Abby
“You’re getting a lot better.” My fist is laughably small next to Misha’s as I offer a congratulatory bump, and my chest tightens thinking about how big all of him is.
Probably. Just proportionally…fuck. Even if seducing a Santori brother is the end goal, Misha might know enough to be a worthwhile conquest on the way.
There’s no way to be sure of his interest yet, but I swear he stares at me more and more often during practice.
“I think we’ll be able to get on the ice during our next session. ”
He hops up to loom over me, bending until we’re eye to eye. I’m saved the embarrassment of closing my eyes for a kiss that never comes when he snatches his water bottle from the shelf behind me and polishes it off. “You like ice cream, right?”
“I do.”
This time, the heat in his eyes is undeniable. Knowing that my attraction isn’t one-sided is heady, and for the first time in far too long, my cheeks heat with lust that isn’t drug-induced.
“Are you free right now?”
“No! I want to like pistachios, but something about them tastes off to me. Always has. I can’t really explain it. They don’t taste like dessert to me. They taste more like…cheese? Trust me, the pistachio is all you.”
Misha pulls back the offered dish of pistachio ice cream and shrugs. “More for me. What did you end up with?”
He’d left me at the counter after slyly leaving his card with the cashier to go snag the last empty booth.
I’m not sure if this is a famous ice cream parlor in the area, but it’s a dream with all chrome accents and red leather upholstery.
The black-and-white checkerboard tiles gleam, and soft big band music flows from a jukebox.
It’s like being on a movie set in the ‘50s.
“Well, after much deliberation, as you saw, I decided on a trio of classic, second-chance, and hopeful.”
Misha pauses mid-bite, eyebrow quirking at my description before finishing off a mouthful of his own triple-scooped pistachio waffle cone. “Second-chance ice cream?”
“It’s something…” Shit, something my mom used to encourage.
Trying a flavor more than once, just to see if it was your mood on a specific day that made you dislike it.
“Something I’ve always done. You never know if your first opinion on something was negative because of your mood that day, or because the kid in front of you in line at the ice cream truck bought the last of what you really wanted, so you refused to enjoy what you ended up with. ”
He snorts a laugh at that, and I finally manage to make my point. “My classic is chocolate fudge, my second-chance is toasted almond, and my hopeful is pineapple mint.”
At the mention of chocolate, his nose wrinkles, and the effect of the pout is too funny on his rugged face not to laugh. “No chocolate for you, huh?”
“It’s not what I would reach for if given the choice. I can tolerate it on a peanut butter cup or an ice cream sandwich—”
“Those are very specific exceptions.”
“But I prefer fruitier flavors most of the time.” He nods at the third scoop in my bowl, the pineapple mint that’s my immediate favorite of my trio. “Is it any good?”
“Better than sex, as they say.” As soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back. Where did that come from? Sex isn’t even good…
Misha just roguishly winks at me and opens his mouth, clearly expecting to be fed. A soft hum of pleasure rumbles from him as his lips close around the morsel I offer, and the next bite I take is intimate, knowing that my spoon was just in his mouth. Clearly, I’ve lost all grip on reality.
“It’s very good. I think the pistachio wins, though,” he says, gracefully defusing the tension I continue to cause. “But I disagree on better than sex. Personally, my threshold for that is much, much higher.”
My mouthful of ice cream immediately goes down the wrong pipe, and my coughing fit draws the attention of every patron in the diner before I’m able to breathe again. “Did you want to try the—”
“Are you ok—”
We both stop.
“Ladies first.”
Get your shit together, Abby. “I was just asking if you wanted to try the almond.” A buzz in my pocket reminds me that Conor was planning to call me earlier than usual today. Fuck. There’ll be hell to pay for ignoring him, but I’ll deal with that later.
“No thanks. I think I’ve had my fill. Of ice cream. I was asking if you’re okay, but it seems like the danger of you choking has passed,” he says with a soft smile. “So where are you from? Ellie told me Canada, but nothing else.”
Yes! Classic “get to know each other” questions. Perfect for finally gathering intel to give to Conor. That’ll help assuage his anger from missing his call. Even thousands of miles away, his threats are as real as when I was living in his home.
“Yeah, a really small town in Canada. Very rural, not a lot to do except skate. Have you always lived here?”
“I grew up in Russia, actually. Then I moved to Thunder Bay as a teenager.”
Russia makes sense, since my internet search confirmed that Misha isn’t traditionally an Italian name. Maybe his maternal side is Italian. “Wow! Are there a lot of Italians living in Russia?”
