His brow furrowed. “Yeah. You got that right.”
They dug in to the food, eating in silence for a few moments. Theresa chewed slowly, savoring it, enjoying the flavors and also filling her stomach gradually. This meal could last her until dinner, if she ate enough. She could save her stock of granola bars and the giant jar of peanut butter for another time.
Niko pushed back from the table with a satisfied groan and rubbed his belly. “That was good. I’m stuffed. So, hey, what happened last night?”
“Hmm?” She paused to show him that her mouth was full, hoping to avoid this conversation, but Niko seemed happy enough to wait until she’d finished chewing and swallowing to get an answer. “Oh, I was meeting with your brother to see if I could convince him to just sign the damned deal already. Get him out of the dive shop before they really start getting to work. I tried to tell him that it’s not going to go well for him. They’re totally capable of making his business completely fail.”
She used to think Wayne’s ability to destroy other people’s lives in the pursuit of his own goals was his worst character trait, until she’d learned how easy it could be, when it came down to self-preservation.
“Shit.” Niko looked stricken. “You think so?”
“They’re planning to break ground on the hotel in a couple weeks, and the condos before that. Ilya is asking for more money and guarantees about the shop, which there’s no way they’re going to honor. I tried to tell him. He wouldn’t listen.” She took her last swig of coffee and sat back from the table to admit defeat in the face of all that food.
“More money,” Niko said. “Figures.”
“All I can say is that he’s got three weeks to take their offer or they’re no longer going to honor it, and I fought to extend it that long. If he doesn’t take the deal, they move on with construction, and it’s not going to work out very well for him.”
“He’s going to hold on to his forty percent,” Niko said. “He’s stubborn.”
“That forty percent gives him the shop, the parking lot, and access to the docks and underwater fixtures but doesn’t prevent them from making it impossible for anyone to get to the shop, or if they start tearing things down or removing them and not replacing them . . .” Theresa shrugged. “There won’t be any customers to take lessons.”
The ceiling creaked overhead. Both of them looked up. Niko smiled, and after a few seconds, she did, too, even though she didn’t much feel like it.
“In three weeks,” Theresa said, “none of this will be my problem anymore. But I sure wish he’d change his mind before then.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Then
In the Stern house, Theresa had a room all to herself. There was a bed with a fluffy comforter and soft sheets. A dresser for her clothes, only hers—no sharing with her dad, three drawers for her and three for him. The bathroom situation wasn’t the greatest—one for the entire household, including two teenage boys who made a big mess and never cleaned up after themselves. Aside from that, she loved living there. She was grateful for it; that was the truth. Every day.
She’d come home from school to find Babulya in the kitchen slicing red beets and boiling chicken bones to make stock. The fact that there was someone at home to make any kind of meal on a regular basis was also one of those things Theresa appreciated. Homemade soup, even the weird kind that Babulya made, was a luxury compared to the days of canned soup and stale saltines. Off-brand cereals. Soured milk.
It was one of the things, back in the first days when her dad had started seeing Galina, that Theresa had clung to. Whatever might have been happening at home, and it was usually on the verge of awful, she could look forward to the weekend and spending time at the Sterns’. Even if she had to sleep on the couch and deal with teenage boys who either teased or ignored her.
“Like this?” she asked now, slicing the beets and onions carefully, the way Babulya had demonstrated.
“Doesn’t have to be so fancy.” Babulya smiled. Her reading glasses were pushed on top of her head, the chain connected to the stems dangling around her neck. “But is good to know how to make good cutting. How to . . . be clean with it.”
The old lady’s thick Russian accent sometimes made it hard to understand her, but Theresa nodded like she understood. She went back to slicing, trying her best to keep the beet slices all the same thickness. Pretty. Why? Why not, she thought as her fingertips stained red from the juice. If you could make something nicer than it had to be, what was wrong with that?
“Borscht? Ugh.” Ilya came into the kitchen to snag a cookie from the jar, ducking away from Babulya’s flapping hands. “Can’t you make, like, chicken noodle or something?”
