Shit.
“What the hell is this shit?” he spat, looking down.
“Dick pics, messages from assholes….”
“This guy is jerking off.”
“I didn’t watch the fucking video, Ivan. Are you done now?” I hissed at him.
He stared at me for a moment then said, “Yes, I’m done.” That pink mouth opened and then closed again. Ivan sputtered. Sputtered. His face went even redder, and then he said, “Get your shit together. You aren’t staying here tonight.”
It was my turn to sputter. “What?”
“You’re not staying here tonight. You pack or I pack for you. Decide now.”
“The hell you will, and the hell I’m going with you. I’m staying here,” I told him.
He blinked. He blinked so steadily, it was kind of scary from how psychotic the movement was. I was pretty sure it reminded me of Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs when he’d had that face mask on that had given Ruby nightmares for months. Sebastian had bought me a similar one for Halloween one year after I’d begged.
“You’re not staying here by yourself,” Ivan claimed, snapping me out of my memory. “You either come with me or you’re going to one of your brothers’ houses. You choose. You were already going to spend the day at my place anyway.”
“You’re not the boss of me. You don’t get to—”
The asshole cut me off. “You come with me or I’m calling your brothers right now and telling them why you aren’t staying here until your mom comes back.”
That time, my mouth really did fall open. Until my mom got back? That was two weeks from then. And I told Ivan exactly that.
What did he do? He shrugged, tightness all over his shoulders and arms through the T-shirt he had on. “Choose, baby. Me or your brothers.”
What in the hell? “No!”
“Yes!” he shouted back.
What the hell was happening? “No!”
He watched me, eerily still, barely breathing if he even was, before shrugging. “Fine.”
And then he held up my phone. By the time I realized what he was doing, it was too late for me to snatch it back. I still rushed toward him anyway.
“Ivan!” I yelled, getting up to my tippy-toes as he stood and held it straight over his head, so tall I wasn’t even close to reaching.
“You got three seconds, you hardheaded ass. Three seconds or I’m calling them, and if you kick me in the balls, I’ll call all of them.”
He would. He definitely would.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Fuck.
Gritting my teeth, I held back the yell I really wanted to give him and spat, “Fine. Fine.” Dickhead. Ugh.
“What’s it going to be?” he snapped, sounding maybe even angrier than me, if I thought about it.
But I didn’t.
I held back the middle finger I wanted to give him and groaned, “You, ass. I’ll stay with you.” There was no way I’d stay with either of my brothers if I could help it. And just like that, I got mad all over again. “This is bullshit.”
He snorted angrily. “Yeah, it’s real bullshit that I give a shit about you. Suck it up and get your things, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do and you need to pack. I’m so mad at you, I don’t want to look at you.”
I could have fought him over it. Well, I could have tried. But if there was one thing in the world I’d learned over the last few months: Ivan wasn’t the kind of man who didn’t live up to his words. And if there was one other thing I’d learned over the course of that period too, it was that if I didn’t agree to whatever bullshit he was threatening me with, I would probably regret it.
And luckily for him—and unluckily for me—both times I had spent the night at Jonathan and James’ place, I’d learned that their walls were thin. Too thin. And apparently, James had a giant dick.
So, yeah, no thanks. I loved my brother and James, but there was some shit in the world, I just didn’t need to know. Nope.
As for Sebastian, if he were to find out about the mail, I would never hear the end of it. Dealing with Ivan was one thing, but Jojo would call Tali and call Seb, and then I’d have three people breathing down my neck, calling me a fucking moron for keeping a secret.
No thanks.
I was going to have to go with the lesser evil… Ivan who was probably more evil than both my brothers, but definitely wasn’t as evil as both my brothers and Tali.
Damn it.
“This is so damn stupid,” I grumbled.
My partner shrugged, totally and completely unapologetic. “What’s stupid is you not telling anyone about this. Get to packing, Meatball.”
I whispered, “Dick,” loud enough for him to hear.
If he did—and he had to—his face didn’t register it. More than likely though, he just didn’t give a shit. God. Was this what dealing with me was like?
Turning my back to the man standing right by my bed, I opened my closet to grab one of my bags. Going up to the tips of my toes, I tried to reach for it but couldn’t. Without looking at Ivan again, I left my room and went to the hallway closet to grab the step stool from inside.
But by the time I made it back to my room, the bag I’d been reaching for had been set on my bed.
And Ivan was back to sitting on the mattress, facing the wall and staring at it with an expression so tight, the bones along his jaw had never looked more visible.
Fine. If he didn’t want to talk to me, that wouldn’t bother me at all. I didn’t exactly want to talk to him either.
Sure, I hadn’t been crazy about staying home alone to begin with while I was sick—I wasn’t that stupid—but did he have to boss me around?
Neither one of us said a word as I pretty much grabbed anything that was black or white and stuffed it into my bag, making sure I packed a work uniform with me, just in case. Because just like taking time off to train, I couldn’t take time off from work either. It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to grab my clothes and toiletries and shove them all in my bag. Then I grabbed another set of clothes, threw them on, and slid into some flip-flops.
“Ready,” I muttered, eyeing the man who hadn’t moved from his spot on my bed.
