Delayed Penalty: A Pilots Hockey Novel

by Sophia Henry

  “That’s some way to wake a man up, Audushka.” Aleksandr rolled off me, easing himself out slowly.

  I laughed.

  “Did I miss something?” He lifted an eyebrow.

  “I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn’t. It was awesome,” I said, still trying to slow my breath. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to. Just looking at him made my pulse race again.

  “Did I hurt you?” He held my eyes with his. I shook my head. “I didn’t know you—”

  “I knew what I was doing,” I said, then laughed again. “Well, not really, but I knew I wanted to do it—with you, that is. It’s only ever been you. Obviously.”

  Aleksandr stroked my cheek with his palm and lowered his mouth onto mine, cutting off my nervous rambling.

  “How did you know there was a condom in my wallet?”

  “I took a stereotypical guess.” I rubbed the buzzed sides of his head with my hands. Though it had grown out since I’d seen him last, it still had a soft peach-fuzz feeling.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Aleksandr smiled, shaking his head.

  “Anything you want,” I told him, closing my eyes, taken over by drowsiness again. Aleksandr got up, removed the condom, and pulled on his jeans. He disappeared from my sight for a moment. Then I felt him slide one arm under my knees and the other under my neck, and he carried me back to the bed. He set me down and pulled the duvet over me.

  “Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. Although I meant it in the context of the present situation, I wanted it to fit the future as well.

  “Never, my love,” he whispered, kissing my head. He climbed in bed and pressed his chest against my back, his thighs and knees against the back of my thighs and knees, perfectly interlocking.

  I slowed my breathing to match his, so our chests rose and fell together. I’d never felt as safe as I did wrapped in his strong arms.

  Aleksandr kissed the back of my head, whispering something in Russian against my hair. I could have misconstrued the translation in my sleepy haze, but I thought he said, “You are my destiny, my sun. There is no happiness without you.”

  As I drifted to sleep, sheltered underneath the warmth and strength of Aleksandr’s body, I realized tonight was the first time I ever let myself lose control.

  If that’s what it took to love and trust someone completely, I was all in.

  Chapter 24

  A knock on the door woke me for the third time that morning. This time I was in my own bed. Aleksandr had called a cab at the crack of dawn to drop me off at my apartment and take him to get his car. He had to be on the road early to make it to the airport in time for his game. I hadn’t planned on jumping into bed when I got home, but I was exhausted from the little sleep I’d gotten in Aleksandr’s hotel room.

  Inspecting my ensemble as I shuffled to the door, I decided the T-shirt and boxer shorts I had on covered more than enough to be decent.

  While stifling a yawn, I grabbed the handle and opened the door to find Greg standing outside. I rubbed my fingers across my eyes and took a quick look behind him.

  “Hey, Greg?” I asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to apologize for last night.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  “Oh, well, thanks.” Was a personal visit necessary?

  “I’m sorry I tried to kiss you. I was confused. I mean, I read this poem again and I just thought,” Greg began, holding up a piece of paper. His shoulders dropped as he lowered it. “Shit. I thought it was about me.”

  I didn’t need to look at the paper to know which poem he had. I’d given him a dozen to use for lyrics, but only one could’ve caused any confusion, because I’d written only one about a guy. The poem I’d written after I first met Aleksandr. My creative way of purging the original feelings I’d had for him. A stupid reminder to not let myself get in too deep.

  “Why would you ever think that was about you?” I asked. Before Greg could answer, I saw a figure rushing toward him.

  Crap. Not a good time for Aleksandr, who was supposed to be on his way out of town, to show up.

  “What’s going on?” Aleksandr demanded. His face was stoic, but I could tell there was a storm rolling in his eyes. The next Cold War could be brewing on the doorstep of my apartment.

  Greg turned to look over his shoulder. Instead of a view of Aleksandr’s face, he got an eyeful of his fist.

