Anton Read online

  I went on dates. I posed for a Sports Illustrated shoot that had women tossing their panties onto the ice at games with my name and their phone numbers written on them. I picked women up at bars after games. Hell, I even let myself be auctioned off for an evening out to benefit charity.

  Nothing. Just looking at Mia got me more worked up than anything else I did with other women. So I quit dating, because it wasn’t working and it also wasn’t fair to the women I was going out with.

  “C’mon, let’s go get a drink, Gramps,” Alexei says, signaling for the check. “After the higher-paid brother picks up our check, of course.”

  I can’t keep the grin from my face as I take out my wallet. “You gonna buy my water at the bar, high roller?”

  “I’d buy you whatever you wanted if you’d pull the stick out of your ass and order a real drink.”

  If I could drink and play like Alexei, I would. But if I slide on my diet, I’ll be slower. More sluggish. I can’t afford that. The older I get, the harder I have to work to stay at the top of my game.

  And even though my life’s damn good, the game of hockey is about all I’ve got.

  Chapter Three

  Mia

  The bar is louder and more rowdy when I return from my break. Janice nods at me as I take over, wiping her sleeve across her brow to clear away the sheen of sweat.

  Being on my feet all night here is physically exhausting. I can’t complain, though. It gets crazy busy, especially on weekends, but I’ve done way worse jobs for way less money.

  I’m a Southside girl. When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers, did yard work and babysat for my neighbors. I was thrilled when a neighbor offered me six bucks an hour to help take care of her grandma when I was thirteen. Watching game shows and playing cards with an old lady sounded much better than chasing toddlers around all day. But I soon found out I was in for more—I had to help her take showers and wipe herself in the bathroom. I had to rub her feet and cook her liver and onions.

  The money got better when I turned sixteen. I started waitressing then, stuffing tip money into my grandparents’ coffee can savings account when they weren’t looking. I did odd jobs with my grandpa for extra cash, too. We shoveled snow, scrapped metals and fixed up cars. We didn’t have much, but now I know we had everything that really matters.

  “Two cosmos, a white Russian and a Bud Light bottle,” a waitress named Cara calls out to me. I meet her eyes to let her know I’ve got it.

  “What do you guys have on draft?” a man at the bar asks me. I rattle off the list, take his order and dart to my mixing station before anyone else can stop me.

  I love being this busy. When orders are flying and it’s all I can do to keep up, the night goes by fast, I make great tips, and I feel outside of myself. I’m not Mia Marceau, a broke twenty-nine year-old college senior with an estranged husband. I’m just Mia the bartender, filler of drink orders who smiles, makes change and wipes down the bar.

  You can’t think about your problems when your mind is this busy. On my nights off, I sometimes wish for the escape I get here.

  “Hey, you got a boyfriend?” a customer calls out to me, belching and grinning.

  “Yep.”

  “He’s not here now, though, is he?” He waggles his brows at me.

  “Nope, he’s in prison.” I lie with a straight face.

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. He beat a guy to death for hitting on me.”

  I turn back to the tap and draw a couple beers. The guy’s gone when I turn back around. That one works every time.

  I can’t help glancing over at the bachelorette party again. The laughter between them makes my heart happy, but it also makes me miss the girlfriends I’ve lost. Once I started dating the man I later married, I slowly lost touch with every friend I had. Eventually there was no one in my life but him. What a fucking fool I was.

  A few women from the bachelorette party get up and walk over to two guys at a nearby table. When I look over at them, my heart pounds so hard I get lightheaded.

  Shit. It’s Anton and Alexei Petrov, both dressed in dark suits minus the ties. I don’t think Alexei would recognize me, but Anton might. I freeze for a couple seconds, fighting my urge to dive under the bar so they don’t see me. The women are laughing and one is trying to slide onto Anton’s lap while another is asking Alexei to sign one of her boobs.

