Ever After Read online

  “I do not,” he protested, making a face at her. “But I still want steak tonight.”

  “Okay, we can have—” Lexi paused as her phone rang. She frowned down at the number. “Is the 2-1-2 area code New York?” she asked, lifting it to her ear. “Hello? Yes, this is she… oh, yes, hello.” Her eyes widened and she looked at Zaan. “It’s Julliard!” she mouthed, jumping to her feet and beginning to pace as she listened to the woman on the other end. “Day after tomorrow?” Her eyes flew to her father, who immediately nodded. “Yes, I think so… there are plenty of flights between Las Vegas and New York… yes, okay… of course. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much!” Lexi disconnected and stared at them. “They said they have a spot for me to audition the day after tomorrow… oh my God!”

  “I’ll get online to book us flights,” Mack said, reaching for her laptop.

  “Us?” Lexi couldn’t seem to move.

  “Well, if you’re going to New York, I’m going to see if Dr. Wells can see you while you’re there.”

  “Okay, yes.” She turned to Zaan, as if he hadn’t been standing there the whole time. “They called. Julliard! Julliard is going to let me audition.”

  “I know, baby.” He pulled her close, looking down into her face. “I told you they would. I’m so excited for you. What do we have to do?”

  “Crap, there’s a million things to do,” she breathed, spinning around and hurrying to her room.

  Zaan watched her go with a mixture of pride and disappointment; she was leaving and his gut told him she would never truly come back. Maybe for a visit or the holidays, but not for good, and certainly not to him. With her talent, she was destined for even greater things than he was and though it broke his heart to see her go, he would be her biggest fan.

  “Thank you,” Rob said under his breath, touching his shoulder.

  Zaan nodded. “Yeah, of course. I told you—I’d never keep her from her dreams.”

  “If it’s meant to be,” Mack looked up from the computer, “you’ll find your way back to each other again.”

  “Hey, it was just a week,” he said lightly. “She’s going to forget me the minute she gets to New York.”

  “I doubt that,” Mack said.

  “Zaan!” Lexi called to him from the bedroom. “Can you help me get this suitcase down?”

  “Sure, babe.” He turned and went into her bedroom, pulling down the big suitcase from a high closet shelf.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered once he put the suitcase on her bed. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed a kiss against his Adam’s apple.

  “I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “So what else can I help with?”

  “Keep me sane while I pack?”

  “Count on it.”

  “Lexi?” Mack stuck her head in the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re booked on a 6:00 a.m. into JFK. Will that work?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “See if you can get packed and then we can go to dinner because I’m starving.”

  “Give me thirty minutes.”

  “Sure.” Mack backed out of the room, leaving Zaan and Lexi alone.

  “I guess I’ll cancel the appointment at the tattoo place,” he said after a moment.

  “Oh.” Her eyes rounded with disappointment. “Maybe we can just postpone… I probably won’t be there more than a few days.”

  “Don’t worry about anything like that, just focus on your audition. I’ll take care of cancelling the reservation.”

  The next few weeks were a whirlwind of auditions, cross-country flights, doctor’s appointments and general insanity. In the middle of July, a week after receiving her formal acceptance letter into Julliard, she had surgery to reconstruct her breasts. Rob and Mack were at her side for the first week and then Zaan flew in so Rob and Mack could head back to Chicago to finish closing Mack’s office. Lexi was planning to go back to Las Vegas for the month of August to continue her recovery before school started in September, but she couldn’t fly yet so Zaan had come to her instead.

  Something had changed in the month she’d been gone, though, and she watched his face intently one night after he’d been in Manhattan for a few days. He was quiet, as gentle and loving towards her as ever, but something was definitely different. She’d tried to draw it out of him several times but hadn’t had the energy to fight with him. She wasn’t willing to let it go now that he’d settled in, so she turned off the TV and crawled into his lap, refusing to let him distract her. “What is it?” she asked softly. “There’s something bothering you and I want you to tell me.”

  He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose. “I’m not a very good actor, am I?”

  She cocked her head. “Why would you need to put on an act? This is us, remember?”

  “I know. I just… In my head I know exactly how far apart Las Vegas and New York are, but it wasn’t until you were having surgery 3,000 miles away that I realized how far it is emotionally.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hated not being there for you, not being able to get to you if you needed anything. I know your dad and Mack were here, but it wasn’t about your safety, it was about our connection. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to hang out with my friends… all I could think about was you… and it’s not healthy. For either of us. If it had been hockey season, I would’ve been distracted and off my game.”

  “It’ll be hard for a while, but we can make it work.”