  Literally. Aleksandr punched him. The paper Greg had been holding fell to the ground.

  “That’s for hitting on my girlfriend,” Aleksandr said as he bent over Greg, arm cocked and loaded.

  Lunging at Aleksandr, I grabbed his arm so he couldn’t swing again. “Stop, Sasha! Stop!”

  “What the fuck?” Greg was doubled over, one hand on his knee, the other holding his eye. He cleared his throat and spat. I was thankful there was no blood.

  “Don’t ‘What the fuck?’ when you’re the one at my girlfriend’s door at eight in the morning.” Aleksandr’s breath was erratic, his body tense and ready to pounce. Again.

  “Calm down.” I held him against my chest, and locked my arms around him.

  “Why?” He wiggled out of my hold and spun around to face me. “What’s going on here, Audushka?”

  “Greg came over to apologize for being a jerk last night.”

  “Apologizing for being a jerk? Or for trying to kiss you?” Aleksandr asked. He stooped down to pick up the paper on the ground. At first, he scanned the words quickly, his eyes darting across the page.

  But when his eyelids drooped and his brows inched closer, I realized which poem Greg had brought. Though I’d written it in frustration months ago after I’d met Aleksandr, I still remembered every wicked word by heart.

  Come inside

  You can sit or lay

  Just don’t wait

  for me to say

  I love you

  because I won’t lie

  and I know you

  won’t say goodbye

  I’m the one thing

  you’ll never have

  a chance with

  so as you take my hand

  remember

  I could never stand the thought of you

  on your knees

  begging

  for a way to please me

  that you wouldn’t find

  not because

  I wasn’t kind

  but because

  I couldn’t handle

  your eyes burning into me

  like a candle

  a flame rising from the hell

  you’re walking on the edge of

  and if you fell

  I’d catch you

  but I’ll never say

  I love you

  “Is this about him?” Aleksandr asked, thrusting the page toward Greg. His eyes swirled, an ocean before a storm.

  “No. I wrote it awhile ago.”

  “About who?”

  Shit.

  “You.” I dropped my eyes. “But I wrote it right after I met you. When I didn’t know you.”

  Aleksandr stared at the page, nodding as he reread the words. The swirl of anger drained from his eyes. And that’s what scared me the most. Give me anger. Give me sorrow. But don’t give me indifference.

  “Yeah, well, thanks for last night, Auden. It’s good to know where I really stand.” He whirled around and bolted down the hallway.

  “Sasha! Sasha, it’s not like that. It was—” I stopped explaining because he didn’t stop walking.

  I slumped against the door frame, listening to his heavy footsteps morph to a shuffle the farther down the hall he got.

  Abandoned again, only this time it was all my fault.

  Chapter 25

  “Call him from my phone,” Kristen offered. She grabbed her phone off the end table next to the couch and held it out to me.

  “I can’t do that. It’s sneaky,” I said as if I had any shame left. I’d been calling Aleksandr tirelessly
from the landline in our apartment for the last week.

  “You need to talk to him so you can scrape your pathetic self off the couch and get on with your life. Have you even showered?”

  “Yes.” I threw a pillow at her. “I have.” Once.

  After a week of calling Aleksandr and leaving messages on his phone with no response, I was only slightly against using Kristen’s phone to call him. I wanted to apologize for the poem and explain that I had written it after we’d first met. Back when I thought he was a douche bag, which was one hundred eighty degrees from who he was as a person.

  I gave him time to cool off. He needed to pick up the phone and talk to me.

  “Fine.” I grabbed Kristen’s phone from her outstretched hand, pressing the digits on the screen.

  “Allo?” An unfamiliar male voice answered Aleksandr’s phone. He had a Russian accent, but it wasn’t the Russian accent I knew and loved.

  “Who is this?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear and checking the screen to make sure I dialed the right number.

  “Pasha.”

