Chapter 29 - Karter | Two Months Later #2
She waved me off with the same flick of her wrist Aleksey used when he was done arguing with me months ago. “Sit. You’re a guest today.” Then she pointed the dish towel at me like a weapon, one eyebrow arched. “Tomorrow, I’ll make you wash dishes. And I do not accept complaints.”
Aleksey choked on his water, coughing into his fist as he set the glass down. “Mama’s not joking.”
“I figured.” I settled back into my chair, hands raised in surrender.
My jacket still hung over the back of my chair, and I dug into the inner pocket. The velvet pouch was small enough that I’d forgotten it was there for half the drive, just a soft weight against my side.
Before the drive over here, I’d run through what to bring.
Something useful, not some fancy candle or a bottle of wine she’d never open.
A kitchen tool was simple, but the right kind meant you’d paid attention.
The antique shop near campus had a whole rack of old kitchenware.
These spoons were solid brass, heavy for their size, the kind that had lasted fifty years and would last fifty more.
I set the pouch beside Alya’s empty bowl. She looked from the gift to my face and back again.
“I wanted to bring you a gift. Consider it a pre-housewarming present.” I nudged the pouch half an inch closer. “I almost bought you a candle. Then I remembered how Aleksey told me you love to cook.”
Her eyebrow lifted a fraction as she picked up the pouch. The drawstring came loose under her fingers, and she fanned the spoons across her palm. The brass clinked together, a low metal chime you didn’t get from stainless steel.
Alya tested the weight of the tablespoon, turned it over, and ran her thumb along the worn edge of the bowl. Her lips pressed thin, but this time the silence felt different. Less like I’d misjudged, more like she was somewhere else.
“My grandmother had spoons like these,” she said quietly. “Heavy ones. Not the cheap kind.” She set the largest spoon down and picked up the quarter-teaspoon, rolling it between her fingers. “She said light spoons made light cooks.”
A beat passed. I kept my mouth shut.
Then Alya slid the spoons back into the pouch one by one, the drawstring pulled tight with the same precision she’d used to fold the dish towel earlier. She set the pouch beside the stove, not the dish rack.
“You have good taste.” Her compliment landed so dry I barely caught it. “For a boy who has never had to cook for himself.”
Across the table, Aleksey choked on his water.
“Careful, Aleks,” I said, sliding my own glass toward him. “Your mother just gave me her highest honor.”
Alya grinned. “I do not give them often,” she said, and picked up the remaining plates.
The sunlight falling through the window had shifted while we ate, creeping higher up the far wall as the afternoon wore on.
Aleksey drained the last of his water and stood, cracking his neck with a low grunt. His hand brushed the back of my shoulder as he passed. “Alright. More boxes.”
I stayed seated for a moment, scanning the stacks of crates wedged between the furniture and the walls. Pots wrapped in newspaper. A lamp with the shade removed. The whole apartment stripped down and packed tight. “So the new place is official?”
“Yep, Tuesday,” Aleksey said. He grabbed a crate from the counter and carried it toward the door. “The moving truck comes at nine.”
Alya leaned against the counter and folded her arms, surveying the surrounding chaos with something between exhaustion and satisfaction. “That’s three flights of stairs I will not miss.” She gestured toward the window with her chin. “But the new building has an elevator. And a real dishwasher.”
“And deadbolts that actually work,” Aleksey added.
“He’s been talking about those deadbolts for two weeks,” I said, glancing over at Alya. “Pretty sure he’s more excited about the locks than the dishwasher.”
Alya’s gaze shifted to Aleksey, who had suddenly become very interested in re-stacking a crate near the door. The back of his neck flushed above the collar of his shirt.
Alya clicked her tongue. “The day he signs the contract, he calls me up saying, ‘Mama, you’re moving.’ No asking. Just telling.” She smoothed a crease in the tablecloth with her thumb, not looking at either of us, but I caught the small smile on her lips. “Like I am the child.”
I shook my head with a smirk. “Aleksey doesn’t know how to do anything halfway.” Pushing back from the table, I grabbed the tape dispenser off the floor. “So, where do you want the next stack?”
Aleksey already had a crate hoisted onto the counter, his back to us. Alya crooked a finger at me.
“Come here.”
I stepped around the table. She reached up, adjusted the collar of my polo shirt with two fingers, a quick tug that straightened the fabric, then dropped her hand.
“You are not what I expected.”
