A long pause stretched between them as his grandmother searched his face. For what? He had no idea. Who knew what went on in her mind moment-by-moment.
Babushka’s thick eyebrows furrowed as she rummaged through her extra-large Louis Vuitton handbag, emerging with the eight-by-ten photo of his dedushka she carried around.
Roman’s throat went thick.
Man, he missed his grandfather.
His dedushka had been a great guy. He loved his Russian heritage. Spoke the language and made sure his children and grandchildren did, too. He visited his homeland yearly, enjoyed the finest vodka, and loved his wife. He was a blissfully happy man. In person, his eyes danced and his laugh lines crinkled. Still, whenever he had his photo taken, the man made the sourest face Roman had ever witnessed. The second the camera was ready to click, his dedushka had suddenly sucked on every lemon in the world.
Roman never understood that about him.
The man would be all hefty laughter and hearty cheer until someone got out a camera. Then a perma-frown would take up residence on the man’s face until the camera disappeared again.
After his dedushka had passed away, it was like Roman lost his idol. He’d joined the military to honor his grandfather. Dedushka had served as a young man when he came to America. He got his citizenship and immediately served the country in uniform. His service was one of his biggest points of pride.
He had died by the time Roman joined up, but he knew, somewhere, Dedushka was proud of him. He felt that in the early mornings in the barracks when things were quietest.
Now he stared into the sour expression of Dedushka in print.
“What are you making me swear to?” he asked.
Babushka only brought out the image of her dead husband to force her children and grandchildren into making promises no one wanted to make. A sane woman would’ve brought out a Bible or other religious text. A saner woman would not have required people to swear at all.
Not his babushka. She forced them to swear on the image of their deceased dedushka.
“No, not that.” She stared at the image and waved him away as though this were the most natural thing in the world. Still, there was a let-the-air-out-of-his-tires twinkle in her eye. “Run down the hall and see if Sadie vishes to join the family tonight for piroshki.”
At least this was progress.
Even with progress, they needed to set some rules.
“That’s a negative.” Roman shook his head. “Sadie does not need a crash course in all things Dvornakov right at the get-go.” Even if she decided she wanted to be with him on any level past superficial, his family functions would be optional. “Let’s think about this. Figure out the best way for you to dig your heels in. Because Sadie with all of the family?”
He shivered.
“Sadie must come to supper.” Babushka swiped her hand over the image of Roman’s dedushka. “You vish my help? She must come.”
She held his grandfather’s image to him in the swearing position.
“You said no swearing in.” Roman looked cautiously at his grandfather. He hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to fudge it when it came to whatever she was going to ask him to promise. He always felt bad when he had to lie with his hand on his grandfather’s face.
“I meant it.” Babushka spit on the glass and wiped at it with the corner of her sleeve as lovingly as an elderly woman could when she’d just hocked and spit shined an image.
“Then what’s with the picture?” Roman shouldn’t have asked. He knew this. He knew that it was best to just keep his trap shut when it came to his grandfather’s photo.
Yet, he’d asked. The question was out there.
“It is time to move on from your dedushka.” The photo still gripped in her hands, she lifted it to her face and kissed the man on his lips with a passion that made Roman feel the need to look away.
Given that she had two boyfriends, Roman couldn’t quite understand what she meant by “moving on.” The woman was the epitome of moving on.
“Sadie is divorce attorney?” Babushka asked, gazing at the image of his grandfather.
Roman approached this conversation as he would when photographing the battlefield—or a bride. He moved slow. Calculated. Careful not to traipse into the line of fire, hit a trip wire, or distract his comrades.
“Yes, that’s the branch of law she specializes in,” he said carefully. “She said she can help with some other areas, too. She has a particular fondness for defense work, but don’t you dare get any ideas. I’m not bailing you out of jail.”
“I have a plan.” Babushka shoved the image unceremoniously into her bag. She stood and shuffle-sprinted out the door of Roman’s studio and down the hallway in the general direction of Sadie’s office.
There was an ominous feel to the way she moved.
A trickle of whatthefuckage trailed up Roman’s spine. He’d convinced himself that his babushka could help him reunite with Sadie. But now, Babushka was on a mission, and he suddenly had a feeling her mission was likely going to screw up his attempts at helping Sadie remember why they’d been so good together in the first place.
“What are you going to do?” Roman asked, hurrying behind Babushka.
Data was good. If he understood the plan going through her noggin, he could ensure the whole thing didn’t go sideways.
She waved a hand toward him as though he were a moth and she wished he’d fly into one of those electric traps.
“Think this through. She has clients who need her help. You shouldn’t interrupt her while she’s dissolving relationships.”
He meant that in the most supportive way possible.
“We can come back after hours. When there aren’t clients who need to be—”
Babushka threw open the door to Sadie’s office.
Sadie stood at the reception desk, scribbling something on a notepad.
“I thought you hired someone?” Roman asked.
Sadie glowered at him. “She decided this was not the best employment for her after a client’s soon-to-be ex-husband called with some very specific instructions on where I should spend my time in the afterlife.”
