CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ilya wasn’t late to the meeting with the lawyer, although waking up this morning had been hell. He’d tried to get drunk last night and hadn’t been able to stomach more than a single glass of whiskey. He’d tried to get laid, too—something that should’ve been even easier than getting hammered. When it came right down to it, though, Amber’s blatant invitation had left him unsettled instead of turned on.
“Let’s go back to your place,” she’d offered first, and Ilya had told her they could not. His mother was there, and his brother. It would’ve been weird, he said. By the way she wrinkled her nose, he could tell that Amber agreed. She made another offer. “My place?”
At that point, after a few hours of his hand on the small of her back, her shoulder, his fingers trailing down her bare arm to settle on her wrist, a casual tug of that spiraling lock of hair tumbling so artfully over her breast . . . after all that, he was sure that he could take her into the backseat of his car, if he wanted. In the past, he would’ve wanted. Earlier tonight, he’d thought he wanted.
But now Ilya didn’t want.
Not Amber, anyway. It wasn’t her fault. She was as beautiful and charming and funny as he remembered from the last time they’d hooked up. He still liked her well enough, especially since he knew that whatever happened between them tonight was unlikely to lead to desperate-sounding texts or calls. Amber wasn’t the sort of girl who would ever show up on his doorstep with her makeup smeared all over her face, asking him why he couldn’t just love her.
It would’ve been sex, not too plain, and if he managed to be good at it, not very simple, but also far from complicated. Instead, he found himself alone in his own bed before two in the morning, his head clear from the blur of alcohol but nowhere near unjumbled in his thoughts. Sleep had come only when the first light filtered through his window, and he’d woken only an hour or so before it was time for the meeting.
He’d made it, though. Shaved, showered, even wearing a suit. It felt right, even though the last time he’d put this suit on had been to attend Babulya’s funeral. It was the only one he owned. He’d never had a suit-wearing job.
“It’s not like Theresa to be late.” Rita looked pointedly at her gold watch. “Are you sure she’s coming?”
“She said she would be.” Ilya’s palms itched with sweat, and so did the back of his neck. Rita didn’t seem to think much of him, which irritated him, since he was getting ready to write a check for a lot of money, a nice portion of which would go to her if this all went through.
Rita looked at her watch again with a frown. “It’s my understanding that you’ll be the one making the offer? Theresa’s not actually going to be on the paperwork for the offer, per the agreement between the two of you? That one is separate. You could get started on signing.”
“Yeah, but I’d really like to wait for her.” Ilya flashed the woman his best, most charming smile, but it didn’t seem to work. Probably because he looked like hammered shit, as evidenced by the mirror this morning that had shown off the glints of gray at his temples and the bags under his eyes.
“I have another appointment at four. If she’s not here soon, I’m going to have to ask that we get started.” Rita tapped the thick folder of papers with her very expensive pen. She managed a smile. It didn’t seem very sincere.
He was saved from further comment because Theresa came through the door. She took the seat next to his without the apology for being late that Rita was clearly expecting. Ilya wanted to kiss her for that reason alone.
“Are we ready?” Theresa smiled at him. “Let’s do this.”
It took a good twenty minutes of listening to Rita drone on while he signed page after page and then wrote the check, but while Ilya had thought he’d feel some kind of anxiety about that amount of money he was both offering to spend and what he was putting down as a deposit, all he felt was anticipation. The good kind: the sort that had him grinning and finding it hard to sit still. After hands were shaken all around, Rita packed up her files with the check, escorted him and Theresa out to the front of the office, and that was it.
“Signed, sealed, and soon to be delivered,” he said. “And in three days we’ll know if we have it or not, just like an STD test.”
Theresa recoiled with a grimace. “Oh, brother.”
“Sorry. Too crude?” She’d parked beside him, he saw, and the two of them walked toward their cars.
“I’ve had STD testing,” she told him smoothly. “It can take longer than three days.”
Ilya had also made that awkward, anxious visit to the clinic once or twice, though he’d been lucky enough for it to be a false alarm. “Sorry. I was trying to make a joke.”
Theresa unlocked her car door. “Chlamydia is not a flower, according to the pamphlet they gave me. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve not found out, gone untreated. It could’ve been something permanent.”
“No kidding.” He shuddered at the thought. “Sorry, though. I didn’t mean to make fun of it.”
“It happens.” She opened the door but didn’t get into her car. “If you’re going to sleep around, it’s the chance you take.”
Something in the way she said it sounded like a pointed jab at him. He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t gone to bed with Amber last night, but saying it out loud would’ve seemed strange, a defensive response to an accusation it wasn’t even clear she was making. When he didn’t answer, Theresa started to get in her car.
“Wait a second. Theresa, hold on.” He put a hand on her car door to keep her from closing it. “We should . . .”
“Celebrate? We did that last night, didn’t we?”
“That was before we signed the paperwork.”
She smiled; at least there was that. “We can celebrate again when they take your offer, okay?”
“Sure. That sounds good.” He stepped out of the way so she could close the door.
She didn’t. She fixed him with a steady look that felt like it was peeling him away, layer by layer. Like she was looking right into the heart of him.
“We’re going to make this work, Ilya. It won’t be easy, but I’m trusting you to put your all into it.”
Somehow this didn’t seem like a compliment. More like a challenge. Almost a threat. Irritated by the subtle implication that he couldn’t be trusted to come through, Ilya frowned.
“Since I’m the only one of us with anything really to risk,” he said shortly, “I think you don’t need to worry about me screwing it up. You’re just along for the ride, right?”
His words had hit home. He saw it in her eyes and the way her smile became a humorless line. He would’ve regretted it if he hadn’t been pissed off.
“You don’t know me,” Ilya added when Theresa didn’t reply. “You think you do, but you don’t.”
In lieu of an answer, Theresa turned the key in the ignition. Ilya closed her car door for her. She didn’t peal out with squealing tires and a spray of gravel, or a flip of her middle finger, but the tiny wave she gave with only the tips of her fingers and the thin-pressed line of her smile was as much of a “Fuck you” as any of that would’ve been.