“I didn’t want to worry you until your flight got in. Didn’t expect you’d be early. And Nazarov was here when I left.”
I crossed my arms. “About that. You thought it was a good idea to invite him over to paint?”
He shrugged. “He has time on his hands.”
A clanging sound echoed from above my head. “Plumber’s here?”
“Yep. Should be sorted …” He checked his watch. “In the next twenty minutes.”
I rubbed my forehead. “This house is a lemon, isn’t it?”
“Nah. Needs a little TLC, just like you. Your husband provided, I hope.”
“Not discussing this with you.”
He raised an eyebrow. Waited me out.
“He made me dinner and I spent some time on a puzzle with his dad.”
He nodded solemnly. “How is he?”
“Well, he took a walkabout this morning that scared the bejesus out of Alexei. We found him at the park, looking for his chess friends.”
“That’s tough.”
“Right? I didn’t know him before, so I don’t have a baseline, but there was a moment when he didn’t recognize his son. And while I met him recently, he only remembered me from the past, from when I played hockey. Is that normal?”
“Short-term memory creation is generally the first to go, so that tracks. My mom didn’t recognize her newest grandkids, but she remembered that I had just signed with the LA Quake, my first team straight out of college. She also thought Kelly and the twins were still alive.”
That must have been so hard. Gunnar’s first wife Kelly and his four-year-old twins had died in a car crash a few years before he met Sadie.
“Did you tell her what had happened?”
“At first, but then having to tell her over and over was too difficult. Eventually we would just pretend that they were out at the zoo or the market and that she could catch them later.”
I hadn’t known any of this. Anytime I asked, Gunnar and Sadie were vague about it, and the fact Gunnar’s parents lived in Finland at the time meant I just accepted their version of events instead of pressing further.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, G.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. You had your life. Still do. But anything you want to know, ask me. It might help you understand what Alexei is going through.”
Another clank upstairs was followed by some imaginative swearing.
“I want to be supportive, but …” I hesitated.
“You don’t want to give him any ideas about where your relationship is going.”
Was that it? Partly. Mostly I worried that I would start to see a side of him that softened me toward him. That made him more attractive. Hell, I was already seeing it. As if he needed anything else to up the hotness quotient.
“It doesn’t help that you have him here in my house.”
“He needed something to take his mind off stuff. If he can do that and you get some work done around here, then maybe you should just accept it.”
My phone buzzed with a call from … yes! Riley Thorne.
“I have to take this.” I stepped outside onto the back deck and avoided a section of termite-riddled wood.
“Hi, Riley, good to hear from you.”