Theresa finished the last of her slicing. “Maybe you should learn how to cook it yourself, if you’re going to complain.”
“Pfft.” Typically, Ilya could barely be bothered to pay her any attention.
It could have been worse. When Theresa’s father married Ilya’s mother over the summer, Niko’d been kicked out of his bedroom so Theresa could have it. He’d moved into the attic. The brothers had fought about that—each had wanted the space with its slanting ceiling and cobwebs. They both could’ve been nasty to her about it instead of each other, but they hadn’t. Sure, they teased her sometimes, but they were brutal to each other.
Babulya chased him out of the kitchen, scolding, but fondly. She caught sight of what must’ve been a weird look on Theresa’s face, because she wiped her hands on her apron and pulled a cookie from the jar to hand over. Theresa took it with her pink-stained fingers. It was chocolate chip, and it was delicious.
“I teach you to make these,” Babulya said. Later, as they measured and sifted and laughed while they made the dough, she said, “Boys are good, but a girl . . . a girl in the kitchen makes my heart happy.”
Together, they made dinner. Borscht. Bread. Cookies. The cooking gave Theresa a sense of satisfaction and of settling in that nothing else had since she and her dad had moved in. Sitting at the dinner table with everyone around, a family, she began to think it was all going to be okay.
Until one day, it wasn’t.
CHAPTER SIX
The sound of voices woke him, but the smell of food was what brought him downstairs. The sight of Theresa sitting across the table from his brother took Ilya by surprise. For a moment, he wondered if he was still dreaming or had somehow slipped backward in time to just after Babulya died, when Theresa had ended up staying with them.
“Hey,” she said when she saw him. “Umm . . . it was late last night. I crashed here. Better than falling asleep at the wheel and crashing my car.”
“Don’t look at me. It’s not my house, as my mother’s been so kind to point out over and over the past couple months.” Ilya scratched at his bare chest idly, narrowing his eyes at her. “Coffee?”
Niko pointed wordlessly to the counter. Ilya helped himself, then fixed a plate from the veritable feast someone had made. He took a seat at the table, looking up only when he felt the weight of two sets of eyes on him.
“What?”
“You look like shit,” Niko said.
Theresa pressed her lips together against a smile. “You look better than I thought you would, to be honest. You were sort of wrecked last night.”
Frowning, Ilya raised his mug in one hand and his middle finger on the other. When Theresa and Niko burst into laughter, he managed a grin. The coffee was hot, fragrant, delicious. Not that it mattered. He’d have guzzled gas-station swill, if that was all there was.
“Could get used to this,” he said around a mouthful of eggs and bacon. He gave Theresa an eye. “You do it?”
“Some. Mostly it was Niko.” She sat back in her chair, her plate almost empty, and rubbed her belly. “I won’t be hungry for hours.”
Niko also pushed his plate away with a sigh. “I need a nap.”
“It’s not even noon,” Theresa said.
Niko grinned. “Yeah, so what? That’s why it’s a nap.”
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“Have you heard from Alicia?” Theresa got up to take her plate to the dishwasher. She filled her mug with more coffee and leaned against the counter, one leg crossed over the other.
“Nice pajamas,” Ilya said. “And no. She’s off on her world adventures—good for her.”
Theresa sipped. “I was asking Niko.”
Ilya paused with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth. He looked at his brother, who took that moment to get up and take care of his own plate. Ilya put the fork down and twisted in his chair to look at the two of them.
“Yeah, bro, have you heard from Alicia?” he asked. “I mean, might as well get it all out in the open. It’s not like it’s a secret anymore.”
“It’s not?” Theresa caught herself, adding, “I mean, what?”
Ilya gave her a level look. “Huh. So you knew?”
“I . . .” Theresa cleared her throat. “No, not really. I mean, I thought. Maybe.”
Niko frowned. “You did?”