“I have business to discuss,” Babushka announced.
“Babushka, hi.” Sadie scooted around the side of the desk, now totally ignoring Roman. “What can I do for you today?”
“I need legal help.”
“I am an attorney, so this is perfect.” Sadie smiled at the old woman, again pretending that Roman wasn’t even present. “What can I assist you with?”
“You don’t want to ask that.” Roman sat on the edge of the reception desk, settling in for the show his babushka was sure to put on. Looked like she was ready to continue her reign as the queen of getting involved in other people’s business.
Sadie did not acknowledge him.
As soon as she walked in the room, every part of him screamed, Sadie’s here! Yet, she seemed utterly at ease with his presence. So at ease that she didn’t even acknowledge his existence anymore.
“You are divorce attorney? Yes?” Babushka asked.
“Among other things, yes,” Sadie said.
Uh-huh, Roman had explained that back in the sanity of his studio. He crossed his arms, struggling with an internal war between being curious about his grandmother’s angle and ensuring his grandmother didn’t go too far into the weeds with this endeavor he’d talked her into. What his grandmother needed was a micromanager for her meddling.
That would be him.
Sadie gestured to her office. “Come in and sit down. We can talk in my office.”
Babushka followed her. Roman followed Babushka. They both took chairs at the little round table by the window in Sadie’s personal office. Streams of light filtered through the window, highlighting a couple of dust motes flitting through the air.
“Can I get you a beverage?” Sadie asked his grandmother
“Vodka?” Babushka asked.
“Fresh out.” Sadie didn’t even flinch at the r
equest. “I have water?”
“That vorks,” Babushka said with a harrumph. “In a cup please.”
Right, because the bottles were filled with venom.
Funny, Babushka playing her games was exactly what Roman had been hoping for. Yet, deep down, a niggle of this-is-a-bad-idea took hold. A part of him wanted to stand up, declare what was going on, and simply beg for Sadie’s understanding. That was not the part of him that won out. The part of him that won out decided to sit down, shut up, and wait this out.
“Tell me you don’t have vodka in your purse,” Roman said.
He had a feeling that, given the opening, Babushka would just steal a nip from the emergency vodka canteen she sometimes stashed in her oversized Louis Vuitton.
Babushka shrugged.
“Is it okay for us to talk with Rome here?” Sadie whispered toward Babushka. “If it’s a legal matter, I can ask him to step out.”
Okay, so she knew he was there. Even if she hadn’t glanced his way once since they’d entered her personal office.
She’d done it up nice. A little more beige than he would have liked for his own space, but it seemed to be the appropriate color to have on the throw pillows when one’s job was to relieve couples of their relationships. Not that he judged her for that. Everyone deserved an attorney. But that choice of law didn’t seem to bring light into her eyes.
“He can stay.” Babushka patted his hand. “As long as he does not speak.”
“Seriously?” he asked.
She could not expect him to stay totally silent. It went against everything he believed in.
Babushka held her fingertip up to his mouth. “Shh.”
She winked, but it looked a little like she was mid-stroke as the entirety of the left side of her body seemed to freeze as she pressed that eyelid closed.
Well, fuck a duck.
The show better be damn well worth it if he was going to be muzzled through it.
Fine. He could do this. Blending into the background was his specialty.
Sadie scurried out of the room and quickly returned with two glasses of chilled water. She handed one to Babushka. And for the first time since they’d entered her personal office, she glanced at Roman as she slipped him his own glass.
That light he’d been searching for in her gaze flickered like a match being struck. Kindling. The fire didn’t take hold, but he saw the ember. Saw what could be. What had been.
Destiny.
How forever feels.
He closed his eyes and regrouped. She had only offered water, not a declaration of her undying love and desire to mend all the fences time had built between them. Yet, that cold glass meant she’d thought of him, even for just a moment. Yeah, he’d take what he could get.
“You vould have more clients if you served vodka.” Babushka tossed back a gulp of water like it was a shot of liquor.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sadie replied, humor evident in her tone.
She didn’t sit on the other side of the desk. No, she pulled a chair next to Babushka so there wasn’t anything in between her and her new client, and they were nearly knee-to-knee. She focused her attention on her new client. Again, it was as though he wasn’t even present in Sadie’s world. Even though he was sitting. Right. There.
“What can I do for you?” Sadie asked Babushka, adjusting the yellow legal pad at the table to her right. She tapped her pen against the lined parchment.
Roman took a swig of his water in the Dvornakov way—dealing with the fact that it was only two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen instead of all parts vodka.
Babushka sat tall in her padded chair, crossed her ankles like royalty, and held the bag carrying the image of his grandfather in her lap. “I need divorce.”
The moment zipped to a stop. He choked on the water he’d been trying to drink.
Say what?
Babushka was going wildly off script. Not that they had a script. But if they had had a script, this would not be it.
He coughed and, honest as all fuck, tried to get the liquid to go down his throat. The thing was, Babushka had made her announcement when Roman was mid-gulp. Had he known what she was going to say, he never would’ve invested so heavily in that slug of water. Because in that moment, the water caught in his throat and he spit it all over the table and Sadie’s legal pad.
