Smoke Signals (33 page)

She kept prattling as she messed around in the kitchen. I got the distinct impression that being pregnant hadn’t had as much to do with her constant talking as she’d tried to convince me the first time we met.

“You miss Hunter a lot?” I asked when she came back and passed me a cup.

“You have no idea.” Tallie plopped down on a recliner and tucked her legs underneath her, carefully balancing her mug through the entire process. “I thought it was bad last season when they left for road trips, but this season? Now that I’ve got Harper?” She shook her head. “It’s not even just about wishing I had help with her. He just keeps me calm when I start feeling crazy, which is all the time these days. Lack of sleep’ll do that to you.”

Harper started fussing more than before. I sent a panicked look in Tallie’s direction.

“Try walking around with her. She likes to be on the move.”

I got up and started pacing through the living room. Sure enough, she settled some. Not enough that she’d fall asleep again, but enough that her cries turned more to whimpers than full screams.

“So are you missing Razor?” Tallie asked. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Something like that.”

“What else?”

I shook my head and moved Harper to the other shoulder, taking a moment to resituate everything. “You told me once we can talk.”

I should have kept my mouth shut.

“I did. And I meant it.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes following me as I walked with her baby. “You gonna finally tell me about this whole porn thing?”

It was bad enough telling my counselor. And I’d hardly told Razor a word of it. He knew it had happened; that was bad enough. But to truly tell someone what I’d allowed men to do to me… I felt more than enough self-disgust already. Tallie was the one real friend I’d had in years. What if she didn’t want to be my friend anymore once she knew?

But maybe it didn’t have to be specifics.

I bit down on my tongue, debating how to start. And then…it just started.

“I told myself was just sex. That’s how I coped. Just sex. Just my body. Not me.”

“But it wasn’t, was it?”

I shook my head. “Tried to separate myself from it. But really, I shut down. Closed off. Built wall around me and wouldn’t let anyone in.”

“But that wall maybe kept all of it in there, too, huh?”

I nodded. Harper’s fussing was starting to slow down. I patted her back as I walked. “Counselor called it abuse.”

“The things that they filmed?”

“I never thought it was abuse,” I said. “Told myself just sex.”

“But was it
really
just sex? You can tell me. I’m not going to think any differently of you, whether it was just sex or if they were abusing you. I already love you to pieces.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t want to let them fall. They’d land on the baby’s head. She didn’t need my tears. She had enough of her own. Clenching my jaw helped keep them in. Biting the inside of my cheek helped more. “Not just sex.”

“Can you— I mean, when you’re with Razor—” She stopped and shook her head. “Sorry. None of my business.”

“It’s different with Razor. He makes me feel loved.” And with that, there was no holding back my tears. They bubbled over like lava. I passed the baby back to Tallie before she started screaming again.

Razor had made me feel cared for right from the start. That first night, any other man would have fucked and paid me, and then he would have moved on. Sent me on my way. Forgotten all about me.

For so long, he’d frustrated the hell out of me because he wouldn’t treat me the same way I expected to be treated.
Especially
when it came to sex. Once he’d helped me to orgasm that first time, he’d made it his personal mission to repeat as often as possible. Sometimes, he didn’t even seem to care if he got his turn afterward.

“That’s what people who love each other do,” my counselor had said to me today. “It feels good to make someone else feel good. Sometimes, that’s satisfaction enough. Isn’t it? Don’t you feel good when you do things for him?”

As soon as she’d said those words, it was like she’d dropped a cement block on me. At first, I’d done things for Razor because I’d thought it was expected. That it was what men wanted. Then things between Razor and me had become tit-for-tat. But somewhere along the way, the ground had shifted beneath my feet.

My counselor was right. Doing things for each other, without expecting something in return, was what people who loved each other did. Taking care of the other person’s needs became as important or maybe more important than taking care of your own. That was why Razor was so focused on helping me with my sexual problems. It was why he had been turning his life upside down to make sure we had the best possibility of a positive outcome with the immigration interview.

And it was why I was still debating whether I should allow that to happen or if I should pretend we weren’t truly in love when it came time for that meeting.

Since I loved him, I wanted the best for him, even if it wasn’t what
he
thought was best. Having me in his life would only bring him grief. I should know. I’d seen more than enough of it for the both of us.

I just wasn’t sure I was strong enough to make that decision when the time came. Maybe it was selfish of me, but having someone in my life who loved me the way Razor did wasn’t something I could walk away from without serious misgivings.

Tallie cooed and bounced Harper a few times. Then she looked up at me. “So why is it that recognizing that your husband makes you feel loved is what makes you cry?”

I crossed my arms in front of me, wishing he was here to hold me. Then I sat down again, hoping she’d let it go without me answering.

She didn’t.

She stayed where she was, waiting for my answer.

“Been a long time since anyone loved me,” I finally forced out.

She smiled, a soft, sweet smile that made me so glad she was my friend. “Well, he’s not the only one who loves you, you know.”

Harper let out a renewed wail, interrupting the moment.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I don’t know what to do for this child,” Tallie said, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.

“You said she likes to move,” I reminded her.

