Final Score (Madison Howlers #5)

by Camellia Tate

  The way Lev’s hand spanned my back, though, I didn’t feel tall in a bad way. I felt confident, even beautiful. I looked up at him, eyes shining and the corners of my mouth twitching with laughter.

  “Yes!” Michelle praised. “See, like that. The look of love. Now you will find one another, hm?”

  I felt myself swallow at that. Again, I wanted to object, to tell Michelle how Lev was a friend. He was here because I’d asked him to and... All those things easily slipped from my mind as Lev pulled me in tighter against him.

  Somehow, almost by magic, I managed to follow the steps Michelle had instructed us to repeat. My head felt dizzy with how good being so close to Lev felt. I couldn’t help but wonder whether he felt that, too.

  “We’ll try some spins now,” Michelle said. “It’s important for the man to move the woman exactly where they want them,” she added. I frowned, unsure what that really meant. But then Lev did spin me and my breath caught.

  If I had thought his frame was strong, then it was nothing in comparison to how amazing it felt to have him move me so forcefully. He also stopped me, catching me with the lightest of touches. I had no idea how he was managing it. I could barely focus on anything but how good Lev felt against me.

  The samba music was completely drowned beneath the beating of my heart. I could feel its every pulse against my ribs. Had it ever been so loud before? If I hadn’t felt so good I might have worried. As I stepped away from Lev, my feet caught a rhythm I hadn’t even known I was looking for.

  It was second nature to spin away from him, stop, then let his grip guide me back against his chest. I could feel it rising and falling, brushing my breasts from how close we were standing.

  I looked up, tongue darting over my lips. Lev’s eyes weren’t at all what I might have expected. It wasn’t concentration that I saw there, but rather something that echoed in my own expression. Joy! We were having a ball.

  “Again,” I urged, almost breathless.

  He laughed at that, the sound calling to me like a siren might’ve to a fisherman. Lev easily followed my instruction, spinning me around again and letting me then move away before I danced back in. Somewhere near us, Michelle gave an excited whoop.

  “That’s very good! Now try to combine that with the steps. Let him lead, Maria. He won’t lead you astray,” Michelle informed me. Lev snorted.

  When he pulled me in, it was harder, making me press against his chest. He leaned down, so close that I could feel his breath against my cheek. “I could lead you astray,” he told me. It sounded like a promise.

  In my heart, I knew that wherever Lev might lead me, it would be somewhere I was glad to go. I trusted him. Trusted him as I hadn’t trusted anyone in a long time. I grinned up at him. I could only focus half of my mind on the moves Michelle had taught us. It seemed to be enough. We moved around the room, weaving between the other couples, making space for them as they made space for us.

  I was impressed that Lev could navigate us through them. It was all I could do to remember that they were there. My feet felt lighter than air, skipping across the floor to a beat that was half samba and half my own wild excitement.

  When I spun under Lev’s arm, my tassels flared around me. I loved the drama of it. I felt sexy and free. When I pressed up against Lev once more, I swore I could hear his heart pounding in sync with my own.

  I squeezed my hand around his shoulder, feeling the muscles move under my touch. If I tiptoed just an inch, I’d be close enough to whisper in his ear. But I didn’t know how to put what I was feeling into words. It felt too much, expanding all around me the longer Lev held me in his strong arms.

  “This feels amazing,” I gasped. I wanted Lev to know. And I wanted to know that he was feeling it, too.

  “It does,” he agreed. The ease with which he said that, the same way he had earlier so easily told Michelle that he was there for me, sent butterflies fluttering widely in my stomach. I realized that I wanted to tiptoe, I wanted to whisper in Lev’s ear and feel his heartbeat quicken.

  The world seemed to still be around us, waiting for me to be daring, for me to take this opportunity with both hands and hold it close.

  And then, just as I was about to, Lev’s phone went off.

