I wake up pissed off. Last night I claimed I was headed to bed, because I had to get out of that sitting room. Being around Sasha, just the two of us, was bringing back way too many feelings. The attraction and heat, which are so much more intense than when I was a teenager. The loss and devastation, which haven’t faded enough to fully heal. I was feeling them in a repeating cycle, like watching our history play out over and over again. It left me feeling vulnerable, and I don’t do vulnerable.
But when I climbed into bed after finishing up some work, all I could think about was that if I walked out the glass door and into the solarium, I could walk right into his room. I wanted that so badly my body hummed with the need to feel his hands on me, to taste his tongue against mine, to feel him stretch me wide open as he entered me slowly. And then I remembered all the reasons that was a terrible idea.
As much as I am still attracted to him, and even though I think he feels the same, our history and our present are both too complicated to further confuse things by having sex. So I settled for getting myself off to visions of him, which honestly has been the standard for a decade and a half—envisioning myself with the one who got away.
Except now that he’s back in my life, so much hotter than he was as a teenager and even better than I’ve been picturing as an adult in my fantasies, thinking about him while pleasuring myself no longer leaves me feeling satisfied. It leaves me feeling disappointed because I want the real thing instead. The man who now sleeps in a bed on the other side of my wall.
Fuck. In the early light of the morning, I’m feeling just as dissatisfied and sexually frustrated as I felt last night.
I get up and shower, piling my curls up on top of my head because I do not have the energy to deal with washing my mountain of hair today. I scrub every inch of my body, then shave until my legs and lady parts are silky smooth. By the time I’m out of the shower, I feel more human, less frustrated, and ready to have a relaxing Saturday. And I have the perfect plan: I’ll see if Emily is free for lunch, then get a little shopping in and see if I can get an appointment for a blowout. Spending a day away from Sasha and Stella is probably the best thing for me right now.
But when I go to make my blowout appointment online, I notice that they do blowouts for kids too. My first thought is how fun that would be for Stella to get to go do such a grown-up thing. I would have loved to do something like that with my mom when I was a kid.
You’re not her mom.
The thought flashes through my head, and it’s the reminder I need. Except, I would have loved to do something grown-up like that with an aunt or one of my mom’s friends too. Not that blowout bars existed when I was a kid, nor did we have the money for frivolity like that, even if they had. But I still distinctly remember how much I loved to get dressed up for a special dinner out or for an important family event, that feeling of getting to do something out of the ordinary.
I pop off my bed, determined to go ask Sasha if that’s something Stella would enjoy and want to do if they don’t already have other plans. I’m hoping I can ask him before she wakes up. Given how I’ve had to drag her out of bed every school morning this week, I’m guessing she likes to sleep in.
But the minute I step into the hallway and head toward the living area, I can hear her laughter. I find them in the kitchen. Sasha’s standing over a griddle pan on the stovetop with his back to me, his T-shirt pulled tight across his muscular back and arms. Stella’s sitting on the counter in her pajamas, close enough to see what he’s doing but not so close she could get burned. Her hair’s a mess of curls and her angelic face is looking up at him like he hung the moon.
“Make a dog,” she insists, her voice delighted.
“I suspect it’s going to come out like the cat,” he says. His voice is a low, sexy rumble that has my thighs clenching together. He sounds like he just woke up, his voice is rough and his tone is tender. He sounds like himself in my fantasies.
“You mean the blob?” she giggles, closing her eyes and scrunching up her face in a way that can only be adorable on a little kid.
When she opens her eyes again she spots me, standing in the open doorway between the kitchen and butler’s pantry, and squeals my name. Aleksandr’s spine stiffens in response, his upper body going rigid. Oh. Is he not happy I’m intruding on their breakfast?
“Good morning, kiddo,” I say as I walk in. Stella holds her arms out to me, so I go and pick her up off the counter. She wraps her legs around my waist and gives me a giant hug.
“I wasn’t allowed to wake you up,” she says into my neck as she snuggles her head against my shoulder. “But I really wanted you to have breakfast with us.”
“I’d love to have breakfast with you. What are you making?”
“Dyadya is making pancakes. He said he’d try to make them into something besides circles, but everything just looks like a blob.”
“Hmm,” I say, peeking over his shoulder. “I see what you mean.”
