by Lauren Dane
And if Rachel was around, they tended to behave better toward Maybe as well. They might actually get through dinner and have a decent time.
Rachel’s laugh sounded rusty, but genuine. “True. You’re a champion thwarter. But you’d cut them off totally and wouldn’t be in contact if not for me.”
She scoffed. Pretty much, yeah. “Well, if you and I weren’t living here, I’d probably still be in Spokane, happily existing two states away from them. Yes. That’s true. Look, they came up here to be near you. They’re not always awful.” Just most of the time. “They worry about you.”
“It’s all the times they are awful to you I have a problem with.”
Her sister had no idea the true extent of damage between their parents and Maybe. She’d seen enough to feel the way she did, to understand why Maybe had run away and gotten herself a new life and kept her parents away from it.
Maybe saw no reason to get into specifics and make Rachel feel bad. She couldn’t have changed it, or stopped it, so it would have only made her feel guilty. Maybe kept her childhood in a box marked Past and that’s where she wanted it to stay.
“Look,” she told Rachel, “nothing is perfect. But you and me? We’re a team. So until you’re ready to handle this, I’ve got it. And even when you are, I’ll still be at your side. She’s a good cook. Turkey day isn’t that bad if we go shortly before dinner and leave right after.”
Her mother would frown at them not helping in the kitchen. But she’d just tell Maybe she was doing everything wrong anyway. The kitchen and her garden were the only places totally under their mom’s complete control. Their dad ran everything else.
It was one of the few things Maybe missed about living in Spokane. At least then they didn’t really expect her to come to Thanksgiving. Once she’d left their house and moved in with her aunt and uncle, her parents generally found it unnecessary to deal with her unless they had to.
She made her own domain. On her terms with the guidance and love of her aunt and uncle. It had transformed her life, made her realize her worth in a way she hadn’t growing up.
But after Rachel and Maybe had settled in Seattle instead of Rachel moving back to Los Angeles where they’d been from, their parents had sold their house and moved up to the Northwest, and their ugly, dark need to control came back into her life again.
It made her harder, it made her stronger and in the end, if she didn’t view it like that, it would have eaten her alive.
“We’ll go, but we only stay on our terms.” Rachel’s voice had gone cold and hard. A glimpse of the woman she’d been and was working her way toward once more. Following the rules was one thing, but Rachel had never been one to get manipulated or maneuvered into anywhere other than where she planned on going.
Rachel took her hands, squeezing them a moment. “What was on that meme you sent me the other day? Oh yeah, Do No Harm, But Take No Shit. I think I need that on a cross-stitch to hang over my damn bed. Anyway. It’s time I start pushing back harder about what I want and for them to get off your case.”
“It’s cool to want to be comfortable and safe and drama free except for the dumb crap at the shop or whatever.” Maybe kept her voice calm. Rachel hated pity and she was always careful to bury it far out of her sister’s way.
“I know what it costs you to run interference with them.”
“You’re going to make me cry so stop this now,” Maybe warned.
“Thank you.” Rachel said this with utter seriousness. “I needed it and now I need to stand on my own more often. Especially with them.”
“I’ll call them back to let them know and get the details.”
“I’ll do it. Don’t argue.” Rachel gave her the stink-eye. “It’s my turn. And I can gauge how strong their when will you get serious and find a real job and stop consorting with those people game is.”
“Good luck with that. They’re world champions and you’ve fallen in with your shiftless sister and her loser friends.”
“It doesn’t matter what they think. I know you.” Rachel waved a hand, but her face was serious.
“It’s cool. I can use it in my art and shit.”
Rachel saw through the bravado, but she let it go with a smile. “Pain is prose, baby. And it pays the bills. Barely, but I’m okay with that for now. I’ve got this and I’m not arguing about it another moment.”
Maybe shrugged and held her hands up. “Okay then. Call in an airstrike if you need it. You know where I am.”
CHAPTER FOUR
EARLY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Maybe headed to have her regular Friday lunch with her best friend Cora and Rachel at the tiny deli just a few doors down from the tattoo shop where they both worked.
Rachel had been up and out first thing that morning. She still had regular doctor and therapy appointments, though the frequency had dwindled and would continue in that direction.
But she was there, along with Cora, at a small table where a bottle of soda already waited for her.
Cora Silvera had been Maybe’s best friend pretty much from the first day she’d shown up at Whiskey Sharp and stopped by this same little deli for a soda before she went to work. Cora had grabbed the last orange fizz, but when she’d taken note of Maybe’s disappointment, she’d handed it over with a smile.
Then, it turned out she worked at Ink Sisters with Rachel and was related to Rachel’s mentor and new boss. In the next months she’d ended up being besties with both Dolan sisters.
“You’re my favorite,” Maybe said as she sat and took a swig of orange fizz.
“Of course I am. Why do you look so sexy today?” Cora asked. “Snug shirt to showcase the knockers. Red lipstick. The way your hair is standing up extra high. Are those streaks new?”
“Okay, so at eleven last night after telling Rachel the story of my date and talking about my undeniable thing for my hot boss, I decided to add them because I figured I finally need to see what it could be between me and him.”
