Page 109 of One Last Shot

“I can sympathize with that feeling,” I tell her as I reach down and pull her foot into my lap.

“Hmm.” She lets the sound out slowly as I untie the gold straps that wind around her calf and slide her sandal from her foot.

“What does ‘hmm’ mean?” I ask as I scoop up her other foot and repeat the process of removing her other heeled sandal.

“I’m just trying to figure out what you mean by that.”

“What’s to figure out? I’ve missed you while you’ve been in LA and it’s been hard on me being separated like that. I want you back here in New York,” I say and she shakes her head back and forth slowly. “Or I want to be in LA, if that’s what it takes.”

Her eyes shoot up to mine, huge and wide and questioning. “What are you saying?”

“I want us to be together wherever it works. And with my contract up in New York after the finals, I’m free to either renegotiate with New York or try to move to another team.”

“You would leave New York?” Her voice is quiet and unsure.

“To be with you? Yes.” My thumbs are making small circles on the ball of one of her feet, and I slide one thumb down along the arch of her foot. Her eyes roll back until they’re closed and a small sigh escapes her lips.

“This ...” she says. “This feels very sudden.”

“Petra.” Her name comes out rough with my Russian accent. I hold the longeand roll therdeliberately, and no other words follow until she opens her eyes and looks at me. “Is this the direction you see our relationship heading in?”

She pauses, then says, “Yes, eventually.”

“But not now?”

Her lips part, but no words come out. I think back to what my dad said about her and her mom:She knew how I felt about her and she used every available opportunity to manipulate me, sharing little pieces of herself here and there when it was convenient for her, then denying there was anything between us and telling me I was a jealous fool. And I’ve watched Petra do the same to you ...

No, that’s not Petra. She’s not denying there’s anything between us.

“I don’t know,” Petra says, and I’ve almost forgotten what I asked.

“What would be different if we waited longer, aside from having to figure out how to make this work long-distance which, let’s be honest, is not working all that well.” Aside from the couple days I spent with her in LA, it’s been over a month since Stella and I had seen her before this weekend. The FaceTime calls we fit in only made it harder because we got to see her without really seeing her.

“Sasha,” she says, as she reaches over and her hand strokes down the side of my face. “I don’t know what my life evenisright now. I don’t know if my show will get picked up for a second season—”

“It will,” I say emphatically. I saw the season premier, I read the reviews, I saw the ratings. If the other episodes are as good as the premier, there’s no way she’s not getting a second season. And I’ve seen another episode while she was filming it, so I know how good they’re going to be.

“But what if it doesn’t? What if you move yourself and Stella to LA, and I don’t get a second season and then I go back to Park City?”

I think about this for a second before I ask, “You’d go back to Park City even if I’d moved to LA?”

Her eyes are wide as she lifts her shoulders in a questioning motion, like she’s pleading with me to understand. “I don’t know. My whole life is in Park City.”

“Your whole life? What about me and Stella?”

“You know what I mean.” She looks away, out at the Manhattan skyline, like the answer to my question might be somewhere over there.

“No,” I say as I switch to massaging her other foot. “I don’t.”

“I mean that everything I’ve built, my business, my employees, my circle of friends ... it’s all in Park City.” The look on her face is so conflicted.

I think about how both Jackson and Sierra have moved away, and how hard Petra’s told me that’s been on her to only have Lauren in Park City.

“Is that something you could be flexible about?” The knot in my stomach is growing tighter by the moment. “There’s no NHL team near Park City. It’s not even an option for me.”

She takes a deep, steadying breath. “I think I’d rather come back to New York than have you move out to Los Angeles.”

“Okay, we can work with that.”

---