He got up, still not looking at me, and walked right out of my room, pretending like he didn’t see me.
Bitch.
I followed behind, flicking off the lights with a frustrated sigh. It was awkward and quiet, with Ivan going straight down the pathway while I set the alarm and locked the front door. How had I been so stupid to leave that crap in my nightstand? And why the hell did he have to go through my things anyway?
Damn it.
Damn it.
My head was pounding all over again, and I was back to being nauseous. I took my time turning around, and then sighed again as I did, looking for Ivan’s car. I found Ivan.
But I didn’t find his car.
Instead, he was standing beside a white minivan.
I blinked.
“You coming or are you going to make this difficult too?” he asked, his tone that shitty, condescending one.
I was too tired to hold up my middle finger, and I hoped he knew that. “Where’s your car?”
His hand sliced to the side. To the minivan. He raised his eyebrows while he did it.
I blinked again.
That hand he had aimed didn’t go anywhere.
“I’m serious.”
“I am too. It’s mine. Get in.”
It… that… was his?
I didn’t have anything against minivans. My mom had owned one back in the day before everyone but Rubes and I had moved out, but… Ivan? Why the fuck did Ivan have a minivan?
He couldn’t have had a kid. He’d specifically said he didn’t know what he was doing with Ruby’s babies. I had known his parents for a long time, and neither one of them owned a minivan either.
So….
“Today.”
I blinked and still didn’t move. “What is that?” I asked slowly.
He rolled his eye
s and opened the door. “It’s a car.”
“Whose?”
Climbing inside of it, he replied, “Mine.”
“Why?”
Holding the door open, he answered, “It’s fuel efficient, low to the ground, and has a lot of room.” A flicker of a baby smile flashed across his face before it disappeared like he remembered that he was mad at me. “And it’s a Honda. Get in.”
He wasn’t the only one who forgot he was mad. “It’s… yours?”
“It’s mine,” he went on. “Get in. I’m not in the mood right now,” he demanded before slamming the door shut hard.
What the hell did he have to be in a bad mood over? Ugh.
The van purred lightly as it started, and before I had a chance to blink, the driver side window was being rolled down, and Ivan repeated himself. “Today.”
I scrunched up my nose and shot him a dirty look as I took in the Honda like it was some spaceship I had never seen before. Just as I opened my mouth to say something about him he couldn’t hear or respond to, something inside the minivan’s back window moved, and the next thing I knew, a brown head popped around the side… to rest on Ivan’s shoulder. Two big eyes blinked at me. And I lost all my words again.
Ivan didn’t even glance at the head on him before he flicked his fingers for me to come forward. “We’re not going streaking, and I’m not dumping your body anywhere. Not yet at least. Get in. Even Russell’s getting tired of waiting. They’ve been out here for half an hour waiting for you.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to get out, “You have a dog?”
He nodded, and the dog’s head moved with his movement. “Russell. Come on. I’m not in the mood.”
Who the hell was this person? What the hell was this person? Ivan didn’t just have a dog but he had a goddamn minivan too? I’d only ever seen him in his Tesla. Not… that.
I wasn’t even positive I’d ever seen dog hair on his clothes before.
Had I?
“We don’t have all day. Get in before I put you in and someone calls the cops thinking I kidnapped you,” he threw out, pulling his glasses over his eyes, jerky and pissed off. “If you get in right now, I’ll think about forgiving you eventually.”
As if being totally aware of what Ivan was saying, the dog licked his cheek and stared back at me with eyes that I was pretty positive were a golden hazel.
And then I heard a shrill little yip come from somewhere else inside the van, and Ivan turned his upper body in the opposite direction to look in the back seat and say, “Not right now, Lacey. We already talked about this.” Then, like he hadn’t just been having a conversation with what may or may not be a small dog based on the pitch of the bark, he turned back to face me and raised his eyebrows. “Drama queen. You ready?”
Ready.
Was I ready?
To get in a minivan with him and two dogs. Two dogs that I didn’t know he had. One of those dogs that he talked to like he was arguing with a child. Both of them named human names.
Lacey. He’d warned me about Lacey.
I don’t know what it said about me that I wanted to get in that van even as my energy continued to disappear by the second and my anger seemed to waver somewhere in between.
“I’m counting to four before I get out of this car and drag you by your underwear in here,” Ivan called out.
I wrinkled my nose, and without totally accepting that I’d made a decision, I said, “You can try, but I’m not wearing any,” a moment before I walked around the curved front of his hood and opened the passenger door. Cold air conditioning was the first thing that hit me. The second thing that hit me as I slid my butt onto the captain’s chair was the fact that the brown snout that I’d seen above Ivan’s shoulder a moment ago was now hovering over the headrest of the seat I was in.
The dog’s eyes were hazel. Huh. And he looked… really interested and curious. About me.
“Hi,” I whispered, mostly because my throat hurt after talking so loud and yelling at Ivan.
“He doesn’t bite, but he drools,” Ivan informed me. “You can pet him if you want.”
The dog was still staring at me from two inches away. But Ivan was right; he didn’t look even a little bit aggressive. He looked like he wanted me to pet him, and if the thump, thump, thump said anything, it was that he really wanted me to pet him.
