Promise Me
“Down. Get down.”
Tony grabbed Anna and dragged her back into the ditch. They flattened against the Earth as the rumble of trucks grew louder, closer. Tony covered her with his body as he peeked above the side.
“What do you see?”
He nearly fainted in relief. He rolled onto his back. “Americans. They’re Americans.”
Tony lifted both hands in the air and slowly stood. A nervous private could still shoot his nuts off if he made too many fast moves. He approached the road, and one of the trucks slowed with a grind of the gears.
“Press,” Tony panted. “American.”
The driver tipped his cap. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”
Anna scrambled up the side of the ditch. The driver winced. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“We need a ride back,” she said. “Can you take us?”
“We can get you as far as Minsk, but after that, I don’t know.”
Anna and Tony jogged to the back of the truck. A young GI held out his hand to help Anna aboard, and Tony shot him a warning dagger with his eyes when the kid admired her too closely.
Then he accepted the outstretched hand of one of the GIs. They sank against the hard benches. Anna closed her eyes and dropped her head back, panting.
“Where you coming from?” Tony asked.
“Barth,” the captain answered. “POW camp.”
“We’re investigating the marches,” Tony said. “You find any evidence of them?”
The captain spit on the wooden floor. “Fucking bastards. Some got away. But most that ran were shot. We picked up a couple of stragglers from the sixty-third and left them at the aide station.”
Anna’s eyes flew open. “The sixty-third?”
“Yeah,” the captain said. “Why?”
Anna shot to her feet. Tony grabbed her arm. “I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t.”
She pulled her arm away. “They were in the same camp as members of the 579th,” she breathed. Jack’s squadron. “I have to talk to them.”
She stumbled as the truck lurched. “You can’t just jump off, Anna,” he said, but she was already threading her way toward the flap of the truck.
She looked back at him. “I have to.”
In his two years as a war correspondent, Tony had seen and experienced every kind of horror. But he’d never, not once, panicked the way he was panicking now. He watched her jump off the truck and hesitated a mere second before he took off after her. He landed awkwardly on his leg. “It’s too dangerous, Anna. These roads are still crawling with the enemy. I’ll be shot if we’re captured, but you—” A tortured noise cut off his words.
She kept walking. “I have to go. I have to do this. They might know where Jack is. Don’t you understand?”
“I can’t let you.”
“It is not your decision.”
“Anna.” He grabbed her arm and whipped her around, tugging her close to his body. “Don’t do this to me. Please.”
His eyes held hers before dipping to stare longingly at her lips. He lowered his mouth to hers in an almost punishing kiss. She clung to the front of his shirt and let him plunder her mouth, his thumbs digging into her jaw and his fingers pressed against the side of her head. He pulled back just enough to steal her gaze.
She stared at the long road ahead before turning back to him. “Tony,” she whispered. “I have to go.”
Anna backed away from him with shaky, stumbling steps. She walked away, taking with her the sun and the moon and the tides and the gravity that had become his life force.
“Anna,” he pleaded.
“Please, Tony. Don’t make this harder.”
“Anna, I love you.”
Her footsteps faltered.
“I love you, and you don’t have to do this. Stay with me. Stay with me.”
Suddenly, she was in his arms. “I love you too. I’ll stay with you. I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Look, I know things are all hot and happy in your house these days, but you can’t end the book this way.”
Vlad popped a gluten-free cracker in his mouth as he looked up from his notes the next afternoon at Colton’s. While he and the Bros plotted out the rest of the book, Elena was meeting the Loners at Alexis’s café to talk about cats and Russian tea cakes or something. Then they would join the guys to watch the next Stanley Cup game.
Vlad had been feeling pretty good about life and the book so far, until now. “Why not?”
Mack twisted off the top of a beer. “Because there’s no conflict. She just up and decides that she’s going to stay with Tony because he asks her to? It’s not very satisfying.”
“They end up together. How is that not satisfying?”
“Because they haven’t really earned their happy ever after,” Malcolm said.
Mack pointed with his beer. “Thank you. Yes. You ever get to the end of a book where they end up together without having to overcome any significant obstacles? It sucks. You feel cheated.”
Malcolm reached for the bag of crackers, tossed one in his mouth, and immediately spit it out. “This tastes like an Amazon box.”
Vlad bristled. “They have faced a ton of obstacles. They’ve been nearly shot, and they were chased by the SS, and—”
Del shook his head. “Those are external problems, man. External obstacles. You have to make them face their internal fears before they can truly have a happy ending.” He reached for the crackers. “Let me try one.”
“It’s your taste buds,” Malcolm warned.
Del took a bite and spit it out. “I’d rather shit my pants.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Vlad snapped. “It is not funny when it is your pants you are shitting.”
“It’s not like I’d shit someone else’s pants.”
Noah kicked his feet up on a leather ottoman in front of his chair. “I know I’m the newest member of the group and all and I still don’t know much, but I concur with everyone else. I want to see Tony and Anna have to dig deep one last time.”
