“Oh, yes,” Lev nodded energetically. “Papa played for the KHL,” he explained. “SKA Moscow,” he added. “He was a D-man for over twenty years. Ever since I remember, mama took me to see papa play.” It was clear from the tone of Lev’s voice that it had been a great way to grow up.
He shook his head then, “That doesn’t answer your question.” It didn’t, since my question had been about his mom. “Mama’s strong. Determined. She’s a nurse, so she’s very kind but... strict. There was never any messing around with mama.”
As he spoke, I started to picture his parents in my mind. His dad probably looked like Lev, at least in build. I wondered what his and Lev’s mama’s romance had been like. I gave him a grin as I finally led him into the room with the skeletons. “Did you get in a lot of trouble?” I asked.
From what I’d seen, Lev had a flair for the dramatic. I could only imagine how that would’ve shone out in a teenager.
“Mama would say that I did, but I don’t think so. Not really,” Lev said, shaking his head. “Not more than anyone else did, anyway.” Those sounded like excuses. Lev could clearly tell that I was thinking that. He laughed, shrugging one shoulder. “I played a lot of hockey. There wasn’t much time for trouble-causing.”
This time around, he ignored my skeptical look. “What about you, Masha, did you cause trouble?”
A blush stained my cheeks and I had to nod. “Yes,” I answered. “I was smart.” I saw no reason to beat around the bush and pretend to have been less intelligent. I was still smart. I liked people to know that. “I finished my schoolwork quickly, so I had a lot of time for trouble-causing.”
I’d never done anything wrong. Never hurt anybody or stolen anything. “I thought I was so clever that I’d never be caught,” I admitted. Sometimes I hadn’t been, but I’d underestimated how many people my mom could call on to help her put the picture of my behavior together.
“I had a sleepover in high school the one weekend that mom left me alone in the house,” I explained. “I was so sure I could clean it all up before she got back. And I did. But the neighbors told her they’d seen girls arriving, and she noticed that her fancy mud mask bottle was nearly empty.”
“Wow, having people over for a sleepover and using your mom’s cosmetics, you were a right rebel, Masha.” Lev shook his head. “Even my not-causing-trouble was more troublesome than that. Where’s all the drinking? The partying?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I shrugged. “That came later,” I answered. “Once I got to college. And definitely in Russia.” I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow. I’d been twenty-one by then, so drinking hadn’t been causing trouble, exactly. But I hadn’t known how to handle it. And it had been the first time I’d been on my own, with no one else to help me.
“It was good,” I added. I didn’t want him to think it had been a bad experience. “I learned a lot about my limits. And about curing hangovers.” I laughed at that. Honestly, the hangovers I got now were worse than they’d been then, even though I drank much less. It was just part of getting older.
My smile softened. “Mom was raising us by herself at that point,” I said. “I think Emily and I both wanted to keep it relatively easy while we were still living at home.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” Lev commented. “Much more considerate than I would’ve been,” he added with a small shrug. I did get that. Emily and I had made a special effort. I didn’t think all kids in our position would’ve done that. Luckily, most kids hopefully weren’t in our position, anyway.
Before I could say as much, Devon appeared. “Lev, Ricky wants to show you some ants or some shit in amber,” he said, waving his hand toward the room he’d just emerged from. “He says it’s ‘very exciting’ and that I just ‘don’t get it’. So he wants you to get it instead.”
Lev laughed at that but nodded anyway. “I will do my best,” he informed us both before disappearing through the door. Devon took Lev’s place at my side to keep me company.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “That me and Ricky tagged along. Lev said this isn’t a date?” The way he said it as a question made it clear that Devon wasn’t totally convinced.
Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t even considered that this might look like a date to someone else. The museum of geology didn’t strike me as a very romantic place. Perhaps some people found the rocks more alluring than I did.
“It’s not a date,” I assured Devon. I liked that I hadn’t had to worry about whether Lev thought this was a romantic encounter. Nothing about his demeanor had seemed flirtatious. “Men and women can just be friends,” I teased. That was all I wanted. And, I trusted, all Lev wanted.
