Delayed Penalty: A Pilots Hockey Novel

by Sophia Henry

  “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about your parents and your fears. Thank you for understanding and being patient with me. You’re the kind of friend I didn’t even know I needed.”

  “Friend?” His shoulders shook, and a low laugh left his lips. “Well, you are the friend I needed, but hadn’t been able to find.”

  “See ya later, Sasha.” I swung open the door and heaved myself out.

  Chapter 13

  “I can’t fit one more thing in my stomach,” I groaned, leaning back in my seat at our kitchen table where I’d just finished my second piece of pumpkin pie. The first should have been enough, after the huge meal Grandma had cooked, but I’d cut myself a tiny sliver initially, so I’d gone back for more.

  “I can tell. Those pants are pretty tight,” my cousin, Jeff, teased.

  “Shut up.” I grabbed a homemade buttermilk biscuit out of the basket next to my plate and whipped it at him.

  Uncle Rick reached out and, with amazing catlike reflexes, nabbed the biscuit from the air. “Well, now just because you’re full doesn’t mean you have to waste food.” He bit down on it.

  “I’m gonna barf just watching you,” I told my uncle, covering my mouth with my hands.

  There were ten people gathered for Christmas dinner at my grandparents’ house. We were all laughing and teasing each other, like normal, but I wondered how many of us felt a twinge of sadness knowing it would be the last Christmas dinner we’d ever have here. So many vibrant memories lived in this house. The house where my grandparents raised my mom and Uncle Rick. The house where they’d raised me.

  The house should have been on the market years ago. There had been multiple home invasions in the neighborhood recently, as well as a shooting a few houses down. My grandparents could no longer make the case that they still felt safe. We all knew moving was inevitable, but like a girl who still couldn’t get over the fact that her soccer career was over, none of us wanted to let go just yet of the memories of what used to be.

  “Merry Christmas.” I heard my grandma in the distance. Who was she talking to? Everyone was here.

  “What?” I turned back to Jeff, who had asked me something.

  “I said, where’s lover boy? I thought for sure you’d have him here to show off.”

  “ ‘Show off’?”

  “You’re dating a famous hockey player, I’d show him off.”

  “We aren’t dating. I’m his translator slash tutor,” I corrected.

  “Yeah, I had a tutor once. Totally banged her.”

  “Nice Christmas talk,” Uncle Rick said, slapping Jeff upside the head.

  “Auden! Phone!” Gram called.

  Phone? The ring must’ve been drowned out by my family’s chattering. I pushed back from the table and ran up the stairs to the kitchen, where our main house phone was mounted on the wall. And, yes, it was a rotary.

  “Hello?” I asked after Gram handed me the receiver.

  “Audushka? Merry Chrissmas,” Aleksandr slurred.

  “Merry Christmas, Sasha. What are you doing?” I played dumb, since I could practically smell the vodka through the phone.

  “I am sitting in this very nice establishment having dinner and I realized I did not call you and wish you a merry day. I do not celebrate this day, but I know you do, so I am calling you.”

  “Well, thanks. Are you okay?”

  “Okay? I am very okay, Auden. However”—he paused to belch in my ear—“I think they would like me to leave.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear with a grimace. “What makes you say that?”

  “They told me to go home.”

  “You’re not driving, right?”

  “No, no, no. They won’t let me. This nice gentleman said he would call me a cab, but I told him I had a ride.”

  Silence.

  “You need me to pick you up, don’t you?” I asked after a moment.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?” I sighed, grabbing a pencil and piece of paper from the second shelf of a tiered plant stand in the corner of the kitchen.

  “A very nice establishment.”

  “Yeah, you said that. Where is it?”

  “No clue.”

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Is there someone I can talk to who knows where you are?”

  I winced at the loud clang and scrape in my ear. He either dropped the receiver as he handed the phone off or got hit by a semi. I hoped it wasn’t the latter.

  “Are you coming to pick this guy up or what?” a rough male voice asked.