“It’s harder than it looks,” he mumbles.
So many sexual innuendos threaten to spill out of my mouth, but I hold them back because I don’t want to traumatize the kid in my arms.
“Is that so?” I ask, my voice just as suggestive as I intend it to be. The way his head snaps toward me, his eyes going wide like he’s reminding me to behave in front of the child, is enough to make me laugh out loud.
“Can you make them?” Stella asks me. “I bet you can do it better.”
“Oh, honey, one thing you should know about girls . . . we do just about everything better.”
The laugh that rumbles around in the back of Sasha’s throat has my thighs clenching together again. Why is this man so damn sexy?
“Prove it,” he says, stepping aside and gesturing for me to step up to the stove. The fact that he doesn’t argue that point, and instead gives me the opportunity to prove myself, makes him even sexier in my book.
I step up to the counter and plop Stella back onto it, then step over to the stovetop, where his pancakes are about to burn on the griddle because they need to be flipped. “These ones don’t count,” I say, intentionally smirking at him in between flipping the pancakes already on the skillet. “I’m just cleaning up your mess.”
“You know they taste the same no matter the shape, right?” His sarcasm is perfectly placed.
“Do they, though?” I raise an eyebrow. “Because these were about to burn. You weren’t even paying attention. And burned pancakes don’t taste good, no matter the shape.”
“Touché,” he says, as Stella watches our conversation closely without saying anything.
I’m not a person who likes sweet things for breakfast, so I’ve only made pancakes once or twice. The last time was a girls’ ski trip I took with my friends, where Sierra was hung over and begged me to make her pancakes. I remember that when I looked up the instructions, there were a few keys to successfully cooking them and I rack my brain for those details now.
I turn the heat down on the skillet. “What do you think, kiddo?” I ask her. “What could make these pancakes come out better?”
She purses her lips as she thinks. “I think maybe you should pour the batter with something smaller. It’s coming out of the bowl too fast and you can’t really make a good design that way.”
“Maybe we use a spoon for the whole thing, so we have more control?”
Stella nods her head vigorously, her curls bouncing up and down. “Let’s try that,” she says.
Beside me, I can feel Sasha move away like he’s giving me this moment with Stella. But I don’t want him any further from me, even though that’s exactly where I should be keeping him. “Hey, Top Chef”—I wink at him—“watch and learn.”
Ten minutes later, I’ve successfully made four cats and four bunnies, several sizes and shapes of hearts, and have pancakes that can (barely) pass for a horse, a dog with droopy ears, and a pig.
“Not bad,” Sasha says as we sit down to eat. “But you probably do this all the time.”
“Yep, I definitely don’t go out to brunch with friends on weekend mornings. I just stand in front of my stove mastering animal-shaped pancakes on the off chance that a kid is going to ask me to make them.”
His gray eyes are focused on me and his lips move into a smile, even though he looks like he’s trying to stop that from happening. Then he turns toward Stella. “Want me to cut those up for you?”
“I want to try myself,” she says.
We eat in silence for a minute while Stella works on cutting her pancakes.
“So, what do you have planned today?” Sasha asks me.
“I might go to lunch with a friend, then I think I’m going to go to the salon and get a blowout.”
His lip quirks. “A what?”
“A blowout. You know, where they wash your hair and blow-dry it?”
“Can’t you just do that yourself?”
“Yeah, but it’s more relaxing and fun to go to the salon and do it there. Besides, you can’t even imagine how hard it is to blow-dry all this,” I say, pointing at my curls, “straight.”
“I wish I had straight hair,” Stella sighs.
That has alarm bells going off in my head. “Why’s that?” I ask.
“Everyone else has straight hair. I want to be able to brush mine when it’s dry and have it be all shiny and pretty like Harper’s.”
“First of all, your hair is shiny and pretty. And second, do you realize how lucky we are to have beautiful curly hair? Lots of girls would trade you their straight, boring hair for your beautiful curls.”
She appears to think about this for a moment. “I still wish I could have straight hair for a day. You’re going to have straight hair . . .”
I glance at Sasha, wondering if it’s okay to ask to take her with me in front of her. If they have other plans, I don’t want to interfere.
“Hey, Stella,” I say. “Could you do me a big favor?”