  Zaan hesitated, taking her hand in both of his and gently stroking the skin. “We can try to make it work, but we both know it’s not going to be what we want it to be. What if I was injured? Wouldn’t you want to be with me? Take care of me?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “But you wouldn’t be able to. Not really. I mean, you could hop on a flight to be there to make sure I’m okay initially, but you’re going to be having the time of your life in one of the greatest cities in the world, working towards a dream most people can’t even imagine. You can’t drop everything to take care of me for eight weeks because of a concussion or something, so how will you function with classes and rehearsals and everything that goes into what you’re doing if you’re pining away for some jock on the other end of the country?”

  “I don’t think you’re just some—”

  “Shh.” He put a finger on her lips, his face close to hers, his eyes so intensely blue she was momentarily mesmerized. “It’s the same for me, you know? How can I concentrate on hockey when my girl is thousands of miles away, practically hypnotizing men all over Manhattan with the voice of an angel? We have to keep it casual, babe. I have to do hockey and you have to do Julliard…”

  “But, but…” Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at him. “I thought you—”

  “I do.” He kissed her so tenderly her tears started to fall faster. He drew back slowly, the thumb of his right hand brushing them off the side of her face. “You’re my perfect match, my perfect fit, my perfect everything… just not now. Someday, somehow, we’ll find our way back to each other, but not now. You have a gift to share with the world, and I can’t afford a distraction. The Sophomore Slump is a real thing, it happens all the time in your second year in the pros and sometimes it makes or breaks a career. Just like you can’t put off Julliard, I can’t risk my whole career.”

  She couldn’t think of a response so she sobbed against his chest as he held her, his arms loosely circling her still-sore body. The surgery had been just as complicated as they’d anticipated, and recovery was slow, but she wouldn’t let go of him no matter how much her torso hurt.

  For the last few weeks it had felt like she could have it all—her health, new breasts, Julliard and Zaan. Without him, the other things weren’t nearly as exciting and that alone told her he was right. She was already reluctant to do anything other than think about him, be with him, make plans for them to be together. But that would get old once he was on the road for weeks at a time and she sitting
home by herself. She needed to be at Julliard. In New York. Three thousand miles away.

  “I won’t ever be more than a phone call away,” he whispered against her hair. “One call and I’ll be on the next plane, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, if you need me.”

  “I need you now,” she sniffed, lifting red-rimmed eyes to his.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I wasn’t going to have this conversation until I was ready to head back to Vegas but you know me too well; like you said, I can’t hide anything from you.”

  She pulled out of his arms and slowly got to her feet, walking into the bathroom so she could wash her face and stare into the mirror wearily. She hadn’t worn her wig in weeks and the soft blond pieces were hanging limply around her face. Her skin was paler than ever after being in the hospital for a week and in this hotel room recuperating for another. She’d lost weight again because the pain medication killed her appetite, so even her smallest shorts hung limply on her slight frame. She had breasts now, though. Everything was still bandaged but she could see the small, round mounds beneath them. They would be a B cup, Dr. Wells had told her, but she didn’t care as long she had something.

  It occurred to her Zaan would probably leave before he saw them and fresh tears slid down her cheeks. She hiccoughed trying to control them, but then Zaan was there, his arms around her from behind, holding her close and whispering all the things she’d hoped she would hear him say.

  “Please don’t cry.” He grazed the side of her face with his lips, his breath warm against her skin. “I’m not walking away from this—us—I’m just saying we need to temper what we feel with what we do… I don’t think we should put pressure on ourselves to be serious at a time when we can’t put one hundred percent into a relationship. Let’s take it one day at a time, see what happens.”

  Her eyes met his. “I’m so afraid I’m going to lose you, that I’m choosing Julliard and a future with no guarantees, over you.”

  He sighed. “Don’t do that to yourself, baby. We have the rest of our lives to be together—we only have right now to follow our dreams. Remember the day we met?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “What did I tell you to do?”

  She frowned for a moment but a slow smile spread across her face as she recollected those early conversations. “You told me to work on me, to find the things that make me happy and do them.”

  “Singing makes you happy… and it’s going to make a lot of other people happy too. I’m so excited for you, knowing that singing for you is what hockey is for me—not a lot of people get the chance to do something they love that much professionally. Don’t think of it as a choice; think of it as part of our destiny.”

  “How come you’re being all rational and mature even when you’re poetic and romantic?”

  He chuckled. “Because if I wasn’t, we’d both be crying.”

  They were quiet for a long time, his chin resting lightly on her shoulder, the sides of their faces pressed together. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say; they were doing the right thing, the only thing they could do without sacrificing one part of their souls for another.

  Finally, she turned to face him, reaching out with one hand to stroke his handsome face. “I love you,” she whispered. “I want you to know it, remember it, feel it.”

  “I don’t know what the future holds,” he whispered back, “but I don’t believe I’ll ever love anyone else the way I love you. You’re the siren of my soul and you’ll always be part of me.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Epilogue

  October

  Manhattan

  Lexi walked into the Greenwich Village tattoo shop with a smile. A good-looking guy with long black hair and bright blue eyes returned her smile.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “Can you replicate this on my right hip?”