“Not every book has to have some big, dramatic all is lost moment,” Vlad pouted.
Gavin piped in. “But every book needs a last push to the end that forces a character to have a final epiphany that helps themselves see clearly for the first time.”
Vlad crossed his arms and scowled. “So you’re saying she shouldn’t stay with Tony? She should leave him and go find Jack?”
“She has to go look for Jack,” Malcolm said. “Otherwise, has she really chosen Tony? How will he know that she really chose him?”
“Why the hell does that matter?” And why the hell was he taking it so personally?
“It matters because Jack is the one thing still standing in their way emotionally,” Malcolm said. “He’s everything Tony fears he lacks as a man, and he’s the past that Anna can’t forget. Until they deal with those issues, it’s a cheap way to end the book.”
“Did you read the scene?” Vlad argued. “He just told her he loves her. You guys have been riding my magnificent ass to get Tony to advance the relationship. It’s the one thing he has feared more than anything else. How is that not digging deep?”
“You said that telling her how he felt about her was his greatest fear,” Malcolm said. “But is that really it? Is that what truly scares him?”
“Yes.”
“What if she’d left anyway?”
Vlad scowled as he pondered Malcolm’s question. “What do you mean?”
“What is the worst possible thing that could happen to him at this point?”
“For her to not feel the same way.”
“No,” Colton said, suddenly somber in a way Vlad rarely saw his friend. “For her to love him, too, but to leave him anyway.”
Silence descended over the r
oom. The reverent, damn, that’s some deep shit kind of silence.
“Vlad, does Tony believe that Anna would ever choose him over Jack?” Malcolm asked.
“No,” he breathed.
“Which means she has to go look for Jack,” Mack said. “Otherwise, has she really chosen Tony? How will he know that she really wants him?”
“He has to let her go,” Noah said.
Vlad shook his head. No. That was too mean. He couldn’t do that to Tony.
“More importantly,” Malcolm said, “he has to find the faith that their love is strong enough for her to come back to him.”
Vlad tossed his notebook. “If you guys know my characters so damn well, then you write it.”
Colton tsked and opened a beer. “Sorry, dude. Only you can write the end to your own story.”
* * *
* * *
“I don’t think this looks right.”
Michelle pulled her tray from one of the large ovens inside the ToeBeans Café kitchen and set it on the cooling counter with a skeptical eye.
Elena peeked over Michelle’s shoulder at the golden-brown pastry cups. “They’re perfect.”
Elena was teaching them how to make korzinochki, a sweet little sour-cream tartlet that had been one of her father’s favorites and would be perfect for the watch party later.
“I don’t think that looks right,” Andrea said, pointing at Alexis’s cat, Beefcake.
Since ToeBeans was a cat café—Alexis hosted cat adoption events on the weekends—Beefcake came to work with her every day to sit in a window box and intimidate customers. He looked like the bad end of a failed science experiment.
“I should get a cat like that,” Claud said, watching from a stool next to the stainless-steel counter inside the kitchen. She declared that morning that she’d be happy to eat the cakes but wanted no part of making them. “I need something to sit in a window box and bare its privates and hiss at men.”
“Isn’t that basically what you do every day?” Elena asked.
Michelle smothered a laugh and turned around, shoulders shaking. Elena looked at Claud, who had a small smile on her face.
“Okay, these can cool while we make the filling,” Elena said.
Alexis gathered all the ingredients—heavy cream, sour cream, and powdered sugar—and measured them into her professional-size mixer. Once the white concoction was the right consistency, they spooned dollops onto the pastries.
“You’re pretty damn good at this, you know,” Alexis said a few minutes later, adding sliced strawberries to each pastry. “Can I lure you to work for me?”
Elena smiled at the praise. “If I could work in America with my visa, I would be a journalist. But I appreciate the offer.”
“So, what are you going to do now that you’ve decided to stay?” That was Andrea. “Can you do any kind of journalism?”
“Only on a volunteer basis maybe. I met with Gretchen Winthrop, and she said she has some ideas for me on how I can help. I think I’d love to tell the stories of refugees and asylum seekers who are stuck in the immigration system.”
“You’d do it for free?” Linda said.
Elena nodded. “The stories matter more than me getting paid for now.”
Claud snorted. “No one is that pure.”
Michelle and Elena looked at each other and spoke in unison. “Vlad is.”
Alexis smiled and hugged herself. “I can’t help but notice your ring.”
Elena blushed.
Andrea sighed. “I miss being in love.”
“What happened to Jeffrey?” Elena asked.
“It fizzled.”
Elena bit her lip. “But, like, he’s alive?”
Andrea sighed. “Alive. Just boring.”
“This means you’re definitely staying, right?” Michelle said, redirecting the conversation to Elena.
“I am. I have some loose ends I need to tie up, but yes. Vlad and I are staying together.”
