From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

  I nodded again because it was the truth, but also because he had to know I had his back too. Always. Even in a year, when he was skating with someone else. Always.

  I didn’t have to say “let’s go inside.” This man knew my body language better than anyone already, so when we both turned toward the doors of the restaurant at the same time, it wasn’t surprising. I wiped at my eyes as he opened the first door for me, and then the second one. Did I know I looked exactly like I’d been crying for close to half an hour? Yup.

  And I didn’t give a shit.

  When the hostess started to beam at Ivan and me, and then abruptly stopped, I didn’t avoid eye contact. I just looked at her. Chances were my makeup was running, my eyes had to be puffy and red, and my face might have been swollen too. But I kept on walking.

  And when Ivan’s hand slipped into mine, for all of two seconds, giving my palm a squeeze before sliding right back out like it hadn’t been there to begin with, I swallowed and kept my head held up just as high.

  Sure enough, the awkwardness at the table was noticeable even from a distance. The only person whose mouth was moving was my sister Ruby’s, and from the expression on her face, it didn’t even seem like she knew what she was talking about, but everyone else, including my dad seemed to be staring a hole directly into their plates. I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t make me feel good that I’d ruined dinner.

  I hadn’t meant to.

  Sniffling before they could hear me, I got myself under control just as I reached my chair. “I’m back, bitches,” I said in my fucked-up voice as I pulled my chair out.

  Every set of eyes flicked up at me in surprise just as I plopped down into my seat, Ivan doing the same thing. “I made sure she only stole candy from kids and didn’t try to beat them up,” he said dryly, shoving his seat forward before picking up his napkin and dumping it on his lap. “Only one of them cried.”

  A smile twitched at my lips, even as my eyes felt dry and my face felt hot.

  No one in my family said anything. Not for a minute. Maybe not even for two minutes.

  Until...

  “A wasp got you in both eyes too while you were out there, huh?” my brother Jonathan piped up, giving me an expression that wasn’t totally a content one.

  I blinked at him, ignoring the tightness in my chest, and said, “After he stung you all over your face, from the looks of it.”

  Jonathan snickered, but it was half-hearted. “You look like a raccoon.”

  I sniffed and picked up my utensils, ignoring the look I could feel my dad giving me from his spot down the table. “At least Mom didn’t find me in the trash.”

  My brother choked at the exact instant that a hand landed on my thigh for the second time that night and gave it a squeeze.

  A throat cleared and a second later, my dad started to say, “Jasmine—”

  But Ruby pretty much cut him off by shouting, “I’m pregnant!”

  “Do you want me to drive you home?” Ivan asked as we waited for the rest of my family to filter out of the restaurant.

  My face was still puffy and tight, and I was sure I looked like a giant pile of shit, but I gazed right at that handsome face and shook my head. “No, that’s stupid. I know it’s past your bedtime and you need your beauty sleep. I can catch a ride with my mom.”

  The man who had been nothing but quiet the rest of dinner, nodded, not picking up on my jokes at all. Which said something. Said more than anything. He was still frustrated, but whether it was at me or my dad, I had no idea. Maybe I was imagining it too, thinking everything was always all about me.

  Without thinking, I reached forward and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Thank you for coming, and for everything you said and did.” I squeezed his much bigger hand once more. “You didn’t have to—”

  His eyes were on me, steady, steady, steady. “I did.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes.” He squeezed my hand back. “I did.”

  I stared right into those eyes I couldn’t tell were almost a sky blue in that moment, but knew in the bottom of my heart were. “If you have any family drama and I need to get involved in, I’ll be there.”

  What could have been considered a smile, creased his dimples and he shook his head. “No. No family drama. They’re all supportive. But my grandpa would eat you up, you know.” He paused and his dimples became that much more pronounced. “Ex-partners on the other hand… I’m lucky they signed confidentiality agreements. Save it up for them.”

  I blinked at him, taking in the explanation that didn’t answer hardly anything, and I swallowed it for later, trying to cling onto the lightness of this conversation after earlier. “I’ve got you,” I told him with a nod.

  He squeezed my hand again.

  At that moment, the doors behind him opened and I could hear my brother and James arguing, followed by my mom talking to my sister about how she shouldn’t keep things from her mother. The hypocrite.

  “I’ll get going then,” my partner—my friend—said, slipping his hand out of mine gently and effortlessly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest. Call if you need me.”

  I nodded, this… something… pressed right at the center of my chest.

  And before I could think about what I was doing, I went up to my tiptoes and kissed what I could reach—Ivan’s chin.

  He looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before.

  It pleased me. So, I smacked his hip and said, “Drive careful, Satan.”

  He blinked. Once. Twice. And then nodded, his eyes looking like they had glazed over for a moment before refocusing, and then just like that, he turned on his heel and headed toward his car, leaving me standing there, watching him… before something familiar hit my ass.

  My brother.

  An arm slipped around my waist, pulling me into a body only a few inches taller than me. Jonathan gave me a rough squeeze that banged me against him, before roughly whispering into my ear like his words embarrassed him, “Love you, Grumpy.”