  “Let’s see.” He took the paper from her and studied it before a grin spread across his face. “Led Zeppelin—rock on! Yeah, sure. That’s no problem. You want to do it now? I have time.”

  She grinned back. “Now would be great.”

  They talked price and details before she settled into a chair and he got his supplies together. She pulled out her phone and opened the text program, singing the words to “Rock and Roll” under her breath as she typed out a message.

  Thinking of you today.

  She hadn’t thought she’d get a response so quickly—the first game of the season was tonight and since it was early evening in New York, it was late afternoon in Las Vegas—but her phone buzzed a moment later.

  Any special reason?

  What do you think?

  I don’t know—should I be worried or happy?

  Always happy! Are you ready for tonight?

  As ready as I’ll ever be. Will you be watching?

  Did you really have to ask?

  Probably not… so what were you thinking about me?

  I can’t tell you… but it might make you smile if I did.

  Do you smile when you think of me?

  Always.

  Then that’s all I need to know, baby.

  XOXO

  *****

  If you loved Zaan and Lexi, don’t worry—you’ll see them again! In the meantime, check out all the sweet, sexy Sidewinders men here:

  www.KatMizera.com/las-vegas-sidewinders-1

  The Petrovs, Vol. I

  Las Vegas Sidewinders Book 11.4

  1

  Tessa Petrov lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling. Her husband’s soft, steady breathing told her he was asleep, oblivious to her misery, and she was momentarily annoyed with him. This was her third pregnancy in three years, and she was exhausted. She was eight months pregnant, with three other children aged six, not quite two and not quite a year; she didn’t know how she would survive the next ten days. Toli was leaving on a road trip with the team he played hockey for, the Las Vegas Sidewinders, and she was miserable. She hadn’t felt that way during her other pregnancies but something about this one was kicking her ass and it wasn’t just that she was older now.

  She’d be turning thirty-five this year, so it wasn’t like she was old. She was just tired. While their first two children together, Alexei and Andreas, had been planned, this pregnancy had been an accident. Although she loved her husband and their children, she didn’t know how she would handle three kids in diapers with a husband who traveled. Toli talked about retiring from the NHL at some point, but he’d said that last year too and he was still playing. This baby was due on April twelfth and with the Sidewinders almost certainly going to the playoffs again, Toli could be playing until June. The idea alone made her sigh out loud; she really needed her husband and all he cared about right now was hockey.

  That probably wasn’t fair. He loved her and their children, he was an amazing husband and father, and they had a full, happy life. It was just that this pregnancy had been so much harder than the others, and with retirement pushed to the back burner once again, Toli was more focused than ever on the game instead of her. His son from a previous relationship, Anton, was nineteen and playing college hockey. Toli really wanted the chance to play with him since Anton had been drafted by the Sidewinders, but he’d only be able to do that if he stayed healthy for at least two more seasons. She understood his desire to be able to be on the ice at the same time as his son, but there were no guarantees that Anton would be called up right away. Anything could happen, and they wanted him to graduate before playing professionally.

  The very thought of another year of training camp made Tessa sigh again.

  “Sweetheart?” In the darkness, Toli’s voice startled her and she touched his arm.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “What is it?” he asked softly, moving his much larger body up against hers and wrapping his arms around her from behind. “Is it the baby?”

  “
I’m pretty uncomfortable,” she admitted. “He’s pressing on my sciatica and everything hurts.”

  “I’m sorry, my love.” He moved his hands down to her lower back and began to massage the area above her hips. His strong fingers kneaded her sore muscles and she sighed yet again. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said softly. “I know you have to, but I have a really bad feeling.”

  “Tessa.” He turned her so that she was facing him and gently pushed her long curls out of her face. “What’s different about this pregnancy? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I hurt,” she said, searching his face in the darkness. “I can’t explain it—but I hurt all over. My back, my legs, my feet, even my stomach. The doctor says it’s because he’s really big, but I’m only thirty-five weeks so he doesn’t want to induce yet.”

  “When I get back in ten days you’ll be just about thirty-seven weeks, right? Let’s see if we can get her to induce then.”

  “So you’re going to go no matter what.” She turned away, annoyed again.

  “Love, if you really don’t want me to go…” His voice trailed off. “I can call Coach Barnett and—”

  “I know you don’t really want to,” she said quietly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t sound okay.”

  “If you really believed that, you would just stay home instead of trying to get me to say it’s okay for you to go.” She flipped onto her back, annoyed with herself for trying to make him feel bad and even more annoyed with him for not understanding how hard it was taking care of three kids while eight months pregnant and exhausted.

  “Tessa.” Toli sounded confused and surprised, which made sense since they so rarely argued about anything, much less hockey.