Jules snuck out after making sure the hallway was clear and left me to my own devices.
Restless, I showered, hit the gym, showered again, and watched Fast Five in my room while the girls got ready and left for the palace. Only royal relatives were allowed to stay at the palace for the wedding, so even though the girls were Bridget’s bridesmaids, we were camped out in a five-star hotel, courtesy of the crown.
I usually had no issues entertaining myself while traveling, but the crowd of paparazzi outside the hotel deterred me from venturing out.
Unfortunately, our hotel, as luxurious as it was, lacked stimulating activities. Michelin-starred restaurants and a world-renowned spa were fine, but I needed more excitement.
Alex will be staying behind too.
Jules’s words echoed in my head. What was he doing? Eating babies and ruining lives, probably.
By the time night descended, I was bored enough to join him.
Temptation snaked around my spine, but instead of knocking on his door, I headed downstairs to the bar. It’d been closed earlier, but when I arrived, the telltale glow of lights sent relief coasting through my lungs.
I stepped inside, taking in the two-story ceiling, plush blue velvet couches, and the massive wall of glittering bottles behind the polished mahogany bar. It blew the fanciest bar in D.C. out of the water, times ten.
I slid onto a blue leather stool and waited for the bartender to finish setting up. It must’ve just opened, because we were the only people present, and the space was eerily quiet save for the soft jazz piping through invisible speakers.
Part of me craved the buzz of a crowd; another part relished the silence.
Like in most areas of my life right now, I didn’t know what the hell I wanted.
I drummed my fingers against the counter and scanned the bottle display, searching for a good drink to start the night, when a familiar voice sliced through the silence.
“This seat taken?”
The drumming stopped. Tension locked my muscles in place.
I turned to face the newcomer, already wishing I’d ordered room service instead of braving a common space when Alex was also roaming the grounds.
My former best friend stood a few feet away, dressed in the same black turtleneck and pants he wore on the plane. Fatigue lined his face, and a pinch of concern squeezed my chest.
According to Ava, his insomnia had improved over the years, but there were still times when he went days without sleeping, only to crash afterward.
I remembered several instances during undergrad when he would pass out in the middle of a conversation or study session.
Not that it was my concern anymore.
“Obviously, it isn’t.” I flicked my eyes at the empty stool next to me.
“That’s not what I meant,” Alex said coolly.
A muscle ticked in my jaw. The bastard never made things easy.
In that case, it is taken.
The words hovered on the tip of my tongue, but Jules’s voice floated through my head again.
Being angry at someone is exhausting, and it’s been almost two years. Maybe it’s time to forgive, even if you don’t forget.
Two years.
They’d stretched for an eternity and passed in the blink of an eye all at once.
In that time, Alex and I had only one moment when things between us seemed semi-normal—our ski afternoon in Vermont.
I blamed my twinge of nostalgia for what I said next. “All yours.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face before it smoothed into its usual impassive mask.
Alex took his seat right as the bartender finished setting up and approached us. “Thanks for waiting,” he said in lightly accented English. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a Macallan neat.” Alex didn’t look at the menu before ordering. There was no doubt a bar as fancy as this one served Macallan.
The bartender nodded and shifted his attention to me.
“A Stella is fine, thanks.” The only Macallan I drank was from my bottle at home, though it now sat empty after I drowned my sorrows over Tanya’s death in it.
Otherwise, the whiskey was too rich for my med school loan-riddled wallet.
“Still haven’t graduated to real alcohol, huh?” Alex drawled after the bartender left to fix our drinks.
“Still haven’t developed taste, huh?” I volleyed back. “It’s okay, man. They’ll still let you into your billionaires’ club if you admit to liking beer.”
“Beer tastes like carbonated urine.” He delivered each word with his trademark icy precision, but a tinge of amusement lurked beneath the surface. “I’m also not discussing taste with someone who once dressed as a rat for Halloween.” He paused before adding, “A rat who wore a red bandanna.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, that was one time.” I’d been a gladiator, Superman, a doctor (not my most inspired costume, I admit), Waldo from Where’s Waldo, and a thousand other personas for Halloween, yet everyone always brought up the fucking rat. “I did it to prove I could pull anyone I wanted even if I was dressed as a rat. And I did.”
The Morgenstern twins. That had been a good night.
The memory of one of my favorite threesomes usually got me going, but tonight, it did nothing for me. Not even a flicker of excitement or desire.
Weird.
“That’s what you always say.” Alex sounded unimpressed.
“Because it’s true. Ask the Morgensterns.”
“Whatever makes you feel better.”