She nods.
“I left my phone in my bedroom and I’m waiting to hear back from someone. Could you run and get it for me? It’s on my nightstand.”
She jumps up like she’s delighted to help, and the second she’s out of the room, I whisper to Sasha, “I was coming out here earlier to ask you if I could take her with me.”
His blank look makes me think he doesn’t understand.
“You know, so we could get our hair done together?”
“You want to spend the one day I’m here all day, with Stella?”
Now I’m not sure what he means. Does he feel like I’m taking Stella away from him? Or is he asking if I’m choosing her over him?
“You could have the whole day off,” he says, “to do adult things. And you want to take Stella to get her hair done because . . .?”
His eyes are turning a darker shade of gray again, but I’m not sure why.
“Because it’ll be fun for her. Something special that she hasn’t done before.” I wait and he doesn’t say anything. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m . . . kind of speechless.”
“Because . . .?”
“I just figured you’d be dying to get out of here, to hang out with other adults. You know, have some distance.”
“Stella’s great, why would I want distance?” I say. He gives me a half smile; we’re in agreement that his niece is wonderful. “And I only have another week with her. Plenty of time for adult stuff once I’m back home.”
Just then, Stella comes bounding into the kitchen. “Here you go,” she says, handing me my phone. Then she lets out a big sigh and collapses into her chair like she’s just run a marathon.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I look at Sasha for confirmation that he’s okay with me asking her and he gives me a curt nod, then takes his napkin off his lap, crushes it in his fist, and drops it on his plate. Wait, is he upset about me taking Stella out?
As Stella picks up her fork and stabs a piece of her pancake, I pretend like I’m scratching the side of my face, so my hand blocks my mouth from her view. What’s wrong? I mouth.
His voice booms in the silent kitchen when he replies, “Don’t you have a question you want to ask Stella?” I guess he’s ignoring my question and the secrecy with which I asked it.
Her head snaps toward me, her eyes huge like she just knows something really important is going to happen. I hope she’s not expecting something more exciting.
“I was thinking that maybe you’d like to come with me this afternoon and get your hair done too?”
“Yes,” she squeals as she jumps out of her chair and climbs into my lap, wrapping her arms around me once again. And I can’t help but wonder why those small arms squeezing my neck don’t feel as claustrophobic as I always imagined they would.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Emily hisses, and I follow her gaze out the glass door. “How in the world are you living with that man and not sleeping with him?”
Outside the restaurant, Sasha stands with his hips resting against a concrete planter so large it holds a full-size tree. He’s got one foot crossed over the other in a deceptively casual stance, his chin tilted down toward Stella as he listens to something she’s saying. His aviators and baseball cap hide most of his face, and his hoodie hides the bulky muscles of his upper body and neck, but I can tell by the rigid lines of his shoulders that he’s not relaxed. He’s large and imposing, and pretty recognizable even though he’s trying not to be. He seems on edge about it.
I glance around the entryway of the restaurant to make sure no one else is close enough to hear our conversation. “Emily, he’s my oldest friend. It would be like sleeping with my brother.” I wish I believed that.
She gives me the side-eye. “You’re trying to tell me you’re not attracted to him?” she asks as she slips her arms into her lightweight jacket and grabs her sunglasses from her bag. I glance out the window again, taking in the pale blue sky strewn with clouds. It’s warm again today, the typical fluctuations of an East Coast spring.
I want to talk to her about our history, about how I’m feeling about him, about the sexual tension that’s so thick you could carve it with a knife and serve it up on a plate. I want to tell her we’re actually married, on paper only, and about adopting Stella and how conflicted I am. But I haven’t told her anything more than I’m living with them for a couple weeks and helping out with Stella—and even that I swore her to secrecy about—because talking about the rest of it would make it all too real.
“I’m saying that we’re friends, and that’s all,” I tell her.
Just then, he glances up at the restaurant doors. I can tell he sees us standing on the other side of the glass by the way he freezes, his mouth slightly open but unmoving. “Uh huh,” Emily laughs. “Sure.”