His head tilts, considering me with a squint. “No…”
“Oh. Well, a move that big must have been quite the culture shock. Did your entire family come?”
His shrug is nonchalant in a way I’ll never be able to mimic when talking about my family. “I never knew my parents, but I do have a sister. Not by blood, but in every way that matters. She and I were all each other had for over twenty years. What about you?”
“No siblings. But my parents and I were super close when I was growing up, until…” Until Conor pulled me away from everyone I ever knew and kept me imprisoned in his gilded cage.
There’s no need for me to fake the sadness that permeates every cell of my body when I think about my parents.
Whether it’s being away from Conor and his ever-watchful cameras or seeing who I used to be when I look in the mirror these days, they’re on my mind more now than they have been in years.
“Until they died,” I continue bluntly, and Misha, to his credit, doesn’t flinch.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says softly. “Did one of them teach you how to skate?”
My mom showing me her competition outfits from her time on the youth circuit. Homework in the stands watching Dad skate in his beer league. The picture that probably still has pride of place above the fireplace, a candid of us all standing on the podium when I won my only competition.
“They both did, actually. It was one of our favorite things to do together.” Before he can ask for details I’d really rather not give, I try to steer back toward safe, useful territory.
“Ellie never mentioned how the two of you are related! Are you cousins? Is Misha short for a longer Italian name like her and her siblings have?”
Everyone’s attention turns to us again as he laughs, a short, booming exclamation as if I’ve just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard.
“No, no. We aren’t related. Misha is short for Mikhail, which is about as Russian as it gets.
Ellie married into my friend’s family, and we’re all close.
I would do anything for her and her family, but officially, no. ”
The shrill chime of his ringtone interrupts any further information he might have given me, and he apologizes before stepping away to take the call. Despite preparing myself for it, Conor’s text ties a knot in my stomach all the same.
Conor: Answer your fucking phone, Naimh!!!
Conor: I swear to God…
Me: Getting more info from Santori contact.
Me: An opportunity came up I couldn’t miss.
My last text, that Misha isn’t a Santori and is Russian, goes unsent as the man himself returns from his call. As he apologizes, I notice a flash of a familiar logo on his shoulder, and his shirt sticks to the booth as he slides in.
“Is that the Metallica logo?” If he’s not a Santori, I don’t have to try so damn hard to extract “useful” information. I can enjoy myself on my ice cream date and just get to know Misha, even if I’m setting myself up for complications with Ellie.
The twinkle in his eye is unmistakable, but he straightens his black T-shirt and levels me with a serious stare. “All of my tattoos are very serious and meaningful. Certainly nothing as frivolous as a tattoo of the greatest metal band of all time.”
“Funny, I didn’t see a Black Sabbath tattoo. Do you have it hidden somewhere?”
“I could show you plenty of my hidden tattoos,” he says with a wink, “but many of them are in Cyrillic. And most of them are truly very meaningful.”
My noncommittal hum intrigues him, and I shrug. “I think a Metallica tattoo has just as much right to be meaningful to you as anything else. The real question is…do you have any truly silly tattoos?”
His sigh of resignation, slow rise to his full height, and lift of his shirt…
just to pull down his sweatpants slightly and show off his silhouette tattoo of Pikachu, tucked into the inner line of his Adonis belt, will be forever burned into my mind.
Clearly, I’m struck dumb for too long, and he breaks the silence to offer his hand and help me from the booth.
“There’s a story, but it’s too long to tell today, and unfortunately, I need to head out.”
We head together to my car like it’s a given at this point, and he confirms our next practice time. His motorcycle is only a few parking spots away, and it’s so sleek I can’t help but compliment it.
“Your bike is beautiful. Scary and bigger than I thought motorcycles were. But it suits you.”
“Because I’m scary and bigger than you thought I’d be?”
“Well, I can’t necessarily speak to that, now can I?”
Jesus Christ, Abby. We’re under-fucking-cover! Work on your filter!
Misha laughs again, the short but unguarded guffaw that I know now comes when he’s truly tickled, and saves me by slowly walking backward toward the bike.
“I’d love to take you for a ride, Abby. Just name the day. It’s as big as it looks, but I promise, it’s only scary if you want it to be.”
With that, he’s off, and my phone buzzes again before I even buckle my seat belt.
Conor: ????
The text I typed in the diner and never sent taunts me, and I delete it without a second thought.
Me: Never mind. No new info.
No new info, my ass. I have plenty of new info. Misha isn’t a Santori Mafia man, he’s definitely as interested in me as I am in him, and he’s much scarier than I ever could have dreamed.
But not for any of the reasons I could have imagined.