Page 43 of One Last Shot

“Has she never had a sleepover before?” Maybe he’s hesitant because it’s new. But that seems odd to me since Stella and Harper have been friends since birth. How could they have never had a sleepover?

“The girls used to do them all the time. But after Colette and Niko died, Alex has been really hesitant to let her out of his sight. Which I understand, but at the same time, I think the girls need each other now more than ever before.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you. Why don’t we plan something for Saturday? I’ll make sure it happens.”

“Really?” she sounds skeptical. “I don’t want to cause any problems between you and Alex. And I don’t want him to think that I went behind his back to plan this with you.”

“I never had a friendship like Stella and Harper’s when I was a kid,” I tell her. “What they have is special and we need to nurture it. I’m happy to go to bat with Aleksandr about it.” Honestly, I’m even looking forward to it. Maybe it’s a holdover from our childhood, but if there’s anything I like more than seeing the cracks in that mask of his when we argue, I don’t know what it is.

“Are you sure? If he’s not ready to let her come over, I don’t want to push it,” Sofia says.

“What do you think is best for Stella?”

“I think getting back to normal as much as possible.”

“And were sleepovers a normal thing before her parents died?” I ask.

“Yeah, honestly, they were. Either Harper would stay at Niko and Colette’s, or Stella would stay with us. All the time.” She tells me a little more about the routine frequency of their sleepovers.

“Then getting back to that will be a good thing, and Aleksandr will just need to get over himself.”

Sofia laughs. “I’ve honestly never heard anyone talk about him that way. Everyone’s so intimidated by him.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ve known him my whole life. He doesn’t scare me.” At least, not in the way other people might be scared of him. What scares me, instead, is how my body betrays me when he’s around. Last week in the kitchen before CeCe and Tony came over, the way he looked at me and the raw desire I saw on his face, is everything my sixteen-year-old self wanted to see from him. And even as badly as he hurt me back then, some part of me still wants to see it. I just can’t act on it. Good. Let him desire me and not be able to have me. It’ll serve him right to feel how I felt back then.

“He doesn’t scare me,” Sofia clarifies, “but he still intimidates the hell out of me. I can never tell what he’s thinking, and with how little he actually speaks—it’s unnerving. But I’ve also seen him at his absolute lowest, right after his brother died, and I’ve helped him learn to parent Stella. So I also feel like we have this understanding.”

“I’m glad that he and Stella have you,” I tell her as class wraps up, “They’ll continue to need you ...”

“After you leave?” she asks. I can’t tell by her tone how she intends that statement. Concern? Judgment?

“Yeah,” I say as I swallow down the thought of leaving Stella. How has this little girl wound herself around my heart so quickly? I thought I’d hardened myself off against these types of feelings, but I’d always focused on not feeling them toward men.

I know they say that the love you feel toward your child is instant and unconditional. But it never occurred to me that I could care about a child who wasn’t even mine so swiftly and so completely.The important thing is to not let her get attached to you, I remind myself.Then you won’t hurt her when you leave.

The girls come running out of class in their black leotards with their pink tights and ballet slippers still on their feet. I help Stella into her post-ballet shoes and get her into her fleece, and then we’re fighting the cold gray mist that’s settled over the city this afternoon. We slip into the back of the car and I tell Sasha’s driver where we’re meeting Sofia and Harper for our ice cream dinner.

* * *

“You didwhat?” Sasha says on the other end of the phone. I can’t tell if he’s upset or just surprised.

“I took her out to ice cream for dinner to celebrate.” I bring my feet up onto the bed and pull the throw blanket at the end over my legs.

“To celebrate the fact that she got sent home from school?”

I get distracted by the view out the glass wall on the opposite side of my room and into the solarium. The moon has finally peeked through the clouds and it’s lighting up the plants inside. I could get used to this.No, you can’t, I remind myself.You’re leaving in a week and a half.

“Petra, that’s not something to celebrate,” he admonishes when I don’t respond.

“We weren’t celebrating the fact that she hurt someone or that she got sent home from school. We were celebrating her standing up for herself.”

“And you think she knows the difference? What makes you think she’s not going to feel empowered to deal with every situation with physical violence now?”

“How would you have suggested she deal with this type of bullying if she were a boy?” I ask.

His pause is his answer.

“Well, she’s not a boy, is she?” His dry sarcasm is the wrong approach.

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