From Lukov with Love
: Chapter 9

I BLINKED.

I blinked, and every single word I had learned over the course of my life stopped existing. Because in that moment, as I sat there on top of butter-smooth leather seats with my hand on the door handle to a car that cost more than most people’s homes, I wasn’t sure what the hell to say. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Say what?” I basically croaked for what I was pretty sure was the first time in my life.

The man sitting behind the steering wheel didn’t even bother answering my question. What he did was reach to the side… and open his door. Then he said, “Can I use the bathroom?”

He…?

He wanted me to invite him in? Was that what he was seriously fucking asking me? Was he not so subtly telling me he wanted to go inside my house? Where my family was? To pee?

I blinked again, the “no” on the tip of my tongue, filling the back of my throat and so large it went down my esophagus too. It was a stupid-ass response, one I knew I was more than likely going to regret, but I gave it anyway. Because: be better. “If… you want to.”

Ivan’s reply was to get out of the car and slam the door closed, all while I still sat there, wondering what the hell had just happened. Then, just as quickly as Ivan had gotten out, I did the same, grabbing all of my things and closing the door as gently as possible. He was already waiting for me halfway up the paved pathway leading to the front door, hands tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants, his black fleece pullover matching his low-profile black tennis shoes perfectly. Mostly though, it annoyed me that he hadn’t taken a shower either, and I looked like I needed one while he… didn’t.

“Who’s here?” the nosey bastard asked.

I slid him a side-look as I walked around him onto the grass to head to the front door, shoving my arm into the opened zipper of my bag to look for my keys. I’d already taken in the cars parked in the long driveway. The Cadillac was James’s, my brother’s husband. The 4Runner was Tali’s, and the Yukon was Squirt’s husband’s. “My mom, her husband, Ben, my brother and his husband, both my sisters, Aaron, my sister’s husband, and their kids.”

“Which sister?” he asked.

I eyeballed him again as I slid the key into the lock, wondering on a scale of one to ten how shitty of an idea this was going to be. With my luck, probably a thirty. Because today would be the day that he invited himself inside to use the bathroom.

God help me.

“The redhead or the sweet, quiet one?” he asked, like I didn’t know the difference in my sisters.

“Aaron is Ruby’s husband; she’s the nice one,” I replied, my words coming out choppy and stilted because I didn’t get when the hell he’d paid enough attention to know my two sisters. It had been years since Ruby, the younger of the two, had gone with me to the rink. Not since she’d been pregnant with their first baby. Tali still tagged along every once in a while to sit there and judge me, but not as often as she used to. And I couldn’t remember either one of them ever going to his parents’ house to pick me up after I’d hung out with Karina.

“You have another brother, don’t you?” he asked, just as I pulled the key out of the lock and went to turn the doorknob.

How the fuck did he know I had another brother? Maybe Karina had mentioned it before. She did used to claim she had a crush on Seb. “My oldest one. Sebastian.”

Ivan dipped his chin down before taking a step forward, closer to the door—and me—as I shoved it open. Instantly, I could hear quiet laughter coming from the direction of where the kitchen was.

I was going to regret this. I knew for sure I was going to regret letting him in. But if I told him I didn’t want him to come inside, it would just make me look weak or like there was something I was trying to hide from him. Plus, that was kinda mean.

I waved Ivan inside as I stood beside the door and closed it after him. “Let me show you the bathroom,” I offered.

He made a face, his attention going in the direction of the laughter. “Shouldn’t you go tell them hi first?”

Should I, maybe. Did I want to? No.

“I should tell your mom hello, shouldn’t I?”

Oh God.

There was a reason I had never brought a boyfriend over to my house to meet my family. And now… well, now I was going to bring one of the most important people I would ever meet and have a relationship with over to see these psychos, even if it was only for a moment to greet my mom.

Thinking about all the horrible things I had said in front of my brothers and sisters’ old boyfriends and girlfriends over the years was almost enough for me to regret the hell they were more than likely going to pay me back with now.

I wasn’t fool enough to think they were going to be on their best behavior because a gold medalist was coming in to say hi.

At least I sure as hell hoped that’s all he was doing. From a single sniff, I could tell dinner was well on its way to being done. It smelled so good.

With a shrug, I tipped my head to the side so he would follow me. I passed by the living room and found it almost empty except for Ben, who was standing at the liquor cabinet, filling three different glasses with what looked like gin and tonic. “Hey, Ben,” I called out, stopping behind the couch to greet him.

He didn’t look back as he closed the bottle in his hand. “Hey, Jas,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder before his eyes hit where I was standing and he stopped talking. His whiskey-colored eyes widened, and I knew he was fully aware of who was standing not even six inches away.

“Why are you whispering?” I asked.

He pointed upstairs. “The kids are napping in our room.”

Oh. Deciding to go peek into my mom’s room later, I focused on the person beside me. “Ben, this is my partner, Ivan. Ivan, this is my mom’s husband, Ben,” I introduced them both, not sure what to do with the way Ivan blinked slowly before finally taking a step forward and saying, “Nice to meet you” like a normal, polite human being.

Huh.

I noticed Ben slide his eyes in my direction, giving me a “what the fuck, Jasmine?” look before taking Ivan’s outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, too.” He paused. “Want a drink?”

“I’m driving, but thanks,” he replied easily.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” Ben replied, giving me another bug-eyed look.

Ivan nodded at the same time I waved to him so he’d follow me into the kitchen. I recognized my sister’s laugh, followed by Jojo saying, “Shut up.”