A scowl knotted my brow. “You’re such a goddamn asshole. I don’t know how I was ever friends with you,” I grumbled, accepting my drink from the bartender with a nod of thanks.
Alex’s lips curved, but the air between us suddenly weighed heavy with ghosts from the past—pickup basketball games, late-night study sessions, parties and guys’ trips and random memes we sent each other throughout the day.
Well, l sent him memes and he replied with frowning or eye roll emojis, but Alex had a shit sense of humor, so I didn’t expect him to appreciate my excellent meme selection.
Jules’s advice may have pushed me to extend a tentative olive branch, but the truth was, I missed having a best friend. I missed having Alex as my best friend. He was cold, rude, and grumpy as fuck, but he’d always had my back. Every fight I got into, every bad day I had, he’d been there to bail me out and talk me down.
I took a swig of beer to wash down the sudden tightness in my throat while Alex quietly sipped his drink.
The bar was starting to fill up, and soon, the room buzzed with enough activity to drown out the silence roaring between us.
I finished my beer and was about to order another one when Alex interjected.
“Two more Macallans.” He slid his black Amex across the counter and flicked a glance in my direction. “On me.”
My first instinct was to turn it down, but I wasn’t dumb enough to say no to a free premium drink.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
More silence. God, this was fucking painful.
“How are things going between you and Ava?” I finally asked.
Ava always gushed about their relationship, but she was Alex’s first real girlfriend, and I was curious as hell about his perspective. If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have thought him capable of a long-term relationship.
Alex’s face softened. “We’re good.”
“Good. That’s high praise coming from you.” I wasn’t joking. The strongest positive term I’d ever heard him use was fine.
Gourmet steak cooked by a world-famous chef? Fine.
Flying in a private jet? Fine.
Graduating top of his class from Thayer? Fine.
For someone so smart, he had a limited vocabulary.
“I love your sister,” Alex said simply.
My glass froze halfway to my lips. Of course, I knew he loved Ava, but I never in a million years would’ve guessed he’d admit it to anyone except her.
The Alex I knew had zero tolerance for sentimentality. Make it verbal sentimentality and his tolerance dropped into the negatives.
“Good.” I regained motor control. My glass touched my mouth and whiskey flowed into my stomach, but the shock from Alex’s statement lingered. “Because if you hurt her again, I’ll take that stick out of your ass and stab you with it.”
“If I hurt her again, I’ll let you.”
A tense beat passed before I let out a short laugh. “You’ve changed.”
Part of me appreciated the growth, while another part mourned how much time had passed since our friendship ended. Enough that we were funhouse mirror versions of ourselves—the same people at our core but distorted by the changes wrought over time.
“Everyone changes. Without change, we might as well be dead.” It would’ve been an inspiring quote had Alex not delivered it with all the emotion of a block of ice.
“Speaking of Ava…” He rolled his empty glass between his finger, his expression even broodier than usual. “I’d hoped we could talk before the girls came back.”
“What do you think we’re doing right now? Chopping liver?”
“I mean talk.”
My smile fell.
There it was. The giant, trumpeting elephant in the room.
Alex and I had avoided talking about what happened since our confrontation after he broke up with Ava.
How he became my friend only to get closer to my father.
How he’d used Ava and broke her heart.
How he’d lied to me for seven fucking years.
He’d tried reaching out after he and Ava got back together, but I’d ignored him and we’d never had a real, honest conversation about it.
It was long past due, but that didn’t stop my stomach from knotting with dread at the prospect of digging up bones from the past.
“I understand why you’re still upset with me. It was…a betrayal of trust, what I did. But I…” Alex paused, clearly searching for the right words. A speechless Alex Volkov was a rare sight, and I would’ve reveled in it more had I not been so distracted by the burn in my chest.
“I’ve never had many friends,” he finally said. “People flocked to me because I was rich, smart, and I could help them get what they wanted.” He listed the qualities in a detached manner, so self-assured he came off more analytical than arrogant. “They were transactional relationships, and I was fine with that. But you were my first real friend. Even if my intentions weren’t true at the start of our friendship, everything that came after was.”
The burn intensified. “What you did was fucked up.”
“I know.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to quiet the debate raging in my head.
We’d reached a fork in the road. I could either stay on the circular path I’d walked for the past two years, or I could take the only exit available to me.
The first option was comfortable and familiar, the latter unknown and scary as fuck. I didn’t want to end up betrayed and lied to again.
But Jules was right. Holding onto anger was exhausting, and I was already so fucking tired these days. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
Sometimes, it was a struggle just to breathe.