  “Shit!” Lev said. A ‘sorry’ came almost in the same breath. He had to let go of me to find his cell in his pocket. I was sure he was about to turn it off. But then he frowned at the phone. The name ‘Kira’ flashed over and over again, accompanied by a picture of a stunning brunette.

  “I have to take this,” he told me, this time pulling back fully. “I’m sorry, I’ll be back in a second,” Lev said, disappearing out the door before I could even say anything.

  In an instant, all the energy flowing through my body seemed to vanish. I jerked to a stop, standing in the middle of a weaving, spinning mass of couples, feeling small and abandoned and stupid.

  I stared at the door as if I could make Lev reappear in it through sheer force of will. He didn’t.

  Giving myself a little shake, I stepped aside, moving out of everybody else’s way. I caught sight of my face in the mirror, my lips turned down in the opposite of a smile. I took a breath, focusing on the air that filled my lungs.

  I’d just gotten carried away, that was all. I’d gotten lost in the sensuous, sexy music.

  Lev would be back any second. We could pick up where we left off.

  But he didn’t come right back. In fact, it took Lev another five minutes before he finally returned. I ended up briefly dancing with Jaque because Michelle insisted she couldn’t just let me sit at the side of the dance floor. Jaque was an amazing dancer, but none of his spins felt even remotely as good as Lev’s had.

  When Lev returned, it was in a small break. He didn’t even have to say it, I could read the apologetic look all over his face. “I’m really sorry, Masha,” he said. I could feel disappointment pool low in my stomach. “I have to...” I could tell that Lev struggled to express it. At least he knew how shitty that was.

  “I have to go,” he finally managed. Despite knowing it was coming, it still hurt.

  I blinked, refusing to let the tears come to my eyes. My lower lip wobbled before I focused on keeping my jaw tense. It was my birthday! But if Lev said that he had to go, I believed him. He wouldn’t leave me without a partner in the middle of a dancing lesson unless he had no other choice.

  Would he?

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why. Except I didn’t think it would help. I wanted to offer to go with Lev, in case he needed someone he could talk to. He hadn’t asked for that. He probably wouldn’t appreciate me offering.

  I forced a weak smile. “Okay.” What else was there to say? He hadn’t given me any wiggle room. He was leaving and that sucked. “Thanks for coming.” I meant it, and I fought not to let the words sound bitter. “I’ve had a great time.”

  That only made the disappointment more sour. I wanted to keep having a good time. I didn’t think awkwardly dancing with the male instructor was going to help.

  I was honestly too disappointed to even care about the guilty look on Lev’s face. He should feel guilty, I had told him how much birthdays meant to me and now he... But no, I didn’t want to be petty. Lev had come and he had enjoyed himself. I didn’t for a moment believe that he wanted to leave.

  “I am very sorry, Masha. I’ll make it up to you,” he promised. I could hardly imagine how. Lev leaned down, pressing a soft kiss against my cheek. It made all those feelings and emotions bubble up again, the way his hard chest had felt against me when he’d pulled me close.

  Now was not the time for that, especially not with how Lev had to leave.

  I watched him go, trying very hard not to let disappointment overpower me.

  I guess this wasn’t going to be as great of a birthday as I had hoped for.

  Chapter Eleven

  I felt absolutely awful about leaving Maria at the dance class. There was a turmoil of other emotions bouncing through me, too. I tried
to ignore those. Now was not the time to think about how attractive Maria had looked, or how good she’d felt in my hands.

  Leaving her there was such a shitty thing to do. But I didn’t think I had a choice.

  Kira almost always claimed there was some emergency. I knew that. Honestly, my first instinct - maybe for the first time ever, I realized - was to say that I couldn’t come over. But she was crying, barely making sense at all and... I couldn’t risk that she’d done something to herself.

  All of the guilt I felt about leaving Maria on her birthday had to be suppressed so I could concentrate on Kira and whatever it was that she needed right now.

  I expected to find her on the couch, just like I had last time, but instead Kira’s apartment was quiet. There was no TV running in the background, there weren’t even any lights on. I called out Kira’s name when I got there, closing the door behind me. When there was no response, I felt dread pool coldly in the pit of my stomach.