I smiled, looking up at the skeleton hanging over our heads. Unlike so many things, it was just as impressive now I had my adult height as it had been when I was small. “I don’t mind at all. I wouldn’t want to make Ricky sad.” And I had no doubt he would be if he’d missed this trip.
“Your girlfriend doesn’t mind that you’re here with me, does she?” I asked. I knew some people could be jealous like that. I’d never been one of them.
“Oh, no,” Devon shook his head. “Annie’s just glad no one’s making her go to a museum. Unlike Ricky, rocks definitely wouldn’t hold her attention.” Like me, Devon tilted his head back to look up at the skeleton.
“Isn’t it amazing?!” Ricky announced, his voice echoing around us as he and Lev joined us again. “This museum’s so great! We should come again,” he proclaimed.
“We haven’t even seen all of it!” Lev pointed out and Ricky shrugged. He didn’t at all seem bothered by the fact that there was another half of a museum yet to see. Honestly, I had been excited to bring Lev here, but Ricky added a whole new level of excitement. His enthusiasm was infectious.
Bouncing over to yet another exhibit, Ricky urged us to join them. “Come on, there’s some moon rock! From the moon!”
I laughed, turning to meet Lev’s eyes. “And there’s an Edmontosaurus,” I informed him. “Have you ever heard of that?” I certainly hadn’t until I’d looked the museum up online.
“Some researchers think they might have hopped, like kangaroos,” I added. Most researches dismissed that as being extremely unlikely - but that just wasn’t as much fun!
Ricky looked up, awed. “Woah. Imagine something that big hopping around!”
I grinned. It had been precisely the reaction I’d been looking for.
“I bet I can find you an Edmontosaurus in the gift shop,” I told Lev.
The rest of the museum could wait. I felt a little shopping and a coffee would break things up nicely.
“Sure,” Lev nodded.
“But we still get to see the actual edmontosaurus, right?” Ricky asked, managing to sound like a child might, with so much hope in his tone. Lev laughed at that before nodding.
“We will,” he promised.
I took them to the other side of the room, where the skeleton of the Edmontosaurus hung over our heads. Ricky and Devon debated whether it could hop, pointing at the pictures of how researchers believed it had looked. They argued over the size of its muscles, and its center of balance, and more and more technical things that I had no idea about.
Eventually, I had to confess that it was only a small number of researchers who believed hopping might have been its fastest way of moving around.
After that, we detoured through the gift store. I bought Lev a t-shirt, as promised. He bought me a keyring made out of a lump of fool’s gold.
Devon gave us a weird look as we exchanged gifts, but Ricky dragged us back out to the rest of the museum before he could say anything.
I had a good time, and I enjoyed Ricky’s company. Towards the end, I fell back in beside Lev. I practiced some more of my Russian, telling him about the Russian authors I’d tried - and mostly failed - to read.
Ricky and Devon ended up finishing the exhibits first. Somehow, it took Lev and me nearly half an hour longer. I hardly felt the time pass
by at all.
It was unusual. I was normally the one looking at my watch, wanting to see everything as efficiently as possible. But Lev was good company. I must have lost track of time.
Somehow, he ended up making me promise to come and see another game. All I had to do was pick a day and he’d put tickets aside for us.
Emily and Tanya were going to be thrilled.
I felt excited, too. And it wasn’t just excitement about hockey.
Chapter Five
Normally the only people I left game tickets for were my parents. It was exciting to have friends to leave tickets for. Well, one friend. I was yet to meet Maria’s sister and her wife. I heard a lot about them from Maria; it felt a little bit like I already knew them.
In the weeks after going to the museum, Maria and I had been out for meals a few more times. I took her skating because of course, that was important. Today, after training, she was going to show me how to make cookies. I’d found a recipe that had lots of protein in it. Maria promised to find a way to make them as tasty as possible.