  I’ll have to beg Janice to cover for me until they leave. Even though I knew this would happen eventually, I’m flipping my shit. Things are finally going well for me—Anton seeing me is likely to ruin everything.

  He turns my way in that moment, doing a double take before shock registers on his face. Fuuuuuck.

  I swallow hard, trying to get ahold of myself.

  “Mia, a Guinness draft and margarita rocks,” Lana calls out.

  I turn in her direction, my heart still hammering hard.

  “You waiting for an engraved invitation?” she snaps. “Get my drinks!”

  I put my hand up, silently asking for a shred of grace. Then I take a deep breath and go get her drinks. By the time I return to the bar, Anton is standing there.

  “Mia?” His tone implores me to explain myself.

  “Hey,” I say with a weak smile.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Please don’t tell Adam you saw me here. Or saw me at all, actually.”

  He brushes a hand through his shaggy dark blond hair. “But…you work here?”

  I understand his confusion. Most wives of NHL players don’t tend bar on Saturday nights. But then, most wives of NHL players also don’t live apart from their husbands and pray nightly to find a way to divorce them.

  “Please don’t say anything,” I beg.

  “I won’t,” he assures me. “But does Adam know?”

  Hell yes, he knows, I think. And he revels in me earning money one dollar at a time.

  “Hey, can I get some help?” a customer calls from the end of the bar. Another one is eyeing me like he’s ready to place an order.

  “I have to…” I gesture toward the customers.

  “When can I talk to you?” Anton asks me.

  I shake my head. “Just…please, forget you saw me, okay?”

  Without giving him time to respond, I turn and walk to the other end of the bar. My hands shake as I reach for a bottle of Stoli to mix a drink. My world is almost completely peaceful these days, and if Anton tells Adam he saw me here, it won’t be anymore.

  I don’t know Adam’s team captain well. The Blaze traded for Anton Petrov around three years ago, making him their star center and highest-paid player. I used to see him at team parties and fundraisers. Other players’ wives told me he’s strict about his diet, sleep and workouts.

  One player’s wife, Marla Lansing, said she tried to set Anton up with her sister, who was Miss California at the time, but that Anton wasn’t interested. Apparently he used to date women, but he hasn’t for a while. Maybe he realized he’s gay, I don’t know.

  I don’t really care, either. I just need him to forget he saw me here tonight.

  “Heard we had two NHL players in here tonight,” Janice says to me as she closes out one of the registers at the end of the night.

  We’re closed, but I still check our surroundings to make sure no other employees are nearby before I respond.

  “Anton and Alexei Petrov,” I tell her. “Fraternal twins. Anton’s the captain of the Blaze and Alexei plays for the Comets.”

  “Huh. Don’t think we’ve had any NHL players in here since before Mike died.”

  “Hopefully it was just a one time thing,” I say softly.

  Janice is silent, but she has to know what I mean. I had to tell her who I am when she hired me, because I had to give my legal name and social security number to be paid. But to all the other employees here, I’m Mia Brown—my maiden name.

  “Head home, kid,” Janice says. “I’ve got it from here.”

  My shoulders sink with fatigue. “Okay,
thanks.”

  I button up my coat and pull my stocking cap down over my ears before leaving the bar. The walk home, in the dark, is always cold.

  A few random snowflakes float down around me as I make the familiar trek past closed-down shops and businesses, passing the occasional homeless person huddled beneath a blanket.

  There’s no place like Chicago. The bright lights and city smell are a comfort to me. With my grandma now gone, and my grandpa sick, I don’t have the house I grew up in to call home anymore. The city itself feels like a longtime loved one to me.

  It’s after three in the morning when I walk up the two flights of stairs to the apartment I share with a single mom and her young son. I unlock the deadbolt with a key on my ring, sighing softly as I close the door behind me.

  I’m home. Well, home-ish. Anita was looking for a roommate nine months ago, at a time when I was flat broke and desperate to find a place to stay. She’s working her way through law school and was struggling financially, so the room I rent from her is actually her son Dre’s. Now Dre sleeps in her room.