  “Yeah, I just need to know where to go.”

  I wrote down the address he gave me, thanking him before I hung up.

  Blowing past Gram and Aunt Sharon at the sink rinsing dishes, I ran to my room to grab my coat. I shoved my driver’s license into the back pocket of my skinny jeans, and returned to the kitchen.

  “Was he drinking, Auden?” Gram asked, looking at me over her shoulder and not missing a beat as she rinsed those dishes.

  “Yep,” I said, sliding an arm into my peacoat. “I’m going to pick him up.”

  “Make sure he takes some Advil,” Gram ordered. “And roll him onto his side this time.”

  “I will,” I said, wrapping a mock Burberry plaid scarf around my neck before I realized she’d said “this time.” I tried to recall a time she would have seen him drunk—Oh my gosh, my grandmother knew Aleksandr had been in my bed after the night in Canada. As I snatched my keys off the hook by the back door, I dared a glance over my shoulder. Aunt Sharon was putting dishes in the dishwasher, but Gram caught my eye and winked.

  Aleksandr must’ve been pulling my leg when he’d told me he was at a “very nice establishment” because when I pulled up to the scary, dilapidated building on the outskirts of downtown Detroit, I didn’t want to get out of the car. I really hoped the jacked-up guy in a long, black leather coat and black knit beanie taking up the whole doorway was the bouncer. He looked like he could challenge Rocky Balboa in the next Rocky film.

  “ID?” Rocky’s opponent demanded.

  “I’m just here to pick someone up,” I told him.

  “ID.”

  I fished my driver’s license out of my back pocket, thankful that I’d remembered to take it before I’d left the house.

  “I’m under twenty-one. I just want to pick up my friend. He’s really drunk.”

  “Dude from the Pilots?”

  I nodded.

  “Wait here. I’ll get him.” He started through the door when I grabbed his arm. The muscle tightened under my grasp. His gaze traveled from my hand to my eyes.

  “Sorry.” I released him. “Can I, um, can I just take one step inside?”

  I checked over my shoulder. The street was devoid of people and cars, other than my own, but I was still freaked out. I was a wuss, and the bouncer knew it. Which was fine with me as long as he didn’t make me wait alone on the streets of Detroit.

  His mouth turned up in an amused smile, but he held the door open for me to follow him inside.

  If the steel door with a blacked-out window wasn’t foreboding enough, the smoky haze and urine smell when I entered was.

  “Isn’t smoking banned?” I tugged the collar of my sweater up to shield my mouth and nose.

  “Don’t make me regret letting your underage ass in here,” the bouncer called over his shoulder without stopping his pursuit.

  Yeah, it didn’t seem like a place that cared about smoking fines.

  I watched the bouncer weave his way through a small room crammed with a half dozen people and two pool tables. The bouncer tapped Aleksandr’s shoulder and pointed my way. When he swiveled in the bar stool and caught sight of me, his face lit up. At least he was a happy drunk.

  “And I feel fine,” Aleksandr sang as the bouncer led him by the arm. “Remember that song?”

  “There’s no song like that, man.” The bouncer shook his head, not amused with Aleksandr’s ditty.

  “There is. Tell him, Auduska
.”

  “The Beatles?” I guessed.

  “The Beatles! Ha!” Aleksandr poked the bouncer in the chest.

  “Take him before I punch him,” the bouncer told me, letting go of Aleksandr’s arm. “Drive safe.”

  Aleksandr wobbled on his feet, so I shoved my shoulder under him, wrapping my arm around his back. He tried to take a step, but fell onto me. I had to take a step back for leverage.

  “Sorry, Audushka.” He squeezed my bicep. “You’re strong.”

  “My car is right there.” I pointed with my free hand, which I’d extended for balance.

  “I can walk,” Aleksandr said, shrugging out of my grasp and straightening. “I just wanted you to touch me.”

  “Get in.” I shook my head as I walked around to the driver’s side.

  “Thank you, Audushka,” he said, pulling his seat belt across his chest.