“It’s been almost two years.” I was halfway to the exit, but I couldn’t bring myself to take the leap just yet. “Why bring this up now?”
“Because you’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. If someone tries to push you in one direction, you’ll do your best to go in the other.” Dry humor laced his words. “But what I did was wrong, and I am…sorry. For the most part.”
What the fuck? “That’s the worst damn apology I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t aspire to be the type of person who apologizes so much that they’re good at it.”
Typical Alex logic.
“But if I hadn’t done what I did, we would’ve never been friends, and my life…” Another, longer pause. “My life would be half of what it is today,” he finished softly.
The burn in my chest spread, and my throat flexed. “You’re becoming sentimental, Volkov. Don’t let your business opponents know or they’ll eat you alive.”
“Au contraire. More sentimentality in my personal life means more steam I need to let off elsewhere. It’s been very lucrative for business.” Alex oozed satisfaction.
“I’m sure it has.” I passed my hand over my face again, trying to figure out where to go from here. This was not how I’d envisioned the day going when I woke up. “You know we can’t just go back to being best friends again and pretend like the past didn’t happen, right?”
The line of his jaw turned rigid. “I know.”
“But…if you want to catch a Nats game or something when we’re back in D.C., I wouldn’t be opposed,” I added gruffly.
Alex relaxed, and a smile flickered over his mouth. “You miss the box seats, don’t you?”
“Hell yeah. I’m open to bribery if you would like to get back into my good graces.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I finished my second drink before I asked, “How did you know Ava was the one?”
I’d never been in love. I didn’t particularly want to be, but I wanted to know what cracked Alex’s stony heart. Before Ava, I could imagine a robot more capable of feeling than the man sitting next to me.
“I like being with her.”
“No shit. Be more specific.”
He sighed. “It’s easy being with her,” he said after a long moment. “She understands me in a way no one else does, even if our worldviews are fundamentally different. When I’m not with her, I wish she were there. When I am with her, I want that moment to last forever. She makes me want to be a better person, and when I think about a world where she doesn’t exist…” His jaw flexed. “I want to burn every inch of it to the ground.”
I stared at him. “Holy fuck. Who are you and what the fuck have you done to Alex Volkov?” I clapped him on the back. “Whoever you are, you should write for the murderous edition of Hallmark.”
Alex glared at me. “Tell anyone I said that, and I will skin you alive with a rusted knife to prolong the pain.”
“Exactly. Just like that. So murderously romantic.”
“Your box seats are skating on thin ice, Chen.”
“Hey, remember. I’m the one who has to forgive you. Be nice.” I motioned the bartender for another drink.
Despite my jokes, my brain couldn’t stop replaying Alex’s words.
When I’m not with her, I wish she were there. When I am with her, I want that moment to last forever.
I’d never felt that way toward a woman…except for one.
Unbidden images from the past two months ran through my head. Me and Jules beneath the tree at the picnic. Me telling her about Tanya’s death in the library. The adorable way her brow scrunched when she was concentrating and the proud smile that lit up her face when I finally proclaimed her ready for the bunny slope in Vermont.
The way she laughed, the way she tasted, and the way I felt when I was with her, like I never wanted her to leave.
I’d chalked all that up to a mixture of lust and blossoming friendship, but what if…
No. Fuck no.
Sweat misted my palms. I tossed back my drink without tasting it.
I did not like Jules. Half our fucks were hate fucks. They were hot, but just because I liked fucking her didn’t mean I wanted anything else from her.
So what if she wasn’t as terrible as I originally envisioned? She was still her.
Infuriating, snarky, a pain in my fucking ass…and loyal. Passionate. So beautiful sometimes it hurt to look at her.
What would I do in a world where Jules didn’t exist? I wouldn’t burn it down, but…
Fuck, why was it so hot in here?
My phone vibrated with an incoming call. I answered it, relieved for the distraction. I would take a hundred telemarketers over my wildly disturbing thoughts.
“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number, but it contained Eldorra’s country code. Maybe it was the palace or something.
“Hey, it’s me,” Ava said. She sounded subdued.
“What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be at the club right now?”
My short-lived relief at the distraction faded when she explained her situation. God motherfucking dammit. I’d wanted more excitement earlier, but I should’ve fucking clarified, because this was not what I had in mind. “Okay. I’ll be right there…no. We’ll talk about it later.”
Alex’s brows formed a deep V as he listened to my end of the call.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after I hung up.
“It’s Ava and the girls.” I stood and shrugged on my jacket, already halfway out the door. “They got arrested.”