Stepping into the wide doorway of the kitchen, I took in my siblings and their significant others sitting around the island and focused way too hard on something in the middle of it. My mom on the other hand was peeking into one of the double wall ovens and poking something inside. Glancing back at Ivan, I raised my eyebrows at him and then went into the kitchen, expecting him to follow behind me at the same exact time. Jonathan threw his hands in the air a split second before the sound of a few things falling on the granite filled the room.

“No!” my brother hissed at the same time my sister Tali went, “How did you screw that up?”

“You know he sucks at Jenga,” I threw in, coming up behind the body I knew belonged to my sister. She turned around just as I touched the top of her head.

“Jasmine,” Ruby, my slightly older sister, squealed, her hands moving toward me before stopping halfway between our bodies, like she was hesitating. She always did.

I didn’t even sigh; I just wrapped my arms around her and noticed it took her all of a second before she hugged me back.

“I come over all the time, and you never hug me like that,” Jojo piped up from his spot across the island.

I was still hugging Ruby when I glanced over at him and said, “Because she’s never come into the bathroom while I was showering and dumped a pitcher of ice water on me.”

“You’re still mad about that?” my brother asked, planting his elbows on the island and smirking so wide his gap-tooth grin came out.

“You did it last week,” I reminded him. “And two weeks before that.”

“I was only trying to help you—” he started to say before James, who was sitting beside him, elbowed him in the arm, hard enough to get his attention as he rubbed his arm. “What was that for?”

James’s eyes were on the spot behind me as he elbowed his significant other again.

Now or never, right? “Ivan gave me a ride home because my car wouldn’t start,” I explained, watching as all of them, even my mom who was at the oven, all turned to try and look behind me. “Everyone, Ivan. Ivan, this is everyone.”

My brother squeaked. James elbowed my brother again. My sister, Tali, blinked. The hand that Ruby had on my lower back jerked. My mom did nothing, and neither did my sister’s beautiful blond husband who was sitting in the seat directly to my right.

“Hello,” Ivan, who was apparently wearing his polite pants, called out.

It was my mom that replied, “Hello, Ivan,” as she came around the island, wiping her hands on the apron she had on over her clothes. “It’s nice to see you again.”

He replied something I couldn’t hear when Ruby’s hand on my back moved, and she leaned in to whisper into my ear, “He’s so tall and handsome in person.”

I glanced at the man beside her, who had turned back around to face the island and begun collecting the wooden blocks that were spread all over the counter. “I’m going to tell Pretty Boy you’re eyeing another guy.”

She scowled and pulled away. “You’re a pain, Jasmine.”

I smiled at her and touched the top of her head again. She had been the last of my brothers and sisters to move out, and even though it had been six years since it had happened, I still missed her like it was just yesterday. Even though I was pretty close to Jonathan in our own screwed-up way, it was Ruby that I had always been the closest to. My mom said it was because we were polar opposites and balanced each other out. Like Karina. I always thought it was just because she had the most patience with me, and I had always been really over protective of her despite the fact she was five years older than me.

With the back of my hand, I reached to the right and tapped her husband’s shoulder, taking in the baby monitor sitting in front of him on the table. It was one of those fancy video ones.

He peeked over at me in the middle of collecting Jenga pieces and grinned. “Jasmine.”

I gave him his own little smile. It was hard not to. “Aaron.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you how happy I was when Rubes said you got another partner,” the man replied in his honey-sweet Louisiana accent. “I knew it would only be a matter of time.”

My smile grew a little wider, and I nodded at him, tapping his shoulder one more time to tell him thank you. In return, the man my brother had joked around that he’d sworn he’d seen on the cover of a book before, smiled at me, like it was enough. It had only taken Aaron about five minutes to convince me that he deserved to be my sister’s first boyfriend. I’d been prepared to hate his guts. But in those first five minutes after she’d brought him to the house to introduce him to us all—six months before they eloped, and six and a half months before we found out about it—he had asked her to show him all of the cosplay outfits she had made over the years, and I knew she had found a kind, decent man.

If he hadn’t been, my mom and I had been ready to whoop his ass one dark, rainy night when he couldn’t identify us.

“’Sup, man,” my brother, Jonathan, said from close by.

Peeking over my shoulder, I found that Jojo had gotten up from the island and was towering over my mom at her side, hand already shaking Ivan’s.

“How’s it going,” Ivan replied. “Ivan.”

Like Jojo didn’t know who he was.

“Jonathan,” my brother said, sounding totally cool, and not at all like he’d talked about Ivan’s “skater butt” in the past. “This is my hubby, James,” he continued on, hooking his thumb behind him to point at the island. James waved.

“You’re my fourth favorite figure skater,” James said, shooting me a wink.

Fourth?

Even Jojo wondered the same thing. “Who’s one through three?”

“Jasmine.”

“Two and three?”

“Jasmine.”

My dead heart gave a little burn of emotion, and if I was the kind of person to blow someone a kiss, I would have done it to him. “I’d push you out of the way if you were about to get run over,” I told him and meant it.

He smiled and winked at me again. “I know you would, Jas.”

I smiled back at him before glancing at Ivan to see him watching me. I was about to ask him what the hell he was looking at but stopped when I remembered I had agreed to try and be friends with him. What the hell had I been thinking?

“Would you push me out of the way of a car?” Jojo asked.

“No. But I’d pick some pretty flowers for your funeral.”

He scowled and stuck his tongue out at me. I stuck mine out right back. His middle finger came up to his face and scratched at the tip of his nose. I brought mine up and rubbed it across my eyebrow.