“I accidentally saw you guys . . . umm . . . it doesn’t matter.” Theresa made a show of sipping her coffee to keep from having to speak.
Ilya tossed up his hands. “Well, shit. Did everyone but me know?”
“Know what?” This came from Galina, shrugging off her jacket in the doorway.
The kitchen was becoming a freaking clown car. Ilya dug back in to his pile of food, speaking with his mouth full. “About Niko and Alicia.”
“Oh, for a long time,” his mother said. “Before they knew it, probably.”
“Mom.” Niko shook his head, then hung it, looking defeated.
Galina laughed. “Hello, Theresa. Nice pajamas.”
“She gave me a ride home last night and then crashed on the couch. Where were you?” Ilya asked, regretting the question immediately. She’d probably tell them all exactly where she’d been and what she’d been doing, and that was a level of detail he absolutely didn’t need.
“I had a similar situation,” Galina said breezily with a wave of her hand. “Although regrettably, I hadn’t thought ahead to bring pajamas.”
Theresa shrugged. “I had some things in my car.”
“You have everything in your car, by the looks of it when I peeked in the windows.” Galina gestured. “Pour me a mug of coffee.”
“I’m in the middle of a . . . move,” Theresa answered.
She sounded embarrassed and annoyed. Ilya didn’t blame her. His mother had that effect on him, too.
Galina took the mug Niko handed her. “How’s that going, dolly?”
Theresa frowned, and her shoulders squared. “Fine.”
Ilya watched the exchange, chewing slowly. He took the time to swallow so he could interrupt before his mother could keep up her interrogation. “Got yourself some new, fancy place? Did you buy one of those mini mansions over in Bent Hills? Oh, no, I bet you got yourself one of the time-share condos they’re going to be putting up in my campgrounds. Can’t wait to spend that commission, huh?”
Everyone turned to look at him with varying degrees of distaste on their faces. Theresa’s was the only gaze he met. He didn’t give much of a damn if they all thought he was being a dick about it. He was.
“It takes a while for stuff like that to clear,” was all she said. She turned to Galina. “Would you mind if I took a shower before I left?”
“For the price of babysitting my son, a little hot water seems fair. Especially now that Nikolai has made it so much nicer.” Galina waved a hand. “Help yourself. Of course it’s all right.”
“I’ll just get some stuff from my car.” Without so much as another glance in Ilya’s direction, Theresa left the kitchen.
Ilya looked at his mother and brother, both of them giving subtle variations of the same expression. Yep, they both thought he was being an asshole, all right. He shoveled another fork of eggs into his mouth and said with his mouth full, “Can you give me a ride back to Dooley’s so I can pick up my car?”
“Sure,” his brother said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A month had never seemed like such a long time to Niko. Even during the worst times in his stint in Antarctica, knowing that even if he wanted to get out and leave there was no way he could, he’d never felt quite this restless. Eager. In four days, Alicia would be coming home.
What that meant for the two of them, he wasn’t sure. He’d encouraged her to go on her trip without him, but there’d been a lot of lonely nights over the past three and a half weeks when he’d stayed awake, staring at the ceiling of his attic bedroom and thinking about how much he missed her. He’d been following her social-media accounts. Pictures of her grinning in front of landmarks. Snapshots of her artistically lit food. He’d been unable to stop himself from scanning each to see if there was a man in them, someone who showed up more than once, even in the background. Someone who’d been taking the place Niko had wasted so much time before claiming.
His phone chimed just as his eyes were finally closing. He almost ignored it. Anyone who texted him this late deserved to wait until morning, and it was probably someone from home—from Beit Devorah—he reminded himself. No longer home. They sometimes forgot the time difference. It chimed again, though, and he knew if he didn’t at least check it, he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.
I’m home, the message said. Come over.
He didn’t bother texting a reply. Or getting dressed. He shoved his feet into a pair of battered flip-flops and threw on a hoodie over his pajama bottoms. He did stop to brush his teeth and run a hand over the bristles on his chin and cheeks, but he didn’t shave. That would’ve taken too much time.
