37. Ariel
37
ARIEL
Just when I thought the generator was on our side, it goes and betrays us again. I’ve taken to calling it Judas.
It’s the third time this week that Judas has stabbed us in the back, and it’s barely Wednesday. I wiggle my toes against the footstool, watching candlelight flicker across the kitchen’s exposed beams. My “throne,” as Sasha calls it—this absurdly plushy wingback that he hauled down from the library—creaks as I shift my weight.
A tooth-rattling peal of thunder cracks just as Kosti lights the last candle. “Well,” he says, “that’s about as good as that’s going to get.”
“ Nu vot, ” Zoya sighs, her hands deep in a bowl of pelmeni dough. “At least the storm waited until after I taught Jasmine the proper pleating technique.”
The gas stove’s blue flame casts weird shadows as Mama and Jas work side by side, their fingers quick and sure as they fold perfect little dumplings under Zoya’s stern eye.
Lightning strobes through the windows. I start to count under my breath: “One Mississippi, two Mississippi?—”
CRACK.
The thunder is getting closer.
Mama looks up from her batch of dumplings. She’s gotten awfully proud of her handiwork these days. Zoya even gave her a “Not bad” last week, which is about as effusive as the old woman’s praise ever gets. “Did I ever tell you girls about the blackout during the ‘03 heatwave? Leander tried?—”
Rap-rap-rap.
I frown. Thunder with no lightning? That’s strange. But then?—
Rap-rap-rap.
That’s not thunder.
That’s someone knocking on the door.
“Knocking” is a pretty polite way to put it, actually. It’s less a knock and more a full-body slam against our heavy wooden door. My heart jumps into my throat—because I only know one person in the world who knocks like that.
We all freeze. Sasha’s hand drips olive oil from the bruschetta he’s assembling as he moves toward the door. I see him pluck the cleaver from the cutting board as he goes.
My heart is freaking out. It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t…
“Surprise, bitch!”
As soon as Sasha rips the door open, Gina comes barreling in, as if dropping in unannounced on a mob boss in hiding who’s literally holding a red-stained knife—red from tomatoes, not blood, but still—is something she does every day.
She hits me in a blaze of wet, magenta bangs and a squeal that’s more deafening than any summer thunder could ever hope to be.
I wrap my arms around her and squeeze until the squeal hits octaves never before heard by man or womankind.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” comes another familiar, sarcastic drawl. Feliks thumps through the door with an obscene amount of luggage in his hand. “I’ll just carry allthefuckingbagsmyself.”
I swing my feet off the footstool and stand, still hugging Gina. Feliks shuffles inside and plops the soaking wet bags on the ground. After him, Pavel and Lora come slinking in. They all look like they tried to swim here rather than drive, but the smiles are irrepressible.
Gina grins at me. “What?” she says when she catches my dumbstruck expression. “You didn’t think we’d let you have these babies without your emotional support team, did you?”
I’m a sopping mess in my own right, but unlike them, I can’t blame the rain. It’s just pure, unchecked tears of joy pouring down my face.
I hug them all in turn. Gina, Feliks, Lora, Pavel—then I start from the top and do it all again.
Feliks chuckles as he loops an arm over my shoulders. “There’s more of you to hug these days, darling,” he remarks.
Gina hits him over the head. “Never say that to a woman, idiot!” Then she laughs and kisses him on the cheek.
I step back as Feliks and Sasha lock eyes. Suddenly, the temperature in the room plummets.
The men shuffle awkwardly in place. Two schoolboys, I swear. Deathly allergic to feelings. The prospect of displaying emotions gives them both verbal constipation.
“We woulda been here sooner,” mumbles Feliks. “But you really picked the goddamn middle of nowhere to hide out. Anyway, thought it was time for a little vacation.”
“Were you followed?” Sasha grits out.
Feliks rolls his eyes. “Don’t disrespect me like that, you son of a bitch.”
Sasha’s face is ice. Iron. Steel. Marble. Then?—
It cracks.
It splits right down the middle into the biggest, goofiest smile I’ve ever seen on him, as he strides forward and grabs his best friend into a tight hug. They pound each other on the back and cackle like only boneheaded alpha males can do.
A few more drops of water hit the ground at my feet. I pretend it’s rain.
Zoya ends the moment when she comes clomping in, clicking her tongue, thrusting towels at everyone. “Dry off before you catch death! Idiots, idiots, all of you!”
The storm howls outside. It’s not letting up anytime soon. But inside, there’s laughter.