“Jasmine, come on,” my mom moaned. “Not in front of guests.”

“But he—” I started to say, pointing at Jonathan before stopping myself and shaking my head.

My brother’s “hehe” was really low, but I still heard him.

“Dinner is almost ready. Are you going to shower, Jasmine?” my mom asked just as Tali approached Ivan and introduced herself. At least that’s what I assumed when she hugged him.

I was watching them as I nodded, “Uh-huh.”

Ivan gave my sister a smile I hadn’t seen before… and it made me feel weird. Tali was a younger version of my mom. Beautiful, slim, with that red hair, pale skin, and bone structure that no plastic surgeon in the world could replicate. I couldn’t think of a single time I had been out with her and hadn’t caught someone staring at her or hitting on her. She was so used to it she didn’t even notice it anymore. And I had stopped caring that she was so pretty a long, long time ago.

Some were just better looking than other ones. Maybe I wasn’t as pretty as my sister, but I could kick her ass, and that had always made me feel better. But Tali would be the one to help me bury a body… if I ever needed to.

“Go shower then,” my mom demanded. “I don’t want the lasagna to burn.”

I nodded and glanced at Ivan, who was still talking to my sister. “Ivan, I’ll show you where the bathroom—”

“Do you want to play this next round of Jenga?” Jonathan asked him while I was still talking.

I blinked.

In the span of that blink, Ivan replied, “Sure.”

What?

“Go shower, stinky, so we can eat,” Jojo kept going.

Ivan looked over and must have seen the “wtf?” on my face because that hint of his smirk-smile crept over his cotton candy pink mouth. “Yeah, stinky. Go shower,” he echoed like an ass.

“He hasn’t showered either,” I let them know.

“I don’t smell,” Ivan said.

“I don’t either.”

“That’s debatable,” Tali said on a cough.

I blinked and ignored her because I knew what was going to happen if I didn’t take control of the situation. “Ivan, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I’m sure you have better things to do. I can show you where the bathroom is.”

“I’d like to play Jenga,” was his reply.

What was I going to do? Tell him no? I was going to regret this. I really was.

“I’ll show you where the bathroom is,” Jojo offered.

Shit.

“Okay,” I mumbled before leaning into Ruby and whispering, “Please make sure nothing bad happens.” I heard her laugh and felt her nod. Touching her head again, I gave one last look around the kitchen to see Ivan taking a seat beside James.

Then I got the fuck out of there, brushing by Ben on the way up the stairs like my ass was on fire. I took the fastest shower of my life, imagining all the random awful shit they were probably telling Ivan about me. It would be exactly what I deserved. I got dressed, looking decent for one of the only nights out of the week I had the chance to. Saturday night dinners were my period to be lazy and eat what I wanted to eat.

After rubbing aloe vera lotion into my poor, tired feet, I went down the stairs, straining my ears to listen to what the hell they could be talking about in the kitchen. The problem was, for once, it seemed like they were all whispering or not talking, because I couldn’t hear anything clearly.

At least until I made it just to the doorway. Then I heard them all laughing very, very quietly.

“I don’t get it, why does that make everyone laugh?” I heard Aaron, Ruby’s husband, ask.

It was Jojo who answered. “Have you seen pictures of her before she hit puberty?”

That was all it took for me to know what they were talking about. Bunch of assholes. But I still didn’t move.

“No,” was the other man’s reply.

Someone snorted, and I knew it was Tali. “Jas hit puberty really late. What was she? Like sixteen?”

I had been sixteen, but I wasn’t about to confirm it.

But my mom didn’t think twice about it.

“Some kids carry around baby weight for a while, you know,” Tali kept going, still talking really quietly. “Jas just happened to carry it for sixteen years until puberty hit,” she snickered.

“No,” Aaron tried to deny, bless his heart.

“Yeah,” Tali confirmed. “She was a little chunky.”

Jojo snorted. “A little?”

“Aww, now y’all are just being mean,” Ruby threw in. “She was so cute.”

“She had such a big butt, she hated wearing leotards because they would always give her wedgies,” my mom decided to share. “The more we tried to tell her to wear looser fitting clothes, the more she would wear those damn leotards and unitards, even though she was uncomfortable.”

There was a snicker that I knew belonged to Ivan. “That sounds like her.”

“You have no idea. That girl has always made it a point to do the opposite of what people want from her. She does it on principle. She always has. The only time a ‘no’ has ever stopped her was when she watched that one movie… what was it called? The hockey one she was obsessed with….”

“The Mighty Ducks,” Ruby offered.

“The Mighty Ducks, right. She begged me to put her into hockey, but there weren’t any hockey lessons that allowed girls. I was in the middle of arguing with this one coach to let her try out when she got invited to a birthday party at the Galleria, and the only reason I convinced her to go was because I had told her a lot of hockey players do figure skating to build up their skills.”

“I didn’t know that,” James said.

“Oh God, she watched that movie a million times. I tried throwing the tape into the trash at least once a week, but Mom would always take it back out,” Tali groaned.

“Didn’t she see you do it once and you guys got into a fight over it?” Ruby asked.

That made me smile, because I could remember that day completely. We had gotten into a fight. I’d been ten. Tali had been eighteen, I think. Luckily for me, she was an extra small person, and it hadn’t been so hard to try to beat her up for trying to throw my movie away.

“Yeah. She punched me in the damn nose,” my sister replied.

My mom burst out laughing. “You bled so much.”

“How can you laugh at me being attacked?” Tali gasped, reminding me she was the second biggest drama queen in the family.

