A cool dread prickled my skin. “Where were you when you got this call?”
“In Las Vegas with my new wife.”
My mouth dropped open. “Alexei!”
“One of his neighbors had tracked me down and told me what happened. I had seen signs, but I ignored them. I just assumed it was typical aging. But this is not typical. He cannot be alone for long, but I have a day nurse who comes in, for all the good it does. They still let him fall off stools.”
I touched his arm. “Alexei, you’re doing the best you can. Why didn’t you tell me that’s why you couldn’t get breakfast with me that day in Vegas?”
“I did not want to plague you with my troubles. We had just reconnected and … it’s a lot, Lauren. Even without the marriage complication.”
A simple text telling me he had family issues would have sufficed. I wouldn’t have blocked him because I was pissed at being passed over. Again. But this was typical Alexei. Everything had to be on his terms.
“So, how is he doing now?”
“He thinks his old enemies have come out of the woodwork to persecute him.”
He touched the fading bruise on his cheek and my heart keened for him.
“He did that?”
“He didn’t mean to. What if this is his life now? Delusions about his past, thinking the state is here to torture him? I worked for years to get him out of Russia to safety. Now his mind thinks he is in danger again. I hate that he might be suffering, even if it is only imaginary.”
I had no idea that Alexei had done this for his father, or that his father had needed to be rescued at all.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. In college, we never discussed our home lives—or he never discussed his with me. Perhaps Alexei didn’t share about this good man who stood up to authoritarianism because the contrast with my criminal father would be too great. Was that why he pushed me away? Any association with me would only taint his father’s reputation?
“You never talked about your father much.”
“What was there to say?”
I told you about mine. But we didn’t have that kind of relationship. It was purely hormones and hockey.
“I’m sorry about your dad, Alexei. If you ever need to talk about it, I’m here.” Of course, he had Jason, and probably any number of confidantes he had found over the years.
A battle raged on his face. “Your boyfriend would not like it if you were friends with me.”
His mercurial mood switch put my back up. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t see you as a threat.”
“You mean … he knows?”
“Of course he knows. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
Alexei looked confused, which wasn’t far off from my feelings on the matter. “And he is okay with this?”
“Yes, because he’s a mature adult who trusts me.” The words sounded dry in my throat. Of course I wanted Thad to trust me, to treat me with respect and understand that I would never deliberately hurt him, but could he not have been a little annoyed? As soon as he heard who I was married to, he seemed to revel in it.
Alexei made a sound, deep in his throat. “If you were my woman, I would not be very happy that you ‘accidentally’ married another man, no matter the circumstances. No matter the trust between you.”
I shouldn’t have cared but a part of me thought: That’s what I’m talking about. That’s how it should be.
I shook the feeling away. It wasn’t fair to compare them. There was a reason why I had chosen a man like Thad—I wanted normal even if it was also boring.
“What happened with you and me was pre-Thad. No one can begrudge the mistakes made in the past.”
“Oh really? You begrudge my mistakes every day.” Before I could clap back, he added, “Does he not wonder at how much of a mistake it truly was? Someone you have history with …”
He moved closer. My breath caught, my pulse skittered, as if handsome athletes weren’t my bread and butter. I ate these dummies for breakfast!