Lucky for him, he’d aimed away from Sadie. So the only collateral damage was the paper. Also, lucky for him, it was only hydrogen and oxygen. The drops of water settled into the paper, smearing the blue lines.
Sadie looked at him slightly shocked, a little curious, and a bit like he’d gone bananas.
Which he was certain he might have.
He pounded at his chest. “Divorced?”
If this was Babushka’s idea of pushing them together, the woman had seriously lowered her standards.
Where was the grandmother who had settled comfortably into his new sister-in-law’s cookie kitchen to ice cookies and force his brother into dating her?
“Did you get married?” Sadie asked, sounding more than a little concerned. “To one of your boyfriends?” She shook the spit-out water from the paper.
Roman had explained his grandmother’s love triangle to Sadie when he’d shown her the office. There was a lot he’d told her that day—information she should have before she committed to legally representing her new landlords.
“Yes, I married my love in 1947.” Babushka pulled out the framed photograph of his dedushka. “This is my husband.”
Still attempting to stave off his coughing, Roman sipped at the rest of his water.
Sadie scratched at her temple. “I’m sorry. I thought you were divorced. I just assumed—”
“No, I am not divorced. But I would like to file the papers. So I can officially move on. Get married.”
“You’re getting married?” Roman asked.
No way. No way was his grandmother getting married.
Maybe? No. Definitely not.
“There are some concerns if you have a boyfriend while you’re currently married.” Sadie was all business. “There will need to be a distribution of assets, and your husband will need to obtain his own attorney.”
“That ought to be good,” Roman said under his breath.
Sadie ignored him. “Where does your husband live now?”
“A little plot of land on Quebec Street.”
Just when he thought it was safe to take a drink... Roman coughed again.
Sadie looked at him from under her lashes, shifting the legal pad a few inches away in case he spewed again.
No need to worry, he’d learned this lesson the first time.
His grandmother couldn’t be serious. By a little plot of land, she meant a cemetery plot, and Dedushka had been there for twenty-plus years.
“I can work with this.” Sadie scribbled a note on a small dry spot in the top right corner of her legal pad.
Roman couldn’t let her go on believing his grandfather was alive. She had no idea the man resided six feet under in a little plot of land in a cemetery along Quebec Street. “Sadie, I think you should—”
She cut him off. “Babushka said you can stay as long as you don’t talk.”
“I really think—” He tried again.
“No,” Sadie said, firmer than the first time. “Those are the rules.”
Fine. This is how she wanted to play it? He’d sit right there in his own padded chair with his own cup of water and watch how it all worked out. He pointedly took a sip of water.
Sadie didn’t seem to notice.
“Do you have his address?” Sadie refocused her attention on Babushka. “Your husband’s?”
“Yes.” The old woman handed over a weathered business card for Fairmont Cemetery on Quebec Street.
Sadie took it, jotting down more scribbles.
Elbows on the table, Roman did his best to make his expression blank. He was pretty sure he was failing.
“Um.” Sadie fingered the cardstock. �
��This is a cemetery.” Sadie flicked the edge of the card.
Roman couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though she were testing to see if it was real or if maybe she’d fallen through some temporal portal into another dimension where the card no longer existed and this whole scenario didn’t happen. That actually wasn’t a bad assumption as to the current state of affairs.
“Yes, this is where he stays now.” Babushka pointed at the card.
“He works here?” Sadie tried. This time, she looked at Roman, clearly wanting his help explaining.
He mimed zipping his lips. Then, to drive his point home, he took a sip of water from the cup.
She glowered.
No, he wasn’t going to try to help the situation anymore. She’d shushed him twice—Roman was now only along for the ride.
“He lives there.” Babushka propped the image of his dead grandfather on the table.
“Is he alive?” Sadie asked, staring at the image.
No. Actually, he’d died decades ago. But Roman had been hushed sufficiently. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, taking in the show.
Did that make him a bad guy? He thought not, given that he hadn’t shushed anyone.
“Of course not,” Babushka huffed.
Sadie looked at Roman. He shrugged.
“You didn’t think to mention this to me?” Now? Now, she was talking to him, all ready to hold a conversation.
“You told me to be quiet.” He leaned forward, forearms on the table. “Is this an official invitation to converse?”
Sadie pursed her lips and didn’t reply. She turned back to his grandmother. “You can’t divorce someone who isn’t alive.” Her voice had turned tender. “Once they die, the marriage is dissolved. Legally.”
“So you are saying you cannot represent me?” Babushka asked in utter seriousness and completely staged surprise.
Babushka was setting the stage for whatever she was planning next.
He’d asked for this, so he shouldn’t have been worried. Yet, there he was. Worried.
“I’m saying that you’re technically not married,” Sadie said. “You can marry whoever you want. There’s nothing to stop you.”
Do Me a Favor: A second chance, hilarious rom com! (Mile High Matched Book 4) Page 13