  When I drop my backpack on the table and walk into the darkened kitchen for some water, I see a note on the fridge, the words written in bold black caps:

  GROCERIES ARE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR RENT!!! DON’T TOUCH MY CHEESE! BUY YOUR OWN CHEESE!

  Rolling my eyes at the note, I take a glass from the dish drainer and fill it half full of tap water, drink it, and then rinse out the glass and return it to the drainer.

  I didn’t touch Anita’s fucking cheese. I don’t even eat here. Last week she accused me of stealing her toothpaste, which I also didn’t do. Her kid hides shit and we both know it.

  But at least when I close the door to my bedroom, I have a spot that’s just mine. It’s maybe eighty square feet and the radiator makes clanging noises that wake me up, but it’s mine.

  Adam has never come here. I hope he doesn’t even know where I live.

  I’m too tired to brush my teeth and wash my face. Instead, I crawl into bed still wearing all my clothes and fall fast asleep within minutes.

  Chapter Four

  Anton

  * * *

  Nothing compares to the adrenaline rush of game days, but I’ve got a thing for practices, too. When the rink is quiet, and you only hear the whoosh of skate blades on ice and sticks hitting the rink, it’s pretty damn zen to me.

  Then there’s the occasional eruption from all of us when someone makes a nice play, like just now when Victor shot the puck across the ice like a bullet.

  Vic and Luca are my wingers, and I hope like hell they both stay healthy, because we work together like a well-oiled machine.

  On our break, we all grab water bottles and sit down.

  “How’s it going, man?” I ask Luca.

  “Okay.”

  “Kids doing good?”

  “No one’s in juvie yet.” A smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

  The past year has been a crash course in fatherhood for Luca. His brother died serving in Afghanistan a couple years ago, so Luca moved his sister-in-law and his brother’s three kids into his house so he could help. Not long after, his sister-in-law was diagnosed with an aggressive pancreatic cancer and she passed away within a year. Luca was granted custody and is raising the kids now.

  “Hey man, that’s something,” I tell him.

  “How come you never ask us to babysit?” Vic elbows Luca as he asks. “We’re fuckin’ awesome babysitters.”

  I nod. “I could teach ‘em all how to make torches out of aerosol cans.”

  “We’ll juggle knives and brew beer with ‘em,” Vic adds. “Maybe watch some porn.”

  Luca can’t help laughing at that. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Seriously,” I remind him for at least the dozenth time, “let us know if you need anything.”

  There’s a collective yell as Adam and Knox battle for the puck, both of them giving it everything they’ve got. Seeing Adam makes me think of seeing Mia last night—not that I’ve stopped thinking about it for more than a minute at a time since then.

  “What’s going on with Adam?” I ask Luca and Vic.

  “What do you mean?” Luca turns my way.

  I shrug and come up with something. “He just seems off.”

  “He banged two strippers last night,” Vic says. “Probably tired.”

  A wave of disgust hits. I’ve always known Adam didn’t deserve Mia. He cheats on her like it’s nothing. But I never knew whether she knew about it. Now, for the first time, I have hope that maybe she finally left him. And that means…

  I shut the thought down immediately. It’s a cardinal violation of the bro code to lust after your buddy’s wife or ex-wife. Even worse when he’s your teammate. I’m the captain of the Chicago Blaze and I have to stay above reproach. If it even got out that I have feelings for Mia, whether I ever acted on them or not, it would divide our team in an ugly way.

  Our team is a family. Most of the time, we see each other more than the guys with wives and kids get to see their actual families.

  My folks will never leave Russia, even though Alexei and I have the means to give them a better life here. We visit them there, but they’re afraid to step outside their comfort zone and take a vacation here. They’ve been repeating the same day for the past forty years, and they’ll never stop.

  Work has been engrained in me from birth. And while the American family that hosted my brother and I think of us as family, they’re not blood. Working hard is my way of honoring my parents and the sacrifices they made to get me here.