  “Oh, hey, Pavel.” I wanted to puke. I didn’t know Pavel Gribov enough to call him Pasha, nor did I want to know him. I missed Landon. Why couldn’t Landon have gotten called up to Charlotte with Aleksandr rather than slimy Gribov?

  “I need to speak with Aleksandr. Can you put him on?”

  “He’s unclothed.” Pavel laughed. “Or indisposed, I get these English words confused. But you understand this, yes?”

  “Auden?” Aleksandr called out in the background.

  “It’s Angie, but whatever,” a woman’s voice responded.

  “So sorry you had to hear that,” Pavel said. I wanted to crawl through the phone and kick his patronizing ass. “Actually, I’m not. You know, he thinks you are a selfish, cheating whore, yes?”

  “What?” My voice shook on the verge of a meltdown.

  “The only girl he’s ever loved writes a horrible poem about him. You use him to cry about your mother, yet you don’t even think about what losing his parents did to him? You are selfish. And you wonder why he hasn’t called you back.”

  “Who the fuck is that, Pasha?” Aleksandr demanded. I heard scraping in the earpiece, then Aleksandr’s voice again, clear as ice. “Hold on, Angel.”

  “It’s Angie,” I whispered, pulling the phone away from my ear and staring at the screen.

  Symbolically, a large red box with the word End lit up on the phone screen, waiting for my touch to seal the deal. When I pressed it, the phone slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.

  “Shit.” I bent down to grab it. “Sorry, KK.”

  “I have an anti-destructo case. We’re good. What happened?” Kristen asked.

  I covered my eyes with my hands and shook my head, my shoulders shaking.

  “Oh, Aud.” Kristen scooted closer and wrapped her arms around me. I was still shaking when she brought my head into her lap and stroked my hair. She dropped her voice to a soothing tone. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” I said between sniffles and gulps of air. “It’s over.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “He was with another girl. I heard her.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door, and I suddenly remembered asking my brother to hang out tonight.

  “That’s Jay.” I wiped at my eyes again.

  “I got it,” Kristen said, unraveling herself from me.

  “I brought popcorn and one of those sappy movies you girls seem to like.” Jason greeted us, holding out a huge bucket of popcorn straight from the movie theater. The gigantic grin on his face dissolved when he saw me. “What happened?”

  “Chick flick is out. Did you bring the one about the jackass ex?” Kristen asked, moving aside so Jason could slide by.

  “Where they realize it was a misunderstanding, get back together, and live happily ever after?” Jason asked, a hopeful smile on his lips, taking Kristen’s seat next to me on the couch.

  I shook my head and rubbed my forehead, hoping to ease my mind and stop the tears. I didn’t want Jason to see me as a sobbing mess of a person.

  “Who answered?” Kristen went straight back to our conversation as she walked to the kitchen.

  “Gribov.” I took the bucket from Jason’s hands and inhaled the buttery fragrance. “He said horrible things. True things.”

  “That ass-hat? He’s been trying to break you and Aleksandr up since before you were together. You remember what he said at the arena, right?” Kristen came back with a bowl and scooped up some of the popcorn. Then she took a seat on the floor at my feet.

  “I know.” I nodded. “I know Gribov is a fucking jerk, but he’s right. I’m the one who wrote that stupid poem. I’m the selfish one. I’m the one who messed everything up.”

  “What poem?” Jason asked, digging the bowl Kristen had brought him into the popcorn bucket.

  Jason wasn’t caught up on everything that had happened with Aleksandr. I’d asked him over for some brother and sister bonding time, since I hadn’t seen him in a while, except for a few lunches at the diner.

  “After I found out I was his translator, I wrote a poem as an outlet for the feelings I was having being attracted to him, but knowing nothing could come out of it because he was my client. He found it, and I had to admit I’d written it about him. He didn’t believe me.”

  “That sucks,” Jason said. “He’s got to understand it was old. You explained it to him, right?”