So I did. I raised my hand with a closed fist and let him smell me. And when that went okay, I opened my hand and stroked the top of his head gently, and when that went fine, I drew my hand over the soft, soft fur on his ears.
Then he licked me.
And I couldn’t help but smile, even as my head hurt and my throat ached and I felt like a complete asshole for getting caught.
Ivan didn’t say another word as I stared at his dog with possibly the biggest, dumbest smile I’d had on my face in a really long time, but finally, after a few moments, he said, very calmly, very coolly, “Buckle up. I’m not getting a ticket for you.”
I looked at his dog, Russell, one more time, stroked his ear, and then sat back in the seat and slipped the seat belt on. Just as soon as the metal clicked into place, the same yip I’d heard before I’d gotten into the car came through the van once more, and Ivan clearly groaned as he shifted the van into drive.
“Lacey, I swear to God, don’t start,” he tossed out over his shoulder.
He was already driving when I turned to glance into the second row, coming face to face with Russell once more before I moved and got a good look at the passenger making noises. Sure enough, Russell was standing in the sliver of space between the seats, but wedged in the corner of the second row… in a pink harness that was latched through the material of a seat belt, was a small, short-haired white dog with pointed ears and a snub nose.
“Is that…?” I started slowly, feeling like this was a dream, and if it wasn’t a dream, I knew nothing about Ivan. Absolutely nothing. Everything I’d thought I’d known was a goddamn lie, and I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. “Is that a French bulldog?”
We were already on the road and heading toward the nearest major freeway when Ivan nodded, his eyes on the rearview mirror. “Yes. The diva in the back is Lacey. She’s in time-out. I should’ve left her at home, but she can’t be in the car with anyone else other than Russ, and today’s his day for a ride.”
He’d just said his dog was in time-out, hadn’t he?
Oh my God.
I almost couldn’t get the question out, I was so torn up in this second life and second personality I had no idea this person I trained with six days a week was capable of. But somehow, I managed. “Why is she in time-out?” I practically whispered.
“She’s been giving me a lot of sass this morning, picking on her sisters, trying to steal food, peeing on one of the beds because she got in trouble,” he explained like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I didn’t know what to say. The dog had been giving him sass, picking on her sisters, trying to steal food, and had peed out of revenge. Just like that. So I didn’t say anything else. Because what the hell else was I supposed to do?
I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know this man at all, and it made me feel awful. More like shit than I already did.
How had I not known he had dogs? And more dogs from the sound of it, because how else would Lacey have sisters?
Damn. I didn’t really know anything about Ivan.
But maybe no one did. Because there was no way the girls in the changing room would have avoided talking about his prissy white Frenchie if they knew about her. Hell, his fans would probably throw dog toys at him at the end of his programs if they did.
No one knew. There was no chance.
But here he was.
The sound of a low growl, so high in pitch but at the same time quiet, had me glancing over my shoulder to eye the white body in the second row of seats. She wasn’t even looking at me; it honestly looked like she was glaring at the back of Ivan’s seat. But i
t was the pink harness she had strapped to her chest and then secured by a seat belt that I couldn’t get over.
And I was almost positive she had a lighter pink collar with rhinestones on it. At least I thought they were rhinestones.
Then it was my turn to glance at Ivan, knowing there was no way I was about to let this go. “Your little dog has a seat belt on,” I said, like he hadn’t been the one to strap her in.
All he did was drop his chin a fraction of an inch, gaze focused ahead of him. “She moves around too much in the car. She doesn’t know how to sit still.” He glanced at me. “Like someone I know.”
I ignored his comment and eyed the dog again. She was still glowering at Ivan’s seat. I could feel the tension and drama coming off her.
Huh.
“I don’t need her flying out of the windshield if we’re in an accident either,” he went on, oblivious to me sneaking peeks at his dog. “Russ only gets up when I’m not driving,” Ivan continued explaining, easily. “He’s a good boy.”
That had me glancing at Russ, who I thought might have been a brown Lab but wasn’t totally sure. He was lying on the floor in between the seats at that point with his head on top of his paws. His tale went thump, thump.
“I didn’t see any signs of dogs at your house,” Ivan commented out of the blue.
I shifted forward again to look out the windshield. “No. My mom’s allergic.” Then, without even meaning to, I said, “My sister used to have one.”
“Which one? The ginger or Ruby?”
I glanced at him again. “Ruby,” I answered him. “It was Aaron’s dog. He passed away a couple of years ago.” I had cried, but I’d never told anyone about that.
Ivan nodded slowly, as if that said everything. “Is she the youngest?” he asked, his tone still snobby.
“In my family?”
“Uh-huh,” was his response as he steered us through traffic.
“No.” Wasn’t it obvious? “I am. She’s five years older than me.”
He swung his head around to give me a “you’re full of shit” expression. “She is?”
I didn’t even get offended. “Yeah.”
“You’re the baby?” he asked, sounding totally surprised.
“Why are you saying it like that? You’re making me feel like I need to apply for an assisted living home or something.”
From Lukov with Love Page 32