”

  She sucked in her lips. “I’ll manage.”

  “Let me do my job, Anya.” He rapped his fingers on the table, the cords in his neck standing out. She was wearing him down. Good.

  “Is undressing me in the description?”

  “Jesus Christ.” Lucas sank onto the bench of a weight machine and clenched his hands between his knees. “Can I please help you?”

  Anya turned her head. “Fine.” She unlaced her other skate and dropped it to the floor, followed by her socks and shin guards. “My clothes are in the locker room.”

  “I’ll go get them.”

  She gave him the locker number and combination. Once he jogged out of the fitness room, she peeled off her jersey and all her upper-body padding, leaving her sports bra and hockey pants.

  Lucas returned with her gym bag and set it behind her on the table. “How’s the pain?”

  “Tolerable.”

  He unzipped the bag and handed her the T-shirt. Not impressed by the sports bra. So basic. Girls wore them to the gym or out running all the time, and her boobs weren’t noteworthy out of one, let alone squashed into a polyester racerback. “Okay, we’ll do this slowly. Hang on to me.”

  I’ve been doing it too long already. Anya hooked her arms around his neck, and he eased her onto one foot.

  “Put your weight against the table. There you go.”

  She unlaced the pants and released the belt. They fell far enough down her legs to reveal the compression shorts beneath, equivalent in dullness to her sports bra. She pushed them down, hopping on her left foot to maintain balance, until they dropped to her ankles. Lucas crouched before her with her warmup pants, unzipped at the ankles to accommodate the brace.

  “Step out with your left foot first. That’s it. Now the right—slowly. Hold on to the table.” He worked the hockey pants over her brace and tossed them aside. The room was warm, but her skin prickled.

  Cheers rose from inside the rink. Lucas bent close to her, so close she could feel each breath, and under the guise of checking the bandage kneaded her calf.

  “The thing is,” he said, his voice tender, “I’ve felt…something, since I danced with you at Homecoming. But all we have are these little moments. They aren’t real.”

  “Real enough.”

  With a soft, sad laugh, he roamed his hands further. On her thighs now and further still, until he was cupping her ass. “Sit,” he whispered.

  She did, to her ankle’s gratitude, but her ass was begging him to resume his previous activity.

  Lucas stood between her thighs, his hands braced on either side of her hips and her right leg extended beside him. “You graduate in June, and two months later you leave for Boston. How do we make something work in two months? How does that give us enough time to prepare for a long-distance relationship?”

  “I don’t want to think about it right now.”

  “That’s the problem. You haven’t thought about any of it. But I have. I think about it every day.” Lucas lifted her legs and pivoted her so she was on the table, with a couple of cheap, hospital-grade pillows under her right ankle. He grabbed her warmup pants from the floor and bunched the left leg first, slipped her foot through, then repeated with the right side.

  She propped herself up long enough to writhe into the pants the rest of the way. Every day? Really? “Not the way I have.”

  “No, I know what part you think about.” Lucas smirked, but the battle against temptation raged across his features. “Not that I haven’t too.”

  Her breath stopped halfway up her throat. “What do you think about?”

  “Not a conversation we should be having here. Or at all. And what good would it do? We can’t.” He nuzzled her behind her ear, his weakness contagious, her thighs parting the way they so often did around him. He trailed a fingertip along the crease of her pants, dipped it into the V between her legs for a fraction of a second before withdrawing. Left behind the sweet, full, scorching ache she was goddamned tired of soothing with her finger. “That night at my house, I wanted to…I wanted you to stay.”

  She set her palms on his cheeks. Needed to see he was telling her the truth.

  Their lips brushed, the tip of his tongue poised to touch hers. He turned his head and scooped her up. “We have to let this go.”

  “You have to let this go, for now. I don’t.” Anya nestled her face against his neck, breathed in his lovely cologne, whispered into his skin what she wanted him to do to her and what she intended to do to him. Embedding it in his flesh, transmitting it into his bloodstream. He would not forget.

  His muscles slackened. He gulped as if imagining it, and his heart ticked faster in his throat. Then he lowered her onto the floor and resumed the position of trainer and athlete, arm around her waist for support. “We should get you to your dad. I’m sure he’s worried.”

  ***

  Alex

  Childhood and injury walked hand-in-hand, especially with an athlete, but you were never prepared to see your kid go down like that. Anya was hobbling toward him in the hall outside the fitness room, her right ankle in an air brace and Lucas half-carrying her, her gym bag slung over his shoulder. Almost eighteen she might be, but Alex’s paternal instincts kicked in, and he gathered her into his arms. “What happened out there?”

  The
glare Lucas shot her, his lips a thin, pale slash, didn’t escape him.

  “I didn’t get taped before the game. My ankle rolled.” The thick curtain of Anya’s hair obscured what she didn’t want him to see scrawled on her face.

  “Grade two sprain,” Lucas added. “I gave her the treatment protocol. I’m sure you’re familiar with it, Mr. Volynsky.”

  “Da. Thank you.” Alex secured her against his hip for stability. “We’ll stop by CVS and get you some crutches.”

  “Make sure she stays off it for a couple of days.” Lucas strode back toward the rink. “Have a good weekend,” he called. “Or the best you can.”

  “You too.”

  Anya remained silent on the way to the car, except for an occasional grunt of effort or pain. Alex helped her into the passenger seat and started the engine for heat, but did not shift out of park. “Why the hell didn’t you get taped?”

  “Don’t start, Dad.”

  “You’d rather be injured than have him touch you? Is that it? Why didn’t you at least tape it yourself?” Alex massaged his temples. Anya was curled up against the door, hair pulled over her face and arms bundled around her stomach. His little girl, hurting beyond his capacity to mend. If I’d been there for her all those months, I’d know what to do. Wouldn’t I? She wouldn’t even be in this situation. He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it right now.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  They stopped first at the Starbucks drive-through for her seasonal favorite, a peppermint mocha Frappuccino. At the drug store, while Anya enjoyed her frozen concoction from the comfort of the BMW, Alex picked up a pair of adjustable aluminum crutches and a bottle of Advil. He returned to the car to find her slumped over so far, her phone in hand, she appeared to be crawling into herself.

  “Lucas texted. We lost. We’re eliminated from playoffs.”

  Alex tossed the bag into the back seat and reached for her. “Honey, it’s not—”

  “It is. It’s my fault.” She scrunched up into a ball, except for her extended right leg, and wrenched away from him. “I’ve let everyone down. My team, myself, you…for some stupid guy. I’m everything I never wanted to be.”