“She does.”

“Does she like riding in car?”

“Get your purse. We’re gonna find out.”

Even though it was after three in the morning and we were both in our pj’s, Tallie and I took the baby and headed out to her car to go for a late-night drive through Tulsa. It was what Harper needed. And helping each other out was what friends did.

“
YOU’VE GOT TO
start breathing again, or I’ll have to do something drastic like tickle your ribs. Are you ticklish?” Razor rubbed his hands up and down my biceps, warding off the chill in the air.

Some sort of front was blowing in, and the temperature outside had dropped radically in the last twenty minutes. Huge, black, billowing clouds filled the sky along with the cooler temperatures. Ten minutes ago, when Razor and I had left the house to go to the immigration interview, the sun had been out. Now that we were about to head into the building, it was as dark as night…at two in the afternoon.

I’d never experienced such a drastic change in the weather before, but the meteorological shock wasn’t what had me shivering and unable to take a full breath.

It was that I still didn’t know what I was going to do when we got in front of the interviewer. On any other game day, Razor would be at home getting his pregame nap in right now. Instead, he was here with me, and everything was riding on what happened over the next hour. Should I do what was best for Razor and force my own deportation? Or should I stick with the plan and hope for the best?

I wasn’t sure. In fact, I might not make up my mind until pressed to answer a question. Considering that it was such a massive decision, you’d think I would have decided well before now what I should do. I’d never been so wishy-washy about anything before.

A streak of lightning lit up the sky, followed soon after by a crack of thunder that I felt all the way down to my bones.

“Come on,” Razor said. “Let’s get inside before this storm hits. Just tell the truth, no matter what they ask.”

I took his hand and walked through the glass double doors by his side, forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other. Whatever decision I ended up making, I still had to go into this interview.

There was no getting out of this.

The receptionist greeted us, all business despite her smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Chambers? We’re ready for you.” She led us through a door and down a hall, much like the office where my counselor worked. At the end of the hall, we turned into a corner room, where a man in a gray suit sat behind a computer desk, glasses perched near the end of his nose. The receptionist left the room and closed the door behind her.

The man stood up and held out a hand for Razor to shake when we entered. “Mr. Chambers. And Mrs. Chambers,” he said when he offered me his hand.

I took it even though a sheen of perspiration covered my palm.

He smiled. “Doug Harris. Thank you both for coming in today. Why don’t you have a seat so we can get started and not take up too much of your time.”

There were two armchairs in front of his desk. Razor guided me to one and eased me into it before sitting beside me. I reached for his hand as soon as we were settled, needing the reassurance of his touch.

He squeezed it and winked at me before smiling at Doug. “Thanks for working us into your schedule at a time when my team’s in town.”

“No problem, no problem. Although, it might not have been so bad if you’d been here on Friday instead of in Winnipeg.”

“I don’t know. I think we might have lost a hell of a lot worse than we did if I hadn’t been out there.”

Doug laughed. “It gets worse than eight to nothing, then?”

“It can. You’re a hockey fan?” Razor asked. He had an easy smile and, as usual, no problem talking to anyone. About anything. He was a natural.

“Learning to be one. It’s still new in these parts.” But then he was down to business. He picked up a manila file and opened it, taking out a stack of papers. “So… It says here that you two met in Vegas?”

“Yeah. I was there for my buddy’s bachelor party and wedding.”

“And Viktoriya? What were you there for?”

Another crack of thunder shook the walls of the office, and I jumped. Then the rain started, pummeling the windows. It was coming down in sheets instead of individual drops, or at least that was how it looked. My heart beat so hard it had to be almost as loud as the storm outside.

Doug smiled at me. “Sounds like we’ve got quite a thunderstorm brewing. Is it your first good storm in this part of the country?” He glanced at one of the windows. “Might get some hail. The sky doesn’t look green, though, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with a tornado.”

“Tornado?” I’d only seen about those on TV before. I’d never seen one up close and personal, and I didn’t want that to change now.

“Let’s get this done so we can all get home, hmm? So why were you in Las Vegas?”

My throat felt swollen shut, and I couldn’t swallow.

Razor squeezed my hand again and rubbed the pad of his thumb over my skin.

The plan was to tell the truth, but wouldn’t telling the
whole
truth prove we had only married in order to deal with my residency? Surely if I was up-front about it, blunt and to the point, the truth beneath the partial truth would come out.

I took a breath and met Doug’s gaze head on. “I was trying to be prostitute. Wanted Razor to be my first John.”

Doug raised a brow, but he didn’t say a word, waiting for me to continue.

“I lost my student visa and needed money to go back to Russia.”

“How did you lose your student visa?”

“Porn. I was in porn. Against rules of ballet school.”

He shuffled through the stack of papers until he found one and pulled it to the top. He jotted a couple of notes on it. “And you two married the same day you met?”

“We did,” Razor said. “I realized there was more going on than met the eye. My mother worked as a prostitute for several years when I was growing up. She did it to put me through school and get me involved in hockey. So, I know a bit about the profession. The women in it. And Tori wasn’t like them.”