by Megan Hart
Ilya flipped her both middle fingers as Niko did the same. Then the brothers gave each other high fives. Alicia made a face, and when Niko crossed the room and tried to kiss her, she fended him off. At least for a second or so, before she dissolved into laughter and gave in.
“Gross,” Ilya said conversationally as he plopped onto the couch next to Theresa. “You’re going to get mono.”
“That was the game,” Theresa said. “We won.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ilya said. “We gave it up to you.”
Alicia shot him the bird. “L-l-loooooooser.”
It was a lot like it had been back in the day, even if at the same time it was completely not. Theresa recalled a lot more f-bombs being thrown around back then, along with noogies and wrist burns. The good feeling was the same, though. Back then they’d enfolded her into their group effortlessly, if only briefly, and she felt the same way now.
Part of something.
Belonging.
Included.
But only briefly.
She caught Ilya watching her and quickly smoothed whatever expression she’d had that had made him frown. “Rematch?”
“Not for me. I’m beat.” Niko shook his head.
Alicia stood. “Me, too.”
Theresa and Ilya shared a look. It was obvious that Niko and Alicia had plans that were going to keep them up at least an hour longer, if not more. Not that she blamed them or anything, but the walls were thin upstairs. She wasn’t going to go up there for a while. Theresa busied herself cleaning up the game pieces while Ilya, unbidden, took care of the dirty plates and bottles. She followed him into the kitchen when she’d finished.
“So . . . I’m going to watch a movie,” she said. “You want to hang out a little longer?”
“You don’t have to work in the morning?”
She shrugged. “I make my own hours, and I don’t have any appointments until the afternoon. It’s only eleven now.”
“Yeah, I guess I could hang out. Watch something. Sure.” He didn’t move, and neither did she.
He hadn’t shaved in a few days by the look of the scruff on his chin and cheeks, and suddenly all she wanted to do was rub her palm over the bristles. His hair was silky smooth, his face rough. It had tickled her earlier, and she touched her cheek, remembering. She should’ve felt caught by his gaze but instead felt only embraced.
He was going to kiss her again, and this time they were alone, so she would let him.
He didn’t, and the sweet anticipation tinged with anxiety eased within her. She hadn’t misread him. He’d changed his mind. She saw it in his eyes and the tilt of his small smile and the way he let one finger twist into one long curl that hung over her shoulder.
He wanted to kiss her again, and maybe that was going to be all they’d ever have. Wanting. Better off for it, she told herself as she let out the breath she’d been holding. They knew there was no good that could come out of acting on this.
In the den, she let him pick the movie while she rearranged the cushions and knitted afghans on the back of the couch to give them both room to sprawl. He chose a recent release full of gunfire and car chases, and despite the action and noise, less than halfway through it, he was yawning broadly. Shortly after that, Ilya had twisted on the couch to lay his head in her lap. Her fingers found the softness of his hair, threading through it. Every so often she let her hand caress downward, giving in to the urge to rub his bristly cheek before moving up again to stroke his hair.
In the TV’s flickering blue-white light, she could let her gaze fall to his face every so often. She could trace the line of his brows with her fingertips. She could feel the weight of his head in her lap and see the gleam of his eyes when he looked at her. Neither of them spoke. Words would’ve ruined this, whatever it was. Speech would’ve forced them to acknowledge it.
She watched him fall into sleep.
The movie ended, and the room went briefly dark after the credits had finished scrolling. In the darkness, Ilya moved on the couch, shifting to press her back along his front so the two of them were spooning. His breath heated the back of her neck, her hair a barrier to the touch of his lips.
“Thanks for asking me to come over,” he murmured.
Theresa didn’t answer him. She closed her eyes, listening to the slowing in-out of his breath and relaxing against him. And then, sometime before morning light began its creeping crawl through the windows, she got up and left him there while she went to her own room and her bed, but she wasn’t able to get back to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Meet me at the diner at one today.
The message had pinged his phone about an hour earlier, but Ilya hadn’t heard it. Now he had only twenty minutes or so to take a shower and get over there, and even if he rushed, he was going to be a few minutes late. He shot Theresa a message in return letting her know he was on the way, but he stalled out in his bedroom, not sure what he ought to wear.
It wasn’t a date, he reminded himself. They weren’t going to do that. Even if he was interested in dating anyone on a regular basis, which he wasn’t and hadn’t been for a long time, it couldn’t be Theresa.
“You look nice,” Galina said when he stopped in the living room on the way out to tell her he was leaving. “You always did clean up well, Ilyushka.”
She sounded drunk, although there was no evidence of her drinking. The pet name was a sign, though, as was the way she lolled on the couch watching daytime television. Ilya ran a hand over his hair, damp from the shower, and looked down at the jeans and T-shirt he’d finally decided were nice enough to make it obvious he’d put in some small effort, but casual enough to show it hadn’t been too much.
“I’m going out,” he said.
His mother laughed, low and throaty. “I see that. To meet a girl, yes?”
