Page 43 of Wicked Serve

Not for the first time, I wonder what led to her divorce from Nik’s father. It seems like his dad isn’t part of his life at all.

“It’s been nice to be his friend.” I step onto the sidewalk with her, bracing myself against the chill in the air.

“You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?” She hugs me again as Nik pulls up in his car. “We can talk about next year. If I didn’t scare you away from the industry, that is.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” she says with a smile, looking more like the woman I remember from the summer—ready to go to bat for her clients at a moment’s notice—than whatever happened over this lunch. “You have a big heart, Izzy. That’s rarer than you’d think it would be.”

Chapter 20

Nikolai

I shut the textbook with a groan, leaning back in my chair. The air in this part of the library is stuffy, and I’ve had a hard time holding back my yawns. I’d like to be unconscious, but now that the hockey season is in full swing, if this paper about the sociopolitical climate in Western Europe ahead of World War I is getting written at all, it has to be now. It doesn’t matter what my grades are, but I won’t give Grandfather another thing to hold against me. After lunch with Mom last week, I called him, and he droned on for an hour about the moves he’s making to give me the best possible start at the company. It was a relief to cut him off once I had practice.

It was an even bigger relief to have Isabelle there for the lunch. Mom had fun talking to her, and I didn’t have to suffer through too many stilted questions. My father’s ghost lingers whenever we’re in a room together, but Isabelle chased away those shadows, at least a little.

“Nik?”

I jolt, the legs of the chair hitting the floor with a crack. My heart leaps as I look at Isabelle standing in the doorway. She had a match this evening, but she’s dressed normally, her damp hair falling over the collar of her orange sweater. She swipes at her nose; it looks like she’s been crying.

“Hey,” I say worriedly. I kiss her cheek as she settles next to me at the table. “You okay? How was the match?”

She makes a face at my computer screen. “This looks complicated.”

“It’s fine. What’s the matter?”

“And you wrote half of it in Russian.”

“I’ll translate it later.” I nudge my leg against hers. “Match didn’t go well?”

She arranges herself in a pretzel on her chair. My legs hurt just looking at it. Even though the quiet way she’s holding herself has me concerned, I can’t help but smile as she leans her head against my shoulder. She smells like her signature citrus perfume.

“What do you do when you make a mistake during a game?” She fiddles with her necklace. “Do you just... keep imagining it? Like, on a loop in your brain?”

“Is that what happened?”

She lifts her head, lip caught between her teeth.

“Of course I do.” I take her hand, stilling her fingers. “It’s worse than getting destroyed when we watch tape.”

She lets out a breath. “I ruined a rally. It cost us the lead in the set.”

I know enough about volleyball now to understand what she’s talking about. “Did you lose the set?”

“Yeah. And it was the...” She shuts her eyes. “The tiebreaker for the match.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll bet whatever mistakes you’ve made, they’re not that bad.”

“Oh, I’ve done that, too. Last season, I completely misread a play. Puck went right through my legs and into the back of the net. It helped send your brother to the playoffs.”

She winces. “Okay, that’s pretty bad.”

“And I thought about it way longer than I should have. I don’t think I slept for a week.” She doesn’t quite smile, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to cry, so I’ll consider that a victory. “I just kept imagining it, over and over.”

“That’s basically what’s happening.” She keeps chewing on her lip. “If I can’t even handle what my coach is giving me now, how the hell am I supposed to convince her to give me more responsibility? We should have won.”

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