Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Chloe

"Are you sure you don't want to walk back with us?" Olivia looks concerned. While it's dark out and probably not the best time for a single woman to be walking the streets, there's a rush of activity with the All-Star game taking place in the city. I'll be perfectly safe.

Olivia has the same look everyone has had since Josh passed away. I still see it right before someone squeezes my arm and asks me how I'm doing. I always answer with "the best I can right now," when what I really want to say is "I'm grieving, I'm relieved, I'm terrified, I'm ecstatic, and I feel guilty for feeling all of it." I know enough not to answer truthfully these days. No one actually wants to hear the inner workings of my brain. Better to plaster on a sad smile and not rock their world with my deranged thoughts.

"I'm good. Seriously. Just going to grab a drink, people watch, and then head back to the hotel."

Olivia gives me a hug and so does Roman. He doesn't have that sympathetic look on his face, but he is studying me. "Don't do anything stupid." Then he cocks his head to the side and gets a twinkle in his eye. "Actually, maybe you should."

"Roman," Olivia groans. "Don't be a bad influence."

Roman shrugs but quits examining me so closely. "What? Her husband died, but she didn't."

Olivia backhands his arm with a shocked expression. A laugh explodes out of my mouth. No one back in Wisconsin was brave enough to say something like that to my face, no matter how true the statement is.

"It's been too long since we caught up," I say truthfully, giving them both a smile and a wave as I back up. There's a bar two doors down that I looked up ahead of time. It's known to be the happening place in downtown Toronto. Exactly the type of establishment I wouldn't have dared to enter just a few years ago. Funny how people can change.

My high-heeled boots click on the concrete as I hurry down the sidewalk. The breeze is brisk here and no match for the leather jacket over my lacy top, but soon I'll be ensconced in a busy bar with the body heat of a hundred people to keep me warm. The glass door swings open, and a couple pours out, the man holding the door for me as I enter. It takes me a second to scan the area and take in the loud music and even louder conversation from dozens of beautiful people. I see an open seat at the far end of the bar and move in that direction, wanting a good vantage point for my people watching. Ignoring the hulking man sitting next to me, I haul my short self up into the barstool and grab a leather-bound drink menu. The bartender eventually comes over and I order a glass of champagne.

When the glass slides across the bar top with bubbles streaming upward and the bartender moves away to another patron, I lift my drink in the air in a toast. "To myself," I say out loud. And then I take the first fortifying sip. I close my eyes and hum as the taste explodes in my mouth and slips down my throat like a cooling balm in the middle of summer.

The man next to me snorts and my eyes fly open. His hair is a shaggy sandy brown that looks like he's been running his fingers through it. The thick jacket hides his physique, but with his feet touching the ground even on these sky-high barstools, he must be tall. When he turns his head in my direction, I get my first look at piercing blue eyes, a crooked nose, and slashes of eyebrows that hold annoyance so well.

Holy shit. I'd know that face anywhere. It belongs to Nikolai Drugov, the goalie for the Storm Chasers. That was the one thing my late husband and I had in common: hockey. We met at the University of Wisconsin, both of us ice hockey athletes. It seemed like a match made in heaven. Until it wasn't. Of course, I had a thing for hockey players back then, and based on the way those blue eyes scanning my body feel like a caress, I still have a thing.

I arch an eyebrow, feeling excitement in my gut for the first time in a long while. "Did my toast not agree with you?"

"Very little agrees with me," he answers, his voice so low and gruff I barely make out the words. The accent though, whoa boy, do I hear that accent. It sends a shiver across my skin.

"Hmm. I know what you mean. Hence my toast to myself. At least I can count on myself." I take another sip of my champagne, feeling his gaze trickle down to my ruby red lips. Interesting. Is the elusive, handsome goalie checking me out?

A frisson of nerves hits my stomach. I haven't flirted in so long I'm not sure how to start.

"Only ourselves, eh? Then we have truly reached the handle."

I tilt my head and try to wrap my mind around whatever the hell he means. The handle? Was that a euphemism for something else? Something dirty? Jesus, I feel old.

"I don't reach for many handles," I say truthfully, downing the rest of my champagne. If we're already talking about dicks, I need to be far less sober. I raise my hand and the bartender notices, nodding his head. My bar companion also raises a thick finger, signaling another drink.

"That is good," he says, his rich accent quite delicious. "None of my friends reach the handle, but I find myself there often."

Oh my. That's more information than I needed to know from a virtual stranger. I squish up my nose, hoping I'm still flirting properly. "Well, I prefer to reach for the handles not belonging to my friends. Better to take that...handle holding...out of the friend group, you know?"

Nikolai looks at me again, his eyebrows nearly colliding. "You Americans say weird things."