No one asked her what she meant by loose ends, and she was relieved. She still hadn’t even told Vlad about the loose ends yet.
Alexis hugged her and squeezed. “I am so glad. You two belong together.”
“Should we head over to Colton’s?”
Andrea did a little dance. “I cannot believe I’m going to Colton Wheeler’s house.”
Alexis and Elena carefully boxed up the pastries in pretty pink boxes emblazoned with the logo for ToeBeans and then loaded them into Alexis’s car behind the café. Elena was parked up the block in the public lot. Michelle had driven the Loners in her own car and had already headed out.
As Alexis and Elena walked back into the café, Elena’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number on the screen.
Her skin turned to ice.
* * *
* * *
Vlad curled his phone into his hand as Elena’s number went straight to voice mail again.
“She did not say who was on the phone?” he asked.
Alexis hugged herself and shook her head. She’d arrived at Colton’s fifteen minutes ago and told him Elena had gotten a strange text and quickly left. Now, she wasn’t answering his call.
“It shook her up,” Alexis said. “She tried to act like it didn’t, but I know it did. I hope I’m not being too nosy.” Noah rubbed Alexis’s back.
“No. Thank you for telling me.” Vlad dialed Elena’s number again.
Again, it went straight to voice mail. Something was wrong.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, dude,” Mack said. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen, smiling at him with varying degrees of reassurance and concern.
“Can you give me a ride home?” Vlad asked. “I just want to check on her.”
Colton nodded, already digging keys from his pocket. He looked at Mack. “You guys hang out here. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Mack nodded. “Keep us posted.”
Colton drove faster than normal for him, which was saying a lot, because he tackled every road in his life like the cops were on his tail. The SUV was in the driveway when they got there. It was pulled up in front of the door, crooked, as if she’d raced home so quickly that she couldn’t be bothered with the garage.
Colton followed him inside. Vlad called her name from the entryway. When she didn’t respond, Colton said he’d check the backyard while Vlad went upstairs. He called her name again. At the top of the stairs, he heard her voice, muffled and frantic, coming from the guest room. The door was closed.
“Elena?”
He knocked on the door and nearly fell backward when she pulled it open. She immediately returned to pacing, phone pressed to her ear.
“I don’t understand,” she was saying. “Why are you telling me this if you won’t give me the report yourself?”
“Who is it, Elena?”
She gave him a fierce headshake. His eyes took in the rest of the scene. Papers were strewn across the bed—folders and scraps of notes and printouts from websites. He crutched closer. There was no rhyme or reason to the chaos. He picked up a folder, flipped it open, and skimmed the top page. None of it made sense. There were notes in her handwriting of what looked like an interview, but about what, he couldn’t decipher.
“Elena—”
She held up her hand to silence him again. Then into the phone, she said, “Just wait. You can’t drop this on me and then refuse to help. Why the hell did you even call me?” She paused again, and her eyes bugged out. “You know I can’t do that!”
Whoever was on the other line ended the call. Elena folded her phone into her hand and began to shake.
“Elena, what the hell is going on? What is all this? Who was that?”
Elena sank onto the mattress. Her pupils were dilated like someone high on Adderall or adrenaline. Her hands s
hook. Her knees bounced. And when she finally looked up at him, her gaze scared the shit out of him.
Colton’s voice called up the stairs then. “Hey, I’m coming up. Is everything okay up here?”
Vlad swiveled on his crutches and hobbled back to the hallway just as Colton appeared at the top of the stairs. “I found her.”
“Everything okay?”
He had no idea. “I will be down soon.”
Colton looked unconvinced but turned around and headed back down the stairs. Vlad returned to the guest room to now find Elena standing and frantically sorting through the mess on the bed. Frustrated with his inability to move, Vlad tossed his crutches and tested the weight on his foot. He hobbled to her. “Elena, you have to talk to me. What is all this?”
“I have to go back.”
“Go back where? Chicago?”
Her hands stalled. “No.”
His stomach plummeted. “Russia?”
“Just for a few days,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Maybe a week.”
“Why?”
She turned to face him, a mixture of regret and entreaty tightening her features. “I should have told you about this. I was going to, but there hasn’t been time, and—”
“Told me about what?” Jesus, it was like they were having two different conversations. He asked her what color the sky was, and she gave him the recipe for borscht.
“This,” she said, gesturing toward the mess on the bed. “What I’ve been working on.”
Vlad gripped her shoulders. “Look at me,” he said, trying to calm his voice. “Just start at the beginning.”
Elena sucked in a breath and let it out. “Okay. But you have to promise not to freak out.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’ve been trying to finish my father’s story.”
He freaked out. His knees grew weak, so he sank to the edge of the bed and tried to keep up as words spilled from her mouth, but they were gibberish, meaningless. Or maybe it was just his brain refusing to listen, to process.
“Elena.” He coughed to clear the sand from his throat. “I don’t understand. How long have you been working on this?”
Isn't It Bromantic? Page 26