  Letting my head drop to the side so that it rested against his, I put my own arm around the middle of him, around his ribs, and said, “Love you too, jackass.”

  He huffed but didn’t let go of me. If anything, he held me closer to him and whispered, “I don’t like my baby sister upset.”

  I groaned and tried to pull away.

  He didn’t let me. “My wittle, baby sister.”

  “If you say ‘wittle’ one more time….”

  He laughed the lamest noise I had ever heard from him. “Love you, Grumps. And I’m proud of you. If I had kids and they grew up to be half as dedicated and hardworking as you, I couldn’t ask any for anything else.”

  I sighed and hugged him closer. “Love you too.”

  “Don’t let Dad get to you, all right?” My big brother turned his head, gave me a sloppy kiss on the head, and let me go, just like that. So suddenly I almost fell over.

  I could see my dad out of the corner of my eye talking to James and Sebastian, but while I didn’t want to run away, I definitely didn’t want to talk to him.

  “Let’s roll, Grumps,” my mom said, slipping an arm through mine and dragging me forward in the same motion; her husband, Ben, following behind, an arm on my shoulder as he pushed me into the parking lot.

  What was I going to say? No? Please stop?

  My brother and sisters would only give me a tiny amount of shit for bailing without telling them bye, but they would understand why. Walking beside my mom, pretty much jogging, the three of us made it to Ben’s BMW and got inside in record time, me slipping into the back seat while Ben got into the front and my mom in the passenger.

  The second all three doors were slammed shut, my mom screamed.

  Literally screamed so loud and for so long that Ben and I both covered our ears and looked at her like she was insane.

  “I cannot stand your father!” she shouted the second her scream died down. “What is wrong with him?”

&nb
sp; I looked in the rearview mirror at the same time Ben did, and we both raised our eyebrows at each other a moment before he started reversing out of the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry, Jasmine, I’m so sorry,” my mom apologized, turning around in her seat to look at me.

  I still had my eyebrows up. “It’s fine, Mom. Put your seat belt on.”

  She ignored me. “God, I want to light him on fire!”

  That went dark real quick.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, still facing me. Her face this weird mixture of devastated and furious.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Now. “Put your seat belt on.”

  “Is he always like that?” Ben asked as he steered the car across the parking lot.

  “An asshole?” my mom pitched in. “Yes, especially with the kids.”

  I loved how she called us her kids to a man that was only a few years older than my brother.

  “But to tell you that you’re quitter? He’s lucky I promised Squirt I’d behave or I would’ve ripped him an asshole the size of my fist, and punched it.”

  If I wasn’t supposed to smile to that, I wasn’t sure how to make that happen.

  “She was pinching me under the table,” Ben let me know, like that would surprise me. It didn’t.

  That was my mom right there. My defender forever and ever.

  “Sorry about that, Jas,” my mom’s fourth husband murmured.

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine.” Mom turned around to face me again. “You’re a world-class athlete, and he makes it seem like you’re some kind of… little girl that does it for fun on the weekends. And I just sat there, dying inside while my Grumpy went outside, upset.”

  “Mom—”

  “I don’t want to see him. I better not see him again while he’s here. Better not see him again for another decade. Ruby can hang out with him after this. He better not expect you to see him.”

  “He never wants to spend time with me anyway, Mom. It isn’t a big deal. Even dinner was a stretch, and I regret it. Obviously.”

  She blinked those big blue eyes at me that had the power to make men weak.

  “I’m stressed. I don’t know why I lost it. It’s fine. I’ve made it this long only seeing him once a year for a day; I can go on with my life the same way. He’s never been around anyway. And it isn’t like he really cares or is going to lose any sleep over it. It’s just me.”

  My mom just blinked some more.

  I didn’t like her looking at me so much, especially not when I knew I looked like shit. “Mom, seriously put your seat belt on.”

  She didn’t move. Then she said, “Jas… you know your dad loves you, don’t you?”

  Where the hell had that come from?

  “He doesn’t love anyone else more than you,” she kept going.

  I almost snickered. Almost. But I managed just to look at her, not agreeing or disagreeing, because I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.

  And I didn’t want any pity. At least any more.

  My mom reached forward and tapped my chin. “He was being an asshole tonight, but he loves you in his own way. Not more or less than anybody else. He’s just… wrong. Dumb. Close-minded.”

  That time, I couldn’t hold back my eye roll as I leaned back against the seat. “Everyone knows Ruby is his favorite, Mom. It isn’t a big deal. I’ve always known that.”

  Her frown was genuine. “Why would you think that?”

  I snickered. “When was the last time he ever bought me a ticket to go see him? Every year, he gets Ruby tickets. He’s gotten Tali and Jojo tickets too a few times. But me? When?”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue, but I just shook my head.

  “It’s fine. It’s really fine. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m okay with it all. I know he’s closed-minded, and I know he thinks he loves me in his own way. But I’m done. If he can’t accept me for who I am, I can’t force him to, and I’m not going to change my dreams for him.”