The bartender arrives with an amber-colored liquor for Nikolai and another glass of champagne for me. I take a hefty swig before setting the glass down. Clearly, I'm doing flirting wrong. "I just mean I wouldn't date within my friend group. Better to not mix pleasure with friendship, you know?"

I learned that the hard way, when after Josh's death, our couples friend group fractured. It became painfully obvious that they'd been primarily Josh's friends, and I'd just assimilated into the group. Sure, they were supportive right after his death, but their messages and phone calls dwindled quickly, replaced by a deafening silence. Even my fellow schoolteacher friends fell silent, probably due to feeling uncomfortable with death in general. I lost not only my husband, but all of my friends. While I rebuild the second half of my life, you can bet your ass I'll have a diversified friend group this time. And definitely no handle holding within the friend group to break it up.

Nikolai loses the frown and holds up his glass. I quickly join him, thinking maybe I've turned this sinking ship around, and he clinks the glasses together. "To not being friends."

We both drink to the oddly endearing toast and I rest my elbow on the bar top, leaning in his direction, hoping this position threatens to spill my breasts right out of this top. As predicted, his gaze drops, but he looks away quickly, swallowing hard.

"If I tell you my name, that won't make us friends, right?"

Nikolai grunts and even that's attractive. "I have few friends and do not plan on making more."

"Oh good. Then I'm Chloe." I hold out my hand, glad I took the time to paint my nails bright red before I came on this trip. Look at me go with all this self care. I'm the self-care queen.

Nikolai slides his hand into mine, covering it completely. "Nikolai."

We stay just like that for an extended moment, holding hands and breathing the same air. Being a short, curvy woman in the plus size category, I frequently feel like the shortest one in a group, but I rarely feel like a man could haul me over his shoulder and run us out of a burning building if he had to. Josh had been taller than me, but slight. My inner cavewoman likes that Nikolai looks like he could pick me up and not even be breathing hard. My cheeks heat and it has nothing to do with the champagne. He lets go of my hand and takes all that warmth with him.

"Nice to meet you, Nikolai. I, like you, don't have a lot of friends, but I'm actually looking for some." At his look of alarm, I clarify. "Not you, of course. I'd never be friends with you. You're entirely too tall."

He scoffs. "What is wrong with tall?"

I shrug and take another sip of champagne, then start counting off on my fingers. "Lifelong neck problems from always looking up. These curls can't handle my head being the arm rest for tall people. Oh, and having to ask my tall friends to reach things on top shelves makes me feel so needy, you know?" I shake my head. "Far better to avoid the tall people."

It might just be my imagination, but I could swear Nikolai's thick lips start to curve upward on the ends.

"I would not like to cause you so much pain and hassle, Chloe of the short people. Good we have decided to not be friends."

I won't even try to pretend that hearing my name in that accent isn't doing crazy things to my insides. I've heard about Nikolai, of course, and even seen him play live. Anyone who follows hockey knows he's one of the best at protecting his net. Most people also know he's a recluse, almost never giving interviews nor being seen out socially with the team. And yet, here he is cracking deadpan jokes with me. He's as funny as he is ruggedly handsome. All I want to do is keep him talking.

Okay, that's a lie. That's not all I want from Nikolai Drugov.

"And why don't you want friends, short or otherwise?"

He drains his drink and sets it down on the bar with a solid clink. "I do not like talking, and friends require so much proklyaty talking. I prefer to watch."

My eyes open wide. My mind, after absorbing the Russian dripping from those lips, went so far into the gutter I'm no better than a street rat. "You prefer to watch, huh?" I lick my lips, imagining him watching me undress. What it would be like to have all of that high-performance focus on me and only me.

Then I realize his gaze is trained on my mouth and every last drop of sanity slides downward to gather in my gut. Hot, molten desire takes over every sane thought I have left. Maybe it's the champagne. Maybe it's this life unfurling into something I didn't expect. Maybe it's just Nikolai. But I have to shoot my shot or I'll live with regret. And that's one thing I refuse to do. I pull myself up by my designer bootstraps and decide to live boldly.

"Since we've established we're not friends and you prefer to watch, how about you come back to my hotel with me? We can not talk the rest of the night?"

His startled gaze latches onto mine, his icy blue eyes smoldering into something much, much hotter. My palms are sweating, but I reach over to grip the lapels of his jacket and tug him closer. His spicy scent surrounds me while his broad shoulders seem to block out all the other people in the bar, taking those nerves and spinning them into a dangerous liquid pool of desire. His gaze flicks downward to my lips again and my heart pounds. Roman's words echo in my brain and spill out of my mouth.

"Let's do something stupid."