Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            Her heart thudded with rage. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Russian men embraced some toxic ideas about masculinity.

            “My parents overheard him once, and they defended me. He said I was lucky just to be there. That every team needed a duster. If I tried to stick around, that’s all I’d be because I was . . . I was too much of a pussy for higher play.”

            She pried her clenched jaw apart. “I am going to find that man and remove his balls with a spoon.”

            “How very Russian of you.” He brushed her hair off her forehead. “The point is, I didn’t realize how much his words had become part of how I defined myself until I found the book club. I thought I was reading romance to fix our marriage, but I ended up realizing I need to fix myself too. To accept myself.”

            “You learned all that from romance novels?”

            “Not just the novels, but my relationship with the guys. I’ve never been so accepted, so valued. I realized there are a lot of men like me. Men who aren’t afraid to be vulnerable. And these books, they show you what it’s like to be truly respected. I didn’t just see how I wanted to be treated in a relationship. I saw how I wanted to treat myself. How I deserved to be treated. How I deserved to be loved.”

            Her heart sank. “And that you deserved better than me?”

            “No.” He sat up and cupped her face. “That’s what I’m trying to say. When I joined the book club, I thought you left me because you didn’t believe I was good enough for you.”

            Her heart cracked. “Vlad—”

            He pressed his fingertip to her lips. “But I realized that I was the one who believed that. I’m still working on it. Even right now, there’s a part of me that is scared this is just a dream, that you’re not really here, that you couldn’t possibly feel about me the way I’ve always felt about you.”

            A tear dripped down his cheek. Elena wiped it away before pressing her brow to his. “How could you ever not know that you deserved to be loved?”

            “How could you ever think that you were just a burden?”

            She laughed thickly. “It’s sort of a miracle we’ve made it this far, isn’t it?”

            “Maybe this is just how our story was supposed to be written.”

            She kissed him and wiped her cheeks. “So what do we do now?”

            Vlad tugged her back down to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “We get up, take a bath together”—she mmm’d against his skin—“and we take it day by day for a while.”

            “I like the sound of that,” she said, burrowing closer to his warmth.

            He hugged her tighter. “It’s going to be okay now, Lenochka. Everything is going to be okay.”



* * *



            * * *

            A little less than an hour later, Elena pulled into the employee and player parking lot of the arena.

            “Can I walk in with you?” she asked.

            Vlad grinned. “I’d love that.”

            The entire building vibrated with an indescribable energy. The next game in the Stanley Cup was tomorrow night, and it was in Nashville again. A small piece of her heart broke for Vlad that he was missing out on what was essentially the pinnacle of any player’s career, but he displayed none of the sadness that he had a week ago. They approached a T at the end of the hallway, and she followed Vlad when he turned left. A short distance later, two automatic doors blocked their way. Vlad swiped his player credentials on the keypad to their right, and the doors swung open with a whoosh and a rush of air.

            Her steps faltered just inside the doors of what was basically a small-town hospital. A bright center room featured what looked like rehab equipment, and along the perimeter were separate rooms for X-rays, MRI machines, trainers’ offices, and— “Is that an operating room?”

            “Sometimes we have to get stitched up before going back out on the ice,” Vlad said. He stopped and hopped around to face her. “Should I just text you when I’m done?”

            “Sure.”