“I’m . . . yeah. Sure.” He patted his pockets to check for his phone and wallet and keys. He didn’t want to ask, but he did. “You okay? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. You can bring back some coffee and cream when you come home. We’re out, and your brother used to be sure we had some, but I suppose he has more on his mind these days than whether or not his mother is supplied with coffee and cream.”
“Yeah, I can do that.” Ilya hesitated, wanting to get out of there, but the old, distasteful compulsion to check up on his mother lingered. “You sure you’re all right?”
She looked at him. “Go meet your other woman. I’m fine, I told you.”
“She’s not—” He bit back the words. Galina was baiting him the way she’d been doing for years, but he didn’t have to rise to it. Instead, he nodded and ducked out of the living-room doorway without another word.
He made it to the diner in another fifteen minutes by taking backstreets and avoiding the traffic lights. He pulled in at 1:12 and had no trouble finding a spot in the lot because the only other car there was Theresa’s battered gray Volvo. She was leaning against it, tapping a message into her phone, but she looked up with a smile when he got out of his car.
“Hey,” she said. “You made it. Good.”
Ilya looked toward the building, brow furrowed. “Doesn’t look open.”
“It’s not. They closed last week.” Theresa slipped her phone into the bag hanging on her shoulder and clapped her hands together. “Want to go inside and check it out?”
“Like . . . break in? Aren’t we a little old to be doing that sort of thing?”
She grinned, and once again Ilya was struck with how broad and beautiful that smile was, and how a man might be tempted to do almost anything to earn another from her. “I have the key.”
“How’d you get a key?” He followed her across the lot to the front door.
She glanced at him over her shoulder as she fit the key into the lock in the double glass doors. “I have a good relationship with the Realtor. I took care of a lot of property transactions at my last job. Sometimes she couldn’t get to a site at a convenient time fo
r the buyer, so I handled it. She trusted me with the keys. C’mon inside.”
Ilya had been inside the diner hundreds of times over the years, but it looked different when it was dark and empty. He waited as Theresa found the bank of light switches on the wall and flipped them on. She gave him one of those grins he couldn’t help returning and gestured at him to follow her into the center of the dining room. She spun slowly, looking around and even upward to the ceiling.
“It needs some cosmetic work,” she told him. “But I had everything else checked out from some people I really trust, and it’s still solid. And the price is totally right. Apparently the Zimmermans want to unload it as fast as they can so they can get out from under the back taxes and just move on.”
“Wait, wait.” Ilya held up both hands. “What’s going on here?”
Theresa’s smile faded, though her gaze stayed bright and focused on his. She drew in a small breath, as though gathering courage, but when she spoke, her voice was steady and strong. No hint of hesitation. “I think you should buy it.”
“Buy the . . .” Ilya burst into laughter. “Right. I’m going to buy this place? Why would I do that?”
Theresa moved toward the long diner counter lined with swiveling red stools and hopped up to sit on the counter’s edge. “Because you need something to do with yourself. You want to own a business instead of working for someone else. And because you’d be good at it.”
“Good at running a restaurant? Isn’t that like the hardest kind of business to run?” Ilya shook his head. “I have no experience with that sort of thing.”
Theresa nodded. “I know. But my job is connecting people with properties I think they’ll really be able to turn around and make successful.”
“And you think that’s me and this place?” Ilya joined her with a hop up onto the counter. They both swung their feet, knocking their heels on the edges of the swivel stools. He nudged her with his shoulder. “Are you for real?”
“Totally for real,” Theresa said, and nudged him back without moving away again so that they settled there with their shoulders touching. She looked at him.
He thought in silence for a moment. “It would need to be different than it was. Different menu, still a diner, but lose the stuff nobody eats, and make sure there’s always breakfast all day. Keep the retro look. It could be good.”
There were bones here. He could cover them with something. He knew it.
“It would be great,” Theresa said.
“I don’t want to do this alone,” Ilya said seriously. “You’d have to come in on this with me.”
Theresa looked surprised. “Me?”
“Yeah. You. The one who knows Babulya’s secret recipe for borscht. And her challah.”
“You think borscht would be a big seller?” she laughed gently.
Ilya smiled. “You know how to make a lot of her favorite recipes, right? What would be better in a diner than some of the meals she used to cook for us? Potato pancakes, borscht, black bread.”
“Knishes and piroshki.” She sounded thoughtful.
“Lots of Greek diners around,” Ilya told her. “Why not a Russian Jewish diner?”
Theresa laughed, tossing her head back for a second before she settled her gaze on him again. “Right. Why not?”
Ilya snapped his fingers, getting excited by the idea. “Challah French toast. Egg-salad sandwiches with macaroni salad. Bagels with lox.”
“Matzoh ball soup,” Theresa said at the same time he did.
“Yeah,” Ilya added quietly. “That.”
Theresa nodded again. “I’m not a chef, though. I mean, I know how to make all that stuff, but I’m not sure about doing it for a restaurant. Besides, I already have a job.”
“If I can learn to run it, you can learn to cook for it,” he said. “And you told me already that you’re doing freelance work. So you fit it in around shifts here, or training the cooks. I don’t expect you to be the one to actually sling all that hash. Shit, I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.”
