16. Nikolai
Nikolai
I stand in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Gabby at the table with Luke. She’s got her coffee, and he’s got what I’ve come to understand is his standard morning setup. He’s looking at a book with a stegosaurus on the cover. Neither of them is talking, but she’s watching him.
The house feels different with them in it. It’s not noise. They don’t produce much of that. It’s something else. Occupied, maybe. Like a home instead of just a place I sleep in.
“Come with me today,” I say.
Gabby looks up.
“Where?” she asks.
“Tatiana. The new property.” I look at Luke. “I thought he might want to see it.”
She looks at her son. Luke is watching her. Gauging her reaction to decide if he likes this idea.
“What do you think, buddy?” she says.
“Okay,” he answers.
“We’ll go get dressed,” Gabby says.
He slides off the chair and takes his bowl to the sink. A habit, I’ve noticed. She’s taught him that. He disappears down the hall with his blanket trailing behind him.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I don’t want us to get in the way.”
“You won’t be in the way.”
“He’ll ask you a thousand questions.”
“Good.”
She leaves the kitchen, and I pour a cup of coffee.
They’re settling in. She doesn’t jump or stiffen when I walk into a room.
I think she might wait up for me at night.
She makes me something to eat when I come home.
The first two nights, I thought I might explode.
Yesterday, I was smart and skipped dinner.
Thirty minutes later, I’m loading them into the SUV. Gabby pauses when she sees the car seat waiting for Luke. Pasha helped me pick it out.
“How did you know?” she breathes.
I shrug. “Safety first.”
That makes her laugh. The sound is melodic. I don’t normally make people laugh. They don’t get me. Pasha laughs at me and with me. My brothers laugh. Well, Maksim laughs. Sergei, not so much.
I like her laugh. I want to hear more of it. Preferably when she’s looking at me.
I’m using a driver today and sit in the front passenger seat. Pasha has me thinking about safety and enemies. It’s risky being seen with Gabby and Luke. If one of those assholes pulls something, I need to be ready and able to protect them.
The SUV pulls up to the front of the building. Security is aware of my visit. Extra precautions have been taken. One of the men opens Luke’s door.
“I’ve got him,” Gabby says quickly.
I nod at my man, who closes the door. The three of us climb out on the same side.
“It’s tall,” Luke says.
“Forty stories,” I tell him.
Gabby takes his hand. She’s in jeans and a loose white shirt. She’s got her hair down, and I prefer it that way. I’ve noticed she puts it up a lot. And that exposes her dark roots. I knew she wasn’t a natural blonde.
“It’s beautiful,” she says quietly.
“It will be,” I say. “It’s not finished.”
“Even unfinished.” She looks at the lower three floors of glass panels. “You can see what it’s going to be.”
“Come on.” I lead them toward the entrance.
The main floor is controlled chaos. Two dozen workers move through the space.
The subfloor is finished, and the first wave of the gaming tables is being rolled in on heavy dollies and placed according to the floor plan I approved in March.
The chandelier rigging is overhead. The wall sconces are being installed along the north wall.
It smells like fresh paint and sweat. Not a pleasant mix, but it’s hot, and these guys are busting their asses.
Luke is taking it all in.
“What are those for?” He points at the gaming tables.
“Blackjack,” I tell him. “And poker. And baccarat.”
“What’s baccarat?”
“A card game.”
“Is it hard?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
He thinks about that. “Is it hard for you?”
Gabby coughs. I almost smile.
“No,” I say.
“Can you teach me blackjack?”
“Luke,” Gabby says.
“He can ask,” I tell her. I look at Luke. “When you’re older.”
He accepts this without argument, which I appreciate. We move into the space that will be the casino floor. He stops at the nearest table, which hasn’t been fully set up yet. The felt surface is still covered in protective plastic sheeting.
He puts one hand on the edge of the table and looks at it carefully. He runs his palm along the sleek surface, and I see he’s itching to touch the felt. I pull out my pocketknife, flick it open, and slice the plastic. I pull the protective layer back a few inches and nod.
Luke immediately touches it, rubbing his fingers across the felt.
And then he’s satisfied. He knows what it feels like, and that’s enough. I remember being a little older than him. My nanny constantly slapped my hands and told me to stop touching everything. To touch is to know.
Frank sees us and smiles.
“Checking on things,” I offer.
Frank gestures to someone behind me, then taps his head.
“I’m not going to wear a hard hat,” I tell him.
I know the rules, but I won’t fucking do it. We’ve had this conversation.
One of the guys brings a hat over and disappears. Frank holds it out to Luke. “Want to wear this?” he asks.
Luke looks at Gabby.
“Go for it.”
He looks at me and my bare head. “It doesn’t fit my head,” I say, “but I think you should.”
Gabby takes the hat and gently puts it on Luke’s head. I see the change in his face. He smiles.
“Thank the nice man,” Gabby says.
Luke doesn’t look at Frank.
“Thank you,” Gabby says.
Frank nods and leaves us to it.
We move through the floor. I let Luke set the pace, which is slower than mine, but I find I don’t mind it. He stops at things that interest him and ignores things that don’t. He asks me questions most adults wouldn’t. The exposed wires. Why are they different colors? Why don’t the floors match?
I answer every question.
Gabby walks beside me. At some point, I end up holding Luke’s hand. I don’t even know when it happened. She falls quiet, giving me and Luke space to talk.
“How many people will work here?” Luke asks.
“When it’s fully open? More than two thousand.”
He stops walking. “That’s a lot of people.”
“It is.”
“Do you know all of them?”
“No.”
