Page 34 of One Last Shot

“She’s in her—” He starts, but then there’s a flash of purple barreling toward me.

Stella’s whole body hits my legs as she wraps her arms around me, and I have to reach out and steady myself on the wall so I don’t fall over from the impact. “Hey,” I say, smoothing my hand over her curls. “Did you have a good day at school today?”

She nods, her cheek sliding against my pants. “Guess what?” she says, looking up at me. “When Jason was being mean to me today, I told him what you said to say. He didn’t even know what to say back. He went and sat with other people, so at least I wasn’t by him for circle time.”

I have no idea what circle time is. “I’m glad it worked.”

“I think he’s lonely. He’s mean to everyone, so no one wants to be friends with him.”

“It’s always good to be kind to people, especially if they don’t have a lot of friends,” I tell her. “But at the same time, you shouldn’t put up with him treating you like that. He has to learn that people will be more likely to want to be friends with him if he’s a good friend too.”

I glance over at Aleksandr, who is watching us closely. His face is still a mask, and as always, I wish I knew what he was thinking. He’s only let down his guard around me twice this week, that first night I came over when he told me about wanting to adopt Stella, and last night in his kitchen. My stomach flips over at the memory of his body that close to mine and the way his eyes swam with desire right in front of my face. That moment was the basis for all my fantasies last night, and I hate myself a bit for getting off to visions of him fucking me in his kitchen. I shouldn’t be thinking about him like that, both because I’m still mad at him and because he’s Sasha. It’s a hard and fast rule that I don’t sleep with friends or clients, and right now, he’s both. Or at least, maybe we’re working back toward friendship.

“What’s that?” he asks, nodding to the cellophane wrapped plant that I’m holding above Stella’s head.

“This,” I say, “is a little goodbye gift for Stella.” Stella springs back enough to look up, and I hold the plant down at her level. “It’s an orchid, like the ones we saw at the Botanical Gardens,” I tell her.

Her eyes light up and her smile practically splits her face in half. “I’m going to take such good care of it,” she tells me.

“Should we go put it on the windowsill in your bedroom?” I ask her and then look to Aleksandr for confirmation. He nods, and she starts pulling me toward her bedroom.

We’ve unwrapped the plant and set it on the windowsill and I’ve explained to her how to care for an orchid when we hear a conversation in Russian coming from the entryway.

“Who’s that?” I ask her. I can’t make out the words at this distance, but the dialect is clear, as is the firm voice of the female Aleksandr is speaking to.

“Probably my new nanny. She’s stopping by tonight so I can get to know her.”

“You must be excited,” I say with a smile.

“Not really. She’s old, and I don’t think she’ll be as nice as Natasha.”

“Natasha was your last nanny?”

“Yeah. She was the best. She always made sure everything we did was fun.”

I wonder if she was like a big sister to Stella? I always wanted a big sister growing up, but instead I had Viktor, who ignored me in favor of playing with Aleksandr and Nikolai.

“It must have been hard when she left.” There’s a question wrapped up in that statement.

“I miss her so much,” Stella says, “but now you’re here, which is even better.”

Did Aleksandr not tell her I’m leaving?

“Stella, you know that I’m leaving tomorrow morning, right? I have to go home.”

“But you’ll be back, won’t you?” she asks. “To helpDyadyaadopt me?”

I freeze, not sure what to say. “I’ll definitely be back in a few weeks, but I don’t know how long I’ll be staying. I have to be in California in a month for something really important for work.”

Stella’s eyes fill with tears. “So you’re not coming back for good?”

“Honey,” I say as I kneel down in front of her. “I’m going to find a way to help you both, but I don’t think that will involve me staying here in New York.”

“But you have to!” she says, and those tears spill down her cheeks. “You have to. Everyone I love leaves me.”

My heart breaks for her. I know how alone she feels, even though I was older than she is when my mom and brother died. But at the same time, she can’tloveme. She hasn’t even known me for a week.

“I promise I’ll visit, okay?” I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I wonder how I’ll find time for that in my schedule. Though a lot of my events are in the Park City area, my reputation as an event planner means people hire me for events in other locations too. I travel a fair amount for work, mostly on the West Coast. And besides, I’ll be kind of tied to LA for at least the next six months.

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