To escape this line of conversation, I push the door open and take a step out, holding it for her as she follows behind me. Behind his sunglasses I can tell Sasha still hasn’t taken his eyes off me when we arrive in front of him and Stella, and the intensity of his focus is doing funny things to me. My legs feel shaky even as my thighs clench with longing, my stomach feels like it’s dissolved into a million pieces that are floating off into space, and my heart is beating erratically. After all this time and everything that’s happened, how does he still have this effect on me?
“Good lunch?” he asks when I fail to greet him.
I blink, pulling myself out of my stupor. “Great lunch. Emily, this is Aleksandr. Aleksandr, my friend Emily.” There’s no question they each know who the other is.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Emily says as she extends her hand to shake his. “I feel like I’ve heard a lot about you.”
With his free hand, he takes his sunglasses off and casually tucks them into the neck of his hoodie. “All good things, I hope.”
“Depends on who’s talking about you,” Emily teases with a knowing smile. “But yes, only good things from Petra.”
“That’s all that matters, then,” he says. His eyes flicker to mine, and I swear my insides melt. They’re a big pile of goo trying to find their way out of my body. This man. Half the time I’m not sure if I love him or hate him, but there’s no question he still does things to me that no one else can.
“And who is this cutie?” Emily asks as she glances down at Stella.
“I’m Stella,” she says at the same time I say, “This is Aleksandr’s niece.”
“Well, it is very nice to meet you, Stella,” Emily says. “Are you going to get your hair done too?” She asks like she doesn’t already know they’re here because I’m taking Stella with me.
“Yes! I’m going to get straight hair today!” Her excitement is rolling off her in waves.
“You know,” she says, “my hair is curly too. But more wavy than curly, and I’d love to have your beautiful, perfect curls.”
Stella eyes Emily’s straight hair. “Your hair isn’t always straight?”
Emily pulls her phone out. “Nope. Here, let me show you a picture.” She opens her social media and scrolls back to a picture I remember her posting this past winter when she was on a yacht in the Caribbean with some friends. I remember her makeup-free, curly haired look and how carefree and happy she seemed in the pictures. Emily squats down next to Stella to show her the pictures. “See, this is what my hair looks like when I don’t do anything to it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Stella says.
“Yep, because curly hair is awesome. And if I had your perfect curls, I don’t think I’d straighten my hair very often. Don’t forget that!” she says as she stands back up.
“Thank you,” I whisper as I hug her goodbye. I love how she instinctively knows we need to empower the next generation to love themselves, to not listen to all the bullshit about how you need to look a certain way in order to be loved, accepted, or desired. And I love that her modeling priorities these days reflect that, how she’s working to change that industry from the inside out.
We walk half a block to the car, and Sasha holds the door open for Stella to climb in first. When I move to step in behind her, he stretches his arm out and rests his hand on the roof of the car, blocking the door. “Is everything okay?”
I look up at him, the confusion likely evident on my face. “Yeah, why?”
He dips his head toward mine and my heart speeds up. “You just called me Aleksandr several times.”
“That’s your name.”
“You only use that name when you’re mad at me.”
I pause, then let out a small and silent laugh. “Maybe you’re right. But apparently I’m the only one who calls you Sasha. To everyone else, you’re Alex. That just sounds wrong to me, so I will probably always call you Aleksandr in front of other people.”
“Okay.” His nod is curt.
“Do I really call you Aleksandr when I’m mad?”
“So far as I’ve noticed.” He moves his arm out of the way and gestures me into the car, then closes the door and goes around to the other side to sit behind the driver.
When he gets in the car, I glance at him over Stella’s head, and the desire that runs through my veins is reminiscent of being sixteen again.
“How soon after our hair appointment am I going to Harper’s?” Stella asks as the driver pulls away from the curb. “I can’t wait for her to see me with straight hair!”
Sasha and I share a look. I think we’ve both just realized that we’ll be alone together tonight. My body visibly shudders as a wave of longing moves through me. This is so very dangerous.
“What are you crazy kids going to do with your night off?” Sofia jokes as Stella and Harper take off at a run into the depths of the apartment.
“Probably sleep,” Sasha responds with a shrug, his voice sounding like he’s bored just thinking about not having Stella around for the night.
I shrug too. “I probably should have made plans or something, but this has been a busy week,” I say. “Just having time to relax sounds great.”
