Several hours later, Elena kept a steady beat of nervous chatter all the way home, but Vlad was too shell-shocked to respond with much more than single-word answers.
The hospital had sent him home with a pair of crutches, some painkillers, and a stern warning to take it easy for the next few days. They gave him nothing, however, to deal with the reality of his rash decision to let Elena stay. What the hell had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. He’d simply been reacting. The crushed look on her face when she told Madison she was going back to Chicago had awakened a side of him he’d long thought dead. It was the same side that had convinced him to propose to her. The side that believed his mother when she assured him that Elena would eventually find her way back to him. The side that once read every romance novel he could get his hands on to learn how to make it happen.
Vlad must have made a noise, because Elena quickly glanced over at him. “What’s wrong? Does it hurt? Do I need to pull over?”
“No. I’m fine.” Which was the biggest lie he’d ever told. He was anything but fine. The car was too small with her in it, and he was too keenly aware of how desperately he needed a bath. Something he was not going to be able to do alone.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Not right now.”
“I could make dinner when we get home, or we could order something. Do you know if you’re supposed to take your pill with food?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’ll find out. I did a bunch of cleaning yesterday so the house would be ready for you. I mean, it was already really clean. I just made your bed and removed all the rugs in the bathrooms and stuff so you don’t trip on them. I’ll make a grocery list tonight.”
The comments continued at a rapid-fire pace, too fast for him to respond. But it was clear that she didn’t actually intend for him to contribute to the conversation. This was her way of dealing with the tension in the car. While he stared out the window and grunted, she gave voice to every thought in her head.
She barely took a breath until she pulled into his driveway. “Do you want me to park in the garage so you can go in that way?”
“The front is probably easier.”
She turned the car off and jumped out. Vlad opened his door, but she barked at him to stay put. His crutches were in the back seat, so he waited for her to get them before attempting to get out. Using one crutch for leverage, he swung his braced leg out and then rose slowly on his good leg.
Elena handed him the other crutch, hovering and biting her lip as he wedged it beneath his armpit.
“Careful,” Elena said, holding her arms out, presumably in case he toppled over. Which was pointless. If he fell, he’d take them both down.
“I’ll shut your door,” Elena said.
Vlad crutched forward a couple of times to give her room. The door slammed behind him, and then Elena raced around, and her frenetic questions started again. “Do you need help? I’ll open the front door. Can you get up the porch steps?”
“I’m fine, Elena. But yes, it would be helpful if you opened the front door.”
She took off like a speed skater and bounded up the few steps to his porch. She used her key to unlock and push open the door before turning and racing back to him.
“So, do I—do you need help?”
“I can do it.”
“Right. Okay. I just, I don’t know what to do.”
Vlad paused in his slow approach to the porch. “Look at me.”
Her wide eyes blinked up at him. Something shifted in his chest, and he wished the painkillers could numb his heart. “I’ll tell you if I need something, okay? You don’t have to hover.”
“Okay.” She backed up a step. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I appreciate the help.”
Her minuscule nod did more damage to his chest cavity. This woman was going to kill him slowly with her presence alone. Was that her goal? Was that why she was doing this? To finish off what remained of his pathetic carcass?
“Could you maybe bring in my bag?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding with far more enthusiasm this time. “Yes, I can do that.”
He crutch-hopped up the steps as she retrieved his duffel bag, and by the time he made it inside, she was already behind him, hovering once again.
“Okay, so do you want to go straight upstairs or maybe sit on the couch for a little while?”
He inched toward the staircase. “My bed is better. More room to elevate my leg.”
“Right. Of course. That was stupid.”
He hopped up the first step, and she followed closely behind. He was breathing hard and sweating by the time he reached the top.
“Now what?” Elena said behind him.
“Now I ice it for a little while.”
“I will get some after we get you settled in bed.”
Just hearing the word bed out of her mouth made him want to groan. Except for the hospital room, which really didn’t count, they hadn’t been in a bedroom together for any significant time in years. And even then, they’d shared the space for mere moments. And not for what husbands and wives usually shared a bedroom for. This was going to be torture.
