The Pieces Of Us (The Firebird Trilogy Book 3)

by Jennifer Loring

  “You know why.” Lucas filled a cup with punch. In profile, his Roman nose formed an elegant blade. “And I wish I could now. You look…beautiful.”

  Anya drummed her fingers against her cup. She really needed to go. Far away. Russia sounded on point right about now. “It was my mother’s wedding dress.”

  “Oh. Wow.” His liquid eyes twinkled in the muted light. “How was your birthday?”

  “How did you…Oh. Right. My forms.”

  Lucas’s mouth twitched up. “No. I actually remembered it.”

  Guys his age didn’t remember that stuff. If everything Mom had said about Dad was true, he was an anomaly. Some kind of mutant. “Yeah. My dad and I are two days apart, so we just hung out together at home.”

  “Aw, that’s nice. Feel any different now that you’re a legal adult?”

  She detected subtext, or maybe it was wishful thinking. Best to let it go. “I thought I would. It sounds dumb, I know, but…”

  “It doesn’t. There’s so much expectation, and then you get there and you’re like, okay, I can vote and legally smoke now. I can get a full-time job and marry without my parents’ permission, and die for my country. Yay?” Lucas pondered his cup of punch. “Yay.” He smirked and guzzled a mouthful.

  Anya gazed out at the dancers. Almost a year wasted on something with no future, when she should have been having the time of her life.

  “I wish I could dance with you,” he said, so quietly she thought she’d imagined it at first, a longing whisper from her own subconscious. “Shit. I’m sorry, Anya.” Lucas set down his cup and rushed across the ballroom, dodging dancers, to the exit.

  Several sluggish minutes strung themselves together before she followed him. He was pacing the hallway where the bathrooms were located. Each girl emerging from the restroom devoured him with her eyes as if he were a New York strip. Then the jealousy kicked in, leaving Anya with painful furrows in her palms from fingernails painted the same shimmery evening blue as her dress.

  “Lucas.”

  He stopped wearing a hole into the tile floor and faced her. “Hey.”

  “I have to say something. For the past seven months, I’ve thought about you when I should be thinking about literally anything and everything else.”

  Lucas’s expression softened.

  “I still don’t know what’s going on between us, and it hurts.” Anya reined in her tears with a deep breath. “I hate feeling like this.”

  He took her hand, his touch painful to someone who wanted it so badly, and led her around the corner to a deserted section of hallway lined with locked conference-room doors. Muffled music seeped through the walls—a slow song, in an event plotted around the idolization of young couples in love. Lucas coiled one arm around her waist, clasped her hand with his other, and they danced.

  “You never told me what you wanted to be if you’re not a hockey player.” His lips grazed her ear. She’d have burned down the entire world to stay in his arms.

  “A diplomat.”

  “Yeah?” He pressed closer. “Impressive.”

  “Did you always want to do what you’re doing?”

  “Swimming, yes. Athletic trainer, no.” An impish smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I wanted to be an actual doctor. Swimming was so demanding, it was either that or pre-med. Still wondering if I made the right choice, in light of my current non-swimming situation.”

  The song crossfaded into another. Their movements slowed, then stopped, and Lucas lowered his mouth to hers.

  “Of course, then I wouldn’t have met you.” He unlinked their fingers so he could cup her face. “I have to get back.”

  “Lucas, I just need to know that you felt…”

  The sad sweetness of his gaze broke her heart. Anya wove her fingers through his hair and pushed her mouth to his. He didn’t resist with more than a faint sigh. The rest of the world melted away with each gentle, searching thrust of his punch-sugared tongue, its velvet warmth unfurling throughout her body.

  “Holy shit. I knew it.”

  They broke apart in time for her to glimpse gold-flecked red hair disappearing around the corner. “Noah!” She clomped halfway down the hall, but he had outrun her. These goddamned heels.

  Behind her, Lucas was clenching at his hair and muttering, “Fuck. Fuck. Is he going to report this?”