  I shook my head. “Haven’t had a chance. He won’t answer my calls. I just called him from Kristen’s phone. It didn’t go well.”

  “Because Pavel Gribov is acting as his personal answering machine,” Kristen said.

  “Gribov is a prick. He’s so jealous of Aleksandr it’s ridiculous.” Jason shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

  “How so?” I asked. Pavel Gribov had been one of the better players on the Pilots and had taken those skills into the NHL. He’d already had three goals and an assist. Aleksandr had yet to score, but had gotten two assists so far.

  “Beating Aleksandr is a personal challenge for him. Aleksandr was the better player when they were in Russia. When they were drafted, Aleksandr went in the second round, Gribov didn’t go until the fifth. Aleksandr was the Pilots leading scorer and assistant captain. And Aleksandr always got more”—Jason stopped midsentence—“attention.”

  “Female attention?” I asked. Jason’s pause hadn’t fooled me. I knew Aleksandr had plenty of that before we met.

  “Enough with the stupid jealous crap, Aud,” Kristen chastised. “You with the bunnies and him with the band. Both of you are so scared of being with someone, you both sabotaged it.”

  “Right, but he was with someone else, and I’ll never go back to him. He knows how I feel about cheating.”

  “I haven’t known him long, but he and Landon are really good friends, and I know that he is seriously in love with you. I can’t believe he would cheat on you.”

  “Technically, he wasn’t even cheating since you guys broke up,” Kristen said.

  I held up a hand and swallowed a sob. “I love you, KK, but I’m not in the mood for technicalities right now. If it’s that easy to be with someone a week after we broke up, I’m better off without him.”

  Kristen nodded, but wouldn’t relent. “You’re right. I mean, you don’t want a relationship with a guy who leaves the bar to drive you home, and then climbs in your window to make sure you’re alive. Someone who happily accepted a punishment from your mean-ass grandfather for hurting your feelings. Someone who loves you enough not to replace the necklace you wear that belonged to your mom, but to add to it so you wouldn’t have to take off something that means so much to you. And you, for sure, don’t want to be with a guy who gets pissed because you originally thought of him as just a fuck and not relationship material. I would definitely throw away a guy like that. Especially over a stupid poem.”

  “It was stupid. Really ba
dly written.” I nodded. Ignoring all the excellent points she’d made. Why was I the type of person who dwelled on the negative? Four out of five dentists recommend Trident gum. Why did I believe the one who didn’t?

  “Auden.” Kristen lowered her head, scrunched her eyebrows so they pointed down in the middle, and looked up so only the bottom of her irises showed. I call it her evil face because it’s so creepy. Killer Klowns from Outer Space creepy.

  “I don’t know how to fix things, KK. I just know how to run away.”

  “This might be the time to learn.” She pretended she was getting up. “Want me to go get my Barbie tool kit?”

  “ ‘Barbie tool kit’?” Jason asked.

  I laughed, thinking about the pink toolbox she’d busted out on the first day we met in our freshman dorm.

  “Her toolbox and all the tools in it are pink. No joke.”

  “I believe that.” Jason nodded, taking in Kristen’s outfit: a hot pink Under Armor jacket and black yoga pants with matching pink stripes down the sides.

  “Aleksandr won’t answer my calls. Gribov has him convinced I’m a selfish tramp who’s sleeping with all my bandmates. So what do I do?”

  “What do they say? If you love something, set it free. If it comes back it’s meant to be?” Jason asked.

  “Guess the poetry gene runs in the family,” Kristen said.

  “I didn’t mean for it to rhyme. It just came out that way.” Jason threw a handful of popcorn at her.

  “Hey!” I wrapped my arms around the bucket and held it away from Jason. “Don’t waste. This is the good stuff.”

  I never thought I’d be laughing after realizing I’d just lost the love of my life. Then again, I never thought I’d be sitting in my apartment eating popcorn and talking about relationships with a brother.