Page 39 of Playing Her Game

Neither of us bothers to pretend we're not exhausted. My eyes drift closed, open again, and he kisses my shoulder, a soft, barely-there thing that feels more intimate than anything before it.

Afterward, we shower together. He kisses me under the water, slow and unhurried, like we have all the time in the world. His hands move over my skin with the same attentiveness he showed before, and I let myself lean into it, into him, without overthinking what it means.

“I have to be up early. I’ll check on flights.” He steps closer, a long, thick finger lifting my chin. “Sleep in. I’ll wake you when I know something.”

He leaves for a moment, then returns with my toiletry bag. “Thought you might need this.”

“Thank you,” I say as I watch him walk naked out of the bathroom.

“Tease,” I murmur, not too softly, and hear his soft chuckle as he heads to his room.

Leaving the bathroom and heading toward the guest room doesn't feel awkward. It actually feels amazing to know I can sprawl out in a bed without worrying about a wet spot.

I crawl under the thick linen duvet. My phone, my charger, my familiar travel-sized bottle of lotion sitting on the nightstand, placed there by the very, very gracious host, making me feel less like a squatter.

I sit here, staring at the digital clock on his nightstand. I can count the minutes since we showered: eleven, twelve, thirteen. I hear the scrape and hiss of running water behind the bathroom door, the muted thump of the cabinet shutting, the steady rhythm of his feet. I can assume he’s changing bedding. Whatever he’s doing, he’s moving with purpose, and all I can picture is the way his breath shook when he finally seated fully inside me, and the way he hesitated just before kissing me under the water of the shower.

I safely assume he’s compartmentalizing. I know the type—my type, if I’m honest about it. Need a task to transition out of intensity. Sometimes it’s eating a sandwich, sometimes it’s doing the dishes, sometimes (in my case) it’s me looking at the weather app and seeing the storm is not easing up.

When footsteps get closer, I look up, expecting him to say something, but he only nods at me and walks to the other side of the bed. He yanks the top sheet straight, then folds it back, then sits down with the care of someone trying not to wake a sleeping dog. He checks his phone, sets it face-down, and finally gets under the blanket.

For a long, silent stretch, we are two people on parallel planes, close enough to radiate heat but pretending not to notice. I put my head down on the pillow. I keep expecting him to make a joke about a wet spot.

The bed is huge, bigger than a regular king; yet he lies close enough that we’re touching, a little friction to keep things from feeling too heavy. Reznik just lies there. He doesn’t roll over, doesn’t fidget, just lets his breathing slow and thicken until I’m sure he’s already halfway gone.

I tell myself I should sleep, too. That I should get up quietly in the morning, slip out and let this night join the archive of moments I’ll one day edit into a story that never actually happened. But sleep doesn’t come. My brain is playing reels, rewinding the last hour in loops, cataloging every detail as I watch him in the moonlight, the faint mark where my teeth caught his collarbone. I try to focus on the blank wall, on the cooling of my skin, on the wind blowing, but instead I replay the sound of him coming undone, the hoarse catch in his voice, the way he clung to the back of my neck like he was afraid I’d vanish if he let go.

I wait for the aftershock, the shame or sadness or whatever it is that usually follows—the thing that makes me want to run or at least disappear into my own head for a while. But it doesn’t hit. I just feel… calm. Or, not calm, exactly. More like suspended, weightless, but not in a way that frightens me.

After a while, I hear Reznik’s breathing shift. Not quite a snore, but heavier, as if he’s surrendered to the kind of sleep you only get when you’ve worn yourself out completely, body and brain both. I wonder if he dreams of the games, the fights, the crowd noise. I wonder if it’s any different when you’re the one on the ice, or if it’s just as abstract, as slippery and incomprehensible as every dream I’ve ever had about running without knowing where I’m going.

I must doze off, because I lose track of time. When I open my eyes, I feel a warm, hard body pressed against my back, a massive arm around me holding me snug against him, and I drift back to sleep.

The phone vibrates against the nightstand. Once, twice, then a steady rhythm that drags me out of sleep and into the gray morning light filtering through unfamiliar curtains. I reach for it, my hand heavy and uncoordinated, and squint at the screen.

Mother.

The bed beside me is empty. I press my palm against the sheet where Reznik slept and find it cool. He's been up for a while.

I answer. "Hello."

"Anna." My mother's voice is crisp, perfectly modulated, the kind of tone that reminds me of sitting up straight at the dinner table. "I've been trying to reach you."

"I was asleep."

"It's nearly eight."

I sit up, dragging the duvet with me. It’s nearly seven here, but she thinks I’m still in New York. "I'm aware."

There's a pause. The kind that means she's deciding whether to comment on my tone or let it pass. She lets it pass. "Your father and I have been discussing the situation with Lenzin."

My stomach tightens. "What situation?"

"Don't be obtuse, Anna. You know exactly what I'm referring to." She exhales, a soft sound of disappointment. "The family expects you to come home so we can address this properly. Lenzin's parents are as concerned as we are. This infatuation with Miss Sullivan needs to be managed before it becomes a spectacle."

I close my eyes. "It's not an infatuation."

"Regardless. The arrangement between our families⁠—"