  “Kira!” I called out again, making my way to her bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was dark. But this time I could hear a small response.

  It was almost a whimper, one a small animal might make in a trap.

  “Oh, Kira,” I sighed, walking over so I could pull the blankets away enough to find her face. Even in the light coming from the street, Kira looked pale. Her cheeks were tear-stained, makeup running down them. I would have asked if she was okay, but I knew she wasn’t.

  Reaching out, I brushed a hand through her hair. It seemed to startle her out from whatever state she was in. She finally noticed me there. “I’m sorry,” was the first thing out of her mouth. Her body shook as she burst into tears again.

  I wanted to help her so much it almost physically hurt.

  Sometimes, like when I had first met Kira, she was so full of energy. She brightened any room she went into. And then there were days like this. Days when all she could do was hide under a pile of blankets.

  “It’s okay,” I said, stroking her face softly. “I’m going to make you some tea, yeah? Will you eat it if I bring you some food?” I knew Kira wouldn’t have eaten on her own account. In fact, I suspected she might not have eaten for days.

  There wasn’t a response. She clung to my hand for a moment before moving back enough to let me get up.

  I tried to focus on helping Kira, making food, even tidying up her apartment a bit. The alternative was to think about how disappointed Maria was in me, how much I’d let her down.

  All I could do was hope that Kira wasn’t going to be the reason I lost the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.

  In the end, it took Kira two days to get out of bed. It wasn’t the worst I’d ever seen her, but it came close. Any attempt I made at talking about how she needed to get actual help was dismissed. She was ‘fine’, she told me. And that was it, there was no room for an argument.

  I wondered if I should tell Kira about Maria, about how guilty I felt that I had to leave Maria for Kira. But I realized that would be petty. It wasn’t Kira’s fault that I had been out. It wasn’t even her fault that she felt so low. It was, a small voice whispered in my head, perhaps her fault that she didn’t seek help but... I could hardly abandon her.

  However, it did mean that I had to figure out how to properly apologize to Maria.

  In the end, I went with Anya’s very best medovik cake. It was almost two days after Maria’s birthday. While I had messaged her, I doubted that was enough. So I made my way up the steps to Maria’s apartment, holding the cake out as the best peace offering I could think of. Mostly, I hoped she wouldn’t tell me to leave.

  “Anya promises me it’s the best honey cake this side of Moscow,” I told Maria when she opened the door. “She said me being an asshole might dampen the taste, but if you have it over some apologies it might improve?” I added hopefully.

  Maria’s smile was… tentative. But at least it was there. I tried not to think about the fact that she’d always smiled so easily with me before.

  She stepped back to let me in. It was the first time I’d seen her apartment. Even though she’d mentioned them, I was surprised by the sheer number of photographs on the walls. I recognized Maria, Emily, and Tanya at various ages. The older woman often with them must be Maria’s mom.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maria said, leading me down the hallway and into her kitchen. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  She gave me another smile. “But I will still take this.” She lifted the cake from my hands, setting it down on the counter.

  It was definitely untrue that I had nothing to apologize for. I had left her on her birthday, even after Maria had told me how important birthdays were in her family. No matter what my reasons had been, it was a shitty thing to do and... I don’t know, I guess I kept expecting Maria to tell me as much.

  Except she wasn’t. Instead, Maria went about making coffee to go with the cake. I watched her shimmy around the kitchen. “I have a lot to apologize for,” I told her fairly. “I’m so sorry for leaving like that, Masha,” I said, hoping that my words sounded as genuine as I felt them to be.

  She did turn to me then. I thought I saw her lift her hand as if she were going to lay it comfortingly on my arm. The touch never came. Instead, she shook her head. “It was bad timing, Lev, that’s all. You didn’t plan for it to happen.”

