Chapter 7 #2
“Hey, Aiden.” I freeze, turning back to him where he’s sitting on the edge waiting for it to fill. He’s not smiling, but his expression softens when he looks up at me, eyes warm despite how exhausted he looks. “Thank you.”
Something pulls tight in my chest.
I nod, a small smile I can’t hold back slipping out.
I close the bathroom door behind me and walk down the hall to the kitchen.
I need to make him soup.
And the elephant. I mean, I have to look for the elephant, which I can do while I make him soup. Ivan described it as cobalt blue. About a foot long, with red eyes and gold filigree designs throughout it.
I have no fucking idea why he wants it. Ivan talks about it like it’s some rare treasure.
He’s hunted for it for years, on and off.
It’s an obsession that flares up like a fever from time to time.
We moved here late last year when Ivan insisted he thought he knew where it was.
It better be made of solid fucking gold.
I don’t understand it or the question I’m afraid to ask.
Why does Sawyer have it?
Before I go into the kitchen, I look around the living room. There’s not much to it. A loveseat with a matching armchair sits on a blue rug. The TV sits on a small wooden entertainment center.
Papers are scattered across the dark-stained coffee table. It’s a mess.
I organize his papers—most of them look like ideas and recipes. There are a few cookbooks too. I stack the papers neatly on top of the books, then move my attention to the small round kitchen table with two chairs.
There’s a binder sitting on top with more papers around it—bills, a calendar. I organize them too.
How does he even think in here?
I walk into the kitchen. I can’t cook a thing in here, so I clean up the counters then the empty wooden dish drain.
I wash his dishes and put them up to dry—might as well since I’m just going to make more.
When that’s all done, I move to the fridge.
It’s full of food, which makes me happy.
I find what I’m looking for, grabbing celery and carrots, and there are onions in a bowl on the counter.
In his cabinets I find chicken stock—there’s only one box, so I’ll just have to use water for the rest—and he doesn’t have pastina, but he has orzo, so that’s going to have to do.
Katya loves the star shapes.
I find a spaghetti pot and put it on the stove with the chicken stock and four cups of water. While I put that on to boil, I chop up all the vegetables and put them in the pot with a little salt and pepper.
While I wait for the water to boil I look around the kitchen.
I lift off the counter and open some cabinets, searching. It’s just food, an assortment of baking dishes and equipment. There’s a big baby-blue mixer in his apartment, and for some reason my dumbass brain conjures an image of him in his briefs using this to try out new recipes.
I should be running for the fucking hills.
I have a job to do, and one disorganized baker isn’t going to stop me from seeing it through. I look around through a few more cabinets, but it’s not in here. Part of me wonders if maybe he doesn’t even have it. Ivan insists, but why? Why does he have this? How can those two possibly be connected?
I open a few more cabinets, not seeing anything. I check under the sink, finding only cleaning supplies.
“What are you doing?”
I jump, smacking my head on the cabinet. “Fuck!”
Sawyer rushes over to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
I rub the spot as I stand with a nod. “Yeah, I was just going to wipe down the counters with disinfectant. I was looking for cleaner.” Sawyer places his hand on the spot, smoothing his thumb over the bump I’ll no doubt be getting.
His skin isn’t as pallid. His eyes are a bit brighter. “Feel better?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Thanks.”
I hear the stock begin to bubble and pull my attention back to the stove, turning down the heat to let it simmer. “Do you have a blender?” I look over the kitchen. “I couldn’t find it in all this mess,” I deflect, my heart still racing.
He walks past me, now in a pair of sweatpants, bare feet on the kitchen tile.
My gaze travels down his spine before he bends, reaching into a cabinet and grabbing a blender.
“I may be a mess, but not in the kitchen.” He pulls it out and puts it on the counter.
“The dishes are from last night. I was testing some things out then I started to feel like shit. I just left everything out, took some cough medicine, and passed the fuck out.” He stands too close to me.
I can feel the heat radiating from his skin.
“I wasn’t judging you.” I look at the time. Nearly twenty minutes should do it. I just need the vegetables to be soft.
Sawyer folds his arms over his body, and I watch the way his stomach tightens as he breathes. “What are you making?” My eyes lift, and I catch amusement in the set of his lips.
Food. Right. “I’m making Italian Penicillin.” I stir the soup, letting it simmer.
“Your mom make this for you when you were sick?” He smirks, plugging in the blender for me.
I snort. Uh, no. “She wasn’t exactly the warm, fuzzy ‘take care of you when you’re sick and kiss your ouchies’ type.”
“Ouchies?” Sawyer laughs.