“Well, I think the silver really pops against the red and I love it. I’m glad you had a shitty date so you finally allowed yourself to jump on Alexsei’s bones.”
“Penises don’t have bones,” Maybe deadpanned.
Cora giggled and Rachel just shook her head with a grin. “You’re a woman of loose morals, Maybe Dolan. By the way you look ridiculously hot and I’m thrilled you finally found a way to get around the whole he’s-my-boss thing. If you date a bit, have some sex and it’s meh, you two aren’t going to flip out. You’ll still be friends and coworkers. But I don’t know, he seems to look at you...really look at you. He watches the way you move. You have the hots for him too. So why not see where it goes because it could be something super delicious and hot? And to be honest, Rachel and I have decided we need to have sex with him vicariously.”
Maybe snickered. “I should never leave the two of you alone to talk about me.”
“This is totally true.” Rachel winked. “Too late though.”
They made some plans to meet up later and, buoyed by Cora’s opinion, Maybe bounced into Whiskey Sharp—after brushing her teeth and reapplying her lipstick—with a few minutes to spare before her first appointment.
* * *
ALEXSEI PRETENDED HE didn’t realize how often he found himself looking up at the door. She liked to work the late afternoon into evening several nights a week to couple her schedule to take advantage of the happy-hour-booze-and-a-haircut specials at the bar, which opened and began serving at four in the afternoon.
Smart.
She knew her clientele. Knew they enjoyed a drink after they left their jobs in the offices crammed downtown. It had been her idea to do the happy hour shave and drink specials they were now famous for.
He liked to see Maybe in the afternoons. Liked the way the sunlight would hit her while she worked. Essentially, he liked seeing her whenever she was around.
It was thinking of her that had gotten him through what had been a truly monstrously awkward late breakfast with his mother and aunt. There’d been posturing, as always, between the two sisters. Lots of passive-aggressive commentary. He and Cris had eaten and tried to talk around all the tension.
He frowned, thinking of it all over again, but this time when he looked up from his work, there she was standing in the doorway, always pausing just a moment as she came in like she greeted the walls and floors as much as everyone else.
Another thing that got to him. She seemed to love the physical space as much as he did.
She looked extra...that is, very whatever it was she exuded when she wore those pants. Maybe was a jumble of old and new in all the best ways. Hard and soft. She looked feminine and fierce and it set his heart pounding.
“Afternoon, class.”
Why he loved it so much when she was ridiculous and irreverent he wasn’t sure. But it was true anyway.
She glided around the shop, taking her coat off, touching base with their office manager and the other barbers until she stood at his station, a hand on her hip.
“I have no treats for you today. Sorry,” she told him with a pretty smile.
She was his treat. One he’d decided to let himself enjoy.
“We had a family breakfast so Irishka was with me instead of loading you down with food.” She’d mentioned Maybe in front of his mother several times. Alexsei was pretty certain it was her way of encouraging him toward Maybe and probably also rubbing it in that she was able to give him advice on something his mother hadn’t known about until right then.
He expected to hear all about that at some point from his mother, who’d hoard it until she needed it as ammunition to lob at him.
Alexsei had, for long moments, wanted to tell her, wanted to share with her this delicious new thing he’d planned to pursue. It had been right there on the tip of his tongue but then he’d realized he didn’t know if he could trust his mother the way he did his aunt. Which made him sad, but he had only so much time for sadness.
“I love it that you call her Irishka. It’s very sweet. I haven’t had bread from a grocery store in years. I’m not sure I could go back now. How is your mother’s visit so far?” Maybe headed to her chair and began to set up.
“Fine.” She’d been annoyed to have to go to breakfast so early. If you could call 10:00 a.m. early and his aunt most assuredly did not. And his mother had insisted on a hotel downtown so they’d gone to meet her there where some sort of bizarre one-upmanship had begun between the sisters.
“How long is she here for?” Maybe asked.
“Three days. She needs to get back because my youngest sister has something, an event of some sort in Moscow. She’ll be there on a school holiday.”
“That’s right. You have two little sisters.”
He nodded.
“Too bad they’re not with her on this visit. This is one of those Seattle Novembers all the tourism guides will be using to sell vacations here for years.”
Alexsei didn’t know his sisters very well, though he and his brother certainly wished they did. They were far younger—fifteen and sixteen years—and products of his mother securing her place at the side of her third husband, who happened to be a gangster as well as a vulgar asshole.
“Have you given your mom a tour of Whiskey Sharp? I can’t recall ever meeting her in the time I’ve worked here. I bet she was so proud when you did.”
In the sixteen years since he and Cristian had arrived at SeaTac to move in with his aunt and uncle, their mother had visited six times. The last time she’d been in town, four years before, he’d driven her over, so proud to show off this business he’d begun to build.
She hadn’t bothered to do more than glance through the front window, comment on the neighborhood and get back into the car after telling him she hoped he had good insurance or could she give him a loan for a better location.
All he said was “She’s seen it.”
