Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) Page 15

  “I’ve been in Esquire.” He winked.

  She had bought a copy each time he’d appeared in it, even if it was just one small photo in a list of the magazine’s ten current style heroes.

  “Need more tea, devochka?”

  “Yes.”

  As he set the kettle on the burner, the intercom hummed. No one said anything on the other end. Alex buzzed them in anyway. “Your surprise is here.” He rubbed his hands together and skirted the breakfast bar.

  “My—wait, what?”

  A knock. Alex stepped out, the door open enough for her to see him shake someone’s hand. “Good to see you! Thanks for doing this. It’ll mean so much to her.” He walked back in, his smile a supernova. Someone was behind him. A halo of blond hair over Alex’s shoulder. Cornflower-blue eyes sparkled above a toothy smile.

  “Matt!” Forgetting her misery for a moment, Stephanie scrambled off the couch, tangling herself in the blanket, and flung herself into her brother’s arms.

  “Hey you.”

  Alex, smiling, attended to the tea. “Can I get you a drink, Matt?”

  “Water for now, but you and I definitely need to have a drink later.”

  “That we do.” He brought a tumbler of ice water and a cup of tea into the living room. “I’ll put your bag in the guest room. I need to run an errand, so I’ll let you two catch up. Make yourself at home.” Alex carried the bag and Matt’s coat into the extra room, then grabbed his keys from the breakfast bar. “See you guys in a bit.”

  “He doesn’t run errands,” Stephanie said when he’d left. She sank onto the couch, Matt into the matching armchair. “He’s up to something else. What are you doing here?”

  Matt jerked his thumb toward the door. “That guy lives to make you happy.”

  Her cheeks warmed, and not from the fever.

  “I was going to have a short layover here before my flight to LA. He called me this morning and said you had the flu and couldn’t make it to LA tonight. He offered to pay for a flight tomorrow morning if I’d spend the night here.”

  “Oh my God,” she murmured.

  “I’ll assume you haven’t talked to Dad, which means you don’t know.”

  She dabbed at her nose with a tissue. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Esophageal cancer.”

  “From the drinking.”

  “Yeah. Stage three. He’s doing chemo, but…” He looked out the windows and uttered a soft “wow.” Struggling to act in the socially sanctioned way one ought to when faced with a parent’s impending death. To care. They both had so little reason to do so. Matt combed his fingers through his wavy hair. “He has about a twenty percent chance at this point.”

  She sneezed, blew her nose, and then got up to throw the tissue away, embarrassed she wasn’t reacting the way a normal person ought to. No tears. No impulse to cry at all. Nothing. She might feel a moment of sorrow when he died, shallower than the sadness one felt for a celebrity’s passing and as quickly forgotten. Grief for what could have been, if he’d cared enough to seek help, and relief the reality was dead and buried so she could move on with her life.

  “Steph, you don’t owe him anything. He’s never once apologized or taken responsibility for anything he did.”

  She shook her head. She would not let their father ruin another otherwise happy occasion. “Sorry I’m sick, by the way.”

  “’Tis the season. How’s work?”

  “I got a promotion last month.” She plucked an extra copy of King County Today from Alex’s bookshelf. “Here’s the issue that got me there. You can keep it.”

  “And look who’s on the cover.” Matt beamed at her. “You guys couldn’t stay away from each other, huh?”

  “Obviously not.” She stuck her tongue out.

  “So what’s the deal with you two? Is it serious, or…?”

  “I hope so. As it turns out, I never really got over him.”

  “I knew you didn’t. I’ve never seen you the way you are with him.”

  “It’s different now, though. He’s different. I mean, of course he is. We’re older, and he’s one of the greatest athletes in the world. It’s just…strange.” She laughed a little, a hoarse chuckle that incited a coughing fit. “But amazing.”

  “Some things are meant to be. So you told him everything?”

  “Yeah. He was upset at first, of course. He really wants kids, as surprising as that is. It was hard on him.”

  “But you don’t want them?”