  And no, obviously, I would never have planned to have Kira need me on Maria’s birthday. But she still had, and I had still gone to her.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Maria was saying all the right things, but I felt like... I don’t know. I was sure she would be angry, that I would have to grovel, to apologize until I couldn’t muster another apology. That had been my experience in dating Kira. Not that Maria and I were dating but... I’d let her down, I knew that.

  So why was she so... fine with it?

  “Are you not angry?” I asked, almost dumbfounded.

  She took a step closer to me, but she still didn’t touch me. I didn’t know why I was suddenly so aware of her hands, or the way there was always a distance between us. A distance that hadn’t been there when we’d danced.

  When her gaze met mine, her eyes looked almost as perplexed as I felt.

  “Of course not.” She said it like it was the simplest thing in the universe. “I was disappointed, but I know that you wouldn’t have left if you hadn’t had to.”

  That was... logical.

  It genuinely confused me. In my experience, it didn’t matter how much sense something made, if you upset someone they still lashed out at you. That thought made me realize that maybe it wasn’t how things were meant to be. I wouldn’t lash out at someone like that but... it was odd to think that Maria was giving me fair treatment.

  Somewhat fair. I did still think she had all the right in the world to be angry at me.

  Taking a seat at her kitchen table, I gave a small sigh. “I know I let you down,” I said. Even the admission ached low in my stomach. I didn’t want to be someone who let Maria down. I didn’t want to be someone who let anyone down. “You deserve an explanation.”

  Slowly, Maria transferred the cake onto two plates. She set one in front of me along with a cup of coffee. “Only if you want to give me one,” she said. “I don’t want you to feel as though you have to.”

  That, too, was confusing. It must’ve shown on my face because Maria continued. “I’m not saying that you didn’t let me down. It sucked, having to finish the class by myself.” Inwardly, I winced at the thought. All those couples there to dance together, and Maria had been left alone.

  Maria shrugged. “But I trust you. I know that you had a good reason. So I won’t hold it against you. That’s not conditional on you telling me what the reason was. If it was good enough for you to feel like you had to leave, then it’s good enough for me. Even if you never tell me what it was.”

  I honestly had no idea what to do with how genuine Maria sounded. I had left her on her
birthday to go look after my ex. Granted, Maria didn’t know that. I wondered if that particular detail would make a difference. It shouldn’t, I realized. It wasn’t like Maria was my girlfriend but... All of this was very confusing.

  “I met Kira when I was nineteen and still a rookie,” I said. Maybe explaining the whole situation to Maria would make this situation somehow less muddled. “She's a second-generation immigrant. Her parents are Russian, she speaks Russian, I guess that was one of the things that drew me to her.” I was a sucker for anyone speaking my mother tongue, it seemed.

  Reaching out for the cup of coffee Maria set down to join the cake, I played with the handle. “She was like fire, like no one I had ever met before. We started dating and things were great.” Or well, as great as a nineteen-year-old could understand. “But she’s... We’d have these explosive arguments, we’d break up, we’d get back together. It’s been years of that.”

  That was why the team was always relieved when I was on an ‘off’ with Kira. I knew she made me a worse person but... I couldn’t help caring for her, even if it had been years since I loved her romantically.

  I didn’t dare to look up at Maria, not wanting to see whatever her eyes might betray. “The past few years have been especially bad. Kira’s... she’s not okay. Like in her head? And I’ve been trying to help her but... I don’t think I know how? So I go over when she asks me to because...” Well, sometimes there was nothing wrong and I still went. That was probably why she called.

  But then there were days like Maria’s birthday.

  “When I went over the day before yesterday, she was in bed. She hadn’t gotten out of bed in days. She called me crying and I... I couldn’t not go.” I worried a lot that one day I’d go over and Kira wouldn’t be there, that I would be late and something worse than hiding under blankets might’ve happened.

  Finally, I gave a small sigh, looking up at Maria, daring to take whatever judgment she might dish out. “I am aware of how unhealthy it is for me.” Because my teammates were pretty good at telling me as much.