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“It’s yours. As we discussed.”
He grins. “Then this all sounds good to me. Let’s plot.”
Dima left the mansion hours ago and Nikandr had to go to physical therapy, so I’m alone when I walk out of my office and trip on the mountain of boxes in the entryway.
“What the fuck is this?” I mumble under my breath.
Before the words are even out of my mouth, I already know what it is.
Then I hear laughter coming from the other room. I follow the sound and the trail of packing paper and plastic zip ties until I find my sister and Luna sitting on the floor of our makeshift bedroom. A half-finished bassinet sits between them and they’re both holding screwdrivers like they’ve never seen a tool before in their lives.
“I don’t know why the creators of this stupid bassinet think I should know the difference between a nut and a screw.” Mariya frowns down at the instructions. “There are no pictures on this thing!”
“We don’t need pictures. There are written instructions,” Luna says.
“And they all sound like the stage direction for a porno!” Mariya unfolds the instructions further so the page takes up her whole lap. “Everything here is about drilling and nuts and shafts. It’s disgusting.”
Luna cackles and I can’t remember the last time I saw her laugh. Really laugh. Her smile lights up her face and I want it to be like this all the time.
When Pavel is dead, it will be.
“Can you not make sexual jokes in front of the children’s furniture?” I lean against the doorway as they both turn to look at me. “It’s offensive.”
“I’m offensive?” Mariya waves the instructions in the air. “These are offensive. There are a thousand ‘that’s what she said’ jokes in here. Plus, no pictures.”
“We don’t need pictures!” Luna repeats, snatching the instructions away. “We are liberated women. We can build furniture without a man’s help.”
“I can’t,” Mariya announces.
Luna shushes her and frowns down at the instructions. “It looks here like we need to hold the base and tighten the nuts underneath.”
Mariya fakes a gag. “Honestly, this project is starting to feel too intimate. I think I should bounce and leave you alone with this—” Her eyes go wide as she catches the name of the bassinet on the box. “It’s called a Grow As You Go! Are you fucking kidding me?”
That even pulls a laugh out of me.
“It’s a convertible crib! A three-in-one,” Luna tries to explain. “It grows from a bassinet to a crib and then you can use the rails for—you know what? Never mind. You promised you’d help. When we bought all of this stuff, you said you would, and I quote, ‘Bob the Builder the fuck out of this baby furniture.’ Where is that attitude?”
“I’ll build furniture when I have my own kids. For now, I’m the fun aunt. And the fun aunt gets to skip out on boring shit like this and go watch TV.”
Mariya runs out of the room like it’s on fire and Luna and I look at each other. She takes in the mess of wood and screws around her and deflates.
“Are you still a liberated woman if I come to help you?” I drawl.
She brightens, hope written all over her face. “Do you want to help?”
“That depends. How mad am I going to be when I see Mariya’s credit card statement?”
“We only bought the essentials,” Luna repeats again. Her hair is twisted into a messy bun on top of her head and it flops around as she makes her case. “The babies need beds to sleep in and I made sure to order the ones that we can use for years. Until they need big kid beds.”
“That doesn’t explain the mountain of boxes by the front door,” I point out.
She chews on her full lower lip. “Okay… so maybe everything out there wasn’t strictly essential. Some of it was for fun.”
“Luna…”
“Everything else is clothes!” she admits in a rush. “I bought them enough clothes that they could wear three new outfits every day for the first year and still not run out of clothes. I was very, very bad and I’m sorry.”
Slowly, I close the doors to the library and lock them.
