Page 89 of One Last Shot
“It will pass quickly,” I say, hoping I sound persuasive. “You’re about to start your next round of playoff games. You’ll be so busy you won’t even have time to miss me.” I try to laugh to pass that statement off as a joke, but it falls flat.
“I’ve missed you for fourteen years,” he says. “I hardly think I’m going to stop now.”
And suddenly I can’t breathe. The part of me that wants to demand he tell me why he told me he didn’t see me “like that” and then cut me out of his life, wars with the part of me that isn’t sure I can even form a coherent sentence right now. This moment, when I’m too exhausted to keep my eyes open for even a second longer, feels like the wrong time to start a crucially important conversation like this one.
Instead, I say, “Good. Don’t stop.”
“Petra, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and missing you if my life depended on it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
That certainly wasn’t what I was expecting to hear, but it’s what I needed to know.
“Yes.” The word is a whisper escaping my lips. I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I need to know he’s in this as much, or maybe even more than I am. “I have to go now. I can’t stay awake any longer.”
“Are you in bed already?” He sounds so much more alert than me, even though I woke him up from a dead sleep only minutes ago.
“I’m on the couch.”
“I wish I was there to carry you to your bedroom and tuck you in.” His voice is so gentle and I’m so worn out that his words have my eyes stinging as tears threaten to fall again.
“Me too.”
“You’re not going to get off that couch tonight, are you?” He chuckles.
“So comfy,” I tell him.
“Set your alarm on your phone right now,” he says, “so you don’t oversleep in the morning.”
“So bossy,” I say, even though he’s right. I set the alarm, then put the phone back down next to my face.
After a moment’s pause, he asks, “Did you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Night.” I don’t even disconnect the call, I just assume he’s going to do that, and I close my eyes, relieved when everything fades to black.
CHAPTER23
ALEKSANDR
It’s been almost three weeks since Petra left and I’ve only talked to her three fucking times. Her lack of availability is driving me crazy. Every conversation is the same:I’m so busy, I don’t know when things are going to let up, I miss you but I don’t have time for you.
At least she figured out the exhaustion issue. After collapsing at work, they sent her straight to the ER, where she was diagnosed with severe anemia. They gave her iron intravenously and prescribed iron supplements which she promises she’s taking regularly. The doctor said it might take as long as a month or two for her to start feeling back to normal, but she insists that just a few days later, she’s already feeling much better.
Even though I know she’s truly busy, and even though I know her exhaustion was a real thing, I can’t help but wonder if she’s holding me at a distance because her feelings are changing.
As the driver navigates his way through Hollywood, I check my phone again for my instructions and hope she’s going to be excited to see me. I know how she feels about surprises, and I just hope she’s not pissed off at my presence here. But after we won our second round of playoffs in Game 5, I found myself with a free weekend. I’d already scheduled Raina to stay with Stella for the weekend because I thought I’d still be in St. Louis and so instead of flying home to New York, I flew to LA.
God, I hope she isn’t mad.It’s too late now, because the driver is pulling up to the studio gate and giving them my information. She’s going to have no clue this is coming, no clue it would even be possible for me to visit her on set. I had to be backdoor sneaky to make this happen.
I watch the nearly identical white buildings pass as we drive through the lot, thinking back to the first conversation we had after she’d arrived in LA. She’d been telling me about her first day on set, where she jokingly said she’d met the president of my fan club—a girl named Jolene—who’d recognized Petra from our playoff game against Philadelphia where the cameras had caught us with our eyes locked on each other. Apparently Jolene was gushing with effusive praise about me as a hockey player, and was a bit star struck that Petra knew me.
Jolene was an uncommon enough name that when I asked Tom to have his people find her, he was able to get back to me with a name and phone number in about fifteen minutes. From there, it was easy enough to call and convince her to help me surprise Petra. She got my name on whatever lists were necessary, and is meeting me to take me backstage so I can watch the show as it’s filmed. I could not have emphasized the need for secrecy more than I did, so I just hope she’s kept her mouth shut. She insisted that all she wanted in exchange for helping me was an autograph, so I pray that she’s holding true to her word and isn’t going to sell the story of my surprise visit to some gossip rag.
Each building we pass is marked with a large black painted number and a sign that indicates which show is currently filming on that set. Finally we arrive at Petra’s show,And Yet We Rise, and a woman with long auburn hair is standing outside looking at her phone. When the car door shuts behind me, her head snaps up and a huge smile spreads across her face.
“You made it,” she calls out as she takes a few steps toward me.