  “I didn’t. But with Alex…I don’t know.” She slumped onto the couch again, her head and every muscle aching. “It’s way too soon, and—ˮ

  Alex walked in carrying two grocery bags.

  “Well, this is new,” Stephanie said.

  “What? I know how to shop for groceries. I choose not to.” He tucked the items into the refrigerator. “Matt, you up for that drink?”

  “Sure am.”

  He fixed two Highballs and, after handing one to Matt, sat beside Stephanie on the couch. She snuggled him and dragged the blanket over her legs.

  “Stephanie said you’re teaching overseas?”

  “Yeah, ESL in Japan. Might try Korea next. How’s the new team?”

  “It’s difficult. We’re not playing well. I’ve been through a rebuild—it was why Buffalo drafted me, but this is an expansion team. There’s nothing to rebuild because it was never built in the first place. And, you know, just being in a new city. I finally stopped missing Saint Petersburg, and now I miss Buffalo.” He curled his arm around her. “But Seattle got a whole lot better.”

  “You guys are sickeningly cute, as always.”

  Alex kissed the top of her head. “So what about you? Anyone special?”

  “Honey,” Stephanie said, “I’m not sure Matt wants to—ˮ

  “No, it’s fine. Just because Dad freaked out doesn’t mean everyone else will.”

  Alex was silent for a moment, until the lightbulb went off. “Oh. You’re…”

  “Gay. Yeah. Our father didn’t take it well. Not that he takes anything well. I’m only going because he’s dying. Couldn’t even bring my partner.”

  “He’s dying?”

  Alex sounded gleeful. Stephanie jabbed her elbow into his ribs.

  “Ow! I’m…sorry to hear that.”

  “You don’t have to lie, Alex. Despite what my little sister may tell you.”

  She stuck her tongue out again.

  “He was as shitty to you as he was to everyone else. And I’d rather it be me dealing with him one last time than Stephanie, anyway. She suffered enough.”

  “I wanted to fucking kill that guy.”

  “Alex.”

  “Let him say it, Steph. It’s what we all thought at one time or another.”

  He was right; she’d imagined killing him, had formulated a plan one night when it had gotten bad enough. She’d never told Alex or confronted the suspicion her father’s violence had infected her, had perhaps genetically predisposed her to it. That when he did die, the worst parts of him might live on in her. The vilest sort of immortality and one of the reasons, after the miscarriage, she had all but abandoned the idea of having children. She would not perpetuate his affliction. Alex, wanting children so badly, would find someone willing to give him that. Sometimes, love alone was not enough.

  Her congestion masked the tears, and neither Matt nor Alex seemed to suspect she was doing anything more than wiping eyes watery from clogged sinuses.

  “Men hit women all the time in Russia. There’s an old proverb: ‘If he beats you, he loves you.’ Women blame themselves. It shouldn’t be like that. I mean, look at me. I could really hurt someone. Why would I want to see someone I love in pain? What I saw Stephanie go through…” He shook his head. “That isn’t love. I wish I could fix it.”

  “Baby,” Stephanie whispered and burrowed even closer to him. He gave her another gentle kiss.

  At dinnertime, Alex ordered pirozhki and borscht, with a box of cinnamon cookies for dess
ert, from the Russian bakery in the Market. They talked long into the night, until Stephanie dozed off on his shoulder.

  “Come on, you. Time for medicine and bed.” Alex helped her off the couch and hooked an arm around her waist.

  “Make sure I’m up before Matt leaves.”

  “Of course.” He kissed her cheek. Matt rose from the armchair and followed them to the guest room. “Let me know if you need anything, Matt.”

  “Good night.” Stephanie hugged him. “Thank you so much for being here.”

  “Wouldn’t have passed it up for anything. Get some sleep, kiddo.” Matt tousled her hair.

  Stephanie followed Alex down the hall and closed the bedroom door. He had started undressing, the simple act of taking off his sweater flaunting the beauty of his physique. “You are unbelievable.”

  “That’s a good thing, da?”

