Smoke Signals (26 page)

I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Before you know it, you’ll be fighting off the toddler boys at day care with a smile like that.”

“Fuck.” He laughed. “Don’t even go there. Let’s wait until she can walk and talk first before we start worrying about boys.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I agreed, winking in Dima’s direction as he strolled past us. He only glowered more than he already had been. I shook my head. “Anyway, I’d better be getting home.”

Hunter snorted. “Yeah, because your honeymoon wasn’t long enough alone with Tori. I get it. By the way, let Tori know Tallie needs to get out of the house sometime soon. They should go get pedicures together or something. Maybe take Dana or some other girls along. They could do it while we’re home, so I can stay with the baby…”

I grabbed my duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I’ll let her know.” In fact, I’d flat-out encourage Tori to call her friend. Anything I could do to convince her she belonged in my life, I’d do.

“Later,” Hunter called as I headed for the exit.

I waved without bothering to turn and look.

Tori wasn’t home when I got there, which only increased my anxiety. True, she’d been staying at the studio more since we’d returned from Portland. But she’d always gotten home before I had, and today I’d been gone longer than usual.

I dug my phone out of my pocket and sent her a text message to see what she was up to. Even after I’d unloaded all my gear into the garage and started a load of laundry so my sweaty gear wouldn’t stink up the place, she still hadn’t responded.

Jumping to conclusions would be the wrong thing to do. I knew it. Every bone in my body knew it. But I still leaped straight past thinking she was still dancing and landed squarely in the realm of paranoia.

I went to our bedroom and looked in the closet. Nothing seemed to be missing. I opened drawers in the dresser and checked in the bathroom to see if all her undergarments and toiletries were present and accounted for. Nothing out of place. Even the drawstring bag where she kept her dilators was still on the bathroom counter next to her deodorant and the vanilla-scented body spray she always used. If she’d left, she hadn’t taken a damn thing with her other than those things that were constantly in her purse and the clothes on her back. I was probably flipping out for nothing.

My phone rang, and I answered without looking at the screen.

“Tori?”

“Not unless it’s
Freaky Friday
with a
Twilight Zone
twist,” Mom said.

That was enough to get a chuckle out of me. “Hi, Mom.”

“Why did you sound so upset?”

“It’s just…” Too much to explain, and most likely a sign of my insanity. “Nothing. No need to worry.”

“I think I know you better than that by now, Ray.”

“Well, I think you also know me well enough to know I’ll figure things out on my own.”

“Yeah. Except for those instances you end up with duct tape on your ass and can’t get it off without my help,” she said dryly.

“I was just a kid.” And that was a memory we would both do better to forget.

“It’s not like you were five, Ray. You were thirteen, and it left me scarred for life.”

“It was my ass hair that got ripped out.” I shuddered, remembering the pain of it. Never in a million years would I understand women getting waxed, or at least doing so in such sensitive places. The ones who did had to be masochists.

“And it was
me
who had to see that my little boy wasn’t a little boy anymore, but might as well be a man. At least in some ways. The ways a mother should never have to see with her own two eyes.”

“It’s not like my dick was the first you ever saw.”

“And thank God for that.”

“You sure do know how to stroke my ego.”

“That’s what a mother’s for. That and coming to the rescue when you get in over your head with a woman. Which is why I called.”

How did she know I was in over my head with Tori? I hadn’t said a word to my mother about anything to do with my marriage since asking for advice about Tori’s pain during intercourse, and that had been a good while. “I’m not following.”

“You don’t remember you asked me to come for a visit? Hmm. I guess you forgot all about that right around the same time you forgot to tell me you got married.”

“You’re coming?” Just like that, I started to breathe easier. Whatever was going on with Tori, whatever had her fight-or-flight instinct turned all the way to flight, I knew Mom could help me figure it out.

“Flying in next Friday. I checked the team’s schedule. Figured I could come in for the season opener on Sunday and stick around for a week or so, until you head out on the road. Can you pick me up at the airport, or will you forget all about that, too?”

“I’m not going to forget about you.”

“Mm-hmm. So how’s the whole painful sex thing going? Did you get her to a doctor?”

“We’re working on it. We’re getting it sorted out.”

She made a sound that I couldn’t quite interpret. This was one of those times I really wished I could see her face so I could have a clue what was going on in her head.

“What?” I asked when she didn’t expound.

“I’m just proud of you, Ray.”

Proud of me? I married a porn star, and my mother was telling me she was proud of me. How many sons had a relationship like this with their mothers? Probably not many. I couldn’t stop the grin from forming. My mom was one of a kind, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you said
we
.
We’re
working on it.
We’re
sorting it out. You’re not leaving it all to her. You’re acting like it’s your problem, your responsibility, as much as it’s hers.”

“Well, that’s because it is.” Tori was my wife, for fuck’s sake. If she couldn’t handle sex…

“Times like this,” Mom said, “you make me think I did all right with you.”

“You did more than all right with me. You were the best mom a guy could ever hope to have.”

“A lot of people wouldn’t agree with that, you know.”

“Well, a lot of people can go take a fucking leap off a cliff, then. They don’t know. They don’t get it.”

