He smiled. Nodded. “Okay.”
There it was: the crazy. And the crazier part of it was she couldn’t make herself care.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“You’re going next door again?” Galina looked up from her laptop, her reading glasses perched low on her nose. She’d been typing away there for an hour or so. Ilya hadn’t asked her what she was doing. “She’s still sick?”
“She’s feeling better, but yeah, I’m going over.” He held up a takeout rotisserie chicken and sides he’d picked up from the grocery store. “We’re going over the menus. Talking about staffing. That sort of thing.”
Galina made a noise low in her throat. “Hmm.”
“Hey, Mom. You know, we could use your advice on some things. About the diner,” Ilya said.
He wasn’t expecting her to look so affronted, but she did. Deliberately, his mother removed her glasses and looked down her nose at him. She closed the laptop lid.
“The diner? Why on earth?”
“You’ve worked in one,” he said.
Her scowl flashed into something else for a moment before she smoothed her expression. “I’m not going to come waitress for you, Ilya.”
“I’m not asking you to be a waitress. I just thought you might have a decent idea about how some things are run. Forget I asked.” He shook his head. “I’ll see you later.”
“Ilyushka. Wait.”
He grimaced. “Don’t call me that. You’re not Babulya, and I’m too old for it.”
Galina sighed and took off her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “You’re so sensitive.”
“Hello,” he said. “Pot, have you met kettle? I asked you a simple question, and you jumped down my throat.”
“I’m sorry.”
He’d had apologies from his mother in the past, plenty of times. Galina blew more hot and cold than March winds. He didn’t trust her, so he’d been a little stupid to even ask her the question in the first place, but that was the thing about his relationship with his mother. He would probably always give her another chance, and she would probably always prove she couldn’t be trusted.
“Look, I asked to be nice, and because I thought maybe you might want to help out. This is a big deal for me. It’s a lot of work, and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have the first idea how to run a restaurant. I’ve been going into this blind. I thought maybe for once, just once, you might want to do something to help me out.” Before she could speak, he waved her to silence. “I’m going next door. Forget I asked. Keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
He heard her calling out behind him, but he didn’t stop. Crossing the street, he let himself into the Harrison house, calling out Theresa’s name as he went into the kitchen. He found her there wearing soft pajama pants, a thin T-shirt, and a half-zipped hoodie. She’d pulled her hair into a messy tangle on top of her head, but several dark ringlets had sprung free to frame her face. She was still moving slow, recovering from being sick, but she smiled when she saw him, and that was all it took to make his heart do a slow barrel roll.
“I brought dinner.” He held up the food.
Theresa rubbed her belly. “Yum. I was going to make tuna-fish sandwiches and macaroni and cheese, but that smells much better. I actually have a little bit of an appetite back.”
“Tuna with mac ’n’ cheese—damn, that is old school. I think that needs to be a menu item. On whole-wheat bread with the crusts off?”
“It’ll be a top seller,” she said. “Side of salt-and-vinegar chips, right?”
“That’s how we always did it.” He set the food on the table and moved closer to her so he could take her by the shoulders to study her face. “You think you’ll be back to work soon? You look better.”
“The Internet tells me this flu’s been hitting everyone hard, that it takes about a week and a half to really get through it. I’ll be okay.” She tilted her head and gave him a faint smile. “I’m sorry I haven’t been up to getting over to the diner. I know you’ve been busy. I really want to see everything that’s been going on.”
“When you feel up to it, that will be fine. I was over there today. The electrical guys finished up with everything, and the plumber will be there tomorrow, although he said he hadn’t seen anything that needs to be replaced beyond a few washers in the sinks.” He let his hands run down her arms to grip her above the elbows, reluctant to let her go.
“That’s a relief,” Theresa said.
The past week had seen them spending a good portion of every day and most evenings together. She hadn’t felt up to driving anywhere but had been able to do some work from her laptop, including researching suppliers and getting quotes as well as arranging service appointments to take care of the few problems they’d known about before buying the place. Ilya had done the running around, meeting contractors and supervising deliveries.
The “them” part of all this had hovered between them, unspoken, since the night he’d slept over to take care of her. He’d thought about kissing her every single time they were together but hadn’t. First, because although she’d been fever-free and the headaches and body soreness had passed, Theresa had still been feeling weak and easily worn out enough that by the end of the day, all she’d wanted to do was lie on the couch and watch funny movies. The fact that he’d been willing to do that and nothing more had told Ilya more about how he felt about her than anything else, but if Theresa had noticed it, she hadn’t brought it up.
They were dancing around it, but it felt a little bit like Theresa might be doing a country line dance while Ilya was attempting a waltz. They were both moving, but not always in the same direction or to the same beat. Now he’d been holding on to her for too long that it was becoming awkward, so he made himself let her go.
She gave him that curious head tilt, studying his face. “Let’s eat. I have some menu samples for us to look at. We’ll need to get them printed soon to have them ready in time. Are we still aiming for the June opening date?”