I was eager to get home. It must’ve showed because Andre gave me a small shove from where he was sitting next to me in the locker room after training. “What are you smiling about, Lionceau?” The way Andre translated the team’s nickname for me always made me feel warm.
Andre and I had bonded a lot over not being first-language-English speakers.
“Masha’s going to teach me how to bake cookies,” I answered easily.
There was an excited yelp from one of the rookies. “Do we get to try some?” another asked. Before I had any real chance at answering that, Ricky interrupted.
“So is that a date?” he asked. “Are you finally going to date Maria?”
I hadn’t realized that that was a thing Ricky was waiting for. As I looked around the locker room, quite a few of the guys were watching me expectantly. Some of them had met Maria. I’d brought her to one of the post-game parties. But I had made it clear that Maria was a friend.
“No,” I answered. At least one person on the opposite side of the locker room did a mock cough with the word ‘shame’ in it. “She’s great,” I added, feeling like I had to defend myself. “But we’re friends. I... I mean, Maria’s great but I like having her as a friend.”
It wasn’t like I didn’t think Maria was attractive, but I didn’t think I was in a position where I was ready to date. And we were friends. I liked having her as a friend. I had no intention of ruining that by making it something more than it was meant to be.
“She is great, that’s why you should date her,” Ricky pointed out. Ricky had made it very clear that he thought Maria was awesome because she had taken him to see some rocks. It didn’t mean that I should date Maria.
Pulling my shirt over my head, I stood up to reach for my hoodie. “We’re friends,” I repeated. “And we’re going to bake cookies. If you don’t stop with your questions, no one is getting any.”
That seemed to work pretty well. Ricky made a motion of locking his mouth and throwing the key away. I was glad when the conversation moved away from me and Maria. Still, the question played on my mind as I drove home from training.
Maria was great. Maybe under different circumstances, I would have considered dating her. But as it was, I just... I liked having her as a friend. She was fun and a strange mix of similar and different from me. No one had ever taken the time to teach me how to bake before!
“Is that going to be enough bowls?” I asked Maria, showing her to my kitchen when she arrived. We’d agreed to do the baking in my house since the kitchen was more spacious and my oven was bigger. I’d bought all the things she’d put on the list, probably in larger quantities than absolutely necessary.
I had also purchased some new bowls and whisks and spatulas. Things I thought we might need for baking. I had gone over the top; the kitchen looked like a set on a cooking show.
Maria spun around the room, her grin growing wider. Her blonde ponytail whipped through the air behind her. I pretended to dodge as if I was afraid it would hit me. “This is way too many bowls,” she informed me seriously. “Have you never made cookies before? Not even at Christmas?”
“I made some as a kid but I was a ‘helper’,” I told her. “And in my memory, there were a lot of bowls.” It was, I realized now, maybe because baba had made a lot of different cookies all at once. Still, the worst-case scenario was that I’d just have a lot of bowls. I could live with a lot of bowls.
Moving to unpack the bags with flour and sugar and all the other things on the list, I glanced over at Maria. “Are you a good cookie-maker, then? I’ve promised the guys I’d bring them some cookies.” Which I’d probably do even if they tasted like ass.
Maria’s eyes widened. “Um.” She looked so caught off guard that it was hard not to laugh. When she noticed the corner of my mouth twitching, she gave my chest a shove. Given how delicate her hands were, it didn’t have much of an effect.
“I make amazing snickerdoodles,” she answered, before glancing doubtfully at the big tub of vanilla protein powder I’d bought. “I’ve just never made healthy ones,” she admitted. “I showed Emily the recipe. She said they should be good, but I can’t promise anything.”
After a moment, she seemed to perk up. “If they’re bad, you’ve got enough ingredients here that we could make a batch of my nan’s original recipe. You can just tell everyone they’re healthy!”
