Chapter Fifteen
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you thought you discovered Veselka.”
I know it’s mean to make fun of people for not knowing New York-y things, but Ivan’s hidden gem is literally the most famous pierogi restaurant on the East Coast. I’ve been wheezing since we turned the corner on Second Ave and I saw him bound up the sidewalk like a cocker spaniel to show me his super cool, indie dinner pick: Veselka’s pierogies.
“Well, have you been before?” Ivan spears one of our pierogies—we’ve already forgotten what filling is in any of them—and bites it in half. A dark green tendril almost makes it impossible to get a clean break. Filling: arugula and goat cheese.
“No.”
“And are they now extremely delicious?” He points his fork at the pierogi that’s currently en route to my mouth.
I wait until I’ve finished chewing enough to decipher the filling to respond. Bacon, egg, and cheese. Weird, but satisfying. “You make a good point.”
“A compliment!” Ivan exclaims with so much enthusiasm he drops his fork. “Hell must’ve frozen over! And in the middle of July—a miracle.”
I hide my chuckle behind my hand—both to not give him the satisfaction of knowing he made me laugh, and to save him from seeing a mouthful of half-chewed food.
“My uncle and I visit the city a few times a year, and he’s always saying we should try this place out,” I clarify.
“I figured I’d come at some point this summer, but I haven’t had the chance yet since fake dating you is a full-time job. ”
“And I don’t even come with health insurance.” He raises a brow before helping himself to what I’m pretty sure is … yep. Definitely braised beef. “So what’s up with you and your uncle? You didn’t tell him you were at the academy?”
I swallow hard around my last bite. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, there’s no agenda for this outing, and we have …” Ivan gets a text on his phone and glances at the message while responding. “Infinity hours to kill.”
And I’d love to not spend all of that time talking about my relationship with my uncle, but in the spirit of trusting Ivan a little bit more for the sake of the bit, I relent. “Fine. So, my uncle is kind of … Clive Lyon.”
“Ha! Knew it,” Ivan says. “I didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey, are you related to this other Black guy,’ just because you have the same last name, but, man, Clive Lyon. That’s nuts. You live with him, right?” Ivan’s voice is too curious for comfort. “What’s that even like?”
There’s a challenge somewhere in the way he’s pushing his luck right now.
At first I sense it’s because he wants me to talk about some of the things I hide from him, but that’s not all of it, I think.
He wants me to stop wanting to hide things from him.
He wants me to stop manufacturing this distance, to stop building my wall so he can stop digging a tunnel under it.
I don’t know why he bothers. If I were going to ask Ivan a personal question, it would be why he hasn’t given up on trying to get to know me yet.
I’m not asking him a personal question, though, he’s asking me one.
Ivan breaks the silence before I do. “Sorry,” he says. “You don’t have t—”
“No, it’s fine.” I stab another pierogi as fuel for the rest of the conversation. “He used to say it’s one of the easier famouses to be. The only people who recognize him now are deep-cut football nerds and the occasional Netflix documentarian looking for their next ninety-minute sob story.”
“Do they find one?” Ivan asks, his tone kinder than I expected.
“Not really. He doesn’t dwell on it for himself. Kinda pathologically dwells on it for me, though.”
“Like how?” Ivan puts his fork down and gives me his full attention. I see an opportunity to steal another pierogi. He notices, but says nothing.
“Like how when I said I wanted to write for Wizzard Games, he immediately pushed me toward, like, coding and engineering because they’re safer bets than creative work.
And I get it, I’m going to need those skills too, but he wants me to go through life expecting the worst, and would it kill him to let me, I don’t know.
Dream a little? Aim high? Go for the Brian Juno mentorship to just see if I can do it? Not everything has to have a catch.”
“Was there a catch to you coming to the academy?” Ivan asks.
“Yeah. You,” I reply before helping myself to a long gulp of water—the perfect excuse to not say more than I have to. “Anyway, my baggage isn’t exactly first date conversation.”
Ivan stills. The fact that he didn’t have a snarky retort locked and ready to go immediately sets me on edge.
The corner of his lips quirk into a smile as he leans in closer to me.
Whispering so quietly I almost don’t hear him over the chatter of the densely packed dining room. “So, we’re on a date?”
If Ivan expects me to earnestly answer that question, he’s overestimating the amount of goodwill he’s earned tonight by having good, if obvious, taste in Ukrainian food.
I down another huge gulp of water to buy myself some more time to respond, only to blurt out the first thought that comes to mind when the timer I’ve set for myself is up. “You don’t talk about Emilia, ever.”
“Wow.” Ivan leans back in his chair. “That was the clumsiest attempt at deflecting I’ve ever seen. I expect more from you.”
“Sounds like a you problem.” I bite into another mystery pierogi now that I’m out of water. Sauerkraut and mushroom. Not top three, but still good.
“Incredible. It’s like talking to a wall.” I expect that to end this leg of the conversation, but Ivan persists. “Is that why you’ve never liked me? Is Emilia the only reason you screwed me over at Wizzcon?”
I think back. “Don’t forget the groupie thing.”
“Fine, okay. And the groupie thing.”
“And you stole Cass’s desk at orientation.”
“He’s right-handed!”
“And the ‘go easy on me’ thing.”
“Zora.” Ivan scootches his chair closer to the table and conspicuously leans in.
I imagine he’s enjoying this and wants a better seat for my rare and unusual performance of vulnerability.
I’m starting to regret saying anything. Wait—oh.
He was just scraping some sour cream onto his plate.
He’s fine. I’m fine. “There’s something I want you to know. ”
“Okay.” This is as good a place as any to stop talking and start listening.
Mainly so I can stop talking. The longer I talk to Ivan, the more I end up wanting to talk to him, and that is terrible.
I don’t want him to think he’s cracked me open for real.
So I’ll let him have his moment and slide into a nice, tense silence.
“You remind me of this guy I used to know. He was an asshole.”
“You’ve mentioned that about me, yeah.”
“No, that’s the thing.” Ivan puts down his fork. “You’re not an asshole. The guy I’m talking about, he was my captain last year, when I—when Emilia and I played together on the same team. We played really well together, by the way. She was a great partner.”
No shit, Emilia Romero was a great partner. She’s one of the greatest Guardians League Online players to ever do it.
“All Emilia ever did was make our team better, and this guy hated her for it. It was nuts to watch. The better she did, the more he was convinced she was out to get him, but all she wanted was to be his friend.”
“See, that’s where she messed up—”
“Shush. I know that. Now. He got what he deserved in the end, anyway.” Ivan wipes his hand down his face and exhales loudly.
Oh, wow, this might actually be a deep cut from his past. We’ve stepped into the mirror universe where Zora and Ivan can go out to dinner and talk to each other. Damn, I guess Kavi’s multi-phased plan really did work.
“I don’t want you to end up like him,” he says. “So I’m going to ask you right now, for real. What is your problem with me? Consider it a … performance evaluation. You don’t have to tell me now—in fact, take some time to think about it. Check please.”
That last part is to our server, who’s been hovering around our table expectantly. This is Veselka on a summer holiday evening, after all. She dashes back to the kitchen to print our check.
My head is still spinning from Ivan’s regrettably on-the-nose analysis of why he actually grinds my gears. I don’t think he’s out to get me, per se, but if—and this is a huge if—he’s really trying to be my friend, then I am the asshole who hates him for trying.