When I finally turn, Aleks is there.
Barefoot. Hoodie pulled on. Hair still a mess. He looks like he hasn’t slept much at all.
He sees my face and knows immediately.
“You heard,” he says softly.
I nod.
He steps closer, careful, like I might shatter. He cups my face with both hands, thumbs warm against my cheeks.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You okay?”
I laugh, breathless and a little wrecked. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to be anything but okay after that.”
His forehead rests against mine.
“I meant every word,” he says.
“I know,” I whisper. “But you have to be happy too, it’s not always a good day.”
“That’s why there’s also a night.”
Chapter 23
The Tower
Aleks
“You really movinginto the Fairfax penthouse?” Marshall asks.
“I’d move into a dumpster if that’s where she wanted to be.”
Sofie needed time to tell the girls and have a sleepover before I officially moved in. I had zero problems with that; it’s who she is. She needs everyone she loves to feel like they matter, and I get that, adore it, actually. And that happened last night while we were playing the first of five out-of-town games in a row, all but one in western Canada.
The girls are busy getting everything ready for the Christmas Eve wedding. Jokes are made to Dash and me about wedding fever being a thing, and that we’d be the next sorry saps to head down the aisle. They don’t land as intended.
Kozlov was the first to say it to me when the news broke that Sofie and I were together. Her post on social media was personal. One caught after the Philly game, where she kissed my bloodied lip. She captioned it, Team AK.
That night, apparently in my sleep, ‘I’ shared it in my stories, and I found out when my brother called me the next day.
Sofie spoke to him and gave him an open invitation to come here. He reminded her how difficult that was at this time. And then they made plans to meet in Zurich when the season ended. I was sitting right there and was in no way part of the planning.
When the call ended, she quirked a brow, “You’re mad?”
“No, not mad. Just not going?—”
“You what!”
“Unless you agree to something.”
“What?’ She crosses her arms.
“That you get your IUD removed before we go.”
“I’m sorry, what?” she gasps.
“You’re not hard of hearing, Tsarina, you heard me perfectly well.”