The minute he sat on the mattress, Elena moved in between his splayed legs to take his crutches. “I’ll lean them here,” she said, oblivious to the effect she was having on him by just standing. “That way you can reach them.”
“Thanks,” he grunted.
He reached behind him for a pillow to put under his leg. Elena raced forward. “Let me do it.”
She bent over him, and he must have made another one of those tortured noises, because she leaped back suddenly. “Oh my God, did I hurt you?”
“Nope. Just trying to get comfortable.” His voice scraped like rusty skates on pond ice.
“Lean back so we can move your leg,” she said.
He obeyed, mostly to get as far away from her skin as possible, because his hands were developing a mind of their own. He lifted his leg then as she plumped the pillow for him to rest it on. “Is that good?” She looked over at him.
He gulped. “Thank you.”
“Okay. I’ll go get the ice.”
She raced from the room, and Vlad clunked his head against the headboard. He wasn’t going to survive this. Five minutes at home with her, and his mind was already occupied with thoughts of things that would definitely not help him heal.
In his leg or his heart.
She returned a moment later, panting as if she’d bounded up the stairs two at a time. She carried a plastic bag full of ice cubes and a thin kitchen towel. “Do we just put the ice on the brace, or on the skin?”
“On the skin,” he said, sitting up. “I can open the brace—”
She waved his hands away. “I can do it. I need to learn how.”
“Icing my leg probably won’t be one of the things I need help with.” He tried to inject some levity to his tone but failed. It came out stressed.
She straightened and apologized. Again. “You’re right. I’m being annoying, aren’t I?”
“No.” Vlad took the ice and set it beside his hip. “Elena, listen.”
She gulped and crossed her arms across her chest in that same protective pose that she’d adopted yesterday at the hospital, as if she were afraid of what he was about to say. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been an asshole yesterday.
“You don’t have to do every little thing for me.”
“Okay. Right. I’m sorry.”
“And you don’t have to apologize all the time.”
“Right.” She laughed with a nervous little puff of air.
“And you have to promise to tell me if this becomes too much work.”
“I will. But it won’t.” Beaming confidently again, she nodded in the general direction of the door. “I’m going to bring the rest of your stuff in from the car. Do you need anything else for the next few minutes?”
“No, I’m—I’m fine.”
He didn’t exhale until he heard her open the front door. He’d either made the biggest mistake of his life or . . . there wasn’t an or. He’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.
The ice was quickly numbing his hip, so he leaned forward to open up his brace and rest the baggie on top of the incision. The movement was just enough to remind him that he’d gone way too long without a shower, and there was no way he was going to ask her to help him with that. He was putting his foot down—the good one—on that.
His phone was on the nightstand, and though he dreaded making this call, it had to be done. Colton answered on the first ring. “Holy fuck, dude. The guys and I are going nuts. You send us one text, and that’s it?”
“I am sorry, but—”
“We’ve had to get all our information from ESPN, for fuck’s sake. I was just on the phone with Mack. We were about to storm the damn hospital.”
“I am not there anymore.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Home.”
“Who took you home? Someone from the team? Jesus, man. We would’ve done that.”
“It was not someone from the team.”
“Why the hell do you keep cutting us out like this?”
“Colton, please—”
“You can’t just ghost us like this anymore, man. We’re your family, and we know you need us, so why are you—”
“Because Elena is here!”
Silence. The deafening kind.
Colton made a dramatic play of clearing his throat. “I— What did you say?”
Vlad puffed out his cheeks and let the air seep out. “Elena is here. She came to help. She is the one who drove me home.”
“Like, she’s here for the day, or . . . ?”
“She is going to stay for a while and take care of me.”
This time, in the silence that followed, Vlad could almost hear the gears turning in Colton’s brain and his lips curling into a grin that meant he was already reading way too much into it. “Well, well, well.”
“It is only temporary.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. But I still need your help with something.”
Downstairs, the front door opened and closed again. He didn’t have much time before she came back upstairs.
“Anything, man,” Colton said. “Just name it.”