  She turned back to him and planted her fists on her hips. “I don’t know. Who cares? I know how I feel about you.”

  “Anya.” When someone spoke your name, it meant one thing—bad news. His lifeless tone, his defeated body language, divulged everything. “You’re going to have an amazing life and career. Pretty soon you’ll forget about me altogether, and that’s the best thing you can do.” He swept past her and hustled back toward the ballroom.

  “You might be afraid,” she called after him, “but I’m not!” Her gaze fell on the shadowed figure standing at the corner adjacent to the bathrooms.

  “You just cost this guy his job.”

  “Don’t you dare, Noah.” She stormed up to him and grabbed him by the lapels. “You are not entitled to me, and why would I want a jealous, spiteful asshole like you anyway?” Anya shook him, smacking his head against the wall. He winced, scowled, and rubbed the back of his head. “If anything happens, I’ll know it’s your fault. And you’ll regret it.”

  “Then I have nothing to lose.” Something dark and slippery skidded over his face, an ominous silhouette beneath deep waters. “‘I know how I feel about you,’ ” he mocked in a piercing screech.

  She let him go.

  Noah straightened his jacket and offered a flamboyant bow. “Enjoy the rest of the prom, Anya.”

  She was too angry to cry, but staying was not an option. Not with this rage mushrooming in her chest, her gut. With little effort, she pictured herself tricking Noah into a private conversation outside and then beating him bloody. She texted Hailey.

  Anya: Need 2 go. Now!

  Hailey: Srsly???

  Anya: Will tell u later. U comin or can u get a ride?

  Hailey: Go ahead but call me tmrw.

  Anya: I will.

  She peeked into the ballroom one last time but found no sign of Lucas. He must’ve conjured some excuse to skip out, but she suppressed thoughts of what they might have done with the extra time. Noah was right—he had nothing to lose and thus nothing to fear from her. The only question was what he’d enjoy more: watching them squirm as they wondered if he’d drop the bombshell on the principal, or seeing Lucas walk out the school’s front doors in disgrace before graduation.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alex

  Alex had spent the better part of the morning contemplating his wedding ring as he spun it back and forth, with Stephanie’s ring lying before him on the counter. He had bought a silver chain for them, but the task of pulling it off his finger, of accepting himself not only as a widower but also single once more, proved titanic.

  This is not a betrayal. The rings will always be with me, but it’s time to move on.

  He took a halting breath. His eyes blurred.

  Muffled footsteps sounded upstairs. He’d heard Anya come in last night, felt the reverberation from her bedroom door, and while intuition urged him to go to her, the finality of that slam told him to leave well enough alone. She was eighteen now, and there were some wounds Daddy was incapable of healing.

  He pressed his thumb and index finger around the ring, but it might as well have been grafted on.

  “What are you doing?”

  His ass actually left the chair, his heart in his throat. “Good morning. Tea’s ready.”

  “Thanks.” Anya prepared a cup and returned to the counter, her gaze falling on Stephanie’s ring. When she looked at him, she did so with a quiet outrage.

  “I thought…you know, maybe it’s time to take the ring off.”

  “So you’re over Mom. You’re going to sell the house and what, shack up with Hannah? Forget about this place, and Mom, and live happily ever
after?”

  She had inherited many things from him, including his regrettable disposition for cruelty. “I thought you were okay with it. And no, I’m not moving in with her. We’re…not there yet.” They weren’t anywhere right now; the night at Hannah’s house had messed with his head more than he cared to admit. He’d withdrawn from her enough that, afraid to answer in the first place, he stopped returning her numerous texts and calls. Fear inspired a whole other kind of cruelty.

  The problem was that he missed her, and this too alarmed him.

  “I was okay when it wasn’t real. When you weren’t thinking about taking the ring off and—”

  “And what? Getting on with my life? She’s been gone over a year and a half. I bought this”—he twined the chain between his fingers—“so I could wear the rings together, next to my heart where your mother will always be. She was the love of my life, Anya, and no one can replace her.” Alex looped the chain through Stephanie’s ring. “But I am lonely, and I’m forty-five years old, and that’s too young to be alone.”