“Your ten-year-old sister punched you in the face. Do you know how hard it was for me to not laugh when it happened? You had it coming. I warned you, she had warned you, but you did it anyway,” Mom cackled, sounding like she was proud of me in a fucked-up way.

It made me smile.

“It’s bullshit, Mom.”

“Oh, be quiet. Ivan, you don’t care that a little girl beat up her older sister, do you?” Mom asked.

There was a pause and then, “I’m sure you weren’t the first person Jasmine has ever punched. Or the last.”

There was another pause, and then Tali added, “No. I wasn’t.” Then there was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “She’s always been a scrappy little shit. Wasn’t she like three when she hit that kid in daycare?”

“I thought she kicked that boy that tried to look up her skirt when she was three?” Jojo asked.

“It was both—” my mom started to say before Ivan laughed.

“What?”

“She got her first warning kicking a boy who pushed her down. Then she got kicked out of that daycare when she socked that same boy when he tried to look up her skirt. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Sebastian told her to do that when the kicking thing happened.”

“Then she got detention in kindergarten twice. One girl pulled on her hair, so she pulled her hair right out—”

I recognized James’s laughter.

“Then another girl ate her snack, and she threatened to spit in her eye and the teacher overheard,” Mom continued. “In first grade, she got suspended for giving a boy a wedgie. Jasmine said it was because he had been picking on another little boy. In second grade, she got detention twice. She spilled milk on—”

And that was enough of that. I’d been a little shit. That shouldn’t surprise anyone.

“Okay, Ivan, Aaron, and James don’t need to know all the times I got in trouble when I was little,” I said, as I finally came into the kitchen.

My mom had taken a seat between Ivan and Ruby and shot me a huge smile. “I was just getting to the good stuff.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing everything else,” James piped up with a wink.

I sighed and stopped behind Ruby. “Mom can tell you about ages five through ten next Saturday.”

Mom pushed her stool back. “Let’s eat, children.” Then she glanced at Ivan. “Are you eating with us? It isn’t Gold Medal approved, but—” She shrugged. “—it’s good.”

I should have known Mom would invite him to stay and eat too. Shit.

Ivan seemed to think about it for a moment as I stood there on the brink of praying he would say no, before glancing in my direction and asking, “Are you eating?”

Fuck. “Yes. It’s my cheat meal.” I wasn’t sure why I’d explained that.

Those glacier-colored eyes lingered on my face for a moment. “Okay.” Then he turned to my mom. “If you have enough, I’ll stay, but if you don’t, I understand.”

Mom snickered. “We have enough. Don’t worry about it.” Then it was her turn to pause. “We eat in the kitchen.”

Ivan blinked. “Okay.”

“That was awkward,” Tali mumbled before shoving her stool back and getting up. “I’m ready to eat.”

Like we had done it for the last twenty-plus years, plates were grabbed and handed over. Then we filed in line to grab food from the pans Mom and Tali spread out on the counter. I waited in the back for Ivan while he went around the island, and I let him go in front of me.

“I’m not really surprised you were raising hell since daycare,” was the first thing he whispered.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve had a lot of practice since then.”

He raised the eyebrows on that annoying face of his. “I’ll keep that in mind next time someone bothers me.”

Huh.

Was this us trying to be different? I wasn’t sure. “Okay.” Then I kicked him in the calf. Gently. Mostly. “Move up the line. I’m starving.”

He took a step backward, glancing over his shoulder to see he was directly behind James, who was still in line, before looking back at me and whispering, “You don’t care I’m here, do you?”

Yes. I definitely cared. I didn’t know what to do with it. With him. With Ivan Lukov who had less than an hour ago said we should try to get along for some reason.

After all the things we had said to each other and all the things we had done to each other, this man I thought I knew wanted us to try and be friendly.

I didn’t like not knowing what to do or how to react.

But I didn’t say any of that shit to him, mostly because my nosey-ass family was around, and I knew at least a couple of them were eavesdropping. Instead, I lied and went with, “I don’t care.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re sure?”

I really was a horrible liar. I raised my eyebrows and figured there was no point in trying to play it off. “Would it matter?”

That made his pink mouth curve up at the edges… slightly freaking me out. “Nope.”

That’s what I thought.

“Your family is funny,” he kept going.

“Sure they are.”

“You already know mine, it’s only fair.”

“Fair for what?”

“For us. Being friends.”

I didn’t even realize my hand had gone to my bracelet, picking at the plate between the links, until the metal dug into the pad of my thumb from how hard I had subconsciously started playing with it. Glancing around, I made sure no one in my family was at least looking at us when I whispered, “I don’t get what all this being friends thing means.”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

I didn’t look at him as I said, “What it sounds like. I don’t know what you’re expecting out of me.”

“Whatever friends do.”

It was my turn to blink. And because no one was looking at us, I kept on telling him the truth, because it wasn’t like it was a secret. Or that I was ashamed. Because I wasn’t. “I get that. But you know your sister is the only real friend, that I’m not related to, that I’ve managed to keep over the years.” I was proud of it. I didn’t have time for other people’s bullshit. I thought that was one of my most admirable traits, honestly.

All Ivan did was look at me.

I lifted a shoulder.

Then he blinked again. “Have you talked to her recently?”

I shook my head. “You?”

“No.” He turned around and took a step forward just as he made it to the counter. Over his shoulder, he asked, “Did you not tell her we’re partners then?”

Shit. “No.” I paused. I had assumed he would. “You haven’t told her either?”

“No.”

“Your parents?”