“If everything goes as planned, yeah. I talked with the sign guys you hooked me up with. They can have it ready and installed, but we need to decide on the name.” Ilya went to the cupboard to pull out some plates.
Theresa got silverware from the drawer and added it to the table. They settled in to eat, making lists on a pad of yellow paper she’d already filled most of. He got her laughing, and although the giggles trailed into a fit of light coughing, she was still grinning when she recovered.
“I love how you laugh with your whole body,” he said abruptly.
Theresa had gone to the sink to wash her hands after coughing into them, and she turned with a look of surprise. “What?”
“You laugh with your mouth, your eyes—your shoulders shake. You vibrate with it. I can always tell when you’re laughing for real or you’re faking it,” Ilya said.
“That’s funny. Most men can’t tell when a woman’s faking it.”
He groaned. “Nice.”
She laughed—stopped as though in surprise to look down at herself—then laughed again, harder. “Oh, man. It’s true!”
She shook with infectious guffaws that made him laugh, too. Their hilarity spiraled up and up. Every time there was a pause, their eyes met and it began again, until Ilya had to wipe his eyes against tears, and Theresa was clutching her belly and leaning on the counter like it was holding her up.
“Stop,” she gasped. “Omigod, stop . . .”
He couldn’t, not really. Laughing with her felt too good, too perfect. It felt right in that moment to get up from the table. To kiss her.
Hesitantly at first, the lightest brush of his lips on hers. Deeper in the next moment when she didn’t pull away or push him off. She tasted of the sweet tea they’d been drinking, when his tongue slipped inside her mouth, and of her own unique flavor. Her hands went to his hips just above the waistband of his jeans.
“You’re going to get sick,” she murmured against his mouth.
“You’re not
contagious anymore. If I was going to get the flu from you, I’d already have it.” He kissed her again.
It broke when she turned away, twisting out of his embrace to cough. “Ugh, sorry, sorry. So gross.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, Theresa, all you have to do is say so.”
He said it lightly. Teasing, the way they often did with each other. It earned him a nudge in the ribs and a roll of her eyes.
“I want to kiss you,” she told him.
“You do?” Heat lit him from the inside, starting somewhere low in his gut and spreading upward. “I mean, yeah. Of course you do.”
“We’re doing this,” Theresa said quietly, her gaze steady on his. “We’re going to do this complicated thing.”
She let her hands slide up the front of his shirt to tug the open collar, her body leaning naturally against his, a perfect fit. Without waiting for his answer, she pressed her face to his chest. Ilya ran a hand over her hair, feeling her shiver and hearing her laugh softly when she did.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re doing this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
For the first time in nearly two weeks, Theresa felt good enough to put on clothes that were not pajamas and throw in a load of laundry, run the vacuum, and clean up the piles of books, magazines, and empty tissue boxes that littered the den near the couch where she’d been spending most of her time. Her in-box had been filling up with messages from her freelance clients, and while she’d been able to keep on top of a lot of it, there were some things only in-person meetings could handle. There were also the long lists she’d been making with Ilya to take care of.
There was also Ilya, in general.
She paused while stripping the sheets from her bed, her arms full of cotton, to bury her face in the pile and let out a muffled squeal. It did not turn into a bout of throat-ripping coughs, so that was a relief. It did end up with her turning to sit on the bare mattress to fend off a wave of dizziness that she had to admit had nothing to do with her recent illness. It was the thought of what she was getting herself into. A few deep breaths dispelled the spinning of her head, but not the squeezing feeling in her chest.
The summer Barry and Galina got married had been the first time Theresa ever went with the Stern boys and the Harrison girls to the quarry to swim. Ilya had been the one to invite her, last-minute, when they were already heading out. It had meant something to her back then, because she’d been struggling to find her place in the new family dynamic, and he’d made it seem like the most natural thing in the world for her to be included.
“Aren’t you coming?” he’d asked, his towel hung over one shoulder. “C’mon, Malone.”
She’d grabbed her suit and towel and a pair of sunglasses and hurried after them, following the sound of their voices because they hadn’t waited for her to catch up. That had told her more than anything that she’d become a part of their group. No special treatment.
Niko had been the first to jump off the rock ledge and into the water, followed by Ilya and Jenni, while Alicia shook her head and refused. Nobody had bullied Theresa into following the other three. Her own desire to fit in with them had pushed her to the edge, her toes curling over the smooth limestone. She’d looked down to the water below, and her heart had seized, her vision had blurred a little in anticipatory fear, and she’d forgotten she was holding her breath until her ears began to ring.
“Jump, Malone!” Ilya had shouted from the water.
She had not jumped.
She’d gone swimming with all of them many times after that, but she’d never jumped off the ledge. Yet here she was, already on the way down, this time already knowing how it felt to leap and fall and have the quarry water close over her head. The cold had taken her breath away exactly the way Ilya’s kisses did, except this time she was not going to do it only once.