Soon, the kitchen transforms into a war zone of delicious chaos. Zoya barks orders like a drill sergeant, Kosti pours shots of grappa far more often than is wise or necessary, Jasmine teases Mama, Mama teases me, I tease Jasmine. Gina and Lora stay stuck to my side, while Sasha and Feliks stare into each other’s eyes like they’re doing their own rendition of Lady and the Tramp.
It’s all just so damn happy that I can’t stop smiling. My face hurts.
After we eat until everyone is bursting, we commandeer the dining room table for what might be the world’s most ridiculous poker game. Sasha insists it’s called “Moscow Hold ‘Em,” though I swear he’s making that up. Whatever it’s called, since we’re short on supplies, dried penne stands in for chips, though Feliks keeps stealing from his own pile to snack on.
“ Sem, vosem, devyat ,” Sasha murmurs in my ear, his breath warm against my neck as he teaches me to count cards in Russian. His hand rests on my belly. “Good. Now, show me how to bet fifty.”
I fumble through the words, mangling the pronunciation so badly that Feliks nearly chokes on his contraband pasta.
“Your accent is terrible,” Sasha tells me fondly, kissing my temple. “Try again.”
Gina throws a penne at his head. “Stop helping her cheat!”
“It’s not cheating,” I protest. “It’s… expanding my cultural horizons.”
“‘ Cultural horizons,’ my ass,” Pavel grumbles as I sweep another pot my way. “That’s the third hand in a row she’s won.”
Lora pats his arm consolingly. “Don’t worry, babe. You can have some of my pasta; I’m not even hungry.”
My gaze drifts around the candlelit table, taking in all these little love stories unfolding. Feliks can’t seem to go more than thirty seconds without finding some excuse to touch Gina—plucking imaginary lint from her shirt, tucking her newly-magenta hair behind her ear, or just letting his fingers trail across her shoulders as he pretends to peek at her cards. She pretends not to notice, but her secret smiles give her away.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to play that hand,” Pavel insists, reaching for Lora’s cards.
She swats his hand away. “Well, maybe if you weren’t such a control freak about everything?—”
“I am not a control freak!”
“You alphabetized my shoes last week!”
“They look better that way!”
Their bickering dissolves into laughter and kisses, and I have to look away to hide my grin. Who would have thought my ditzy former coworker would end up perfectly matched with Sasha’s most uptight lieutenant?
Even Mama seems to be caught up in the romance of the evening. Marco showed up at our door an hour ago, drenched from the storm and bearing bottles of his best wine. Now, he’s teaching her Italian cooking terms, standing close enough that their arms rub with every gesture. I’ve never seen her blush so much.
The weight of someone’s stare draws my attention. I turn to find Sasha watching me. His eyes are dark in the candlelight, filled with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with awareness. He doesn’t look away when I catch him—if anything, his gaze grows heavier, more deliberate.
Heat blooms in my chest and spreads lower. It should be illegal, the way he can undress me with a look even in a room full of people.
Even after everything we’ve been through.
Even with my belly swollen with his twins and my ankles puffy and my back aching.
I lift my cards higher to hide my flushed cheeks. He just winks.
Eventually, I get too tired to keep my eyes open. The excitement of the unexpected arrival has gotten to me. I mumble goodnight to everyone, then start the trek to my bedroom. But I pause at the top of the stairs, one hand braced against the wall. The villa’s wooden beams creak and settle around us, no longer strange and foreign but familiar. A silly question bubbles up in my head.
When did this place start feeling like home?
Sasha’s hand finds the small of my back, steadying me. “Tired?”
“A little.” I lean into his touch without thinking. Another habit I’ve developed here—reaching for him, trusting him to be there. “It’s been a night.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Gina threatened to feed my testicles to wild boars if I ever hurt you again.”
I perk up with a bright smile. “Didn’t you miss her? I sure did.”
We should move. Go to bed. Maintain those careful boundaries we’ve drawn. But I’m rooted to this spot, caught in the strange magic of the storm-dark hall and the sound of our family’s voices filtering in from all sides as they find their way to their bedrooms for the night.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen, you know,” I whisper, more to myself than him. “I wasn’t supposed to…”
His fingers tilt my chin up. In the shadows, his eyes are impossibly soft. “Wasn’t supposed to what?”
“Build a life here. With you. With them. All of it.”
Instead of answering, he bends down and kisses me. Not the desperate, hungry kisses we usually share in darkness. This is something else entirely—tender, achingly gentle, like he’s trying to tell me something his words can’t quite reach.
I should pull away. Should remind him of our rules.
Instead, I wind my arms around his neck and kiss him back, pouring all my complicated truths into the space between our hearts.
Downstairs, someone starts singing. The storm rages on. And in this quiet hallway, I let myself fall a little deeper into the life I never meant to build.