“Oh!” I gasped. “You’re a Mammoths’ supporter! Is this your cunning plan? Make all the Howlers fat so that the Mammoths can win!?” I asked dramatically. At this point, I had known Maria long enough to know that she did not support our biggest rivals. If anything, I felt like I was only just about convincing her to support us.
She giggled. I felt a surge of pride and warmth that was, by now, a familiar part of spending time with Maria. She laughed at my jokes and teased me back in ways that reminded me of feeling like part of a team. In this case, a very small team. Just big enough to make cookies.
“Okay,” Maria said, placing one hand on her hip. “The first thing we need to do is melt the coconut oil.” She pointed her other hand at me. “Your job,” she said seriously.
My kitchen was more than big enough for us to both get started on our individual tasks. Maria started measuring dry ingredients, adding them all to one of the bigger bowls I had bought. “Have you always lived here?” she asked. It was the first time I’d invited her to my house. “You’ll have to give me the tour later.”
“No, not always,” I answered, going about doing the tasks she’d given me. “When I first moved to Madison, I stayed with Nilssy. He was our old Captain, before Hayden,” I explained. It was nice to have been able to live with someone who had also had to adapt to living in the US.
Nilssy was Swedish. He and his now-wife Evie had been very hospitable in taking me in. It had helped a lot. A few months later, I’d moved into an apartment of my own. “I bought this house when I signed a five-year contract,” I explained. “That was two years ago now.”
Of course, there was a chance I’d get traded after the end of that contract. But I liked the idea of permanence. Even if it wasn’t permanent permanence. “This place has enough space for mama and papa to come to stay sometimes,” I added.
Maria directed me when to take the coconut oil off the heat, letting me pour it into the bowl. She pushed it lightly into my arms. “You whisk,” she announced. “You’ve got the muscles for it.”
I liked the way she was a little bossy. It made me laugh when she put on a show of leaning back against the counter, resting while I did all the hard work.
“And enough space for someone else?” she asked, teasingly. “I’ve known you for weeks and you’ve never once mentioned a girlfriend. Or even a date! Do you not see yourself settling down one day?”
The question made me pause. Maybe it was because of how similar it was to the questions I’d faced earlier. Kind of, at least. The answer was still the same - I didn’t think I could
commit. I’d tried it and, well, it hadn’t worked out for me.
It’d be a lie to say that the idea of settling down one day didn’t appeal to me. But it seemed unlikely to happen. That sounded depressing, even in my head, so I decided not to voice it.
“Maybe one day,” I said instead. “I’m not super into dating,” I added. That was, I supposed, actually true. Kira and I had been on and off for years. I had never bothered to date anyone in between. What would have been the point, right? And since we’d broken up last - at least three months ago, at this point - I hadn’t felt up to dating.
“What about you?” I asked, deflecting the question. “I haven’t heard you talk about dating either.”
Maria hummed, like maybe she needed time to think about the question, too. While she considered, she examined the bowl of dough I was mixing, proclaiming that I could keep going until it was ‘smooth’.
“I haven’t had the best luck with dating,” she admitted. “Nothing dramatic or tragic, just…” She shrugged. “I tend to be interested in men who love their work as much as I do. It doesn’t have to be the same kind of work. But I like a man to have ambition. And passion.” She smirked, making me briefly wonder just how passionate Maria could be.
It was not an appropriate thought to have about a friend.
“But when two people who love their work get together, either they have no time for each other, or someone has to work fewer hours, you know? I manage with friends. Like with you, we take turns making time to see each other.” I nodded.
It was true, I would reschedule my gym sessions half the time. Maria would take time off the other half. “When I get into a relationship, the expectation always seems to be that I’ll make the sacrifices. Probably because that’s what men have seen their moms and sisters do when they date.”
Until she’d said it, I wouldn’t even have thought of that. But Maria was right. My own mama had made sacrifices for papa’s career. Yeah, she could be a nurse anywhere and that worked well, but she had definitely taken different shifts depending on his games. It made me wonder if that was something I’d expect my girlfriend to do.
Final Score (Madison Howlers #5) Page 5