“They’re in Russia. I haven’t spoken to them since worlds. Mother has sent me a few picture messages, but that’s been all our communication.”

Double shit. “I thought you would have told them.”

“I thought you would have told Karina.”

“I don’t talk to her as much as I used to. She’s busy with medical school.”

I could only manage to see the back of Ivan’s head as he nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, like he was thinking the same thing I was. And his next words confirmed it. “She’s going to kill us.”

Because she was. She sure as fuck was.

“Call her and tell her,” I tried to throw it on him.

“You call and tell her,” he scoffed, not looking at me.

I poked him in the back. “She’s your sister.”

“She’s your only friend.”

“Asshole,” I muttered. “Let’s flip a coin to see who should do it.”

That time he did glance at me. “No.”

No. Ass.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Me neither.”

“Don’t be a pussy and do it,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low.

His snicker made me frown. “Sounds like I’m not the only pussy,” he returned.

I opened my mouth and closed it. He got me. He fucking got me.

“Question. Do you two ever agree on anything?” Jojo asked, from where he stood a few feet ahead of Ivan, in front of the counter holding a plate piled high with food.

See? Nosey. Eavesdropper.

“No,” I answered at the same time Ivan said, “Yes.”

The slow smile that crept over my brother’s face told me he’d heard everything. Or at least mostly everything. “I wasn’t trying to listen, but I couldn’t help it. If you’re both too scared to call Karina, why don’t you just video call her while you’re here, so she can’t get mad, or if she does, it’s at both of you at the same time. Eh? Eh?” he offered, like him listening to something that had nothing to do with his life wasn’t a big deal.

And it wasn’t. I expected no less from him or from anyone else I was related to. I didn’t think my dad was nosey, but… I didn’t know for sure, and honestly, it didn’t matter. He was never around anyway.

What I did focus on was that Jojo had a point. And Ivan must have recognized that he did because he glanced at me and raised his eyebrows. Did I want to worry about Karina getting mad because neither one of us had told her something pretty important? No.

But…

“It’s a good idea, if you ask me,” Jojo mumbled before walking past us to keep going to the seat he’d left at the island.

Ivan moved forward in the line and immediately got busy scooping food onto his plate when he said, just loud enough for only me to hear, “It’s not a bad idea.”

“It’s not, but don’t let him hear you say that. He’ll write it down in his journal and bring it up for the next five years if you do.”

The tall man in front of me handed me the serving knife for the lasagna. I grabbed the portion I wanted that would fill me up but wouldn’t be so much it made me gain ten pounds after watching my diet for the last few weeks. After that, I picked two slices of garlic bread and a small portion of salad because, even though it was a cheat meal, I still needed vegetables.

By the time I turned around, there were only two mismatched stools that didn’t have an ass in them, and they were beside each other; Ivan took one and I took the other, sandwiching myself in between him and Ruby. I eyeballed him as he reached for the paper towel roll someone had left in the center of the island. He ripped off one, let his hand hover there for a moment and then ripped another one. Just as I started to cut into my lasagna, something white dropped onto my lap.

It was one of the paper towels.

“I wasn’t sure if you could reach them,” he whispered, being a smart-ass.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, my hands still above my plate of food.

“You know, because you’re short.”

Biting the inside of my cheek to keep from physically reacting, I muttered, “Yeah, I know what you meant.” But mostly, I looked at the napkin and told myself that he had done something nice for no reason. He hadn’t spit in it. I’d watched. But I still didn’t know what to do with the gesture other than say, “Thank you,” that alone almost hurt. Just almost.

He must have known it because out of the corner of my eye, I saw his upper body turn, and I was pretty sure he raised his eyebrows like he couldn’t believe that I’d just said the t-word.

I couldn’t believe I had just said the t-word again either. I’d already said it once today. I didn’t want to hit my quota.

“So, Ivan, how are practices going?” my mom asked from her spot across the table while I was still trying to figure out what was happening and what I was doing and what Ivan’s game plan was for this “friends” shit. “All Jasmine tells me is that they’re going well.”

Shoving a forkful of lasagna in my mouth, I shot my mom a look. Crybaby. She wanted a report, but there wasn’t anything to tell her. She just didn’t believe me for some reason. She knew I usually always ended up telling her everything.

“They’re going well. We haven’t started any choreography yet; we’re still trying to get other kinks worked out. We’ll more than likely get the choreographers out the first week of June,” the man beside me replied easily, his hands resting on each side of his plate, one holding a knife, the other a fork.

There were a few nods around the table, so I bit off a piece of garlic bread and watched my family members to see who was going to continue giving him the third degree. Because that’s what this was, and that’s what was going to happen. It’s what I’d been trying to avoid. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t my boyfriend; he was just of an important figure in my life, if not even more important. Actually, he was definitely more important than any of those wastes of time.

“That’s good,” my mom replied when I was halfway done chewing my food. Then she smiled, her face eerily calm and pleasant, and I knew whatever was about to come out of her mouth was going to be something off. I’d swear even Ben beside her must have seen it or sensed it because I was pretty sure he muttered, “Oh no,” under his breath.

“Why are you only pairing up with Jasmine for a year?” she asked with that creepy-calm smile.

I snorted, which made the bread in my mouth fly to the back of my throat, and I started choking as Ruby hissed, “Mom!”

I choked some more, the wet grain stuck right fucking there in my windpipe or wherever the hell it was and not going anywhere. Something heavy and big slapped me on the back hard, loosening up the bread. Grabbing the paper towel Ivan had just handed me, I spit the clump of food into it and wheezed, then coughed. My eyes watered just as someone shoved a glass of water into my chest, and I took it almost blindly, gulping it down then coughing into my hand some more until I had it under control.

