“Last-ditch effort,” he said.

“Hmm?” I asked, confused.

“She kissed me because it was her last chance to try. It didn’t work. It will never work,” Aleksandr told me, trying to catch my eye before focusing on the road ahead. “Girls like that don’t care who they hurt.”

Guess he didn’t want to play my infuriating “What’s wrong?”/“Nothing” game. Damn, did this kid know me or what?

“Please speak to me.” One of his hands left the steering wheel to clutch one of mine.

“How do I know it was nothing when she just kissed you? How do I know that’s not happening with other girls when you’re on the road?” I asked, looking for a fight. It wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t help it. He started this conversation.

“You don’t. You just have to trust me.”

A bigger person would have said, Don’t worry about it. Those girls are in the past. I know you’re with me now.

I wasn’t that person. I just shrugged.

Aleksandr cranked the wheel to the right, jerking the Jeep onto a random side street. I reached up, clutching the dashboard for dear life. He pulled the Jeep to the curb, shifted into park, and killed the engine before turning to face me.

“I don’t fuck bunnies, Audushka. I barely even talk to them. All I say is, ‘Leave me alone. Not interested.’ I’m sure they get pissed off because I don’t pay attention. That girl took it out on you because I haven’t made it a secret I’m with you.”

Aleksandr continued. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since I was eighteen. She dumped me a week after my parents died because she said I was too depressed and moody.”

I grabbed on to his hand. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

My face must’ve shown the perfect amount of horror, because he laced his fingers through mine, his thumb rubbing circles into my palm, soothing my tension. “I don’t fuck bunnies. I haven’t even been interested in getting involved with another girl until I met you.”

I felt like an idiot.

“Do you trust me?”

I nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes.

Aleksandr released my hand and reached across me to open the glove compartment. He extracted a gray scarf decorated with black plaid.

I was already wearing a scarf.

Aleksandr lifted my chin with his forefinger, lining up our faces until our gazes met. Then he wrapped the scarf around my eyes and secured it in a knot behind my head.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t know what to say or what was about to happen. I wasn’t scared. I was anxious. Excited. And a little turned on.

“Where are we going?” I asked when I heard the Jeep’s engine roar to life.

“You’ll see.”

“Actually, I won’t. You’ve got my eyes covered up here, buddy.”

“I’m giving you an annoyed look right now.”

I leaned back against the seat, amazed by how my other senses compensated when my sight wasn’t available. The scarf felt like cashmere; silky and snug against my skin. Part of it was resting on the bridge of my nose, and every time I took a breath, I inhaled Aleksandr’s mountain-fresh soap and clove cigarettes scent. I wanted to keep the scarf forever, without washing it or exposing it to any elements that would change its fragrance.

Seconds after the car stopped at what I hoped was our final destination, Aleksandr pulled the passenger door open and scooped me into his arms. He carried me for a few minutes, before he set me down on what felt like a swing. Then he removed the blindfold. I scanned a playground, confused at why he’d brought me to Kerby Field.

“This was where I realized that you were the most amazing, kind, funny, intelligent, and sexy woman I’d ever met,” he told me before I could question his destination decision. “You were so vulnerable, so honest.”

“So psycho,” I interrupted in English. I didn’t know the Russian word for psycho.

“It wasn’t psycho. It was pain, Audushka, real pain. I knew where it was coming from.” He knelt in front of me and slid his palm over my cheek, his thumbs rubbing my temples, his fingers weaving into my hair. “Everything changed for me after that soccer game. I knew I’d fallen in love with you.”

“What?” I gasped, the L-word taking the breath from me.

“I told you that after my parents died I had nothing left but hockey. That’s not true anymore. I have you now. Everything I do and everything I am is all for you, Audushka.” His eyes blazed with the blue of deep ocean waters. “I am so in love with you. I love you.”

Aleksandr’s declaration slapped me across the face.

My response was automatic, because you shouldn’t lie after something slaps you across the face. By that time, you’ve already gotten the worst of it.

“I love you, too.” I’d never felt more real, more exposed, or more vulnerable.

Aleksandr leaned into me, kissing my face, cheeks, eyelids over and over, before settling on my lips. He pressed with an intensity that had become increasingly harder to contain.

“Can I get something out on the table, since you officially love me and all?” I asked, pulling back breathlessly. Leave it to me to open my mouth, quite possibly ruining the best moment of my life by bringing up the past.

“What’s that, love?” Aleksandr kissed my neck, and I almost forgot my train of thought.

“Don’t ever cheat on me, okay?” I said, stroking his hair. “All the stuff with that bunny is—whatever. I know girls are going to throw themselves at you, that’s just part of your life. But when you’re in Charlotte, I won’t be around when you come home from a game or a road trip. So if you ever feel tempted, I’d rather you tell me and break it off than cheat on me. It’s the one betrayal I could never forgive.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, ready to engage my brick-wall coping mechanism.

“The one betrayal you can’t forgive is being abandoned.”

There’s an old saying: The truth will set you free. Well, in my life, I’ve always known the truth to punch me in the gut. But Aleksandr knew how to deliver the blow so that it felt like a caress, rather than a jab.

“Leaving is your job. I’ve known from the start you’d leave me.”

“Take yourself out of it, Audushka. I need to leave for my job, and yes, that means leaving you, but I’m not leaving because of you. You understand the difference, yes?”

I nodded. Logically, I understood the difference, but his leaving took the same toll on my emotions whether or not I could separate the two.

“I know you’re opening up because you think this will be the end. You thought I’d be out of your life in a month, so why not? But it’s not that easy to get rid of me.”

It always floored me when Aleksandr called me out, knowing exactly what I was thinking. All these years I thought I was a complicated mess of a person who no one would understand. Guess it just took someone who was as much of a complicated mess.

How could he blame me for thinking it was the end, when he was the one who’d waited until he was leaving me to declare his love?

“Nothing is forever, Sasha,” I responded, smoothing out the collar of his dark gray peacoat.

I hated that Pavel Gribov had gotten into my head, but his words had only reinforced what I’d already believed. “Nothing is forever” had been my mantra since the age of seven. Independence was one of the first defenses I’d learned to fend off feelings of abandonment. If I were alone, no one could abandon me.

“That is where you are wrong, my sweet, silly girl.” Aleksandr stood up, then lifted me off the swing and into his arms. He patted my rear prodding me to hop up. I obeyed, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He cradled me with ease, his hands clasped under my butt.

“When we met you could’ve acted like a different person, hiding yourself from me. You could’ve fallen all over me, coming to my games in my jersey and boots and nothing else.”

That made me laugh. Out loud. Aleksandr tilted his head as if to say, Work with me here. I pressed my lips together in a tight line, my smile dissolving—sort of.