CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I believe you can do this.
Theresa’s voice, quietly confident, echoed in Ilya’s head every time he used his keys to open the diner doors. He had monthly payments to the bank, utilities set up in his name, new equipment ordered to replace the few things that had been bad, and a small construction crew taking care of the interior renovations.
He was doing this.
Alicia had been the one to handle the day-to-day crap at Go Deep. Ilya should’ve appreciated that way more than he had at the time. Now, faced with a shadowed and quiet diner left empty but smelling of sawdust and varnish, his head was bursting with plans and ideas he was discovering needed more than enthusiasm to implement.
He needed Theresa.
He hadn’t seen her for the past few days. The last time, they’d argued lightly, over takeout food eaten at the prep counter, about whether they should even bother to try for a liquor license. Since the diner’s original owners hadn’t had one, Ilya had said they didn’t need one. Theresa, surprisingly, had been in favor of getting one, because she thought it would give their new place an edge beyond the fresh menu and the nostalgia they were hoping to capitalize on. She agreed to research the possibilities and let him know what she discovered. He’d tossed a straw paper at her. She’d rolled her eyes. They’d shared a thick wedge of chocolate cake, with her feeding him bites off her fork, and when he kissed her good-bye, she’d let him.
He’d thought about trying to make more of it than that. Another round on the prep counter, maybe. Or he could’ve taken her into the dining room and made love to her there. Something in the way she’d responded to the kiss had told him Theresa would not have turned him down. So why hadn’t he, then?
I need to know you believe you can do this. I need to be able to trust you, Ilya.
I want to. Is that good enough?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
The trouble was, he didn’t know, either. He wasn’t convinced he could. So he’d left her hanging with a question in her eyes and the taste of chocolate cake and kisses in his mouth. He couldn’t be sure which one of them had decided not to reach out, but it felt like they were both avoiding each other. He’d picked up his phone a dozen times to text her, to ask her out to dinner, or even just to get together at home to talk about the diner as though that was all they had in common, but he’d erased all the messages before hitting “Send.” They did need to talk about the diner, but that had nothing to do with why he wanted to see her.
He’d spent a lot of time looking at the pictures she’d given him. He’d known then what love felt like. How it burned. He and Jenni had both been so young, but the difference was that now he’d grown older, and she would always be that laughing seventeen-year-old girl who’d insisted on breaking his heart.
He’d thought about throwing the pictures away but hadn’t been able to. He’d satisfied himself with putting them in a cardboard shoe box on the top shelf of his closet, along with some old school medals and a few other mementos of his childhood. That’s what Jennilynn Harrison had become to him, Ilya thought. A memory to be put away in a box.
Yet it had still taken him four days of not hearing from Theresa before he could bring himself to go after her, and he was only doing it now because he could no longer stop himself. If she didn’t want anything to do with him romantically, that was fine, but he did need her help with a bunch of stuff, and they would have to get through it, whether either of them liked it or not.
Steeling himself, he thumbed in her number and listened to the ring. She answered right before he expected to be sent to voice mail, her voice thick and rasping. She sounded groggy.
“What’s the matter?” Ilya asked at once.
“I have the flu.”
He frowned. “You okay?”
“No. Fever. Headache. Can’t get out of bed.” She coughed. “I e-mailed you with a list of things that needed to be taken care of and told you I wasn’t going to be in for a few days.”
“Oh.”
She coughed again. “Let me guess, you didn’t read the e-mail.”
She’d set up a special e-mail account specifically for the diner, but he hadn’t yet added it to his phone. “Is Alicia there? Is she helping you?”
Theresa gave a rough, rattling sigh. “She and Niko left for Scotland, remember?”
“Shit, I thought they weren’t leaving until tomorrow. So you’re alone? That’s no good.” He was already turning off the lights, locking the doors, and heading out to his car. “I’m on my way.”
“You don’t have to do that—”
“I’m on my way,” Ilya said. “Don’t argue.”
He disconnected before she could protest more. He stopped at the pharmacy to pick up medicine, as many different kinds as he could find to cover all possible symptoms, along with a couple of boxes of tissues. He tossed a few gossip magazines into the basket in case she got bored with daytime TV. He stopped at the grocery store for chicken-noodle soup, juice, ginger ale, and saltines in case it turned into that sort of flu. He parked in Alicia’s driveway and, laden with bags, went to the front door.