The sound of her front doorbell ringing got her up and moving, and she paused to dump the sheets in the laundry room before she answered it. She wasn’t expecting Dina Guttridge to be standing there with a bottle of wine in her hand. The other woman looked like she’d been crying.
Dina held up the bottle. “Can I come in?”
“I . . . sure.” Theresa stepped aside, though not fast enough, because Dina was already shoving past her into the kitchen.
The wine was in a screw-top bottle, which meant Theresa didn’t need to offer a corkscrew. Dina had already opened it and was looking at her with a sour expression. “Glasses?”
“Sure.” Theresa pulled out a single glass and handed it to the other woman, who frowned. “I don’t drink.”
“Figures.” Dina poured a glass and sipped it, then shuddered with distaste and put the bottle and glass on the table. “Yuck. I knew I should’ve gone with the Cab.”
“What can I help you with?” Theresa eyed the other woman warily. She already had a suspicion about why Dina was there, and she didn’t particularly want to deal with it.
“Are you fucking him?”
Theresa leaned against the counter. “That’s none of your business, Dina.”
“I knew it. Dammit.” Dina wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, cutting her gaze to the side before fixing it on Theresa’s. “You know he can’t be trusted.”
If there’d been any suspicion that Ilya and Dina had done any fooling around, it dissipated under those words. Theresa would have laughed, if that hadn’t felt so terribly cruel. Instead, she said nothing.
Dina’s laugh had little humor in it. “You’re already in deep, huh? He does that to you. Makes you think you’re something special. Gets close to you. Then . . . nothing.”
“Whatever happened between the two of you is none of my business.” Theresa kept her tone neutral. “And whatever is going on with me and Ilya is none of yours.”
Dina sagged. “Yeah. Right.”
“I think you should go,” Theresa said, but gently.
“Don’t you even care? I’m trying to warn you.”
Theresa wanted to laugh again, not because there was anything funny about what Dina had said but because the warning was all too legitimate. “I can take care of myself.”
“You think I’m a terrible person, don’t you?”
“It’s not my place to judge you,” Theresa said.
“But you are! I would be,” Dina added.
There was no way she and Dina were ever going to be friends, but in that moment Theresa had at least the tiniest shred of sympathy for her. “People make mistakes. It happens. You either learn from it or you don’t, I guess.”
“Oh, I learned from it,” Dina said bitterly. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.”
“I’m not married,” Theresa said coldly, getting tired of Dina’s insistences and the conversation in general. “Whatever happens between me and Ilya is only going to affect me, and I already told you I can take care of myself.”
Dina winced. She nodded. “Fine. I guess I should go.”
“Please. And take the wine.”
“You can keep it. I’m done with it, and you’re welcome to take my leftovers.” If Dina’s tone and snide words had been meant to make Theresa feel bad, they missed the mark. Without waiting for an answer, the other woman turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen. The front door slammed a minute or so later.
CHAPTER FORTY
“So, we need to have a little talk.”
Those were never the words a guy liked to hear from the woman he was dating. Or maybe dating. Or wanted to date.
Theresa smiled at him from across the kitchen table. “Ilya?”
“Not about the diner, huh?”
“It’s about us. And Dina Guttridge.”
He groaned. “Shit. Look, it was a stupid thing that happened once, two years ago. You can’t get more stereotypical than that whole thing. I delivered a package to her that they’d dropped off by accident at my house, she invited me in for an iced tea . . .”
“Spare me the
details, please.” Theresa held up a hand. “I don’t care.”
“No?” He wanted to be relieved but eyed her cautiously.
“I don’t care about your previous poor judgment. No.”
Ilya blew out a small breath. “Okay . . . ?”
“She came over here earlier, warning me off you. Because you were not to be trusted.” Theresa raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair.
God, she looked gorgeous. Hair pulled up, minimal makeup, tight T-shirt, and jeans. Bare feet. Her toes had killed him a little when he came in the front door and saw her, and he’d never even been a foot guy. Everything about her seemed to affect him, though. Even the haughty look she was giving him. Maybe especially that.
“You’ve said something along those lines already,” Ilya said. “More than once.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
Ilya leaned across the table to take her hands, his thumbs rubbing gently across the backs. “I’m not saying you don’t have a point.”
He’d been hoping to make her laugh, and she did. He’d have kissed her except for the distance between them. He settled for linking their fingers.
Theresa looked down at their hands. “So here’s the thing, Ilya. I’m not sure I do trust you. But I want to. Okay? I want to try. This thing between us that we’ve been pretending didn’t mean anything for months, I want to give it a try.”
“Me, too. You can trust me on that.” This time, he did get up from his seat to lean across the table for a kiss.
“I’m going to try,” Theresa said, and took a deep breath as though her words had taken a lot of courage to say.
Ilya knew how that felt. He sat back in his chair. “I want you to be able to trust me. I believe you can.”
She smiled.
This time when he got up, he knocked the chair over in order to get to her. His mouth found hers. His fingers sank into her hair. He kissed her like a promise.
“I love the way you taste,” he told her.