Page 10 of Ascendent
Ilya stared hard at Sasha. His glare flicked to Sergey as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope. He set it down and slid it across the table to Sergey. “I got these because I thought you would need a distraction tonight. Afterheleft.”
Inside, Ilya had two tickets to the Red Army hockey game in Moscow for that evening, with impressively good seats. Sergey whistled.
Ilya waved his hand, as if dismissing the tickets and Sergey and everything else. “But I am busy tonight. You take them. Do what you want with them, I don’t care.”
Chapter Two
They showered togetherand changed after Ilya left.
Sergey had collected Sasha’s things from his old apartment in the Kremlin and kept them after Sasha’s abandonment. He’d felt like a crazy person doing it, hiding Sasha’s belongings in his own closet like a stalker. Holding on to delusions, he’d told himself. Sasha had left him. On purpose.
But Sasha smiled when he saw the clothes Sergey had kept, and he picked through the bags until he pulled out a navy-blue sweater and a pair of black slacks, one of the first things he’d purchased after he started working in the Kremlin for Ilya. He’d worn it often on the weekends, and Sergey had teased him more than once about the way it clung to his shoulders, the way it made his eyes go neon electric.
Sergey watched him dress, watched him brush his teeth and style his hair, and the whole time, his heart seemed to run wild in his chest, a thousand horses with their wishes.I want this. I want to see him like this every day. How do I keep this going?
If possible, Sasha looked even better than he did in his tux at the Heroes Ball when they headed out for the hockey game. His security team didn’t blink when they appeared together.
Sasha sat like a man on the way to his execution in the back of the limo. “It’s okay. The president can spend time with a Hero of Russia. It’s normal. Besides, the media already knows we are friends, colleagues from before the coup. Yes?”
Sasha gripped the leather seat, denting the cushion. Sergey tried to read emails on his phone, catch up with the world. Scan the headlines. But his gaze kept sliding sideways.
Once, Sasha looked back. For a moment, he almost smiled, and it was like the sun rising over the ice caps in the Arctic, turning the world back to rights.
They arrived at the private entrance to the hockey arena and bustled inside, ushered by Sergey’s bodyguards. Sasha seemed to not know how to act, where to walk. He tried to slink away, walk behind Sergey, slide to the right and out of the cordon. Evaporate from the world. The security team kept him with Sergey, walking them like a pair. They treated Sasha like he was someone special, someone important with Sergey, and not like he was an afterthought.
Their seats were center ice, right on the arena floor. The crowd recognized Sergey immediately, and cameras tracked his every move. Spotlights circled over their heads. Sergey waved and waved to the crowd, and his face appeared on the jumbotron screen at the end of the arena. Sasha sat stiffly, pretending he wasn’t aware the president of Russia was beside him receiving a standing ovation.
The cameras caught him peeking up at Sergey once, and that image went straight to the jumbotron.
Sergey had never seen that look on Sasha’s face. It was something beyond adoration, beyond caring. Beyond love, even.
Sergey looked back at Sasha. The cameraman caught on that Sasha was someone special, a VIP with the president, and they zoomed in on his face. For a second, the feed caught a fraction of a smile curling up Sasha’s lips before he realized that every eyeball in the arena, and across most of Russia, was fixed squarely on him. In a flash, he turned into a turtle trying to disappear into his wool jacket. Tried to turn invisible through sheer force of will alone.
The cameras panned away, respectfully deferring when Sergey waved them off. Sasha vibrated beside him for the entire pregame, silent and tense, hunched in his seat with his fingers gripping the armrests hard enough that his knuckles went white. He brushed Sergey’s shoulder, though, when they stood for the national anthem.
During the first period, Sasha pressed the side of his shoe against Sergey’s. Let their ankles and then their calves ghost each other.
In the second period, Sergey bought them both Baltika beers, #6, the midrange porter. Halfway through the beer, Sasha leaned his elbow on the armrest between them and left it there.
By the third period, Sergey was speaking into Sasha’s ear, explaining Moscow’s Red Army team history and his memories of coming to the games for years. He and Ilya used to sit behind the goalie, drinking beer and shouting at the players. Sasha chuckled in all the right places, and he looked up at Sergey from underneath his long eyelashes.
Sergey wanted to kiss him, plant one on him in the middle of the arena. He didn’t care about the game, or the cameras, or the country that would pillory him for it. He just wanted Sasha to keep slouching against him that way, keep turning his head toward Sergey. Keep looking at him just like that.
Please, don’t try to push…
Sasha’s words came back to him.Let me protect you.The only thing Sasha had asked for was time. Patience. Discretion.
He could give him that, would give him that. Sergey smiled and leaned back, away from the temptation of Sasha’s lips.
When the Red Army winger scored again and the arena burst into cheers, everyone leaping to their feet, Sergey wrapped one arm around Sasha and pulled him close, a hug wrapped in a cheer.
He felt Sasha’s arm slide around him in return.
Their eyes met.
Quiet happiness, contentment, the sheen of muted joy. Things Sergey had never, ever seen before in Sasha were there, deep in his eyes. Delight. Gratitude. Hope.
After the game ended, Moscow’s Red Army solidly trouncing Finland’s Jokerit, they were whisked out by Sergey’s security guards and escorted to the limo. Sasha stayed by Sergey’s side, close this time, as if he was meant to be there. No one batted an eye.
