FIFTY-THREE WHEN THE RUSSIAN FINALLY UNDERSTOOD THANKSGIVING #2
“That’s…” She swallows, then turns her face into my chest and hugs me. Hugs me like she’ll never let go of me. Hugs me as if she’s mourning my past, when she’s the reason I have a future.
Misha’s gaze softens on her heaving shoulders while she weeps, quietly, against my chest.
I slide my hands over her waist, holding her tight, smoothing my fingers over her back as I growl in Latgalian, “You wake me up, wake her up, share our sob stories, and then make my new wife cry. Tell me why I shouldn’t slice off your tongue.”
“Because it’s Thanksgiving.”
I snort.
“Stop speaking in Latgalian,” she warbles in my ear.
Rolling my eyes, I switch to Russian. “Fuck off downstairs. We’ll eat soon.”
“Aspen’s here,” Misha says, a bounce to his step as he stands and stretches. “Figured we could eat together.”
Though I heave a sigh, I bat my hand at him in the universal sign for “fuck off.” No ASL required.
When he leaves, I let her cuddle into me for as long as she needs. Finding it remarkable that this woman, this goddess, weeps for me.
“I hate that you had to turn to crime just to survive,” she confides.
“There’s no point crying over spilled milk, kotik.”
“What did you want to be? When you were little?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes. It does.” She pulls back to stare at me, her eyes red-rimmed and watering. “To me.”
Gently, I press my thumb to the corner of her eye where a tear track is beginning to form. “You’ll laugh.”
“Maybe I won’t.”
“You will.” Seeing that curiosity has overtaken her sorrow, I nod to myself. “I know you will.”
“You don’t!”
“I do.”
“Tell me!”
I roll her over, smirking at her shriek of laughter as I tickle her. My hands caress her body with love, but I definitely drive her to the edge as she squeals.
But she doesn’t forget…
“Tell me!”
“I wanted to be a chef.”
Her fingers stroke my stubbled chin. “The recipe book!”
“Ridiculous, huh?”
“Not at all.” She turns into me, her arms sliding over my waist again. “You could still do it.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I think it’d be good for you.”
“Hardly!”
“I’d be a willing guinea pig.”
“Kroshka—”
“Maxim. Don’t make me bite you.”
“Not a threat—”
“I can make it be. You want me to study. You insist on it. You don’t let me cut classes. You want me to have an education. Why wouldn’t I want the same for you? It’s not like you can’t have someone come and teach you the basics! Heck, didn’t you say Niko’s wife writes recipe books?!”
I press a kiss to her temple. “I’ll think about it.”
She sniffs. “You won’t.”
“I will!”
“You better.” She rolls into me. “We should spend some holidays with Nikolai.”
“We don’t—”
“Da.”
“No.”
“Da. We do! He’s your family and some kind of bizarre Lyanov doppelg?nger.”
“I’ll kill Misha.”
“You can’t kill a guest at our table.”
“Just watch me.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange?”
“Of course I do! It’s bizarre as hell and it’s probably why I give him so much shit!”
Her tongue peeps out as she wets her lips. “What did he do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Neither of you outright said it, but I know you were hiding it. How did he protect you?”
“By doing what no boy should have to do.” I watch the knowledge blossom in her eyes and heartache replace it. “You can’t say anything.”
“As if I would! What do you take me for!”
“A nosy do-gooder who wants to make the impossible better.”
“Did you say something?” she demands sweetly.
“Nyet, dorogoya.”
Her expression softens. “Why do you want me so much, Maxim?” Her fingers dance over my chin. “I see it all the time. The power you give me… I think you give that power to few—”
“Nobody,” I correct.
“Why? I’m just a woman who—”
“You’re not just anything, Victoria. You are a promise and a dream come to life.”
Her eyes narrow. “What if I fall off that pedestal you put me on?”
“I’ll catch you.”
“Pedestals aren’t comfortable.”
“I’ll cushion yours.”
“With?”
“Down-feathered silk cushions.”
Her lips twitch. “And if I prefer memory foam?”
“Memory foam and Mongolian cashmere are what you’ll get.”
Her eyes trip over my face, pausing here and there, seconds before her fingers join the party. She maps my features, recording them for posterity, memorizing them.
“When you drink caravan tea—”
“What?”
“Patience,” I admonish, earning myself a huff. “When you drink caravan tea, and it is bitter and harsh, then you add varenye, it transforms it, no?”
“Yes.”
“You are the varenye of my life. It has been harsh. Bitter. Cold. A fight. You are sweetness. Softness. A part of me wants to covet and shield you with my dying breath but…” I grimace.
“I know someone who led that kind of life and it isn’t something I’d wish on an enemy, never mind someone who has captivated me for a long time.
“When I first knew you, you were a child and a job. I told you before that I wasn’t attracted to you.
That sort of thing is abhorrent to me, and after what you learned about Nikolai, you understand why.
” Her hair dips into her face as she shields her expression.
“But you were funny. Vibrant. All while choking under your father’s expectations.
I saw it in you. Something died in you whenever you were around him and I hated him for it.
“Here was another useless father who was ruining his child. Here was someone who’d been gifted a family and who was too goddamn stupid to see what he wasted.”
“Then he died.”
Slaughtered. Like the pig he was. Camille never had to worry about me throwing her to the wolves. Vasov’s death had been far kinder than he deserved.
“And I turned into him. For a time.”
“A time?”
“Da. To my shame.”
“You coveted my name and position.”
I tip my head in agreement.
“Why didn’t you claim me when I was eighteen?”
“Because I didn’t want to marry a child.” I glance away from her. “And no matter what I did or said, I’d never have forced you into anything.”
“You waited for me though.”
“Of course.”
She clucks her tongue. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Maxim.”
“Maybe it’s a project that’s a lifetime in the making?”
She must hear the hope in my voice because she smirks. Devious. Wicked. Smart. Everything she is, encapsulated in that one twist of her lips. And it’s that that enchanted me. Her fire. Her spirit.
In our world, they’re not traits valued in women.
“I never wanted a drone.”
“Nor did I,” she declares, but before detangling herself from my arms and climbing off the bed, she bops my nose with her finger, busses my lips, then flounces over to the bathroom.
Slumping back on the mattress, I stare at the ceiling.
With her no longer there to distract me, my temper stirs once more, but Misha, the fucker, knows I find it hard to stay mad at him.
We’re all as bad as each other. Forgiving of sins because, in our hearts, we’re still those kids, scrounging to survive.
The sound of Victoria humming to “See You Later, Alligator” by Bill Haley & His Comets has me groaning as I pull the silk coverlet over my face.
But then, it hits me.
The rightness of this moment.
I never figured I’d have this.
Her.
Our house.
Several homes, in fact.
The best cars and staff who feed us the best food.
Best friends I want to kill but whom I’ll kill for…
Her.
That kid, after he lost everything and everyone, never figured he’d have so much.
My eyes pop open.
“Thank you.”
I say the words to the universe.
It’s not my holiday.
But I can still be grateful for—
“MAXIM, I NEED SOMEONE TO WASH MY BACK.”
I jump off the bed.
Now I have something else to be thankful for…