“I told you that’s my job. Getting people together with projects they can really run with.” She paused. “I ran some numbers for you, and I did have some insider information about that big check you just got. So I already know you can afford this. But I can’t.”
“Silent partner?” Ilya hopped off the counter to take a walk up and down, looking at the diner with new eyes. From behind him, he heard Theresa also jump down. “We could work something out. You have the recipes. I have the cash. You have the connections. I have the . . . hell, I have the . . .”
“You have the chutzpah,” she said.
He laughed and reached out to take her hand, tugging her closer. She came, reluctantly, but didn’t resist when he put his hands on her hips. “Hey.”
She tipped her face toward his. “What?”
“Who else did you take this to?”
She gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”
“Am I the only one you brought this to, I mean? The diner. The idea of buying it. Or am I just one in a long list of hopefuls?”
He was asking about the diner, but there was a hint of another question in his voice, one he hadn’t meant to ask. At least not aloud. He resisted pulling her closer, the idea of her body pressing against his definitely not even close to being brotherly.
“I brought it to you. Only you.” She smiled a little. “Does that make a difference?”
“Just wanted to know if I had any competition, that’s all.”
Those clear amber eyes narrowed the tiniest bit as her full mouth pursed. “I see.”
There was that zing again, the flutter and pull of the need to make her smile. Ilya had been with a lot of women, but very few had made him want to see them laugh. If Theresa had been one of those women, he’d have kissed her in that moment, pushing away the desire to feel something beyond physical pleasure. If she’d been someone else, he would not have hesitated for even a second to seduce her. Looking into her eyes, the curve of her waist beneath his hands, all he could do was force himself to step away from her. He could kiss her, but if he did, eventually everything would be ruined and angry between them, and she would hate him.
He would lose her, he thought with a sudden, stunned revelation, and it mattered more to him that Theresa stay in his life this time around, like a second chance neither of them had bargained for. One he did not want to squander. He took another step back, watching her expression switch from contemplation to confusion.
“You okay?” Theresa furrowed her brow and took a step toward him.
“Yeah. Fine. I’m good. Just thinking about all this.” He turned, gesturing at the shadowed dining room. “Do you really think I can do this?”
“I really think you can do this, Ilya. More than that, I think you need it.”
That turned him. “You do, huh?”
“You need something,” Theresa said seriously. “Why not this?”
He did need something, he thought. He wasn’t sure it was a diner; it seemed like maybe it was a woman with dark, curly hair who had no problem keeping him in line. He didn’t say that, though. Instead, he nodded. Grinned.
“Why not this?” Ilya said. “Yeah. Hell, yeah. Why not?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Then
“There’s been an accident.” That was what Galina had told them.
Not much more of an explanation than that. Jenni had been missing for a day and a half before they found her body in the water at the quarry. In their swimming spot. Now it had been nearly a week and a half since then, and finally they were allowed to bury her.
Theresa had overheard her stepmother talking to her dad. Jenni hadn’t drowned. She’d fallen off the ledge where they’d so often laid out their towels. She’d hit her head on the way down. Broken her neck. She’d been dead before hitting the water.
Drunk. On pills. The murmured conversation between Galina and Theresa’s father, huddled together in the living room, shot out small
, suggestive nuggets that left Theresa’s head buzzing with unanswered questions.
“Listening at doors, you never hear good things.” Babulya shook a finger at her, though she didn’t look angry. Only sad. “Come away from there.”
In the kitchen, Babulya pulled out baking sheets, bowls, and measuring spoons. She instructed Theresa to find the flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. They would make cookies, she said. They would make bread. They would fill their time of grief with busy hands and take the gift of food to the Harrisons, who would surely not be hungry but would still need to eat.
At the funeral, the collar of Theresa’s black dress was too tight at her throat. It threatened to choke her, but she couldn’t loosen the button because it would cause the dress to gape open. She should’ve asked her dad if she could get a new one, but she hadn’t known it wouldn’t fit until she tried it on. Now there was no time. She had to suffer . . . but at least she was alive.
She couldn’t believe Jenni was dead. Death was what happened to old grandparents or people on the news. It wasn’t meant for your across-the-street neighbor who was only a couple of years older than you. It wasn’t meant for someone as pretty and vibrant and enviously alive as Jennilynn Harrison.
Ilya and Niko disappeared from the service. Theresa begrudged the two of them their escape. She was trapped next to her dad, who held her hand so tight he left a bruise.
Later, Babulya invited the mourners to gather at the Stern house, because Jenni’s mom, Sally, wasn’t able to play hostess. Galina took over that role, shaking hands and accepting murmured condolences. Babulya muttered that it was a kindness as she put out tray after tray of food, but Theresa wasn’t sure Galina Stern ever did anything simply to be kind. There was something going on with Galina and Theresa’s father, and it had to do with Jenni’s death. Theresa just couldn’t figure out what it was.
It was far from the first time she’d seen her dad drunk, but it was the first time since he and Galina got together that he was out of control. It wasn’t just the beers he’d been guzzling. It was whatever he kept taking from his pocket, the tin that used to hold mints, rattling with pills of various sizes and shapes. Pills that Barry did not have a prescription for, yet somehow managed to acquire.