  “A very good thing.” She lay down, coughed, and pressed a tissue to her nose as Alex climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up. “What you did for me today…”

  “I love seeing you so happy.” He kissed her forehead.

  She spooned with him, nesting like a matryoshka doll. “I love you. Do you believe that?”

  “Of course I do. What kind of a question is that?”

  “The stuff about my father brought up some things.”

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “There are certain things I know you want, and I wonder if I’m able to give them to you.”

  He kissed her shoulder. “Get that zhopa out of your head. I have you. That’s all I want.”

  “Then for now, we don’t need to talk about it anymore.” She rolled over to lay her head on his chest, and he stroked her hair as his breathing slowed. His heartbeat pulsed against her cheek.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered.

  The curtains on the deck doors were open so she could look into the night, into the diamond-dusted sky, and wonder at each tiny miracle that had brought her there. Their apogee lay beside her with an arm around her waist and wisps of sleep-softened breath against her ear. There was no logic in how much she loved him, but much of its beauty lay in its illogicality. If love was known for anything, it was not for being rational.

  With his gentle exhales singing her to sleep, she held their love as the precious thing it was and sent her silent thanks into that diamond sky it had been returned to her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alex was clutching a bouquet of red roses in front of his face. Stephanie broke into a grin as he lowered the flowers below his eyes and waggled his eyebrows. He was wearing a long-sleeved indigo polo shirt, relaxed-fit jeans, and gray suede Prada sneakers, the most casual outfit he’d ever worn on a date, which further piqued her curiosity. He hadn’t yet revealed their destination, only that she wear something comfortable, especially her shoes.

  “Get in here.”

  He held out the roses.

  “They’re beautiful, Alex.”

  Pressing her against the counter, he slipped his arms around her waist for a deep, unhurried kiss.

  “Well hello,” she said when their mouths regrettably separated. She filled an empty crystal vase with water and tucked the stems into it.

  “Hi there. Shall we?” He offered her his arm.

  Somewhere between First Hill and Capitol Hill, Alex slowed the Mercedes to a crawl and scanned the street for a parking spot. Finding nothing, he drove a couple of blocks to the community college garage and pulled into the first available space. They walked hand-in-hand back the way they had come, through a cool Saturday evening drizzle, following other couples beneath a burgundy awning into a turn-of-the-century brick building.

  “A ballroom?”

  “One night I was out with this beautiful woman who said she didn’t dance. And I really want to dance with her.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  They stopped at the ballroom’s restaurant for a light dinner, then headed into the hall for an hour-long intro lesson. The DJ had set up onstage between heavy blue velvet curtains, while couples gathered on the shiny, sprung hardwood floor. As the room filled to near capacity, some of her self-consciousness bled away. Anyone there for the intro lesson probably was as clueless as she was.

  They ran through the basic patterns of West Coast Swing: right-side and left-side passes, tuck turns, sugar pushes, and whips, all of which proved more complicated in her head than in practice, perhaps because of her partner’s talents. She tried to keep her gaze locked on Alex’s. Maintaining both a visual and physical connection at all times was, according to the instructor, one of West Coast Swing’s main tenets, but she found it drifting to his hips. Imagining what those hips would be doing later.

  The lesson ended, and the DJ put on Ray Anthony’s “Let’s Dance.” Alex started with his left foot and Stephanie, on a downbeat, with her right. Step, step, right triple, left triple. Two steps forward on the first two beats, maneuvered to the other end of the slot and passing on Alex’s right. She stepped three times at the end, an anchor step. They started the process again, Alex leading her into a sugar push this time. With both hands holding hers, he guided her in three steps toward him, then three back, anchor step and forward again, and pecked her lips when they were face to face.

  “See? You can dance.”

  “It’s a lot easier than I expected. Also, have I mentioned you keep getting sexier?”

  He grinned.

  Back to the four-beat starter step. He led her past him, then whipped her toward the end of the slot from which she had begun. Step step tri-ple-step, step step tri-ple-step.

  “Having fun?”