“Is that good or bad?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned toward Aleksey. “Lekha.”
He lowered the crate to the counter and turned. Alya gestured at me with a flick of her chin.
“I have not seen you smile like this since you were twelve years old.” She pressed her lips together, a verdict appearing to land behind her eyes. “So. I like this boy.”
Aleksey’s hand stayed frozen on the crate handle. For a long second, he just stood there, jaw working like he was chewing through a reply he couldn’t find.
“I guess you’re getting demoted,” I said.
Aleksey’s mouth twitched. “Mama hasn’t even made you wash dishes yet.”
“Tomorrow.” I held up the tape dispenser. “Then it’s official.”
Alya waved me toward the boxes. “Go. Before he drops that crate on purpose.”
The next few hours blurred into a rhythm of hauling crates and ripping tape. I pivoted whenever Aleksey carried a heavy box past me in the narrow hallway, no words, just instinct. We didn’t need to talk. We moved.
Midway through, we stopped for water and leaned against the kitchen counter, shoulders brushing. Alya stayed in her armchair with the television turned up a little louder, but her eyes tracked us over the rim of her mug with a genuine smile.
By the time the sun dropped below the rooflines, my lower back ached and my shirt stuck to my skin. Alya had laid out cold cuts and bread while we worked. We cleared the snack plates in five minutes and went back to the last row of boxes in the front room.
I taped the last one shut right around eight o’clock. Alya retreated to the living room for the night, leaving the television playing low in the background. Meanwhile, Aleksey wiped his hands on his jeans. He checked the window, then pushed open the fire escape door.
I stepped out onto the metal grating after him. The warm summer air hit my face, carrying the distant hum of street traffic. A few floors down, a radio played salsa music.
I stepped up beside him, our elbows brushing as I gripped the rusted railing, the iron biting rough into my palms.
Aleksey didn’t move; he simply kept his eyes on the street. His forearms stayed locked on the rail, his knuckles going white before he flexed his fingers once and let them go slack.
“I think your mom likes me more than she likes you, now,” I said.
A snort. “She called you family one time. Don’t get cocky.”
“Oh, I’m absolutely getting cocky.” I nudged his elbow with mine. “She’s already got me on dish duty tomorrow. That’s a promotion.”
“That’s a trap. She’s gonna put you on scrubbing duty and sit back with her coffee.”
“Still better than the college dining hall.”
He didn’t answer. The streetlights buzzed on one by one below, pooling orange across the cracked pavement, and the silence stretched easier this time.
A dog barked somewhere down the block. A car door slammed.
The press of his shoulder against mine was solid and warm, and whatever he was working up to, I wasn’t going to rush it.
Aleksey turned his head and looked at me, and all the nervous tension he seemed to have been carrying since my car pulled up outside was just completely gone.
“There’s somewhere I want to take you,” he said.
I didn’t ask where. I simply followed him back inside, snatched my car keys off the kitchen counter, and let him direct me down streets I’d never seen before as I drove.
Corner stores with barred windows gave way to empty lots, the kind of blocks where streetlights flickered like they were thinking about giving up.
“Left here,” Aleksey said, pointing at a narrow turnoff.
I slowed the SUV and squinted through the windshield. “Pretty sure this is a dead end.”
“Just drive.”
“Should I be worried? Is this where you finally murder me and dump the body?”
He snorted. “If I was gonna do that, I wouldn’t have let you eat my mother’s stew first.”
I pulled up next to a rundown park, the grass more dirt than green. Beyond a rusted chain-link fence, an outdoor rink sat under two working streetlights. It was a concrete slab with no boards; the goals were just metal frames bolted into the ground.
As I shut off the engine, Aleksey leaned back and fished two sets of inline skates out of the footwell behind his seat.
One pair looked like they’d survived a war, the leather scuffed to hell and the laces replaced three times over.
The other pair was brand new with the size tag still attached to the heel.
I raised an eyebrow. “You bought me skates?”
He tossed the new skates into my lap and reached for the door handle. “I saw them at a shop last week and figured you’d need something for the summer.” A pause, and then he glanced back at me, a crooked grin pulling at his mouth. “Size ten and a half, right?”
“Of course you know my shoe size.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Oh, it’s already weird.” I turned the skate over in my hands, running my thumb over the wheel tread. “So you bought me a gift. Just like a boyfriend would.” I leaned across the center console and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.