“Ilya! Hi!”
“Hey, Dina,” he said as he put down some of the bags so he could test the front door. “How’s it going?”
“I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Shit, she was actually coming over. Ilya tugged the front door, but it was locked. There was a spare key in the flowerpot on the railing, but he didn’t have time to get it before Dina had crossed the lawn to the first porch stair.
“How’s it going?” he asked again, lamely.
“I’ve missed you,” Dina whispered with a shifty glance toward her own house. “Maybe you could come over later?”
“Oh, I’m busy later . . .”
“Sometime, then.” She eyed him as he rang the doorbell. “You should come over sometime.”
He heard the shuffle of something on the other side of the door. The click of the lock. He picked up the bags again and gave Dina a firm smile.
“I don’t think so, Dina.”
She sneered and crossed her arms. “Alicia isn’t home, you know. She went on a trip with your brother. They’re a couple now.”
“I know that,” Ilya said as the front door opened. “You think I don’t? Jesus, Dina. Enough. Okay?”
Theresa, looking like death warmed over, peered through the crack in the door. “What the hell is going on?”
“You’re here for her now?” Dina asked. “I get it. Boy, do I get it. You know what, Ilya, screw you!”
He pushed the door open wider, bags in hand. Theresa had already turned to shuffle away from him, toward the den. Ilya looked out the door, but Dina had already left, thank God. That was a mess he didn’t want to deal with now. Or ever. He closed the front door and took the bags to the kitchen table, then went to the den.
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
Theresa had gone back to the couch, her head on a pillow in a brightly patterned case, and a bunch of knitted afghans on top of her. She made a small noise in answer, kind of like a whimper, half a moan. She put her hands to her head and squeezed.
“Hey,” he said softly, as he sat on the edge of the couch near her knees. He put a hand on her, then withdrew it quickly. “Shit, babe, you’re burning up.”
She let out a small sigh and burrowed deeper into the pillow. “I took some medicine a few hours ago.”
“You need more. I’ll get it for you.” In the kitchen, Ilya set some soup on the stove to heat, then shook a few acetaminophen tablets into his palm and took them to her with a glass of water. Her eyes were closed when he came back, her breathing raspy. She was shivering even under the pile of blankets. “Hey. Theresa? Here.”
She sat up with a groan, her eyes ringed with dark circles and her hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks glistening with sweat. She took the glass and the pills from him but choked a little when she swallowed them. She clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a gag, then shook her head with a grimace before sinking back onto the pillow.
Ilya rubbed her shoulder. “That’s going to help. I’ve got some soup heating up for you.”
“Not hungry.”
“Well, when you are. Do you want something else? Something to drink?” Slowly, he let his hand move over her. She was so hot, almost scalding him even through the layers of clothing. He should get her a thermometer, he thought.
“No. I want to go up to my bed, though. The couch is lumpy.” She sat up with one of those whimper moans and struggled with the blankets.
He was startled to see tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Let me help you. Hey, shhh.”
“I haven’t felt this terrible in . . . ever,” she said with a small gasp.
“Let me help you,” Ilya repeated, and slipped an arm beneath hers to help her up. She sagged against him, and without thinking, he bent to lift her. Her head nestled perfectly against his shoulder, and he thought for sure she’d protest, but she only made another small sound as he carried her toward the stairs.
By the time he got her to the bed, his arms were aching and legs trembling, but he managed to settle her carefully onto it. He helped her get beneath the blankets but realized the pillow she’d been using on the couch was meant for the bed. He ran downstairs, turned off the soup, grabbed the pillow, and went back up.
She looked like she was sleeping, at least until he carefully tried to lift her head to place the pillow beneath it. Then she opened her eyes, her gaze unfocused. She put her hand on his wrist. She barely squeezed him before letting go.
He stroked her hair off her forehead. “What can I do for you?”
“Let me sleep.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Still worried, he felt her forehead. He couldn’t tell if it was cooler or not. “Are you sure I can’t bring you something to drink?”
“Water.” But when he tried to leave, she grabbed his wrist again. “Wait. Just sit with me for a minute.”
“Okay.” He did, watching while her eyelids drooped and her face went slack. The rise and fall of her shoulders slowed as her breathing did, too. He continued to watch her as she slept, making sure she looked comfortable, and then he went downstairs to put away the groceries he’d bought.