Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,4
quickly that she skidded and nearly toppled over in her high heels. Her long red dress swirled around her legs. On instinct, he shot out his hands to steady her, wrapping his fingers gently around her bare elbows.
“Be careful,” he whispered, his voice a low rasp because the shock of touching her had stolen all the air from his lungs.
She slowly turned around, and with regret, he let his hands fall away. She radiated heat and smelled like comfort. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, still speaking Russian, because that’s what they did. They always used their native language with each other. “You look so beautiful.”
Elena shook her head and refused to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. I should have called. I shouldn’t have surprised you like this.”
He reached again for her elbows. “This is the best surprise of my life.”
Her eyes darted left and then right. Anywhere but at him. “Vlad, maybe I should just wait for you at home. I don’t want to interrupt—”
“You’re not interrupting. I want you here.”
She bit her lip and hugged her torso.
“Hey,” he said. He took a bold chance of caressing the underside of her chin to encourage her to look at him. “Are you nervous to meet my friends? You don’t need to be. They will love you. I promise. They’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”
“Vlad, you don’t understand. I thought . . . I thought this would make it easier. I thought I could come here, and we could meet on friendly terms and it would be easier this way. But then I heard your speech, and I saw you with them, and I—I don’t belong here. I’m not part of this. I never was.” Her voice shook, and her lip began to tremble.
And suddenly, reality was like a hard hit on the ice. Cold and jarring. His stomach pitched as he put an extra foot of distance between them. “Elena, what—what are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry . . .” She barely got the words out. “I’m going back to Russia.”
CHAPTER ONE
Six months later
In another era, the neglected building on the south bank of the Cumberland River might have been quaint and inviting. Happy, even. But no more.
Empty, broken flower boxes hung beneath windows that had been painted black and boarded up from the inside. The thin scraps of what had once been red-and-white awnings flapped in the humid June breeze, clinging to the building’s past like ghosts who whispered of the dangers that awaited. Only fools would willingly fail to heed their warning, but Vlad had already proven himself a fool. And even as his mind berated his body for its weakness, his skin prickled in anticipation of the sweet relief he knew he would find once he knocked on the door.
The man sitting next to him in the passenger seat of his car berated him for another reason entirely. “Let me get this straight,” Colton said, adding some whiny twang to his voice. “I don’t hear from you for three months, and when you finally call, it’s for this? So we can sit here while you mutter to yourself in Russian?”
“It has not been three months,” Vlad protested. It had actually been four.
In the first several weeks after Mack’s wedding—after Elena told him she was leaving and wanted to end their marriage—Vlad deluded himself that he could still be part of the book club. But every minute with the guys was more painful than the last. Their happiness was salt to a wound, and when he finally told them that he and Elena were getting a divorce, their earnest offers to help were even worse. He couldn’t stand to spend one more minute making up excuses and lies. Couldn’t stand to watch his friends live the life he always dreamed of, knowing he would never have the same. Couldn’t stand to be reminded that his belief that he could build a real marriage with Elena was nothing more than a delusional fantasy. The manuals had filled him with nothing but false hope that Elena could ever see him as the romance hero of her dreams. That she could ever love him like the romance heroine of his. He knew the truth now. Happy ever afters were for other men.
All Vlad had left was hockey.
And now, for first time in twenty-five years, the Nashville Vipers had made it to the conference finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs. One more win, and they’d be in the championship series.