What had to be Ivan’s big-ass hand smacked me on the back again, just as hard as he had the first time. “I’m fine,” I coughed out.

I wasn’t surprised when he gave my back another hard smack.

“You okay?” Ruby asked beside me.

Taking another sip of water, I nodded, blinking away the tears that had popped into them while I’d been choking.

“So?” my mom asked, with that way of hers that didn’t surprise me.

“Ahh—” Ivan started to say before I held up my hand and shook my head.

Did I want to hear the answer? As much of a coward as it made me, no, I didn’t, at least sure as hell not in front of my family. “Nope, you don’t have to answer that.” I glanced at my mom and shrugged my shoulders. “No, woman. It’s his business.”

Mom made the same face she always did when she thought I was being a chicken. Turning her head back to face forward, she decided to go a different route. “How are your parents then, Ivan? I haven’t seen them since their Christmas party a few months ago.”

“They’re visiting family in Moscow, but they’re doing great,” he answered.

“Your grandfather is doing better? Your mother had mentioned that he’d had a heart attack last fall.”

Those wide shoulders went up half an inch. “He’s doing better, but he’s a stubborn old man who refuses to accept he’s in his eighties and has people that run his companies for him now. He isn’t supposed to be under stressful situations anymore but—” The warmest smile came over his face, and I didn’t know what to do with that either. “—no one can really tell him what to do.”

Across the table, I heard Jojo mutter, “We have one of those in the family,” which was followed by James turning to him and shaking his head to get him to shut up.

Me, on the other hand, I just let the comment go. We had more than one of those in the family, and he damn well knew it. Starting with the woman asking all the questions.

“Some people don’t know how to retire or take it easy, that doesn’t surprise me,” my mom responded.

Ivan nodded.

“They told me he wanted you to move to Russia,” she threw out.

And I stopped the cutting motion I was doing with my knife to take in her words.

Ivan move to Russia? My mom hadn’t told me about that.

Then again, why would she? Before all this, there had been no reason for us to bring Ivan up. She knew I wasn’t his greatest fan. She also knew he wasn’t my biggest fan.

But…

Ivan move to Russia? He’d been born in the United States. His sister had told me the story once years ago, about how her parents had immigrated because of threats against their family because of Karina’s grandfather’s businesses. The couple hadn’t been married that long, but they didn’t want their children in danger and decided to start over, far away from one of the wealthiest men in Russia.

Once, and only once, Karina had mentioned how disappointed her grandfather had been that his gold-medal-winning grandson hadn’t competed for the country the older man had lived in his entire life. She had brought up how he had tried to bribe Ivan to move and how it hadn’t worked. Meanwhile, Karina had laughed and said she would take the money and go if he offered it to her… but he hadn’t. Because Karina wasn’t a talented athlete who could make her country proud. All she was was a smart person with a big heart who wanted to be a doctor. No big deal.

“He asks me every other year to move,” Ivan let her know, his tone unfailingly polite.

But I could tell it sounded off.

And maybe he was the last person in the world that I thought needed to be babied or protected, but if anyone knew what it was like to be forced to talk about something that you would absolutely rather not, it was me. And these people were my family. So, in a move that I wasn’t going to overthink, I decided to get them to pay attention to me even though I was more than likely going to regret it.

“We’re doing a photo shoot in a couple of days,” I dropped vaguely, already regretting trying to be nice.

It was James that asked, “For a website or the paper?”

I shoved another piece of lasagna into my mouth and waited until I’d chewed most of it before replying with, “A magazine.”

“Which magazine?” he asked. “I’ll make everyone I know buy one.”

Everyone he knew? Fuck it. What did I have to be ashamed about? Not a goddamn thing. “TSN,” I replied, referring to The Sports Network’s magazine.

It was my sister’s husband that spoke up next. “Rubes got me a subscription to it for Christmas.”

I closed my eye, reminding myself about the same fact that had gotten me to agree to do the shoot in the first place: everyone had butt cheeks. It wasn’t like they were going to make me bend over and spread them wide.

But…

“Yeah, you might want to skip the page we’ll be on,” I said to my brother-in-law, mostly because, while I didn’t care if James saw my ass—because he obviously didn’t put a lot of weight into looks since he was married to Dumbo—Aaron seeing it felt different to me. Maybe because he was straight. And really, really handsome. And I wasn’t sure how Ruby would feel about it.

And like the way that was my mom, she suspiciously asked, “Why’s that?”

I shoved some more lasagna into my mouth before telling them all the truth. “Because I’m going to be butt-ass naked, and so is Ivan.”

I saw Ivan glance at me, and I thought I might have seen a partial smile come on his face.

“For the Anatomy issue?” Aaron asked, apparently knowing exactly what it would be for.

I nodded at him before biting off another piece of garlic bread.

“That’s great, Jas,” James piped up after a second. “Do you care if I get it?”

Beside him, my brother snorted. “That pervert won’t care.”

Oh, here we went. “Just because I’m not a shy little shit, doesn’t mean I’m a pervert.” Then moving my attention to James, I added, “And no, I don’t care. The worst they’ll show is my butt….” At least that’s what I assumed. There was no way they were going to show my nipples on a magazine. Would they? I thought Coach Lee had confirmed they wouldn’t, but now I couldn’t remember for sure. I turned to Ivan and asked, “Right?”