  “How could I not?”

  Another sugar push, then into a tuck turn, where she performed a graceful little twirl from which she and those around her emerged unscathed. Alex beamed at her.

  They danced for two hours. Thirty minutes before the ballroom closed, they cut out to beat the crowd and walked to the park across the street. It had been the site of multiple muggings at both knifepoint and gunpoint during the summer, and though police had augmented foot patrols, it saddened her to think that without her six-foot-five boyfriend at her side, she’d have been an easy target in a neighborhood once beloved as a subversive safe haven for the nonconformist. Its disastrous gentrification had forced out its artists and gay community, opening the floodgates for clubs, restaurants, and condos catering to the influx of young, straight tech workers, of dudebros and the woo girls who trailed them like loud, shiny shadows. With them, the inevitable increase in crime, particularly of the homophobic and misogynist varieties. She’d once brought Matt to the last of the gay bars there. She would not bring him back.

  The drizzle had lightened into little more than a mist. They walked the promenade around the reflecting pool, hands locked and the soft hiss of rain upon water filling the pregnant silence. She wished she could show those two weeping children sitting on his host mother’s steps that it would be all right, that they had arrived in the future together.

  “I have something for you.” Alex fished a black velvet ring box from his front pocket.

  One hand flew to her mouth, and she swore her heart stopped beating. “Oh my God,” she gasped.

  Alex’s eyes widened. “Oh—no, no. Don’t freak out. It’s not…Did you want it to be? Der′mo.” He rubbed the back of his neck and cast his gaze toward the pool. “I thought it was too soon—”

  “No! I mean…it is.” They barely knew each other as adults, despite two and a half months of spending Alex’s limited time off together. Her irrational disappointment remained, though she’d known going in he wasn’t the marrying type. And despite what he’d claimed he would have done, everything was easier in hindsight, when no longer faced with making such a monumental decision.

  Stephanie’s cheeks flamed.

  “Um, it’s like a promise. Like you gave me.” Alex opened the box. It held a ring of white-gold twists cradling a princess-cut diamond, with round diamonds flowing on either side of it. A promise
ring in name, if he needed it to be. Not the blemished, battered silver band he’d once sported, what a seventeen-year-old girl had been able to afford on her meager allowance. Not what she had given him at all.

  “It’s beautiful, Alex.”

  “I wasn’t sure…I know you don’t like really girly things, but I thought this one was nice.” With a sweet smile, he slid it onto her right ring finger instead of the left, reinforcing its intent. “I was going to wait until Christmas, but I have another surprise for you then.”

  Of course he did. “You know you don’t have to keep buying me things, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I know. But you deserve nice things. And I can afford them.” He scooped her into his arms, dipped her, and planted his lips on hers. “We’d better go. Don’t want to miss curfew.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep you up tonight.”

  His eyes twinkled, an exceptional understudy for the hidden stars. “I’ve never been so eager to get home.”

  ***

  Aleksandr

  Stephanie was still asleep. Alex kissed her cheek, then eased out of bed, wriggled into red flannel lounge pants, and plunked a Santa hat he’d picked up at Walgreens onto his head. The Earthquakes had played a four-game road trip, the second trip in as many weeks, and arrived home for their three-day Christmas break thirty-six hours ago. He and Stephanie had spent as many of those hours as possible making love, which was the sole reason he let her keep sleeping now.

  He turned on the fireplace and crept into the kitchen to start the teakettle. A small tree glittered by the windows. He knelt beside it and shook the wrapped present bearing his name.

  “And what do you think you’re doing?”

  He set the box down. Stephanie, hands on her hips and clad in one of his shirts, stood in the hallway. She smiled and shut off the heat under the shrieking teakettle. “Nice hat.”

  “Merry Christmas.” Alex darted beneath the sprig of mistletoe he’d hung over the kitchen entrance. “I believe you are required to kiss me now.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Come here, sexy Santa.” She hooked her hands into his pants and traced his V-cut with her thumbs. “Have I been naughty or nice?”