  Anya’s lips and chin wobbled. She guzzled her tea.

  “What is this really about? Was Lucas there last night?”

  She paled. Her averted gaze answered the question.

  “And?”

  “Not right now, Dad. Please.” She flicked her red eyes to his ring. “Do it. And then go talk to her, because I know you haven’t seen her in weeks.”

  He puffed out his cheeks. His fingers had become fat, palsied, slipping around the band as if greased. He twisted it and edged it over his knuckle. Over the next joint and his fingernail.

  Alex stared at his naked finger, an alien digit with a pale stripe around the base and slight indentations on the sides. A wounded breath hissed out of him.

  Eighteen years. I can’t do this.

  His hands were shaking. Anya pried the ring from him and strung it on the chain, then handed it back to him. “Put it on.”

  He slipped it over his head and dropped it beneath his shirt, the platinum cool against his chest. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could almost feel Stephanie’s heat. Her love.

  “It was always you, Dad. You didn’t realize it.”

  Alex blinked and half-shook his head. “What?”

  “Remember when you told me the legend of Zhar-ptitsa? You said Mom was yours. But really, it was you all along. You gave her the hope she needed when she got sick. Even when she knew she was…” Anya gulped and let silence finish that heartbreaking sentence. “She knew it would be okay, because you would take care of me. And I did too. You were our Firebird, and now you need to be your own. Because you’re stronger than you ever believed you were.”

  He refused to cry again, but warmth blossomed through his chest. “I should get going. And Anya?”

  She glanced up from the samovar as she made another cup of tea.

  “I needed to hear that. Thank you.”

  Anya waved him off, but not without a smile he carried with him for the rest of the day.

  ***

  Alex stopped at a flower stand to buy a bouquet of hydrangeas. After the past month, he needed all the help he could get. He drove out to Hannah’s townhouse, his brain flipping through an omnibus of his most elegant apologies, trying them out on his tongue. He arrived all too soon and parked at the curb. Twitching sprinklers susurrated water onto bright pink verbenas and shrub roses lining the walk and the house. Alex plodded to the front door and tapped the doorbell, his mind erased of all the suave evasions and alibis that had served him so well in his youth, the bon mots that distracted from his sundry emotional flaws. Most women had expected the one-night stand to go nowhere and thus spared themselves the affront to their pride, but he’d lived too long and too much to pretend the behavior of a man half his age earned him a pass now. Flowers and honesty must suffice.

  Hannah opened the door and regarded him with a flat stare. Folding her arms over her chest, she leaned against the doorframe. “Alex.”

  “I have no excuse for being so distant lately. I freaked out a little. Can we talk?”

  She said nothing but stepped aside to let him in. The reception was not getting less chilly. Even so, she accepted the flowers and uttered a soft thank you, then gestured at the lanky blond boy rooting through the refrigerator. “This is Cooper. Cooper, this is my…this is Alex.”

  I have definitely blown it this time, haven’t I? “Privét, Cooper. Nice to meet you.”

  Cooper raised a hand. In the crook of his other arm, he’d stuck a loaf of bread, a package of deli meat, cheese, and a bottle of spicy brown mustard. “Nice to meet you too.”

  “Cooper,” Hannah said, her voice thin, “would you excuse us for a few minutes?”

  He sighed and set the sandwich fixings on the island. “Okay.” His long-legged stride carried him into the living room and up the stairs in seconds.

  Hannah, meanwhile, busied herself with putting the food away. Alex envisioned her bent over the counter with his cock submerged inside her. The memory of her moans tickled his eardrums and roused his dick. Did she regret the recollection of that night each time she entered this room? Maybe considered replacing the island, or not having one at all. “So talk.”

  “Right. Um…” Alex’s hands danced at his sides. He stroked his chin, rubbed the back of his neck, anything to keep them occupied.