“See how she sounds disappointed that the most they’ll show on the magazine is her booty?” Jojo asked James, making a face.

I ignored him. Everyone knew my brother, for all the things he was, was very self-conscious. He had scars from an injury back when he’d been a marine. For all I knew, he might have always been a prude, but I wasn’t sure. Mom and I thought it was cute he was so conservative, but I sure as hell would never tell him that.

Ivan made a face that told me he wanted to make a joke but was going to keep it to himself. “Do you want them to show more?” the idiot beside me asked.

I blinked at him.

“It’s pretty PG-13 from what I’ve seen,” he said. “No one other than the photographer and staff will see… everything.”

Besides him.

I wasn’t ashamed of my body at all. Maybe I wasn’t as lean as I would get closer to competition, but I’d been watching what I ate since we’d gotten into this, and I wasn’t embarrassed about what genes I’d been given. I was vain, but not that vain.

I still wasn’t sure about this idiot beside me seeing me naked regardless of the conversation we’d had weeks ago when Coach Lee had brought it up to me.

“Mom, you’re not going to tell her not to do it?” my brother asked.

“Why would I do that?” Mom raised an eyebrow as she took a sip from the giant glass of wine she had pulled out of nowhere like a magician.

“Because.” Jojo shrugged. “Your daughter is going to be naked on a magazine where millions of people can see her in her birthday suit.”

“So?” was a response that didn’t totally surprise me. Mom still wore bikinis, stretch marks and sixty-year-old skin be damned. “What’s the problem with that?”

Jojo’s dark brown eyes slid from side to side before he said, “She’s going to be naked?”

Mom’s blink made me wonder if that was what mine looked like. “Don’t you get naked?”

Jojo groaned, leaning back against his stool. “Not for millions of people to see and jerk off to!”

Something about his words clicked.

And I remembered what would be the problem with “millions of people” seeing me naked.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Are you saying there’s something wrong with your sister’s body?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

“If it was Sebastian doing the photo shoot, would you tell me anything?” Mom asked, taking another sip or five of her wine, but I was too busy still thinking about Jojo’s comment. About the people I wouldn’t want to see me in my birthday suit.

You already said yes, I reminded myself. I had already said yes. What was I going to do? Stop living my life because of some assholes?

No. But I wanted to.

But I couldn’t. I shoved my worries aside for later. I didn’t need anyone reading my face and noticing I was worried about something I didn’t want them to know about.

Jojo sighed, then mumbled, “No.”

That had Mom winking. “Then don’t be a hypocrite or sexist. The human body is a natural thing. What she’s doing isn’t going to be sexualized… is it, Ivan?”

Ivan’s leg beneath the island hit mine, but he got out, “No, ma’am. It’s for art.”

“See? It’s for art. David is naked. The Venus de Milo is almost naked. In my younger days, I had a boyfriend that was an artist. I sat for him once or twice. Naked as the day I was born, Jojo.” She smiled. “Do you think your sister isn’t as good as Ivan? You think she doesn’t deserve—”

“Oh God. I’m sorry,” Jonathan rushed out, shaking his head, like he finally remembered who the hell he was talking to. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Your sister is a beautiful, strong woman who has done things millions of other people can’t do. Her body is honed from thousands of hours of practice. She has nothing to be ashamed of. We all have nipples. I breastfed you and you didn’t complain then.”

About halfway through, Jojo had started shaking his head quickly like no, please no. That’s what he got.

“I’m sorry, I said I was sorry. Pretend I didn’t say anything…,” he said.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of—”

“Mom, I said I’m sorry.”

Ivan’s leg hit mine again, but I was too busy trying not to laugh at Jojo’s facial expression to react.

My mom ignored my brother. “Breasts are natural—”

“I know, Mom. I know they are. I love and respect women. Breasts. I just don’t want them in my face—”

“They represent womanhood, beauty—”

I’m pretty sure Jojo started choking. “Mom, please—”

“It’s close-minded, sexist mentalities that think just because we have vaginas and breasts that women are the weaker sex—”

“You’re not weak. None of you are weak, I swear—”

“Do you know what it’s like—”

Ivan’s leg hit mine, and I couldn’t help but twist my upper body enough to face him, pressing my lips together so that I wouldn’t start laughing. Two glassy gray-blue eyes met mine, and it was obvious he was trying not to laugh too. Especially not when my mom went off on how degrading it was to not be seen as an equal.

“Women marched, rallied, and were assaulted to make your mother and your sister human beings that weren’t their husbands’ properties.” Mom eventually reared back the conversation after a couple of minutes. “If your sister wants to show off her God given body, she can, and I’m not going to stop her, and you’re not going to stop her, and nobody is going to stop her.”

She then pointed her fork and blinked. “I taught you better than that, Jonathan Arvin.”

I almost lost it at her busting out his middle name.

Jojo had tipped his head up minutes ago, and it still hadn’t moved as he moaned, “You did. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Mom smirked and shot me a wink that made me laugh. “That’s what I thought. We can buy every issue around and make sure it sells out. I’ll frame it and put it on the mantle.”

I didn’t know about all that, but I kept my mouth shut.

Aaron chuckled. “I don’t think there’s going to be a problem making it sell out. It usually does well.”

“See? Everyone appreciates nudity. There’s nothing wrong with it. It isn’t like you didn’t watch pornography when you thought I didn’t know.”

That had all of us moaning.

“Don’t ever say pornography again,” I told her, trying to erase that word coming out of my mom’s mouth from my memory.

“You be quiet,” Mom said. “Jasmine Imelda.”