  “No problem.”

  And it wasn’t. I was happy he’d called me instead of trying to drive himself.

  We drove in silence though the questions in my head were loud. Why had he chosen to get drunk at a bar by himself tonight rather than come over and have dinner with my family? I knew he didn’t celebrate Christmas, but it was more about eating and hanging out with us than celebrating the holiday.

  “See this?” Aleksandr broke the silence. When I glanced over, he was pointing to the scar on his cheekbone, inches below his left eye.

  “Yes.”

  “You know how I got this?”

  “High stick?” I asked.

  “No. This one was a high stick.” He pointed to a scabbed-over gash above his right eyebrow, before trailing his finger back to the original scar he’d pointed to. “This was a bottle of vodka. Two years ago today.”

  “How did it happen?” My grip tightened on the steering wheel. Bar fight was the first thought that came to my mind.

  “I threw the bottle at a mirror. One of the two came back.” Aleksandr diverted his eyes out the window. “Two years ago today I was getting dressed for a game. Then my coach walks in with my aunt. I knew something was wrong immediately since my aunt hadn’t been to a game in years.” He paused to swallow. “She told me my parents died in a car accident on the way to my game. She said it just like that. Didn’t prepare me, didn’t ease me into it. I ran out of the locker room in full gear and drove to the hospital, but they wouldn’t even let me see the bodies. So I went back to my apartment and got drunk. I got angry. I threw the vodka bottle. All I could do was sit on my bed and cry and scream and throw bottles. My parents were killed trying to get to my game. They would be alive if it weren’t for me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, and reached out my hand to place it on top of his. Why was it so easy to tell other people something, but not believe it yourself?

  “No, but I was the reason they were looking for a faster way to the arena. My hockey games. My hockey practices. Their lives revolved around my hockey career. And it killed them. I swore I would never play hockey again, and didn’t for a week.” He looked at our hands, twisting his so his palm was cupped toward mine. “Then I remembered that hockey was the only thing I had left.”

  “I’m so sorry, Sasha. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Stop apologizing, Audushka.” He lifted his eyes to mine, intensity poking through the haze. “I brought it up. I wanted you to know. For you, I’m an open book.”

  I squeezed his fingers before resting our joined hands on top of his thigh. Our situations were mirror images of each other. He’d retreated into hockey to numb the pain of his parents’ death, just as I’d retreated into soccer to numb the pain of my mom’s.

  “Will you stay with me tonight, Audushka?” Aleksandr asked, still staring at our joined hands.

  We both knew the answer, and I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  We drove the rest of the way to his apartment in silence. Though I was enclosed in the warmth of the car, the winds whipping outside seemed to be slicing through me, carrying away the final bricks of the wall I’d built.

  —

  The condo Aleksandr rented in downtown Detroit was part of the Westin Book Cadillac, a historic building which had undergone a major reconstruction a few years back. It currently housed a restaurant on the main floor, the Westin hotel, and luxury residential condos on the top eight floors. No doubt numerous other amenities were hidden between the walls of the building, but the restaurant—and the valet service that parked my car—was all I knew.

  Luxury was the ideal word for the condo that Aleksandr shared with Landon Taylor. I’d expected the condo to resemble one of the hotel rooms on the floors below, but the space was huge and gorgeous, an unexpected surprise. The entryway led directly into a kitchen that would make Gordon Ramsay salivate. I could barely scramble eggs, but I was mesmerized by it.

  The cabinets were a medium shade of brown, slightly darker than the hardwood floors. The appliances were stainless steel, including a gas range and double oven. A wraparound bar and countertops of glossy black granite were the exclamation point of the gorgeous kitchen. But as impressed as I was, I was practically drooling when I glanced to the left of the entrance, where the space opened to a substantial living room with three large windows along the pristine white wall.