  Her pointed gaze fell on his naked ring finger. “Your ring.”

  “Da. I thought it was time…I mean, I wanted to show you…Ah, I’m not good at this shit.”

  Some of the tension bled out of her face. The fingers she’d clenched at her sides loosened. “No one is after you’ve spent so many years with one person.”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was using you. I get so afraid of screwing this up that I…screw it up anyway.” Alex jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Hannah, you know you’re the first since…And I’m sorry I’ve made this harder than you probably expected. If you want to walk away, I’ll understand. I’ve never been easy to get along with.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  If she did, he could retreat into the life he understood, even if he dreaded those lonely nights and the long, dark hour before dawn where the worst of his thoughts dwelled. Human nature was to resist change, even when it was wanted. And needed.

  Or he could grasp at this light, follow it out of the shadows that had surrounded him all these months.

  “No. I don’t want you to.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Well…” Alex set a hand just below her rib cage, felt her shiver, and slid it to her waist. “I’d like to kiss you, if that’s all right.” He flicked a glance at the stairs. “Unless Cooper really needs his sandwich.”

  Hannah snickered. “He’ll live, at least for a few more minutes.”

  “I don’t know. I was a teenaged boy once. I felt like I was starving to death as soon as I woke up every morning.”

  She snatched a fistful of his shirt and tugged him to her. “I’m not terribly worried,” she said against his mouth.

  He touched his tongue to hers. “What are you doing later?”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she wrinkled her nose. “Recording. I can try to get out by seven though.”

  “Call me when you’re done. I’ll swing by and pick you up. I owe you a proper date anyway.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Hannah pressed her parted lips to his with a force suggesting she’d have consumed him if she could. His limbs fizzed. His blood smoldered.

  “I better go before Cooper walks in on something inappropriate.” Alex lowered his mouth to the back of her hand. “Until tonight.”

  “Such a gentleman.” Her eyes blazed with a sinfulness that left his cock laboring against his fly. “See you tonight.”

  ***

  “My wife and I were terrible cooks.” Alex and Hannah were feasting on the meal they and their classmates had learned to create over a two-hour cooking class. A chopped salad, peel-and-eat shr
imp with Old Bay seasoning, homemade French fries, barbequed chicken thighs, cheeseburgers loaded with toppings, and ice cream cake. The meal could feed an entire hockey team. He rarely indulged in one so decadent, but their efforts had paid off, and he’d earned a splurge. Now if he could retain what he’d absorbed in that short time and show it off for Anya.

  “Really? You’ve done so well tonight.” Hannah sank her teeth into the burger. Its juices trickled from the corner of her mouth and down her wrist; Alex, laughing, mopped it up with several napkins.

  “Just needed some hands-on guidance, I suppose. Although I’ve been practicing at home. Mostly Russian food I grew up with, though.” Throwing caution and cholesterol to the wind, he peeled a shrimp and popped it into his mouth. “We did do a good job here. Anya would kill for that cake.”

  “I’d fight her for it. Ice cream is my weakness.”

  “Hmm. Good to know.” Alex nudged her. He could practically feel his waistband tightening, but he shoved a few well-done, over-salted fries into his mouth.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Uh-oh. “Of course.”

  Hannah swirled a fry through the juice and a glob of ketchup from the burger. She didn’t eat it. “It might be too soon to ask, but…where do you see this going? Us, I mean. I’ll never be what your wife was to you, but—”

  “You have a right to ask, especially after how I’ve been. And you’re not in competition with my wife. She’s gone, and I miss her every day, but I have to move on.”

  “I’m not trying to push you into a commitment. Really. I just—” Her forehead wrinkled, and she squinted as if peering into herself. “Oh hell, Alex, we’re not getting any younger, you know? I need to know where I stand, that’s all. If you’re not emotionally available and this is just a casual thing…”

  “That’s completely fair. And…” He pinched her thigh beneath the table. “What do people our age call each other? ‘Boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ sound so juvenile.”