And I kept quiet before she turned it around on me even more and brought up something I’d done or said in the past. On that note, I jumped on the opening to change the subject or risk her going on another rant that I secretly loved but wanted to spare everyone else that wasn’t used to it from.

“Do you want to call Karina and spill the beans?” I asked Ivan all of a sudden.

Jojo made a gasping, squeaking sound from across the island, like he was now revived.

Ivan on the other hand, made a weird face like he didn’t get why I changed the subject all of a sudden. Maybe he wouldn’t give me any credit or realize what I’d done, but it wouldn’t be the first time. “Sure?”

His “sures” always felt more like “I guess,” but that was just part of him.

I wasn’t going to die from cold lasagna and garlic bread, I told myself, eyeing what was left of my food regretfully. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I set it on the island and went to my contacts icon, replaceing Karina’s name at close to the top; I hit the call button.

“What are you doing?” Mom asked.

“No one has told Karina that Ivan and Jas are partners,” my brother replied, setting his fork and knife on top of his plate, following it by lacing his fingers together and shoving his hands under his chin with his elbows propped on the counter, back to normal.

I put the phone on speaker just as it started dialing. Chances were, she might not answer. But chances were she might. I didn’t know her schedule anymore. The last time we had talked, she’d called me.

“Call Karina! Call Karina!” Jojo started chanting quietly, followed up by my mom throwing in her voice too.

“Call her!” Tali’s nosey ass piped up with her mouth full.

“I am,” I whispered, watching the screen as it showed the call was still connecting.

I could see Ivan glance at me, but he didn’t say anything.

Just as the phone made one last dialing attempt, one second before it would have given the last beep it needed before I could leave a voice mail…

“Hello?” a panting voice came over the line.

Ivan and I definitely eyed each other then. Why the hell was she breathing like that?

“Jasmine, you there?” Karina’s familiar voice came over the line.

“Yeah. Is this a bad time?”

“I was on the treadmill and hopped off as fast as I could,” she explained, still breathing hard. “I’m sorry. One second.”

My brown eyes met Ivan’s blue ones in what I figured was relief that she hadn’t been doing other shit that brothers and sisters shouldn’t know about.

“Okay, I’m back. Sorry. I had to get some water. What’s going on? You finally remembered you used to have a best friend or what?” she teased, still breathing hard.

“You have my number too.”

She made a tsking sound. “I’ve been so busy—”

“Whatever you say. Look, I’m having dinner with my family right now—”

“Am I on speakerphone?”

I paused. “Yes.”

Then she paused. “Are you pregnant?”

Across the table, Tali snorted, and I gave her a nasty look. “Why the hell would you think that?”

“Why else would you have me on speakerphone?” she demanded before adding, “And hello, my other family. I miss you all.”

“Hi, Karina!” Tali, my mom, and Jojo each called out, with Ruby adding in a lower greeting.

“Hi!” she cried happily before her voice went back to normal. “But, Jas, no kidding, are you pregnant?”

“No,” I snapped. “Of course not.”

“Oh, blessed Jesus. I thought your life was about to be over. Phew.”

“I have five kids,” my mom chipped in.

“Not you, Mom,” Karina replied, calling my mom the same thing she always had: Mom. “But Jasmine’s would. Anyway, why are you calling then if it isn’t just to tell your best friend hi and that you haven’t forgotten she’s alive?”

I rolled my eyes and mouthed to Ivan, that’s your sister. “I’ve been busy and forgot to tell you something,” I started.

There was a moment before, “Go on.”

“So did Ivan from what I learned today.”

There was another moment. “Ivan? My brother, Ivan?”

“The only one, genius,” I said. “In March, he asked me to pair up with him to be his new partner.”

She didn’t respond. Not for ten seconds, not for twenty or thirty. It might have even been a whole minute of silence with Ivan and me sharing a look before Karina’s loud-ass laugh came through the speaker.

“Oh my word,” she pretty much shrieked into the phone.

“Why is she laughing?” I heard Aaron ask Ruby.

My sister shrugged.

“Ahhh!” Karina pretty much started screaming her laugh.

“Stop laughing,” I called out to her, knowing damn well she was too into it to pay attention to me.

“You and Ivan?” she shrieked.

“He’s right here,” I let her know.

“Hi, Rina,” he greeted.

She started laughing her ass off. Again.

“I can’t believe it!” She began howling all over again.

“Who hurt her to make her this way?” I asked Ivan without even realizing it.

“She was born like that,” he replied, his eyes glued to the blank screen.

“This is going better than I thought,” James said.

Jojo sighed. “I’m disappointed. I thought she was going to get mad you guys forgot about her.”

“The two most stubborn people I’ve ever known skating together?” Karina shrieked. “BAHAHAHAHA!”

“You have problems,” I said.

“Please! Please! Tell me someone has recorded your practices together. Ooh! Tell me you’re doing a live video of them. I would watch every minute. Give me all your competition dates in advance. It’ll be the Hunger Games on ice. I’ll buy everyone in the family front row seats,” she cried out, her voice full of laughter.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “We’re getting…” What? Along? It was a little too soon for that shit. “We’re doing fine.”

“This is like my dream come true fourteen years too late.” There was a break and then more, “You and Ivan! BAHAHAHA!”

I wasn’t sure why this surprised me… but it did. Of course she would think this was hilarious.

Two years ago, I would have thought the same thing.

Me and Ivan. Having dinner. At my house. With my family. Trying to be friends. Whatever that meant.

But here we were.

And apparently, Karina was eating this shit up.