Vlad smelled bacon.
That was impossible, though. Elena was gone. She’d taken her things and driven away in his car last night. And even though he had known it would happen eventually, had always known she would one day leave, it gutted him. Just like he knew it would.
Vlad threw an arm over his eyes and prayed for sleep to drag him back under. His stomach warned of a punishing day of retribution for last night’s whiskey binge. The bizarre bacon smell wasn’t helping.
A quiet noise on the floor drew his gaze to the right.
He blinked. Rose up on his elbows. Blinked again.
A chicken was in his room.
A chicken in a diaper.
Vlad sat up fully and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. But when he looked again, the chicken was still there. She walked slowly near his dresser, beak pecking at something she’d found on the floor.
Dear God, he’d broken his brain last night. He was officially seeing things.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
Vlad nearly jumped out of his skin. Mack stood at his bedroom door holding a tray of food. “Brought you a friend,” he said, nodding at the chicken as he walked in. He set the tray on the nightstand. Curls of steam rose from a mug of tea and a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and cut-up fruit.
“Is that Hazel?” Vlad could barely speak over the sandpaper of his throat.
“Yep. These are her eggs you’re about to eat too.”
Hazel was Vlad’s favorite chicken. Probably not everyone in the world had a favorite chicken, but Vlad did. She was from a farm outside the city where Mack’s wife had once lived and worked, and when Vlad was there one time, he and Hazel had bonded because a mean rooster named Randy had been attacking her.
Vlad held out his arms. Mack bent, scooped up the hen, and deposited her on Vlad’s lap. Hazel cooed and settled down with her legs tucked beneath her. Vlad ran his hands over her soft feathers until the hen’s eyes closed. She was a good chicken. Vlad bit his lip to keep it from trembling and cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon.”
Elena was probably already on a plane back to Chicago by now. Or maybe she was driving his car. Either way, she was far, far away.
“Malcolm, Del, Noah, and Colton will be up in a few minutes,” Mack said, reaching for the chicken. “You need to eat.”
“I am not sure I can.” Vlad pressed a hand to his stomach.
“Give it a try. You need to soak up the damage from last night.”
Vlad pulled the tray to his lap, studied the food, and opted to start with the tea. “Elena is going back to Chicago,” he said.
Mack set Hazel on the floor. “We know.”
“How do you know?”
“She texted Colton to ask him to check on you.”
She was still watching out for him. Even after everything they’d said to each other last night. His stomach clenched, and not because of his gastrointestinal sensitivity. This was pure mental anguish.
The rest of the guys came in a few moments later. Vlad braced himself for the cross-check. The yelling about what an idiot he was for what happened at the party and for letting Elena leave.
“Just say it,” he grumbled.
“Say what?” Malcolm asked, leaning casually against the bedframe.
“Tell me I’m an idiot who screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m an idiot for letting her go.”
Colton shrugged. “I mean, yeah, that sort of sums it up well.”
Mack dragged his hands over his hair. “What happened last night after we left?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s going back to—”
“Russia. Yeah, so we’ve heard.” Mack shook his head. “But we also watched you lose your fucking mind over another guy even thinking about kissing her last night after you insisted you were at peace with the divorce, so maybe it’s time to cut the shit and just be straight with us.”
Vlad poked at his eggs. He wished he could hug Hazel again.
“You don’t want a divorce,” Malcolm said. “And neither does she.”
“That’s not true. She’s leaving.”
“Because you’re letting her.”
“No,” he said, choking on that damn emotion he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer. “Because I told her the truth, and it was too much for her.”
Mack groaned. “The truth about what? You keep talking in circles.”
Vlad shook his head. He knew how these guys worked. Once you started talking, it was all over. They wouldn’t let you stop until you had spilled your guts and were a weeping mess on the floor. The good thing about his friends is that they would be there to pick you back up again with some tissue for your snotty nose and a shoulder for your heavy head. The bad thing was, emotions were flying at him like a speeding puck across the ice. At least with the puck, he could visualize the scene and make the kind of split-second decision that had made him one of the best defensemen in the NHL. But right now, he was useless. The puck was going to hit him square in the face.
He scanned his friends, all waiting patiently, except for Colton, who had sunk to the floor to play with Hazel. Mack sat down on the narrow edge of mattress next to his hip. “Listen, man. We’ve all had to share our secrets before. You know how this works.”
Yeah. He’d just never been on this end of it before.
“You can do it, man,” Del encouraged.
Noah nodded. “Just tell us—”
“I’m a virgin!” He held his breath as his blurted confession settled on the group.