He seems to find this acceptable and starts walking again.
We take the service elevator up because the main elevators aren’t running yet. I’m aware of the last time I was in the service elevator. I keep my breathing even and my eyes on the numbers above the door.
Luke watches the numbers, too. He points when the number changes.
“Thirty,” he says. “Thirty-one.”
I wonder if that’s normal. Do four-year-olds know numbers? I try to remember Mila counting, and I can’t think of a time she did. But did I ever ask?
“Almost there,” I say.
The doors open on the penthouse floor, and Luke walks out ahead of us. He stops in the center of the wide corridor and turns in a slow circle.
“It’s quiet up here,” he says.
“It will be,” I tell him. “That’s the point.”
I lead them to the main suite. The doors are propped open. Drop cloths cover most of the surfaces, but the windows on the north and west walls are installed, and the view is unobstructed.
Luke walks to the window.
“Be careful,” Gabby calls out.
He stands at the glass and looks out.
I watch him.
Gabby comes to stand beside me, taking in the massive space. She’s seeing what it will be, I think. The same way she did downstairs.
“This is extraordinary,” she says softly. She’s not talking to me, exactly. It’s more like she forgot for a second that she was saying it out loud.
“Wait until it’s finished,” I tell her.
She looks at the view over Luke’s head. The Strip in the midday heat, shimmering and white. “How long have you been building this?”
“Planning, three years. Breaking ground, fourteen months.”
“And you designed it yourself?”
“The concept. I had architects and interior designers for the execution.”
She moves to the window and bends down beside Luke. She puts her hand on his back and points at something in the distance. He follows her finger and then nods.
“What’s that one?” He points.
“That’s where I work,” she says. “You can see it from here.”
He studies the skyline. “It’s smaller.”
“From up here, everything’s smaller.”
He turns and looks at me. “Can we see the pools? You said you had three.”
“Let’s go.”
The pool decks are under construction. The shell of the larger outdoor pool is poured, and tile work has started along the upper edge. There will be a few smaller indoor pools as well.
Luke crouches at the edge of the empty shell of the main pool and looks down into it.
“There’s no water,” he says.
“Not yet.”
“When?”
“A few months.”
He looks at the depth markers that have been painted on the far wall of the shell. He reads them with his lips moving slightly. “Nine.”
“The deep end is nine feet.”
He takes a step back from the edge. Gabby didn’t tell him to be careful, but I see her stance. She’s ready to grab him in a heartbeat.
We move through the restaurant spaces, and once again, Luke has a million questions.
“Told you,” Gabby says with another laugh.
“It’s good,” I tell her. “You can’t learn if you don’t ask.”
“What’s this?” Luke asks when we reach the glass doors that will lead to the spa.
“This is a spa.”
“What’s that?”
I give him a brief description because I honestly don’t think he’ll be interested.
Gabby looks around and sighs. “It’s been forever since I had a spa day.”
I look at her, and she freezes, like she just realized she said it out loud.
She grabs Luke’s hand and leads him out and down the hall to the salon area.
She knows spas. Did spa days, the kind that require money and time to spare. I know her file says she’s almost twenty-five. I want to know what she was before she became someone who counts tips and stretches a paycheck.
Pasha joins us in one of the ballrooms. “Heard you were here,” he says. “I was coming by to check things.”
His eyes go to Gabby and Luke. He steps forward. “I’m Pasha,” he says to Gabby.
“Hello. Gabby.”
He crouches in front of Luke. “You must be Luke.”
Luke looks at him. The usual assessment. He doesn’t speak.
“I’m Pasha.” He points at Luke’s shirt. “You like dinosaurs.”
Luke looks down at his shirt.
“It’s a brachiosaurus,” Luke says.
Pasha nods slowly. “I thought it might be a different one.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the long neck and the plates.”
“That’s a stegosaurus.”
“Good to know.” Pasha stands up. “What do you think of the place?” he asks Gabby.
“It’s beautiful,” she replies.
Pasha looks around the space, hands in his pockets. “This room will be the best in the city.”
“I agree,” Gabby says.
Pasha is pretending to be casual. Making small talk. He’s sizing her up. Trying to decide if she might shank me in my sleep. I see the moment he decides she’s safe.
“My daughter is six,” he says. “Mila. She spends her days with my mother. I think she would enjoy hanging out with another kid.”
Gabby blinks. She wasn’t expecting that. “Oh.”
“She’s loud,” he says. “Fair warning. Very loud.” He glances at Luke. “I thought maybe if it wouldn’t be too much, she might come over sometime. If that’s something Luke would be okay with.”
Gabby looks at her son. She’s deciding what Luke can handle. What he needs. Whether the disruption is manageable.
“I think that would be a great idea,” Gabby smiles. “Luke doesn’t spend much time with other kids. He might enjoy it.”
Pasha looks at me. “You should have told her about the playdate earlier.” He looks back at Gabby. “When he told me you two were staying with him, I suggested a playdate, but he didn’t know what that was. Figured it was better to go right to the source.”
She frowns. “Why would he?” she says. “He doesn’t have children. He’s a businessman.”
Pasha stares at her for a moment. Then he looks at me with an expression I don’t know what to do with.
She doesn’t even know she did it. She defended me. To my best friend. The one guy I know would never intentionally try to hurt me. But the little lioness stepped up.
She’s already moved on, walking toward Luke. Luke reaches for her hand without looking. She takes it just as automatically. The two move toward the doorway in perfect sync without even trying.
Pasha leans slightly toward me. “I like her,” he says under his breath.
“Drop it.”
He grins at me. He’s not going to drop it.