“Well, enjoy the quiet,” she says as the sound of the girls’ laughter in the background rises to a shockingly high decibel level. We lock eyes, and I can tell we’re both thrilled we could make this sleepover happen.
I glance over at Sasha, whose face remains stoically placid. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, and I hate that. I hope he sees how happy Stella is and is himself happy that he allowed this. Or got roped into it. Whichever.
Sasha doesn’t respond to Sofia’s comment. “I will,” I tell Sofia, not wanting to speak for Mr. Silent standing next to me.
He’s quiet in the elevator ride down to the car, and silent as we climb into the backseat of the car next to each other. He doesn’t speak as the driver—who I now know is called Daniel, but who has never said more than a handful of words to me despite the number of times I’ve been in this car over the last week—pulls into traffic and heads back to Sasha’s apartment.
I cast a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, but he’s facing the front, focused on the back of Daniel’s headrest or looking out the front window. I can’t tell what he’s thinking any more than I can tell what he’s looking at. I glance down at my phone in my lap, wondering if maybe I should plan on going out tonight. He looks . . . angry? Tired? Like he wants solitude? But also, it feels like there’s a nervous energy just below the surface, pulsing between us. He shifts slightly away from me, toward the door on his side of the car.
He’s always been a hard one to read. Gentle and quiet, even though you’d think the opposite to look at him. His tight mastery over his emotions and his actions is one of the things that drew me to him. As someone seemingly without a filter, prone to spitting out the first thing that came to my mind, I always marveled at his ability to control everything about himself. Maybe it’s my age or that I don’t like to play games, but I find that now I’m tired of having to work so hard to understand him, to know what he’s feeling.
My phone buzzes in my lap and I glance down to find a message on the group chat I have with my best friends.
Lauren: OMG! They. Are. Mobile. God help me!
I make sure my sound is silenced, and tap play on the video she’s sent. Both twins are on their hands and knees, and in a few shaky movements, one of them crawls toward the other.
My inhale sounds like a gasp in the silence of the car, and I can feel Sasha’s eyes on me. I hit play again, and can’t help it when I choke up a bit. Less than a year ago, I was holding these babies in the NICU. Sierra and I would take turns showing up every other day to help Lauren and Josh however we could. Now these baby girls are freaking starting to crawl, and it feels like it’s all happening so quickly.
“Are you okay?” It’s a tender question asked in an unusually quiet voice. He’s not whispering exactly, it’s more like a verbal caress and it has heat pooling in my stomach and spreading through my chest.
I hold my phone so he can see it and hit play again. “These are my friend Lauren’s twins. They are ten months old, and I feel like they’re growing up way too fast.”
He’s silent for a beat, then says, “Kids have a way of doing that. I feel like Colette was just showing me how to change Stella’s diaper, and here she is in first grade.” I shift my eyes toward him in time to catch his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows down whatever thoughts or emotions he’s holding back.
“I don’t know how people do it.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it, and even though that’s par for the course with me, I wish I somehow could take them back. I already know he’ll press me on my meaning, and it feels like too vulnerable an admission to someone I used to know, in a car with a driver who’s essentially a stranger to me.
“Have kids?” he clarifies.
“Yeah.” I shrug, hoping he’ll drop it.
“What do you mean?”
“It just seems so . . .”
“Hard?” he prompts.
“No.” I’m no stranger to hard work. “Painful, I guess. Watching them grow up so quickly, knowing they’ll experience pain you can’t fix, knowing that there’ll be heartbreak and obstacles you can’t prevent.”
“But that’s life.” His voice isn’t dismissive or judgmental. Any time I’ve voiced something like this around my friends, they’ve basically dismissed it—not because they’re jerks, but because none of them grew up with the kind of loss I experienced, nor had every single person they loved disappoint them over and over again. “And it’s filled with joy and successes too,” Sasha continues. “And as a parent, you get to . . . I don’t know . . . help them learn to live through both, I guess.”
I love the way he sounds like he’s still figuring all this out, too. Like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, but he’s willing to make it work. So often I feel like everyone around me has their shit together, has built the life they want, and I’m over here still trying to figure out what that life even looks like for me. I very intentionally make it look like I love this life I’ve created for myself, but the truth is that even at thirty, I don’t know where I’m going or what I really want. I work hard and I’ve gotten lucky too. I’ve been able to essentially reinvent myself and my life and my career over and over. But the result is that instead of feeling successful, I feel like everything is temporary. That’s a scary feeling, one that I tamp down deep so I don’t spend too much time thinking about it.