He was out the front door and across the street, eyeing the Guttridge house next to Alicia’s. The light in the living room was on, and he suspected nosy neighbor Dina was twitching aside the curtains to look out, but he didn’t care. He rapped lightly on Alicia’s front door before turning the knob and letting himself in.
“Alicia—”
She was in his arms before he could finish calling out his greeting. Her mouth on his. His hands fell naturally to the swell of her hips, his fingertips skating bare flesh along the top edge of a pair of soft leggings. She tasted like mangoes. Sunshine. Sweetness and light.
“I missed you,” she said into his kiss.
Niko didn’t say anything, concentrating solely on her flavor and the feeling of her against him. His hand slid beneath her hair to cup the back of her neck. His other gripped her ass, round and firm and so perfect his body responded at once.
“Nikolai,” Alicia said.
He rubbed himself against her. “I missed you, too. Can’t you tell?”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear it.” She broke the kiss long enough to take a breath, even as she molded her body to his. “Mmm. I can definitely tell you missed me.”
She took him upstairs, both of them shedding their clothes along the way. They barely made it to the bed before they were naked, touching, kissing, stroking. Loving.
He hadn’t forgotten the way her body curved, but a month of travel had reshaped her. Niko ran his hands up her thighs and over her belly, which had been softer before she left. He cupped her breasts, letting his thumbs tweak her nipples into tight peaks, and reveling in the sounds she made at his touch. He was hard enough to ache already, but he wasn’t about to rush this. Not after so long.
His first taste of her lips had been sweet, and that flavor was echoed when he moved lower to sample between her thighs. She cried out, already lifting her hips to meet his mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair. He wanted the anticipation to linger, but she was tipping over the edge in only a few minutes. She urged him upward, capturing his mouth in a greedy kiss and reaching between them to fit him inside her.
That first moment of joining urged low groans from both of them, and Niko pressed himself up on his hands to get a little control. Alicia wasn’t having any of that. She hooked her heels around the backs of his thighs and pulled him deeper into her so that he was helpless not to t
hrust.
“I missed you,” she said into his ear as her nails scored lightly down his back. She gripped his ass, pulling him harder against her.
“Missed you, too,” he managed to say, even though forming words had stopped being easy.
It didn’t last long enough. He held off until she cried out his name, and he felt her body tighten around him, then spilled into his own pleasure that blocked out everything else for an endless thirty seconds. When he opened his eyes to look into her face, Alicia was smiling.
“I missed you.” Niko kissed her. “Like crazy.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Then
“When I was girl in Russia, I never asked Mother why on Fridays we had white bread, and on all other days only brown. She never spoke of being Jewish. It wasn’t allowed, you know.” Babulya handed Theresa another egg to crack into the bowl. “But she made the Jewish bread every week. Many times I’m sure she went without or had to scrimp, save, barter for the eggs and white flour and the butter. But she always did it.”
“Now you do it.” Theresa threw the eggshells into the trash and turned back to watch as Babulya added some softened butter and salt to the center of the flour.
Babulya nodded. “Yes. Now I do. And you do, too.”
“I’m not Jewish, though. Is that okay?” Frowning, Theresa dug her hands into the mess in the bowl when Babulya waved at her to start mixing all the ingredients.
“None of us here in this house are very Jewish,” Babulya said. “But we eat the Jewish bread. Is fine.”
When the dough had become smooth and thick, only a tiny bit sticky, Theresa put it all back into the bowl and covered it with a clean dish towel. At the sink, she washed her hands carefully, then cleaned up the measuring cups and spoons they used while Babulya sat at the table with a glass of hot tea and milk. It would take a few hours for the dough to rise, and then they would braid it and cover it in an egg wash and poppy seeds before baking it.
“It’s one of the best parts of the week,” Theresa said when she took a seat across from Babulya at the table. The old woman was already dealing out the cards for a game of War. “Friday-night dinner. And especially the challah.”