“We’re going on a hike this weekend.”
Maybe turned to give Rachel a face. “Ew. Well, you two kids have fun while I won’t be hiking. Or outside in the cold when I don’t have to be. Weirdo.”
“It’s nice to be able to go on a hike. It’s been a while.” She loved hiking but after the kidnapping it had taken her two years before she’d drummed up the courage to go into the woods again.
“You do look super cute in your hiking gear. Wear those spandex pants that make you look like you’re training to be in the next dystopian action movie I can’t wait to watch.”
Rachel laughed even as she knew the exact pair of pants her sister meant and put them into a contender spot. They were great in wet weather, kept her warm and made her butt look fantastic.
“I have heart-shaped vatrushka with strawberry. I was going to have a cup of tea. I’ll share with you and your wild bearded Russian.”
“Score. He brought gelato home and I think it should go with all that.”
“He’s a super useful new roommate. I’m just going to get that out there,” Rachel said.
“I agree. He’s even more useful to me. And I mean that in a totally sexual way,” Maybe told her as they got out of her bed.
“I figured that out.”
“Just wanted to be sure you understood.”
Rachel flipped her off.
* * *
FRIDAY EVENING WHEN she and Maybe walked up the street from the bus stop, Irena came out to the front porch and called to them.
“Come have tea. I made golubtsi, you can have some too.”
“We’ll be over after we drop our things off,” Rachel told her as they hurried up to their front door.
“Looks like a full house over there. I can’t believe Alexsei didn’t mention that.” Maybe dumped her backpack into the closet. “I need to change. I’ll meet you back here ASAP.”
Naturally, she freshened up and brushed her teeth. If Vic was there, she might kiss him. But she did it quickly because neither Dolan sister wanted to make Irena wait.
“Come over for tea,” Maybe muttered as they approached the front door. “There’s a full-on family dinner situation going on in there.”
Rachel really liked the big family events at the Orlovs’. Loved not just the volume of food, but the people, the easy back-and-forth between them as they teased, lectured and shared news.
Sometimes it got heated—well, often—but it wasn’t mean. Lots of passion. Rachel hadn’t known how to handle it at first. They’d grown up with quiet judgment from their mother and reprimand from one source only, their father.
Vic opened up, smiling at them both as he stepped back to admit them. “Come through. She’s already making you plates.”
He gave her a hug and brushed his lips over hers. A kiss that told everyone in the house they were together. A kiss Rachel knew the rest of the family was okay with as no one stopped what they were doing, though they all noticed.
Pavel shouted a hello before enveloping Maybe in a big hug and then, surprising Rachel, he gave her one too. Though not as ebullient as Maybe’s, which made her choke up a little. He knew enough to want her to know he was happy to see her but also knew she needed to be approached gently.
And then Vic was there, drawing her away toward the big dining room table where, as he’d noted, his mother had set out overflowing plates she described as “a little bite.”
Rachel wasted no time tucking in. She’d last eaten hours ago and the food smelled as good as it tasted. This was comfort food at its most perfect. Warm and hearty. The sauce on the golubtsi was spicy rather than sweet. Nestled up against that were the potatoes that padded the carbs until all her cells relaxed with a sigh.
She must have made the sigh audible because when she snapped from her food fugue, she noted Irena giving a satisfied nod. Vic draped an arm over the back of her chair, leaning back so he could continue flirting with his aunt Klara.
Klara gave his arm a blatant look and then tipped her chin. He grinned like he had a secret, unrepentant.
Before Rachel had kissed him that first time, she’d been able to appreciate his charms but keep a distance between them. Now it was like her attraction to him—her awareness of him—was at ten.
He was fucking adorable. Irresistible. God help her.
Irena sat across from them at the table with a tired sigh. “Get the girl some tea, Vityunya.”
He kissed the top of her head as he stood and went off to do his mother’s bidding.
“This is all so good,” she told Irena as she made the superhuman effort not to stare at Vic’s butt while he puttered around in the kitchen.
Vic’s mother attempted a casual shrug but there was pleasure on her face at the compliment. Irena loved taking care of her family and friends. She baked you something if you were happy or sad. She made soup or dumplings if you were sick. A cluck or a tsk. A hug, a congratulations, a stern talking-to. A whole emotional language through food.
“Until we moved next door I’d never had cabbage rolls. I had no idea what I’d been missing,” Rachel said. Their mother had been a good cook, but for her, food had been a means to an end. Fuel and nutrients.
One of the reasons Rachel had been active from an early age was her mother’s constant focus on weight and clothing size. It had been Rachel’s way to control food and her body.
Still, she liked food and while she knew she tended toward obsession when it came to exercising and physical strength, she felt like she had a better handle on it than she ever had, even before the kidnapping.
Irena frowned and then pushed some bread and butter her way. “I will teach you. It’s easy.”
Rachel somehow doubted it was what she’d consider easy, but she liked knowing things. Liked learning and mastering things. And she liked being in Irena’s kitchen, in the heart of the house. Liked being part of what the Orlovs had built.
“I’d love that. I’m always happy to learn whatever you’re willing to teach me.”
“If she learns them then she can make them at our place,” Maybe said.
“Or you could make them for the rest of us. I’ll pay for groceries,” Rachel said before she thanked Vic for the mug of much-needed tea he brought her.
“I know you like the kind without caffeine so I bought some,” Irena told her.
“Better sleep at night without it so late in the day,” Vic said, as if to remind her he hadn’t forgotten about her sleep problems.
When Vic and his mother doted on her and did nice things, it made her extra blushy and a little shy. Sometimes