“Can you give me a bath?”
Colton laughed and then sobered. “I’m sorry, but it sounded like you said you need help taking a bath.”
Vlad groaned and leaned back against his pillows. “That is what I said, yes.”
“But I thought your wife was there.”
She was, and from the sound of it, she was in the kitchen now. “I cannot ask Elena to do it.”
“Why not?”
“You know why!”
“Because of the divorce? I hardly think she’s going to mind, given the circumstances.”
And for the second time that night, Vlad blurted out something he wished he could take back. “Because she has never seen me naked!”
Silence again. Longer this time. And far more ominous. “Okay, first of all, neither the fuck have I. But more importantly, why exactly has your wife never seen you naked?”
“Please, Colton. I cannot explain over the phone.” Elena’s footsteps padded softly on the stairs. “Just . . . please. Can you come over in the morning?”
Colton made several noises under his breath that sounded like very dirty words. He finally returned to the phone. “I’ll be there. But believe me, I’m not coming alone.”
He hung up before Vlad could protest but also just in time, because Elena chose that moment to walk back in. She had a bottle of water, a plate of cut-up fruit, and the information Madison had given them.
“I know you said you aren’t hungry, but I think you should eat something. I was reading the information about the painkillers they gave us, and it says the pills can make you nauseous if you take them on an empty stomach.” She stopped short. “I—I’m sorry. Are you on the phone?”
Vlad lowered his cell to his lap. “I was talking to Colton.”
“I can come back.”
“No, it’s fine. He hung up.”
“Everything okay?”
“The guys are coming over in the morning.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Okay. That’s good. I’m sure they want to see you.”
“They’re going to help me take a bath,” he blurted.
Her cheeks turned a soft pink of understanding.
“I didn’t want to impose on you,” he said.
She set down the plate of fruit on his nightstand. “No, of course. I understand.”
“I just thought it might be embarrassing since, you know . . .”
The pink became the color of a Detroit Red Wings jersey, and he cursed himself. There was no need to be specific, as if she didn’t know as well as he that the most intimacy they’d ever shared was a single kiss on their wedding day.
Her movements were stiff as she backed away from the bed. “That is very considerate of you. It would probably be embarrassing for both of us. And I need to get groceries tomorrow anyway, so maybe I’ll do that while they’re here.”
“Good idea.”
She backed up farther. “You should eat and then try to get some sleep. I know you didn’t get much last night. I’m going to unpack my stuff, and then we can turn the game on.”
He cleared his throat. “That’s not necessary.”
“You really do need to get some sleep.”
“No, I mean, the game. I’m not going to watch it.” He looked away from her and from the inevitable questions in her eyes. If she voiced them, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Not coherently. Not in a way she could possibly understand. But he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t watch his team play without him.
“Vlad—”
“No game.”
A moment passed before she nodded. “Okay. No game. I’ll check on you in a little while.”
She retreated, her footsteps leaving tiny indentations in his carpet. Though she was just across the hallway, she felt a million miles away suddenly. Which was ridiculous. She’d been a million miles away from him for forever, it seemed, and absolutely nothing about that had changed just because she was here. He strained to listen to the sounds of her in her room, just like he’d done every night during the four months she’d lived with him after she came to America. Every slide of a drawer, every creak of her mattress, every splash of water in her bathroom. They were nails on the chalkboard of his psyche.
That smile she’d given him earlier had filled up his room with light, and now it was dark again. The fact that her smile was already a source of emotional vitamin D for him was all he needed to know about why this was a bad idea. Soon, she’d be gone for good, and it would be like the sun burning out completely. He’d endured that particular kind of winter before. He wouldn’t survive it again.
If he was going to get through this, he would need a distraction, more than just the daily job of rehabbing his body. Something he could disappear into to avoid the reality of his situation. For the first time in months, Vlad opened the drawer to his nightstand and withdrew the pages of his manuscript.
He traced his thumb across the title, Promise Me.
His story with Elena was on its last chapter. If he couldn’t have his own happy ever after, maybe he could try again to write one.