“I’m really glad Tori has you, Ray. And I can’t wait to meet her.”

I couldn’t wait for them to meet, either.

The garage door opened, which meant Tori was home and all my worries had been for naught. At least this time.

“I’ve gotta go, Mom. Text me your flight details, okay?”

“Got it. And Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Should I bring condoms for you to keep in your wallet? I mean, I know you’re married and all…”

“Oh my God, Mom. I’m a grown man. I’m perfectly capable of wrapping my shit up when it needs to be wrapped up.”

“Just checking. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I disconnected the call and headed out to the living room. Tori glanced over when she heard me, smiling from ear to ear. She had too many grocery bags in her hands, so I hurried over to help her with them.

“Did you have a good day?” I asked, taking a few of the bags.

“Best day,” she said. “Blisters on my feet, and toes hurt like crazy, but doesn’t matter.”

The smile that had started when I was talking to Mom only grew. I’d only seen Tori this excited about anything once before. When we’d been at the ballet. “Why doesn’t it matter?” I asked.

“Because Devin Shreeve came to studio. Came to Tulsa just to see me dance. Katie sent him after Portland. He asked me to be in his production. Video for band.” She dropped everything—purse, groceries, and gym bag—on the counter and turned to me, her eyes glowing with exhilaration. “Can I? Is it all right?”

“Of course it’s all right.”

The second the words left my lips, she flung herself into my arms.

If she was this excited about dancing with Devin Shreeve, whoever the hell he was, then at least I shouldn’t have to worry about her trying to run off any time soon. Maybe it would buy us enough time to get to the root of her fears.

I’D BEEN THROUGH
a lot in my life, but I could honestly say I’d never felt as much internal turmoil as I was experiencing now.

When Papa had insisted I leave Russia and go to America, yes, there had been a great deal of conflict and confusion in both my head and my heart. I didn’t want to leave him. I was scared to go somewhere alone, especially when I had never been there before and my knowledge of the language was as bare-bones as possible. But I’d gone, because staying in Russia was no longer an option. If I had stayed, I would have been taken by the Tambovs, the same as Mama was, and I would likely now either be dead or held in some form of slavery.

Leaving him, leaving my home, had been necessary for survival. This was something I’d understood, even if it had ripped out my heart to go through with it.

When I’d found out Papa was dead, there had been even more confusion. I knew I couldn’t go back to Russia, but I also knew I couldn’t stay in America and keep going to school without the money he would have sent. Did I want to strip for money? Of course not. Did I want to sell my body for sex, to make porn movies? Absolutely not.

But again, it had been a question of survival. I’d told myself that I would only have to do it until I finished school, and then I would be able to get work with a ballet company in the States, and everything would be all right.

Things hadn’t worked out that way in the end, but nothing I’d experienced in my life had come close to preparing me for what I was feeling in the present.

I’d screwed up when I’d let myself fall in love with Razor. Everyone I loved was taken from me. This was simply how my life worked. So now, I was waiting for the moment when he was taken from me. Or perhaps, more accurately, when I would be taken from him.

Tonight was the Thunderbirds’ final preseason home game. I hadn’t come to any of the others, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to come to this one. As it was, I hardly knew any of the other players’ wives besides Tallie, and some of them might have been the women at Jamie and Katie’s wedding who’d made their feelings about me clear. But Tallie talked me into going with her.

“Screw those bitches,” she’d said while we got our pedicures a few days before the game. “Half of them think they’re better than me because I used to compete in beauty pageants. I don’t care. If they can’t look past what I’ve done in the past to see who I am in the present, I don’t need them. So what if they don’t like you? That just means you don’t need to waste your time on trying to get to know them. They aren’t worth it. But a few are…and besides, you can play with Harper.”

The lure of getting baby time was what convinced me to go along with her in the end. I’d never been around babies much, but every time I was around Harper, she latched on to my fingers and blinked her big eyes at me, and she absolutely won me over. Between that and Razor’s reminder that we needed to prove to the immigration people that we were both integrating ourselves into one another’s lives, I knew I had to go.

So here I was, sitting with Tallie and Harper in the wives’ room before the game while other women and children came and went. We would go down to seats in the arena during the game, but before and after, the women all gathered here to socialize and make plans for charity events.

Tallie introduced me to Dana Zellinger, who was the team captain’s wife and who had her hands full with three children. I recognized her from the wedding over the summer. Dana only talked with us for a few minutes before she had to get up and chase after her toddlers. She seemed nice enough, and she didn’t look down her nose at me with disgust. I chose to take that as a good sign.

Then Arianne Duclair came and sat with us for a few minutes, claiming a turn with the baby. “Patrice and I keep trying,” she said, “but no luck yet.” She rubbed noses with Harper, and both of them smiled.

Tallie grinned. “Any time you want to babysit, or just come over and get a snuggle in, you just say the word. And changing a few diapers might cure you. It’s worth a try.” She winked.

I was having a difficult time focusing on the conversation with these two. My attention kept being claimed by a group of women in the opposite corner of the room, who had their heads together and kept tossing nasty looks in my direction.