  Her mouth opened slightly, just slightly, and she shook her head. “Oh, Jas….”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t. Nothing is your fault. This is between him and me. We don’t need to talk about it anymore,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning back against the seat.

  And we didn’t.

  But I still couldn’t help but feel that sadness that somehow mixed up with determination as I sat there.

  Chapter 18

  “Can we talk?” my dad’s voice came from behind me.

  I froze as I leaned against the boards, waiting for Ivan and Coach Lee as they argued over whether we should change a jump or not. I hadn’t cared whether we did or didn’t; I was letting them go at it. I was too tired and too emotionally wrung out—seriously… exhausted from the night before—to bother putting up a fight. So I’d been waiting there, watching them, sipping on water from a comfortable distance away.

  So I hadn’t been paying attention. I hadn’t spotted my dad inside the LC, or much less him managing to sneak up behind me.

  “Jasmine, please,” he pleaded quietly as I turned to blink at him over my shoulder. He was five foot seven max, with a slim, strong build that I knew I’d inherited. That dark hair, dark eyes, and skin that was a shade of olive that could have come from at least a dozen places in the world.

  I looked like my dad. We shared all the same colors. The same structure.

  But I got everything else from my mom… because he hadn’t been around.

  “Five minutes,” he asked quietly, watching me patiently.

  It had been hours since I’d seen him at the restaurant, and I knew his time in Houston was running out. Then it would be a year until I saw him again. Possibly even longer. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d come to Houston and I hadn’t seen him.

  He’d never cried about it, and I had stopped long before I noticed it.

  I wanted to tell him I had better things to do. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone. And maybe a few years ago, I would have done exactly that if he’d pulled some shit like he had in the restaurant, in front of Ivan and the rest of the family.

  But if I’d learned anything over the last year and a half, it was the reality of how tough it was to live with your mistakes. I’d learned how hard it was to face them, and how much harder it was to own them. We all did things we regretted; we all said things we regretted, and guilt was a crushing weight on a person’s soul.

  And I wanted to be better. For me. Not for anyone else.

  So I nodded and said nothing.

  The deep breath he let out in relief, I didn’t really eat up as much as I could have.

  Making my way to the opening onto the ice, I put my skate guards on and glanced over my shoulder to try and get Ivan’s attention. But he was still too busy talking to Coach Lee. On the floor, I headed toward the bleachers around the wall. Taking a seat in the middle of a bench, I stretched my legs out in front of me and faced the rink, watching my dad take a seat beside me but a few feet down.

  On the ice, Ivan had turned around and was looking at us with a frown from his spot besides our coach.

  He hadn’t said a word during practice that morning, and I was grateful he decided not to bring up my dad, let alone me crying all over him. There was only so much my pride could take. Instead, Ivan acted like nothing different had happened, like everything was normal.

  Worked for me.

  “Jasmine,” my dad said on an exhale.

  I kept looking forward.

  “You know that I love you, yes?”

  Love was a weird word. What the hell was love? Everyone had such a different opinion on what it meant to them; it was hard to figure out how to use it. There was family love, friend love, romantic love….

  Once, when I was younger, another skating mom had seen my mom smack me on the back of the head and had gotten really bent out of shape over it. But to me, that was how we were together. My mom had s
macked me because I’d been a smart-ass and deserved it; I was hers and she loved me. Mostly though, my mom knew I didn’t react to hisses and threats.

  Galina had always been the same way with me. She taught me responsibility and accountability. She didn’t take my backtalk. She’d smack me on the back of the head too.

  But the thing was, I had never doubted that they wanted the best for me. I wanted honesty. I had needed them to love me more than my feelings, because I wanted to be better. I had wanted to be the best.

  I had never wanted someone to baby me. I didn’t need it; it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel weak.

  Love to me was honesty. Being real. Knowing someone’s best and worst. Love was a push that said someone believed in you when you didn’t.

  Love was effort and time. And while I’d laid in bed the night before, it had jumped out to me that maybe that was why I had taken things so badly months ago when my mom had made it seem like I loved figure skating more than her. Because I knew what it was like to not be important to someone.

  I had held this fucking grudge to my heart with duct tape and superglue, all the while being a massive hypocrite.

  “Oh, Jasmine,” my dad whispered, sounding pained when I didn’t reply to his question. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach for me, his hand covering mine.

  I couldn’t help but go stiff, and it was impossible to miss that my dad noticed and did the same.

  “I do love you. I love you very much,” he said softly. “You’re my baby—”

  I huffed, not letting myself suck in his claims of love.

  “You are my baby,” my dad insisted, his hand still resting on my own.

  Technically, yes.

  But I wasn’t. And everyone knew that. He was just in denial, trying to make himself feel better.

  “I want the best for you, Jasmine. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for it,” he said after I didn’t respond.

  I still refused to look at him as I said, “I know you want the best for me. I get it. That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  On the ice, Ivan started doing really lazy laps, his gaze staying on my dad and me, no matter where he was. He was watching to make sure everything was fine. I didn’t doubt that if I needed him, he’d skate over and butt in.