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I can’t help but smile at her words and at all the memories it brings up. “I am finding it impossible to apologize for that.”
Her sweet laughter drifts over the phone, immediately setting me at ease.
“Can you come over tonight?” I ask, not caring if I sound desperate or needy. I am desperate to see her again, and needy doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel when it comes to her. I need her in a way that terrifies and excites me. If I had my way, she’d never leave my damn side.
When she hesitates, I feel my heart start to race. “Is everything okay, Gina? Do you regret this weekend?”
I’ve barely got the words out before she’s saying, “No, God, no, Dima. I don’t regret anything, and I’d drive over there right this second if I could, but I think maybe I should have supper with my family tonight. I don’t want them getting suspicious, and I still need to soften my dad up about you.”
I can’t help but laugh at her optimism, feeling my fears fade away with her explanation. “I miss you. I had hard time falling asleep without you, and then I had to force myself out of bed for my early morning workout. You are making me lazy, Gina, and soft.”
“That’ll be the day,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t think you’ve reached couch potato status quite yet, but I’ll let you know if I feel like you’re growing soft.”
“Please do.” The idea of it has me smiling. It’s true I had to force myself out of bed this morning, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to turn into a soft lump of flesh that just sits on the couch all day. “I hope you have a good time with your family.”
“Thanks, Dima. I love you. I’ll text you later, okay?”
“I love you, too,” I say, still finding it strange to utter those words to another person, but it’s a wonderful kind of strange that makes me want to tell her it over and over again. “Text me when you can, and be careful driving home.”
She gives a soft laugh and says, “Stop worrying so much about me.”
“Never, beautiful.”
She promises again to text me later, and I can hear the smile in her voice when she tells me she loves me again before hanging up. Pushing aside my earlier worries, I walk into the kitchen and start rummaging through it for supper, tossing things onto the counter as I find them. I spend the next hour preparing a large steak salad. When it’s done, I bring the bowl over to the couch and flop down onto it. I pull up one of the hockey games I taped last winter and haven’t had time to watch yet and settle in with a sigh. Maybe the couch potato reference wasn’t too far off. At least it’s a salad and not a giant bag of chips, I reassure myself.
Without Gina, the apartment feels emptier than usual, and so fucking quiet that I turn the TV up even louder to compete with it. I never realized how lonely my life was and how much was missing from it. For the briefest of moments, I allow myself to picture a life with Gina, a future that’s filled with her smiling face and laughter and a house full of kids. I immediately push it from my mind when I’m overcome with a longing that’s borderline painful. It feels like too fragile of a thing to hope for, like it’s something that could be too easily taken from me, and it scares the everliving fuck out of me. It’s best to push that desire down deep and not get too attached to it. One weekend with Gina and I’m already picturing a family. Yeah, that shit needs to get stuffed down with a quickness. It’d probably scare the hell out of her if she knew what I was thinking.
I force myself to focus on the game and when it’s over, I go over the design plans I have for the new location. The next few hours are spent writing up lists of things I need to order, people who need to be hired, and all the other little details that go into opening up a new gym. After Gina’s goodnight text, I set everything aside and lay down with a book, trying to ignore how empty the bed feels without her.
The next thing I know, my alarm is going off, and I’m stumbling out of bed still half-asleep from the lousy night of tossing and turning. Determined to prove to myself that I can actually function without Gina, I get ready for my workout and head outside for my run. Once I’m in the zone, the next couple of hours pass in a peaceful blur of sweat and sore muscles, and by the time I’m showered and back in the gym, I feel alert and ready to take on the day.
There are several guys hanging about, punching bags or lifting weights, and Aleksei and I have almost finished hanging up a new bag when the front door bursts open and some scrawny teenager comes rushing in, looking around so quickly I’m surprised he’s not giving himself whiplash. As soon as his eyes land on me, he straightens up and comes marching over. I try my best not to laugh.
“I’m gonna kick your fucking ass!” he shouts at me, and then I do laugh.
“What the hell are you talking about, kid?”
Aleksei stands next to me, looking as amused as I feel. I look down and study the young man in front of me, wondering what in the hell he’s yammering on about.
“I said I’m going to kick your ass!”
“Hey, what the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, easily blocking the punch that he tries to throw.
“Look, kid, I admire your courage for coming in here, and if you ever want me to teach you how to throw a real punch, I would be happy to, but I think you have me confused with someone else.”
He looks at me with so much hatred that I have to actually resist taking a step back. The idea of me backing away from this angry teenager would’ve made me laugh at any other time, but that’s when I notice his eyes. They’re not the same grey as Gina’s, but there’s a definite family resemblance that’s impossible to ignore.
“Adam? Are you Gina’s brother?”
His eyes narrow, and I notice his hands are clenched into tight fists. I knew her family wouldn’t love the idea of me dating Gina, but this reaction seems a bit over the top for a younger brother.
“You’re never going to lay a fucking hand on her again, asshole!”
I’m so shocked by his words that it takes me a second to process the English. I shake my head and say, “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me! I saw the bruises!”
Everything starts to slip away around me, and I sense rather than see that Nikolai has joined us.