“You’re doing a good job.” I reach over to pat his forearm in what’s meant to be a supportive gesture, but instead I’m blindsided by the rush of heat I feel when my hand connects with the strong muscles beneath his hoodie. Hoping to turn the conversation away from my admission and from the sudden feelings of longing, I add, “Irina aside.”
That earns me a small smile. “I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”
“I’m sure every parent feels that way with their first kid. And you didn’t have the luxury of growing in your parenting skills as Stella grew up, since she’s only been yours for a few months. But you two are figuring it out together and it’ll all work out. You’re great with her, and she clearly loves you.”
His lips part like he’s going to say something, and I realize how close we are now that we were leaning toward each other to watch that video of Lauren’s kids together. He doesn’t say anything, though, just stares at me like he’s trying to memorize my face.
I can’t help the way that heat from my chest spreads. It’s like tiny pins and needles dancing over my skin. He licks his lips and my core muscles clench involuntarily, which has me pressing my thighs together to ease the pressure I feel between my legs. His eyes travel down my body, and mine follow his path. My taut nipples are visible through both my bra and the white satin camisole I’m wearing, and the fabric of my black pants is bunched together at my crotch where I’m squeezing my thighs together so tightly they could bend steel.
I’m not sure how he has this effect on me, but I am aware that I need to tamp it down like I do with everything else that doesn’t help me accomplish my goals. Because getting involved with Sasha in any capacity is a bad idea—a truth I learned long ago.
His eyes travel back up my body until they meet mine. He opens his mouth again, and again no words come out. It’s like we both have forgotten what we were talking about, and instead can only focus on these glances, the small touches—the sexual tension that’s filling the car.
Our eyes spring away from each other when Daniel clears his throat. “We’re here,” he says.
I glance out the window to find that we’re at a standstill in front of Sasha’s building, which we didn’t even notice because we couldn’t take our eyes off each other. Well, that’s embarrassing.
Sasha reaches for his door handle and scoots out, holding the door open for me to follow. He gives me his hand as I step out, and even though I certainly don’t need his help, I take it because it would be rude not to. I’m so unprepared for the feel of his fingers as they run along my palm and then grip my hand. He supports a little of my weight until I’m standing, then pulls his hand away like he’s touched something poisonous. I’m simultaneously relieved that he’s no longer touching me and looking for a reason for him to touch me again.
We walk through the lobby without speaking, and then the mechanical sound of the elevator moving swiftly upward drowns out the pregnant silence as we take turns casting glances at the other and looking away a second before being caught. When the elevator dings to announce our arrival at our floor, I almost jump out of my skin. I know this restless feeling of desire, and the only way to rid myself of it is to have sex. I could head to my room and try to take care of this problem myself, or I could go out and find someone to take care of this problem for me. The thought of my body sliding along someone else’s, those touches, that heat, the feeling of someone moving inside me has my underwear drenched and my nipples aching to be touched—probably because I’m picturing myself with Sasha.
When the doors open, I fly out of the elevator and down the hall to my bedroom, shutting the door behind me and resting my back against it. My hands want to roam over my body, do something to alleviate this need that’s grown so hot I’m burning up with it. But I know that won’t satiate me enough tonight. Tonight, I need real human contact.
I head into the closet where I strip off my clothes and pull on clean underwear and a white dress. The smocked top holds my breasts in so I don’t need a bra, but the way the fabric scrapes along my still-hard nipples with every movement has me so revved up I’m about to explode. I slip my feet into some wedges that lie on the floor, then head to the bathroom to freshen up. Five minutes later, I’m heading down the hall to let Sasha know I’m going out for the night.
I find him in the kitchen, guzzling a bottle of water like a man parched from days in the desert. Good, maybe he’s as hot and bothered as I am. I watch for a moment as his throat bobs with each swallow, his neatly trimmed bearded jaw moving rhythmically as he gulps the water.
I open my mouth, intending to tell him I’m headed out, but instead the real question I’ve been wanting to ask slips out.