  Eager to see what Detroit looked like from the twenty-eighth floor, I rushed past the gourmet kitchen to the living room and peered out of the middle window. Instead of the city, I was rewarded with a stunning view of the illuminated Ambassador Bridge. The lights of the bridge cast a reflection onto the rippling Detroit River, which proved, if studied from the right angle, that Detroit could be beautiful.

  “Take a seat.” Aleksandr nodded to the black leather couch I was leaning against. Instead of sitting, I watched him extract a small white bottle from the cabinet above the huge stainless steel sink, shake a few pills into his hand, and throw them into his mouth. He swallowed them before filling up a glass of water and guzzling it. “My head hurts already.”

  “This place is amazing. It’s huge,” I said as I turned back to the view of the river. Warmth spread through me, knowing that Canada, the place Aleksandr and I had met, was directly across that body of water.

  “Yeah, I guess it used to be two small condos, but someone bought them and tore down the separation walls and renovated it into one large space.”

  “That person was a freaking genius,” I said mostly to myself. I tore my gaze away from the window to check out the rest of the condo. The living room was on the left side of a long, narrow room. The middle section held a four-person dining table, and the area to the far right housed a stationary bike, a weight bench, and a rack of dumbbells in various weights on the wall next to it.

  “Want anything? Beer? Water?” Aleksandr asked as he filled his glass again.

  “I’m good. Thanks.” Since he’d already gotten the ibuprofen himself, it looked like my job here was done, so I took a step back from the window. “I should get going so you can rest.”

  “No. You said you would stay.” He moved toward me, stumbling over a pair of black dress shoes on the floor near the bar. Aleksandr stopped in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body next to the draft of the window.

  “Sasha, I know what I said, but you should sleep it off.” I took his hand in mine and gave it a light squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “There is no tomorrow.”

  Aleksandr bent down, wrapped his arms around my thighs, and hefted me over his shoulder. Though I pounded on his back, he didn’t stop walking until we’d entered a large room with snow white carpet. Being upside down, the carpet was all I could see until he deposited me onto a king-sized bed. His king-sized bed.

  “Please, Audushka, I need you here with me,” he said as he climbed on top of me, pinning me below him.

  I didn’t have to ask why because the answer had slapped me in the face during our conversation in my car. He needed to be held, and I wanted to be the one to hold him.

  H
ow many times had I wanted someone to stop talking and just hold me? Hold me until I didn’t need the comfort anymore. Hold me until I was the one ready to step back, rather than being released first.

  “I’ll lay with you for a few minutes,” I compromised, snuggling under the protection of his body.

  We both lifted and twisted to allow Aleksandr to tug the luxurious silky fabric of his gray paisley duvet over us. Then he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me to his chest. I could feel his stomach expand and contract against my lower back, his thighs molded against my thighs.

  Aleksandr’s breathing slowed and soon our chests rose and fell in unison. I rubbed one of his forearms in appreciation. He nuzzled his face into my hair, kissing the back of my head. Then he pressed his pelvis into my backside.

  It was not a sleepy move.

  I responded by pushing back into his groin.

  “Audushka,” he whispered hoarsely, lowering his hands to my hips and grinding himself against me again.

  “This isn’t gonna work,” I told him, heart racing as I wiggled out of his grasp and twisted around, so we lay chest to chest. When I lifted my eyes to his, it was immediately clear that I hadn’t chosen the safer option. The heat in his eyes was so intense, if he were to cry, his tears would burn my skin.

  Aleksandr rose onto his elbow, never taking his steamy gaze away from mine. He pushed my shoulders against the bed and threw one leg over me while holding himself up on his forearms. His lips were feather light as he lowered them onto mine, but when he invaded my mouth with his expert tongue, I arched my back, and my chest slammed against his.

  Goose bumps prickled my arms when his tongue flicked over my neck. He rolled his hips against mine, sliding every hard inch against the sensitive spot between my legs.

  I let out a series of soft gasps, but Aleksandr didn’t relent, didn’t give me one second to catch my breath, as he continued to rub himself against me. The intensity of the friction he was creating would put me over the edge.