The understanding on Maybe’s face might have made him uncomfortable a year ago and it certainly did right then. Only in a way that was new. More intimate, therefore a lot more terrifying.
That was, he thought, what being with her would be like. She saw straight to the heart of things and of people. An attractive quality, but a fearsome one too.
Maybe’s client came in and she waved him her way, their conversation done for the time being, but she gave Alexsei a look over her shoulder that told him she saw through his bullshit.
And though she’d asked him more questions than usual, she’d understood he didn’t want to say more and didn’t push.
She didn’t have to really because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She worked efficiently as always, flirting and laughing with her clients. As the afternoon stretched into evening, Whiskey Sharp filled up with people drinking and getting shaves and haircuts. The sound level rose but it never got so raucous he was worried.
In fact, he used it to hide behind as the time for him to leave for dinner at his aunt and uncle’s house approached.
Slower than usual, he cleaned his workspace and his tools as the light wisped into full dark.
“So.”
Startled, Alexsei focused on Maybe, who stood so close he could smell her. Today it was what he liked to think of as her autumn scent. He’d never say that aloud, naturally, but she changed up her products over the course of the year. In the summer she smelled of heady, luscious flowers and sometimes of coconut and mango. Autumn she was always spicy and rich.
“Hello?” she asked, getting his attention back from where he’d been imagining leaning in and taking a sniff.
“I apologize,” he told her. Why was she so close? He had no ability to be in a space where she was like that because it shredded the control he normally used to keep himself firmly in the friend category.
His breath was full of her. Of her scent. Her heat. The soft sound of her breath was suddenly the only thing he heard.
If he dodged, just a step in either direction, he’d put himself firmly back into that friend spot. He knew it to his bones that she’d assume he wasn’t interested and move on.
Instead he opened the door to more-than-friends. He’d decided to wait until his mother was gone to make his move, but he had no plans to resist now that the opportunity presented itself. “Is there something you need to tell me?” he asked.
She stepped even closer to speak in his ear. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out for drinks or something and you haven’t. And I want to go out for drinks or something with you so I’m going to move this along and do the asking because, God, you take forever to get to the point.”
Startled, he laughed, pulling her into a quick hug.
He shouldn’t have, because she felt so fucking good he got dizzy with it. And then he didn’t want to let go but it’d already gone into a little too long for friendly territory so he released her.
Maybe stepped back and the way she looked struck him in the gut. Eyes heavy lidded, a carnal smile on a mouth he wanted to kiss so badly the only thing stopping him was the crowded bar full of their friends and coworkers.
“I can’t. Tonight I mean,” he amended when her face fell. “I need to... I have dinner with my family.”
“Oh that’s right. Irena said something a few days back about that.”
“Tomorrow night after work.”
Her smile was back. “I’m off at nine. You can take me to eat after. Now, go give your aunt a hug for me. I hope it’s a good dinner.”
* * *
HE’D HOPED IT would be a good dinner too.
Continued hoping as he parked his car at the curb in front of the house he’d come to think of as home.
The little house Maybe and Rachel shared sat just next door and he allowed himself to look over as he headed up the front walk. So much
outdoor light over there. His aunt had been annoyed at first, saying it was too bright. But after a while she and his uncle had come to like it, and feel it made their part of the neighborhood safer because it was so well lit at night.
The door opened before he’d finished taking the top step and his brother, Cristian, hurtled out, relief on his features.
“Thank God you’re here,” he muttered to Alexsei. “Mom has Seth cornered and she’s grilling him on his job. Auntie keeps glaring but not intervening. He didn’t bring flowers. I told him to bring them both a big bouquet but Mom’s a little bigger. Not a lot bigger but just enough. You know?”
“Take a breath, Cris. You need to breathe or you’ll pass out and then she’ll blame him for that too.”
“Fucking hilarious,” Cris whispered as Alexsei laughed. “He didn’t bring her any present at all.”
Ouch. “That’s unfortunate.”
He let his brother propel him into the front hall, where he hung his things in the closet and exchanged his shoes for the slippers always ready for his use in the house when he came over.
Alexsei blocked his brother’s way to get his attention. Cris could totally get off topic, especially when it came to their mother. “He’ll have to make that up as soon as possible. When you take her to the house tomorrow he needs to meet you both with flowers and chocolate and something stupid and expensive like a scarf with the designer logo all over it so everyone can see it. Have him tell her it’s to keep her shoulders warm on her flight back home.”
Cristian’s features eased as he smiled and this time there wasn’t panic at the edges. “That’s really good. I’ll even pick up the scarf myself. You know how he gets. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thanks,” he repeated, “I knew you’d have an idea.”
Seth was a cop. He had that focus and drive that made him a very good police officer, but a sometimes forgetful or scattered fiancé.
It also made him really blunt. Which actually endeared him to the rest of their family. Hopefully their mother would follow suit after this misstep.
Alexsei clapped his shoulder. “If Seth’s going to be with you he has to deal with our family. And sometimes—hell, pretty rarely—that includes our mother. Anyway Irishka approves of Seth so you’ll be fine.”