I glower. “Anyway . . .” I roll my eyes when he laughs. “No. She was more the ‘either you die or get better’ type of mother. Your choice.”
Sawyer’s brows pinch. “Wow.” He looks at me. “Was?”
I nod. “She died, I think about four years ago now.” While the relationship I had with my mother was complicated, part of me misses her. I want to be mad about the mess she left me in. The mess she put us in. The debt she left me with. The trouble and pain I suffer because of her choices.
She took the easy way out and left me with him.
Then I think about Katya, and I don’t care about any of it because I have her.
I don’t know how or why she got caught up with Ivan. He promised her safety, but safety is only as good as the asshole offering it.
Ivan loves nothing.
Cares about no one except possession and money.
Koda told me once upon a time that Ivan was in love with a woman, but that was decades ago, and the thought of it is laughable. Koda’s mother fell into the same fate as mine years before Ivan met my mother. “What was her name?”
I faintly hear him, pulling me from my thoughts. “Oksana.”
I glance over, his arms still folded over his sculpted chest.
“Pretty name.” He looks at the bubbling soup.
“Where are you from?” Out of habit he picks up the wooden spoon and stirs it.
You don’t need to do much with it. It’s what I like about making this.
It’s easy and low maintenance. “My mother was from Ukraine. I don’t remember living there, though. We’ve lived all over the States.”
Traveling from motel to camping grounds to a shelter then briefly on the streets until she landed in Ivan’s lap.
“Do you speak more than one language?”
“Somewhat. My mother used to speak to me in Ukrainian.” It’s been a long time since I’ve even used my native language or heard someone else speak it. Ivan wouldn’t allow it. She learned that lesson fast.
“Sometimes I hear a slight accent.” He smiles. Do I still have one? “Very faint. It comes out the more flustered you get.”
“Then I guess you’ve never heard it because I don’t get flustered.”
He bites his bottom lip with his smile. “Like right there. Flustered.” He mimics.
I roll my eyes, grabbing the wooden spoon from him. “I’ve never really thought about it. Koda tells me he always knows how angry I get by how thick it becomes.” Which around him is often.
He laughs. “That kid you were with? With the gray hair?”
I nod. “Koda is . . .” I think of how to describe his relationship to me. “I guess stepbrother would be the best way to put it.” I know he’d be laughing his ass off right now hearing that.
“And you all live together?” I nod, ignoring that little twinge. Once my mother died, I was kicked out of the house. Ivan didn’t care where I went, just that I was available to him when he needed me. If I ran, he’d kill me, and the fucked-up part is I’d be fine with that.
Except there’s Katya, and Ivan knows I won’t go far without her. “We do.”
“You can go home if you want, after this.” I look at him. “I’m used to doing this alone. It’s okay, really. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
The thing is, I don’t. I have plans with Cam later today, to punch his face, and I’m really looking forward to it.
Punching him, that is.
Not because I like his company.
“I really don’t. Not until later tonight.”
“Tonight?” His brow arches. “A hot date?”
I almost laugh. “No. Gym with my friend.”
I grab the blender, and spoon all the vegetables into it with a little broth.
While that’s mixing, I dump about a cup of orzo into the rest of the broth and blend all the vegetables.
Once blended, I dump it all back into the pot and stir.
“There’s plenty here. Keep eating this and you’ll feel better in no time. ”
He grabs a bowl from the cabinet and sets it down.
Once the pasta softens, I ladle a couple of spoonfuls into it.
It’s piping hot, but he takes a spoonful and blows across it then takes a bite.
“Oh, wow.” He rests his elbows on the counter, taking another bite, then looks at me.
“This is good.” There’s a soft look in his eyes that’s both annoying and impossible to ignore.
Something twists low in my stomach. Annoyance? Irritation? Or is it something else I really should ignore? His gaze drops to my lips then drags up. I busy myself cleaning up the mess I made. “I’m glad.”
I’ve been staring at him for what feels like hours, but I don’t want to leave yet. After he ate some soup, I sat with him on the couch and watched a cooking competition with him to completion.
I just got invested and wanted to know who won. That’s all.
Sawyer is snoring now, still congested, but he looks a lot better than when I found him this morning. I need to meet up with Cam in an hour, but I don’t want to leave.
Which is exactly why I need to.
I slip off the couch and find a blanket to cover him up. I watch him a moment, then I ignore the tug in my stomach that’s keeping me rooted here.
I leave the TV on for some noise to keep him company, and take one more look at him before I lock his door from the inside then shut the door behind me.
Only when I’m between his bakery and Cam’s gym do I realize what I did.
Or rather what I didn’t do.
I’ve been alone for hours with him, while he slept on and off, and never really looked for the elephant.