  My brother’s my only blood relative I see more than once a year, so my team family is that much more important to me.

  I’m just stepping out of the shower after practice when Adam approaches me, wearing a shit-eating grin.

  “Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” he quips. “One for me and one for all the ass you’re missing out on.”

  “Fuck off,” I growl.

  “What crawled up your ass and died?” he demands.

  “You’re an asshole.”

  He advances on me. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

  Knox steps in between us. “Walk away, guys.”

  “Go home to your wife,” I tell Adam.

  I know it’s not a comment I should be making, but I can’t help it. It just comes out of me, same as my feelings for Mia. Right or wrong, my logic disappears when she’s involved.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, mentioning my wife?” Adam pushes past Knox.

  I was hoping he’d say she’s not his wife anymore. Damn, I was hoping hard.

  “You know my car,” I say. “You got a problem with it, come find me in the parking lot.”

  One of our coaches, Larry, steps in then.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you two? You’re both right. Marceau, you are an asshole and Petrov, you are not his mother. And you both get paid too goddamned much to be getting injured fighting in the parking lot. Petrov, you’ve got ten minutes to get in your car and get the hell out of here. Marceau, you put your ass on that bench for the next ten minutes.”

  I feel like an asshole. Larry’s right. And I’m never one of the guys the coaches have to yell at.

  But I glare at Adam anyway before going to my locker to put on some clothes, grab my phone and keys and take off.

  It’s such bullshit that a guy like him even got a second look from Mia. I don’t have to know her well to know she’s way too good for him.

  I hear an old man bitching about something before I even unlock the door to my Lakeshore Drive apartment. His voice gets louder as I open it.

  “What are you, stupid?” Uncle Dix shouts. “Did your nursing degree come from one of those online outfits? You could’ve killed me!”

  “Mr. Dixon, please settle down,” a female voice urges. “This isn’t good for you.”

  “You know what’s not good for me? A twelve-year-old nurse that doesn’t know shit from shinola.”

  I toss my keys o
n the table and walk into the living room, which has a great view of the lake, a pissed-off nurse on one side of the room and my Uncle Dix in a recliner on the other side, scowling.

  “Did you find her number in a Cracker Jack box, Anton?” Uncle Dix demands. “Did you even ask to see her nursing degree?”

  I turn to Leah. “What’s going on?”

  “I took away his cigarettes.”

  “Seems reasonable.” I look over at Uncle Dix.

  “You can’t just take a man off his smokes cold turkey! I’ll have withdrawal symptoms. The shakes. And the stress isn’t good for my blood pressure.”

  “Mr. Dixon, you’ve had two strokes,” Leah says. “You can’t be smoking.”

  “Eh, what do you know? I’m seventy-eight goddamned years old. I served in combat. If I want to have a smoke—”

  I cut in. “Uncle Dix, where’d you get the cigarettes? I told you, no more having shit delivered when I’m not here.”

  He curls his upper lip at me. “Am I in prison? Last time I checked I wasn’t in no fuckin’ prison. If I want to have a smoke—”

  “I’ll talk to the front desk again,” I tell Leah. “I told them no deliveries get past the front desk without me signing for them, but obviously he found a way around it.”

  “I found a bottle of whiskey in his nightstand, too.”

  “You better not’ve touched my whiskey, you bitch!”

  Uncle Dix presses the button on his recliner that eases him up into a standing position. It moves slowly, his crippled body at the mercy of the special chair. I can’t help feeling sorry for this man who’s not actually my uncle. Strokes have taken away much of his physical control.

  “Mr. Dixon!” Leah rushes over to get his wheelchair in position.

  “Don’t Mr. Dixon me,” he grumbles, looking at me. “She calls me all kinds of names when you aren’t here. Dickhead, asshole, cocksucker…”

  Leah’s mouth falls open with shock. “I do not!”

  “She does!” Uncle Dix insists. “And she plays with my balls when she’s giving me a bath.”