Page 117 of Wicked Serve

“I guessed.” I sniffle, reaching for his hand and squeezing. I’d clamber back into his lap, but he’s looking me over like he’s not sure if I’m real or part of the dream, and I don’t want to upset him further. “Did... did you go by that name? It’s a nickname for Nikolai, right?”

“It’s what my father calls me.” His mouth twists, clearly remembering something. “Did I hurt you?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Fuck.” He lets his head fall back against the headboard, the tension leaching away from his body. He squeezes the heels of his hands into his eyes, breath hitching. “I just...”

“You’re okay. You’re safe.” I can’t help it; I pull him into a hug. He’s still shaking, but less violently than before. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I... nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

I blow a bit of hair out of my face. “Nik. Come on.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad I didn’t—”

Someone knocks on the door, interrupting whatever he was about to say.

“Izzy?” Penny says. “Is everything okay?”

“We heard shouting,” Cooper adds.

Nik curses softly. He reaches for his shirt, slipping it over his head.

“I can tell them to go back to bed,” I murmur.

He shakes his head. “Won’t be able to sleep anyway. I don’t want your brother to worry about you.”

After we explain what happened to a bleary-eyed Penny and a wary Cooper, there’s a long, silent minute. Tangerine steps between our legs, meowing softly. Penny picks her up. She cuddles her close as she stifles a yawn.

Cooper scrubs his hand down his beard. He blinks a few times, as if waking himself up.

“Okay,” he says. “Iz, can you make a pot of coffee? I’ll get the gear in the truck.”

“What gear?” Nik asks.

“Our hockey shit.” Cooper claps him on the shoulder. “You know the key card works twenty-four seven.”

Nik raises an eyebrow. “It’s two in the morning.”

I suppress my smile. Sometimes, when Sebastian would have nightmares—remembering the night his parents died in that horrible car accident—Cooper would take him to the batting cages. Nik mentioned that he told my brother a little about his past, but the simple acceptance of it, not to mention the hand he’s holding out to help Nik recalibrate, means more than he can know.

“What, never had ice time in the middle of the night?” he says. “Come on, I’ll play goalie.”

Chapter 56

Nikolai

I smack one puck from the line in front of me into the back of the net, then another, and another. Cooper half lunges at the last one—which he could definitely stop—but lets it hit the net with a satisfying swoosh.

“You’re terrible at this,” I tell him. “Thank God we don’t need you in the net, we’d be fucked.”

He barks out a laugh as he taps his stick against the ice. “I’ll stand here, but I’m not fucking up my knee for you.”

When we arrived at the practice facility, we grabbed a bunch of pucks from the equipment room. He’s been letting me work out the lingering edge of panic with smack after smack of my stick. Penny and Isabelle are on the bench, splitting a bag of gummy bears, and despite how literally unimpressive this is, my girlfriend cheers whenever the puck crosses into the net.

I shake my head as a shard of the nightmare pushes back into my mind. I used to have them more when I was younger, and they’d center on memories—a fragment of a disagreement between my mother and father, magnified, or a snatch of a negative moment in hockey training. This one, however, wasn’t just a memory. I fucking hope it never becomes one.

It started with my parents, slammed doors and shouting and darkness. But somewhere along the line, it morphed. First, I looked through my father’s eyes, and then I was my father, but I wasn’t looking at my mother. It was Isabelle, her hair curled, wearing the blue gown from Boston. Isabelle, crawling away from me with a torn skirt, blood leaking from her lip, a bruise around her eye. Pleading with me in English, in Russian. Her voice entwined with my mother’s. Dream me looked down at my knuckles, saw the smear of red, and went in for more.

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