He expected an explosion.
He got silence.
“No shit?” That was from Noah. “Huh.”
He looked around the room, incredulous. “That’s it? That’s your only response?”
Malcolm shrugged. “So you’re a virgin. Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. I am an almost thirty-year-old professional athlete who has never had sex, even with his wife of six years. I’m a living, breathing—”
“Human being,” Mack said.
Vlad muttered obscenities in Russian. “You are missing the point. I told her I am a virgin, that I’ve waited my entire life for her, and she ran off saying she has ruined my life and she could never repay me and that it was a mistake to come here, and then she left me. Again.”
“Something tells me there was a little more to it than that,” Del mused.
Vlad’s cheeks grew hot and he looked at his lap. “She might have kissed me.”
“Wait, what?” Mack squawked.
Vlad lifted a single shoulder. “She kissed me.”
“Holy shit,” Colton breathed with a grin.
Malcolm lifted an eyebrow. “And then what?”
“I pulled away.”
And then came the explosion.
Mack swore and tugged at his hair. Malcolm pointed at Vlad, sputtering nonsense. Colton and Noah both stood at the same time and accidentally clunked their foreheads together. Del muttered, “I give up,” and started to leave.
Hazel squawked like she’d laid an egg.
“Why the hell did you stop her?” Mack seethed.
Del turned around and returned to the side of the bed. “I’m not leaving until I hear this. Not because I think it’s worth hearing, but because I want to file it away the next time we think we’ve met the dumbest fucker on the planet, and I can say, ‘Oh, no, remember the fucking Russian?’ ”
“I was confused, okay?” Vlad protested in his own defense. “One minute, she wants to go back to Russia. The next she is kissing me and looking at me naked and—”
“Uh—” Colton held up his hand. “What is the naked part?”
Noah smacked his arm. “He’s on a roll. Don’t interrupt him.”
Vlad sighed and ran a hand down his jaw to cover the sudden tremble of his lip. “I couldn’t do it. Not if she was just going to leave me. I couldn’t survive that. So I stopped her and told her to make up her mind, and that led to an argument, and I told her I was a virgin, and she left.”
Mack met Malcolm’s gaze, and together they shook their heads. Mack looked at the ceiling. “Jesus, you are so obtuse when you want to be.”
“What am I being obtuse about? I gave her a chance to tell me what she wants, and she left.”
Del leaned over and smacked Vlad upside the head. Vlad leaned away and rubbed at the spot that now stung from Del’s hand. “What was that for?”
“For being an obstinate ball sack.” Del bent forward and glared menacingly. “You didn’t give her a chance. You made her feel like shit. She took a huge risk in kissing you, and what did you do? You blamed her for your own choice to remain celibate.”
Vlad’s stomach lurched. “I didn’t blame her.” But he had. She’d even called him out on it. I didn’t ask you to wait for me. Don’t put that on me.
“And as an added bonus, you cemented in her mind her greatest fear, that she has fucked up your life, that you’re better off without her,” Del said. “No wonder she left.”
Vlad could barely hear anything over the roar of his own rapid heartbeat. “I’m going to be sick.”
Mack backed up. “For real? Like, you’re going to puke? Or just, like, you’re going to be figuratively sick?”
Vlad wasn’t sure.
Colton pretended to study his fingernails. “Hey, guys? Do you think now might be the right time to put him out of his misery?”
Noah crossed his arms. “Yeah, we’ve probably tortured him long enough.”
Vlad glowered. “What are you talking about?”
Colton shrugged. “She hasn’t left.”
Vlad’s heart stopped. “What?”
Colton grinned. “I happen to have it on good authority that Elena is currently just a few blocks away at Michelle’s house.”
A small blood vessel burst in Vlad’s brain as an overload of conflicting feelings fried his nerve endings. She was still here. She was still here.
Mack grinned. “Ooh, look at that. Plot twist.”
“You knew this all along?” Vlad growled.
Del shrugged. “We like Elena. We weren’t going to tell you until we were sure you deserved to know.”
“I am going to break your balls.”
Mack crossed his hands over his heart. “Is that any way to talk to the friends who are going to help you get your wife back?”
Vlad’s hands shook as he moved the tray to the nightstand. “I—I do not know what to do.”
Mack picked up Hazel and plopped her back on Vlad’s lap. “Well, I might not be a writer, but I would think your next chapter ought to include you making sure she knows you want her to stay.”
Colton laughed and ruffled Vlad’s hair. “Drink your poop tea, little butt. Because you just got your midpoint moment, and you have to decide if you’re willing to start rewriting your own story.”